How much do we really know about reality? Not really very much, I would suggest. We have, at any given time, our generally accepted scientific versions of the way things are and how things work, but the problem is, of course, that these are constantly changing through time. We are always finding that we were wrong and shifting to the next paradigm, seen now in the development of quantum physics and quantum mechanics. The world would seem to work quite differently from what we had previously declared. And what then after quantum physics? Is it not safe to assume that we will find once again that we were wrong?
On the other hand, religion remains the same throughout the ages. It declares the same truth, adheres to the patterns of a consistent mythology that has unfolded from the beginning of human time. No new discovery can render the mythology false, no adjustments are needed. What is eternally true has always dwelt deeply in the human race. At a certain point, some 2000 years ago, the eternal invaded the realm of time, the natural world, in the supernatural person of Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, the fulfillment of a promise that extended from the very beginning of creation.
Christianity, in short, is the ultimate reality, that which we cannot in our present state fully grasp. It is the end of science, the end of knowledge, the revelation of reality. It is the invitation, in the present time of our blindness, to enter into the very stream of what we do not know, with faith as our conveyance; to enter into a realm far beyond the elementary hypotheses of intellect, a realm where virgins give birth to saviors, saviors overcome the rudimentary laws of the world; where the nailing of one man to a cross satisfies some eternal necessity and saves all; where death no longer holds sway but is subject to the undying principle of life. We must surrender ourselves to the numinous wisdom of the spirit in order to glimpse the true nature of reality. It is really no stranger than is the science now to the man living 100 years ago.
“Now I see in part, as in a glass darkly,” the apostle Paul said, “but then face-to-face.”
The unknowable God, the Ein Sof, as he is called in the Kabbala, will never be described by man. It is man, after all, who belongs to him, not the other way around. We will, however, ultimately ‘know as we are known.’ In the meantime, Christ, who existed with God from the beginning, has made himself known to us, in a manger, on a cross, and through the holy spirit in his resurrection.
Have you been with me this long, he said, and still you do not see? I tell you, if you have seen me, you have seen the father.
And if you’ve seen the father, you have glimpsed the very essence of all knowledge, which is love.
On the other hand, religion remains the same throughout the ages. It declares the same truth, adheres to the patterns of a consistent mythology that has unfolded from the beginning of human time. No new discovery can render the mythology false, no adjustments are needed. What is eternally true has always dwelt deeply in the human race. At a certain point, some 2000 years ago, the eternal invaded the realm of time, the natural world, in the supernatural person of Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, the fulfillment of a promise that extended from the very beginning of creation.
Christianity, in short, is the ultimate reality, that which we cannot in our present state fully grasp. It is the end of science, the end of knowledge, the revelation of reality. It is the invitation, in the present time of our blindness, to enter into the very stream of what we do not know, with faith as our conveyance; to enter into a realm far beyond the elementary hypotheses of intellect, a realm where virgins give birth to saviors, saviors overcome the rudimentary laws of the world; where the nailing of one man to a cross satisfies some eternal necessity and saves all; where death no longer holds sway but is subject to the undying principle of life. We must surrender ourselves to the numinous wisdom of the spirit in order to glimpse the true nature of reality. It is really no stranger than is the science now to the man living 100 years ago.
“Now I see in part, as in a glass darkly,” the apostle Paul said, “but then face-to-face.”
The unknowable God, the Ein Sof, as he is called in the Kabbala, will never be described by man. It is man, after all, who belongs to him, not the other way around. We will, however, ultimately ‘know as we are known.’ In the meantime, Christ, who existed with God from the beginning, has made himself known to us, in a manger, on a cross, and through the holy spirit in his resurrection.
Have you been with me this long, he said, and still you do not see? I tell you, if you have seen me, you have seen the father.
And if you’ve seen the father, you have glimpsed the very essence of all knowledge, which is love.
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