The Implicit Institution and God’s Will

“The Kingdom of God does not come in a form which is outwardly perceptible. Nor does it come in such a way that one can say: Look here it is, or there. Behold—the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

I’m a Leo which means I have the heart of a lion… And that means I’m sensitive, easily wounded, and quick to cut people off from pride. 

So, with that in mind I know I have a lot of work to do in terms of softening the ego and cultivating humility and meekness—softening all over. And also, with that in mind let’s dive into what’s been on my mind recently and it began last weekend with my partner participating in a fundraiser where she was telling her friends about my interest in pursuing the Episcopal priesthood. My girlfriend is not religious herself, but she has been the most supportive person I have had in my life regarding this, even before we were dating. She has been a grounding force in my life since we reconnected a couple years ago and, frankly, I enjoy the Mulder and Scully dynamic. Anyway, her friends when presented with this interest of mine jokingly asked if I was a pedophile. 

Hilarious.

Regardless, the point of the matter is not that they have no idea what the Episcopal Church is or the type of anger I was carrying for a couple days after hearing about this, but this is a societal issue–when some people think of the Christian church they think of priests hurting children as their first thought. This means that, in the secular world, the church is no longer an institution that promotes God. It is an institution that symbolizes hiding behind God and keeping things hidden, which is ridiculously un-Biblical. So, it is not a problem with my partner’s friend’s gross perspective and attitude; the problem is the gross behavior within the church, because if sacred scripture asks anything of us it is to use it against ourselves—always assume we are in a position of judgment in relation to others. 

My philosophy is that rebuking others makes no difference because it is only the one who comes to us seeking help with a contrite spirit, an open mind, and a softened heart that hears the advice and accepts love, which is hard enough to do as one who wants to do well and pursue God. So, from this perspective the best lesson for others is to tend to our own garden and attain peace as best we can; when others who are deeply troubled see another at peace their want is to learn what they are doing. That may be naïve, but it is my hope, anyway. 

Let success be thy proof.

Regardless, the Church must re-establish itself as the ship that is sailing through the Tohu wa-bohu, the formless and void elements of this earth and our lives. The Church must assert itself as integral to the life of one who pursues God and, ergo, peace above all else. 

The Church has an image problem, and it is unfortunate because the apocalyptic images that Christ presents in the Gospels of Christians being persecuted and hated has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the established powers of Christianity have provided nothing but reasons to hate those who would follow The Way. 

Is that God’s plan? 

Is this the will of God? 

I will not pretend to know the mind of God, nor any priviness to Providence, however I would pose that the type of division is not the will of God as it comes at the price of so many innocent people. So, the reasonable choice for non-believers and believers alike is to fully denounce this religious institution–to wash their hands of it altogether. 

The Church, I am afraid, has sent a lot more people away than it has welcomed them or cultivated their souls—and in the case of the Roman Catholic tradition (which represents better than other Christian paths in this regard), the tainting of young people through sexual and emotional abuse is a crime like no other. 

But what can we do about this? 

For one, addressing the power structures that allow the implicit institution of child abuse. And I mean head-on, not in back rooms or quietly—this necessitates something akin to the Inquisition. If that sounds extreme, then good, it should be—we clean the Church through purging it of any qualities that will act to destroy the souls of every man, woman, and child. I do not personally believe in the type of Eternal Torment that awaits all of us sinners who do not check the right boxes or check all the wrong ones. Purgatory is more my speed—and it’s not a waiting room.

Purgatory is a place of purgation wherein the soul is purified of its blemishes, that is, what cuts it off from others and God—this feels more correct and without going into it any further there is a lot of spiritual support for this concept. Regardless, the idea of Purgatory makes sense in an applied way, too, because if we are going to use Scripture against ourselves as to purge what cuts us off from God and our neighbor then so, too, can it be used against the Church to purify it from doing the same.

The Church is an ancient structure that needs to be re-evaluated with modern sensibilities and I do not mean usurping sacred tradition, because this most holy tradition of the Church is divorced from the profane tradition of the Christian world. Even the Didache addresses the great sin of corrupting youth—a problem the Church saw in the Hellenistic society that it was born in. 

Anyway, this is a long walk to say that the people who facetiously accused me of being a pedophile in direct response to my interest in the priesthood do not know me or know what I am about. I seek to align myself with the will of God, so it really does not matter what they say because they are either hurt or don’t know what they’re talking about and I am more concerned with the former, frankly.

That is what I want to help with, because I am not built to proselytize. I am built to listen, and ultimately, I think that is what God is calling me to do… I may not be here to change hearts and minds, but what I can offer is an open mind, a contrite spirit, and a soft heart. The priest’s role is to remedy and assuage cultural and inter-generational guilt rather than perpetuating it.

Lord knows that that is hard enough to come by even within the Church. Selah.  

I guess what I am trying to get at is there is not much benefit from engaging with someone out of anger or interacting with another from a place of hurt for that matter. I’ve been guilty of both. Neither bridges the necessary gaps in communication between people and further isolates everyone from each other. Now, I am not going to say that emotions are not important, but even too much of a good thing is a bit much (like whip-its and rum), so in terms of sitting with our feelings eventually we must stand up and keep walking otherwise we’re destined to stagnate in our own self-absorption.

This is where, I believe, we cut ourselves off from what we might call God, and His will.  

The transmigration of the soul occurs over the course of many lifetimes, while I’m more interested in its movement within this life. The way our bodies and perspectives change has an effect on how we operate in and navigate through the world. These changes come out of the way we interact and engage with the environment around us and how it engages with us. We learn how to exist within time and space through our cooperation with the world at large.

If we understand God as the Ground of All Being, which comes out of Paul Tillich’s religious naturalism perspective, then we can infer that God, the Ground of All Being, is in a constant state of potentiality. It—God—is unrealized. A Christ-centric perspective would further this inference and state that the Khristós, the anointed, is the realized, actual ἐνέργεια (energeia) of God. 

Ἐνέργεια is where we get the modern word energy from—our modern characterization of energy is a transferable property of matter and space, it can be converted, but it cannot be created or destroyed. In regard to how we’re using it here, though, ἐνέργεια is best described as a being-at-work or using Aristotelian philosophy (where this distinction originates): the quality of being, existing; an actuality.  

This means that the unrealized potentiality that is God is at work in the phenomenal field, or within time and space. The Incarnation of Christ being exemplifying the essence of God made manifest among us. This essence, or οὐσία (ousia), is the attributes that make something a “thing.” Since the Godhead is, essentially, unrealized potential than the Christ figure is a property of that potential, therefore giving it structure in a realized sense. 

We could say that the Ground of All Being is fulfilled in the Son, “the Son” being a phrase that we can interpret how we wish, but ultimately alludes to the nature of the relationship between the Christ and the Ground of All Being, the consummate, actualized force of all that is unmanifest potential, or δύναμις (dunamis).

Δύναμις being the capacity for work. 

With that in mind the realization of Christ as an ἐνέργεια of God: the actuality-of-God-at-work which fulfills the potentiality of God then we can understand the related ἐντελέχεια (entelecheia).

Ἐντελέχεια refers to a being-at-work fulfilling itself through activity, because the idea of something being a thing is predicated on its ability to do. Everything that exists is doing some type of work, or in other words–everything that exists is in motion within time and space. And by being in motion it defines itself through activity. 

Therefore, Christ is the οὐσία of God in motion without losing what it is in its movement.     

It is a fulfillment of that οὐσία, causing them both to be self-sustaining. And self-defining. 

In light of the Resurrection, when we declare that “Christ is in our midst!” or “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever. Amen” we are affirming that the potential energy of God has been actualized, is being actualized, and will be actualized forever, in a constant state of fulfillment. 

So, does this make God… reality? 

Yes? 

Yes.

God, the Ground of All Being, the ineffable is actualized through reality, by reality, but the οὐσία that is God remains unmanifest resting outside time and space. 

Transcendent and imminent. 

Immanence is in relation to phenomena experienced by us who engage within time and space. And if it is true (and it is) that one comes to know themselves the closer they move toward God than the capacity for self-knowledge and self-expression is interrelated with the individual’s being-at-work. The movement defines the person, ergo there is ἐνέργεια within every man, woman, and child. This ἐνέργεια is, if we are mirrors of God (and we are), coming from the core of our being. If we recognize that the core of our being is at work than it is no stretch to assume that within each of us is δύναμις. 

We are beings-at-work and at our core is unmanifest potentiality. 

Christ has no hands but ours… We are God at work. 

To reiterate, the fulfillment of the δύναμις of God is seen in the Eternal Logos, Who is the Way to the οὐσία of God–and that lies in the core of our personhood, by connecting with the essence of God through the energies that are in Christ Jesus we become self-sustaining, beings-at-work-staying-itself. 

We are the work of God, by existing we take part in the οὐσία of God which is the Ground of All Being, and without the ἐνέργεια of God’s δύναμις through Christ than we would not know God, because if the ἐνέργεια of God does not reveal itself through its ἐντελέχεια—or if the essence of God cannot be-at-work thus defining itself as a thing-that-does then it does not exist, because the potentiality is not actualized. 

So, the fact that we exist with the ability to perceive and be in motion within time and space is an affirmation of Christ’s ἐνέργεια which is itself the Incarnate οὐσία of God. 

Therefore, to live is to declare the existence of God. 

And we connect to Him through our heart which anchors us into time and space, so movement is an extension of God; movement is the energies of God penetrating reality as we see it—defining it and sustaining it. 

I believe that by following the Way of Christ the individual aligns their movement with the will of God. Their actualization of self and its expression should be aligned with His will; however, it seems curious to assume that each of us has an individual calling by God. I am not sure if that is the case, it seems more likely that there is only One will of God. 

To align oneself to that is the beginning, but how it expresses itself through us being-at-work is diverse because each of us has certain strengths, weaknesses, things we are better suited for based on how we engage with our environments. 

We as individuals have certain capacities that allow for certain work to be done, while there are certain actualities we can produce through deliberate effort, practice, or restraint, like lifting weights to become stronger or learning to play piano. 

In any case, there is only One will of the Ground of All Being, and we can feel it, like blood pumping in our bodies when everything else is still. The blood, the heart–these are our ways of connecting to the infinite. This is because they are our connection to the body which is, by its extension, connecting deeper to God. 

There is only One will of God and there are inexhaustible ways in which it expresses itself. The thing is that we have as many ways to hinder that expression as it has want to be actualized, and by harming children, sitting with our own pride, and even mocking others for being-at-work themselves then we disengage from that ineffable potentiality, leaving no room within us to allow God to do work through us.

That is what we are here to do, but for God to do work we need to allow Him to, and that begins by approaching Him with an open mind, a contrite spirit, and a softened heart.

I pray that we can do this, because if we can do this with God than how much easier could it be to do this with the people around us? The will of God is to take care of His people, and since Christ has no hands but ours we must hasten, therefore, to actualize the work of God.

Si comprehendis, non est Deus