Reflections on required reading pt. iii

Χριστος ανεστη!

It is all vanity… 

This is how we as Christians conceptualize reincarnation, too. It is the Leviathan spoken about in the Hebrew Bible that is referencing time and space as we interact with it in our Fallen state. Time, as the Leviathan, is a vain cycle of meaningless events leading to other meaningless events, all of which have happened before, and all will happen again. We experience time as a fleeing serpent, where we chase after vanity and more vanity, hoping to grasp onto eternal things, but find nothing enduring.

 This changed through the Incarnation and Christ’s death on the cross where now time is reflective of His sacrificial death and resurrection. The mystery of His will is found through His death, His coming into our fallen state and slaying the fleeing serpent. Christ’s sacrifice killed the Leviathan and destroyed the wheel of Samsara. The dove liberates us from the ouroboros.

Yet, we still have to align our will with His, because through The Fall Mankind no longer inherently walks with God like Adam, however because of Christ—the New Adam and father of immortality—we have the ability to break free, through the power of the Holy Spirit, of the chains of the serpent. 

This means that we must voluntarily submit to God, to become obedient to Him and practice the virtues. Treat our bodies like the living members of the Body of Christ that they are and participate in the divine nature, being made God by God. This is movement and in movement we find life, moving glory to glory. 

For God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son to destroy death by death and redeem our fallen nature by the power of the life-giving cross.

“He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10). 

Christ’s coming, His death, and His resurrection has cosmic implications, because the Incarnation changed the very fabric of time and space. And so, being made in His image, we have the capacity to change the very same fabric of time and space by participating in the divine nature living virtuously.

We cooperate with His will and act in accordance with it, cleaning the logos and striving toward our natural telos. Cleaving to God through the love of our logos, meaning we treat that pre-existing principle, created in time and realized in our being, as a temple of God, for that is what it is, truly. 

We are not made in vain, brothers and sisters, but have been made for a purpose, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

And to that point we can see, plainly, that this “Logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all things that have their origin in him, with a degree of beauty appropriate to each being, recapitulates all things in himself” (St. Maximus, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ 55) and we are created in Christ for good works prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them, then as the body and the soul are one, a part of the same logos that was held before time in Christ, then so, too, are the good works that were prepared beforehand by God, held in Christ.

They are inextricably tied to one another, and as our mind defines our body as our body defines our soul by being in relationship with one another then the good works are defined by the totality of our being.

How we approach participation of the divine nature is a multiplicity as the logoi, having a single ontological origin, manifests in creation as a multiplicity, “Because the One goes forth out of goodness into individual being, creating and preserving them, the One is many. Moreover the many are directed toward the One and are providentially guided in that direction. It is as though they were drawn to an all-powerful center that had built into it the beginning of the lines that go out from it and that gathers them all together. In this way the many are one” (St. Maximus, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ 57). 

Moreover the many are directed toward the One with a degree of beauty appropriate to each being. 

In a way, this points toward the Calvinist doctrine of predetermination, which I reject outright, however we might come to a better understanding of predeterminism if we can separate the belief from a fatalistic approach. Christianity is a relationship and as seen above we have the ability to voluntarily come into relation with God, our source, as well as defect and follow the broad way that leads to non-being.

Participation in the divine nature is a choice. Now, what I take from above is that the logos of our individual being: mind, body, and soul includes the salvific path back to God. The good works that are in Christ Jesus are revealed to us, personally, as Providence unfolds to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. 

As St. Maximus writes, Christ is the substance of virtue in each person. Put a different way the Word of God is the essence of virtue in humanity therefore when one lives virtuously one is living Christ. In regard to the above, one’s purpose–if we wish to call it that–or calling or will, dharma, etc., etc. is like the mind, the body, and the soul, a part of the pre-existing logos of their being.

It is the Christian vocation to unify the self with God: this is the Christian purpose, yet God, in His ineffable glory, saw fit that the straight lines that move one out of the fleeing serpent of circular time to Him should fit the individual logos with a degree of beauty appropriate to each being. 

If we do choose to live with sin, rejecting the virtues, then we are choosing to remain riding the Leviathan and embracing non-being as opposed to true being which is in God. Voluntarily choosing to live virtuously is our personal means to attain to union with God,

“Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much more now in my absence, work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). 

God who is at work in you referring to the logoi which were in Christ and are expressed by God’s Word in Creation through us all and we enable–or energize–that work–or Christ’s essence–within us by cleaving to God and revealing His Providence through acting in accordance with the logos. We will be ignorant of our true being, in perpetuity, if we continue living disobedient and discursive to the virtues, ultimately leading to non-being. 

Samsara in the East means aimless wandering which is a byproduct of our ignorance of where we are from and as a consequence, not knowing where we are going. 

God’s will, His Word, flows through each of us differently, and it is our responsibility to seek out the purpose and good works that God has prepared for us. 

So, what to do with this? 

I can speak for myself in consciously understanding the love God has for us as something to emulate in relation to the virtues and becoming God by God: looking at it practically, the Gospels outline a Christ Who asks us to follow Him, not simply down the street, but in thought, word, and deed. The character of Christ–His essence–is Love. While this sounds nice and comfy on the surface, it sucks to have to emulate, sometimes. 

Dude is not an easy guy to follow. 

In reference to a previous post about coming to embody Wisdom and know Truth through the forgiveness of debts it suggests a merciful quality to our Creator… God is mercy; God is merciful. And you know, I just don’t always have it in me to be so merciful. It’s why apotheosis is such a dangerous concept and the implications of The Fall and all that… No one is as merciful as God.

God cannot be outdone in mercy. 

Man wants to become God by man’s own hands and has since the First Man took a bite from the tree.

The icon of Man is a mirror to which we revel in our own glory, but the reality is that Man is an icon of God (Genesis 1:26-27). 

I digress. 

The same can be said for me, however. I can be a condescending tool sometimes, high and mighty and self-righteous. But above that, I am like the least merciful person I have ever had the privilege to revel in in the mirror. In fact, that’s almost a better example, because when I see others living with sin it is enough for me to ask, Why can’t they be more like me?

Whoa. 

There is no question, nor judgment, nor opinion when we witness our brothers and sisters living with sin and defecting from God Who loves them. The better instinct is to realize these people are suffering just the same as I suffer, and perhaps I suffer worse than my brothers and sisters because my suffering has its roots in pride.

I am living pharisaically, as if I—sinner as I am—could stand in the Presence of God, but in doing so feeling so puffed up as to turn my back on His throne to tell everyone below that they are doing something wrong, blocking their view of His Presence with my pride. This is not reveling in His Glory; it is certainly not living virtuously or seeking to recover the logos’ path. 

Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ