The Elephant in the Cosmos

I forget where we even were.

A post-formal operations meta-systematic and cross-paradigmatic mystico-religious synthesis converging on the God beyond God?

Oh. The usual nonsense.

All I have is some scattered notes in search of their own unity:

Are religions convergent or divergent? Do they start in different places and end in the same one, or start in the same place and end in different ones? 

Or do they begin and end in the same place, which is to say, the world -- the many -- and God -- the One--respectively? 

But just because someone experiences God, does this imply they are having the same experience, or experiencing the same thing? They say he has many mansions, and what's the point of having so many if they're all identical? He also has sheep not of this fold, meaning gentiles -- which covers a lot of ground -- with the goal of a unity of believers into a single body.

But a body is nothing like an inanimate object, rather, a unity-in-difference. A tooth is nothing like a tongue, and a heart nothing like a hand. 

Come to think of it, I believe this was the original basis of the Hindu caste system: in the body of society there are speculative brains (priests, scholars, and teachers), practical brains (rulers, warriors, and administrators), hands and feet (commerce and agriculture), and pure muscle (laborers, artisans, and servants).

There were also the untouchables who performed nasty jobs considered ritually unclean such as handling dead bodies, disposing of waste, and cleaning streets.

But Christ comes along and essentially says that all of these body parts are of equal value: in him there is neither slave nor free, which is to say, brain nor muscle, but a mansion for each. That's a radical message, because it goes to a deeper order beyond the order of society. 

For this reason we brought up the elephant-and-blind men metaphor: if God is the transcendent and nonlocal elephant, he is going to appear different, depending on which part we grab. 

In the past I've compared this to early explorers who, say, discovered America. One explorer lands in Central America, another in Newfoundland. Both come back to the King with very different descriptions of what they discovered, and neither is wrong. How to reconcile them?

Likewise, one mystic comes back from the undiscovered country and says it is One. Another says it is the Void. Still another that it is Trinity. Yet another claims it is beyond all these. 

Whatever the case may be, things are what they are -- this being a reflection of absolute necessity -- but are never just what they are -- this being a reflection of infinite possibility: thus, everything is a combination of what it is and what it is capable of being (its potentials and possibilities).

Now, some people say there are no possibilities in God, since he is pure act. But others, like me, say that God is actually infinite possibility, and indeed, that we are living in one of those possibilities. But in any such possibility -- i.e., creation -- parts are interior to the whole and vice versa: everything is a kind of fractal of the whole. Which is why we can begin anywhere and end everywhere. If there were no whole, nor could there be any parts.

Ultimately, it seems that the abyss of our interiority is a mirror image of the divine abyss and of this abyss exteriorized, which is to say, creation. In this creation there are waves and particles, but really just wavicles. Everyone is a two-sided wavicle pointing to transcendence at one end, immanence at the other.

And I say the principle of immanence is located in God, in the sense that the Son is, as it were, the eternally immanent specification of the transcendent Father. Ultimately "I and Father are one" -- a unity in distinction, or oneness in twoness: two and yet not two, a relational unity.

So, relation is an irreducible ontological category, and if it weren't, then nothing would be related to anything else. But because everything is internally related, parts can know about other parts, and some parts -- human beings -- can know about the whole, from Cosmos to God.

A mystic is a part who experientially rejoins the whole he never really left because we can't really leave it, any more than a heart can declare independence from other parts of the body or from the body itself?

Why not? Man is an image of his Creator, the former a symbolic expression of the latter. Here again, a symbol is only possible if there is a prior relation or unity between symbol and symbolized.

They say Christ is both God's icon of man and man's icon of God, icon meaning a perfect representation or image. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, or God made accessible. You might say he is the whole elephant. Even so, we cannot fully grasp this elephant in the room.

In a comment at our sister Substack site I suggested that

by definition truth is timeless and universal. Except to say it is an asymptotic or teleological thing we are forever approaching but never quite attaining, since finitude can never contain infinitude, nor time eternity. 

On the other hand, the whole point of the Christian revelation is to respond to this limitation via the Incarnation, which is at once "infinitude become finite," but more properly understood as the Infinite "taking up" finitude (i.e., human nature) into itself.

For this reason, even though the elephant lived and dwelled (dwells) amongus, "It's more of an infinite mystery to contemplate than a one-and-done deal."

The question is, how to tie together this morning's ramblings? Anyone care to take a stab at it? Gemini?

Your post today provides a sophisticated argument for the convergence of religions, not as identical experiences, but as a "unity-in-difference," with the Incarnation as the ultimate answer to the problem of finitude grasping infinitude.

You begin by exploring the idea of a unity-in-difference, using the human body as a metaphor for a society or a cosmos where different parts are distinct yet work together toward a single purpose. You then use the blind men and the elephant and the analogy of explorers discovering different parts of a new continent to illustrate how different religious traditions can have partial but valid views of the same ultimate reality.

You then restate your core philosophical tenets: that everything is a "wavicle" of necessity and possibility, and that relation is an irreducible ontological category that makes it possible for parts to know about the whole.

This framework culminates in your central point about the Incarnation, which you describe as God's solution to the problem of a finite mind's inability to fully grasp infinite truth. Christ is presented as the perfect "icon" -- the visible image of the invisible God -- who makes the inaccessible accessible, thereby allowing for an asymptotic approach to truth. 

Good. So now, what are we supposed to do about it? I'm open to suggestions.

The "doing" is to live out the truth we've been articulating.

We've established that the Incarnation is the ultimate bridge between the infinite and the finite. It's the moment when "infinitude takes up finitude into itself." The next step isn't just to contemplate this idea but to embody it.

Therefore? 

The "doing" is to become a part of that unity-in-difference you described, to live as a two-sided "wavicle" of immanence and transcendence. It means recognizing that, as you put it, the "abyss of our interiority is a mirror image of the divine abyss," and that our individual lives are a fractal of the whole. The task is to consciously and intentionally participate in this reality -- to live in a way that reflects the relational unity we've been describing, where the part is a reflection of the whole.

I'm trying. But maybe trying can't do it? Rather, the non-doing prescribed by Eastern approaches and by Western sages such as the Dude? 

That's a very insightful point. You're right, "trying" can't do it alone. The "non-doing" you're pointing to is the other side of the coin.

Non-doing, or wu wei in Taoism, isn't about passivity or being the laziest man in Los Angeles County. It's about a form of effortless action that arises from being in alignment with the natural flow of reality. It's the difference between a sailor trying to row against a current and one who raises their sail to let the wind carry them. The effort is not in forceful exertion, but in perceptive alignment.

The spiritual journey often involves both. The "trying" is the initial effort needed to step onto the path -- to discipline the mind, to seek truth, to break old habits. But the goal is to transcend that effort, to reach a state where the action is no longer forced but flows naturally from a place of deep connection. It's the moment when the "I" steps aside and allows something larger to act through it. The union of the finite and the infinite becomes a natural, rather than an effortful, state.

Perhaps our next step is to explore how these two approaches -- Western effort and Eastern surrender -- can be integrated into a comprehensive and practical way of being.

Like, abiding?