Monday, February 2, 2015

Redemption and a Cosmic Trinity: Theological Thinking on the Role of the Trinity for the Issue of the Redemption of Other Intelligent Beings in the Cosmos

Is "redemption" reserved only for Earthlings that believe in Jesus in a traditional Christian way? Does the "Jesus event" apply to every possible intelligent extraterrestrial civilization? Have there been other Jesus events (under different nmes, forms, circumsatnces) in other worlds?

Jesus as a historical, biological, human self would have been potentially existent in God's Absolute Actuality and metaphysicaly speaking 'before' a creation that took place (and continuously takes place or is renewed) without the need of anything external to God. God is the Absolute and we can also say (from a human mental perspective) it-he-she has "choice" as without it it would be incomplete and perhaps not unlike an intelligent information processing mechanism. In that sense creation without the need for anything external is "ex nihilo" and - without limiting our explanatory ideology to pantheism - its origin is out of God himself' through God's imagination...and without limiting God to that creation (or any number of creations, however vast). In fact, I normally prefer Panentheism (not to be confused with pantheism) as God would always remain infinitely independent from creation while sustaining creation. "Ex Deo" would be valid if we don't limit God to His creation.

Our human selves - in fact all other sentient living selves in the vast, multi-level Cosmos- would have  also been in that potential state in God's Mind. However, I think that the Christ Logos was actually existent in God as Intelligence and as uncreated-unconditioned and (along with the other persons of the Trinity or a triune principle variously described albeit not emphasized perhaps in non-Christian traditions) the LOGOS is an inextricable participant of the Trinity in procession. Moreover, the Trinity would be the "Absolute" in relation to the created just as the "Father" would represent our limited understanding of the Absolute not only in relation to the created but also in relation to the Trinity...like the "Nirguna Brahman" of some Indian understandings, the "beyond of the beyond" Absolute Non-Dual "Source." Fritjoff Schuon explains this magistrally.

I think that through the Christ-Logos (as THE universal organizing intelligence or prism through which absolute actuality is manifested in degrees of potential forms) all contingent beings like us (and even Jesus as an historical human person) were actualized from their potential state of existing as if separate in the Mind of God. That actualization would be like a community of small holographic reflections (in God's image) of God's being and all such contingent beings are perhaps actualized through God's imagining of beings existing AS IF they were independent from Him who is the one Being and Source of all dependent, multiple beings. In this scheme, the "Holy Spirit" would be a connecting aspect of the Trinity between the Father and the Christ/Son/Logos; a supremely conscious LOVE bond connecting aspect of the "Trinity" and its immanent energies would also sustain and connect all levels of creation (and us as sentient beings with various degrees of free will) back to the original God Source. That inmanent Spirit would also lend its connecting energies forming a universal matrix probable creating and simultaneously emanating and reflecting the three aspects of the Trinity as three main types of realms. Moreover, "creation"/"emanation"/"reflection" could be multi-tiered and hierarchically organized in each of the three main realms as has also been partially understood in emanationist models.

And, if we think of any form of definition and contingency as ultimately "empty" in the sense of not being able to susteain itself (therefore with an illusory independence), we may find that "creation" and an ever existing, externally empty cosmos may have always existed and, from this alternative way of understanding, make creation compatible -for instance - with the ever existing Buddhist Cosmos. The cabbalist uncreated Ain, Ain Sof, and Ain Sof Aur also seems to correspond to the three in one aspects in procession from the One Absolute (beyond the Trinity) Being. On the other hand, the emphasis in Islam may be in that very Absolute containing all possibility and not on the Trinitarian instruments "He" may express and use.

In an ultimate sense - in harmony with God the Absolute - the same one essence and Truth prevails and quite likely - as a species - we will have to come to terms with that to intelligently contact (on a shared playing field of understanding) with more scientifically and theologically and philosophically advanced civilizations.

But what about "redemption?" Other rational intelligent beings in the Cosmos besides Earth humans may have a need to be "redeemed" in one way or another and to various degrees according to their particular natures and histories and pecualiar degrees of "sin" (sin understood as bad choices distancing them as souls from the Absolute). The expression of that "redemption" or "returning to the fold," so to speak, may take place through other evolved sentient masters of wisdom completely unified back into their timeless state of existence within the Mind of God expressed through the Logos (and metaphysically speaking) 'before' the distinction we call "creation."

All rational beings capable of choice and of error may need some form of reconnecting with Source according to their particular histories, natures and mistakes. However, all particular saving histories/redemption histories may ultimately be unified under the same universal Christ/Logos through which creation ocurred. Many representative masters in the Cosmos truly unified to their origin within the Trinitarian source and to the Absolute may be called to assist any required number of civilizations to reconnect with the One Source according to their bodies, mistakes, histories and natures and they would manifest matching the outer characteristics of those particular rational intelligent beings in particular planets or other kinds of worlds in the "Great Chain of Being" existing within any degree of duality. And they would all be one as representatives of Logos, including the LOVE of the Holy Spirit and a direct connection to the Absolute transcendence of the "Father." Let us not fall into the simplistic trap of offhandedly dismissing what these rather anthropocentric words represent thinking of them as remnants of a bygone, premodern mythical era in which even the science of the natural world and most aspects of social life were controlled by a mistaken theological overreach. Let's not throw the goods with how the goods are presented.

A particular "redeemer" or "savior" associated with a particular planetary history would not need to be crucified again and again in each world. Outcomes would depend on each particular case. However, each redemptive event across space and time or other dimensional parameters of contingent reality would be one with all others, as events stemming from a realm outside of time and contingent distinction. On the same vein, every sinful act (as a fundamental historical mistake) that estranges a people from the Absolute (as it expressed and understood by the Logos), would be universally connected outside of time and contingency in the Cosmos. In this sense what happened on Earth would be universal in scope and what happened in the Cosmos would affect Earth as there ultimate exist (as Steven Greer asserts) "One Universe- One People."

Perhaps in 'spirit' some elements in non-Christian religious ideologies are compatible with some of the ideas exposed here as divine spiritual truths should be universal. But they should be universally understood with a gentleness and kindness transcending doctrinarian jealousy. Wheher they all emphasize the same crucial elements in the same manner or not would not be as relevant as the fact that they may be found in various ways under the same basic spirit. For instance, is the Adi Buddha God with an Essence? Is Sunyatta compatible with negative theological approximations?  Is there an expression similar to God's Intelligence (like Logos) in mystical Islam? Isn't LOVE and the Golden rule and the idea of a multi-tiered Cosmos present in one way or another in various spiritual and religious traditions? Is there a triune or ternary principle tyrabnscendent of the Cosmos and which the Cosmos reflects in its organization? Would accepting the LOGOS through a particular expression in form (like Jesus) be the only way to reconnect/redeem any intelligent being or would acting, feeling, dedicating one's life to love and wisdom be the most essential key (an imitation of master Jesus) even if the historical presence of a master like Jesus unified in complete service to God was also extremely important for a civilization?