A heretical transcendence

       We’ve been telling ourselves such stories [of Man and Nature] forever, as a way of making sense of what we call our “relationship to Nature”—to borrow that curious, revealing phrase.  (What other species can be said to have a “relationship” with nature?)  For a long time now, the Man in these stories has gazed at Nature across a gulf of awe or mystery or shame.  Even when the tenor of these narratives changes, as it has over time, the gulf remains.  There’s the old heroic story, where Man is at war with Nature; the romantic version, where Man merges spiritually with Nature (usually with some help from the pathetic fallacy); and, more recently, the environmental morality tale, in which Nature pays Man back for his transgressions, usually in the coin of disaster—three different narratives (at least), yet all of them share a premise we know to be false but can’t seem to shake: that we somehow stand outside, or apart from, nature.

                                                                                                       Michael Pollan

                From Plato to Kant, philosophical rationalists have defined transcendence as that which is beyond experience, and thus only perceived by the mind (a priori) without the use of the senses.  This has greatly been absorbed by monotheism.  Presently, the dominant Christianity in America now places great emphasis on proper theology.  Proper thinking leads to proper behavior.  Truth begetting Goodness.  The Good News for these believers is that this untouchable, transcendent God outside our reality actually cares about us.  We can now call him Abba, father.  And Jesus has made it possible to cross that chasm.

                But what if we redefined transcendence in terms of that which has leapt out of our circles?  Remember to leap from inorganic to biologic and then to social and then intellectual, the process is not continuous, but we still maintain the lower levels.  Even if we don’t understand the process of 1’s and 0’s in our computer, if they fail, the blog entry won’t get written.  It is very similar to the concept of dimensions.  That which is on the first or second dimension cannot comprehend, so to speak, the third dimension.  And though the third has leapt out of the other two, they are still integral to its existence.  Thus the origin of what is transcendent is not from some entirely other inaccessible realm that crossed the infinite divide to create matter.  Rather the origin is from the same stuff as all the rest of the universe.

                This is something we need to remember as we leap up dimensions of reality.  I grew up being told there was a part of me that was given by this Great Being of another dimension; it was called the image of God, and it made me special and above the rest of Nature.  I grew up hearing very intelligent and kind people unabashedly say we were given this world to have dominion over it so we can do with it what we like.  “What we like” ranged from sending people to the moon to cutting all the trees down to make as many big houses as one could afford.  No lie, this was said to me in dead earnest.  I guess if we got low on oxygen our ingenuity would come up with another way of producing the stuff.  On the other hand, if we could remember as we jump into the next static pattern of society, that we came from a level of biology, which remains essential to us, we might avoid a great deal of problems.  Presently, we are sucking the earth dry of fossil fuels, flushing our topsoil down the rivers into the seas, devastating the oceanic ecosystems, cutting down rainforests that regulate our oxygen and our weather patterns, driving species extinct at a catastrophic rate, and killing each other over dwindling resources as basic as fresh water.  If we are stewards of creation, then we just chalk this up as poor management—and can be mildly concerned.  However, if we see that all these are all essential dimensions of our origins which sustain us on multiple levels, then we might feel the urgency of these issues as the suicide that it is.  

And now for some thoughts I am only just getting brave enough to explore.  (Nate, I think you’ve already wrestled with this in some of your writing.)  I see a couple ways of approaching the concept of God.  Perhaps God is simply the pre-intellectual Reality; that driving, creative force that continually gives birth to a myriad of systems of truth, pushing life to become better in all senses of the word.  On the other hand, it would be hard to imagine that there are not beings or at least a Being that has leapt to levels we don’t even comprehend, thus transcending us.  I would presuppose that a prerequisite of such a leap would require an alignment of the different energetic levels rather than the schizophrenic postures we as a species maintain.  A transcendent Being in this new sense would mean there is no chasm.  Such a being would be in touch with its origins, loving us creatures as it loved itself.  In either case, I do not see Christ as one bringing a message that the Great Chasm can be crossed by some transubstantiation process of atonement.  Rather Christ seems to me as one of those individuals who are trying to lift the veil so we can get a glimpse or a sniff of the pre-intellectual Reality.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Seek first this kingdom behind the veil and things will fall into place—you will begin to sense the better, the healthier, the more beautiful patterns.  The patterns of the society are wrong and destructive, so let’s flip them upside down.  Rome takes and conquers all—well, I tell you blessed are the humble, those who feel grief, those who give mercy, who make peace—the kingdom of heaven is theirs, because they are beginning to see alternative patterns.  That’s why the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a women mixes into a bunch of flower and works it all through the dough.  To the legalistic Pharisees, Christ turns their destructive patterns upside down as well.  He tells them they’ve missed the gestalt of the law—their stubborn hearts have no sense of the spirit of the law and cannot get out of their circular ruts.  The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  Even to his disciples Christ says, “Yo, dumbasses!  Why are you sending the children away?  You gotta be open-minded like them to receive the kingdom of God.”  (That was the New Vernacular Translation)

I know I must be sounding like some new age Nature worshiper (perhaps I am just that), but the reality is that my solution is supersaturated with contradictions and discrepancies.  I’m fishing for an alternative pattern of understanding who God might be.  Maybe God came into being with the Big Bang with the rest of matter.  Maybe God is that driving force.  Maybe both.  Maybe God is just in reference to a Being that has leapt far ahead of us, so in tune with the pre-intellectual Reality that they are hardly distinguishable. However, if God is Go(o)dness, then this Being is vastly different from the God I grew up believing in.