A Theology of Everything
Part 5, The Many are One
A lingering issue from the last post is why, exactly, Adam's choice dropped the whole of creation into contingency. Why did the sin of Adam have cosmic ontological consequences?
Both the Bible and the Christian theological tradition point to an array of answers here. Below are my speculations.
Biblically, it seems clear that the fate of creation is tightly linked to the fate of humanity. This suggests to me a hamartiological and ontological connection. What, then, is the nature of this connection?
I want to suggest, along with many of the church fathers, that creation be considered an ontological whole. There are a variety of ways we might imagine this, but one way is to view creation through a Christological lens, positing a "cosmic" or "universal" Christology. I'll follow Maximus the Confessor again here, who describes created realities as the many logoi of the one Logos. Again, because creation is ex Deo all of creation is held together by the Logos. All reality is grounded in God. Thus, each individual and particular manifestation of created reality is a reflection of the Logos. Maximus calls these created realities the logoi, which is plural for logos. Consequently, there are many logoi but only a single, unified sustaining Logos. As Maximus says,
We affirm that the one Logos is many logoi and the many logoi are One. 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 providentially guided in that direction. It is though they were drawn to an all-powerful center that had built into it the beginnings of the lines that go out from it and gathers them all together. In this way the many are one. (Ambiguum, 7)
So, when we look at created reality the many are One and the One is many. Each created reality is a particular expression (logoi) of the single, underlying reality of God (the Logos).
If this is true, and here is my speculative leap, humanity represents the volitional aspect of the logoi of creation. If creation is a united "body" then humanity is creation's "mind." Humanity is creation's ability to say either "Yes" or "No" to God. And given that the logoi of creation reflect an underling ontological whole, as humanity goes so goes creation. Thus, when humanity rebels against God, primordially and continuously, the logoi of creation as a whole remains "dropped" into ontological contingency and thereby drifts into non-being. Creation will remain stuck in this "dropped" condition until humanity, as a whole, says "Yes" to God. All particular logoi must return to the Logos, the many converging back upon the One. In the language of Romans 8, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God."
Again, as humanity goes, so goes creation. The many are one. Creation is saved as a whole, all together.
I’m not sure on assuming that there was no death or decay at creation. I know this is a common assumption based I suppose on the curses God describes upon the Fall, including the “ground”. That’s possible, but I’m not sure it has to be that way, because even before the Fall, does not “a kernel of wheat drops to the ground and dies”?
first, I'm wondering if you are conceptualizing Adam as both historical figure and/or representative for this.
And if we think of it for instance as (whether true in history or not) as the story for which we understand how humans fall short of goodness. Is it not so much about the fate of humanity, but instead, what each of us will indeed pick, in the same way, no exceptions?
Wondering also is it true that to love without some variety of subjugation at work, there must be a kind of severing at some point and then following by a rejoining? (I'm spitballing here, because I sense that to fully know LOVE is to also know disconnection)
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Oh, and this!
"Thus, when humanity rebels against God, primordially and continuously, the logoi of creation as a whole remains "dropped" into ontological contingency and thereby drifts into non-being. Creation will remain stuck in this "dropped" condition until humanity, as a whole, says "Yes" to God. All particular logoi must return to the Logos, the many converging back upon the One. In the language of Romans 8, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God."
Really interesting picture and association here. thank you! I'm thinking on this deeply. AND Wondering how fully and what it looks like this embrace of "yes!"
I would also imagine (friendly pushback just a tiny bit as we dialogue) that perhaps "mind" is not really enough. Mind is a priori and that works but it stays so conceptional and in that way static. I sense more of a verb [!] when it comes to humans. .. the animation, as it were. the in-spirited-ness, the breathed-into—not the mind, or the mind only. This also makes more sense in this sub-human i.e. "dropped" spot you mention.