God’s Ecstasy
An excerpt from page 22 of Beatrice Bruteau’s book:
When we get deeper into how the universe is structured and how it operates, the marvel and mystery of “this” [see page 21] will appear more fully. As we study the nature of finitude, the ways of evolution, the interactions of the polarities, and especially when we look at the world as a complex adaptive system whose future is essentially unpredictable because it is creative, we will be moved to ask:
Can a finite world be made that will express the value of the Infinite?
Can God create a cosmos that will live and grow and come to consciousness of itself as an incarnation of God?
Can the Creator create a universe that will more and more participate in its own creation?
Can the Creator create a universe that will image its Creator by being creative?
Can the Eternal make a world in which there will be genuine novelty, unpredictable newness?
Can finite beings, which have to protect themselves in order to remain as finite beings, achieve through their finitude and mutual dependence a willingness to give themselves to one another, to conceive and to act for the good of the whole?
Can God ask a question that God cannot answer by supernatural foreknowledge but only by actual experiment?
This is, I believe, the sort of thing that is going on in the cosmos, in the world the contemplative lives in. If we think of ourselves as such persons, we shouldn’t ignore or neglect or withdraw ourselves from this marvelous world where God is living and creating. We should study and strive to understand it so that we can really live in it, with God.
When we get deeper into how the universe is structured and how it operates, the marvel and mystery of “this” [see page 21] will appear more fully. As we study the nature of finitude, the ways of evolution, the interactions of the polarities, and especially when we look at the world as a complex adaptive system whose future is essentially unpredictable because it is creative, we will be moved to ask:
Can a finite world be made that will express the value of the Infinite?
Can God create a cosmos that will live and grow and come to consciousness of itself as an incarnation of God?
Can the Creator create a universe that will more and more participate in its own creation?
Can the Creator create a universe that will image its Creator by being creative?
Can the Eternal make a world in which there will be genuine novelty, unpredictable newness?
Can finite beings, which have to protect themselves in order to remain as finite beings, achieve through their finitude and mutual dependence a willingness to give themselves to one another, to conceive and to act for the good of the whole?
Can God ask a question that God cannot answer by supernatural foreknowledge but only by actual experiment?
This is, I believe, the sort of thing that is going on in the cosmos, in the world the contemplative lives in. If we think of ourselves as such persons, we shouldn’t ignore or neglect or withdraw ourselves from this marvelous world where God is living and creating. We should study and strive to understand it so that we can really live in it, with God.