did you know that the creation has a soul?

it’s been a while but I’m getting back to Jean-Claude Larchet’s excellent book, The Spiritual Roots of the Ecological Crisis. Picking right back up where we left off:

narration

We resume our narration of chapter 1, discussing how the Fathers see the behavior and character of each animal as symbolic or allegorical for the spiritual life. According to St Maximus the Confessor, the whole perceptible world is a symbol of the intelligible world. “That which does not appear becomes visible through that which does appear.” 

Next, we focus on the respect and veneration which are due to creatures, for they bear divine energies and logoi (forms/purposes) within them, as well as symbolizing the spiritual realm. Therefore, man’s relationship toward the creation should be contemplative, for contemplating the creation raises the mind and heart of man to God and spiritual things. Man should be able to perceive the divine energy present in creatures. Some of the church fathers who preached this contemplative view of nature included Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and Gregory of Nyssa, and this view is echoed in modern day elders like St Joseph the Hesychast, St Paisios of the Holy Mountain and St Nikolai Velimirovich. According to St Maximus, the creation itself has a soul and intellect as well as a body and physical feelings. (Stop to ponder that for a moment!) St Maximus goes on to explain how to interpret the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from Genesis. He says that the knowledge of good represents the way that people can understand the spiritual realm by contemplating the physical creation, while the knowledge of evil represents what we learn by contemplating that same creation on a merely physical (not spiritual) level. (I found this very profound) Adam was commanded not to eat of this tree’s fruit, because God did not want him to learn to contemplate the world in the second way. The first way was and is God’s plan, for it raises man to God by uniting the beholder with God through creation (a sacramental experience of life). Then, man can raise up the creation to God through contemplation. However, this requires passionlessness, or in other words, freedom from self(ishness). The passions block us from seeing and loving God, our neighbor, and the creation, by obscuring our vision with our own selves. In contrast, the proper relationship of man to God and creation is Eucharistic: we are to offer back to God in thanksgiving (eucharistia) that which He has already offered us (the creation). One way that Adam did this before the fall was to name the creatures: he perceived their logoi (purpose/ideal) and offered them back to God through the act of naming. It is possible to eucharistically consume the creation—the only fruit forbidden from Adam and Eve for eating was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that is because eating of it would have (and did) prevent them from consuming anything else eucharistically, turning their feeding into gluttony and their love into lust. Using the creation eucharistically (with gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise to God) sanctifies the creation, and is essentially a smaller and simpler version of offering the Divine Liturgy. 

All this brings us to man’s role as mediator between creation and God. St Maximus explains that man is the crown of creation, reuniting the whole creation in himself, which he then offers in its entirety to God. Alone of all creatures, man has both love and freedom, and this is what makes him capable of being the mediator between God and creation. This role continues even today, by which the creation should lead man to contemplate God, and man should “be the means by which creatures relate to God.”

that’s all for today’s narration—next time we’ll conclude chapter 1.

application

How does the symbolism of creation apply to the feminine? How specifically do the masculine and feminine (in human beings) symbolize the spiritual realm? Unpack this. 

What would it really look like to observe and perceive the divine energies in all creatures? In all human beings? In all of the plant world? In the food I eat and clothing I wear and provide for my family? Do I do this at all? How can I move toward this in little ways each day? What are the implications of realizing that the whole creation has a soul, intellect, and feelings? How should this change my behavior? 

commonplace quotes

An apothegm reveals that for St Anthony, Nature was the only book: One of the wise men of old came to the righteous Anthony and said to him: “How can you hold fast, O Father, when you are deprived of the consolation of books?” He replied: “My book, O philosopher, is nature and its beings, and it is always with me when I wish to read the words of God.”

This blade of grass is an icon; this stone is an icon; and I may embrace it and venerate it since it is filled with the grace of God. — St Paisios of the Holy Mountain 

Theology means the word of God, so theology is all or nothing. The whole of nature, that which is above nature, and that which is beneath nature, all these things are theology. Every person and all his parts are theology. Each field and each flower are theology. Sirius and the Milky Way, the nebulae and the meteors are theology. The history of radioactivity and the history of each butterfly, of each grain of sand and each drop of water and all the rays of light are theology. If the whole of nature is not theology then theology is nothing or nature is nothing. If the whole of nature does not speak of God, who will believe Isaiah or St Paul? If the whole world around us is a desert, what can the voice of a prophet accomplish, weeping for God in the desert? If the whole universe does not speak of God, who can hear the words of a man without contempt. Consider the lilies of the field: if they tell you nothing of God, then neither would the great riches and wisdom of Solomon speak to you of Him. […]. Our generation seeks a sign—a heavenly miracle—to believe. “Show us God,” say many of our contemporaries, “And we will believe.” […] We should reply: “Show us rather what is not God!” — St Nikolai Velimirovich