Some thoughts on the Cosmology of Sean O'Laoire
Some thoughts on the Cosmology of Sean O'Laoire (9.11.25)
The sticking point for me was the idea that each of us volunteered to be incarnated. How could I fit this into the framework of Aquinas' Aristotelian matter-and-form creation theory? Then a clue came with the individuation factor. According to Aristotle and Aquinas the form of any body is made individual by the matter/material it is imposed into. So the potter makes a plate according to a certain form or shape. Then he makes another one identical. It is exactly the same as the first except that it was made from a different handful of clay. This makes it number two. The material factor is the basis for one individual being distinct from another.
But in Genesis it is said that God breathed into the clay model the breath of life. The 'spirit' in man is not like the form of a plate, though it does have the same role. The spirit in the human gives individuation to the clay model because it is another idea in the mind of God, so to speak. It is the spirit which is individuated because it is a new idea. Each of us is another idea of God's, just as the Word is God's idea of od's self. So each of us is another “Word” of God .(By the way, as far as I can see we are still within the framework of Thomistic/Aristotelian theory.)
So each of us is a “Word” of God. Call it a fractal of God if you wish, but fractal again has its limitations, since each fractal is a repetition of the shape (form) distinct from its neighbour by the material factor, exactly as the Aristotelian form is differentiated by the material factor. In the view I am developing here, it is God who has a new idea and realises it (makes it real) gives it individual existence in a body. As God is timeless so each idea is timeless. Hence we exist before we are born . Creation is not the production of something from nothing, not in our case. Our production is a making “real” in this timeframe of an idea from the timeless heart of Source. We are not created but incarnated. We are the Word incarnate in replica.
In the book of Job (32:8) the animating spirit in people (the 'soul') is identified with the breath of God: “But there is a spirit within people, the breath of the Almighty within them, that makes them intelligent.” There is implied here a distinction from animals which have a living spirit (a principle of animation we call 'life') but do not have intelligence. Intelligence is something God has shared only with people; it goes well beyond the instinctive guiding principle in animals. This is the basis for saying we are God's children: we share God's life in the sense that we live the same life as God. As there is a blood relationship and genetic connection between parent and offspring, so there is a spirit connection between God and humankind. We are born of God, engendered not created, spirit of the Father's Spirit,. Our mission is to enlighten the world: 'The light shone in the darkness and the darkness could not comprehend it.'It will take eons of time for our light to penetrate the dense selfishness of the human heart, encrusted as it is with scar tissue an protective callous, result of generations of struggle to survive in a world of material darkness which is not congenial to spirit.
Each of us is another example of God's self expression. Each of us expresses something of God just as the eternal Word expresses the whole self-understanding of God. (Whoops! None of these are all attempts to capture an idea in words is entirely successful. Each is open to interpretations which may or may not lead in the same direction. But this last one is not useful for it goes too far. I don't know what it means to say that 'the eternal Word expresses the whole self-understanding of God.' How could I ? In this kind of speculation it is important to stop before we get into the game of repeating words that do not express further insight but merely sound good.)
Descartes said: 'Cogito, ergo sum.''I am thinking so I must be existing.' 'Awareness of myself thinking makes me aware of my self.' God says: 'Cogito ergo Cogitans.' 'I am thinking so I am Thinking.' 'I am, therefore I am.'