Course XXXIV - Teaching 13: Theology of Creation

The Aryan man had and still has the mission of fully conquering the rational mind, but was unable to escape from the ancestral concept of the unity of God. But the concept about the Non-manifest One, the Absolute One, the Nameless One, if has been preserved and still is preserved in Humanity, not always could be satisfactory to a mind incapable of becoming subtle and of soaring permanently.
A recognition that there are forces higher than our own, a recognition that obviously there is something that ultimately has to contain the whole force and power that we see active in the world and phenomenal world, has led men to a new conception, a new and different point of view –to the conception of a superior entity summing up all higher aspects and constituting ultimately the so-called Personal God.
Ultimately, this conception moves the concept about God, about the Creator, from an inaccessible and unknowable absolute field, from the Absolute Non-manifested One, and qualifies and adorns Him with the most exalted attributes that our mind can imagine.
So, God becomes a super-human image –the Personal God. True Personal Creator of the Universe and of the phenomenal world, the man is then made in His Own image, but different from Him.
So, there is a permanence of a Universal Being different from the permanence of beings in His manifestation.
This conception that can be called purely monotheistic, obviously has an Atlantean source, because those peoples, out of characteristic psychic trends of their race, had the conception about a Unitarian Creative Power of the Universe.
But the preservation and transmission of this intuitive knowledge to Aryans races became humanized to such an extent that, later became an entity, –the Personal Creative God.
Ancient Egyptians, descendants of the Atlanteans, disseminated this concept about a Personal God, center and life of the Universe. He is Him, and nothing else but Him.
This Entity, owner of any attributes and quite qualified, is the source of all souls, made in His Own image and likeness.
So, we are told as a postulate the existence of a Unique, Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient God. The monotheistic idea came from the Hebrews who, after Moses, left Egypt, and this idea passes later to Christianity. But the pure monotheistic idea, the Creation conception, implies a fundamental human issue.
In fact, the Creation idea implies the existence of a Creator different and detached from His Own Creation. God will create man in His Own image, but He will be ever different; man will be detached from Him.
This is a really excellent idea, but cannot last long time in the spirit of man who vaguely intuits his divine source and longs for his union with God.
A pure monotheistic conception cannot solve intimate issues and aims of the human soul who feels eternally exiled, distant and detached from God. Man cannot resignedly accept such an event.
So, all Creation systems sooner or later feel forced to leave their quite pure conceptions, and to build a bridge to meet wishes of deification and human liberation.
So, one notices that all those conceptions reveal sometime the idea of Redemption, of a Messiah, –ultimately, the idea of grace.
As we said, an intuitive concept of unity with God exists in every being, that is, a concept of his eventual identification with the Divine.
But this chance is apparently impossible to an speculative theist, because in spite of being a son of God and begotten by Him, this God is different from him. Man never can become God; there is a not-to-pass circle, it is absolutely impossible.
This thought becomes obsessive, and one’s mind that is ever agile and flexible, ultimately rejects it as unacceptable, in spite of the intimate wish of our soul.
If God is different from His Own Creation, if God is one, and Humanity somebody else, a connection, a bridge must however exist and unite these two separate concepts.
So, the idea of a Messiah, of a Redeemer arises.
The Redeemer is God conditioned by mental possibilities of man, by the human mind. The Divine Mind will be reduced to a relative human mind, and God Himself will become man.
The Redeemer becomes a connection between God and man, and nothing or everything will be made just through His mediation.
Man is different from God, so he cannot directly be like Him, and makes use of the Mediator’s image to achieve it through Him.
Krishna, Christ, the Messiah: here are symbolic images and personages of this idea.
No pure Creation theology can give the human being his possible divine aspiration.
Judaism, which originally kept the pure monotheistic idea, and is the source of Christendom, introduced at certain time the idea of a Messiah, in order to build a bridge toward a God inaccessible and detached from Humanity.
Ultimately this thought current totally tends to give the man a chance, since he cannot recognize himself as God, as in other systems, and is unable to reach Him through the conception of a Redeemer, of a Messiah, –ultimately through that which Thomas Aquinas developed masterly as Theology of Divine Grace.
As a religion, Creation doctrines contain however a germ of heresy in front of the orthodox teaching. Pelagius’ heresy is a classic and clear example of it in the early times of Christianity.
In fact, man is naturally image of his most perfect Creator and, therefore, he enjoys essentially identical attributes. Later he succumbs to sin out of his own will, by exercising his free will, and being immersed in evil, he is expelled from Paradise.
So, Pelagius argues, if man has lost his relationship and intimate union with God out of bad use of his free will, it is man himself who can re-conquer this lost chance by using his free will in the exercise of good.
As we can see at once, such proposal entirely removes Christ’s figure or, speaking in wider sense, removes any Messiah’s idea and conception, incorporated by orthodoxy in the religious belief of man. This belief would collapse because man would be able to unite intimately with God without a Redeemer, and the whole religious system built around a Messianic Creation doctrine would come down.
If sin is evil detaching man from God, and if this sin can be overcome by simple efforts of man, then one does not need a Messiah and, for example, Christ’s figure would lose its fundamental significance. Practically, the whole Creation conception, the whole Creation theology implies three essential aspects. INCARNATION. That is, descent of a Divine Being among men, who wears human attire to take part in life, human suffering and power, through an act of sacrifice, and to atone for all sins, all evil where Humanity remains immersed. It is the descent of God to Earth in human form.
REDEMPTION. It is sacrifice of God for the benefit of Humanity, as we have just said. It is atonement made by God Himself for the benefit of His Own creatures; the infinite God’s mercy shines there in front of human sin.
SALVATION. Through this God’s atonement and immolation on the altar of Humanity, man gets his chance of salvation and eventual intimate union with Him. And if this cannot be directly achieved, the fundamental yearning of Humanity can come true: getting the Divine Union.
Practically, Creation conceptions and their religions and theologies ever became restrictive.
They proclaim a Revealed Divine Law, and subject man to it. Man can live, move and develop in it, but here, on Earth, being unable to escape from the circle imposed by this Law.
After death, and out of Divine Grace’s mercy, man can encompass all. He can think and understand all mysteries and grasp all Arcana of science; but he will be unable to achieve this aim here, on Earth. Christendom and its religions and derived churches become a clear example of Creation concept.
Early Christendom was open-minded and tolerant as for flights of the human spirit. But after certain conceptual crystallization and formation of that which ultimately became a church, those thoughts were gradually reduced and extirpated.
Those who tried to elude that restriction were condemned and put aside.
All thoughts had to respond to a Christ concept, and man never can try to think up beyond, and flight beyond prearranged human limits.
God, One in His Trinity, is Supreme Knowledge; but man cannot reach Him, except through the Son, by means of His Redemption and Salvation. He can know only indirectly, not directly. Not in this life, but after physical death, when the soul is sure of the salvation through redemption.
Man lives in the Creation concept and is like a caged bird. He sees and watches the infinite space, longs for flying, wishes to sink in the infinite abyss. But he must be resigned to long for certain liberation that only death –cessation of earthly life– can give him after a life of sacrifice, dedication and renunciation.