The infinite fullness of God is here and now
Reality is mystical if we pay attention
The mind of God pervades and structures the universe, making mathematics a mystical enterprise.
We can encounter the mind of God the Creator, whom Jesus called “Abba,” in the form of mathematics. Remarkably, mathematicians have generated “pure” theories that were only later “practically” applied to astronomy, physics, and engineering. For example, the Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga analyzed conic sections—the circle, ellipse, parabola, hyperbola, etc. His analyses later proved useful to astronomers studying the motion of celestial objects. Kepler, for example, discovered that the planets travel in ellipses around the sun, not circles, and relied on Apollonius’s preexisting analyses to work out his mathematical physics.
Likewise, Thomas Malthus applied Leonard Euler’s preexisting geometric growth tables to demographic studies, noting that geometric reproduction rates would eventually produce an intense struggle for survival. Charles Darwin read Malthus and generated his evolutionary theory of natural selection. Einstein could not have developed his general theory of relativity, which predicated the curvature of space, without reference to Bernhard Riemann’s preexisting theories of differential geometry.
Given the outstanding power of mathematical reason to make sense of the physical universe, many mathematicians regard its practice as more than an intellectual exercise. Pythagoras legendarily endorsed mathematical endeavor as a religious practice. For Pythagoras, to understand the universe was to understand its divine source. Hence, scientific investigation was spiritual development, and vice versa. Correlating the number one to a point, the number two to a line, the number three to a plane, and the number four to a cube (the three-dimensional space in which we live), the Pythagoreans concluded that the universe is composed of numbers. When they discovered that musical intervals are based on numerical ratios, they proceeded to combine mathematics with mysticism.
The Christian tradition, which developed within the Greek thought world, absorbed the Pythagoreans’ mathematical mysticism and deemed the cosmic order an expression of the mind of Abba the Creator. According to this interpretation, the Divine Architect expresses the orderly, divine mind within the orderly, material universe. Hence, to study nature is to study God.
The Bible sees God’s wisdom in the material universe.
These insights cohere with the Bible, which finds the sustaining mind of the Creator in creation. Of course, scripture makes no specific reference to mathematical mysticism. Yet both the Hebrew and Christian writings express awe at the divine reason expressed through the cosmic order.
In the Hebrew tradition, the psalmist exclaims, “God, what variety you have created, arranging everything so wisely! The earth is filled with your creativity!” (Psalm 104:24a). Jeremiah writes, “The earth was created by God’s power. God’s wisdom fixed the earth in place and God’s knowledge unfurled the skies” (Jeremiah 10:12). And Proverbs declares, “For it was through [Wisdom] that God laid the earth’s foundation; through her that the heavens were set in place” (Proverbs 3:19–20).
Early Christians found this divine wisdom in both Jesus of Nazareth and Sophia, the Holy Spirit. They identified Jesus with the logos—the sacred reason, creative principle, or divine order—through which the universe was made:
In the beginning was the Word [logos]; and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was present to God from the beginning. Through the Word all things came into being, and apart from the Word nothing came into being. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw the Word’s glory—the favor and position a parent gives an only child—filled with grace, filled with truth. (John 1:1–3, 14)
According to John, the logos permeates the universe and permeates our minds, granting us the capacity to reason, to better understand the universe and to better understand God.
Language about God is iconic.
As we have discussed the nature of God, we have ascribed certain qualities to God such as community, infinity, love, joy, increase, and omnipresence. We created these words to describe this universe and our own feelings within it. Since they are products of the cosmos for the cosmos, they can apply only metaphorically or poetically to God. God—Sustainer, Participant, and Perfecter—lies well beyond the reach of our this-worldly language. Therefore, anytime we speak of God, we should recognize that the words we use are more dissimilar to God than similar, that they are more inaccurate than accurate. They should never be taken exhaustively or literally. Instead, language about God is iconic.
An icon is a depiction of a divinity or saint appropriate for contemplation and meditation. Although the painters of icons are accomplished artists capable of three dimensional portraiture, icons have a two dimensional presentation. They look flat, but this flatness is purposeful: it reminds the viewer that they are not looking so much at the icon as through it, into the sacred space beyond. It reminds the viewer that they are not meditating on the object, but on what the object represents.
Many centuries before Christian icons came into existence, the Buddha issued a similar caution. He did not want his followers to become attached to his teachings, so he told them that, if someone points at the moon, then you should look at the moon, not the person’s finger. In other words, you should look to the goal of the Buddha’s teachings, not the teachings themselves.
Similarly, iconic language points beyond itself, to God. Optimally, God flows through the language, as God flows through the icon. But God remains always beyond.
God is infinite, and infinite restraint.
We issue these caveats here because our language for God is about to break down. We have spoken of God as a community of persons, which is a real attribute that tells us something real about God. But it is also false, and in a good way. That is because we, as persons, must be careful not to spread ourselves too thin. We have limited time and limited attention; if we pay too much attention to our work, then we neglect our relationships. If we pay too much attention to our relationships, then we neglect ourselves. We must find that ever-elusive balance.
But God becomes disanalogous to us here. God is an ever-increasing infinity who does not get spread thin. God’s omnipresence cannot be diluted in any way: “God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere,” runs an ancient metaphor. Wherever we are, there the fullness of God dwells. Or, in the words of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “That is fullness. This is fullness. From fullness comes fullness. When fullness is taken from fullness, fullness remains.”
God is an infinitely overflowing plenitude, and that plenitude is here and now. But it must hold itself in reserve or we would be constantly overwhelmed. For our relationship with God to be mutual, God must conceal some of Godself, that we might be granted the freedom to respond.
Although working with a unitarian concept of God, the Jewish tradition of Chabad Hasidism embeds mutuality within God through the doctrine of tzimtzum or “contraction.” God limits the divine being to make room for creation, so that creation is not overwhelmed by its source.
Consider an analogy: If the Sun and Earth were too close, then the Sun would burn Earth away. But the contraction of the Sun to the center of the solar system allows it to illuminate Earth without destroying it. Without the Sun, Earth would be a frozen wasteland. Without the Sun’s contraction, Earth would be a burning hell. Hence, the Sun’s self-limitation generates a relationship through which we come alive.
Similarly, God’s self-limitation—like that of any good parent—grants us the freedom to become who we are, in relation to God. God doesn’t drown us in divinity but allows us to swim in the currents of the sacred. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 75-79)
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For further reading, please see:
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 5.1.1.
Farrugia, E. “The iconic character of Christian language: logos and icon.” Melita Theologica 45, no. 1 (1994) 1–17. https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/37182.
Guthrie, W. K. C. "Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism." In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed, edited by Donald M. Borchert, vol. 8, 181–4. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. Gale eBooks. Accessed May 30, 2020.
Hermes Trismegistus. The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation. Edited and translated by Brian P. Copenhaver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Ouspensky, Leonid. Theology of the Icon. New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1992.
Von Baravalle, Hermann. “Conic Sections in Relation to Physics and Astronomy.” The Mathematics Teacher 63, no. 2 (1970) 3–23. DOI: 10.5951/MT.63.2.0101.
Often I find it interesting, in a curious way, when I read a similar but different perspective from pieces of my own studies in various traditions. And please understand I do not suggest I am an expert in any tradition (smiling). When I studied Jewish Kabbalah and learned about what I understood as "a creation story," tzimtzum was explained as the Godhead removing (contracting) a part of Itself (All That Is) for creation to happen. Of course this is from my memory, not always accurate, but I do remember how I loved the story.
When I studied Zen and was introduced to the metaphor of "the finger pointing to the moon," I was thrilled to recognize how we can mistaken one thing for another thing (objects). I think that was when something opened in me that had to do with the importance of my own direct, immediate experiences of truth vs interpretations of concepts representing the truth whether from oral or written representations. That said, I have had direct, immediate experiences from reading something. It seems to be different depending on whether the writing is conceptual or from the writer's own experience.
All this is a continuous inquiry in life happening. I appreciate reading your articles and feeling into where your words touch and land in me.
Ok Jon I am quite astonished in a really good way how close our teachings are and also how close what we are writing about shows up together. I sent out a quick note yesterday or day before about being a mystic - and have a post coming out this week about names for God and my mystical relationship with them. I also see that we are all mystics. Just like we are all musicians. The more intimately we feel God within us and all around us - both nameless infinite and named - inside and all around —the more we are mystic. We are in touch with the vibrations of God everywhere. So much so some of us identify with that. Just as people who play multiple instruments or play all of the time professionally or personally identify as musicians. So bravo I love the way you express this and everything else !