Love Sees New Eyes (Creator, Earth, creation, myths, Revelation)

[Victor]

There is a dimension of truth which most of us have tragically lost and need to recover, a dimension that cannot be put into words and sentences, though words and sentences can be used to suggest it.

All premodern societies had this other dimension, even the ones who were very far from having the propositional truth, the Christian content of revelation. This other dimension is a vision, a perspective, a habit of seeing rather than a specific thing seen. If we do not have this habit—this vision—then our theology will not sink much deeper than on a conscious, rational level.

The thing I speak of can be called myth, imagination, analogy, or sacramentalism. All four words are slippery and ambiguous. Rather than trying to define them, let me give an example. Indeed, let me give the crucial example for our purposes here, for our topic is the theology of love and how it applies to our lives. Without this way of thinking, such an application, such a connection between what God is and what we are, is tenuous and strained.

Since God is the Creator and since creation reflects and reveals the Creator, and since God is love, all creation somehow reflects and reveals love. That is a logical argument, but my point here is not to deduce the conclusion but to see it,to understand it, to stand under it. If God is love, all creation must reflect love. Yet we do not habitually look for these reflections. For instance, we no longer understand, except as a quaint historical curiosity, the idea that sexual love is not just biological. We have lost the idea, implicit in almost all the languages of the world except English—which has no masculine and feminine nouns—that human sexuality is the human version of a universal principle. When other languages call the Sun "he" and the moon "she," they are not simply projecting the human reality out onto nature, but seeing something that is really there. One version of this is the famous Chinese yin and yang. Another is the Indian marriage ceremony in which the groom says to his bride, "I am heaven, you are earth." She responds, "I am earth, you are heaven."

Many readers will find such ideas utterly unintelligible and perhaps suspiciously pagan. Why should a Christian take seriously the fact, for instance, that all the pagans peopled the sky with male gods and the earth with female goddesses? This sounds very strange to our ears.

It is not only pagan, any more than anything universally human is pagan. It is Christian too. Dante was a great Christian poet, with all of a great poet's power of imagination. However, the famous last line of his Divine Comedy is not poetic fancy but sober and profound fact: it is indeed "love that moves the sun and all the stars."
This is what we no longer spontaneously see. When we look up at the night sky, we do not see—as did the ancients—the glory of God. We have to be reminded of it, perhaps by a memorized quotation from Scripture. When we see the stars we do not hear "the music of the spheres," but only silence. When we think of gravity, we do not think of it as the body of love or the material expression of love, as Dante did. We do not see God's love at work in the very structure of matter.

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/love-sees.htm

[Victor]

*bump*

[Scarlett Wampus]

Victor that was great. I think Peter Kreeft has his work cut out for him trying to bring back the 'forgotten wisdom of the myths'. Nevertheless it is a great relief to read something like this.

[Victor]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

Victor that was great. I think Peter Kreeft has his work cut out for him trying to bring back the 'forgotten wisdom of the myths'. Nevertheless it is a great relief to read something like this.

Yes he does. Thanks for reading.

[Victor]

**bump**

[Willamena]

Nice post, Victor. I'll have to look up 'Peter Kreeft'.

[Willamena]

Why do you think 'modern' society has lost view of this dimension? What stripped them of it?

[Buttercup]

Originally Posted by Victor

Since God is the Creator and since creation reflects and reveals the Creator, and since God is love, all creation somehow reflects and reveals love.

I especially like this line and believe the same myself except that I'd add: If there is a God.

I believe that all humans no matter how angry, twisted and messed up they are desire love and acceptance. They've just forgotten or deny it's what they need.

This is what we no longer spontaneously see. When we look up at the night sky, we do not see—as did the ancients—the glory of God. We have to be reminded of it, perhaps by a memorized quotation from Scripture. When we see the stars we do not hear "the music of the spheres," but only silence. When we think of gravity, we do not think of it as the body of love or the material expression of love, as Dante did. We do not see God's love at work in the very structure of matter.

I don't necessarily buy this. Seems like people often want to say things were "better in the old days". I know I've spent numerous nights lying flat on my back staring up at the stars in fascination and musing about God. So have many others I'm sure.