Nature as a Sacrament

[Mystical_Poet]

As you all know by my username, I am a poet. I love poetry with a passion, both reading and writing it. It has been a constant companion to me!

One of the things that poetry has taught me is the Sacramental view of nature, especially of Beauty. In other words, that God permeates the universe, that the world is an echo and reflection of its Creator, that holy beauty is a channel of Christ’s grace, and that the physical cosmos is a kind of sacrament by which we touch God. I know that St. Francis of Assisi had a similar perspective on life. To me, God is the Sun and the works of nature are some of His bright rays.

Now, my question is this: is my perspective compatible with Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and/or Lutheran theology? I have been accused of “flirting with pantheism”, but I do believe that He is transcendent as well as imminent. I guess I could call myself more of a “Christian Panentheist”.

I just can’t bring myself to accept the modern gnostic idea that God is utterly separated from nature: I believe that each breath of wind, every bird song, and the light of the moon is really (in a deep sense) the Song and the Touch of God.

Any thoughts?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

As you all know by my username, I am a poet. I love poetry with a passion, both reading and writing it. It has been a constant companion to me!

One of the things that poetry has taught me is the Sacramental view of nature, especially of Beauty. In other words, that God permeates the universe, that the world is an echo and reflection of its Creator, that holy beauty is a channel of Christ’s grace, and that the physical cosmos is a kind of sacrament by which we touch God. I know that St. Francis of Assisi had a similar perspective on life. To me, God is the Sun and the works of nature are some of His bright rays.

Now, my question is this: is my perspective compatible with Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and/or Lutheran theology? I have been accused of “flirting with pantheism”, but I do believe that He is transcendent as well as imminent. I guess I could call myself more of a “Christian Panentheist”.

I just can’t bring myself to accept the modern gnostic idea that God is utterly separated from nature: I believe that each breath of wind, every bird song, and the light of the moon is really (in a deep sense) the Song and the Touch of God.

Any thoughts?

Good Evening Mystical Poet: I think you are on the right track. But don’t sell yourself short by feeling like you need a label. You are who you are. You seem to have stepped into a realm that is a bit beyond the limitations of those who need names for things. So much is unnamable.

My favorite poet is Yeats by the way.

 

[grannymh]

“Scottish Folds reflect a part of God’s love and pass that love along to us if we are blessed enough to see God’s reflection in a simple cat.”
from a post by Little Soldier**

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

“Scottish Folds reflect a part of God’s love and pass that love along to us if we are blessed enough to see God’s reflection in a simple cat.”
from a post by Little Soldier**

Beautiful!

 

[Petaro]

It is extremely difficult to comprehend a pure Spirit.Thus it is easy for us to find Our God in His Creation, and yet the Creator is always more than what is created. Without the presence of God in all things they would cease to exist, and yet if everything was gone God would continue to Be.
There is nothing unchristian or outside of Catholic theology to attempt to comprehend and worship God as Creator. Great beauty is a natural element of all of God’s creation. Gerard Manley Hopkins is just one Catholic poet who can express this reality.
But God is more than nature and is a personal God with all His creation and He looks for a relationship with Man that is beyond His relationship with the Sun or the flowers of the field and of every sparrow that falls.
If you get a chance read The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson to see this search of the Creator for this relationship in a reluctant creation; reluctant because he knows the result of surrender to the Creator, a love of God and a fear of the loss of all else we so desire.
Great poetry comes from this discordance in our desire.
I always see our world as it has become in Yeats’ Second Coming.
The best lack all conviction whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Look beyond the created in your search for the Creator. God Bless

 

[Counterpoint]

Now, my question is this: is my perspective compatible with Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and/or Lutheran theology? I have been accused of “flirting with pantheism”, but I do believe that He is transcendent as well as imminent. I guess I could call myself more of a “Christian Panentheist”.

I just can’t bring myself to accept the modern gnostic idea that God is utterly separated from nature: I believe that each breath of wind, every bird song, and the light of the moon is really (in a deep sense) the Song and the Touch of God.

Any thoughts?

Panentheism, which literally means “all-in-God-ism,” actually has biblical support.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being” Acts 17:28

 

[grannymh]

Panentheism, which literally means “all-in-God-ism,” actually has biblical support.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being” Acts 17:28

One needs to understand the context in which this quote is used.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

**300 **God is infinitely greater than all his works: “You have set your glory above the heavens.” Indeed, God’s “greatness is unsearchable”. But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures’ inmost being: “In him we live and move and have our being.” In the words of St. Augustine, God is “higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self”.

**32 **The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?

 

[Mystical_Poet]

It is extremely difficult to comprehend a pure Spirit.Thus it is easy for us to find Our God in His Creation, and yet the Creator is always more than what is created. Without the presence of God in all things they would cease to exist, and yet if everything was gone God would continue to Be.
There is nothing unchristian or outside of Catholic theology to attempt to comprehend and worship God as Creator. Great beauty is a natural element of all of God’s creation. Gerard Manley Hopkins is just one Catholic poet who can express this reality.
But God is more than nature and is a personal God with all His creation and He looks for a relationship with Man that is beyond His relationship with the Sun or the flowers of the field and of every sparrow that falls.
If you get a chance read The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson to see this search of the Creator for this relationship in a reluctant creation; reluctant because he knows the result of surrender to the Creator, a love of God and a fear of the loss of all else we so desire.
Great poetry comes from this discordance in our desire.
I always see our world as it has become in Yeats’ Second Coming.
The best lack all conviction whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Look beyond the created in your search for the Creator. God Bless

Thanks for your reply! I love both Hopkins and the Hound of Heaven! And you are right, God is certainly more than nature, although I would maintain that God is NOT the Watchmaker of the Deists. Nature is more like an outpouring of God, like His continual and beauteous Song, rather than a mere “invention” of a Divine Engineer. The universe is really a manifestation of God, although God is infinitely greater than any of His manifestations. As you said, even if all of nature perished, God is still the Great Unchanging I AM, but God lives in His Cosmos.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . I would maintain that God is NOT the Watchmaker of the Deists. Nature is more like an outpouring of God, like His continual and beauteous Song, rather than a mere “invention” of a Divine Engineer. The universe is really a manifestation of God, although God is infinitely greater than any of His manifestations. As you said, even if all of nature perished, God is still the Great Unchanging I AM, but God lives in His Cosmos.

:twocents:

As to the nature of the cosmos, given these two choices:

• manifestation of God
• clockwork mechanism
  I’d have to go with none of the above.

As Creator, He would be both engineer and artist. In both cases He is not His creation.

I would not use the phrase “God lives in His Cosmos”. I’m not sure I can fully explain why it feels wrong.
I recall saying during the mass, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
As part of His creation, our relationship with God is fairly complex, and panenthesism is limited in its ability to clarify what is of supreme importance.

 

[Counterpoint]

:
I recall saying during the mass, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
As part of His creation, our relationship with God is fairly complex, and panenthesism is limited in its ability to clarify what is of supreme importance.

Panentheism is the view that God is both transcendent and immanent. How exactly is that exactly inconsistent with the traditional and classical conception of God?

 

[catholicscot]

Nature also contains death, suffering, violence and the rotting away and corruption of once living things. That is to say the mystery of evil and the mystery of God are both at work within it. A view that shuts its eyes to the reality of nature’s cruelty (to put it anthropomorphically) to focus on a vision of a fecund and benevolent Nature alone is in grave danger of failing to grasp some essential truth’s.

Personally, I often write in haiku or micropoem form with the view of expressing something of the one truth that underlies the manifold things we see.

Carried by night winds,

The sound of waves, smell of salt.

An unseen vastness.

 

[Mystical_Poet]

Nature also contains death, suffering, violence and the rotting away and corruption of once living things. That is to say the mystery of evil and the mystery of God are both at work within it. A view that shuts its eyes to the reality of nature’s cruelty (to put it anthropomorphically) to focus on a vision of a fecund and benevolent Nature alone is in grave danger of failing to grasp some essential truth’s.

Personally, I often write in haiku or micropoem form with the view of expressing something of the one truth that underlies the manifold things we see.

You are totally right. Nature is like a little sister who has been wounded and hurt by our sin, but who nonetheless still is a symbol and reflection of God!

I love the Haiku form and write it myself quite a bit.