According to the Kabbalists, the universe began in a point containing the blueprint for the future world. That point expanded to become the present universe. Creation went through ten stages called Sephirot. These stages wee like the rungs of a spiritual ladder [Jacob’s ladder?] Via the Sephirot God descended into human life. Via the Sephirot, humans can ascend to God. The ten stages are symbolized as a tree of life whose roots are in the heavens.
The first stage of the Sephirot is Keter, which means “crown”. It symbolizes the beginning of God’s desired to create a universe and to enter into a relationship with it. Keter represents the infinite potential for creation, God’s preparation for creation.
The next stage is called Hokhmah, a Hebrew word for wisdom in the sense of a flash of insight. Hokhmah corresponds with personified Wisdom through which God created the world according to The Book of Proverbs. Hokhmah is the point containing the blueprint for the universe. When it flashes into existence, it is the first thing separate from God. Beginning with the Gospel of John, New Testament theologians identified the Wisdom of Proverbs with the Greek philosophical concept of Logos. Logos theology views the Logos as emanating from God and supplying the template for the creation of the universe. Jesus as the Christ is identified with the Logos.
The next stage is Binah, which means both womb and understanding in Hebrew in the sense of a mother’s understanding of her child. Binah is the womb in which the Hokhmah grows. Binah transforms the blueprint into the universe.
Kabbalist concepts correspond to Logos theology and to the contemporary cosmological ideas of eternal inflation, cosmic inflation and the expanding universe. Like Keter, eternal inflation is the infinite sources of all possibilities, yet without the realization of any. It is, from our point of view, pure potentiality. Within eternal inflation, a spark point mergers. The spark point is cosmic inflation, which corresponds to Hokhmah and the Logos. Like Hokhmah and the Logos, cosmic inflation contains the blueprint for the future universe, a unique and complete package of information whose implications will resonate forever. Also like Hokhmah and the Logos, cosmic inflation is the exit from eternity, the beginning of time, the instant with no instant before it. Like Binah, the expanding universe has turned the primal plan into the reality of space-time and galaxies. Off hand, I can see no foreshadowing of the expanding universe in Logos theology, but neither do I see any fundamental incompatibility with it.
Thinking about these three sytems I found these similarities. I have questions I would like to explore. How far do the similarities go? What are the differences between these conceptual systems? Why do similar systems like these arise? Does it have something to do with the structure of reality or is it a product of brain structure, language or something else?
Perhaps no one else did either Remster. You are the first to respond though many have glimpsed the OP. I was impressed by the structural similarities between the two theologies and popular contemporary cosmology. All three are trinities of a sort although not the familiar “Holy Trinity” of Christianity. Logos theology preceded Trinitarian theology. In Logos theology the third entity in the trinity is the creation not the Holy Spirit. There seems to be something about the structure of reality that results in trinities. Or stated from the opposite direction, ontology, as it seeks to move from being itself, does so first by forming a binity then a trinity. Pre-socratic philosphers, most notably, Pythagoras contemplated this in the formation of the Tetrakys. The advances in science continue to confirm these ancient intuitions.
The thought, the blueprint, and the spark – that’s a trinity that could account for all of creation, large and small. In the smaller arena, the blueprint could be seen as the seed or the DNA for a particular life.
Hinting at a mind in the first stage suggests you are on the theological side. In all three theories something exists eternally which is a mystery in itself. According to the prevailing contemporary cosmology, mind is a late development.
Felix,
Have you noticed how the Kabbalist’s’ concept of human spiritual evolution parallels the current biological theories about genetic development? I bring this up not to posit some divide or opposition, but to suggest that both takes have some validity in addressing how and what we believe.
Mind is not a late development at all. There is a leftover division between science and mysticism that might account for the notion that science has to tell us everything at the expense of the ancient mystical traditions which are then ignored or forgotten. Mechanism and logical positivism are the great culprits in separating humans from what they know to be true about themselves and the world, and one age old concept is that of Nous or Mind in the spiritual, psychic, and holistic sense.
I guess the difference is that science requires publicly verifiable evidence. If under “mysticism” we include meditation, there is a growing body of evidence about its benefits. But the metaphysical inferences of mysticism lack empirical support. I show structural parallels between metaphysical systems and science above. So you can see that I’m not closed to such ideas. On the other hand, I think it’s reasonable to ask for evidence.
How do the humans you refer to know what they know? Modern cosmology provides a plausible account for how things came to be as they are that does not include Nous or Mind. Do you think belief in Mind is better supported? If so, why?
The notions of Logos and Nous are present in ancient sacred texts, that’s how.
It’s not up to science to explain or prove the existence of God or the mystical experience. That science might do so, especially since the advent of quantum physics, is definitely a plus; but that is essentially meaningless to the mystic or meditator whose life has been such that he or she cannot deny the existence of God.
The other day I watched a filmed interview with Carl Jung that took place when he was 84. I didn’t realize that Jung could speak English and very well by the way. He is quite handsome and a real charmer. I can see why Sister Lois said he was a type seven on the Enneagram. Anyway, at some point, the interviewer asked Jung if he believed in God. Jung laughed and said that that was not a question for him because no, he did not believe, he knew that there is a God. He said, “I know, I know.” I feel the same way. When the “face of God” is shown to you in a way that cannot be ignored or denied, you just know.
The wisdom of the mystical tradition says that this kind of knowledge or gnosis is not part of everyone’s life path; and there seems to be some sort of rule, at least in the western tradition, that the journey of a mystic is very difficult. One of those difficulties is that it can involved isolation or hermetism, notwithstanding the pain, illness, and dark night stuff. But I have never known of any mystic who would not say that it was worth every moment.
Couldn’t the confluence of tryptics in various traditions be the result of evolutionary pattern recognition? While there is no “evidence” available, it seems plausible that very early in the development of complex animal life that patterns of three would follow patterns of two. First, we would see yes-no at the simple cell level. That is still seen in flight-fight responses today. But in later development we would begin to see patterns of three: yes-no-maybe. It is the maybe part that gives a tryptic power because it becomes both the fulcrum and balance point. We have black, white, and grey in the middle. It is in the grey area that we have potential. Black and white are committed, but in grey there is still choice. Patterns of three just might be a powerful influence in, not what we think, but how we have evolved to think. If this seems plausible, then mankind “discovering” patterns of three and recording our myths in patterns of three is obvious. Is this too simple? Perhaps, but nature seems to build complexity using the most simple devices possible.
The texts contain the concepts of Logos and Nous, yes. From your statements I thought perhaps you were asserting that Nous exists and I wondered why.
Maybe. But don’t you think the rest of us would do well to acknowledge evidence and logic?
OK, but why is their alleged knowledge better or as good as cosmological theory basis on science which is to ask, how do we know what they tell us is true?
Of course mind exists. Not only is Nous a concept as ancient as thought, but it is very real. It’s in the ancient writings of the Gnostics, in Plato, and more recently wonderfully rendered in the futuristic thought of Teilhard de Chardin as not only the birthright of humans but also their evolutionary ascent.
That is a good question. Let’s put it this way. If that’s all you are able to do, then you have bought the mechanist meme hook line and sinker, and humanity is doomed. Besides, what constitutes evidence and logic for the positivist is a very narrow band of illusionary reality for those mystics and psychics who have experienced the world differently.
I’m not saying that positivist science isn’t a wonderful thing, just that there is another way of experiencing the world that is supra-scientific and not bound by the limits of the five senses. This is the experience of holism, and this is the deeper and ultimate reality and one that humans used to have reverence for and it looks as though we have lost that sense of holism and sacredness to our peril.
I think you are on the right track. Something like your “yes-no-maybe” --a dialectic-- is built into our neural circuitry. Neural computation corresponds with reality hence the reliability of math. The structural core of these pre-scientific ontologies may prove to be correct.
Jung claim he knows God. But he offers no support for his claim. “I know I know” is a tautology. He is describing what intuition seems like to the one who experiences it. But how does Jung, or the rest of us know that what Jung experiences is true?
You should read Jung. Then you’ll know what he’s talking about. Since I had already read about it, I knew exactly where he was coming from; and in fact, I have had some equally amazing experiences in my own life. “I know. I know.”
