Differences

I like to ask questions.  I am particularly fond of thought-provoking questions.  So it gets me into trouble sometimes.  Case in point.  Some years ago I started attending a church and went to the Bible study group that was offered on Sunday morning before the service.  I cannot remember the exact text we were studying but it was from St. Paul and it was about Christ being in us.  There are many to choose from.  It is important to remember here that I was NEW to this church.  So my question was: "How is this different from what people say about God being in all of us?"  From the impassioned reaction that followed I realized three things.  First, that it was assumed I was espousing the view that God is in all of us; second that my view and I were desperately wicked; and third that no one actually knew how it was different.  One and two amused me.  Three disturbed me.

Despite being assumed a pagan in their midst, I still think it a good question to ask.  How IS it different when Christians say God, or Christ or the Holy Spirit is in us from when others say that God is within us or that all has the spark of the divine?  Because it is very different.

The articulation that all has the spark of the divine is perhaps best understood as a pantheist notion.  Pantheists are those who would state that all is divine or that all is God.  And a lovely idea it is.  Makes be feel very happy about everything.

The problem is that it is ludicrous and does not deal with the facts.  Look around.  Not everything is divine.  The current violence in Syria falls short, for example.  I find it hard to think of the physical and sexual abuse of children as issuing from that divine "spark."  Even my own petty and cherished resentments are clearly sub-divine.  I'm just saying.

The Christian perspective articulated perhaps best by St. Paul in his epistles talks about the Spirit being within us (very good news) but at war with something else within us, the sinful nature, or as he calls it, the flesh.

"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."  Romans 8:5-6

And here is the difference:  The pantheist is saying that everything is God.  That means that I am god, as is the tree I see out my window.  The Christian saying quite the opposite.  The Christian is saying the God is totally Other than us or the creation.  The pantheist perspective, taken to its logical extreme might induce me to build a little shrine to myself in the front yard for folks to come and worship.  I expect a small bronze statue of me would draw mobs of people to worship...

In saying everything is God we cheapen and devalue Him.  The universe is not one big divine soup.  He is Other than us.  Holy, exalted, in light inaccessible.  And yet He that is Other has chosen to come and live in us, lifting us from our sinful and patently sub-divine nature, and making us new men and women.

The "divine spark" theory just tries to make me feel good about myself and my world.  The God of Jesus Christ, in his descent into me makes me new.  That is difference that makes a difference.