{"id":1466,"date":"2006-12-12T13:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2006-12-12T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T13:59:00","slug":"cartesian-ramblings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1466","title":{"rendered":"cartesian ramblings"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered.<\/p>\n

\u2014 C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love how Lewis explains this concept in the context of exhorting believers to trust God in the present moment for exactly what they need, rather than getting wrapped up in an anthropocentric vision of the future or being chained to the past. He argues, though, that even “living in the past,” as it were, is preferable to a fixation on the future and its uncertainties, since the past is done and thus more “eternal” than the future, in the sense of its unchangeableness. Of course he makes the concession that we should plan for the future, but only to the extent necessary to secure our obedience in the present. I would quote more but the above blurb is all I can find on the Internet and the book is at home.<\/p>\n

It sparked a train of thought about the nature of God’s being, though. I don’t know why I am so compelled by this. It’s along the lines of an earlier post<\/a> about concepts that cannot be understood except through experience. No matter how good the analogy, being grounded in human experience, composed of things restricted by three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, it is always incomplete. I will not be able to understand God’s concept of time until I am in His presence. And yet I try. Have you ever tried a wooden block puzzle fifty times in similar ways until your mind contorts itself around the problem a different way, you understand the unifying concept behind the puzzle and from then on can’t remember how you could have thought differently about it? My mind scratches and claws for that breakthrough contortion, that universal that will explain the particulars of the paradoxes. Approaching the gap of understanding from the angle of the particulars is fundamentally backward (but something the philosophers have been doing for ages).<\/p>\n

My current train of thought revolves around unifying the concept of change and physical\/spiritual duality that makes up our being. The above quote explains eternity, as God experiences it, as an eternal Present. If God is always in His own <\/span>Present, as it were, it would account for the unchanging nature of His character and Being. But God is not <\/span>static in this world–He is dynamic in His actions vis-a-vis human affairs and (in a larger sense) sustaining the universe. How can Someone Who experiences an eternal, unchanging Present have a dynamic influence on everything within our experience of time? I think part of it is allied to the nature of His existence as Spirit. God is wholly spirit; we are part spirit and part physical. We experience time physically–when I move my hand there is a past, present and future to my motion, and our spirits experience time in the “physical” sense as well–I intuitively understand this law of the universe which I inhabit. And yet… There is something “static” about our spirit. It can have no direct influence on the physical things of this world and through the years, though I accumulate experiences and memories, the essence of my spirit remains largely unchanged. There are many verses in the Bible that exhort me to “be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind” (and other similar spurs to effect dynamism in my spirit), to change it so that it accords more closely with His. God’s “physicality” is nonexistent and therefore static in that state, and His “spirituality” is His entire essence and therefore is the dynamic part of His being, since He does<\/span> act. To us, our physicality is predominantly dynamic and our spirituality is overwhelmingly static unless transformed, renewed, “made dynamic” by Himself. Maybe this will be our experience of eternity? A continual spiritual dynamism where our bodies are eternally unchanging but our spirits move and live and act in Him, just as His does? I do not know how this would be. Random unfinished thoughts…<\/p>\n

In any event, take it all with a grain of salt as it is based mainly on the writings of a man (Lewis) and not on the Bible. Still… It’s a recurring theme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered. \u2014 C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters I love how Lewis explains this concept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}