Wholeness Holons and Holiness John Duns Scotus’ concept of “the univocity of being” holds that our being is not just analogous to the being of trees, animals, and even God, but we may speak of our supposedly different beings with “one voice.” Scotus was laying the philosophical foundation for what Michael Talbot and Ken Wilber in our time are speaking of as a holographic universe, where “everything is a holon” or a part of a larger whole. We know that the part invariably contains the whole or replicates the whole, and yet each part still has a wholeness within itself. This feels like an ultimate connectivity. Mandelbrots discovery of fractals then revealed that repetitive and imitative patterns are found in all of nature, mathematics, and art. We now believe such wholeness is true physically, biologically, and spiritually, and can even be seen as a basis for any understanding of mystical union. It implies that there is an “inherent sympathy” between God and all created things. Each of us replicates the Wholeness of God and has a certain wholeness within ourselves—but we are never entirely whole apart from our connection with the larger Whole and the other parts. Holons create a very fine language for what I call the mystery of participation, for understanding how holiness transmits, and how God’s life is an utterly shared phenomenon. If you are “holy” alone, you are not holy at all. Salvation is not a divine transaction that takes place because you are morally perfect, but much more: it is an organic unfolding, a becoming who you already are, an inborn sympathy with and capacity for the very One who created you and everything else too. You can then recognize that same deep sympathy or resonance in all others—even in its rejected or denied forms (which is why you can still love and honor, for example, a drug addict or a murderer).
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 04:48:41 +0000
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