Monday, June 01, 2015

Spirit or Flesh: How About Both?

Christianity, perhaps from its roots in the Hellenistic dualism of Plato and others, has often claimed the life of the spirit over the life of the flesh. The result of such a division has sometimes been the absolute denigration of anything that is historical, practical or reasonable. As a result, things that are spiritual must be other-worldly, ahistorical, beyond the bounds of human existence. Nothing good, holy or acceptable to God can come of corporeal existence. So we place Heaven/Hell outside of human history. We place God in a heavenly realm, where spirit dwells.

The problem with this picture is, of course, that, in Pentecost, Spirit dwells in humanity. It is not separated from human existence or corporeal nature. Spirit is experienced within human history, as a product of words and acts that reflect the virtues that are taught in the archetype of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection, as well as reflected as "heavenly virtues" in Hellenistic culture.

If the Spirit is granted us in Pentecost, then it is necessarily part and parcel of the human historical experience. It is a mistake to place the realm of the Spirit beyond human history or outside of corporeal existence. Instead, we must work at establishing human history and corporeal existence as an experience of the Spirit.

In Hellenism, this practice establishes the reason for which humans exist. The realm of the Spirit, in the Heavens, mingles with the realm of the flesh in everything that lives. God breathes God's Spirit into otherwise unanimated matter. The Spirit is the very life that lives and moves and has its being. That Spirit belongs to the Divine and is not considered to be the possession or property of the flesh in which it dwells. All life is an admixture of spirit and flesh, of energy and matter. In modern physics, one might say that all life is derived from the motion of some form of wave, particle or string that brings and comprises life itself. It may or may not be corporeal in nature, but its effects and presence is both measurable and noticeable. While life exists, then, it is of both Divine and corporeal nature. The task of those who are aware of their natural and essential identity is to bring the spiritual virtues to bear within corporeal and historical nature.

There is no division here between Spirit and flesh. In fact, Spirit is granted everything that lives in order to construct all corporeal life as an experience of the Spirit. These are the "heavenly virtues" that humans experience as "good" or of Divine origin. It turns out that the same dynamic exists in the archetype that is established in Christ's Crucifixion/Resurrection. Sacrifice for the sake of others is the highest heavenly virtue, core to the world's religions and common to every decent human practice.

When we remove the Spirit from human potentiality, we render God's realm as external to human existence. This is contrary to the theology of Pentecost, where humanity is empowered to establish God's realm on Earth. Human beings, so empowered and enabled, can establish God's will. It is time that we marry the two - Spirit and flesh - instead of divide them. Human existence is not an either/or proposition but a both/and. Pentecost says that we are able, if willing, to live according to God's will on Earth. Maybe something like "Spirit in Flesh" or "Flesh by Spirit" better articulate the Pentecost season than "Spirit or Flesh."

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