Where is God?: A Theology for the Here and Now, Volume One. Andy Ross

of God within creation.

      We are bound by concepts, and concepts are bound by experience. For this reason, the un-manifest God is often approached by juxtaposing positive and negative imagery (i.e., if manifest reality is form, un-manifest reality is formless or without form). By describing a phenomenon with which we are familiar, we are better able to comprehend its opposite.

      Silence and Sound

      Silence is not something that we can hear, nor is it a phenomenon that we can describe without utilizing its opposite. Silence is the absence of sound, the quiet from which sound arises and to which it returns.

      Our experience of silence is similar to our experience of the un-manifest God. We experience creation as the rising and falling of temporal forms. Each of these forms (from molecules to humans to the universe itself) is an expression of God’s eternal being. Beneath the movement of life, however, there is a silence. We experience this silence within creation, but somehow it is beyond it. Sound rises out of silence just as creation rises out of God’s un-manifest reality. And, both inevitably return.

      Silence is always present within and beyond sound. So, too, the un-manifest God is eternally present within and beyond creation. The dot in the spiral image of time is present whether the spiral exists or not. The dot simply is, just as God simply is.

      But, why is there a spiral at all? What compels God to create? In the beginning (the eternal here and now) God empties itself into creation to fulfill a single desire: to know itself.

      God’s Desire

      Being and consciousness (Sanskrit: sat chit) are two dimensions of God’s un-manifest transcendence. The transcendent God is being without form and consciousness without forms to be conscious of. God cannot know itself in its eternality. Being and consciousness are a unified reality (being is conscious), beyond the capacity to be known.

      Knowing requires duality. For there to be knowing, there must be a knower and a known, a subject and an object. In order for God to know itself, God must become the object of God’s curiosity. Thus, God’s single desire to know itself causes the unified ground of being to contract and divide (Hebrew: tzimtzum). As God turns within, God witnesses God, and the vast potentiality of being stretches forth as creation.

      Manifest

      Being itself is a boundless reality. In order for being to be known, it must be expressed as form. When God divides itself, God’s eternal being is emptied into creation as a vibration that animates life. The manifest rises out of the un-manifest, like sound rising out of silence.

      In the Hindu traditions, the sound of God creating is referred to as the sacred aum. As being becomes, its vibration expands outward, breaking the plane of manifest reality as form. Life moves as God’s being moves within it. God is the eternal silence from which life expands (un-manifest transcendence), and God is the sound which animates it (manifest immanence). We are in God and God is in us.

      All manifestations of God’s being are expressed as form. And, forms expand as the vibration of God’s being animates them. God as consciousness (knower) witnesses being’s innumerable manifestations (known) from the eternal here and now. Life expands and contracts (the spiral) around God’s awareness of it (the dot).

      Using time as a tool of measurement however, we calculate that the universe has been expanding for 14 billion years. The mechanism for this expansion is two-fold: 1) God’s eternal being emptied into creation, pushing it to expand and 2) the chain of causality: forms acting and reacting, resulting in a complexification of life moving outward toward self-actualization.

      Life Expanding

      A form expands as it is animated by God’s being like a balloon being filled with air. The balloon (form) expands as the air (God’s being/ruah) fills it. And, just as a balloon takes shape as it is filled, so too, a form becomes actualized as God’s being animates it.

      We witness this phenomenon in the rise and fall of life. From the tiniest molecule to the universe itself, all forms grow or expand as they are animated by God. The orientation and complexity of each form are determined by the potentialities already present. The initial forms created by God’s self-emptying are direct expressions of the vibration of being becoming (aum). New potentialities are created by the interaction of forms, resulting in an increasing complexification of life.

      Complexification

      As forms expand, they do so towards a potential determined by internal and external factors. An oak tree will reach a certain height based upon the interaction of cells within it (internal factor), as well as its interaction with the environment (external factor).

      Simultaneously, forms within and beyond the oak tree are expanding towards their potential (cells, other trees, earth, etc.). The oak tree exists within a hierarchy of expanding and contracting forms, comprising the interactive web of existence. As forms interact with one another, they do so in an environment fashioned by the interaction of previous forms. Thus, each form will have a greater potentiality than the previous, resulting in a greater potentiality for the hierarchy (i.e., an increasing complexification).

      Self-Actualization

      As the web of existence moves outward towards self-actualization, so do the forms within it. Self-actualization is the full expression of a form’s potential as it is animated by God. Just as each expression of God takes on a specific form, each form has a unique character (or self). A form reaches self-actualization when God’s being has been fully expressed through the various nuances of its character. Each form represents God’s only opportunity to know itself as that form.

      As a form expands, its self is more fully realized, allowing God the greatest opportunity for expression. God’s desire to know itself is actualized through the creative process.

      As we become, so does God.

      God Knowing God