1. Introduction:

As we open the Bible it reads that there was void in the beginning –

The earth was barren,

With no form of life;…

Covered with darkness

and the spirit was hovering over it (Gen 1:2). In the beginning of creation there was only matter (mass). It is the spirit that gave matter form and filled each one with energy. In the creation story human kind is formed of matter (‘clay’ in the words of the Genesis) and the breath of life is imparted to the human beings. Matter becomes alive with the life-breath which is the spirit of God. Prophet Ezekiel is carried to a valley full of bones that were dried up. The following is the conversation between Yahweh and Ezekiel:

Yahweh: Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life?

Ezekiel: Lord God, only you can answer that.

Yahweh: I, the Lord God, will put breath in you (bones), and once again you will live. I will wrap you with muscles and skin and breathe life into you.

Then suddenly that is a rattling noise. The bones are coming together! Muscles and skin cover the bones, but no life in them.

Then Yahweh makes Ezekiel say: The Lord God commands you to blow from every direction and to breathe life into these dead bodies, so they can live again.

Now the wind blows among the bodies and they come back to life (Ez 37:2-10). Dry bones become alive. It is the breath of God that gives life-giving energy to them.

As we could see that matter contains energy and it is the spirit that is at work in this matter giving life. The same matter when taken to higher level, as in the case of human beings, God’s life-giving breath is given to him/her. So the spirit is playing a vital role of giving the dynamic force in the on-going creation and evolution of the world.

Life can be considered on two levels: i) life in space and time which has a beginning and an end (temporal); and ii) life beyond this space and time that has no end (eternal). The temporal life needs energy for its existence whereas the eternal life needs soul. The bridging factor between the temporal life and eternal life is the ‘spirit’ which takes life through various stages. The source of this energy becomes more and more complex depending on the origin of matter.

2. Origin of matter:

Scientifically seen the building block of matter is ‘atom’. Atoms consist of an inner nucleus containing positively charged protons and electrically neutral particles called neutrons and an outer sphere (mostly empty) containing negatively charged electrons revolving around the nucleus. Atoms are bonded to form molecules. As we go up the hierarchy of building up matter, we get inorganic as well as organic materials (organic materials having predominantly carbon atoms). From organic materials begin one-cell bacteria and then other forms of life starting from plant, animals and finally human beings evolve depending on the complexity of nature of matter. The matter in each of its basic elements would be one of the 105 elements (found on the ‘periodic table’) so far discovered – Some of them are stable such as carbon and some of them are not stable such as radio-active materials and heavier elements. As atom is the smallest independent entity in the realm of matter, the smallest independent entity in living organism is a ‘cell’. A ‘cell’ consists of negatively charged centre surrounded by a positively charged cover (called protoplasm). But what is common for both atom and cell is that both contain mass (matter) and hence both possess energy.

(Starting from atoms and cells life originated about 3.8 billion years ago and today there are about quarter of a million plant-species and about half a million animal-species. Coming to human life, homo erectus came into existence about 1.5 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared about 500,000 years ago; and humans came into existence about 100,000 years ago. We are the new comers on this universe!)

3. Matter and Energy:

The correlation between matter and energy has been formally proposed by Einstein who indicated that matter and energy are equivalent. This is represented in the form of a mathematical equation as (Energy = mass of a given object x square of velocity of light),

E = mc²

where ‘E’ represents energy contained in a matter, ‘m’ is the mass (amount of matter) of the material and ‘c’ is the velocity of light (Light travels three million kilometers in a second). Here we can see that on the one side of the equation there is energy and on the other side is matter. Matter, we often assume, does not have life, eg. a stone. But we can easily relate energy to life. Anything that can move, breathe or grow is considered to have life.

3.1. Equivalence of Matter and Energy:

Matter and energy are convertible and they are equivalent. We can find many examples, simple to sophisticated. When a fire-wood burns we feel the heat (energy) radiating from it as it is reduced to charcoal and then to ashes. The more the mass of the wood, the more would be the heat. The sophisticated example is the recent nuclear bombs tested by India (or Pakistan). As the mass of a certain amount of atom is allowed to chain-react, energy is released. Once the atomic or nuclear reaction has been triggered it is uncontrolled – This is the case with atomic or nuclear bombs. But there is also controlled reaction – This is what happens in atomic energy centres (for example, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam and Baba Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai) which use atomic-controlled-reaction to produce electricity. Here the heat generated due to atomic reaction is used to super-heat steam and then electricity is produced. Now can available energy be converted into matter? As an example, we can think of the recent proof by scientists that neutrino, which has energy due to its motion, has mass as well.  Thus matter and energy are equivalent and convertible.

3.2. Potential and kinetic Energies:

The energy is again divided into two types, viz. potential and kinetic energies. Potential energy depends on the height or altitude of the material. The higher in altitude the material is placed, greater is its energy (Its potential to do work). Imagine a stone that weighs one kilogram is kept at the height of 2 feet and it falls on our feet – We might tolerate the pain and the damage it causes to our toes. But if the same stone is kept at a height of 20 feet and if falls on our feet, the pain and damage caused by the same stone is definitely greater. Now where does the difference in energy come from? (In physics we say that as you initially raise the stone to the height of 20 feet you do work and that work done is stored in the stone as potential energy).

When an object is moving it has kinetic energy. The kinetic energy depends on the speed with which the object moves.  Consider a small stone of say 50 gram. If someone were to throw the stone at us very slowly, we might withstand the impact of the stone. But if the same stone were to come and hit us at a high speed, say thrown from a caterpillar, its impact could be fatal. Now where would the enormous amount of energy come from? Water in a lake seems to be harmless but if the dam were to break and if the water rushes out, it could cause heavy damage! The same water when it falls down from a height, as in the case of water-falls, it possess much energy (for example, electricity could produced by its force). The energy comes from the mass and its velocity with which an object is moving and hence called kinetic energy. So even the object that has no apparent life has energy and is capable of doing work.

3.3. Dynamic Force:

The change in energy (either due to the height or due to the speed) is felt due to the force with which the object is moving. There are four types of forces in the universe which are broadly categorized as weak forces and strong forces: The strong forces are found within the atom, viz. one is the interaction of electron with the nucleus and the other is interaction of particles within the nucleus. The nucleus contains a contradiction: Normally like charges repel (and opposite charges attract). But within the nucleus positive charges (protons) are within a space of less than one billionth of a meter but they do not seem to repel each other and they cannot be easily separated. Under weak forces we have two types, viz. electromagnetic force and gravitational force. Light is an electromagnetic force – So are the radio, TV and other communication waves. We know the effect of gravitational force (ie. any falling object is attracted towards the earth however light they are) which is the weakest of four forces.  Today scientists are trying to find out the one force which is central for all these four forces, since it is the once force that created the universe in the beginning of time. So far science has not found an answer, perhaps theology might.

The concept of matter and energy can be summarized in the words of  Peacocke:

In the early classical Newtonian world of physics energy was at first a concept whose formulation was closely interlocked with what were regarded as the basic categories of space, time and mass, this latter being linked with classical concepts of matter itself. The kinetic energy of a body in motion was proportional to the square of its velocity (change of position in space per unit time) multiplied by its mass, which was supposed to be calculable by summing a property of each of the body’s components. But other forms of energy had early to be recognized, such as that possessed by a body in virtue of its location in a gravitational field with the concomitant recognition that the energy of a system could be increased by ‘work’ (force x distance) being done upon it. Gradually, and especially during the nineteenth century, other forms of energy came to be recognized as interchangeable with these mechanical, kinetic and gravitational forms, namely, electrical, chemical and magnetic forms of energy storage. With Einstein’s equating of energy with mass it came also to be recognized that the mass of a body was actually dependent on the binding energies of its components and therefore not a simple sum of quantities characteristic of each component taken separately (Theology for a Scientific Age, p.34).

(This interchangeability of matter and energy brought in the Relativity Theory. Where matter or energy is not absolute, neither is space. As mater and energy are related, according to the Relativity Theory, space and time are related.)

There is one more force which binds, in the case of human beings, ie., body and soul. The elements such as oxygen, water, nitrogen, hydrogen, calcium, potassium, etc are matter having no apparent ‘life’. But the same elements are found in my body and they form my body but I say my body is ‘alive’ – It has energy and everlasting life! Are calcium, potassium, copper, magnesium, iron, etc that are found in my body are different from the elements found outside? Or do these elements exist in my body independent of my life? The matter in my body possesses energy and the highest form of energy, viz. life, is eternal.

Matter, therefore, seems to have built in energy, ie. life. And it is the spirit that has been hovering over the world in the beginning is the force that makes matter alive. Thus the built-in energy of matter becomes, in the realm of spirit, life. The seed of a banyan tree is very small – You can keep it for years and years in dry conditions and nothing happens. But the moment there is moisture, the seed germinates and under favourable conditions it begins to grow and an enormous tree ‘explodes’ from it bearing life and growing ever bigger for years and years. Does not this matter (seed) contain life within?

4. Matter and Faith (spirit):

As matter, which seemingly consists of mass, grows in complexity from inanimate to animate, life surfaces carrying with it the associated energy. As the life becomes more and more complex, the awareness of ‘life’ grows reaching its culmination in human consciousness that has life filled with energy. It is this consciousness that brings matter (human being) to a higher plane, viz. level of the spirit. And it is here that the temporal life gets transformed into eternal life. So it is the spirit (in a religious sense) or the consciousness (in a secular sense) that makes matter aware of its potential and kinetic energy and that further makes one conscious of spiritual force which makes life eternal. Thus the spirit is the sanctifying force that is hovering over the matter (mass) even today.  We can look at the same in many other fronts or view-points.

According to Einstein, the scientific enterprise requires faith because

‘mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make  clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seem(ed to Einstein) precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man’ (Science, Theology and Einstein, p.123).

As I. Paul puts it: Scientific research stretches from the nature of the sub-nuclear particle to the structure of the universe, while systematic theology reaches from the jot and tittle of Scripture to the Alpha and the Omega of the creation. In neither case are the problems arbitrary. Always, they arise within a living context and, therefore, they exhibit a dynamic continuity (Science and Theology in Einstein’s Perspective, p.3). The continuity is sought not only within scientific or theological realm but one from the other. In our context we seek the continuity from matter and energy to life in the Spirit. For, according to Einstein (as quoted by A. Van den Beukel), science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary (The Physicists and God, p.91).

5. Scientific Knowledge and spiritual Understanding:

The perspectives of knowledge regarding existence of matter through science and of understanding of living being through faith might apparently differ but scientific knowledge should lead one to the understanding in faith. According to Murray:

In science what can be said to be true and, therefore, what can be known is limited to facts which are empirically observable, to statements of laws which can be used to predict events, and to theories which can explain coherently a large number of facts and laws. No revelation or insight will be accepted as true or as knowledge unless it satisfies all the conditions of verifiability established within the scientific process. Thus for science, there can be no knowledge except scientific knowledge….Physics is the most fundamental of the sciences because the objects of study are the basic components of matter and energy and the laws which govern the relationship between them. Since everything which can be investigated is made up of matter and energy of some kind, the truths of physics are considered to be the most general and the most universally applicable. Yet some of the objects which are formed of matter and which have energy are also alive. The science which studies these objects is biology. The basic unit of living entities is the cell, although cells are made up of matter and energy. Some things have the property of life, others do not….Just as living beings often are regarded as if they are the same as non-living systems but with different properties, those higher level beings which have an animal nature or those who have a reasoning mind are often considered to be merely physical systems possessing certain properties which arise from the increasingly complex organization of that matter and energy….From another perspective, which also regards the emergence of life as completely unaccountable and anomalous yet understands that those things which are alive or which are dead, having been alive, comprise another kind of substance than matter which is not and has never been alive… (In: Science and Spirit, pp.256-258).

This can be understood within the realm of faith, ie. it needs spiritual understanding, since scientific knowledge is objective which is fundamental to understand the existence and being of life. Only in the realm of faith can one understand and accept that matter can become alive and only in the realm of faith can one accept that it is the spirit that makes matter alive. To recognize in matter not only the equivalent energy but also its potential to live under specific conditions one needs a mind which is sensitive and conscious to the spirit that brings out living force from mere energetic matter.

John’s Gospel opens with the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made. In Him was life” (Jn 1:1-5). When we compare these words with the opening verses of the Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth” (Gen 1:1), we can understand that creation has evolved in and through the Word who is life. First matter was created, which derived life from its equivalent energy, and temporal life evolved. The hierarchy of life depends on the conscious level of the matter/life. As human beings, the zenith of creation and the steward of the Creator, become more and more conscious of this inner (spiritual) life, they come closer to God in and through the Spirit thus obtaining the eternal life in the form of soul. The process consists in becoming ‘conscious’ of one’s potential life (temporal as well as eternal). Thus ‘the Creator of the universe gave to the creation a distinctive, ordered and harmonious existence which continues through its unique dependence on’ God in and through the Word which is the Spirit of God. ‘This means that the universe is not self-explanatory, but is dependent on the creative action of’ God (Science and Theology in Einstein’s Perspective, pp.8-9).

6. Voices of Matter and Energy:

We could already hear, in the realm of inner reflection, ‘life’ groaning in the ‘matter’ for its ultimate release and outward expression. We could as well feel, in the realm of faith, the tension in the matter from ‘being’ to ‘becoming’. This is the voice of matter and energy.

6.1. Voice of Mass:

As mass and energy are equivalent, they are operationally the same. It means that mass and energy are, according to Getz,

“composed of two poles or principles as intimately inter linked as all poles or principles of a dualism, poles or principles which have no power of independent existence, yet do have a measure of distinctness sufficient to render possible conflict and trigger process. Energy and mass will then be two tensional poles of an essentially dualistic reality, not two “things’ battling each other…In the existing space-time continuum, mass is the one pole, carrier and embodiment of identity, on which energy constantly plays to hold apart, to rip apart, to cause to interact. In the existing space-time continuum energy is the other pole, cause and carrier process on which mass constantly exerts that drag which makes interaction-processes possible by causing to exist individuals which or who can interact” (The Voice of Matter, p.143 & 147).

From the first creation onwards the created material reality brings along a trace of the being of God. In this sense mass can be termed as ‘a-temporal’. There is no time-limit for mass-energy conversion to become inoperative. Mass/matter persists in time (It may be converted from one form to another but the basic entities or constituents of matter remain the same). Hence mass is a being. Since mass persists in time and mass is totally independent of time, it can be even called supra-temporal. Mass, as source of quantizing energy, ensures stability. Even “in the turmoil of a tumultuous sea of change represented by energy-processes and energy-transfer via motion, there are islands of stability” (The Voice of Matter, p.165) which is ensured my mass. Thus mass is the fulcrum of transcendence, since “mass is at every level the power that ensures that there shall be the contradistinguished configuration that are the indispensable basis of all interaction (The Voice of Matter, p.172).

6.2. Voice of Energy:

Mass and energy are always inter-related. Neither mass nor energy can be isolated from the other since in the material reality there is no such independence. The basic form of energy is ‘heat’ which is very much essential for the origin and growth of life. Any energy related to motion (called kinetic energy) can be reduced to heat. And there are other forms of energy such as nuclear energy, electromagnetic energy and gravitational energy.  Just as no particle is entirely radically and ontologically massless, no physical reality is ‘pure’ energy. Energy tries to build up more and more complex and tightly-knit organisms. But at the same time in the process of organism-building, energy gradually seems to squander and dissipate itself. But in reality energy takes the form of life for survival and growth. Thus, according to Getz, “energy is a flow and as such utterly dependent on the irreversible pole of before and after. It is only radical identity to which past and future are indifferent since it lives in a perpetual now… (Hence) energy not only does work; it makes events happen. It gives history to what would otherwise be a static self-identity” (The Voice of Matter, pp.105-138).  Though, as it were, energy flows from mass, it has the potential of becoming a living being (however tiny and insignificant it might be) and thus paves the way for the appearance of life on the universe. And from the lower forms of life, the higher level beings evolve and thus energy is the nucleus of life.

A combination of mass and energy makes one’s existence possible. But one’s existence itself is a religious question and it is a realm of the spirit. It is this spirit, call it ‘life’ or call it ‘soul’ (on higher levels), that makes one’s existence meaningful and fruitful by infusing into the higher beings varying levels of consciousness. It is this spirit that makes the mass (for human beings) into the ‘image and likeness’ of God and gives the energetic soul that flows back towards the prime matter, viz. God.

It is not the empirical investigation that proves that matter is from God and ultimately would reach back God. It is, according to Einstein, a ‘firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feelings, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience’ (Science, Theology and Einstein, p.56) that reveals God in matter. Thus knowledge of God is communicated by nature, through experience, self-awareness and consciousness. By discovering the rational structure, ever increasing in complexity in higher form of life, one discovers God’s spirit at work in matter. At that moment ‘religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection’ (Science, Theology and Einstein, p.57). From the voice of matter and energy we recognize the whisper of the spirit, the finger of God, in created beings.

7. Conscious level leading to encountering the Spirit:

Matter is ‘being’ and it is meant to ‘become’ something or somebody. It is the spirit that brings out energy from matter, brings out life from energy, brings out consciousness from life, brings out ‘godness’ (Godness) from the fullness of life. And when the fullness of time-space occurs here on earth the spirit brings life to its fullness in God. So matter that evolved from God reaches back to God. And in all the stages of formation and transformation the spirit is at work giving matter awareness leading to consciousness.

Human beings are the crown of created beings. The relation of a human being to the reality is such that each one can be called a ‘microcosm’ containing within oneself the model or epitome of the ‘macrocosm’, viz. the universe. But in the case of human being much more than matter-energy relation, there is the consideration of human being as body-mind entity. According to Peacocke human beings are the focus of four ‘levels’ of reality:

1. i) the physical world, whose domain can be construed, from one aspect, as that of all phenomena since everything is constituted of matter-energy in space-time, the focus of the physical sciences;
2. ii) living organisms, the focus of the biological sciences;

iii) the behaviour of living organisms, the focus of the behavioural sciences; and

1. iv) human culture (Theology for the Scientific Age, p.214f).

This human physical basis has much more to it than it affinity to mere matter in creation:

From time immemorial human beings have known that they are made up of the same stuff as the rest of the world – ‘dust you are, and unto dust shall you return’ (Gen 3:19). Today we would say that human bodies, like that of all other living organisms, are constituted of the same atoms as the rest of the inorganic and organic world and that, to varying extents, these atoms also exist throughout the universe. One of the new perceptions that has arisen in the twentieth century is that the realization that some of the heavy atoms that form part of our bodies originated in the nuclear furnaces of supernovae explosions thousands of millions of years ago. For example, the very iron atoms that enable the haemoglobin in our body to carry oxygen to activate our brains (say, to enable us to write and read these words) came into existence long before the Earth was formed and biological evolution began, and so before humanity appeared. Such is our affinity with the actual physical fabric of the universe (Theology for the Scientific Age, p.218f).

But at the same time the consideration that human beings are made up of mere matter-energy entity ‘prevents any over-ready dichotomization of human beings into, on the one hand, a body and, on the other, mind/spirit/soul. It reinforces what biblical scholarship has long affirmed, namely, that in St Paul’s epistles, for example, there must be no naïve identification of, for example, sarx (traditionally translated ‘flesh’) with the former and of pneuma (‘spirit’) with the latter” (Theology for the Scientific Age, p.247). “Furthermore, in exercising their freedom, human beings are always ‘beings-on-the-way’.  Thus philosophical and theological anthropologies are concerned with the ‘the realization of human nature as an emerging reality’. And actually it is the inner spirit that shapes the character of that emerging reality” (Theology for the Scientific Age, p.251) and cries along with St Augustine, who after years of travail and even despair, addressed his Maker:’You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless till it rests in you’. Thus we are encampassed with circumambient Reality called God or Spirit of God. Though we are created from the dust of the earth, we are elevated to the spirit of God through our mind and soul which is ‘formed’ in the image and likeness of God.

8. Convergent Spirit:

Human beings, though originated from matter, has emerged, in and through the spirit, into the light of consciousness. And after Christ’s salvific intrusion into human history, mankind has been lifted off from the plane of individual consciousness to that of universal consciousness. And the spirit is now at work to elevate mankind from this plane of universal consciousness to the ultimate goal of reunion with the Lord of Creation, the Omega point.

8.1 Towards the Omega Point:

As Zaehner describes the action of the spirit, as the ‘Lord and Giver of life’, from the time when the universe was shapeless and empty:

The Spirit of God broods upon the shadowy material (in the beginning of time), kneading it and moulding it until, moved by an obscure instinct to unite with what is other than itself, it forms a living cell – and life is born. Thence, through millions and millions of years, it gropes obscurely toward consciousness, until consciousness itself breaks forth… (Thus) there is something in matter which, against all probability, has produced not only life and thought, but also an awareness of beauty and a conscience which can distinguish right from wrong….Hence we must assume the presence of Spirit, of an “inward” type of energy that works pari passu with the “outward” – One Spirit that manifests itself both in natural law and in moral law. As natural law it operates from the beginning, as moral law it makes itself felt only with the dawning of consciousness (in human being)… So the Holy Spirit from the beginning quicken and guide the whole material universe toward forms, ever more complex and ever more conscious, until the stage of homo sapiens was reached…and perhaps beyond to what Teilhard de Chardin calls the “hyper-consciousness” of the whole human phylum, and remain outside it as the bond of unity that welds together the Godhead itself  (Matter and Spirit, pp.183-194).

The Spirit is at work always taking the universe to the Prime Matter, ie. God. Even after the disintegration in Adam took place, the integration in the new Adam (Jesus Christ) takes place and the Spirit is now leading the mankind on its course of action. The effect of the Spirit is put in the words of Zaehner:

Evolution itself is driving mankind into convergence in unanimity and thereby to an immortal life that joins not only individual souls to God, but also welds together all the millions of human souls that form the one body of Christ in union and communion with each other. We are then justified in viewing present disharmonies and present hatreds as the last, and therefore the most virulent, manifestations of that spirit of separation which Christians call sin… (Matter and Spirit, p.205).

But it is the Spirit of God that is at work as the unifying force that dynamically brings all to fruition ever since the creation began. But this is accomplished in and through Christ who is the ultimate point for all conscious matter-turned-life to reach, the threshold to Omega point and for each individual this happens in the Christ-Consciousness. Jesus Christ is the paradigm of God. In Jesus Christ, as Irenaeus would put it, God became what we are so that we might become what He is through Jesus Christ (resurrected and ascended). Jesus Christ is the threshold of Omega Point in whom the entire creation converges through the work of the Spirit in matter. In Jesus Christ we are not mere ‘human beings’ but ‘human becomings’ once again into the image and likeness of God.

8.2 God as continuous and immanent yet transcendent Creator:

In Jesus Christ, God is as continuous and immanent Creator. In the words of Peacoke:

The human person of Jesus is then to be seen, by virtue of his human response and openness to God, as the locus, the ikon, in and through whom there is made open and explicit the nature and character of the God who has never ceased to be present continuously creating and bringing God’s purposes to fruition in the order of energy-matter-space-time…So, in this sense, the ‘incarnation’ which occurred in Jesus the Christ may then properly be said to be the consummation of the creative and creating evolutionary process…and the significance and potentiality of all levels of creation may be said to have been unfolded in Jesus the Christ…Hence Jesus the Christ occupies in ‘spiritual’ history (that is, the history of the relationship of humanity with God) the place that a mutation does in biological evolution (God and Science, pp.81-88).

Yet God is transcendent towards whom, the Omega point, human beings move in and through Jesus Christ, the threshold of the Omega point, guided by the Spirit.

9. Abba-Consciousness: Ultimate Reality and transformation of Matter

Incarnation of Christ, as Zaehner would put it, is the “unique marriage of heaven and earth, of spirit and matter” which “is surely no more than the crystallization in time of a process eternally present in the space-time continuum”. If God is ‘Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:8), the first and the last’, then Christ is “the mid-point between the infinitely great and the infinitely small… the mid-point between (gigantic) spiral nebula and (tiny) electron (in an atom)” who took the form of a human being. Through Christ God enters the microcosm (Matter and Spirit, p.188-192).

As matter expends energy and transforms into life and as life takes the higher form as human being, consciousness emerges. This human consciousness is of individuality and freedom. The model or highest form of consciousness is that of Jesus. Jesus’ consciousness pointed to divine immediacy based on his prophetic experience. This becomes very manifest in Jesus’ “Abba” consciousness wherein God becomes personalized.  This divine immediacy of “Abba” consciousness resulted in a present experience of the Kingdom – a Kingdom here and now and within oneself! The same consciousness, due to the belief in Jesus, becomes a resurrectional consciousness for the followers of Jesus (Christ and Consciousness, pp 48-64). What emerged in this consciousness, according to Richardson, was the following:

There was a higher kind of life above and beyond the life of nature and history. There was a Life that was not subject to mutability and death and decay, a Life whose structure and order pervaded every biological and historical entity and caused them to be alive (Christ and Consciousness, p.66).

So human consciousness emerges from historical experiences. As Merton indicates, the person then “apprehends his life fully and wholly from an inner ground that is at once more universal than the empirical ego and yet entirely his own” (Christ and Consciousness, p.149). Further in the words of Merton:

The man who has attained final integration is no longer limited by the culture in which he has grown up….He accepts not only his own community, his own society, his own friends, his own culture, but all mankind. He does not remain bound to one limited set of values in such a way that he opposes them aggressively or defensively to others. He is fully “Catholic” in the best sense of the word. He has a unified vision and experience of the one truth shining out in all its various manifestations, some clearer than others, some more definite and more certain than others. He does not set these partial views up in opposition to each other, but unifies them in a dialectic or an insight of complementarity…With this view of life he is able to bring perspective, liberty and spontaneity into the lives of others (Christ and Consciousness, p.147).

And finally the human being transforms oneself and converges into the Christ-Consciousness, further leading in and through the Spirit of Jesus to Abba-Consciousness. Even people of different faith and culture emerge into Christ-Consciousness, as Panikkar graphically expresses it: As we “eat thousands of different things, each of different composition…all will eventually be converted into (our) own proteins”. This is also applicable to Christians of all demominations and also to non-Christians, for Teilhard’s Pauline ‘cosmic Christ’, Rahner’s ‘anonymous Christ’, Panikkar’s ‘unknown Christ of Hinduism’, etc are the manifestations of our new transcultural understanding of  Christ-values and Christ-Consciousness (Christ and Consciousness, p.154). Thus the Christ-Consciousness which is ‘Abba-Consciousness’, viz. the immediacy and immanence of God, is the ultimate reality in this universe to which the Spirit finally leads the matter.

10. Conclusion: Fruition of Creation in Spirit

Thus the Spirit which was hovering over the emptiness in the beginning of time, entered the matter and through its equivalent energy, brought out life from the mass of the matter. Once life came in, based on experience, the Spirit brought in consciousness, leading to the final form of Christ’s Abba-Consciousness. Thus the same Spirit is still hovering over the universe sanctifying and converging everything, even the opposing principles, to fruition in and through Christ to the ultimate reality, the Omega point. Thus in the process of matter becoming human beings, humans becoming Christ-Conscious and finally converging in God, it is the Spirit that plays the vital role. It is the same Spirit that makes each one of us call God ‘Abba, Father’ and thereby uniting all of mankind as one family.

The words of Zaehner summarizes the process of matter being sanctified by the Spirit:

From the beginning matter was animated by the Holy Spirit, and through the secret power of that Spirit moving matter burst into life, and from life into consciousness: and man was born. Through the misuse of his consciousness the universal trend initiated by the Spirit which is toward ever closer cohesion, was reversed and inhibited, so that a second irruption of the divine into matter became necessary. So the Son and the Word, the rational principle of the universe, took on the form of matter in its most complex and highly organized state, the form of thinking and self-conscious man; and he thereby inaugurated the second phase of purely human evolution, the irreversible trend toward unity, the molding of a humanity which was to become “one in thought, word, and deed”, because it would be, though many, yet on in the body of the Church whose head is Christ… And the Spirit, working through the same evolutionary process that brought matter to life, and life to consciousness, kneads this human matter together into ever closer harmony and cohesion, directing the total body of Christ toward its final point, its Omega, which is God the Father who, transcending time and space and all change, awaits the redeemed ALL at the end of time” (Matter and Spirit, pp.199-202).

In the year of the Holy Spirit, it is right and just to reflect on the on-going evolutionary work of the Spirit to bring the entire universe, each atom as well as gigantic nebulae, to fruition in and through the mid-point of the space and time, viz. Christ, when the fullness of time dawns. That is the time when matter once again finds and converges into the Omega point, God.

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Francis P. Xavier, SJ

Boston College

1720120698

Cf Vaiharai 3 (3) (1998) pp.168-187.