Dancing World-Soul Kali                                                             Kali for the World

The Cosmic Christ and the Consuming God/dess
Reflections on the cosmology of Matthew Fox…


Matthew Fox is an American Christian priest, formerly a Catholic, now an Episcopalian. Noted as a writer and speaker about the religious meaning of environmentalism. He is as an advocate of deep ecumenism – drawing together wisdom from different religious traditions – and has worked with Starhawk, an exponent of Goddess-oriented witchcraft.


The following reflections are my response to his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1988).

C.R.





Things I agree with Matthew Fox about...


The relation between humans and nature is a spiritual challenge, as well as a scientific and political challenge.


We need an understanding and an appreciation of our place in the universe. As Fox writes:


By the term "cosmology" I mean three things: a scientific story about the origins of our universe; mysticism that is our psychic response to our being in a universe; and art, which translates science and mysticism into images that awaken body, soul, and society.(p 1)


Very well said. Perhaps another term for "cosmology" in this sense, is natural philosophy (in the sense of philosophy about nature).


I agree that we need deep ecumenism - bringing together wisdom from different traditions: western and eastern traditions, indigenous traditions, goddess traditions. (p 228) Rediscovery of Gaia, the Greek Earth Mother, is an important development, as Fox understands. (p 235)


Matthew Fox argues that Christian thinkers need to shift their attention from the historical Jesus (the question of what he was really like), and give more attention to the cosmic Christ (the personification of wisdom crucified, nature crucified). I agree that fascination with history can be a subtle trap, not only for Christians. Whether we study the history of paganism, or the history of goddess worship, or the history of the vision of Kālī, the vital question is: What can this mean to us today?


Matthew Fox sees something important in the passages in the Book of Revelation about the Christ as sacrificial Lamb. (pp 96 – 99) I agree that the symbolism of sacrifice (as expressed in a range of traditions, including Christianity) can help us come to terms with the woundedness of humans and of nature.


I agree with Matthew Fox that there is something relevant to current environmental questions in the figure of Chronos/Saturn, the god who consumes, devourer of his own children (pp 185 – 188).


Historically, Chronos and Saturn seem to have originally been different gods, who became identified through the similarity between the Greek names Chronos (Χρόνος time) and Cronos (Κρόνος the Greek counterpart of Saturn). Nonetheless, the association between Chronos and Saturn goes back to ancient Roman times, and it makes symbolic sense. Vision can and does work through seemingly chance associations of words.


What I don't find convincing...


Left-brain, right brain, reptilian brain


Matthew Fox puts a lot of emphasis on the mystical value of the right-hand side of the brain (which is said to be imaginative and creative), in comparison with the intellectual left-hand side (pp 18 – 19). Also, "reptilian brain" (instinct) is portrayed as a negative (p 251), so presumably we're supposed to rely more on the upper section of the right-hand side of our brains...


Yet, after all, the whole human brain has emerged from nature. As I think Jung understood, we realize ourselves by realizing wholeness - by harmonization of all our faculties, whichever bit of the brain we think those faculties are seated in.


To really deal with environment issues, we need the intellectual rigor associated with the left brain, as well as creativity and imagination of the right.


And if we truly respect nature, why should we take a negative view of the part of our central nervous system that is said to resemble the brain of a reptile? The reptiles, after all, are a category that includes the tortoise, a creature of proverbial patience and persistence...


Are Christ and Chronos/Saturn irreconcilable opposites?


Matthew Fox writes about Chronos/Saturn, the god who devours his own children, as the personification of a greedy, destructive culture. He regards the spirit of Chronos as opposite to the spirit of Christ.


But is Chronos/Saturn really opposite in character to the God of the New Testament?


It seems to me that the New Testament God in fact has an aspect to his character which is similar to the Roman Chronos/Saturn, and is still more similar to the related deity in the Phoenician (or Canaanite) religion.


In a surviving fragment of the Phoenician mythology, the Semitic high god, El is identified with Saturn, and is said to have sacrificed his own son to save his community. 1 The God of the Bible is also called El (as well as other names, such as Adonai, and YHVH), and in the New Testament, he too has a son who becomes a sacrifice.


Perhaps it will be within the spirit of deep ecumenism to point out also that Chronos/Saturn has something in common with Kālī and Mahakāla. For Chronos is a Greek word meaning "time", and the Sanskrit word "kāla", as in Mahākāla, means "time" also...


Are these points relevant to cosmology? I think they are.


The god or goddess who devours and consumes is not just an image of human greed, but is a vision of something natural and universal. As Fox himself says (though not in his passage about Chronos): "We are all food for one another." (p 214)


Living beings have a need to consume. From the viewpoint of natural science, this is due to the laws of thermodynamics...


In the interests of the environment, and in the interests of our own future, we modern humans certainly need to consider what and how we consume, but we don't need to vilify time-honored visions of consuming deities.


Rather, what we need to do is become more conscious of the aggressive, consuming side of life. We must own it and integrate it, live it out in a well-considered way. For we were born with it and will die with it. It is part of ourselves, and it is part of natural (instinctual) world we sprang from.


Nature is Tiger as well as Lamb


I share Fox's environmentalist concerns. But there is a one-sidedness and a sentimentalism in his picture of Nature as a sacrificial victim.


Consuming deities, such Chronos and El and Kālī and Mahākāla do indeed have something to say to the whole world today. The universal God/dess is indeed a God/dess of Sacrifice.


To use the language of William Blake, Nature is the Tiger as well as the Lamb...


Or, as Jung wrote: "God can be loved but must be feared." 2


This is true not only of the God/dess within us, but also of Gaia, the God/dess we are within.


If we can love the Earth with its clouds and oceans and plants and animals, that is excellent; but in any case we must beware what will happen to ourselves and our children if the Tiger we call Earth is wounded and provoked.


Earth can be loved, but must be feared.



Colin Robinson, September 2012

1Eusebius: Praeparatio Evangelica Book 1 (Chapter X)

2Jung, C.G.; Collected Works, Vol 11; RKP, London, 1969; p 450.

© Colin Robinson 2012


Comments


From Michael McPhee…


3 Sept 2012

Subject: cosmic christ


A Choilm, a dhearthair


Just with 'natural philosophy' (an old name for physics), while it is indeed about nature, the historical meaning of 'natural' is without recourse to Scripture. (Similarly, 'natural law' and even 'natural theology'.) Francis Bacon, father of the scientific method, wrote of learning from the work of God as well as from the Word of God, adding that to concentratie on one or the other would lead to 'fantastical science and heretical religion'


Slan go foill, Micheal



* * * * *


4 Sept 2012


A Micheal, a dhearthair


Many thanks for your letter.


>Just with 'natural philosophy' (an old name for physics), while it is indeed about nature, the historical meaning of 'natural' is without recourse to Scripture. (Similarly, 'natural law' and even 'natural theology'.)


According to an article about natural philosophy published by the University of Sydney Library:


"Natural philosophy in the early modern period is roughly what we today would call science. It was the study of nature in all its various dimensions."


But if, as you say, the word "natural" in the term "natural philosophy" originally meant "without recourse to Scripture", is there a contrasting term for a "philosophy" that is "with recourse to Scripture"?


>(Similarly, 'natural law' and even 'natural theology'.)


What about the term "natural history"? Does it mean history done without recourse to scripture? Or does it mean descriptive study of the natural world?


>Francis Bacon, father of the scientific method, wrote of learning from the work of God as well as from the Word of God, adding that to concentrate on one or the other would lead to 'fantastical science and heretical religion'


Such a distinction between "work of God" and "Word of God", or nature and scripture, is based on the premise that scripture has a source other than nature. If so, which scriptures? After all, every major religion has its own canon.


Slan go foill,

Colin


From Michael McPhee…


4 Sep 2012

Re: cosmic christ



A Choilm, a dhearthair


> According to an article about natural philosophy published by the University of Sydney Library

>"Natural philosophy in the early modern period is roughly what we today would call science. It was the study of nature in all its various dimensions."


Wikipedia has a long article on the subject, tracing the term back to Classical Greece. Apparently, at that time, philosophy was seen as purely theoretical whereas science (not a Greek word, anyway, but I don't know what they called it) was practical and led to physical results; e.g., in architecture, metallurgy, etc. I guess I was referring to the use of the term, 'natural philosophy' in medieval English - though it might have been implicit in Classical times, since they had no concept of Scripture and certainly never invoked the religion of the day in their deliberations. (Except that their work in geometry was religious in the sense that they were trying to determine the workings of an ideal universe.)


>But if, as you say, the word "natural" in the term "natural philosophy" originally meant "without recourse to Scripture", is there a contrasting term for a "philosophy" that is "with recourse to Scripture"?


Again, Bacon lived in an era when any and all philosophy was developed within the confines of Judeo-Christian Scripture and the effectively canonised works of Plato, Aristotle and others of the Classical period (see below).


>What about the term "natural history". Does it mean history done without recourse to  scripture? Or does it mean descriptive study of the natural world?


I think natural history includes biology and geology, so there is an element of reconstructing the development over time of both lifeforms and the physical planet. These studies should have (but may not have, in practice) excluded Noah's flood and other Bible stories. Otherwise, 'natural history' might just be differentiated from written history.


>Such a distinction between "work of God" and "Word of God", or nature and scripture, is based on the premise that scripture has a source other than nature. If so, which scriptures? After all, every major religion has its own canon.


As above - Scripture to Bacon was the Bible and the Classical works that the Church had recognised as authentic. Bacon was very critical of the latter, stating that people of his day necessarily knew more than those who lived in ancient times. He even dared to say that better Classical works had been lost to posterity (think Aristarchus and Democritus) - "the river of time has sunk that most solid works and carried the less substantial works along" (or words to that effect).


All the best, Mike


* * * * *


5 Sept 2012


A Michael, a dhearthair


> Wikipedia has a long article on the subject, tracing the term back to Classical Greece.


A number of pages in Wikipedia are relevant here, including



In your earlier message, you described "natural philosophy" as an old name for physics. In fact the name "physics" is older than the name "natural philosophy", because "physics" is the ancient Greek word physikes (or phusikes), meaning the study of nature (physis or phusis). This study was considered a branch of philosophy, and so its name was rendered into Latin as "philosophia naturalis", i.e "natural philosophy".


> As above - Scripture to Bacon was the Bible and the Classical works that the Church had recognised as authentic. Bacon was very critical of the latter, stating that people of his day necessarily knew more than those who lived in ancient times.


He didn't think it was necessary or desirable to live in the shadow of an earlier epoch. Neither do I. In using the term "natural philosophy", I do not mean to say that we can rely on ancient or medieval or early modern philosophers. I mean that we need to develop an integrated understanding of nature, and of our own natures.


Best wishes

Colin


From Michael McPhee…


Re: cosmic christ

5 Sep 2012


A Choilm, a dhearthair


I fear I will regret having brought the subject up! When I said natural philosophy was an old name for physics, I was referring to the English language - I have no doubt of the latter's Greek origin and I've read of a Sanskrit root-word that also underlies 'fruit' and even a certain four-letter word.


There's a line in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' in which 'physics' refers to medicine (cf. physician).


However, perhaps the commonality between natural philosophy, history and law is the exclusion of any written material as authoritative or essential to any further work. This doesn't have to mean starting from scratch in any endeavour, as long as what is written can be independently reproduced or otherwise verified.


i certainly agree that we can use 'natural philosophy' today without reference to earlier meanings and commend your endeavours to further the understanding of both physical and human nature.


Slan go foill, Micheal


* * * * *


6 Sept 2012


A Micheal, a dhearthair


> I fear I will regret having brought the subject up!


What is it about my responses that makes you regret bringing up the subject?


I share your interest in what the term "natural philosophy" has meant historically. You think that the word "natural" here refers primarily to the method of enquiry. I still think it refers primarily to the subject matter. I also think this is true of word "natural" in the expression "natural history".


> When I said natural philosophy was an old name for physics, I was referring to the English language


You're aware that Francis Bacon wrote works in Latin on this topic, such as Novum Organum (i.e. the New Instrument)? And that the title of that work contains a reference to Aristotle's Organon?


> There's a line in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' in which 'physics' refers to medicine (cf. physician).


Just as Aristotle's "Physics" includes study of living things…


> i certainly agree that we can use 'natural philosophy' today without reference to earlier meanings


On the other hand, I'd agree that historical usage is interesting to study, and saves us from having to invent new terms from scratch.


> and commend your endeavours to further the understanding of both physical and human nature.


Thanks!


Slan go foill,

Colin


From Michael McPhee…


Re: cosmic christ

6 Sep 2012


A Choilm, a dhearthair


My regret was stating something that I had read a long time ago as if it were the whole story. I'm now wondering if, at least with natural philosophy, that the two conceptions are connected; i.e., if you wanted to philosophise about natural phenomena, you wouldn't want to invoke any canonical writings that conflicted with your observations. (Again, the work of God as opposed to the Word of God.)


Of course, I knew that Bacon (and Newton, in his purely theoretical works) wrote in Latin. I don't remember a great deal about Novum Organum, so long ago did I read it, but I certainly wouldn't deny that he cited Aristotle - despite what he had said about the canonised Classical works.


Aristotle actually wrote a work called 'Physics', which included quasi-mathematical descriptions of motion. Unfortunately, he only observed bodies falling in water and concluded that more massive bodies descended faster - which they do because they reach a higher terminal velocity in such a dense medium. It was left to Galileo to prove that it did not happen in air; rather that the acceleration due to gravity did not depend on mass.


Newton didn't use the word, 'physics', that I know of, though he was the true founder of it as a mathematical explanation of motion, force, energy, etc. The fledgling efforts of Aristotle, Galileo and Kepler were helpful bits of information to him but Newton literally 'wrote the book', explaining the relations that others could only describe. (I guess you know the story of how Galileo determined the behaviour of pendula after becoming bored in church one night?)


Yes, I'll concede that 'natural history' has no theological implications - indeed, I didn't think it did but was just looking for an analogy. My grandfather called himself a naturalist, rather than a zoologist, probably because he had a more wholistic approach that included the environments that the animals lived in. I think, too, we should forget about 'natural law' and 'natural justice', as these are not important to our discussions.


Slan go foill, Micheal


From Thomas Schenk


10 Sep 2012

Re: Religious naturalism, Kali


Colin,


I have recently been doing quite a bit of reading, thinking and imagining about the various moon goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology. Phoebe and Selene and Hecate, and to a lesser extent Artemis are all moon goddesses. Of course, all the goddesses are one goddesses, and probably even all the gods and goddesses are one, with the individually named entities just aspects of that oneness. I am fascinated by Hecate though, who I think is closest to Kali among the Greek goddesses.


On you article about Matthew Fox, I agree with your criticism of the right and left brain. When given an either/or like "right brain/left brain" Western thinking has a strong tendency to choose one or the other rather than try to integrate the two. In any case, though, the whole "right brain/left brain" thing fails to account for the part of the brain responsible for our intentionality. It is precisely our intentionality that has the power to integrate, to bring the complexity of our soul into some kind of unity.


To find inner unity and harmony, without doing damage to the complexity of our soul — this seems to me a wonderful challenge for a life. In mythological terms, I imagine, the goddess stands for the complexity of the soul, the god for the ability to bring unity and harmony. The well adjusted soul is like a well adjusted marriage between a man and a woman.


The Greek soul was never at peace — Zeus and Hera were constantly at odds. There is no equivalent of Taoist contentment in Greece, no harmony of god and goddess, yin and yang. That's why they were so restless and creative. We inherit that restlessness and creativity from them. I think we would be happier people if we learned to balance this restlessness and creativity with some inner harmony and peace.


Thomas


* * * * *


12 Sep 2012


Thomas


Many thanks for your thoughts about Kali, Hecate, and the different aspects of brain and soul.


> I am fascinated by Hecate though, who I think is closest to Kali among the Greek goddesses.


Certainly there are important similarities. One thing I found out only yesterday — after I received your message and did some googling — is that there were neo-Platonists who identified Hecate with the world soul. This is very similar to the way Kali is described in writings such as the Adbhuta Ramayana.


> On you article about Matthew Fox, I agree with your criticism of the right and left brain. When given an either/or like "right brain/left brain" Western thinking has a strong tendency to choose one or the other rather than try to integrate the two.


Very true. We choose one side, and get lost in a forest of imagery, or we choose the other and become extreme sceptics, allergic to the very mention of gods or goddessess or the God/dess.


> To find inner unity and harmony, without doing damage to the complexity of our — this seems to me a wonderful challenge for a life. In mythological terms, I imagine, the goddess stands for the complexity of the soul, the god for the ability to bring unity and harmony. The well adjusted soul is like a well adjusted marriage between a man and a woman.


Well said!


> The Greek soul was never at peace — Zeus and Hera were constantly at

odds. There is no equivalent of Taoist contentment in Greece, no

harmony of god and goddess, yin and yang.


Perhaps that is the key difference between Hecate and Kali? Kali is often (though not always) portrayed as a goddess with a masculine partner, named as Shiva or Mahakala. As far as I know, Hecate was not considered to have a partner...


Om Shantih

Colin


From Thomas Schenk


12 Sep 2012

Re: Religious naturalism, Kali


Colin,


Your comment about Hecate not having a mate is interesting. I've been thinking about the relations of Hecate to Artemis, and I think that in a mythological sense they are the same entity, but in getting treated as separate entities by the writers and artists of Greece, both figures got diminished. Artemis, as the sister of Apollo, should have been the moon goddess (Apollo the sun, Artemis the moon). Also, Artemis is clearly related to the very ancient goddess of the animals, and the bear cult, but all of this is lost to the civilized Greek artist and writers. Instead, Artemis ends up in many of the writers, in particular Homer, as a trivial, envious, rather purposeless goddess.


Camping in the northern wilderness late at night, hearing wolves off in the distance, watching the rising moon sparkle off the cold waters — there I get a feeling of what Artemis/Hecate means. She is the shiver across the spine that the wolves' howl brings.


Thomas


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