Hanna, Martin

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Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Memory, Meaning & Life Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary 5-12-2010 The Cosmic Christ According To Matthew Fox Martin Hanna Andrews University, mhanna@andrews.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/mml Recommended Citation Hanna, Martin, "The Cosmic Christ According To Matthew Fox" (2010). Memory, Meaning & Life. 28. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/mml/28 This Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Memory, Meaning & Life by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact repository@andrews.edu. The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20120715235121/http://www.memorymeaningfaith.org/blog/2010/0…Memory, Meaning & FaithMainAboutArchivesMay 12, 2010The Cosmic Christ According To Matthew FoxAlbert Einstein was once asked, “What is the most important question you can ask in life?’ He answered, “Is the universea friendly place or not?” In the first century of this era, when Jesus lived in Palestine and during the time when theGospel stories about him were being written, the most important question in the Mediterranean civilization was, “Arethe angels friend or foe?” Since angels were understood to be the driving force behind the elements of the universe, it isclear that, like Einstein, the people of that era wanted to know if the universe was a friendly place or not.To that same question the early Christians had a definite response: Jesus represented the smiling face of God, thebenignity of the universe and all its powers including the invisible angels. All the early hymns to the Cosmic Christcomposed by first-century Christians celebrate the power of Jesus over thrones, dominations, and angels. . . . In themodern era, however, the Enlightenment’s encroachment on religion has resulted in Christians throwing out allcosmology, all angels . . . , all mention of the Cosmic Christ. I believe it is time to reclaim the Cosmic Christ.The etymological meaning of religion is “to bind us back” to our sources. Religious believers and all citizens of our planetneed to hear the vast and awesome mystery of the scientific story of our origins. The archetype of the Cosmic Christencourages us to reverence our origins in a way that the anthropocentric religious paradigm of the Enlightenment eracould not. It also encourages us to reverence our divinity and our responsibility as co-creators in a way that theEnlightenment paradigm did not. As Meister Eckhart put it, “though we are God’s sons and daughters, we do not realizeit yet.”Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 1.QuestionsWhat is the most important question you can ask in life? Do you agree with Einstein and Fox?Is the universe a friendly place or an unfriendly place? Is it partly friendly and partly unfriendly?Does Scripture present Jesus as the Cosmic Christ? Does it warn about counterfeit Christs?Does faith in the Christ of Scripture bind us to the Scripture story of our origins? How should we relate to the currentscientific story of our origins?Does our status as children of God include or exclude the status of divinity and co-creator?Posted by Martin Hanna on May 12, 2010 in Historical Theology, Science and Theology | PermalinkSave to del.icio.us | The Way…Comments You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.The most important question that I have actually asked in life was "What is the meaning of all this?" A question like this one is alsoanswered by a cosmic Christ, though; Christ's cosmic lordship gives a structure and meaning to reality.Posted by: Kessia Reyne | May 12, 2010 at 10:57 PMI think that Trinity is a very important part of the answer to the question about whether the universe is a friendly place or not. Thisharkens back to some of John Reeve's posts on that topic. If God is triune, He can be essentially relational in His being, and thus lovecan exist, be a part of, the absolute foundational essence of meaning in the universe. If God is only monal, or fundamentally singular,then theoretically there was a time when relationship, and hence love of other, did not exist. Only self love. The belief in the Trinity ispart of the assurance that love is at the core of God, and thus at the core of the meaning of the Universe. There is no danger of areversion to merely self-love, as there has always been selfless love of the other for eternity.Posted by: Nicholas Miller | May 13, 2010 at 07:33 PMThe most important question I ever asked was, "God I don't understand how all the pieces fit, can you show me?"I disagree with Einstein and Fox, we make the universe dangerous.The Bible reveals the Christ that created the cosmos and in the cosmos not the Christ having origin from the cosmos.The Bible will never bind us; it reveals the liberation Christ provides from the limited vision of the human senses when we are given theMind of Christ. The current scientific paradigm is limited to the axiom that human senses and perception are the epistemological gauge.The Mind of Christ provides the divine gauge.As children there was a time when we did not exist, therefore we cannot be divine, yet through our adoption in our surrendered willthrough the faith we receive, we become vessels of the divine mind revealing God to the cosmos. For Christ tells us, “I say to you, amongthose born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”Posted by: David de la Vega | May 14, 2010 at 08:39 PMVerify your CommentPreviewing your CommentPosted by:  | This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted. Post    Edit   Your comment could not be posted. Error type:Your comment has been posted. Post another commentThe letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. 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The Cosmic Christ According To Matthew Fox

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The Cosmic Christ According To Matthew Fox

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