"All shall be well"

[Tariki]

From my old liberal christian days I have always kept a little note in my wallet and close to my heart. It is a few words by the English mystic Julian of Norwich concerning the resurrection.......

He is Risen!

The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended..............so that the end of everything shall be well. I say again, all manner of things shall end well. Amen.

I move now mainly within Buddhist thought, which normally steers clear of what Christianity I believe refers to as the eschatalogical dimension, the "last things" etc etc.

How do others here view this......."all shall be well"....................an ultimate reconciliation between all?

Looking around this world with all its discord and suffering, it seems a great, yet difficult, hope to hold. Yet one worthy of our greatest and deepest aspirations.

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. (T.S.Eliot)

 

[Quahom1]

From my old liberal christian days I have always kept a little note in my wallet and close to my heart. It is a few words by the English mystic Julian of Norwich concerning the resurrection.......

He is Risen!

The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended..............so that the end of everything shall be well. I say again, all manner of things shall end well. Amen.

I move now mainly within Buddhist thought, which normally steers clear of what Christianity I believe refers to as the eschatalogical dimension, the "last things" etc etc.

How do others here view this......."all shall be well"....................an ultimate reconciliation between all?

Looking around this world with all its discord and suffering, it seems a great, yet difficult, hope to hold. Yet one worthy of our greatest and deepest aspirations.

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. (T.S.Eliot)

The darkest of night is moments before the new dawn...

 

[seattlegal]

From my old liberal christian days I have always kept a little note in my wallet and close to my heart. It is a few words by the English mystic Julian of Norwich concerning the resurrection.......

He is Risen!

The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended..............so that the end of everything shall be well. I say again, all manner of things shall end well. Amen.

I move now mainly within Buddhist thought, which normally steers clear of what Christianity I believe refers to as the eschatalogical dimension, the "last things" etc etc.

How do others here view this......."all shall be well"....................an ultimate reconciliation between all?

Looking around this world with all its discord and suffering, it seems a great, yet difficult, hope to hold. Yet one worthy of our greatest and deepest aspirations.

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. (T.S.Eliot)

 

[Thomas]

Hi Tariki –

You have nailed this point with your emphasis:
"an ultimate reconciliation between all?

+++

In Christian terms, the doctrine in question is the Apokatastasis, the 'restoration' of all things:

"And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:20-21)

"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth;" (Ephesians 1:9-11)

"And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:19-20)

And this is the Church – the Ministry of Reconciliation:

"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:14-15, 18-19)

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Following from my post above:

Maximus the Confessor commenting on apokatastasis in Gregory of Nyssa, writes of three kinds of restoration:

The first applies to the restoration of the individual through virtue; in this case restoration means the return to the primordial condition of man's goodness.

The second meaning applies to the restoration of the whole nature of man during the resurrection of bodies: the ontological condition of paradisal incorruptibility and immortality is restored.

The third applies to the restoration of the powers of the soul to the state they were created, before they were altered by sin.

This last restoration presents an interesting point: to what extent did St Maximus share Gregory's (and Clement's, and Origen's) view of final restoration of all as an eschatological certainty?

Some arguments:
St Maximus compares the restoration of the soul to the resurrection of the body: that would mean that this kind of restoration applies to all and not only to the ones who have progressed sufficiently in the course of virtue.

Restoration of the souls seems to suggest the annihilation of evil, because the effects of sin are healed.

All restored souls will come to know God and see that he is not responsible for the existence of sin, which is the same as saying they will know the true nature of good and evil.

The "perverted" powers of the soul will then cast off the memories and the effect of evil, and this involves purification.

St Maximus states that every soul will have knowledge of "good things" (agatha – probably the energies of God), but not necessarily participation in them. It is for this reason that he is sometimes thought of as not suggesting the inevitability of restoration of all.

Modern commentators, such as Brian Daley SJ and Dom Polycarp Sherwood, have located other passages which seem to imply a belief in the final restoration and forgiveness of all.

Two of those comments refer to the two trees in the Garden of Eden, a theme connected to the apokatastasis since Origen, and the third to the victory of Christ over evil through his crucifixion. In these passages Maximus states that there is a "better and more secret explanation, which is kept in the minds of the mystics, but we, as well, will honor by silence".

Modern commentators see this honorable silence as an implicit support of the idea of apokatastasis, that remained silent mostly for pastoral reasons.

Nevertheless, it is true, on the other hand, that there are many passages in Maximus' work that discuss the situation after the Final Judgment and speak of eternal punishment for the ones who "freely used the logos of their being contrary to nature".

'Eternal' in this sense means final. After the Apokatastasis, those who do not show contrition/seek forgiveness have made thgeir decision, and will cease to exist in any mode or form.

Thomas

 

[wil]

The darkest of night is moments before the new dawn...

Namaste Q, et al,

Interestingly enough the thought from chabad.org today was why Jews started holidays at nightfall...and actually all days start at sundown...and they reflected how scripture moves from darkness to light...from lack to prosperity...from ignorance to wisdom...

We all individually and communally spend our time in darkness, in the desert...and in ever increasing cycles of growth...

and "All shall be well"

 

[Tariki]

Thomas,

I appreciate the time and effort you have put into this. Thank you.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Tariki –

Last night I was thinking on your question/my answer and was looking around. I am perhaps reading into our question, but to me there is a strong argument contra the 'cult of the individual' that governs the present era.

So, as I hinted, the Church is, and will be, the means of a universal reconcilliation that transcends any individual mode of enlightenment, something that the individual endeavour can never achieve nor attain: One person can never signify, symbolise nor experience the Unity of all, if all are not in Union with the One.

But that puts it in a very Christian context, until I started comparing the Christian idea of 'Church', from the scriptural Greek 'ekklesia', meaning 'assembly', or 'a people called forth', and the Buddhist idea of Sangha, which can be interpreted to mean roughly the same thing?

(Aside: I found many correspondences between the idea of the Sangha and the Church, one day might be worth a discussion on its own.)

So I think I'm saying that outside the Church, or outside the Sangha, such a reconcilliation – or a restoration – is not possible, and not being possible, individual salvation/deliverance /enlightenment becomes limited and contingent in relation to the world – and increasingly so as the world actually militates against the very idea it proclaims – the exultation of the individual self.

Thomas

 

[Pathless]

I like the title of this thread.



my peso.

 

[Tariki]

I like the title of this thread.



my peso.

Like a breath of fresh air..........................

Thomas,

Yes, just like the word "Church", "Sangha" can have many differing connotations, each seeming to expand and deepen its significance and scope. "Catholic" indeed! From my own Buddhist perspective, there is great beauty in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, who breaks into great eloquence when speaking of the "inter-being" of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha........i.e. Reality-as-is, the teaching and all embraced within/by both. And Thomas Merton has spoken of "that hidden ground of love for which there can be no explanation". Merton discovered God as the ground of his own being and in that same ground he found the rest of reality, especially his brothers and sisters, in a unity that was beyond all separateness. No wonder Merton spoke of Hanh as a brother...........

And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless, it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new uinity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. (From an address given by Merton in Calcutta, during his Asian pilgrimage)

What you have said concerning the inevitable limitations of an "individual" salvation would involve the Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva. Not a soft soap sentimental ideal, but a deep recognition that enlightenment for one must involve the enlightenment of all - a recognition of great simplicity that nevertheless "costs not less than everything".



P.S. Just on the fringes of my mind, I remember another Journal entry of Merton, concerning some writings in Latin of Anselm (?) , normally interpreted as "we must because we ought". However, Merton understood the words as meaning "we must because we are"............

 

[Thomas]

Hi Tariki, and all –

It's interesting (to say the least) that sound theology, or sound philosophy for that matter, continually folds back in upon itself, so that every individual aspect and item accords with the whole, and the whole affirms every single aspect.

I don't know if it helps, but the idea of 'we must because we ought' or, 'we must because we are' is expressed, in Christian terms, in the Aristotelian idea that everything tends towards its own perfection, its own good, and therefore the good or perfection of any one thing necessarily involves that thing in relation to all other things, so that no one thing can attain its own perfection or its own good in isolation, without reference to all.

Thomas