Religious discussion centers upon the possibility of new revelation and a new spiritual epoch. All other questions are secondary. The new revelation is not at all a new religion, distinct from Christianity, but rather the fulfillment and completion of the Christian revelation, bringing it to a true universality.
The excerpt above is from Nikolai Berdyaev’s The Destiny of Man, and the idea it expresses resonates deeply with me. I cannot accept that Christianity is a completed and fulfilled revelation.
To accept that is to admit that everything is set in stone and that our main task is to live within the shadow of such knowledge and pray for the Second Coming, which will tie up the messy, loose ends of Creation and set things right eternally, once and for all.
I am not sure what Berdyaev means when he speaks of the new revelation providing true universality to Christianity; however, I am convinced that Christianity is in dire need of new revelation and that it is very far from fulfilled or completed.
Convictions of that sort do not sit well with Christians because they regard their religion as fundamentally completed and fulfilled. New revelations are unnecessary, nay, more than that, metaphysically impossible. Everything that needed to be revealed has been revealed. To claim otherwise is blasphemy and heresy.
In The Destiny of Man, Berdyaev also notes that:
The opening of a new epoch of the Spirit, which will include higher achievements of spirituality, presupposes a radical change and a new orientation in human consciousness. This will be a revolution of consciousness that hitherto has been considered as something static. The religion of the Spirit will be the religion of man’s maturity, leaving behind him his childhood and adolescence….
I believe that Berdyaev is on the right track when he claims that the completion and fulfillment of Christianity are intrinsically linked to a revolution in human consciousness. Such a revolution can only occur if one assumes that human consciousness changes, develops, and evolves. That Divinity reveals itself and seeks to be understood through the development of human consciousness.
Christianity “proper” very much regards human consciousness as static. Man is as mature as fallen man can ever hope to be. The only thing fallen man needs to do is orient his fallen maturity in the right direction and obey the Absolute God. Everything else is just metaphysical soap bubbles. Nonsense.
Christianity “proper” believes that man understands God as best as can be understood. Man cannot expect to discover or perceive any new revelation because God has already revealed all that needs to be revealed. Since human consciousness is static, man must not fool himself into thinking he can understand or know God better or in any other way. Man can fiddle with doctrine and hone old theological formulas, but he must not expect any new revelation because none are coming. Any suggestion of new revelations is a misdirection and spiritually fatal.
Most Christians eschew any hint or possibility of new revelation and are perfectly content within completed and fulfilled Christianity. I have no interest in contesting such an eschewal and to such fulfilled and completed Christians, I say, peace be with you.
As for me, I am more at home in a Christianity that is incomplete and unfulfilled. A Christianity that not only thirsts for new revelation but positively requires it for God’s overarching creative and divine purposes.
A big part of that new revelation involves recognizing that God did not and could not have created ex nihilo. The assumption that God has the power to create from nothing has always been a bad one. As the product of an earlier mode of human consciousness, it is somewhat understandable, perhaps even forgivable, yet as an absolutely insisted upon and unchallengeable eternal Christian truth, it is both incomprehensible and obstructive.
Remove creatio ex nihilo, and Christianity’s lack of completion and fulfillment become too glaring to ignore.
The excerpt above is from Nikolai Berdyaev’s The Destiny of Man, and the idea it expresses resonates deeply with me. I cannot accept that Christianity is a completed and fulfilled revelation.
To accept that is to admit that everything is set in stone and that our main task is to live within the shadow of such knowledge and pray for the Second Coming, which will tie up the messy, loose ends of Creation and set things right eternally, once and for all.
I am not sure what Berdyaev means when he speaks of the new revelation providing true universality to Christianity; however, I am convinced that Christianity is in dire need of new revelation and that it is very far from fulfilled or completed.
Convictions of that sort do not sit well with Christians because they regard their religion as fundamentally completed and fulfilled. New revelations are unnecessary, nay, more than that, metaphysically impossible. Everything that needed to be revealed has been revealed. To claim otherwise is blasphemy and heresy.
In The Destiny of Man, Berdyaev also notes that:
The opening of a new epoch of the Spirit, which will include higher achievements of spirituality, presupposes a radical change and a new orientation in human consciousness. This will be a revolution of consciousness that hitherto has been considered as something static. The religion of the Spirit will be the religion of man’s maturity, leaving behind him his childhood and adolescence….
I believe that Berdyaev is on the right track when he claims that the completion and fulfillment of Christianity are intrinsically linked to a revolution in human consciousness. Such a revolution can only occur if one assumes that human consciousness changes, develops, and evolves. That Divinity reveals itself and seeks to be understood through the development of human consciousness.
Christianity “proper” very much regards human consciousness as static. Man is as mature as fallen man can ever hope to be. The only thing fallen man needs to do is orient his fallen maturity in the right direction and obey the Absolute God. Everything else is just metaphysical soap bubbles. Nonsense.
Christianity “proper” believes that man understands God as best as can be understood. Man cannot expect to discover or perceive any new revelation because God has already revealed all that needs to be revealed. Since human consciousness is static, man must not fool himself into thinking he can understand or know God better or in any other way. Man can fiddle with doctrine and hone old theological formulas, but he must not expect any new revelation because none are coming. Any suggestion of new revelations is a misdirection and spiritually fatal.
Most Christians eschew any hint or possibility of new revelation and are perfectly content within completed and fulfilled Christianity. I have no interest in contesting such an eschewal and to such fulfilled and completed Christians, I say, peace be with you.
As for me, I am more at home in a Christianity that is incomplete and unfulfilled. A Christianity that not only thirsts for new revelation but positively requires it for God’s overarching creative and divine purposes.
A big part of that new revelation involves recognizing that God did not and could not have created ex nihilo. The assumption that God has the power to create from nothing has always been a bad one. As the product of an earlier mode of human consciousness, it is somewhat understandable, perhaps even forgivable, yet as an absolutely insisted upon and unchallengeable eternal Christian truth, it is both incomprehensible and obstructive.
Remove creatio ex nihilo, and Christianity’s lack of completion and fulfillment become too glaring to ignore.
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