The central fact is that this cosmos is within the living power of God as Being, Consciousness, Boundless reality. Theories of how this operates in terms of the attention of the Divine to history occur, an absurdly adventitious word, in this eternity. Nevertheless I admit I like to play in the purlieus of the apophatic. Lately I have been thinking about the Catholic concept of ensoulment, the idea that early in the life of the person a rational soul is infused into the physical reality. At what point in the development of the foetus is a point that is disputed by causuists trying to discern the weight of the sin of abortion. ‘All good fun’, as your mother used to say, ‘until someone loses an eye’. What interests me is that this intuition lines up with the Vedantic one of nature as ‘jada’/inert. It must be pervaded by consciousness and have the capacity for this pervasion, to reflect soul light in the form of the human person. All nature/prakriti/urstoff reflects this light according to individual structures.
Indic cosmogenesis is cyclical passing from pralaya/dissolution to pralaya via the four ages/yugas. The Christian believes in an historical unfolding, a progress towards the last days. How both of those doctrinal views cohere with Darwinian evolution can result in paradox and puzzlement. Karma, an Indic fundamental, must be beginningless. That collides with pralaya. The historically based doctrines have to cope with the great question of the arrival of the human being and whether we can distinguish between that creature and the rational ensouled person. At what point did this ensoulment commence, with a group of hominids or a single couple. Orthodoxy likes the latter and it is admittedly a beautiful subject for art. The first chimp tea party is not.
