Geocentricity .Transcending mere quantity Giordano Bruno was the first westerner to take up the notion of a numerically infinite cosmos, a notion that had been a mainstay of eastern mysticism. Science has followed Bruno’s lead ever since, and we all remember hearing Carl Sagan intoning his ‘billions and billions.’
The western prophetic tradition maintains another view. Humanity has a special covenant with God. Ironically it is the eastern immaterialism that will enable us to recover this covenant from the jaws of science.
It is this covenant that is our reprieve from the cosmic abyss. It is that which defines our humanity. The abyss turns out to have been an illusion, in any case. The quantitative infinities of science are a proxy for the qualitative infinities of the spirit. The transcendental presence of God is the bedrock of reality.
Some may feel deprived at having to trade an infinite cosmos for a personal Creator. Am I not imposing a cosmic population control? A potential infinity of planets is being denied its right to existence and life. I suggest that the proper concern here be with quality and not quantity. Redundancy has its place in nature but not in spirit.
The apparent infinities of space and time are merely a projection of spirit. So too is each of us. But we are each an actor, not to be confused with the scenery. Each of us is a microcosm, a proxy for God.
Is God logically prevented from creating an infinity of creatures, or is this a matter of judgment? Could God have a personal relationship with an infinity of creatures, any less than with a billion creatures?
As microcosms our minds are biologically composed of several billion neurons. The natural example suggests that other worlds would constitute separate realms of consciousness, and so there would be at least one level of being interposed between the Supreme Being and us. This would be a spiritual redundancy that could adversely impact the transcendental nature of spirit. Polytheism would have to be reconsidered, but we have already been down that path. That path leads to tribalism, among other things, even if it is on a cosmic scale.
I submit that the Creator could have created a geocentric cosmos that would sacrifice nothing of spiritual value, but rather would have been its highest expression. Let us not suppose that we are expendable, unless we are forced to suppose that. Such a creation would not support the humanity and divinity of which we are evidently capable. The notion of expendability is likely an excuse for irresponsibility.
What we can expect is the expansion of our consciousness as we take on the divine eternal presence that is not limited by time or space. The qualitative infinity of our cosmic consciousness will dwarf all quantitative or astronomical notions of infinity. We will recapture the source of our humanity with all of its personal value.
A geocentric cosmos does not exclude other worlds; it simply puts them in their place relative to us. We are already the seat of the cosmic federation. We are Mecca.
What will we do for an encore to our own salvation? Are we experiencing the climax of creation? What about those poor souls who might have missed the finale? Will there not be a reenactment? Such questions will lose their significance one we have moved on to a larger consciousness. At that point all of space and time will be present to us. But won’t this just be a replay? The burden of choice will have been removed; otherwise we will face the paradoxes of time travel.
We must realize that our very narrow, temporally oriented view of reality does not allow us to draw conclusions about the execution of free will or even about causality. For instance the operation of teleology remains well beyond our grasp. These processes await a greater comprehension. It is in these inner dimensions where the spiritual infinity of our cosmos exists, and wherein lies our destiny.
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rev. 1/14/99