This essay will focus upon several important philosophical and theological reflections of Gregory of Nyssa. He is considered one of the most significant thinkers of the early Christian period who exhibited keen interest in the philosophic and scientific achievements of that time. This two-fold interest endowed Gregory with broadness of vision and a certain modernity detected in his philosophy and theological writings. At the same time, Gregory of Nyssa did not jeopardize his commitment to the Christian kerygma or the proclamation of its message. Furthermore, a metaphoric structure peculiar to Gregory can be a catalyst for introducing new insights into the awareness of place-to-place movement. It is hoped that this alliance, not merger, of more recent developments with an ancient yet striking modern doctrine will enable us to better appreciate how we structure our perceptions of reality and how this process applies both to theological reflection and contemplative prayer.

CHAPTER ONE

Virtually every person raised in today's modern industrialized societies has benefitted from the exploitation of nature in its diverse forms. Along with these advantages are negative ramifications (for example, environmental pollution) which is now threatening society on a global scale. The manipulation of nature as we have come to know it has its roots in the Industrial Revolution of late eighteenth century England when the concept of applied energetic movement enjoyed spectacular success. During this period the emergence of mechanically powered devices quickly transformed agrarian based societies into ones capable of producing goods on an immense scale. Not only has the Industrial Revolution furnished the means to place the natural world at the service of humanity on a scale which had hitherto remained unrealized, but it transformed the economic means of distributing the fruit of these natural resources to all levels of society. The Industrial Revolution also gave birth to a wide variety of philosophies whose basic feature is empirical and utilitarian which have both explained and justified humankind's use of natural resources for its own economic ends⁽⁶⁾. Only with the appearance of information theory and its immediate offspring, computer technology, can we can envision another reference point as comprehensive as the one related to the harnessing of energy on a large scale.

In many respects British empiricism has come to form a philosophical infrastructure to the operation of mechanically powered devices which alleviated the labor and tedium associated with human and animal power. This is especially evident in empiricism's attempts to confine knowledge within the realm of experience. The British philosophers created a skeptical spirit of inquiry as to how knowledge is obtained. The proponents of this philosophy viewed knowledge as building blocks for establishing a structure of human intelligence⁽⁷⁾. Even the act of perceiving data in terms of building blocks implies that knowledge is subject to a mechanical and therefore energetic form of manipulation. As suggested in the Introduction, this empirical view of human intelligence developed into a tendency to comprehend information as a collection of isolated facts. These facts, in turn, are derived from the senses alone to which we impart meaning. Since any type of information obtained by the senses is subject to error and incomplete understanding, the possibility for skepticism always remains present.

An inclusive definition of movement in terms of energetic concepts entails both the capacity for action and the accomplishment of a pre-determined task. The mechanical ways by which energy harnesses these tasks obviously involves the intelligent, practical application of natural resources. For example, elementary steam engines evolved at an ever accelerating rate of sophistication from their inception in late eighteenth century Britain. It was quite natural that energy's practical application through mechanical devices was decisive in giving birth to modern economic theories. These theories were then applied to the political order which introduced new structures for people to organize their lives, both in the private and the public spheres⁽⁸⁾. A historian of science, Stanley L. Jaki, has criticized the mechanistic world view constructed upon the application of energy which attempted to make the relatively new science of psychology conform to the one of physics⁽⁹⁾. This reduction of human activity to a movement more or less equivalent to billiard balls endeavored to eliminate contradictions found within human experience. In its place, the rigorous techniques and precision of mechanistic physics sought to create models of a person free from those unpredictable factors common to human experience as mirrored in the dependability of machines. Jaki's book is thus a meticulous refutation of those aberrant views of human nature which were subject to a deterministic spirit of inquiry⁽¹⁰⁾.

Today there exists a growing awareness that the natural world is circumscribed by limitations which cannot be trespassed. It is a realization issuing from the negative consequences which modern technology has inflicted upon our environment yet is providing an incentive for thoughtful persons to remedy this predicament. Because of these problems, the human race as a whole is being obliged to consider those liabilities associated with the wanton use of energy, particularly ones related to unrenewable sources of power. Furthermore, conservation movements no longer remain at the fringe of society but have gained widespread respect in their efforts to challenge the indiscriminate squandering of natural resources. Many apprehensions expressed by ecological and conservation movements concerning the environment spring from the intuition that the practical uses of energy, especially with regard to fossil fuels, are not inexhaustible but are subject to restrictions. These limitations can be trespassed but only at the dire expense of those who violate them. Of course, the extraction of material to produce diverse forms of energy from nature depends upon the availability of her resources. Both those persons who extract energy sources and those wishing to husband the planet's wealth in a responsible manner reveal a tension which is fundamentally dualistic. That is, these two groups can regard each other's position as antagonistic with respect to a single common issue. Despite the conflicting interests of each viewpoint, one group can remain just as blinded by its own pressing agenda as its opponent's. Thus both parties are generally characterized by two different sides of the same problem and express a familiar urgency which is daily reported by the media.

I single out this example for revealing two sides of one coin, namely, that any issue which is confrontational by nature evokes an equally confrontational response. Although such a conflict can produce remedies, often both sides cannot see beyond the pattern of existing problems which are bound to reoccur under different guises. But once this impasse is acknowledged, a better chance arises for remaining open to various alternatives. Some of these alternatives may be garnered from developments in information theory and computer science because both are based on insights which differ considerably from those of traditional sciences. Although these alternatives may not solve today's pressing practical concerns, they at least offer a new focus and the possibility of a solution.

The most remarkable phenomenon about information is the immediate transference of vast amounts of data and knowledge with little expenditure of energy in contrast to the operation of unwieldy (mechanical) machines. The rapid exchange of data demands an equally rapid response, thereby accelerating the rate at which information is processed and exchanged. This endeavor for better and faster communication tends to break down some of the ways a society's relationship to the world, for example, through images related to place-to-place movement which imply the expenditure of energy. These perceptions lay at the core of many current dualistic predicaments and can be overturned when a reordering of established presuppositions is inevitable in the face of new, unforeseen situations. Yet conflicting opinions can suppress the intelligent resolution to such dilemmas. Faced with intense lobbying from opposing viewpoints, the search for a deeper integration of confrontational situations results in weariness with tried and true methodologies and philosophies, for example, those based upon place-to-place (energetic) movement. This weariness may give cause for alarm, yet it should not be mistaken with despair. The latter sentiment implies that disorientation has reached a critical point and signals the withdrawal of hope. However, this despair may be seen in a beneficial light, as heralding a creative way of perceiving reality.

An unduly enthusiastic endorsement of information theory should be avoided because this concept, like any other, has disadvantages. Not only does the technology associated with information theory threaten individual privacy, but it alters long established and culturally accepted rhythms of time by basing them upon a computer's instantaneous operation. Jeremy Rifkin has noted the impact of computer-based time as follows:

The clock measures time in relationship to human perceptibility. It is possible to experience an hour, a minute, a second, even a tenth of a second. The computer, however, works in a time frame in which the nanosecond is the primary temporal measurement. The nanosecond is a billionth of a second, and though it is possible to conceive theoretically of a nanosecond, and even to manipulate time at that speed of duration, it is not possible to experience it⁽¹¹⁾.

Despite the perils of this repercussion, we can still formulate valuable, innovative insights based and expanded upon the concept of information theory. At the same time it is important to know the pitfalls of constructing a paradigm founded upon computer technology alone as though it were the decisive solution to all problems afflicting society.

A danger exists of mistakenly perceiving the transmission of information as associated with an older world view which relies upon the concept of energetic movement. One example is found in the expression associated with personal computers, "word processing." In this situation the sacred concept of a word⁽¹²⁾ which has played a central role in the development of the Western religious tradition is in danger of becoming devalued into an object for manipulation and thus subject to being "processed." The mystery of both the spoken and written word is reduced to an inanimate object which can be moved according to the laws of physics from one place to another. For instance, the phrase "word processing" presents a picture of words shuttling along pre-determined paths where emphasis lies upon their function, not their meaning and ultimate sacred character. If, with the passage of time, this concept were allowed to affect our self understanding and relationships, we run the risk of reducing our thoughts (and therefore language) to components of a vast, impersonal processing machine. Such an idea is not dissimilar to the mechanistic world view of Newtonian physics where objects are subject to impersonal manipulation.

The rapid growth of computer science and its ability to both swiftly and inexpensively transfer vast amounts of information through the medium of silicon chips stands in sharp contrast to the operation of cumbersome mechanical devices. Although energy remains the agent ultimately responsible for transferring and processing electronic data (for it must power computers), a superior understanding of information theory reveals the following observation: information represents a transmission of intelligence without reliance upon the familiar passage of place-to-place movement associated with the expenditure of energy. Here are elements suggesting a latent model of transcendence where the intangible character of information introduces a radically different perception of reality in comparison with energetic activity's grosser nature. This immateriality belonging to the world of computers appears to have neither a location nor a source; it seems to exist everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

How can this extraordinary situation exist? In order to fathom it, we should first realize that the unique character of information theory transcends our familiar world of subject-object relationships. This abstract quality can serve as a model for intimating the existence of a reality more subtle and profound than conventional tendencies to associate information with the accumulation of facts and the transmission of data. Acquaintance with this elusive quality of information compels us seek a means of both understanding and expressing it in terms other than those belonging to the familiar spacial-temporal plane. However, one aspect of our human constitution parallels the intangible structure of information, and that is intelligence. Furthermore, when human intelligence is put at the service of revealing divine reality, it attains fulfillment as the world's great religions testify. Even more important, it suggests a higher reality, pure awareness or that special type of awareness which lacks an object and is characteristic of a mystical experience of union with God in faith. Both realities, the abstract principles which compose information theory and our inherent capacity to apprehend divine awareness without-an-object, are ambiguous because they lack the familiar, concrete dimensions of everyday experience. At the same time, awareness is so intimately related to the perceptions we have of ourselves and the world that we are seldom conscious of its all-inclusive nature. The absence of familiar reference points does not mean that awareness without-an-object lacks existence; rather, overcoming this absence requires a sensitivity different from normal experience to realize its existence. The prime requisite is the quieting of imaginative cognition which is often falsely identified as our true life⁽¹³⁾. This radical shift from a conventional subject-object regard to one of pure awareness implies more a process of unlearning and withdrawal from familiar concepts than the acquisition of new knowledge, a subject which has occupied many of the world's great religious masters.

One misunderstanding related to awareness without-an-object as analogous to the concept of information is in how a conventional computer functions. A computer is a piece of hardware in which a program or software is inserted; the program gives life to the computer and acts as its brain. However, we should avoid this dichotomy because it subscribes to one of the perennial unsolved problems of philosophy, the relationship of the soul to the body or the mind to the brain. As the biologist Rupert Sheldrake has pointed out, "Many people who regard themselves as materialists or physicalists have come to think of the mind-brain relationship in terms of the computer metaphor, with the mind like the software and the brain like the hardware"⁽¹⁴⁾. Despite the relative newness of this computer based metaphor, it reflects the older mechanistic world view where laws (software) are perceived in terms of principles which guide creation (hardware). That is to say, a popular understanding of information theory can exhibit that Western proclivity to fit creation into a plan where everything conforms to a pre-determined, eternal pattern.

The latter stages of Western culture's development have assigned a somewhat insignificant role to our recollective faculty. From such an impoverished view, this faculty discovers a pre-existing plan and proceeds to actualize it. The activity of our memory suggests that any new pattern of organization had already been present as a latent possibility; since these patterns already exist, they await our discovery. Little room is left for creativity, and its absence can lead a person to acquiesce to a destiny beyond his or her personal control. But if memory were seen as inherent in the nature of things, phenomena would not be conforming to some pre-determined eternal laws. Instead of being governed by immutable principles, phenomena can assume different expressions. This does not suggest conformity but habituation, an insight proposed by Rupert Sheldrake with regard to the concept of morphic resonance⁽¹⁵⁾. Such a concept runs counter to the generally accepted notion of scientific repeatability; it, in turn, is based upon the theory of transcendent laws to which human experience is referred. Habituation implies that the repetition of a stimulus remains essentially unchanged. As a result of repetition, we become acclimatized to our surroundings and are sensitive to the emergence of stimuli which are unique and not repeated. In this instance more scope is allowed for the spontaneous development of our inherent creativity which can better adapt to new input.

The freedom associated with habituation reflects a higher type, namely, one which flows from pure awareness or awareness without-an-object. It is here that Christian tradition has located a person made in God's image and likeness. Since this form of comprehension transcends conventional modes of perception, people have no other recourse than to delineate it according to pre-determined laws built up metaphors pertaining to energetic, place-to-place movement. Awareness without-an-object bears certain similarities with the concept of information; both lack familiar reference points belonging to the temporal-spacial dimensions and the inexorable force of entropy or the inevitable breakdown of order. Because the concept of information intimates immunity from entropy and freedom from unavoidable disintegration, it may contribute to the formation of a paradigm helpful to describe Christian contemplative prayer. This new insight must not only be differentiated from its predecessors (such as energetic movement), but must as a potential contribution for a transformed understanding of reality. For example, pure awareness can bestow a form in accord with its nature which transcends normal experience⁽¹⁶⁾. Perception of this form requires watchfulness on our part as observers which not only embraces all our faculties but shifts them onto a new plane.

Pure awareness surpasses conventional perception and by reason of its all-encompassing nature, better attunes us to everyone and everything about us. Any clear-cut distinction or dualism between "inner" and "outer" worlds breaks down and can no longer be delineated by traditional modes of description. A sympathy arises here, a genuine feeling-with (sun-pathe) the two realities of "inner" and "outer" experience which bestows a new sense of balance and order. This order enables us to intuit at once and in a discreet manner the inner state of other persons and their condition. A subtle shift of attention occurs from a subject-object regard ("inner" versus "outer") to one which is sym-pathetic in the literal sense of this word. This new way of being attentive to both the physical and spiritual worlds prescribes an equally new form of metaphoric expression with insights based upon the concept of information to represent pure awareness as a form of sensitive watchfulness.

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The essence of energetic movement, regardless of its awesome power (for example, a star's thermonuclear reaction) has three principles: source, expansion and expenditure. Such boundedness has a clearly delineated pattern in contrast to the more ambiguous and less easily defined notion of awareness. Pure awareness, which I suggest is the fundamental attribute of a person being made in God's image and likeness, differs from consciousness by reason of its more inclusive nature. We should not disparage this universality because pure awareness surpasses the subtle though essentially dualistic nature of consciousness, that is, of having knowledge (of something) in common which David Bohm and F. David Peat have described⁽¹⁷⁾. Awareness implies a reference point or a freedom from both determinative factors as witnessed by genuine religious experience. This freedom is not marked by superiority or aloofness but detachment from slavish identification with a particular object. In this way pure awareness is free to both associate with the object of its regard while remaining present to other relationships. It is not my intent to debate the question of whether or not awareness is individual or communal; instead, I wish to focus upon the all-inclusive nature of awareness which remains attentive to all facets of reality.

An example when our general awareness becomes intensified is a situation of extreme danger. Little or no temporal gap exists between the intensification of our senses and their subsequent unification because we have not yet reflected upon our imperiled condition. By reason of its immediateness, a situation of extreme peril makes that general, undifferentiated consciousness spontaneously unfold into an attentive regard. This mechanism lies dormant within us, waiting to spring into action when the occasion arises. Confrontation with a dangerous situation is not a question of being conscious of something; rather, the danger is so immanent that our entire organism becomes immediately attentive to the threat at hand. Such an intensification of our faculties is similar to a kairos event. Kairos heralds a divine intervention into human affairs which is characterized by unity between two or more persons and a total unification of our faculties attuned to God's presence.

David Bohm and F. David Peat have briefly outlined the subtle distinction between consciousness and awareness⁽¹⁸⁾, two states which are not contradictory; awareness is a more general, state of mental attention compared with the dialogical nature of consciousness. This latter implies a latent subject-object regard which finds expression within the realm of human relationships, whereas awareness in-forms or gives shape to consciousness. It also can be at the service of making divine transcendence present in our lives and for articulating insights concerning a Christian's response to this presence. The ambiguity signified by awareness imparts a knowledge which surpasses normal experience by situating us in a realm different from our familiar dualistic milieu. More specifically, pure awareness exists before a split arises between oneself as observing subject and that which is observed. Only when our general state of awareness executes a given action (for example, a confrontation with danger) do we make an immediate shift to attentiveness. This shift does not introduce a sharp distinction between ourselves and an imminent threat; instead, the non-referential nature of awareness exists prior to any subject-object regard.

Perhaps the point where awareness differs from consciousness is with regard to apprehending a profound sense of gratitude⁽¹⁹⁾. Appeal to personal experience shows that this sentiment is always directed towards another person, object or event. Accompanying gratitude is little regard for one's own self. A person's whole attention is directed in an outward fashion in distinction to oneself as an ultimate reference point. This lack of self-awareness is akin to religious ecstasy where a person becomes unconscious of his or her own self when caught up in a reality transcending familiar experience. Even the person or object towards which gratitude is directed undergoes a transformation of identity. In its place is an all-inclusive awareness marked by unbounded joy which cuts across any conventional subject-object regard.

To appreciate the transcendent nature of gratitude, consider those occasions when this unique sentiment had exerted its influence over one's life. This appeal is direct, not academic, and lies within the grasp of personal experience. A spirit of thankfulness constitutes one of the most essential dimensions of our humanity. It allows for spontaneous, uncontrived communion between two or more individuals, thereby bestowing a remarkable unity among all those fortunate enough to be its participants. One discerning mark of thankfulness is the lack of concern over how many individuals are participants.

I have detailed the general nature of awareness in order to shed more light upon the role of gratitude which goes by the New Testament word of grace, charis. An attitude of thankfulness arises spontaneously and is the tip of an iceberg, as it were, which remains latent until we have an encounter with God who elicits a full expression of this sentiment. The transition from an all-inclusive feeling of gratitude to its particular expression is analogous to the transition from pure awareness to attentiveness (Refer to the example above of a menacing situation which concentrates our faculties). A particular expression of gratitude sets the stage for more constant patterns of this sentiment in our lives at the serve of manifesting God's transcendent freedom. On the other hand, gratitude's occasional absence should not be mistaken for indifference; it remains part and parcel to further revelations of God's all-inclusive presence. The potential for expressing gratitude is just as real as its manifestation. This becomes apparent when we have experienced occasions of thankfulness which initiate us into more universal feelings of this sentiment whose roots are transcendent. Awareness of time (and by consequence, space) plays little or no role here. Again I appeal to personal experience because the all-inclusive domain of thankfulness is free of the tension between its universal nature and specific expression.

The tendency to make clear-cut distinctions between spirit and matter has come to dominate Western philosophy and by extension, Western religious expression. On the other hand, insight into the nature of consciousness or more specifically, pure awareness without a subject-object regard, has played a more dominant role within Eastern religious traditions. In its early development, Western Christianity does not seem to have developed an accurate word to express pure awareness, that is, attention minus a subject-object regard. In recent times and often in conjunction with popular interest in the science of physics, persons are challenged to articulate their religious experience in terms of pure awareness because this interest frequently coincides with interest in Eastern methods of contemplation. Nevertheless, Christianity has a venerable heritage of mysticism with special focus upon a spirit of gratitude. Right from the beginning, the doctrines of Christianity were enunciated through the allegorical method, a technique more descriptive than rational. Allegory expresses divine reality with its emphasis upon symbolic figures and actions. Although the allegorical method has played a key role within the early Church, it later fell out of favor with the advent of a more rational and scholastic approach to theology marked by clear distinctions between spirit and matter. To compensate for this eclipse, Christianity both in its Roman Catholic and Protestant manifestations has witnessed the rise of numerous devotional practices. Nevertheless, the history of Christianity offers numerous examples where the sentiment of gratitude is not just an emotion but is essential for a proper understanding of divine revelation.

One of the most significant aids at our disposal for organizing knowledge, including that about God and the spiritual life, is the metaphoric process which gives structure to the concepts directing our thoughts and actions. As Lakoff and Johnson have demonstrated, a metaphor has more extensive ramifications than we may realize⁽²⁰⁾. Quite often the domain of metaphoric expression is understood in terms of flowery language or as the exclusive property of poets and romantics. However, many scholars have discovered that our conceptual process itself rests upon the formation of metaphors, and we largely remain unaware of their significance. Part of this ignorance is the neglect assigned to the role of imaginative cognition in our lives; in its place the more abstract functioning of intellect and will has prevailed⁽²¹⁾.

To break away from commonly accepted modes of thought (for example, those based upon metaphoric structures related to place-to-place, energetic movement) requires sensitivity to newer patterns of perceiving reality available today⁽²²⁾. One alternative model is based upon insights related to information theory which allows for greater flexibility of expression due to a computer's ability to transmit data (and therefore intelligence) almost instantaneously. Some of these insights may serve as a conceptual basis for a more thorough reflection upon the Christian sentiment of gratitude, an essential ingredient in our relationship with God.

Before delineating any metaphoric structure related to the concept of information, I introduce one significant metaphoric pattern detected within the philosophy and spiritual reflections of St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa. Gregory's originality earned him a prominent place in Christian theology, and he is now regarded as one of the greatest Fathers of the Church⁽²³⁾ whose writings consist of commentaries upon Scripture as well as tracts against heresies of the fourth century. Gregory's chief contribution was to demonstrate that spiritual movement does not produce satiety because it is a continual discovery of what is new⁽²⁴⁾. Gregory's expression of this movement is based upon 2 Cor 3.18, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding (katoptrizomenoi: to look at one's self in a mirror. The present participle shows that the beholding is continuous and free from interruption) the glory (doxa) of the Lord, are being changed (metamorphoumetha: to transform ourselves to a greater participation in God) into the same image (eikon) from glory to glory (apo doxes eis doxan, literally, 'from glory into glory'); for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

Although Gregory of Nyssa is squarely situated within the Platonic tradition, he employed this heritage to express his interpretation of the Christian message. Gregory did this in a fashion which did not jeopardize the Christian view of God, Christ and the redemption of humankind. He achieved his goal by developing an original metaphoric structure based upon the concept of movement and stability, a structure which he applied within his theological and scriptural writings. In contrast to the Platonic tradition which considered change as a defect, Gregory viewed alteration in a positive light. Plato and those who followed in his steps considered the intelligible realm superior to the world of the senses due to its immutability⁽²⁵⁾. Change is therefore generally conceived as a degeneration from perfection. The Christian interpretation of this aspect of Plato's doctrine often regarded the transformation of human nature effected by Christ as a liberation from change and the restoration of immutability. Human mutability was cast in a negative light, as the distinguishing mark between a person and God, and it is this notion of change which Gregory of Nyssa addressed. The task confronting him was to demonstrate a type of alteration which would not simply be a return to immobility or the negation of change; rather, it is movement towards the good or God whose result is stability in the same spiritual good:

For man has a change not only for evil; if he had a natural inclination only to evil, it would be impossible for him to turn to the good. Now the most beautiful effect of change is growth in the good since a change to things more divine is always remaking the man being changed for the better. Therefore, what seems fearful (I mean our mutable nature) can serve as a wing for flight to better things, since it is to our disgrace if we cannot change for the better. Thus let not a person be grieved by the fact that his nature is mutable; rather, by always being changed to what is better and by being transformed from glory to glory (2Cor 3.18), let him so be changed: by daily growth he always becomes better and is always being perfected yet never attains perfection's goal. For perfection truly consists in never stopping our increase towards the better nor to limit perfection with any boundary. On Perfection, pp. 213-14.

This remarkable excerpt shows how mistaken it is to imagine perfection as a state of immobility; rather, perfection is an advancement without limitations⁽²⁶⁾. Gregory's description thus requires a re-evaluation of conventional ideas about movement which may in part be traced to interpretations of physics before the advent of modern science. Gregory of Nyssa's insight into spiritual advancement (prokope) entails the paradox of stability and motion. Here the good or God is not "obtained" as though we could lay hold of a possession, however honorable this may be. But in Gregory's view, once the good has been achieved through God's grace, there is no need of protecting it against a potential loss (with the exception of sin). Instead, the newly acquired spiritual good is the commencement of a wholly new appropriation of the same good. Additional merit is not added to the good which already exists; each time we become aware of a particular stage of the good, we participate in the form (morphe) of a future spiritual good.

This intimate connection between a spiritual good already attained and one about to be realized may be understood in terms of a resonance. A resonance implies that one stage of goodness does not acquire additional goodness through our personal endeavors but through the presence of the form (morphe) of goodness, God. When we become aware of this divine form, it reverberates...resounds...within us. The term "resonance" is attractive because it suggests an all-encompassing embrace. As the example of the bride in Gregory's Song Commentary reveals, the good which resonates enhances her desirability in the eyes of her divine Spouse:

She struggles to learn and to think how her loveliness can remain forever. But she is still not yet deemed worthy of the Bridegroom's voice because God foresees something even better in store for her, namely, that the prelude of her enjoyment might flare up her desire into something stronger. Thus her desire may intensify her gladness. (p.63)

Here the bride has already contacted her Bridegroom and seeks to make this experience permanent by recalling those intimate communications she had enjoyed. She recreates those earlier encounters which, in her ardent longing, are attempts at making him present again. Note that the divine Spouse appears to ignore her efforts; these rebuffs intensify the initial taste of his presence. They also set the stage to remove limits to further longings and for perseverence in her search. The Bridegroom's love may be described as a divine form transcending the bride's recollections of him and imparting the beauty of this same form to her desire. Gregory's emphasis upon advancement (prokope) demonstrates that change can be positive, not the more pessimistic view typical of certain interpretations of the Platonic tradition where change threatens to abrogate human achievement.

Closely related to change as a principle of participation and transcendence is Gregory's notion of perpetual ascent, an eternal movement or expansion towards the good, God himself. To describe it Gregory employs the Greek word epektasis which literally means "extension," "stretching forth" or "advancement"⁽²⁷⁾. For Gregory, epektasis demonstrates the soul's continual advancement out (ek) of itself or exit from the stage of blessedness just obtained. We should be on guard not to think that a person advances towards God by the exertion of his or her own will. (Recall the passage above where the bride attempts to acquire her Beloved by her own means: "She struggles to learn and to think how her loveliness can remain forever."). The soul's form (morphe) is the point where God reveals himself and can neither be specified in spacial or temporal terms due to its all-inclusive charakter⁽²⁸⁾. The bishop of Nyssa therefore emphasizes that the loss of self-awareness is proportionate to any degree of advancement. For this reason, Gregory's Song Commentary presents an invitation for spiritual advancement which automatically transcends any form of self-consciousness and by implication, the tendency to be restricted by the memory of past events.

Using a term borrowed from St. Paul, Gregory of Nyssa comprehends each stage of spiritual advancement as a form of "glory" (doxa). Here remembrance of past events do not form the basis for self-consciousness; rather, emphasis is upon its opposite, self-forgetfulness. This forgetfulness allows past advancements in the good or God to resonate within further stages of the same good, thereby becoming an extension (epektasis) of deeper levels in the love and awareness of God's presence. One way to describe this forgetfulness is by cultivating unmindfulness of the past. Emphasis is upon our free gesture away from unnecessary constraint, not disregard for the benefits we have acquired through God's intervention. The past no longer maintains its grip upon the present, thereby liberating us from inordinate reliance upon our recollective faculty. Each step of glory is not temporary or provisional; all stages unfold to form a complete, cohesive unity. And so, Gregory of Nyssa offers an invitation to abandon those familiar notions of spiritual advancement we tend to associate with place-to-place (energetic) movement.

The notion of spiritual wholeness which contains a particular expression of the good with reference to Gregory of Nyssa's teaching bears a certain parallel with a recent advancement in modern science, holography⁽²⁹⁾. In this technique, even if one part of a photographic plate is illumined by a laser beam, each portion of the plate contains information (that is, the entire form) about the object in its entirety. Any hard and fast distinctions between a whole and its parts is replaced for a more comprehensive picture of reality. The reason for this unique storage capacity and transmission of information lies in the fact that the light emanating from every part of the illuminated object is contained or enfolded within every other region of the plate. The whole, along with its individual parts, share one total form. Each section of the photographic plate contains a certain knowledge of the entire picture almost as though this whole had become conscious of itself. Instead of one particular bit of information being localized, it is spread uniformly throughout the entire plate.

Two key insights developed by the eminent physicist David Bohm, enfoldment and unfoldment, enhance this holographic storage of information which imply awareness minus a subject-object relationship⁽³⁰⁾. The former term entails an implicate order hidden from our normal perception. Enfoldment may be visualized through the confused swirl observed on a photographic plate before the coherent light beam of a laser is directed upon it. Any information contained within the photographic plate is latent and has the potential for full revelation. The agent necessary for manifestation is the operation of a laser beam to bring that which is unrevealed from the implicate order to the revealed, explicate order of unfoldment.

The alternate manner of knowledge so graphically demonstrated by the example of holography and David Bohm's two orders of enfoldment and unfoldment may serve to illumine certain aspects of Gregory's teachings. To paraphrase him, each stage of God's glory (doxa) composes the explicate order. It, in turn, unfolds from the implicate or unrevealed order which similarly constitutes divine glory after the hologram model⁽³¹⁾. For example, refer to the following excerpt from Gregory's Song Commentary:

He [King David] always proceeded from strength to strength and exclaimed to God, "You are the Most High forever, Lord." To me this signifies that in all the endless ages of eternity the person running to you becomes greater and more highly exalted, always growing in proportion to his ascent through the good. "You are the most High forever, never appearing smaller to those who approach you; you are always higher and loftier than the capacity of those who are rising." (p.246)

This illustrates epektasis where the Christian "always grows in proportion to his ascent through the good." Growth does not come to a rest with a specific stage of glory; rather, as Gregory says shortly afterwards, "The limit of his achievement becomes a beginning for the discovery of higher blessings" (p.247). Each unfolding of divine glory contains within itself information imparted to the bride from the unrevealed or implicate order. But instead of viewing the content of glory as information in the conventional computer-oriented sense (that is, of data able to be manipulated), Gregory draws attention to the total form (morphe) of divine glory as implicate within one particular manifestation of divine glory. The alteration between the implicate and explicate orders differs from perceiving them in terms of movement proper to the spacial-temporal realm. With this in mind, God's glory can extend (epektasis) itself across any limits. Gregory's reflection upon perpetual advancement thereby shifts attention from place-to-place movement to an in-formational one where each stage of divine glory imparts to a person the form or morphe of glory as a whole.

I supplement the example taken from holography by a more homely analogy. The movement or explication of God's glory, doxa, may be compared to a tour through a huge mansion which represents the implicate order. In our passage we marvel at the splendor of a particular room; we then progress into another room and continue our advancement or process of unfoldment indefinitely. With the passage of time we get an emerging picture of the whole building. Our tour through this series of rooms neither wearies nor bores us, for all parts participate in the entire mansion.

+

The seminal concept of change and stability as developed by Gregory of Nyssa illustrates a metaphoric structure founded upon the concept of information, that is, transmission of God's divine form. A temptation exits to perceive Gregory's dynamic notion of advancement, epektasis, as energetic, place-to-place movement. Yet epektasis entails the global form of glory (doxa) while including the content of each individual stage. Although this divine form (morphe) includes its total content much like the example of a hologram, it converts our regard from one focused upon particulars to the more comprehensive nature of the pattern of God's revelation. Gregory of Nyssa understands the pattern of epektasis as an advancement "from glory into glory"⁽³²⁾ which highlights the transcendent character of pure awareness. This attribute presents a vision of God's divine form which diverts attention away from rational analysis to an intuitive grasp of the pattern (epektasis) as a whole, "glory." For this reason the concept of information as the impartation of God's form allows us to grasp the relationship of the whole to its parts (that is, each stage of our spiritual advancement) and to see harmony in this relationship.

A superficial impression of spiritual advancement or epektasis, "from (apo) glory into (eis) glory," intimates an emanation of glory from God to creation. Instead, epektasis involves growth--an organic form of maturation-- resting upon the activity of the living God. This organic development does not suggest that one stage of glory situated in the indefinite past embraces an equally indefinite number of identical stages lying in the future. Transmission of the past and its content is fully assured, regardless of how extended the span of time and space happens to be. The bride's progression which intimates a point of origin, direction and purposeful activity does not therefore refer to a generative order. In contrast, a correct interpretation of enfoldment implies a non-temporal, non-spacial transmission of God's glory. Each stage of glory is connected with the previous one but only in the spiritual sense where a person beholds him or herself advancing on the path of Christian perfection.

Although the limitations of language require that these stages of glory be described in a temporal manner, they do not admit degrees of emanation in the neo-Plotinian sense where the transcendent One radiates to lower levels of creation. Gregory of Nyssa depends upon Plotinus for some of his philosophical insights; however, his Song Commentary, to cite just one of his works, is replete with New Testament based descriptions of Christ the divine Bridegroom who manifests himself to his human bride at each stage of her epektasis. The concept of sequence in this Christian view of God's revelation suggests different steps where the bride realizes her divine origin. No clear-cut distinctions exist between his various manifestations because each stage of glory represents differing degrees of awareness. Like the example borrowed from holography, a particular stage of glory...awareness...contains the whole, and this whole partakes of each stage. Gregory of Nyssa's use of the phrase taken from Second Corinthians 3.18 is an ideal image for revealing the bride's advancement (epektasis) of glory as an organic succession because it displays the revelation or unfoldment of glory from the previous stage where God had manifested himself. Both prepositions function in the manner of a systole and diastole: the former (apo) designates a starting point where divine glory becomes manifest which, in turn, leads to yet another stage of glory. The latter preposition (eis) reveals that glory continues to unfold into a further manifestation of God's presence which continues throughout eternity.

Now that the Pauline phrase "from glory into glory" is seen as lying at the heart of Gregory of Nyssa's theology, there arises a subtle temptation for Christians to bask in the glow of those pleasant memories when God's presence had been tangible. Although they have the advantage of keeping us oriented towards God, the passage of time and undue attachment to such memories may obstruct further manifestations of divine glory. For example, we may be tempted to mollify the occasional dryness in contemplative prayer by either unduly focusing upon these pleasant recollections or by trying to anticipate how God will reveal himself in the future. However, our efforts cannot produce a transcendent form (morphe); they are only a distraction from the reality of the present moment, the true "place" where God makes himself known. In a sense, God's communication is unpredictable because he may manifest himself in a manner totally different from past encounters. Usually the temptation to substitute past remembrances of God's revelation impels us to make an image from this past and project it into the future. Thus preoccupation with earlier revelations of God's glory shuts us off from the transcendent present. Here images (or idols, if we become unduly attached to them) which are based upon past experiences can eventually lead us astray. In essence they are an expression of ego consciousness which attempts to recapture an experience of God's transcendence⁽³³⁾.

In contrast to this attempt at capturing past experiences, successive unfoldments of glory are clearly directed to the bride's spiritual fulfillment. The divine Bridegroom is not a goal to be grasped which exists in the temporal future. On the other hand, Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the divine Spouse's ointments after whose odor the bride runs. This is a suitable image for God's unknowability because a scent is diffuse and cannot easily be grasped:

As in the case of jars from which perfume has been poured out, the perfume's own nature is not known. But from the slight traces left from the vapors in the jar we get some idea about the perfume that has been emptied out. Hence we learn that the perfume of divinity, whatever it is in its essence, transcends every name and thought. Song Commentary, p.37

Although these vapors are present everywhere, they are not fully perceived because they span the infinite stages of divine glory through which the bride is advancing. Note how Gregory employs an image based upon sense perception and shifts it onto the spiritual plane, a process of allegorical representation which posits a correspondence between two different domains. The bride's passage from (apo) glory into (eis) another stage of glory implies neither a regard backward nor a look forward. If divine glory were to expand in this common evolutive sense, we would have a duplication of glory; it would give rise to a quantitative increase subject to monotonous repetition. It is this quality of stability and change described by Gregory of Nyssa that bestows a refreshing outlook to spiritual advancement or growth in the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The inability to delineate the progressive revelation of God's glory in a quantitative manner is founded upon the bride's advancement (epektasis) in ever greater awareness of her Beloved, not in greater self-extension in terms of place-to-place movement. The alternative view consists of pure awareness which is inherent within a given stage of divine glory, doxa. For an example, refer to the all-pervasive nature of the divine Bridegroom's ointments (manifestations of himself) in contrast to seeing it move from one position to another. This order suggests that a person embraces every aspect of God's revelation as manifest within his or her growth from one stage of glory to another. One's position cannot be objectively fixed and then mapped with reference to other similar positions. Instead, a person's very stability gives rise to growth in pure awareness which transcends all bounds, physical or otherwise. Pure awareness, like the Bridegroom's perfumes, possesses a fluidity unfettered by limitations imposed by the spacial-temporal realm. This transcendent freedom can be a source of distress for persons who have been conditioned to recognize God's activity in the universe as a well-ordered mechanism.

Divine intervention means that a person becomes initiated into a new sphere of reality marked by two important characteristics. First one becomes aware of his or her limited world-view and secondly, realizes that an alternative way of viewing reality exists different from pre-conceived ideas and fantasies. In conformity with this new world view, I prefer the word "initiation," not "education," since the latter term suggests gradual passage from ignorance of facts to a knowledge of them. However, the transformation imparted through the initiation process occurs at once and is devoid of any past-to-future movement. One either gets the point of the initiative process or fails totally. The immediacy of initiation is therefore more suited to the non-referential nature of pure awareness due to its all-inclusive nature.

For Gregory of Nyssa the initiation experience develops within the context of St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, "We are changed into his (Christ's) likeness (eikon) from glory to glory." The Greek term St. Paul employs for change is metamorphoo. Action occurs in the present and involves an ongoing process of transformation. Note that this verb consists of two parts: meta ("after" or "according to") and morphoo, the verbal form of morphe, form. The literal sense of the word suggests an action which occurs "according to the form." When joined to the phrase, "from glory into glory," metamorphoo signifies progressive growth in pure awareness, the Christian birthright as being made in God's image and likeness. Now one particular state of spiritual progression is placed at the service of further revelations of God and for our initiation into his divine life. When the verb metamorphoo is united to the continuous transition "from glory into glory," it intimates a becoming aware of the dynamic unfoldment involved within Christian spiritual transformation, not a static form (morphe) of glory. Here perfect unity exists between the awareness of this dynamic process (metamorphoo) and those states of glory whose origins lie in a kairos event.

The important passage of Second Corinthians (verse eighteen) begins with "We all, with unveiled face [anakekalummeno prosopo], are reflecting the glory of the Lord." The verbal form of anakekalummeno is a perfect passive participle indicating that God is continuously present to us once we have become freed from the restrictions of ego consciousness. In the larger context of Gregory of Nyssa's thought, this participial form denotes liberty from pre-determined activity. The "unveiled face" also suggests an awakening...a becoming aware...not only of God but of our personal limitations. This awakening may be viewed in terms of awareness devoid of subject-object regard which is not restricted to self-imposed constraints. The symbol of a veil in Second Corinthians therefore suggests an artificial construct which our minds have woven by thoughts and imagination without the mediating benefit of divine intervention. Both mental and imaginative activity make this cover so dense that it thwarts an undistorted perception of God. The task set before us, then, is not to do violence to ourselves nor to the reality represented by the veil concealing God's face. All that is required is acknowledging the veil which stands between us and God, a gesture, because of its simplicity, can easily be overlooked.

When St. Paul elaborates upon the newly discovered unveiled nature of our divine constitution, careful reflection upon his words reveals that we do not behold something alien to ourselves but our innate, undeveloped capacity for non-referential (pure) awareness. In the context of Second Corinthians 3.18, the removed veil enables a person to see the "glory (doxa) of the Lord." This beholding is not a static or passive contemplation. Instead, it is God's presence which allows a Christian to set out on the spiritual path and to pass from one degree of glory into another. Ignorance of this divine unfolding was largely the result of an artificially perceived separation between our human condition and God. With the passage of time, this isolation gives rise to feelings of alienation from God as he revealed himself in those special occasions or kairoi where our predominant attitude had been one of gratitude. The faculty of memory plays a key role in effecting this disjointed perception of kairos from thankfulness. However, a heart-felt sentiment of gratitude allows a spontaneous acknowledgement of God when he reveals himself. Our recollective faculty can mimic this transcendent activity which seeks to effect God's presence. This occurs when our self-conscious egos employ knowledge obtained about God or those past experiences when he revealed himself and projects this knowledge into the present to alleviate the distress of not perceiving his presence.

The veil of Second Corinthians 3.18 is also symbolic of imposing a description or a metaphor founded upon incomplete knowledge of God directly to a transcendent kairos event, usually without the mediating principle of gratitude. The self-centered ego, whose primary focus is centered upon the manipulation of persons and objects, is opposed to the simple act of beholding mentioned in Second Corinthians 3.18. Here the present participial form (katoptrizomenoi) shows that beholding (God) is continuous and free from interruption. Its relationship to our transformation "from glory into glory" contains no static or passive regard. The immediate fruit of this beholding is gratitude which creates its own metaphoric structure, information, to describe the Christian's assumption of God's form (morphe). On the other hand, the ego's attempt to impose its own form upon this transformational process ruptures our contact with God and the sentiment of thankfulness, our immediate response to him. Images then arise which compel us to act in accord with their dictates.

CHAPTER TWO

To demonstrate the transformation of a person into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, Gregory of Nyssa uses the illustration of a soul as mirror which receives the form of God. For example, the act of beholding (katoptrizomenoi) God in Second Corinthians 3.18 is a present participle which connotes reflection of his presence in our souls. At this point of contact between the human and divine, the "glory of the Lord" is offered for our contemplation. Although this reflection of Christ transcends any notion we may have of him, he graciously invites us to participate in his divine glory which is unfettered by any limitations. For example, refer to the present participle of katoptrizomenoi which is joined with the present tense of the verb, metamorphoumetha: "We are changed (from glory into glory)." The act of reflecting is therefore related to spiritual advancement (prokope) which is occurring within the present moment. This reflection is founded upon Christ's glory (doxa) which he eternally receives from his Father, the Source of all successive unfoldings of divine glory.

As soon as divine grace enables us to contemplate God's doxa, we undergo a change of form, a metamorphosis, where Christ's morphe is assumed. By its very nature, the act of beholding God is a passive regard and effects this form of divine doxa. The contemplation of God's form implies a re-orientation of our awareness, an example of which can be found on the physical plane, The concept of morphic fields proposed by the English biologist Rupert Sheldrake mentioned in the last chapter⁽³⁴⁾ consists of fields composed of information which exert influence upon both living beings and inorganic matter. Sheldrake intimates that there belongs to matter something akin to a "field of memory" which guides the formation of structures and their respective processes. For example, within a given molecular structure the operation of nature is smooth and reproduces itself with ease. It seems that under the influence of a morphic field the molecular structure is changed with regard to its environment. Hence, organic and inorganic matter evolve according to their proper forms without which nature would have too many choices. Sheldrake continues to say that each time a molecule is created, it generates a morphic field which contains a memory of the processes involved. When a replication occurs, the memory expands and becomes more sophisticated by the increase of information. This ability to replicate is repeated often enough so that it eventually assumes the structure of a paradigm; once established, it provides a path on which forms develop into greater and greater complexity.

This hypothesis of formative causation⁽³⁵⁾ offers an example taken from the physical plane corresponding to those instances when God extends his transcendent presence across the boarders of space and time. Formative causation also suggests an important role for the all-encompassing nature of pure awareness, the focal point of our being made in God's image and likeness. Since this form of awareness is inherently free, it can expand into greater degrees of participation in God without the constraints imposed by thoughts, emotions and mental representations. For instance, the bride's movement "from glory into glory" participates in a gesture of unfoldment which reflects the primal glory of Christ. These unfoldings indicate that the bride's comprehension of her divine Spouse, even though she retains memories of him, maintains an unmediated contact with God surpassing our limitations. Gregory of Nyssa describes this dialectic of presence-absence as follows:

By participation in the transcendent, it [the bride's spiritual nature] continually remains stable in the good; in a certain sense, it is always being created while ever changing for the better in its growth in perfection. Neither is it limited, nor can it be circumscribed in its growth towards the good; however, its present stage of goodness, even if especially great and perfect, is only the beginning of a more transcendent, better stage. The Apostle's words are thus verified: the stretching out to what is superior to the one already attained holds the attention of those participating in it while not allowing them to look at the past; by enjoying what is more worthy, their memory of inferior things is blotted out. Song Commentary, p.174.

Gregory posits no boundary of spacial distance across which the bride is summoned to advance before attaining her divine Spouse. An understanding of advancement in terms of energetic movement and temporal interval breaks down when applied to the transcendent, immediate reflection of the divine Bridegroom. Furthermore, the "unveiled face" mentioned by St. Paul represents a veritable apokalupsis, the uncovering of a already existing reality. The bride's capacity for perpetual growth effects the removal of this veil, a barrier consisting of subject-object relationships alone. As the passage from Gregory's Song Commentary suggests, the bride always maintains contact with Christ's presence through her advancement or epektasis.

I have introduced two principal ways which of depicting the movement of divine glory and our transformation as developed by St. Paul and later expanded upon by Gregory of Nyssa. The first model is represented through metaphors based upon energetic movement. This pattern favors a linear path of expansion; it uses a prescribed amount of resources to be expended in accord with a pre-determined plan for future realization. Energetic movement remains subject to the menacing possibility of entropy because the resources required for purposeful direction will sooner or later suffer depletion. Using the energy model entails that a series of successive, interdependent manifestations remains vulnerable to a final, definitive collapse no matter how prolonged this span happens to be. The manifestation of one particular stage of energetic movement is crucial for the propagation of the next stage, yet external influences can interrupt this sequence of temporal intervals, let alone the inevitable force of entropy. But for any paradigm of spiritual advancement founded upon the concept of energetic movement, remembrance of the previous step of growth in God implies that the next step can signal a gradual weakening of the entire process. In the context of this text, these stages would represent God's transcendent glory as depicted by Gregory of Nyssa. Without the remembrance of the past, any step lying in the future would simply not exist; remove one of these intervals and the paradigm founded upon energetic movement disintegrates.

Keeping in mind a similarity between the concept of energetic place-to-place movement and memory's operation, this faculty establishes a pattern of behavior from past impressions which are then used for future replication. An interpretation of the infinite stages of divine glory (doxa) in terms of energetic movement would therefore suggest a prominent role for our recollective faculty in order to recall past stages of this same glory for projection into the future. Regulation of past recollections is the essence of memory which assumes an order similar to energetic movement by which we bestow an ordered progression to our thoughts and enhance our self-identity. Under the influence of our recollective faculty, these earlier phases develop along a pre-determined path into an indefinite future usually with minimum regard for the present. In this instance the present can easily be overlooked. Memory would cease to have existence if it rested within the present moment, for the present lies outside any perception of both the past and the future.

Energetic movement implies an innate sense of self-preservation resting upon the accumulation of past events which form an identifiable structure having minimal regard for the present. Instead, attention is directed toward the future. Gregory of Nyssa describes the tendency for self-preservation in terms of those attributes which are foreign to our true nature of being made in God's image and likeness:

Each person must know himself as he is and distinguish himself from all not belonging to him so that he may not be unconsciously protecting something foreign to himself. This happens to persons heedless of watching over themselves. They see strength, beauty, glory, power, elegance of form, or anything that may pertain to themselves. Such persons are careless guards because they do not protect what belongs to themselves. Song Commentary, p.63.

Failure to "watch over ourselves" is the negative consequence of ego consciousness which regards "strength, beauty, glory, power, elegance of form" as desirable ends in and by themselves without ascribing their true source to God. This gives rise to the genesis of self-identity and the illusion of security or stable existence minus reference to a divine source.

The alternate model available for depicting our transformation "from glory into glory" which takes into account the needy "to watch over ourselves" is related to the concept of information. It represents a process of spiritual unfolding derived from the human bride's contemplation of her Spouse, his divine form, and cannot be depicted in terms of linear movement. Here each stage of glory naturally in-forms...gives form to...the next stage of glory where the bride does not experience dissipation in her eternal advancement (epektasis). This process of unfolding does not suggest duplication of her previous advancements; instead, her spiritual progress continuously discloses more attractive features of her divine Spouse. As the Song Commentary makes clear, these forms (morphe) are already present to the bride and transcend the past and future dimensions of time as well as any attempt on her part to grasp the Bridegroom. Here God extends an invitation to pass beyond each revelation as soon as she realizes it. Each individual stage of glory assumes new significance if it gives birth to the paradox of the bride's progression towards her Spouse and stability in her eternal quest. In a word, as soon as the bride becomes in-formed, she is simultaneously "un-informed" or encouraged to forget her present advancement that she may receive a further revelation of the divine Bridegroom. However, the bride's epektasis not only incorporates those attributes of "strength, beauty, glory, power and elegance of form," but enhances them even further.

The pattern of unfoldment and enfoldment which exemplifies this process of being divinely informed is an opportunity for introducing a new metaphoric expression based upon the concept of information. This expression rests upon a correspondence between the physical and spiritual realms which sees no conflict between the two spheres. Physical reality is characterized by a state of flux and change, whereas that which is spiritual cannot be subject to physical alternation. An identity between these two spheres is impossible, yet Gregory of Nyssa presents a picture of spiritual advancement where metaphors taken from the material realm represent the spiritual domain:

All these and similar examples [taken from the Gospel] should serve to remind us of the necessity of searching the divine words, of reading them, and of tracing in every way possible how something more sublime might be found which leads us to that which is divine and incorporeal instead of the literal sense. Song Commentary, pp.9-10.

Earlier within this same context Gregory speaks of Scripture's veiled nature which points to divine reality. Instead of denigrating physical reality, he says that we must shift our attention to what it signifies:

Yet Paul somewhere calls the shift (metastasis) from the spiritual "a turning to the Lord and the removal of a veil" (2Cor 3.16). In all these different expressions and names of contemplation Paul is teaching us an important lesson: we must pass to a spiritual and intelligent investigation of Scripture so that considerations of the merely human element might be changed (metabaino) into something perceived by the mind once the more fleshly sense of the words has been shaken off like dust. Song Commentary, p.6.

"Considerations of the merely human element" or our uninformed perceptions must be transformed that we may see how a metaphor founded upon material creation can point to a "spiritual and intelligent investigation of Scripture." Instead of seeing an opposition between these two realms, Gregory's informational process "from glory into glory" confers them with an undivided unity. It employs metaphors taken from material creation to represent continuous growth in our awareness of the divine Bridegroom. A sharp distinction cannot be imposed upon any part of divine glory with respect to other stages. But instead of this being a problem, the apparent blurring of distinctions should be correctly envisioned as the manifestation of a non-dual, spiritual relationship between the bride and her divine Spouse. I prefer to say "non-dual" because the metaphoric structure "from glory into glory" which describes it transcends our normal subject-object regard while employing analogies taken from creation.

We have seen that Gregory of Nyssa uses a phrase borrowed from Second Corinthians 3.18, "from glory into glory," as a reference point to his concept of epektasis in the love and knowledge of God. Within his collected writings exists a total of fifteen references to Second Corinthians 3.18, twelve of which are from the Commentary on the Song of Songs. Of these twelve, only three passages explicitly contain the phrase "from glory into glory." This amounts to a surprisingly small number for such an important scriptural basis to Gregory's thought. The sixteen references containing either the phrase from Second Corinthians 3.18 or an allusion to it are listed according to Werner Jaeger's critical edition:

Contra Eunomium (vol. 2)

P.162.19: the Lord who is the Spirit.

P.164.6-7: the Lord who is the Spirit.

In Canticum

P.47.7: I was changed by righteousness.

P.68.8: you will become what he is by looking at him.

P.90.11: rather he sees it [the Word] within himself as in a mirror.

P.98.6: how happy is that orchard whose fruit resembles the form of the bridegroom's beauty!

P.98.11-12: and mirrors the light of truth by his own pure life.

P.104.2: just like a mirror you have taken on my appearance.

P.104.12-13: so too the soul, when cleansed by the Word from vice, it receives within itself the sun's orb and shines with this reflected light.

P.150.11-13: human nature is also a mirror, and it was not beautiful until it drew near to Beauty and was transformed by the image of the divine loveliness.

P.160.2-3: the words of the Apostle who bids the same image to be transformed "from glory to glory."

P.186.8-9: being transformed from glory to glory, they do not always remain in the same character.

P.253.126-17: and from the glory which the soul had, it is transformed into a loftier glory by a wonderful alteration.

P.440.1: this resembles a mirror expertly fashioned by hand which accurately reflects the image of a face.

De Mortuis

P.63.10: one form impressed upon all.

The paucity of references to Second Corinthians 3.18 does not intimate that Gregory fails to develop his notion of advancement. Instead, this concept of "from glory into glory" is thoroughly amplified within the corpus of his writings. For example, Second Corinthians 3.18 is related to Gregory's insight of epektasis introduced earlier. His interpretation of divine glory which undergoes epektasis can be understood in terms of pure awareness which is free from subject-object regard. For Gregory, extension is occasionally expressed in terms of a mirror or the human soul which reflects God's splendor. This image implies immediacy of contact between two persons where the divine life resonates within the person who receives it⁽³⁶⁾.

Because of their importance to Gregory's theology, it will be helpful to cite the three references from the Song Commentary with explicit mention of the phrase "from glory into glory." In this way we will see the broader context in which they are situated:

Pp.159-60: Therefore the Word says once again to the bride whom he has awakened, "Arise." And when she has come to him, he says, "Come." For one who has been called to rise in this way can always rise further, and one who runs to the Lord on the divine course will always have wide open spaces before him. And so we must constantly rise and ever cease drawing closer. As often as the bridegroom says, "Arise" and "Come," he gives the power to ascend to what is better. Thus you must understand what follows in the text. When the bridegroom exhorts the bride who is already beautiful to become beautiful, he clearly recalls the words of the Apostle who bids the same image to be transformed from glory to glory." By glory he means what we have grasped and found at any given moment. No matter how great and exalted that glory may be, we believe that it is less than that for which we still hope. Although she is a dove by what she had achieved, nevertheless, the bride is bidden to become a dove once again by being transformed into something better. If this happens, the text will show us something better by this name [dove].

Pp.185-86: The Song now reads, "Who is this who comes up from the wilderness as pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the perfumer" (3.6)? If anyone should carefully pay attention to these words, he will find the truth of what we have already set forth. In theatrical displays those acting the designated plot are reckoned as other persons because they change their appearances by a variety of masks. The actor appearing now as a slave or a private citizen is seen a little later as a prince and a soldier; taking off the role of a commoner, he becomes a commander or is clothed with the garb of a king. Thus it is among persons advancing in virtue; being transformed from glory to glory, they do not always remain in the same character, but according to the degree of perfection established in each person, a different character will shine in their lives; a different one succeeds the other because of their increase in the good.

Pp.253-54: The Word's voice is always one of power. As light shone at the creation by his command, and as the firmament was constituted at his bidding (Gen 1.2-24), the rest of creation appeared by his creative Word. In the same way, when the Word bids the soul that has advanced to approach him, it is immediately strengthened at his command and becomes what he wishes, that is, changed into something divine; and from the glory which the soul had, it is transformed into a loftier glory by a wonderful alteration. Thus the angelic choir around the bridegroom marvels at the bride and exclaims with admiration, "You have given us heart, our sister, our spouse" (4.9). For a state free from passion illumines the bride as well as the angels; it gives her kinship and sisterhood with the spiritual powers. Therefore, they say to her, "You have given us heart, our sister, our spouse."

In the following passages I repeat parts of these selections, only to specify in greater detail those words which pertain to the general concept of ascent and growth. Also parts of the Greek text are inserted to obtain a fuller appreciation of their dynamic character and to highlight the subtle nature of Gregory's thought. While reading them, keep in mind the metaphoric structure of information as an impartation of God's divine form to the human soul:

Pp.159-60: The bride whom he [bridegroom, Christ] has awakened (pros ten eyegermenen); arise (anastethi); come (elthe); rise (anistameno); always rise further (pote to aei anistasthi); runs to the Lord (trechonti pros ton kurion); on the divine course (pros ton dromon); wide open spaces (eurochoria); constantly rise (aei te gar egeiresthei chre); never cease drawing closer (medepote dia tou dromou proseggizontas pauesthai); arise (anastethi); come (elthe); power to ascend to what is better (pros to kreitton anabaseos ten dunamin); to be transformed from glory to glory (apo doxes eis doxas metamorphoseos); we still hope (tou elpizomenou misteuesthai); to become a dove once again (peristeran palin); to be transformed into something better (dia tes pros to kreitton metamorphoseos genesthai).

Pp.185-86: Who comes up (tis authe he anabainousa); they change their appearances by a variety of masks (hoi te diaphora ton prosopeion to eidos emameobontes); is seen a little later (phainomenos met'oligon); advancing in virtue (en tais kata ten areten prokopais); being transformed from glory to glory (apo doxes eis doxan metamorphoumenoi); a different character will shine (to bio charakter epilampei allos); a different one succeeds the other (ex allou ginomenos te kai phainomenos); because of their increase in the good (dia tes ton agathon epauxeseos).

Pp.253-54: The soul that has advanced to approach him (ten psuchen genomenen pros heauton elthein); it is immediately strengthened (adiastatos dunamotheisa); changed into something divine (metapoietheisa pros to theioteron); it is transformed into a loftier glory (pros ten anoteran doxan metamorphotheisa); by a wonderful alteration (dia tes agathes alloioseos). Gregory's emphasis upon the progressive growth in the love and knowledge of God enables epektasis to be understood as the activity of our innate pure awareness, the locus of a Christian being made in God's image and likeness. The intangible nature of pure awareness cannot be easily pinpointed, but its effects can be described in a person who has been absorbed in a deep state of tranquility characteristic of contemplative prayer. In such a kairos event neither thought nor any image arising from imaginative representation occupies one's attention. An even closer approximation to the truth is to say that one's memory has been temporarily suspended, not abolished. This recollective faculty is thwarted from expression through the familiar medium of thoughts and imaginative representations.

I adopt the Greek word kairos to describe this memory-less experience because it indicates a reality different from the other Greek concept of time, chronos, commonly understood as the passage of time. "Occasion" is an appropriate description for the momentary suspension of memory because an encounter with transcendent reality suggests the advent of something out of the ordinary. Personal reflection demonstrates that when we encounter an extraordinary situation, our attention is wholly absorbed in what is transpiring at that particular moment. Our normal subject-object regard is temporarily suspended--we have no memory or interior dialogue--yet retain the ability to relate to any situation which demands our immediate response. Experience further reveals that although all our sensory faculties are suspended, that of hearing remains active. This faculty is usually the last one to diminish at the point of death. On the physical plane, the sense of hearing therefore has a direct correspondence to attentiveness or awareness without a subject-object regard.

Gregory of Nyssa suggests the importance of spiritual hearing in two of the above mentioned three passages from his Song Commentary (pp.159-60 & pp.253-54). In these instances hearing or attentiveness on the spiritual level is related to Gregory's definition of divine glory (doxa):

By glory he means what we have grasped [to lambanomenon] and have always found [to aei heuriskomenon]...Although she is a dove by what she had achieved, nevertheless, the bride is bidden to become a dove once again. (pp.159-60)

Note the similarity between to lambanomenon ("what we have grasped") and to aei heuriskomenon ("what we have always found"). Both verbs are passive participles signifying awareness of a past action. The revelation of divine glory is related to that which had been heard (in the past) from the divine Bridegroom and is not awareness of him in the present moment⁽³⁷⁾. Only God's persistent summons and the soul's continual receptivity (presented in terms of hearing) to this bidding offers an epektasis not simply from one given stage of divine glory but into further stages of glory. What makes this situation paradoxical is the juxtaposition between stability and motion, an insight original to Gregory of Nyssa. We must, of course, choose which analogy or metaphoric structure is suitable for expressing this paradoxical contact with God in a kairos event. If we attempted to reconcile the opposite qualities of stability and motion within the context of a metaphoric expression based upon energetic movement, we would fail because the two are mutually exclusive.

The experience of memory's suspension within a kairos event has a certain parallel to pretending as with children in a game⁽³⁸⁾. Children can concentrate upon a myriad of details necessary for maintenance of their game while retaining their personal identity. At the same time they employ the faculty of memory in a manner which remains subordinate to the support of their game. In this circumstance, memory undergoes a suspension and transformation. Children develop elaborate rules, rituals and hierarchies for maintenance of their play, yet they do not confuse this situation with their real identity. In fact, as Piaget has remarked, play is the child's way of assimilating the reality of the world⁽³⁹⁾. This process becomes evident when children are summoned by their parents to discontinue their game; they immediately cease their activity with its attendant structures and automatically adjust to circumstances within the adult world. Thus a game foreshadows genuine characteristics of an occasion or kairos event which is unconditioned by the ordinary flow of events. Like a circle, a game is enclosed by the larger domain of the adult world while not remaining independent from this more comprehensive sphere.

I have spoke of that temporary suspension of the real, adult world within the context of a child's game because it parallels a kairos event as found in the New Testament. It consists in the fact that both represent a detachment from normal, everyday experience; a child's play foreshadows that mature transcendent detachment from worldly concerns when the living God intervenes in our lives. In itself, a kairos event is not the same as the spatial dimension of reality, although in other contexts the temporal use is widespread⁽⁴⁰⁾. The New Testament presents a gracious picture of God combined with the decision we must make to either accept or reject the message of salvation offered by Jesus Christ. A reading of key New Testament texts implies that the clearer Christ's message becomes to a listener, the more pressing is the demand of this summons to his or her personal response.

A kairos event is usually expressed within the context of a dream, revelation, ecstasy or some other phenomenon which surpasses ordinary experience. A person is radically transformed after such an encounter and is certainly not the same as before it. However, this person retains his or her personal identity and does not exchange it for some kind of nebulous unity consciousness. Here kairos in its religious sense differs from a child's pretending. In the latter case, a child maintains his or her previous identity after emerging from a game or act of pretending. Nothing from this magical realm is carried over into everyday, mundane experience; pretending is suspended until the child decides to return to it. But once a person has encountered God within a kairos event, he or she makes use of memory in a manner different from its customary application. Instead of employing this faculty to structure future possibilities in terms of the past, one can now freely recall that divine kairos or event in which God had intervened. Here is a true occasion when memory recalls those times when its normal activity had been suspended. Once our recollective faculty has experienced temporary abeyance, its tendency to comprehend the past in terms of the present is transformed, even redeemed, to assume its true nature. Now memory is paradoxically used to recall those former transformational events...occasions...when its normal regard for the past had been momentarily interrupted. In this instance, a new dialectic comes to birth. The inherently bounded nature of memory is transformed to beget recollections of a kairos event even though this faculty had undergone temporary suspension. Such a novel form of remembrance, in turn, lays the foundation for further divine kairoi where memory is suspended once again. Although Gregory of Nyssa does not explicitly speak of this suspension of our recollective faculty, he certainly implies it in his Song Commentary by stressing the bride's need to forget herself.

When pausing to examine a particular kairos event in detail, we quickly realize that a rupture exists between God's intervention and our habitual lack of mindfulness which is not sufficiently trained to maintain an uninterrupted contact with our transcendent Source. A gap between those blissful recollections confronts us when memory had been suspended and our customary habituations to past remembrances. At this juncture there normally arises a painful awareness that we are in a state of exile from our true homeland. Gregory of Nyssa employs the word diastema to signify awareness of this separation from God. Diastema, a terms difficult to translate, connotes an interval of time. As T. Paul Verghese points out, diastema has two aspects: "One that it is always extended in space and time, from somewhere to somewhere and from a point in time to another point in time, but also secondly that such created existence is never self-contained or self-generated, but totally dependent on a reality which transcends space and time"⁽⁴¹⁾. Verghese refers to a passage from Gregory's Commentary on Ecclesiastes which points to the "one-way" gap between Creator and Creation:

Thus all creation cannot transgress its natural limitations by a comprehensive insight; rather, it always remains within its own bounds and whatever it may view, it sees itself. And should creation think it beholds anything beyond itself, this cannot be, for it lacks the capacity to look beyond its own nature. All our notions are bound by time; they attempt to transcend their proper limits but cannot. Intervals of time constitute all our thoughts as well as the substance of a person who gives rise to such thoughts.

Our mind functions by using intervals within time, so how can it grasp [God's] nature which is not subject to temporal extension? Through the medium of time, the inquisitive mind always leaves behind any thought older than what it just discovered. The mind also busily searches through all kinds of knowledge yet never discovers the means to grasp eternity in order to transcend both itself and what we earlier considered, namely, the eternal existence of beings. This effort resembles a person standing on a precipice (A smooth, precipitous rock which abruptly falls down into a boundless distance suggests this transcendence. Its prominence reaches on high while also falling to the gaping deep below). A person's foot can therefore touch that ridge falling off to the depths below and find neither step nor support for his hand. This example may pertain to the soul's passage through intervals of time in its search for [God's] nature which exists before eternity and is not subject to time. (pp.412-14)

"The soul's passage through intervals of time in its search for [God's] nature" invites greater sensitivity to the communication of his presence. However, the gap between creation and Creator is primarily ontological since we cannot objectify God. Awareness of this interval is difficult to conceive⁽⁴²⁾. One way of articulating it is through allegory, dear not only to Gregory of Nyssa but to many Fathers of the Church who were fond of taking concrete images from the Bible to describe spiritual reality. More will be said on this matter later but for the moment I wish to speak about that paradoxical nature of a time when memory has been suspended within a divine intervention or a kairos event. The reason for this paradox lies in the fact that we are using a faculty especially suited for recalling certain experiences from the past with an eye on extending them into the future to describe an incident (kairos) free from temporal limitations. Traditional Western theology has spoken of God's revelation through apophatic or so-called negative terminology. This stress upon negation seeks to express the limitations of thoughts and concepts; it also impart a certain uneasiness because of our diastema from God. At the same time, apophatic theology safeguards any claim to knowledge (and therefore manipulation) of the divinity.

Another illustration of the relationship between a kairos event and our recollective faculty is that of sin, a transgression committed either against God or another person. Sin exerts a negative influence upon our present and future behavior through its effects upon our memory. When a person is confronted by the remembrance of his or her personal offenses, it is this faculty which recalls past instances of sin, thereby contributing to a sense of guilt. Time is intimately connected with guilt because often time's passage strengthens the grasp guilt already has upon our memory. Once sin has been forgiven by God (who stands apart from space and time), the memory has no need to concentrate upon the content of these sins; a divine intervention which suspends memory enables it to function in a unique fashion. The specific use of memory (recollection of past offenses) creates an atmosphere which allows God's grace to obliterate sin. In contrast to its usual function of recalling past events, memory is now wonderfully transformed and allows the recollection of a kairos event to exert itself.

The suspension of our recollective faculty represents the consequence belonging to a particular type of intuition which Bernard Lonergan calls an inverse insight⁽⁴³⁾. While "direct" insight imparts general information derived from everyday experience, the rarer form of inverse insight is manifest in the absence of a conclusion which our concepts expect to achieve. In the case at hand, a divine kairos imparts its transcendent form. It enters into a union with its exact opposite, our recollective faculty, which is subject to the vicissitudes of space and time. This apparently incompatible relationship affirms, as Lonergan says, the empirical or observable elements which the contradictory principles of memory and its suspension embody respectively. At the same time, an inverse insight denies the expected intelligibility of a situation. In the context of this essay, we would expect either an obliteration of memory or an evaporation of that experience of union with God when memory has been suspended. However, a new texture is woven and yields something unexpected: the relationship existing between memory and the memory of its suspension by a divine intervention.

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The passage of time performs a major role in re-enforcing the illusion of an independent ego by drawing upon images and impressions which have established a pattern through the operation of our recollective faculty. Unfortunately, this pattern can become crystallized and therefore relatively impervious to external influences⁽⁴⁴⁾. This newly acquired independence bestows a false sense of an individual self which assumes special significance within an environment constantly subject to the vicissitudes of change. The notion of sin which is often associated with the ego threatens its stability by suggesting distressing memories of the past which, as we have seen, give rise to pangs of guilt. However, recollections of sins which have been forgiven orient a person within a kairos event when the suspension of our memory is experienced. This is one of the rarer occasions when memory creates an effect opposite to its usual regard for the past. The effects of such a paradoxical influence--an occasion when the suspension of one's memory affects our recollective faculty--generates a more lasting influence than commonly remembered events and circumstances.

The limited nature of our recollective faculty may be visualized as a circle embraced by another circle, memory's suspension. This latter circle does not touch the inner one which it embraces. Instead, a morphic resonance (to borrow Rupert Sheldrake's phrase) exists between the two circles, that is to say, the form of memory's suspension is imparted to our recollective faculty. The experience of memory's abeyance therefore has the capacity to make present in our recollective faculty a transcendent event which had transpired in the past. At the same time it surpasses this past in a manner utterly different from the usual recollection of past events. This unique form of recollection points to a reality lying outside the space-time continuum. It allows a kairos event (characterized by memory's suspension) to in-form...impart its divine morphe...within the present. This operation is grasped not by making use of a paradigm based upon energetic movement--for this implies activity over space and time, regardless of how subtle it may be--but through the paradigm of information. The transcendent nature described by this latter paradigm seems to emerge out of nowhere; it lack a sources, that is, God's in-formational gesture does not emanate from a specific locality but manifests itself as an omnipresent reality.

In light of these observations, it would be more appropriate to say that the omnipresent character of being divinely informed favors a perception of reality which is non-referential. Here our faculties are seen in a common transcendental light, not in terms of their physical or intellectual existence. To appreciate this, recall that appeal to the personal experience of a kairos event. Encounter with the living God in these situations overshadows the individuality of our personal selves in favor of a more comprehensive presence which unexpectedly manifests itself. Our experience as distinct individuals gradually expands through familiarity with images spawn from the memory until they impart a definite shape to the ego's form. It is only natural that once a given amount of time has elapsed, our memory discerns a pattern among past relationships and projects this pattern into the indefinite future, thereby securing a personal though illusory identity. But the sudden explication of a kairos event conceived in terms of a metaphoric expression of information frees us from reliance upon the operation of our recollective faculty to capture, as it were, past transcendent encounters. In its place we realize that our innate longing or desire assumes an important role as the following excerpt from Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary reveals:

Then, as if the bride has already attained perfection, she tells the other companions of her ardent desire and excites their love by an oath. Who would not say that the soul exalted to such a height has reached the limit of perfection? But the end of the bride's advancements becomes a beginning for further advancements. All these examples are like voices summoning the soul to contemplate the [heavenly] mysteries. The bride begins to see her desired bridegroom, but he appears to her eyes in another form, a roe and a young hart. Neither is the bridegroom within our vision, nor does he appear in the same place, but he leaps upon the mountains, bounding from the high summits to little hills. (pp.177-8)

In another passage Gregory speaks of desire as follows: "For love (agape) which is aroused is called desire" (eros), p.383⁽⁴⁵⁾. In the longer excerpt quoted earlier, note the connection between desire (prothumia also means "readiness," "willingness to act"), the bride's advancements and the divine Bridegroom's change of form. Instead of employing her faculty of memory for recalling her Beloved, the bride's desire becomes a vehicle for continuous growth in love when confronted with God's transcendence. She is now entranced by his divine form (morphe) which literally in-forms her. Instead of being subject to limitations, she allows her eros free expression. No analogy based upon physical movement is adequate to describe the soul's epektasis because the Bridegroom is simultaneously present and absent to it. For this reason a description of the bride's desire bears a certain parallel with the concept of morphic resonance, not the transference of energy, where past recollections of her divine Spouse reverberate from the past into the future⁽⁴⁶⁾

.

The images projected either by the metaphoric structures of energetic movement or information exert a profound influence upon our lives even though we may remain unconscious of them. They exist upstream, as it were, to any thought, image, or emotion⁽⁴⁷⁾. Despite their invisibility, they condition thought patterns, our imaginative faculty and ultimately behavior. An individual can receive instructions for a lifetime from the dominance of a particular metaphoric structure. For example, those based upon the concept of energetic movement have a well established public quality since they have gained acceptability over a period of trial and error. These metaphoric structures can supplant others which have exercised influence for extended periods of time as observed with regard to the Industrial Revolution. Such tried and true structures have assumed an all-inclusive way of perceiving the world. Where the metaphoric structure of energetic movement has exercised influence, this dynamic principle became normative as well as authoritative for subsequent behavior and organization of society. Any alternatives are viewed with justified suspicion, justified, that is, in the eyes of the metaphoric structure which has gained the upper hand. Alternative viewpoints are seen either as a threat to the former's established authority or as a rash attempt to create something novel⁽⁴⁸⁾. Thus the pervasive nature of such a well entrenched metaphoric structure has sunken into our collective unconsciousness.

As Mark Johnson has demonstrated, metaphoric structures are pervasive and have direct bearing upon the choices we make⁽⁴⁹⁾. Their influence is more immediate to the transcendent realm because they bestow form to our perceptions of the world prior to the emergence of thoughts and concepts. This immaterial yet pervasive influence of metaphoric structures can be put at the service of describing a Christian's relationship with God. The writings of Gregory of Nyssa represent one instance of this spiritual relationship. On the other hand, metaphoric structures can re-enforce negative thought patterns when, for example, we are overcome by a feeling of restlessness or boredom. As this common experience reveals, the perception of boundedness is fundamental to the human condition and for the most part we remain unconscious of its presence. It is further intensified when metaphors related to the concept of energetic movement come to dominate this agitated state of mind, an influence which makes its presence felt over an extended period of time⁽⁵⁰⁾.

Once metaphoric structures have gained general acceptance, they moderate human behavior within the culture which had given them to birth through well-defined patterns such as the value placed upon energetic concepts. Having taken root, they become difficult to modify and cannot easily adapt to new situations. The pervasiveness of a given metaphoric structure can be an obstacle to that immediacy belonging to pure awareness. In this instance the spiritual realm may be conceived through images placing it "up there" in heaven beyond human grasp. Without the intervention of divine grace, a metaphoric structure becomes a hindrance in discerning the radical difference between pure transcendence and the realm of subject-object relationships. At this juncture it is helpful to recall those remarks about the total suspension of our memory where a genuine occasion of divine transcendence erupts into our lives. Such a kairos event is crucial for positing a true distinction between the proximate transcendence represented by metaphoric structures and the actual transcendence of pure, non-referential awareness. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of this proximate transcendence as follows:

Who can help but love such a [divine] beauty provided that he has an eye capable of reaching out to its loveliness? The beauty grasped is great, but infinitely greater is the beauty of which we get a glimpse from appearances. Song Commentary, p.38.

This "glimpse from the appearances" (dia tou phainomenou stochastikos eikazomenon) reveals a close connection between the created realm and divine reality to which it points. As Mariette Canevet has observed regarding this passage from the Song Commentary, "Si le language ne peut ni atteindre ni signifier Dieu, sa seule fonction est, dans ce domaine, de tourner l'esprit humain vers le divine qu'il designe; il est une direction, un sens vers lui"⁽⁵¹⁾.

Our preference for a metaphoric structure of information results from its position as mediator between pure awareness and our everyday world which is largely composed of dualistic relationships. As excerpt above indicates, Gregory of Nyssa shifts emphasis away from reliance upon our recollective faculty to that desire, eros, which the bride employs to reach her divine Spouse. Her reliance upon eros thus becomes a vehicle for ascents from one degree of glory:

After hearing the unutterable mysteries of paradise, Paul still continued to move higher and did not cease to ascend. he never allowed the good already attained to limit his desire. Paul teaches us here, I believe, that the blessed nature of the good is eternally much better than what we have received while what lies beyond our comprehension is always boundless. Song Commentary, p.245.

Gregory's stress upon the role of desire or eros in Christian spiritual life enables us to more effectively reach out both to God and to persons because they are made in his image and likeness. Eros is characterized by mediation between pure transcendence which belongs to God himself and the realm of human interpersonal relationships. In this sense it is as an arbiter partaking both in stability and motion: stability in its ardent search for God and motion in allowing this desire to overflow into our behavior according to Christian norms. For this reason Gregory's Song Commentary is replete with vivid descriptions of the divine Bridegroom's alteration between presence and absence. Gregory is fond of marital imagery because "The most acute physical pleasure (I mean erotic passion) is used as a symbol in the exposition of this doctrine on love" (p.27).

Even briefest exposure to a kairos event in contemplative prayer reveals that the all-inclusive nature of the transcendent realm conveys awareness of a reality not readily accessible to observation and rational analysis. On the other hand, failure to open oneself to a divine intervention where memory is suspended reveals that a re-ligious perception of pure awareness has not yet been attained⁽⁵²⁾. Our vision remains incomplete, both with regard to the realm of transcendent awareness and the role which metaphoric structures play in supporting our thought patterns and behavior as Christians⁽⁵³⁾. This incomplete understanding can make transcendent reality an object vulnerable to manipulation by positing God as an object. Nevertheless, this representation contains partial knowledge of God but in a manner inverse to the kind obtained through a genuine kairos event. An example of the bride's partial realization is found in Gregory's Song Commentary where he comments upon the verse, "We will make for you figures of gold with studs [stigme] of silver:"

Our understanding of the divine nature transcends every conception which tries to grasp it. Our understanding of the divine nature resembles what we seek. It does not show its form which no one has seen or can see, but through a mirror and riddle (1Cor 13.12) it provides a reflection of the thing sought, that is, a reflection present in the soul by a certain likeness. Every word signifying these conceptions is like a point [stigme] lacking extension since it cannot show what is present in the mind. Thus every thought of ours falls short of the comprehension of God. Every word which tries to explain God seems to be a little dot [stigme] incapable of being coextensive with the breadth of the conception. Thus the soul led through such conceptions to comprehend what cannot be laid hold of except by faith must establish in itself a nature transcending every intelligence. (pp.86-7)

The "studs of sliver" represent glimpses which the human bride has of her Beloved even though they are incapable of fully representing him. But once the bride realizes the provisional role of these stigmata, she becomes established in faith where the divine Bridegroom leads her to a fuller comprehension of his transcendent nature. Here again is the dialectic between stability (the bride's vision of God) and motion (her inability to see him) which is founded upon eros or desire.

The bride's paradoxical situation oscillates between the invisible, transcendent world posited in terms of pure awareness and her perceptions of God which express her experience of this realm. The spiritual character of an informational metaphoric structure allows the bride to describe a harmony between pure (divine) awareness and those representations of him. If she became entranced by these representations as an end in themselves, they would give birth to images or idols which would halt her epektasis. In an extreme case, these idols both regulate and dominate the person who has erected them. Now the tables have been turned: the creator of the idol has become the object of control by the idol.

I have noted that the bride's eros provides a vehicle for transcending any limited perceptions she may have of her divine Bridegroom. Gregory of Nyssa applies his familiar paradox of movement and stability with regard to eros by saying that it is transformed into its opposite, apatheia, freedom from passion. He introduces this paradox in the First Homily of the Song Commentary because it plays a crucial role in the bride's relationship with her divine Spouse which is symbolic of the Christian life:

What could be more paradoxical than to make [human] nature purify itself of its own passions and teach detachment (apatheia) in words normally suggesting passion (pathos)? Solomon does not speak of the necessity of being outside the flesh's impulses or of mortifying our bodily limbs on earth, or of cleansing our mouths of talk of passion; rather, he disposes the soul to be attentive to purity through words which seem to indicate the complete opposite, and he indicates a pure meaning through the use of sensuous language. (p.29)

It is important to realize that Gregory does not denigrate corporeal existence; rather, "words (of passion, pathe) which seem to indicate the complete opposite (apatheia)" reveal God's hidden presence. Pathos designates that proclivity towards sin⁽⁵⁴⁾, whereas apatheia signifies separation from evil. As Jerome Gaith has observed, "Apatheia est la tension continuelle de l'esprit qui se sent toujours menace d'esclavage par la force antagoniste du corps"⁽⁵⁵⁾. Gregory of Nyssa resolves this tension between the attractions for material creation and spiritual reality through the practice of virtue, arete:

For the rays of that true, divine virtue [arete] shine forth in a pure life by the out-flow of detachment [apatheia] and makes the invisible visible to us and the inaccessible comprehensible by depicting the sun in the mirror of our souls...form the virtues we obtain knowledge of the good which transcends all understanding just as the beauty of an archetype can be inferred from its image. Song Commentary, pp.90-1.

I have often spoken of that divine kairos or special occasion which is characterized by a suspension of our mental activities, especially with regard to imaginative cognition. Such an occasion may also be described as freedom from passion or apatheia where our awareness as independently existing egos is lost. In the passage above, note the identity of God with "divine virtue." God in-forms a Christian with his arete which, in turn, becomes associated with practice of the virtues. At first we undergo a death to everything not affiliated with virtue, an experience which can be disconcerting. This death is necessary, but even the briefest exposure to a kairos event imparts a heart-felt sentiment of gratitude to which everything else becomes subservient. Yet the spirit of thankfulness remains constant because the divine Bridegroom continuously leads us to deeper levels of his presence.

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Instead of explicitly mentioning the role our imaginative faculty has in forming perceptions of God, Gregory of Nyssa introduces the notion of a mirror⁽⁵⁶⁾. A mirror accurately reflects an image regardless of the distance involved and requires a perfect correspondence between itself and what it reflects. This example of the close relationship between God and the soul shows that God imparts to the soul an image of himself which is living and not simply reflective. An excerpt from the Song Commentary bears witness to this fact:

By approaching my archetypal beauty, you have become beautiful. Just like a mirror you have taken on my appearance. Human nature is in fact like a mirror, and it takes on different appearances according to the impressions of free will...Thus the mirror represents in its own being whatever is placed before it. So too the soul, when cleansed by the Word [Christ] from vice, it receives within itself the sun's orb and shines with this reflected light. (p.104)

A mirror is well-suited for describing a Christian's relationship with God in terms of analogies founded upon an informational metaphoric structure because a mirror reflects "in its own being" the total form of God. It also has the advantage of permitting us to realize those false images which our previous un-informed attempts at describing God had exerted; the same hold true regarding the veil mentioned in another part of the Song Commentary. On the other hand, an encounter with the living God in a kairos event where our intellectual faculties have been suspended lacks pre-conditioning. When God extends an invitation to share his divine life, an important discovery is made: metaphoric structures are seen as having had a significant impact for describing incomplete knowledge of him. This awareness comes to birth at the very inception of our awareness as independent persons living within a dualistic world of relationships⁽⁵⁷⁾. As noted earlier, culture, philosophy and decisive historical developments provide a background where perceptions are organized into metaphoric structures. Once they have taken root, they are difficult to modify, let alone be transformed through our own initiatives. Metaphoric structures are not readily accessible for reflection due to their all-encompassing nature; a vantage point is lacking from which to step out of ourselves for gaining perspective into our situation.

Although metaphoric structures impose a structure to perceptions of the world, an encounter with the living God orders them in accord with his transcendent presence. Gregory of Nyssa employs an expression, aesthesis tes parousies, which describes God's presence⁽⁵⁸⁾. This phrase may be translated "perception (awareness) of presence," but it fails to disclose the subtle quality of its meaning⁽⁵⁹⁾. Gregory posits a clear distinction between the presence of God and the manifestation of visible reality by applying aesthesis tes parousies to that spiritual ascension from the bonds of corporeal existence. Concerning its use, Canevet says, "Dans son application et designee par le mot aesthesis, qui explique en quoi, de maniere analogique, ce mot a pu etre employe pour designer un mode de connaissance reserve et distinct de celui de l'intelligence rationnelle" (ibid, p.449). In his First Homily of the Song Commentary Gregory distinguishes two modes of perception (aesthesis):

Perception within us is two-fold, bodily and divine...A certain analogy exists between the activities of the soul and the sense organs of the body...On the other hand, there is a certain sense of touch in the soul which takes hold of the Word [Christ] and works in an incorporeal, spiritual way...Similarly, the scent of the divine perfumes is not perceived by the nose, but by a certain spiritual and immaterial power drawing in the good odor of Christ by an inhalation of the Spirit. (p.34)

Here is a common ground between the two realms of spirit and matter where each informs the other. The "certain analogy" between them is realized through a kairos event, thereby allowing free access to both spheres. Gregory frequently relates an aesthesis of God to a person's upward ascent or unfolding from one stage of glory into another. Once a person is initiated into this transcendent realm, he or she can choose an appropriate metaphoric structure to express this experience. There follows both gratitude for God's intervention and the capacity to structure this sentiment in terms of a metaphoric structure based upon an enhanced concept of information. We can now better understand the inadequacies of our previous metaphoric structures which envisioned God's influence in terms of place-to-place movement.

If we open ourselves to this newly discovered metaphoric structure founded upon the concept of information, the knowledge which our faculties have obtained offers a new perspective about God's presence. Such a relationship does not view space and time in purely mechanistic terms. A certain fluidity between the spiritual and material realms strikes a person not initiated into the spiritual realm as ambiguous and not clearly defined. This ambivalence, however, is not an obstacle but offers liberation from the compulsory nature of our senses⁽⁶⁰⁾

. It releases us from hard and fast perceptions accrued from a tendency to consider divine reality, ourselves and the world from a rigid subject-object regard.

CHAPTER THREE

Now that the general nature of a metaphoric structure which gives form to our understanding of the world has been delineated, let us examine the organization of a given structure. According to Mark Johnson, image schemata are essential for this formation⁽⁶¹⁾. These are abstract forms which order mental representations and are based upon a more general level of experience than the intellect which organizes specific images. According to Johnson, image schemata do not compose mental representations themselves but exist prior to their creation. Their generality lends them a limited form of transcendence which is, of course, distinct from God's transcendent nature as manifested within a kairos event. Yet the advantage of image schemata lies in their rootedness within our corporeal nature, a relationship which prevents them from remaining abstract and divorced from the physical world. Image schemata are thus founded upon an everyday experience of the world with all its vicissitudes while at the same time they ab-stract or draw-out elements from this experience and apply them to our perceptions.

The phrase apo doxes eis doxan (from glory into glory) forms the framework to Gregory of Nyssa's metaphors which employ image schemata as found, for example, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs. There accent is placed upon the soul's ascent ("up") to God which intuits divine reality in terms of stability in motion and motion in stability. This particular image schema which gives birth to an informational metaphoric structure is now pressed into service for describing a kairos event where the faculty of our memory has undergone suspension.

The character of any tried and true image schemata, as Mark Johnson has demonstrated⁽⁶²⁾, is comprehended metaphorically where its abstract nature does not remain disembodied from the physical realm. For example, a familiar yet abstract image schema such as "up," "down" or "out" may be applied to the concept of energetic movement. These directions obviously imply activity and are rooted within the almost unconscious experience of gravity pressing us against the earth's surface. The mind metaphorically interprets these orientations, for example, according to energy-orientated schemata. Because image schemata exist prior to our thoughts or concepts, their greater proximity to God's transcendent nature situates them upstream from mental representation. At the same time image schemata impose a definite form to how we comprehend the world which is almost always derived from perceptions of movement. For example, awareness of "up-down" and "left-right" frameworks of movement engenders a host of mental representations which structure our behavior.

It should also be kept in mind that the imaginative faculty often expresses itself prior to any purposeful intent as manifested through the will and intellect. Take the example of daydreaming. In this state thoughts...images...pass through the mind with minor interference by the will or intellect. Our image-making machine offers a multitude of images to sort them out without which a barrage of impressions would overwhelm us. Here is located the existence of what is customarily termed the will and intellect, faculties which pass judgment on the suitability of images and their influence under the guidance of a self-centered ego. It becomes evident through personal experience that the operation of these faculties depends upon the images presented to them. Will, intellect and imagination therefore work hand-in-hand to create a never-ending cycle of images which give structure and meaning to life.

To demonstrate that the operation of will and intellect rests upon those representations offered by our imaginative faculty, the entire emanation process originating from a divine intervention may be viewed in an inverse fashion. Once God extends an invitation to share in his life through a kairos event which has suspended our imagination (the "image-making machine"), the will and intellect automatically become suspended. This order of suspension always fixed as personal experience reveals through contemplative prayer. For an example of the suspension of memory, refer to a passage from the Life of Moses:

For leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence's yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness⁽⁶³⁾.

Despite the "leaving behind of everything that is observed," an encounter with the living God in a kairos event reveals that the sense of hearing remains active. Engaged within this transcendent state of awareness, we remain conscious of sounds even though no ego is operative to sort them out. The sense of hearing anchors us within the familiar realm of space and time, an important faculty in formulating metaphoric structures for a later description of our experience. For example, the human bride frequently is summoned by her divine Spouse to listen to his words:

She has not yet delighted at the appearance of her groom's face but is still led by hearing to participate in the good...Hitherto the soul understands only what she has understood, but what she still does not know is infinitely greater than what she has already comprehended. Because of this, the bridegroom often appears to the soul; although not present to her sight, he promises the bride by his voice that he will appear. Song Commentary (pp.320-1).

We already saw that image schemata enjoy a certain transcendence with regard to our normal experience and that they form our an understanding of the world. But if the nature of a re-ligious progression (in the literal sense of binding-back-to-the-Source) is examined in greater detail with regard to a kairos event, we would soon discover another suspension pertaining to our intellectual faculties, that belonging to image schemata. Here basic modes of orientation such as "up" or "down" are held in abeyance and we feel, like the bride in Gregory's Song Commentary, as if we were suspended over a deep chasm. On the other hand, thoughts arising from our imagination distract attention from God's presence because they lack a fixed object on which to project themselves. These thoughts may function according to the image schemata of "up" or "down" but assume no consistent pattern because they divert attention away from God. Once thoughts degenerate into distractions, they assume lively though disjointed forms. A multitude of images then flows outward and creates an obstruction to that re-ligious advancement back to our transcendent Source. But once the final suspension of image schemata, imaginative faculty and the metaphoric structure on which it rests has been achieved by God's grace, he makes his presence felt directly, often best described through an experience of darkness, as the passage cited earlier from Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses suggests.

It should be noted that our personal efforts do not initiate this interruption or suspension of the recollective process, yet we can dispose ourselves for either receiving or rejecting a kairos event. Gregory of Nyssa offers us the example of Moses' encounter with God in a "tabernacle not made with hands" to "those below by means of a material likeness:"

When he [Moses] who has been purified and is sharp of hearing in his heart hears this (I am speaking of the knowledge of the divine power which comes from the contemplation of reality), he is led by it to the place where his intelligence lets him slip in where God is. This is called darkness by the Scripture which signifies, as I have said, the unknown and unseen. When he arrives there, he sees that tabernacle not made with hands which he shows to those below by means of a material likeness⁽⁶⁴⁾.

Moses has acquired wisdom enabling him to bridge the gulf between God's revelation and other persons. Gregory expresses this material likeness not in mechanistic (energetic) concepts; rather, he identifies it with actual human persons: "It would be well to regard the names `apostles, teachers and prophets' as referring to those servants of the divine mystery whom Scripture also calls pillars of the Church"⁽⁶⁵⁾. These persons are outstanding models because they are united with God and are engaged in the eternal process of being re-established to his image and likeness. When this restoration to our divine image and likeness occurs (in actuality it is always present, a fact which we must become aware of), a harmony exists between a kairos event, image schemata, metaphoric structures and finally, the faculties of will, intellect and imagination.

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For Gregory of Nyssa and other Fathers of the Church, the theme of the image of God first expressed in Genesis 1.26 ("Let us make man in our image and likeness," kat'eikona hemeteran kai kath'homoiosin) is of central importance. Towards the conclusion of his Song Commentary Gregory speaks of it as follows:

Because creation exists from its very beginning by the divine power, the end of each created being is linked with its beginning: everything created from nothing comes into existence with its beginning. Human nature is also created but does not, like other created beings, advance towards its perfection, but right from the beginning it is created perfect: "Let us make man according to the image and likeness of God" (Gen 1.26). Here is the very summit and perfection of goodness. What can be more exalted than similarity to God? Thus the end of the first creation is simultaneous with its beginning, for human nature originated in perfection. (pp.457-8)

Note that "human nature...does not advance towards its perfection, but right from the beginning it is created perfect." At first glance this apparent lack of advancement contradicts Gregory's teaching on epektasis, perpetual growth. Shortly afterwards he says that "Human nature takes up its perfection not at once, as in the beginning, but progresses towards the good by an order which gradually gets rid of our inclination towards evil." This order (akolouthia) applies to that "interval of time" (he diastematike paratasis, p.458) necessary for the soul to be purified of the evil which it had acquired. Gregory does not imply that material creation is sinful, only our inclinations towards evil. The "diastematic extension" of space and time forms the milieu in which Christ re-establishes human nature. To it belongs the realm of metaphoric structures, the means for describing our restoration in God's image and likeness.

Awareness of our embodiment within space and time through a regular discipline of contemplative prayer furnished us with the ability to chose an appropriate means for describing a transcendent experience. An encounter with the living God weans our faculties away from their habitual fixations and puts them at rest. A metaphoric structure founded upon the concept of energy is not adequate to describe our encounter because it suggests place-to-place movement, awareness of which had been suspended. Our newly discovered metaphoric structure of information emerges and bestows a different manner for expressing our divine origin. A transcendent order which Gregory of Nyssa expresses by the term akolouthia⁽⁶⁶⁾ structures projects itself onto diastematic extension. In its place arises a new dynamism where diastematic extension represents its divine Source. The bishop of Nyssa calls this dynamism "allegory" which reveals a deeper meaning of Scripture:

Because some members of the Church always think it right to follow the letter of holy Scripture and do not take into account the symbolic and allegorical meanings, we must answer those who accuse of us doing so [that is, of using allegory]: there is nothing unusual in searching the divinely inspired Scriptures with every means at our disposal. Thus if the literal sense, as it is called, should be of any use, we will readily have the object of our search. But if anything in the hidden, symbolic sense cannot be of use with regard to the literal sense, we will, as the Word [Christ] teaches and as Proverbs says [1.6], understand the passage either as a parable, a dark saying, an utterance of wise men, or as a riddle. Song Commentary, pp.4-5.

The important though occasionally unappreciated faculty of imagination shapes our experience in novel ways by offering the will and intellect numerous directions of activity from which to choose. The images it suggests have a base broader than we may at first realize because they take shape within the larger and more comprehensive sphere of image schemata. The will and intellect play an equally important role, but their involvement occurs slightly later in time; first come images presented through the imagination on which they operate. Although a metaphoric structure is more passive as opposed to the active nature of the imagination, it offers a foundation on which this faculty may operate. To represent this passivity, we may envision a metaphoric structure positioned below the image schemata in the bottom half of a circle. On the other hand, the top half of the circle illustrates image schemata which give form to a particular metaphoric structure. This top half requires a (lower) submissive half on which to express itself. Both parts work together for bringing into existence a particular world view; they also have the potential for giving birth to either an authentic or an erroneous representation of a kairos event. However, a genuine manifestation of God is founded upon suspension both of image schemata, imagination and intellectual faculties, whereas an erroneous manifestation focuses attention upon images which our faculties have fabricated about God. Again, refer to Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary which contrasts these two perceptions:

After having reproached men's attitudes towards external appearances, and after having said that everything unstable is vain and passing, Solomon elevates above everything grasped by the sense the loving movement of our soul towards invisible beauty. Having thus cleansed the heart with respect to external matters, Solomon then initiates [mustagogei] the soul into the divine sanctuary by means of the Song of Songs. What is described there is a marriage, but what is understood is the union of the human soul with God. (pp.22-3)

The diagram of a circle below is intended to show the foundation for our perceptions of the world, whether they are true or false, and is divided in half by a line representing the imagination or our image-making-machine. Standing midway between image schemata and a particular metaphoric structure, our imaginative faculty bridges both sides of the sphere. The circle could not maintain its form without this mediating influence of the imagination. This diagram reveals how the imagination works upon the abstract character of image schemata and organizes them into a particular metaphoric structure thereby giving shape to a particular world view:

Image Schemata (active)

-------------------- Imagination ------------------

Will and Intellect

Metaphoric Structure (passive)

On one hand, God's revelation through a kairos event effects a unique harmony between the suspension of image schemata, imagination and all metaphoric structures. The effect of this harmony is a feeling of peace and wholeness which, as Christ says, the world cannot give. On the other hand, both ignorance and the rejection of God's presence give birth to an organizational principle known as the ego which ruptures the circle's symmetry. This self-conscious principle derives its authority from the will and intellect located within the lower half of the circle. Our first inclination is to attribute them with an active character. Note, however, that they are situated within the passive or lower half of the circle; their position demonstrates that they are relative to the circle as a whole. Neither will, intellect, nor ego contribute to the composition of image schemata, imagination, imagination and metaphoric structure.

This partial view does not attribute superiority to the will, intellect and ego but reveals their subservience to a more comprehensive reality. Attention should therefore be focused upon the two halves not as distinct entities but as complementary to each other. Up to now the centrality of imagination was stressed to restore it as a primary source on which the will, intellect and ego operate. Without the imagination these other faculties would have no material for their operation. As was suggested earlier, personal experience of having our memory suspended by a divine intervention bears witness to the reality of God's presence. If the circle's form is to be restored to its unmanifest state, to a divine kairos event, we must open ourselves to a suspension of our memory. This experience, in turn, brings about the suspension, not the abolition, of the other three faculties.

The interaction between image schemata and a metaphoric structure as expressed through the medium of our imaginative faculty provides the material for either an ego-centered perception of reality or a transcendental comprehension of it. In the former instance attention is directed exclusively to will and intellect which assume a subservient role under the ego's guidance. But as the diagram indicates, these faculties are located between the imagination and a particular metaphoric structure within the circle's bottom half. The independent nature of a self-conscious ego subsequently becomes aware of the will and intellect, recognition of which remained dormant prior to the ego's emergence. The will and intellect are not exclusively linked to awareness of an independently existing ego; they remain crucial elements in our search for God where free will is of paramount importance:

God gave to rational nature the grace of free will and bestowed on man the power to find what he wants that the good might be present in our lives, not coerced and involuntary, but the result of free choice. The movement of our will freely leads us to apparent realities. Song Commentary, p.55.

Any clarification of free will's activity in our relationship with God requires that we take into account the imagination. This is the first faculty largely responsible for giving birth to memories which perceives that special type of suspension within a divine revelation. Situated, as it were, after the more general nature of image schemata and before the emergence of a given metaphoric structure informed by these schemata, it imparts the former's broad principles to the latter's more specific reality, thereby providing raw material for the emergence of thought patterns. When the time comes to express an encounter with the living God, experience shows that he manifests himself through a kairos event in an outward fashion from his sovereign transcendence to perceptible reality. After having emerged from contact with God in a state when our recollective faculty has been temporarily suspended, divine grace empowers us to extend the influence of God's presence by using this same faculty. Both memory and imagination are thus transformed into vehicles for expressing a divine communication. Such a contact enables God to subject to himself the two other faculties, will and intellect which now become vehicles for disclosing his presence. However, the will and intellect in and by themselves lack the ability to effect pure awareness; this limitation can occasionally compel us to project an incomplete insight of divine reality. Their restricted scope requires the virtue of humility as Gregory of Nyssa's two exemplars, Moses and the bride, who could not fully comprehend God's revelation.

The transcendental participation in God's form and its expression through a metaphor of information reveal a close correspondence between spiritual reality and the physical realm where its revelation occurs. In the words of Gregory of Nyssa, "Our affections are further intensified after we have changed our material inclinations to an immaterial state"⁽⁶⁷⁾. These sentiments are not abolished but are refined once they have transcended the familiar domain of space and time. This growing sensitivity to God's divine form abrogates the need for the ego which stands as a mediator between our faculties and the general, informing nature of image schemata. At first glance it seems unusual to conceive the faculties of will and intellect as impediments to God's presence under the ego's direction, but reflection upon those contacts with him reveals this is true, sometimes with unfortunate consequences. Openness to God's presence indicates that the immediate perception both of ourselves and of the world functions on a plane different from the operation of our intellectual faculties. Suspension of these essential vehicles of perception militates against the Western tradition which favors the primacy of intellect and spirit over the body. Nevertheless, it offers a refreshing new perspective and is available, provided that a person remains open to God's self-revelation and has an informed understanding of how he communicates himself.

It seems that an immediate awareness of our corporeal nature prior to the intervention of will and intellect remains free from any imposition by the ego. It is helpful to again quote from Hubert Benoit on this point, especially with regard to the imagination since this faculty is so crucial for the emergence of the latter two:

As soon as I begin to make the right kind of efforts in order to perceive my instantaneous state of existence, I realize that these efforts curb the active imaginative film which is in me and which is incompatible with these efforts. More exactly, these efforts have a solvent effect on my illusory film, by taking my attention from it and placing it on the real reactive imaginative film. In short my efforts dissolve my life-on-the-place-of-sensation...I realize that there is in me a real "Earth," my organic life with my perceptions, reactive to the real present, and an illusory "Heaven," my active imaginative life...The inner work, by abolishing the illusory Heaven will give me back to my Earth; and this restitution of my Earth will be at the same time the enjoyment of the true Heaven. (ibid, pp.94-5)

It is necessary to describe in greater detail what Benoit calls "the right kind of efforts" which restrain our imaginative faculty. The very notion of effort implies volition, yet a decontraction of the imagination goes contrary to effort. At first glance we might be tempted to perceive that this inner task lies beyond our scope. This temptation arises, however, only from the ego's self-centered perception of reality (which emerges after the will and intellect) and failure to recognize the primacy of our corporeal existence. Life on the physical plane is usually considered lower than our "higher" faculties which abstract images from it. The relationship between our bodies and imagination is indispensable since the latter faculty directly flows from awareness of our bodily existence prior to any other mediating principle. This immediate, non-referential awareness precludes the need to make a distinction where spirit is opposed to matter. Yet in view of an informational metaphoric structure, this distinction assumes a transformed meaning, explication of God's divine revelation within the relative domain of space and time.

Benoit makes a distinction between our "active imaginative film" and our "real reactive imaginative film." The former is responsible for giving birth to will and intellect, whereas the latter works hand in hand with the physical world, the true source of images. Through it we formulate images based upon immediate perceptions of reality as opposed to thoughts about it. Examples of this are found throughout Gregory of Nyssa's commentaries on Scripture where he constantly employs tangible objects (tas hulas) to express transcendent reality through what I have designated as a metaphoric structure of information. The following passage from his Song Commentary sums this up where he places the two realms in perfect resonance:

But the mind running on high through its understanding of transcendent reality should realize that all perfection of knowledge attainable by human nature is only the beginning of a desire for more lofty things. Diligently consider what is offered for our examination and be mindful that the description of the bridal chamber and marital elements is material [tas hulas] for contemplation. Their meaning is transferred to a pure and spiritual level by which the text presents us doctrines. Therefore, the text says that the bride is the soul; God is called a bridegroom whom the soul loves with her whole heart, soul and strength. Having reached, as she thought, the summit of her hope, and already thinking that she is united to her beloved, the bride calls "bed" this more perfect participation in the good and calls "night" the time of darkness. By "night" the bride shows us the contemplation of what is unseen, and like Moses, she is in the darkness of God's presence. (pp.180-1)

If we were to interrogate a person to whom God had revealed himself in contemplative prayer, he or she would undoubtedly speak about the surpassing peace and tranquility experienced in such an encounter. But if we were to question this person with a view towards having the encounter delineated in greater detail, the response would likely be in terms which describe the temporary suspension of one's recollective faculty. Because of memory's rootedness within time's ebb and flow, it can create the illusion of an independent, personal ego. But once the memory is held in abeyance through God's grace, even momentarily, we are in a position to enjoy direct contact with our transcendent Source. Neither words nor metaphoric expressions can adequately describe this extraordinary event, yet the observation that awareness of our personal selves is suspended does not negate our existence as individuals.

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After having surrendered ourselves to a divine occasion when our memory has been suspended, awareness of our physical bodies becomes more universal, a process of shedding that illusory identity of independently existing egos. We now exchange the ego's proclivity to create segmented and distinct and categories for the all-inclusive, transcendent character of a kairos event. The ego may be visualized as a square whose sharply defined angles are smoothed down until it assumes the shape of a circle where all points are equidistant from the center. At this juncture awareness of an autonomous self disappears, and we discover a sudden liberation from its constraints. Such a breakthrough is a genuine conversion, a metanoia, which is a direct result of God's intervention. Now the faculties of will and intellect are free to recover their true role as agents submissive to the living God. They have literally become in-formed or been inserted into the morphe (form) of a divine kairos event which is characterized by their suspension through.

In contrast to our liberating submission to God's intervention and its expression through an informational metaphoric structure, there exists the alternate structure of energetic movement which is also rooted within bodily perceptions of reality. In this latter instance, a dialectic between the physical realm, image schemata and intellect is more prone to the control of a self-centered ego. Because energetic movement is always circumscribed, any description of it is likewise circumscribed. In other words, awareness of this movement assumes a linear direction where our experience of the world augments without changing its basic sameness. Gregory of Nyssa presents an example of this movement and contrasts it with God's eternal nature in his Commentary on Ecclesiastes:

All our notions are bound by time; they attempt to transcend their proper limits but cannot. Intervals of time constitute all our thoughts as well as the substance of a person who gives rise to such thoughts. Such intervals are created. The good we teach, however, must be pursued and guarded. Our mind functions by using intervals within time, so how can it grasp [God's] nature which is not subject to temporal extension? Through the medium of time, the inquisitive [mind] always leaves behind any thought older than what it just discovered. The mind also busily searches through all kinds of knowledge yet never discovers the means to grasp eternity in order to transcend both itself and what we earlier considered, namely, the eternal existence of beings. This effort resembles a person standing on a precipice (A smooth, precipitous rock which abruptly falls down into a boundless distance suggests this transcendence. Its prominence reaches on high while also falling to the gaping deep below). A person's foot can therefore touch that ridge falling off to the depths below and find neither step nor support for his hand.

This example may pertain to the soul's passage through intervals of time in its search for [God's] nature which exists before eternity and is not subject to time. His nature cannot be grasped, for it lacks space, time, measure and anything else we can apprehend; instead, our mind is overcome with dizziness and stumbles over all the place because it cannot lay hold of transcendent reality. Being powerless, it returns to its connatural state. Our mind loves to know only about God's transcendence of which it is persuaded because his nature differs from anything we know. (pp.412-14)

The seemingly endless and repetitive nature of cyclic time (and therefore energetic movement) can, in turn, give rise to a false image of eternity or freedom from time's restraints. But if we are to understand this limited view, we must freely consent to a suspension of images spawned by such a partial apprehension. Only then can we assess the character of any metaphoric structure not rooted within a transcendent comprehension of reality. Now that dependency upon metaphors of energetic movement is not so absolute as we had initially imagined; an alternative exists which can modify our understanding.

When God in-forms us with his transcendent morphe, we perceive his divine presence in all its undiminished splendor. I have already outlined morphe's character and Gregory of Nyssa's "from glory into glory" as a foundation to express God's gift of this form. From Gregory's point of view, a metaphoric structure as expressed through the concept of information is primarily energy-less and cannot be delineated in terms of place-to-place activity. In contrast to this latter structure, that of information appears as the weaker sister. Nevertheless, energy is circumscribed, an observation which prevents us from employing this metaphoric structure to describe an experience of God as, for instance, in contemplative prayer. Gregory's Song Commentary describes such "energy-less" movement:

Human nature is also created but does not, like other created beings, advance towards its perfection, but right from the beginning it is created perfect: "Let us make man according to the image and likeness of God" (Gen 1.26)...Thus the end of the first creation is simultaneous with its beginning, for human nature originated in perfection...Human nature takes up its perfection not at once, as in the beginning, but progresses towards the good by an order [akolouthia] which gradually gets rid of our inclination towards evil. In the first creation there was no impediment present with the birth of our human nature, for it was perfect and lacked evil. But in the second restoration [tes deuteras anastoicheioseos], in interval of time [he diastematike paratasis] necessarily accompanies those pursuing the first good. Because our minds incline towards evil, our association with evil is removed like bark which is gradually scraped off by a more becoming life. (pp.458-9)

Note the identity of human perfection (teleiotes) with God's image and likeness. Despite this ontological fellowship, our created nature requires progression (epektasis) in the spiritual life by an order (akolouthia) which rids us of inclinations towards evil. This incremental growth offers the opportunity to express our separation from God either by a metaphoric expression of energetic movement or information. Gregory speaks of a second restoration, Christ's redemption, which reestablishes a person to his or her pristine image and likeness. Since this operation is effected within space and time, it involves diastema, a perception of distance which is a distinctive mark of our created condition. Thus a tension exists between the realization of our original perfection and working it out in this present life. Perhaps the most crucial element towards resolution of this dilemma is becoming aware of how we verbalize it. Awareness of time's passage is a temptation to employ energetic concepts (with their proclivity for describing place-to-place movement) as representative of our diastema from God. If the process of spacial-temporal movement is suspended, awareness of diastema would likewise be held in abeyance. The imaginative faculty is now at rest because no images are present to express an experience outside our usual manner of acquiring perceptions. But when the imagination begins its normal activity after a divine encounter, it is in-formed or empowered to describe this profound experience. At this juncture there is an identity is achieved, however fleeting its realization, with our original nature created in God's image and likeness.

When articulating an encounter with the living God through the process of being divinely in-formed, it is clear that our personal, ego-centered efforts are not responsible for effecting it. God's presence remains impervious to our efforts. However, the expression of distance now assumes a non-linear expression because diastema implies comprehension of moral imperfections. Here distance assumes a different character because it is now viewed in terms of that which is not divine. Another passage from the Song Commentary reveals this contrast between "changeable human nature" and God's nature:

In changeable human nature, good and evil exist by turns because we have the capacity to choose either one of two contraries. As a result, the good in us alternates with the evil, and the evil becomes a limit on the good. All the activities of our souls, insofar as they are opposed, define and limit one another. On the other hand, the divine nature is simple, pure, of one kind, unmoved, unchangeable, always the same, and always self-contained. Because it is incapable of fellowship with evil, it remains unlimited in the good. It recognizes no limits because it contains no opposites in itself. So then, when God draws a human soul to participate in himself, he always remains in equal measure superior to the participating soul because of his superabundant goodness. For, on the one hand, the soul continually grows through participation in what is beyond it and never stops growing. On the other hand, the good in which the soul shares remains the same [i.e., unlimited] that it transcends her as much as before. (p.158)

Once again Gregory of Nyssa presents that familiar paradox of movement and stability, distinguishing two types of movement, human nature's fluctuation between good and evil and "growth through participation in what is beyond it." The latter is more specifically informational in that God imparts his divine morphe to the soul. Keeping in mind the image presented above of God being "superior (that is, `above') to the participating soul," he imparts grace to us "below." However, spacial imagery does not apply in an informational context due to the identity between God and the soul. A correct understanding of God's transcendence consists in comprehending grace (charis) as coming from "above" that the soul may participate in his divine life. As Gregory says, "What [God] is by nature, he bestows [charizetai] this benefit to man"⁽⁶⁸⁾.

The metaphoric structure of information is grounded within in the concept of stability in motion and motion in stability. Despite the apparent incompatibility of these two diametrically opposed concepts, Gregory views them as participating in a more comprehensive reality. The bishop of Nyssa's revolutionary insight went contrary to the classical world view prevailing in his day which favored the established concept of stability over the unknown, potential threat of motion. However, the classical culture of Gregory's time lacked a clearly defined notion of energetic movement which came into existence much later in history. It should also be kept in mind that mystery religions of the East have generally had a certain sensitivity to the problem of change and offered techniques of escape. Influence from these quarters filtered into the Hellenistic culture of Gregory's period. Quite often it assumed the guise of gnosticism, a theory which maintained that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through knowledge, gnosis. This process of liberation rests upon a dualism between good and evil preceding those more clearly defined metaphoric structures of energetic movement which emerged much later. On the other hand, the Christian world in general was heavily influenced by the Platonic concept of form.

The concept of stability which formed a main support of classical civilization was associated with constancy, predictability and permanence. Outside the confines of the Roman Empire laid the dark, undomesticated world of the barbarians which constantly threatened the sophisticated civilization within. Partly due to this external menace, challenge to the foundations of classical civilization were suspect. The concept of change or alteration was justifiably mistrusted since it posed a threat to an important substructure of society. Gregory of Nyssa was not exposed to outright condemnation for his theorizing upon motion and stability even though the Church experienced some difficulty in accepting his philosophic reflections. As we have seen, Gregory grasped the philosophic heart of his classical Platonic heritage, stability, and introduced his sophisticated reflections upon the thorny problem of motion. Gregory therefore inverted an important association of classical tradition, that goodness is associated with immutability and that evil is equivalent to change.

Now the form (morphe) does not belong to the Platonic variety which exists in a realm wholly transcendent from the physical. Instead, it is the Pauline "form of God" from Philippians 2.6: "[Christ Jesus] who, though he was in the form [morphe] of God." This insight reveals that Christ and God the Father share a single morphe while remaining two distinct Persons. Gregory appropriates Paul's Trinitarian text in reference to the divine form while at the same time he develops his own unique approach. Similarly, Gregory took up the phrase "from glory into glory" of Second Corinthians 3.16 and imparted his insight into what may be called a non-energetic transference of form. That is, the divine morphe of Christ belongs to both the Father and Holy Spirit. By avoiding the use of concepts such as energetic movement, the concept of morphe has the obvious advantage of removing the tendency to view this exchange in spacial terms or diastematic terms⁽⁶⁹⁾.

Towards the beginning of this essay I introduced three excerpts from Gregory's Song Commentary which explicitly mention the Pauline phrase, "from glory into glory." They do not refer to energetic or place-to-place movement but emphasize transference of God's divine morphe from the human bride to her Bridegroom. The nature of this form consists in thankfulness, charis, expressed between the two spouses. It was also pointed out that the expression of gratitude is not necessarily through concepts related to the expenditure of place-to-place movement. In its place the transcendent morphe of gratitude makes its presence felt immediately anywhere within the space-time continuum, the native domain of energetic movement. Because God's form can never evaporate, it never knows exhaustion, satiety, nor the dread of perpetual repetition characteristic of energetic movement. For a demonstration of this unending cycle articulated in terms of morphe, I have referred to three important passages from Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary which are dominated both by advancement, fulfillment within this progression and desire to grow in love and knowledge of God.

CHAPTER FOUR

At first glance it may be difficult to detect any affinity between the nature of a kairos event and our recollective faculty because they are two different realities. On one hand is God's absolute transcendence and on the other hand, memory's chief function, the recollection of past events. This opposition becomes more intense through an experience of God's transcendence because it effects a suspension of our intellectual faculties. Nevertheless, the memory can retain an impression of past experiences when God had intervened in our lives. Human nature can never lay hold of the transcendent realm, one reason why on occasion Christian theology employs apophatic terminology with respect to a kairos event. That is, mystics and theologians, especially of the Christian Orthodox tradition, are fond of using language more suggestive and allegorical by nature because God transcends any attempts to understand him. In light of this observation, I introduce the term "non-memory," a means of describing the suspension of our recollective faculty. This word suggests the radical otherness of God who stands apart from our attempts to impose either a past or future temporal prolongation of his omni-present reality. At the same time, the word "non-memory" does not suggest the annulment of the recollective faculty, only its suspension within a kairos event.

It is only natural that persons have been conditioned to articulate past events through images and concepts in accord with their respective world views. Once established, they can assume a life of their own by giving birth to presuppositions which, in extreme situations, produce harmful ideologies. In a certain sense, to break free from these mistaken views is to experience liberation from the past. Any re-presentation of the past or an attempt at making-present a past experience receives existence through our recollective faculty. Yet when an occasion of memory's suspension occurs, this faculty becomes more accustomed to God's divine presence within a kairos event and allows a person to remain open to further occasions of being in-formed by him. It is precisely because of this suspension that I introduce the term "non-memory." An example of our participation in God's life and the self-forgetfulness it engenders may be found in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary:

By participation in the transcendent, it [created nature] is always being created while ever changing for the better in its growth in perfection. Neither is it limited, nor can it be circumscribed in its growth towards the good; however, its present state of goodness, even if especially great and perfect, is only the beginning of a more transcendent, better stage. The Apostle's words are thus verified: the stretching out to what lies before is related to forgetfulness of earlier accomplishments (Phil 3.13). The good which is superior to the one already attained holds the attention of those participating in it while not allowing them to look at the past; by enjoying what is more worthy, their memory of inferior things is blotted out. (p.174)

This example includes the beneficial recollection of past sins forgiven by God. The content of guilt has been effectively devalued, whereas the form of sin remains a reference point and for our dependance upon God. When a memory burdened with sin experiences liberation, a recollection of the form or the negative pattern it had exerted in our lives is retained. We come to a new realization: the recollection of past sins does not compel adherence to earlier negative behavior but ist a source of renewal by making us realize that we are dependant upon God for his grace.

Recalling instances of sin not only generates a feeling of remorse but a sentiment of gratitude for forgiveness which is opposite to guilt. In a certain manner these recollections pattern themselves after sin's form or memory but are devoid of its content (guilt). Before any sin is forgiven by divine intervention, a close identity exists between the person who commits an offense and the content of sin as manifested through pangs of conscience. This identity is marked by a reflexive, involuntary concentration. Sin re-enforces this bond with the person who had committed an offense and binds the transgressor ever more tightly to itself. Memory obviously plays an important role, for it ties the knot between remembrance of past offenses and the person who had committed them. But once the burden of sin has been lifted--more specifically its content--a person retains a recollection of past offenses as a reference point for God's mercy. I prefer to call this residual presence of sin its form as opposed to its content. In this instance sin does not make us focus exclusively upon a particular offense; it trans-forms a person and creates a milieu where a sense of gratitude for the pardon extended by God is awakened⁽⁷⁰⁾. Here is an occasion where a kairos event changes the content of sin into its own transcendent morphe. Because the bestowal of a divine morphe most fully manifests itself through a suspension of memory, the origin of thoughts and imaginings, it transforms memory into the form of non-memory by reason of our participation in the transcendent form of a kairos event. In the case of sin, its form generates a spirit of humility and truthfulness. Only now an overwhelming sense of gratitude takes root while at the same time it obliterates the content or memory of sin's burdensome weight.

If we perceived God's liberating intervention in our lives through metaphoric structures based upon the concept of energetic place-to-place movement, we would envisage divine life meted out in parcels or segments where focus lies more upon the content of sin and our actions than upon its general form, even after the sin had been forgiven. We would tend to measure, evaluate and delineate sin instead of fixing attention upon the limited nature of its form and God's absolution. Despite the forgiveness offered by God, the memory of sin would continue to haunt us and not be placed at the service of recalling his mercy. This adherence prevents us from making the significant distinction between sin's form and its content. For example, Gregory of Nyssa presents two forms depicting a Christian's relationship with God, the "fleshly garment of the old man" and "the tunic created according to God in holiness and righteousness:"

He [Paul] says that Jesus is this garment. The bride confesses that she will no longer take up this rejected tunic, but she is content with the one tunic which she put on by a rebirth from above according to the command given to the disciples (Mt 10.10). This action confirms the Lord's word which exhorts those once bedecked with the divine garment to no longer put on the tunic of sin, nor to have two tunics but only one, lest these two tunics be incompatible with each other...For the person who beholds himself clothed with the radiant tunic of the Lord which he put on with purity and incorruptibility is like the tunic Christ showed in his transfiguration on the mountain. Song Commentary, pp.328-9.

Gregory directs attention to two forms, the repulsive one of sin and the other, divine life, which is beautiful. If our attention were to remain fixed only upon the content or particulars of the first tunic, we would not recognize its capacity for suggesting another form, the tunic of God's forgiveness and renewal. This attention to content instead of form is beneficial for realizing our un-informed human condition but can cause despair. The contrast between the two garments is so overwhelming because they represent such different states of human nature. But when attention is directed to their different forms, God's divine form (morphe) as represented by the second garment disposes us more to a spirit of heart-felt gratitude for a remedy to our sinful condition. Gregory's example suggests that our recollective faculty assumes special importance under the influence of divine grace when a choice must be made between the tunic of flesh or immortality. However, the bride is presented with the attractive form of the latter tunic whose beauty so overwhelms her that she makes the correct choice. The bride is caught up by this symbol of her divine Spouse's loveliness, and the contrast between the two garments is surpassed in favor of further revelations of his beauty as embodied by the second tunic's form. Gregory of Nyssa continues with his description of the bride's tunic which she has recently assumed:

Having removed her old tunic and every covering, she became even purer. In view of her current purity the bride does not seem to have removed her covering. Even after that stripping of herself she still finds something further to be removed. Thus the ascent to God always indicates something unbecoming in the bride. In comparison with her current purity, the removed tunic, therefore, becomes a garment to removed again by those who find the bride...A certain benefit lies in this removal of her veil: her eye is free and unhindered to contemplate her beloved. There can be no doubt from the Apostle's words that the veil's removal refers to the Spirit's action: "When a person turns to the Lord, his veil will be removed. The Lord is the Spirit." Song Commentary, pp.360-1

This passage represents a dialectic between the bride's choice and the divine form which always remains before her eyes as something new to assume. By this choice for something always more beautiful, her attention is fixed upon her Spouse's divine form which is a continuous transmission of God's life. The bride is now prevented from remaining content with just one manifestation of the Bridegroom because she focuses not so much upon herself but upon that divine morphe which she is invited to assume.

At first glance the bride's continuous stripping away of "her old tunic and every covering" appears wearisome. This would be true if her progress were envisioned only through images related to that place-to-place activity characteristic of energetic activity. However, the images which Gregory employs imply that his readers have become initiated into a type of movement and progression occurring on the spiritual plane. One benefit of this shift from material to spiritual reality is that the latter offers liberation from a concentration upon the distinction between motion and stability. Gregory of Nyssa always looks for an opportunity to offer this paradox as a paradigm for spiritual advancement, namely, of passing from one degree of glory into another. On the other hand, the bishop of Nyssa stresses that "rest through inaction" when the mind "regards only what transcends visible objects:"

As long as the mind lives alone and untroubled by the senses, it is as though the body were overcome by sleep and torpor. One can then truly say that sight is at rest through inaction while the soul has contempt for visions which frighten little children. I speak not only of material things such as gold which arouse greedy eyes, but the wonderful marvels in the heavens...these things will not last forever but will move and pass away with the cycle of time. Despising all such wonders through the contemplation of true goodness, the body's eye becomes tired, and the more perfect soul is not attracted to anything visible; with the mind it regards only what transcends visible objects...Once all these senses have been put to sleep and are gripped by inaction, the heart's action is pure; reason looks above while it remains undisturbed and free from the senses' movement. Song Commentary, pp.312-13

Gregory differentiates between attention to God in pure faith or awareness without a subject-object regard and the one we bring to created objects. The former is symbolized by sleep, but a sleep pertaining to "material things which pass away with the cycle of time." This distinction is contrasted with that movement so typical of time's cyclic activity. Gregory rightly says that our propensity to concentrate upon objects conditioned by this activity is "put to sleep and is gripped by inaction." In other words, our recollective faculty which takes note of the splendor and goodness of material creation becomes suspended, not abolished. It is precisely for this reason that the word "non-memory" with the prefix "non" may be applied to the bride who remains unperturbed by images taken from material creation⁽⁷¹⁾. When our inclination to analyze objects is put to rest both through God's intervention and the discipline of contemplative prayer and the practice of virtue, time's passage loses its hold. Furthermore, suspension of memory lacks the notion of a personal self in preference for transcendent freedom. Emphasis upon the impersonal aspect of human nature does not denigrate our dignity as being made in God's image and likeness; instead it implies that newly discovered ability to refer perceptions to our transcendent Source, God, in a kairos event where memory has been effectively suspended.

This form of suspension allows insights into the spiritual life which were impossible before God had made his presence felt. At first it seems paradoxical that suspension of her recollective faculties should produce movement, but movement belonging to physical creation is an image of that spiritual advancement...prokope...in greater love and knowledge of God. These two types of movement are contrasted by that movement proper to creation:

"What profit is there for a man in all his labor under the sun" (Eccl 1.3)? Ecclesiastes calls this bodily existence "labor" which we strive after to no gain. What profit is it then for man? That is, what becomes of the soul which labors for superficial things? What is the purpose of life, or how permanent is transitory beauty? The sun which has enlightened heaven above has run its course and is subject to darkness at sunset. The earth is stationary and unmovable, while anything subject to movement does not stand still. This demonstrates that everything is subject to time, for nothing changes to a newer condition. The sea is a receptacle for water which tends to flow everywhere; water never ceases to flow while the sea never grows larger. What is the goal of the water's course which always fills the unquenchable sea? What is this influx of water which never fills the ever-constant sea? Ecclesiastes speaks like this in order that he might explain the insubstantiality of our frenzied pursuits from these elements which constitute man's existence. Commentary on Ecclesiastes, pp.285-6.

Such place-to-place movement which is so characteristic of metaphoric structures related to the concept of energetic movement may be contrasted with spiritual movement. This latter type of movement belongs to the realm of in-formation where a person assumes God's divine morphe:

...[Paul] doubted his own human nature, that is, whether at the time of his initiation into paradise he was in the body or in the spirit. He testifies, "I consider myself not to have reached the goal, but I stretch forward to what lies in front of me, forgetting what went before me" (Phil 3.13)...After hearing the unutterable mysteries of paradise, Paul still continued to move higher and did not cease to ascend; he never allowed the good already attained to limit his desire. Here, I believe, Paul teaches us that the blessed nature of the good is eternally much better than what we have received, while what lies beyond our comprehension is always boundless. Song Commentary, p.245.

In contrast to the movement depicted by Ecclesiastes, the Song Commentary demonstrates a superior type of movement, prokope. However, this dissimilarity should not be viewed in a purely negative light because physical movement is a rich source for the allegorical representation of spiritual prokope⁽⁷²⁾. Gregory wishes to contrast them and intimates that images borrowed from physical movement can assume the mask of transcendence. To avert this association, he frequently employs a favorite passage from St. Paul, Philippians 3.13: "I consider myself not to have reached the goal, but I stretch forward to what lies in front of me, forgetting what went before me." Once this pattern of stretching forward and forgetting the past has been firmly established within the context of spiritual movement, Gregory delineates the form (morphe) of divine movement which knows no satiety.

To realize a pattern of divine transcendence as outlined by the Philippians text requires that an individual or group of like-minded persons subscribe to the reality it signifies. For instance, Gregory of Nyssa not only provided a model of transcendence for Christians of his era but for monks living under the newly established monastic rule written by his elder brother, Basil the Great. This shaping of a communal outlook employed a new interpretation of traditional images and metaphors from the Bible to manifest a particular way of Christian living. It is one instance where metaphoric structures become incarnate and offer insights into how a society attains those ideals which it holds dear.

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the transcendent spontaneity proper to a kairos event and the manner by which our memory functions are dissimilar. If close attention is paid to the recollective faculty in operation, we notice that it pours forth an endless barrage of thoughts and images with little interference from our conscious selves. The resulting phantoms are not subject to a specific order because they arise without any plan; they assume an existence independent from that agent responsible for their creation, the storehouse of our memory. These mental representations advance towards a dissolution just as suddenly as they came to birth, thereby making way for the generation of a continuous round of additional phantasms.

This spontaneity bears a superficial resemblance to the true spontaneity of a kairos event in that its liveliness may distract us from acknowledging our true Source of life. However, the spontaneous revelation of God exists prior to the conception of thoughts and images. On the other hand, memory's spontaneity only functions on the level of those mental representations it produces. This reflective character of our recollective faculty displays a limited freedom when compared with the unrestricted freedom we enjoy within a kairos event⁽⁷³⁾. As a result, the untrained eye confuses these two different realities and falsely identify them as the same. Only when the ego is roused from a state of semi-unconsciousness such as daydreaming or when we wake from sleep that our disorganized mental representations are diminished though by no means abolished. At the point of waking the ego gives direction to physical and mental energy which had dissipated into random thoughts. Once this triad of ego, memory and animated representations is established, it offers a foundation on which the ego may construct increasingly complex layers of self-consciousness. The process achieves culmination until with the passage of time, we become aware of an independently existing self.

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Perceptions articulated in terms of energetic concepts focus attention upon the passage from a determined source to its final intent. Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on Ecclesiastes describes this movement where he calls "vanity" those human activity which resembles the ceaseless ebb and flow of creation:

"Vanity of vanities," says Ecclesiastes, "all is vanity" (1.2). Vanity may be described as something which lacks existence but has substance only in the utterance of this word. The reality behind the word is non-existent; only the letters transmit a useless, empty sound. These meaningless sounds randomly strike the ear much as in a game when we create names which lack meaning. This is one form of vanity. Another refers to persons who zealously accumulate objects with no goal in mind. For example, childrens' sand buildings, the shooting at stars with arrows, trapping the wind, and racing with one's shadow while trying to reach its head. If we find other similar examples, they all fall under the term "vanity." Often human custom calls vanity the looking towards a goal and the pursuit of something profitable. If a person then does something contrary or foolish, he invests his energy to no avail. This is too is called vanity. We usually say in such circumstances, "I have labored, hoped and worked in vain." We will not examine each correct use of vanity; rather, we will briefly deal with the significance of this term. Vanity is either a senseless word, thoughtless action, unwise counsel, zeal lacking a goal, or anything disadvantageous. (pp. 281-2)

Gregory applies the term "vanity" not so much to the repetitious quality of nature but to human activity when mired in the pursuit of material gain. Here exists a direct correspondence between images from the physical realm and misdirected human affairs. It is an appropriate image for the operation of our un-informed mental faculties when they lack clear direction despite the activity involved⁽⁷⁴⁾. The principle of this movement is often hidden under the guise of an ego which imposes its own order upon both the beginning and completion of any movement. This one factor governing awareness of energy's passage remains constant which bestows a given pattern to its dynamic vitality. The end is simply a quantitative projection of the beginning (the past) and is the final product of cumulative growth (the future) composed of the same substance. Such is that "vanity" which Gregory of Nyssa so well documents.

Behind the spontaneous coming to birth of thoughts and images which that of a kairos event lies a short-circuiting of perceptions best described through metaphoric structures based upon the concept of energetic movement.. Such a semi-formless state with regard to thoughts and images at their inception contributes to falsely associating them with the presence of transcendental reality. The incompletely formed expressions of ego awareness are sparks whose partial manifestation remotely akin to kairos' manifestation within the faculty of our memory. Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary describes this relationship between a partial and full comprehension of God as follows:

Every word which tries to explain God seems to be a little dot [stigme] incapable of being co-extensive with the breadth of the conception. Thus the soul led through such conceptions to comprehend what cannot be laid hold of except by faith must establish in itself a nature transcending every intelligence. This is what the bridegroom's friends say: "Let us make for you, oh soul, certain images and likeness of truth (for this is why they mention silver: their words are like sparks that glisten and cannot accurately show the deeper meaning)." (p.87)

Only when we open ourselves to God's invitation in faith, an act which effectively suspends our memory, that we comprehend our misunderstanding about these stigme or "little dots" which symbolize accurate conceptions about God. A kairos event does not abolish such partial manifestations; it in-forms them with God's own transcendent reality. This newly acquired form thereby trans-forms our incomplete perceptions and introduces us into a realm characterized by their suspension. But if we were to concentrate upon them, we would be tempted to latch onto these representations and substitute them for a kairos event. Of course, God's revelation can never be fully communicated within the confines of human memory. Memory is essential to the birth of thoughts and images which require energy both for their coming into existence.

We have seen that an attempt to articulate divine reality through energetic concepts cannot succeed because their incompleteness approximates the fragmentary nature of sparks. These efforts are ultimately self-defeating since they lack the seeds for transcendent awareness. However, their limited ability to represent God remains viable as long as they do not fall under the sway of a dominating self-centered ego. Once again Gregory of Nyssa offers the correct use of allegorical interpretation as applied to Scripture. In this way the integrity between two forms of metaphoric expressions can be maintained, the literal sense and the spiritual reality it signifies:

We can present many examples from the Gospel where the literal meaning differs from the text's intention. For example, the water he [Christ] promised to the thirsty by which those who believe became springs of rivers; the bread that comes down from heaven...All these and similar examples should serve to remind us of the necessity of searching the divine words, of reading them, and of tracing in every way possible how something more sublime might be found which leads us to that which is divine and incorporeal instead of the literal sense. Song Commentary, pp.9-10.

When mental activity is disengaged from its divine Source, the thoughts it produces enjoy freedom but this freedom is relative much like a boat unmoored from its anchor. Such disengagement of thoughts and images is like wandering aimlessly through a vast, uncharted sea. The undeniable liveliness of thoughts and images, although superficial, gives birth to various representations of God, attempts at securing that homeland from which we had strayed. These representations are a form of bondage compelling us to behave in a manner divorced from God's presence. At this juncture recall that immediate contact a sentiment of gratitude (charis) enjoys with God when our recollective faculty has been suspended. In contrast to this sentiment, personal experience demonstrates that the random birth of thoughts quickly produces exhaustion. This wearisome ordeal usually has transpired before we become aware of it. Experience also proves that rarely do these spontaneous thoughts engender an abiding sense of thankfulness being instead temporary distractions. This critical element of gratitude discerns God as falsely perceived in terms of energetic concepts, not the true one of being divinely informed. Recognition of God's form does not dissipate because it shares his completely transcendent nature. But when the spontaneous nature of energetic representations is exhausted, destruction of their form occurs along with their content.

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God's revelation occurs at once and is not subject to numerical division; it always remains a complete and undivided unity. Also, certain aspects are made visible in a person through the practice of virtue. Mistaken opinions about this revelation can arise from the fragmentary, un-informed perceptions of the observer, not from the revelation itself. The observer can view transcendental reality as an event external to him or herself. However, God's revelation is an apokalupsis, a Greek word which, in the context of the New Testament, implies the un-covering of a transcendent reality which had always been present yet veiled. God's presence within a kairos event is therefore free from distortions produced by thoughts and imaginative representation. An apokalupsis follows the order presented above as God's unfolding first upon image schemata, then our faculty of memory, will and intellect, and finally how we describe it. The more subtle nature of image schemata (for example, "up-down") is malleable, allowing adaption to a particular metaphoric structure. In this fashion God secretly works upon our entire body, soul and spirit beginning from more subtle aspects of our human constitution to more grosser levels⁽⁷⁵⁾ . Once our imaginative faculty is at God's service, it create metaphoric structures which truly express his transcendent reality. The birth of informational metaphoric representations is spontaneous as a result of two factors: first, imagination has been harmonized with the transcendent nature of a divine encounter and secondly, it has achieved liberation from the ego's compulsive nature.

Revelation of God through a kairos event resembles the Platonic transcendental forms which has significantly impacted the course of Western civilization. However, this correspondence is inaccurate since these forms exist in a sphere minus contact with the created realm. Plato intuited forms as true reality, and creation was considered as having a shadowy, almost hollow existence⁽⁷⁶⁾. In contrast to this view, God's form (morphe) may be conceived in terms of pure awareness, the locus of a Christian being made in his image and likeness. Here the Platonic model of heaven as situated "up there" and earth as being "down here" which has dominated Western spirituality can be exchanged for a model based upon the concept of information. That is to say, the perception of distance as applied to the spiritual realm is supplanted for an image adequate to express immediate comprehension of God's divine form.

As numerous biblical accounts of revelation demonstrate, a divine apokalupsis occurs suddenly and without warning to the astonishment of anyone. There is little or no evidence for an advanced warning of apokalupsis, a true occasion where God's transcendent nature bursts upon our familiar world. Nevertheless, one sign of an impending apokalupsis is the growing sense of uneasiness we experience with regard to the inherently bounded nature of our existence. We become aware that our customary behavior increasingly cannot be sustained in the face of a reality which is making its presence felt. However, we should be on guard against misconstruing a feeling uneasiness belonging to our limited, present condition with an authentic transcendental apokalupsis.

If we pursued these feelings, both a manipulation of creation and persons is the result⁽⁷⁷⁾. What distinguishes our endeavors to provoke God's manifestation from genuine openness to his reality is the weariness experienced from our dualistic perceptions of reality. This fatigue, in turn, evolves into humility and prepares us for a genuine apokalupsis. But when God does make himself present, it would be more appropriate to designate persons receptive to his invitation as "participators" instead of mere "onlookers." The nature of a kairos event requires that we do not remain external to it as independent observers. I stress the dimension of active involvement to avoid misunderstanding that a kairos event exerts such dominant influence as to preclude our consent⁽⁷⁸⁾. As already observed, withdrawal from attributing undue importance to the preoccupations of our intellectual faculties heralds the advent of kairos event.

CHAPTER FIVE

The ego is quick to impose an artificial division between itself and God, a diastema which is diametrically opposed to the never ending search for God:

This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the Good can be found nor is the increasing of desire for the Good brought to an end because it is satisfied⁽⁷⁹⁾.

At first glance, the "vision of God" seems hopelessly beyond our reach, yet Gregory offers the important observation, "no limit interrupts growth in the ascent to God." He wisely mentions the role desire plays in this perpetual growth in love and knowledge of God. Desire or eros is often associated with personal gain which re-enforces self-esteem, yet the passage from The Life of Moses shows that God's grace transfigures it into a vehicle for attaining transcendence. Once again Gregory shifts a familiar aspect of human experience by elevating it onto the spiritual plane. It now engenders a freedom to constantly expand without hindrance from that all too familiar weight of diastema which translates into boredom and restlessness. Such freedom had been advantageous and perhaps necessary under certain conditions, but it still remains circumscribed. However, the capacity for making choices achieves fuller breadth of expression once we participate in God's life which signals an emancipation from our often habitual, harmful milieu.

At this juncture Gregory of Nyssa introduces the concept of apatheia which traditionally had suggested liberation from passion. This term can easily be misunderstood as the absence of life, but it bears affinity with the suspension of our intellectual faculties. Jerome Gaith has written of apatheia as it pertains to Gregory's thought:

Gregoire, lorsqu'il parle de l'apatheia de l'Image, la presente a la fois comme une participation de l'apatheia divine, comme une imitation de Dieu, et comme une assimilation a la nature angelique. Or, nous avons defini plus haut l'apatheia divine comme la plenitude du pathos pur, c'est-a-dire comme une transcendence absolue et comme l'equilibre harmonieux, a la fois libre et necessaire, du dynamisme infini de l'esprit sans mutabilite, sans division, sans limitation ni passivite⁽⁸⁰⁾.

When God makes his presence felt through an apokalupsis, he suspends the faculties of intellect and memory along with our capacity for making free though limited choices. In this manner transcendence is introduced immediately--without mediation--into human experience. Such transcendence has the effect of suspending our faculties and opens us to a sphere which lies beyond our immediate sense perception and its attendant thought patterns. Our previous admiration for personal freedom is transformed; a more pervasive sense of God's presence which governs our lives supersedes it. Because existence within the world continuously demands correct choices according to Christian norms, we require an equally continuous process of being in-formed by God. For this reason Gregory of Nyssa depicts the soul's movement not in energetic terms but as an (in-formational) epektasis, the perpetual reaching out to deeper levels of God's mysterious presence.

If we remain subject to the influence of ego-centric perceptions with their affinity for concepts based upon place-to-place movement, epektasis can be misrepresented as a dichotomy between our present existence and God's transcendence. This error is partly due to the fact that concepts based upon energetic movement are defined as producing an effect. If the expansion and complexity of energetic activity necessary for sustaining the ego's self-identity followed its own linear direction, it would choose the shortest route towards dissipation and eventual dissolution. In reality, God wishes to liberate us from self-centered concerns. He accomplishes this by in-forming us with a profound sense of gratitude which is a sure sign of liberation, including the finality of death. The fruit of thankfulness therefore imparts a genuine interest for another person or salvific event; we manifest gratitude to another person for a favor he or she has freely bestowed upon us.

Experience demonstrates that any separation between ourselves and another person does not exist in the eyes of a person absorbed within the joyous, self-forgetful experience of gratitude. Closer examination further reveals that genuine thankfulness in and by itself lacks a clearly defined reference point despite the subject-object context. That is, gratitude participates in pure awareness where on one hand we are aware of its transcendent ground and on the other hand, the person or object of our gratitude. This ability to look in two ways enjoys a perfect affiliation with our transcendent Source and the dualistic world of subject-object relationships. Because of its divinely in-formed nature, gratitude lacks a judgmental attitude towards the object of its regard. Instead of being aware of a person or object, personal experience demonstrates that gratitude makes us aware, simply and purely. Thus in many ways gratitude represents the only genuine revelation of God. Consider, for example, the passages cited earlier from Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary which contain abundant references to thankfulness expressed by the human bride at the simultaneous concealment and revelation of her divine Spouse. The paradox of concealment-revelation demonstrates its ambiguous character reflected by those metaphoric expressions employed by both spouses to describe each other.

Any person fortunate enough to have experienced a deep sense of thankfulness realizes that the source of this intense feeling is present to his or her awareness while simultaneously being absent. Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary echos this paradox where both spouses alternate between union and absence. The human bride is often distressed by her Spouse's absence yet does not stop there. She employs her eros as a vehicle to reach out to him. Her example presents a wonderful transformation of that emptiness often experienced as part and parcel of a Christian's ascent to God. If a dualistic form of expression (for example, making use of metaphors based upon energetic or place-to-place movement) were used to describe thankfulness, we would never have the truth adequately mirrored; instead, thankfulness transcends yet includes the range of this subject-object regard. We might retain the capacity to objectively reflect upon the nature of gratitude, yet immediate experience is never a substitution for reflection upon it. In those instances where gratitude exerts its influence, the will, intellect and memory continue to function, but they have become relativized, having fallen under God's unbounded freedom⁽⁸¹⁾.

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Two factors contribute to the conception of imaginative representations. In the first case a number of isolated, random thoughts and images gradually assume a specific pattern. They converge around a common center of attention and need organization to efficiently handle this newly emerging center. On the other hand, a flow of random images and thoughts as in daydreaming needs no organization because of their haphazard character. Here the distinction between the real world and the representations we have of it remain somewhat fuzzy. Apart from daydreaming, the disparate character of mental images has not advanced to a point where they are formally expressed as within a metaphoric structure related to energetic movement. But once this metaphoric structure is established, it governs both our perceptions and behavior.

The second factor indirectly contributing to the conception of our imaginative representations and involving the ego comes from a surprisingly different quarter. It may be argued that an undefined pre-occupation with survival lurks in the background of our minds. To counter such a threat, the ego attaches supreme value to the thoughts and images under its control. This attempt at control arises because a mistaken identity exists between the haphazard, disorganized movement of our thoughts and the dynamic activity of life itself⁽⁸²⁾. However, life's dynamic activity continues on its way regardless of the self-centered ego's willful imposition. Naturally the ego is confronted with a difficult situation. Its very survival is called into question because its limited awareness does not allow a sufficient interval of time to reflect upon its current dilemma; the ego is simply too caught up in imposing order upon the flow of mental representations. But if we paused long enough to contemplate this predicament, both thoughts and imaginings would be seen as secondary, indeed superfluous, to the body's immediate presence to the world⁽⁸³⁾. Any mental representations which the ego grasps correspond exactly to what this word signifies: the making-present-again (re) of reality which had been experienced through images. This secondary depiction of reality is now bestowed with an apparently permanent existence which can be directed to self-centered goals.

When God's gracious invitation suspends the memory and therefore thoughts, an observer who has not shared this experience can erroneously confuse the ensuing lack of mental activity with the finality of death. This rests upon a temptation to confuse mental representations with life itself. Any form of mental turmoil, even though it consists of many sparks, is preferred to the absence of these sparks. The agitation produced by thoughts and imaginative representations conspires to make the dimensions of space and time feel like oppressive weights. Nevertheless, a person caught within this dilemma can be receptive to God's intervention through a kairos event. As was observed earlier, the essence of our predicament consists in an innumerable multitude of imaginative representations on one hand and the potential threat of their annihilation on the other. This two-fold predicament incites the imagination to fabricate mental images at an ever accelerating rate to ward off anarchy and reaches culmination by paralyzing mental activity. Liberation is possible because both the multiplication of thoughts and images and the threat of their dissolution which impel a person to create more of the same representations are suddenly intuited as the same. The transcendental intervention extended by God is realized as the only means which offers liberation. Kairos' salvific intervention effectively liberates us from a bewildering array of mental images and their eventual dissolution which can be misidentified with death's finality.

We know from experience that thoughts and imaginative representations hinder us from remaining in a habitual state of gratitude. This unfortunate situation is re-enforced when we cling to images created by the imagination which mimic mimics life's dynamic quality since they are nothing more than the inferior byproducts of an undisciplined imagination⁽⁸⁴⁾. The memory, whose focus lies in the past with intent to project this past into the indefinite future, is now irretrievably set in motion. This faculty builds upon mental representations and sustains what we have erroneously perceived as the source of life. But because a kairos event suspends mental activity, it is mistakenly associated with the finality of death. In this unfortunate circumstance the source of life is attributed to the interaction between ego and the imagination, not to our relationship with God. However, even a brief experience of our intellectual faculties' suspension reveals the error of such a view. Should we open ourselves to God's divine intervention which suspends the faculty of memory, we must concede that this disruption of our true life founded within our concrete, physical bodies has not, in fact, occurred. This experience is available to every person and reveals an interesting phenomenon: we have neither undergone physical death (which we have so dreaded and sought to avoid) nor a death with respect to our rational faculties. Our bodies continue to function with all their automatic, complex interactions in tact. The task of living our normal every day lives proceeds as usual. The only difference is that our perceptions have been transformed, and a notable improvement in the quality of life comes to birth. This heightened awareness consists in a renewed appreciation of our physical bodies, the foundation of true life, with all their spontaneous operations.

God's intervention in our lives which suspends the imaginative process may be falsely as a dramatic event where, in fact, nothing of the sort occurs⁽⁸⁵⁾. On these occasions we realize that a transcendental awareness minus a subject-object regard has in-formed us and paves the way for further manifestations of his presence. The transmission of this new form is a liberation from our former "life" of thoughts and imaginings previously held in high esteem. The resolution effected lacks a dramatic element which is graphically portrayed by gnostic doctrines of salvation. The common denominator to all such artificial systems is to perceive the world in a dualistic (and ultimately evil) light. Gnosticism fails to adequately describe that the suspension of thoughts and imaginative faculty does not herald the immediate presence of death before which we flee in terror. On the contrary, the abeyance of our intellectual faculties enhances life; it even allows our minds and imaginative faculties to operate with greater freedom and ease when their assistance is required. These faculties regain their original purpose as intended by their common Source, God, and manifest themselves long enough to support the primary awareness of our bodily existence. Here exists a harmonious correspondence between creation and its in-forming by God, two realities which had been perceived as contradictory.

Our physical bodies have come into existence before the advent of our thoughts and imagination, and they will continue to exist once these faculties have undergone suspension, however fleeting. The reassuring continuity of so familiar an entity as our physical bodies indicates the relative nature of thoughts and mental images. Prior to this awakening we have been prone to maintain a distinction between bodily existence and the so-called "spiritual" faculties. It is to these latter pseudo-transcendent entities that we have erroneously given our allegiance. The body and whatever pertains to it had been looked upon either with disdain or outright denial; in its place we have put our mental faculties on the same plane as a transcendent kairos event⁽⁸⁶⁾ This prominence assigned to our physical constitution is crucial because our bodies enjoy direct contact with the external world without the mediation of rational faculties, and they can always be trusted to bring us down from the imagination's lofty flights. Even though corporeal existence is the foundation upon which higher levels of human experience rest, it retains a healthy balance with the environment and keeps us firmly rooted there.⁽⁸⁷⁾

Heinz Pagels has pointed out⁽⁸⁸⁾ that our bodies have an "unsimulable" complexity. The body is extremely complex in its operations and cannot be approximated, as for example, in the attempt to re-create a human body with all its intricate, varied components. Accurate information of the body's myriad functions is accessible, but full re-creation of them lies beyond our capacity. The only analogue to the human body remains the human body itself due to its unsimulable complexity. This ultimate point of reduction beyond which we cannot pass assures us that the body in all its concrete operations is paradoxically one of the most reliable points of contact we have with the transcendent realm as, for example, through rites of initiation.

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There remains the question whether or not the image schemata which give form to our perceptions and as described by Mark Johnson⁽⁸⁹⁾ undergo a suspension similar to our recollective faculty as in contemplative prayer. Because image schemata are situated deep within our subconscious, their subtle nature is more sensitive to being in-formed by God's activity. This sensitivity, in turn, empowers them to impact our faculties when they are put at the service for describing an experience of God's presence through an informational metaphoric structure⁽⁹⁰⁾. Thus image schemata are important contributors in establishing a continuity between a kairos event, gratitude and a metaphoric structure. For instance, a typical schema such as "up" applies to the human bride's spiritual ascent to her Beloved without reference to an ascent on the physical plane. This transference from the physical to the spiritual level of reality is placed at the service of those persons who have been initiated into God's life for describing their newly informed human nature. It also allows for a clearer understanding of allegorical representation as interpreted by Gregory of Nyssa and other Church Fathers in their efforts to articulate the Christian way of life

The subtle activity of image schemata governs much of our thought process and behavior, and they play an important regardless of what course our lives take. But when God bestows his transcendent form (morphe) within us, it works upon image schemata and transforms them, thereby permitting our intellectual faculties to articulate a divinely in-formed world which had hitherto gone unrealized⁽⁹¹⁾. Image schemata now participate in God's life because they have been inserted into a more comprehensive reality. God's transcendent form belonging, in turn, in-forms our lives⁽⁹²⁾. Similarly, we "in-form" God but in a manner appropriate to our limited nature which does not function in the same way as God, yet incarnates his presence. This happens, for example, when our intellect re-produces the transcendent stamp or charakter of God's life and manifests this same charakter through a heart-felt sentiment of gratitude. The relative inaccessibility of image schemata to direct comprehension makes them difficult to perceive by a person who has become habituated to comprehend reality through the self-centered ego. Yet should we open ourselves to God's grace, they help is of enormous value when we describe the direct impartation of his form (morphe) which transcends understanding.

When God's transcendent form exerts itself upon image schemata, they remain hidden, as it were, in the background of our awareness where they produce a more enduring effect upon our perceptions of reality. However, image schemata transform the operation of our mental activities and pave the way for true events (kairoi) when God makes himself present. Awareness of the hidden yet pervasive influence of image schemata is manifested through cultural expressions which have been accumulated over time⁽⁹³⁾. Keeping in mind Western society's inclination for viewing the world in dualistic terms, cultural accretions accumulated over the years based upon this insight suggest that we prefer our "spiritual" nature over our "lower" physical attributes. A vague uneasiness regarding corporeal existence rests upon the perception of an elusive entity referred to as the spiritual domain. In our efforts to describe it we subject it to all sorts of delineations and measurements⁽⁹⁴⁾. These endeavors continue despite the fact that the spiritual domain transcends sense perceptions. They rest upon a fear of defiling "spiritual" reality from the "grosser" physical realm of matter.

A world view constructed upon a dichotomy between spirit and matter has achieved almost classical proportions by reason of its influence through the centuries. Keeping in mind the ramifications of this dualistic feature so characteristic of our Western heritage, a subtle temptation is to identify a kairos event, and by implication the metaphoric structure of information describing it, with the purely "spiritual" dimension of reality in contrast to its physical aspects. This physical domain is mysterious in its own right and can be misinterpreted as having some of the even more elusive, transcendent qualities of the spirit. Thus two phenomena arose in different guises over the centuries: a desire to break free of those restrains of the physical domain and one to associate this realm with the spirit with minimal recourse to a transcendent principle⁽⁹⁵⁾. One resolution to this dilemma exists is the cultivation of gratitude, a sure sign of a Christian's union with God. Even on the human plane, thankfulness acknowledges a source other than ourselves to which we attribute our indebtedness, whereas the ego is pre-disposed to ward off the transcending quality of gratitude.

On those occasions when we are truly grateful we acknowledge a person to whom indebtedness is owed. Instances of gratitude's superior nature are found in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary; as he describes it, thankfulness in-forms...gives morphe to...metaphoric expressions associated with marriage which express that immediacy existing between a kairos event and gratitude. Thankfulness is not an object which can be parceled out one piece at a time. Its form is transmitted whole and entire according to the pattern of Gregory's metaphoric structure which depicts the pattern of our being divinely informed, "from glory into glory." This pattern cannot be delineated according to physical movement, for it brings the human bride who already participates in God into an enhanced awareness of her divine Spouse's glory.

Those instances when mental and imaginative activities are suspended put us in direct contact with our true corporeal existence which had suffered neglect in our pre-occupation with thoughts and mental images. As noted earlier, in their place can arise the tendency to attribute a transcendent value to our rational faculties⁽⁹⁶⁾. Furthermore, the process of transcending everyday concerns called initiation which is a true beginning, and a beginning denotes the coming into existence of a new reality. Such newness does not originate from the educative level, despite its importance to human development; the unique quality of initiation commences with God's intervention in a kairos event. This encounter effects suspension of our memory, something which education cannot accomplish because it relies upon our recollective faculty for the acquisition and retention of knowledge. Having undergone the preparatory educative process which lays the foundation for initiation into the transcendent sphere, we recognize the limited nature of our will and intelligence. Repeated exposure to at least several occasions when our intellectual faculties have been temporarily suspended let us appropriate this reality. In this sense exposure to divine reality parallels the progressive, step by step process of education. However, the initiation offered by God exists whole and entire. Repetition is needed because we are unaccustomed to a suspension of our intellectual faculties, and we must become familiarized with it. Acquaintance with these experiences weans us away from our customary manner of perceiving reality in terms of a progressive acquisition of knowledge in the purely educative sense.

Having experienced a number of exposures to God's presence, we notice that intervals lying between each encounter loosen their hold. As a result, we become more receptive to a fresh perception of reality. Greater familiarity with this suspension of our intellectual faculties introduces a wonderful paradox: our memory can be employed to recall a particular divine intervention. Memory's ability to recall the past and God's transcendence from past events are now brought into harmony, a concordance which includes the other faculties of will, intellect and imagination. God's interventions must not be contemplated as a series of isolated events, a view to which an energetic perception of reality lies prone. Instead, each manifestation of God appears as a completely new reality...a new form...while remaining the same. An example of this paradox is found in those numerous ways by which the bride beholds her Spouse in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary. Gregory is careful to present the bride as lacking willful control over her divine Spouse; he, that is Jesus Christ, freely invites a person to participate in his sovereign transcendence. Personal experience, as well as numerous accounts offered by the Song Commentary, bear witness to this fact⁽⁹⁷⁾.

Recollections of past divine interventions always keep us mindful⁽⁹⁸⁾ of a heart-felt sense of gratitude. It is this element of thankfulness which distinguishes the true operation of a kairos event upon the memory. On the other hand, the recollective faculty is subject to willful control by the ego which attempts to capture and then submit the surpassing experience of a kairos event. But instead of experiencing a radical break between a divine kairos and our memory, initiation into God's reality equips us to contemplate the relationship between these two spheres. This realization is characterized by an undivided unity minus the imposition of any hard and fast distinctions between them. Through God's grace, we no longer alternate between memory and its suspension; rather, we oscillate between these two complementary aspects of a single reality⁽⁹⁹⁾. The sure sign that this oscillation is founded in truth springs from a heart-felt sense of gratitude shown towards God.

The intellect engages in creatively reflecting upon mental representations produced by the imagination in order to discover new and various ways of ordering these representations. Here is a two-fold mirroring with regard to our experience of the world: the primary one of images produced by the imagination and the secondary mirroring by the intellect which reflects upon these images. This secondary reflection is usually considered more important, for it creates a dependable picture of reality as opposed to the ebb and flow of more immediate representations emanating from the imagination. However, the secondary reflections are more distant in time from immediate perceptions of reality when compared with initial impressions. Quite often we favor this latter mode of perception over the former since it imposes order and comprehension to our world. We often identify the secondary mode as our true life as opposed to the immediate contact which our physical bodies enjoy with their surroundings. As a result of the complexity arising from primary and secondary reflections, a greater number of newly arranged images comes to birth upon which we must express a judgment. When making a judgment we choose a course of action from a multitude of alternatives. To simplify our comprehension of this complex arrangement of newly formed images, it is important to realize that both the primary mental representations and secondary reflections upon them occur within the past dimension of time. The past is a matter of degree: representations formed by the imagination occur earlier in time, whereas reflections upon them by the intellect exist slightly later in time.

This distinction between two degrees of a single temporal dimension is difficult to grasp while in the actual process of forming mental images because the interval existing between these two degrees of the past is barely perceptible. Nevertheless, both aspects of our reflections upon the same past temporal dimension work hand in hand to form perceptions of the world. Awareness of an almost instantaneous passage from imaginative to intellectual reflection is quite different from that bond existing between a sentiment of gratitude and God's intervention in our lives through a kairos event. Despite the close unity between the two reflections of the former, it still belongs to the temporal order. On the other hand, the latter affects our awareness of this temporal dimension where memory, will and intellect are effectively suspended. Through various types of Christian meditative practices we can prepare the ground for the suspension of our mental faculties, although God ultimately remains the agent who imparts an abiding sense of gratitude.

Ultimately the act of making correct choices can be traced to our desire to know⁽¹⁰⁰⁾. Under the guidance of God's grace in our hearts, the desire to know is rooted in a profound sense of gratitude. This all-inclusive longing is empowered to express that special relationship existing between thankfulness and a transcendent kairos event. Gregory of Nyssa sets before us this desire in the form of eros which is a guide for acquiring wisdom as the following passage from his Song Commentary so well describes:

...Wisdom is changed into the role of a bridegroom so that a person might be espoused to God by becoming a pure virgin instead of a bridegroom. By clinging to the Lord he might become one spirit through a union with what is pure and free from passion and have a pure mind instead of burdened with the flesh's weight. Since it is Wisdom speaking, love as much as you can with your whole heart and strength: desire as much as you can. I boldly add to these words, "Be passionate about it." This affection for incorporeal things is beyond reproach and free from lust as wisdom states when she prescribes passionate love (eros) for the divine beauty. (p.23)

Gregory sees this unrestricted eros which gives shape to our relationship with God as an intensification of agape, a New Testament term to designate a Christian's love for God. The soul which has transformed its carnal inclinations tends towards God by a kind of natural inclination, the attraction of like towards like. However, Gregory refines agape as a union with God lying outside the normal sphere of human intelligence which enables a Christian to live in accord with the Gospel message. A chief characteristic of agape is irrationality which creates its own logic, its own way of being, resulting from a kind of affectionate clinging. Care must be taken not to separate agape and eros, for Gregory joins them together at the beginning of his Song Commentary by quoting from Proverbs 4.6: "Ardently long after (erastheti) wisdom" (p.25). Because eros is a passion, it lies outside the realm of our intellectual faculties. Eros is best described as an intensification of agape: "The bride is wounded by a spiritual fiery shaft of desire (eros). For agape which is aroused is called eros." (ibid, p.383). On the other hand, any self-centered activity which has its origin in the ego reverberates both upon our imagination and intellectual faculties. In this instance, eros is not placed at God's service as a means of expressing our love for him. Such an ego-centric regard establishes a predictable mode of conduct which, with the passage of time, can give rise to compulsive behavior. Gregory of Nyssa patterns this behavior after the repetitive nature of natural rhythms in those passages taken from his Commentary on Ecclesiastes a quoted earlier.

As a remedy to the ego's self-centeredness there exists a metaphoric structure of information founded upon a sentiment of gratitude and developed in Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs. This sentiment, in turn, rests upon the metaphoric structure which Gregory develops from Second Corinthians 3.18, "from glory into glory." No matter how advanced the bride becomes in the knowledge of her divine Spouse, she acknowledges her inability to grasp him completely. Failure does not create despair; it is a means to further love and knowledge of him. The inability to grasp him means that the bride is being purified in her spiritual epektasis or advancement from one degree of glory into another. Each stage of glory is sufficient unto itself and contains all the others, whether they precede or follow a particular epektasis. The bride progresses in this fashion because she grows in her image to the divine Bridegroom; she literally becomes in-formed by the Bridegroom, that is, she takes on his divine form (morphe). Because the bride always expresses her gratitude, she avoids that frantic exertion so typical of ego consciousness. The bride's imaginative representations of her divine Spouse find fulfillment once these representations correspond with the object of her love which she earnestly sought to portray. Gregory of Nyssa illustrates this form of imitation which Gregory of Nyssa in his Song Commentary:

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." Such is the measure and bond of perfection in virtue. We learn here that the purified soul must have God alone and never look at anything except him. Thus it must cleanse itself of every material deed and thought and be transformed into that which is spiritual and immaterial, a splendid image of the archetype's beauty. When a person sees a picture upon a board which accurately conforms to its model, he exclaims that one form exists in both: the model's beauty is in the likeness and the archetype is clearly seen by the imitation. Similarly, the bride says, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." In her conformity to Christ she receives her proper beauty, that primal blessedness of our nature, according to the image and likeness of the original beauty which alone is true and worthy of adoration. This resembles a mirror expertly fashioned by hand which accurately reflects the image of a face. Thus, when the soul has prepared itself and has rejected every material stain, it represents the image of that pure, unstained beauty. (pp.439-40)

Here Gregory eloquently speaks of God's image and likeness in which we are made as found in Genesis 1.26, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," and uses the analogy of a mirror where the purified soul "accurately reflects the image" of God. This example illustrates the concept of information which describes our assumption of the form or morphe of God in a kairos event. The soul is so caught up in contemplating its archetype that no room is allowed for self-reflection. Imaginative representation and its repercussions upon our intellectual faculties are effectively suspended in favor of God's divine morphe. Again, consider those personal experiences of intense thankfulness where we remain aware of a person who imparted such feelings of gratitude to us. But when self-consciousness focuses more upon the division separating us from God who imparted this spirit of gratitude, a painful interval (diastema) is perceived where gratitude has little place.

Since the inherently religious character⁽¹⁰¹⁾

of a informational metaphoric structure is best presented in terms of gratitude, it is only logical to designate a Christian's relationship to it in terms of a vocation. An attitude of heartfelt thankfulness is surely the best indication that all Christians, like the bride in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary, are called...receive the vocation...to participate in God's freedom. On the other hand, any attempt to create an existence independent from God capitulates to anxiety. Our dilemma can be expressed through the concept of energetic movement because the liveliness of our thoughts, like energy's dissipative nature, implies the fear of eventual termination.

The state of awareness experienced in a kairos event is marked by a certain "heaviness" when our spontaneous capacity to produce thoughts and images (and memories) have been suspended for an indefinite period of time. The term "heaviness" is appropriate because its intensity implies that we are weighed down by the paradoxical heavy yet light presence of God who now directly influences our mind, hearts and bodies. Note, for example, how a person's breathing is curbed...becomes weighed down... in contemplative prayer. It would be more accurate to say that while God is occupying our attention, bodily and mental activity is "put on hold." These activities become passive to the impartation of God's divine form; similarly, the normal functions of bodily organs slow down under the weight of a kairos event. We are so accustomed to the imageful plane that when this process is suspended, we discover to our delight that our thought process is curtailed. Here energetic movement is no longer permitted to manifest itself on the familiar plane of images and thoughts. At this point of rest or suspension, imageless energy is at its most powerful.

Biblical Hebrew offers an elucidation of this point. The noun "heaviness" is derived from the verbal root kavod with its alternate meaning of "glory," a term freighted with theological implications. Kavod suggests the luminous manifestation of God's presence and is frequently linked to verbs of seeing (cf. Ex 16.10, Dt 5.24, Is 60.1). In the New Testament, the Hebrew kavod is translated by the Greek doxa and expanded into eschatological dimensions (cf. Rom 8.18, 21; 1Cor 15.43; 2Cor 3.18, 4.17). Heaven is not viewed as a permanent and final setting for the revelation of divine glory; rather, glory reveals itself from heaven whose goal is the transformation of the created world and humankind. I have briefly expanded upon the word "glory" with its Old Testament root as "heaviness" and its New Testament counterpart, doxa, with its escatalogical implications in order to highlight those kairoi where our everyday awareness is suspended in favor of God's radical transcendence.

CHAPTER SIX

One of the most striking features of a divine intervention is that despite its complete transcendence from mental images and representations, it uses experience from the everyday world for creating metaphors which offer insights into this same divine intervention as it relates to the Christian life. These metaphors which comply with the informational order are intended not only for describing God's divine form but for assisting persons to realize it in their everyday lives. Two apparently contradictory principles are at work here: the unrevealed state (characterized by memory's suspension) and the revealed operation of metaphoric structures and analogies embodying the communication of God's invisible divine form. These metaphoric structures are naturally based upon our experience of physical reality which our mental faculties process. At the conclusion of the last chapter I spoke of God's in-formational revelation depicted in the biblical sense of kavod, glory. Glory viewed in terms of weightiness (recall that the Hebrew verbal root of kavod means heaviness) represents the suspension of our faculties, both physical and mental. However, this glory is not oppressive in that it burdens human existence. The contrary is true; glory gives birth to a profound, lasting sense of freedom and gratitude which follows those surpassing occasions where God had intervened in a person's life.

Any expression of thankfulness is purely unrehearsed and has two characteristics. In the first place, a person spontaneously admits relief from the burdensome character of mental representations. In the course of life we had grown so accustomed to identifying ourselves in terms of memories and those thought patterns flowing from it that a sudden release from its operation produces unexpected joy at no longer having to identify ourselves with it. Secondly, we are now orientated towards a transcendent reality revealed in a kairos event. This divine occasion firmly establishes us within the present moment; it points beyond both the past and the future dimensions of time. To realize that we are no longer restricted by the faculty of our memory is itself something of a paradox. However, this unique type of awareness heralds the consummation of our recollective faculty as discussed in the preceding chapter.

Because of its immediate relationship with God, the sentiment of gratitude is devoid of distracting mental images and thoughts. Thankfulness is elusive because we remain uncertain as to how to attribute a source to this authentic yet imperceptible feeling. All we know is that something genuine has come to birth which acts as a reference point to our spontaneous need for expressing joy. Nevertheless, a divine intervention delineates this enigmatic quality of gratitude. Keeping in mind its alternate meanings of "season" and "measure," a kairos event bestows our grateful spirits with an all-pervasive awareness which can never be subject to adequate definition. A kairos event thus becomes a true season (time) and measure (space) enabling God's intervention to be extended within our lives through metaphoric structures which are founded upon the informational order.

Closer examination of the texts excerpted from Gregory's Commentary on the Song of Song reveals that the bride's sense of gratitude undergoes no place-to-place movement ascribed to metaphoric structures of the energetic variety. The bride does not comprehend her divine Spouse in bits and pieces, as it were, but whole and entire. The Bridegroom truly reveals himself in a personal manner even though Gregory always depicts him as transcending any attempt of the bride to lay hold of her Beloved. Note, too, the apparently "energetic" terms cited in Chapter Two such as "arise," "come," "transform," "succeed," "approach." These words could have been categorized under the metaphoric structure of energetic movement if the bride's profound sense of gratitude were absent. The lack of thankfulness would indicate that the bride willfully desired to exercise control over her divine Spouse. However, she has literally become in-formed by her divine Bridegroom⁽¹⁰²⁾ and now participates in his transcendence.

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One of the best ways a person can be open to participation in God's life is through a re-ligious gesture or "turning-back" to him. This involves a change of heart where God imparts his divine form and lays claim to our lives which is best described by the Greek word metanoia. The New Testament signifies this re-orientation in terms of a conversion or repentance. Metanoia is composed of the preposition meta ("after," "beyond") and the noun noos (mind)⁽¹⁰³⁾. Conversionimplies that our minds and hearts have assumed a new and permanent orientation towards God as a result of his solicitude. Once this order is established, we automatically relinquish that habituation to behavior which had been characterized by the self-centered ego. A deep feeling of gratitude and relief now emerges, a sentiment which counteracts any future obstacles we may encounter. Furthermore, the transcendent realm is intuited as lying "after" or "beyond" (meta) our heart-felt sentiment of gratitude and its effect within our hearts.

A narrative or the telling of a story is one method available of how an experience of being transcendentally in-formed is conveyed to a larger audience. Virtually all cultures have their narratives of creation commence with the expression "In the beginning" or some similar phrase and make reference to a primordial state pervaded by a transcendent reality. This mysterious beginning allows a narrative to commence at any place and time because the storyteller is unhindered by the constraints of space and time. As we have already seen, a conversion or metanoia exists outside the circumscribed nature of the spacial and temporal dimensions; more accurately, these two dimensions become suspended once we are oriented towards God's wholly transcendent order. When telling the story of our metanoia, reference is made to a timeless event, even though historical elements form part and parcel to our narrative. Here we are recalling a kairos event when God intervened in our lives which is marked by the "In the beginning" character of a narrative and which embraces all places and all times while at the same time transcending them. Immanence and transcendence thus endow any true narrative with an enduring sense of beauty and trans-cultural appeal.

A narrative is both transcendent and immanent. When telling the story of our religious conversion, reference is made to those kairoi or occasions when God had imparted his divine form to us. Our free consent to God also brings the attention of other persons to whom our story is related into perfect harmony with its contents. Everyone has experienced this participatory character at one time or another as when paying close attention to all the details of a story. When enthralled by a narrative, we unconsciously experience a suspension of our faculties; time flies and space is dissolved as we become one with both the narrative and the narrator. Also, an engaging story is often presented from the unaided memory. A person making the account can recall all its features in minute detail yet continue with its narration while paradoxically not remaining bound by his or her memory. In other words, this person's recollective faculty has been in-formed and is sustained by the "in the beginning" character proper to the descriptive process of a story.

Elements belonging to the narrative process are present in Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs which is an account of a human bride's relationship with her divine Spouse, Jesus Christ. Here the transcendental relationship between a kairos event and an abiding sense of gratitude effects a spiritual wholeness not only with the bride but with anyone fortunate enough to have had an encounter with the living God. In Gregory's Commentary, each step of divine glory is a realization of God's presence which both satisfies the bride and impels her to continue in an ever-expanding search or epektasis. Although these steps are understood according to God's grace to each person, they can never fully disclose him. An all-inclusive embrace of God's presence imparts a genuine sense of wholeness and is not a sum of an indefinite steps or progressions of his glory; instead, it is an informational gesture which bestows the divine form of a kairos event and a heart-felt sense of gratitude.

The term "gesture" is more appropriate for describing this sentiment because it suggests that personal response to the invitation when God had revealed himself to us. A gesture further implies both a personal commitment on our part while at the same time embodying a mysterious quality difficult to explain. Despite the importance of mental faculties in the execution of any act, a sentiment is a better term because it both precedes and envelops our intellectual faculties. The ambiguous character of a sentiment exists prior to any movement of our free will, even though it has a part in expressing specific feelings. It is implanted, as it were, within the background of our awareness and informs our latent thoughts and imaginings. A sentiment therefore acts as a bridge to unite the person who manifests such a feeling with the object of his or her regard⁽¹⁰⁴⁾.

When we are divinely informed and endowed with the spirit of gratitude, we participate in a transcendent form which lacks the dissipative character of energetic activity. Such is the case with the Word (Logos, Christ) of God presented by the New Testament. The divine Logos may be mistakenly understood as a form of (spiritual) energy which insinuates an origin. In this particular instance, the Source, God the Father, would be the "superior" principle and the Logos (Christ) would be the "inferior" principle. Much theological debate still continues to be centered around attempts to reconcile these apparently contradictory notions⁽¹⁰⁵⁾. On the other hand, the informational order allows us to comprehend Christ or the Logos in a non-dualistic manner. To support this observation, it may noted that the New Testament speaks in terms of form (morphe) instead of energy. This latter concept has appeared much later in history and was never developed in the Biblical context, although it achieved a certain degree of refinement among religions of the East such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Perhaps the accent which Christianity places upon form and the accent which Eastern religion places upon energy may be of value in any future dialogue between these two great religious systems.

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Two familiar methods of telling time further clarify the distinction made between the metaphoric structures of energy and information. The first example consists of an analog clock which has the very form of time embedded within its physical structure. Simply observe the numerals located on the face of such a timepiece. Their presence immediately orients our perception within the context of time's fundamental shape, a circle. On the other hand, a digital clock presents a more abstract picture of time which also makes use of a numerical display. But in this instance the numbers are abstracted from the familiar display of a traditional timepiece and have the form of a computerized representation. Because a digital clock lacks that principle form of time, a circle, we require a mental imposition--a form of time--to make our perception more intelligible⁽¹⁰⁶⁾. An analog clock, however, allows us to determine time more easily. It does not require making a conscious connection between our perception of the circular form of time and awareness of its passage.

When telling time from a digital clock we need to pause, even briefly, to establish a correlation between this clock's numerical representation of time and our perception of it. This pause provides an interval for imposing its (linear) depiction of time upon our minds. A digital clock depicts the concept of energetic movement and the analog clock that of information. With an analog clock, no mental effort of imposing form upon time is required to determine its passage because form (the circular shape of the clock itself) and energetic movement (a symbol of time's passage) are perceived as the same. The chief characteristic of time's form illustrated is stability which embodies movement as shown by the hour hands. A digital clock, however, can exemplify continuous place-to-place movement so typical of energy's nature.

Admiration is often expressed over a beautiful analog timepiece such as a hand-crafted clock. Beauty and an analog timepiece thus have a close relationship with each other. On the other hand, a digital clock, regardless of its sophisticated technology, is strictly functional and lacks true aesthetic appeal chiefly due to its more abstract character. If close attention were paid to the method of telling time on an analog clock, we would soon discover that little or no temporal gap exists between ourselves as observers and recognition of time's analogical representation. The immediate unity achieved between our observation and the observed depiction of time is present to our awareness and requires no further explanation.

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A metaphor of the informational order embraces both the physical and spiritual aspects of God's intervention. For example, metaphors and allegories used in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary elicit a divine encounter in the guise of a divine Bridegroom and inflame its readers to strive after the ineffable embrace of God so well documented in terms of a marital relationship. On the other hand, when turning attention to those metaphoric structures spawned by misdirected world views such as gnosticism, they can never fully elicit the beauty of God's divine form (morphe). One reason for this failure lies in the absence of gratitude. Gnosticism erects complex theological and philosophical structures combined with principles taken from the physical sciences to find a substitute for the essential role of thankfulness. Despite this amalgam of various components, gnosticism traces its teachings from a correct insight into the transcendent nature of the divinity. However, gnosticism bypasses the midwife of gratitude which acknowledges a Source other than its own doctrines. One erroneous doctrine attributed to gnosticism is the concept of reincarnation. This notion, the rebirth of a human soul in a new form of corporeal existence, has manifested itself at various times. In the case of reincarnation, gnosticism develops the faculty of our memory beyond its inherently limited scope. Recollections of past events are endowed with lives of their own as in the countless forms of human (and not so human) rebirths. In actuality these rebirths represent a multitude of remembrances from the past which exert influence over their creators.

Metaphors and analogies have been constructed upon the reincarnation theory yet lack that distinct aesthetic appeal which issues from a heart-felt sense of gratitude and its immediate association with God. The theories of reincarnation may also be interpreted as an undue emphasis upon metaphoric expressions belonging to energy's place-to-place movement. These dynamic, distorted interpretations of reality which are revealed within the varied expressions of gnostic reincarnation fail to account for the important role of gratitude. In order to foster its belief in the theory of reincarnation and to avoid thankfulness, gnosticism has habitual recourse to the process of explanation which rationalizes its world view. In this manner gnosticism puts supreme importance upon the recollection of past events and situations.

The vocabulary of gnosticism (to which the current New Age movement bears a certain affinity) has a proclivity for the notion of energetic or place-to-place movement. Such an affiliation takes that universal feeling dissatisfaction with human condition and seeks liberation from its confines. Some forms of gnosticism accomplish this by making reference to an ideal past and by projecting this past into the future with minimum regard for the present. Thus a dialectic ensues between a blissful past and its future consummation which sets the stage for of all sorts of elaborate doctrines. Here both degrees of a single temporal scale form one and the same reality. This process favors an intellectual interpretation of physical creation by endowing it with features belonging divine reality. Gnosticism assumes an ambiguous position in that it sees material creation both as something from which its adherents must free themselves and as an entity identified with the wholly transcendent realm of God. In the latter instance, the mystery of creation is endowed with the same characteristics as spiritual reality. As a result, gnosticism elevates one aspect of the total picture of reality and attributes it in terms of that which belongs to God himself. Therefore gnosticism is bound by a misconstrued logic which can result in a subtle form of idolatry. For example, some esoteric doctrines are pre-occupied with physical and cosmic elements as astronomy, astrology, care for the body and the use of various types of food. By these means the physical nature of creation is transferred onto the intellectual and spiritual level.

On the other hand, a Christian understanding of the relationship between matter and spirit uses creation as a vehicle for pointing towards God as in the allegorical method. Instead of remaining content with a simple description of physical reality, gnosticism explains it away by adding all sorts of contrivances to supports its distorted, uniformed world view. Any challenge to gnosticism's proclivity to explain both transcendent and physical reality as being essentially the same can misidentify the explanatory method with the descriptive approach. To explain something means that words and concepts belonging to one category remain within the confines of this category; attempts to explain one different level in terms of another where no common ground exists results in confusing fundamental categories and insights springing from them. On the other hand, the descriptive procedure which is basic to orthodox Christian theology sees a relationship between two different planes (material and spiritual) and uses the allegorical method as a way to span what seems an unbridgeable relationship. The following outline may clarify this contrast between a gnostic world view with its propensity to misconstrue the explanatory process and a Christian descriptive method as it pertains to the connection between material and spiritual reality:

GNOSTICISM

Explanation: transcendent reality confused with physical reality

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN APPROACH⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

Description: transcendent reality in harmony with physical reality

The second part of this outline demonstrates a (Christian) remedy to the misdirected world view of the gnostic position. It adheres to the descriptive level which uses the physical dimension of reality to mirror that which is transcendent. Now the tendency to explain divine reality in physical terms is avoided, a position susceptible to persuasive arguments from gnostic opinions which are rational by nature. Here gnosticism reveals its true colors as an attempt to bend God's revelation to suit its own esoteric needs which have been cleverly disguised in a transcendental vocabulary belonging to the explanatory process. But the descriptive function of a narrative as used by orthodox Christianity maintains that delicate balance between immanence and transcendence; it discloses gnosticism's inclination to the explanatory method as well as its tendency towards heresy, hairesis, the picking and choosing of insights to buttress an incomplete world view. In its place the Christian form of narrative or descriptive approach gives birth to a profound sense of gratitude which remains in harmony with the biblical teaching of a person being made in God's image and likeness⁽¹⁰⁸⁾. As noted earlier, thankfulness reflects a suspension of our "spiritual" faculties of will, intellect and memory. To suggest this crucial element of suspension (which induces a profound sense of gratitude, not death) to any gnostic philosophy would reveal its flawed nature.

Although both the gnostic and orthodox Christian use of metaphoric expressions have God as their common Source, they diverge in one important aspect. The former fails to acknowledge gratitude's role of midwife, whereas the latter acknowledges that gratitude is essential to any true re-ligious expression. To gnostic eyes, the advantage of understanding reincarnation in terms of place-to-place movement lies in a readily available truth: memory's capacity to generate images can propagate further memories which are perceived in terms of "embodied spirits"⁽¹⁰⁹⁾. These reincarnations or enfleshments of the memory have a close affiliation with the space-time continuum. In fact, reincarnation or the coming-into-the-body-again, is akin to a repetitive action which sees no end in sight. The past is now identified with the future except that the future contains a refinement of specific past events. Gnostic reincarnation theories make every effort to preserve the past...the memory...of an divine encounter, a kairos event, and to project this memory indefinitely into the future. It is obvious that this form of reincarnation cannot be founded upon a sentiment of gratitude. Indebtedness to a kairos event which gives birth to orthodox Christian metaphoric expressions remains a constant well of renewal while avoiding the projection of embodied memories of our divine Source. And so, the correct representation of metaphor founded upon gratitude is paradoxically just as memory-less as the experience issuing from a kairos event where God initiated the passage from one degree of glory into another.

Christian contemplative prayer finds a tried and true expression through the allegorical method in contrast to gnostic doctrines. When a person emerges from a state of deep contemplation, he or she sustains an abiding memory of that experience. Note the irony of this paradox: the time spend in contemplation is characterized by a lack of memory. Nevertheless, God whom we encounter within contemplative prayer provides a memory of him which appears later within space and time⁽¹¹⁰⁾. No matter how long the interval after such an occurrence, there remains a pleasant recollection of it. The dominant feature of this paradox between memory and its suspension is gratitude which is identified more with the presence of God as opposed to a simple recollection of him. Here the weight of space and time is abolished. The experience of thankfulness is therefore part and parcel of an unfolding from God towards an informational metaphoric expression, an operation which extends a true Christian sentiment of gratitude. Thankfulness flows "re-ligiously" towards God instead of streaming outward towards dissipation⁽¹¹¹⁾. Expressions of Christian gratitude avoid that gnostic tendency to interpret experience in terms of physical reality because our rational faculties which are the means for this misdirected interpretation have become informed by God's presence.

To conclude this chapter, I offer a few additional remarks concerning the above mentioned second corrective method used to refute gnosticism. This strategy may be called an expository process. It is the final result of the educative task belonging to explanation and description, two steps which are by no means the exclusive property of gnosticism. Exposition represents the maturation of the descriptive and explanatory processes. In explanation, progress through the acquisition of knowledge is especially noticeable due to the intellect's work. Similarly, progress is necessary for any type of description which refines or fills out that which has been explained, and we refer to the use of adjectives for verifying this. On the other hand, the expository method is difficult to achieve through our unaided efforts; it requires making a transition from education (the explanatory and descriptive levels) to initiation. If close attention is paid to religious rites of initiation, they permit divine reality to become...exposed...available for a person to encounter all at once, not in bits and pieces even though a rite may deal with a single aspect of the mystery of Christ. Furthermore, religious rites as in the presentation of Christian sacraments rely upon the descriptive mode, not the explanatory one. The expository process is akin to revelation, apokalupsis, the un-covering or the unveiling of a reality which had always been present to us.

In order to become more sensitive to this concealed reality, we must realize what a covering implies. Concealment is associated with lack of awareness, the absence of being attentive to our being made in the divine image and likeness. Usually the obstacles to uncovering are those faculties mentioned under the two categories of explanation and description: will, intellect and imagination. To uncover something does not mean to destroy or to deny the cover itself. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of a cover's true nature which is essentially a perception of boundedness. Explanation or description can disclose this cover. However, exposition draws attention to that which lies beneath the cover; it exposes or reveals a reality hidden to our comprehension. Exposition is difficult to master since the required studious application of awareness surpasses our familiar educative process. It takes up and surpasses the faculty of memory (recollection of the past for projection into the future) which is so essential for education.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs has as its theme our relationship with God in the person of a Bridegroom. He grasps that instinctive human attraction to marital love and skillfully employs it to describe our affiliation with God in those occasions when he intervenes in our lives. Indeed, the image of a spouse has universal appeal since it evokes a form of beauty and loveliness with which everyone can identify. The primacy of this marital imagery gives rise to a host of related metaphors for recounting the bride's elegance whose root, of course, lies in the divine nature of her Bridegroom. The ongoing descriptive process which spells out the relationship between the divine Spouse and his human bride thus gives birth to a well-spring of metaphors and analogies which are the product of a divine encounter through the mediating principle of gratitude. As we have seen, the very nature of thankfulness is boundless, the reason why this sentiment produces an equally boundless outpouring of joy.

Instead of emphasizing the faculty of memory to describe the bride's impressions of her Spouse, Gregory of Nyssa prefers to stress the role of desire, epithumia⁽¹¹²⁾. This yearning does not presuppose a remembrance of the divine Spouse in the conventional sense upon whom the bride focuses her attention; rather, it is a movement of her heart which the Bridegroom had touched and expands (epektasis) her limited understanding:

Then he [the Bridegroom] starts again to draw her [bride] to participate in a higher beauty, as if she had never tasted it. Thus as she progresses, her desire [epithumia] grows with each step. And because there is always an unlimited good beyond what the bride has attained, she always seems to be just beginning her ascent. Song Commentary, p.159

The metaphors which pertain to the bride and Bridegroom are for the most part focused upon descriptions of their physical attributes. These metaphors do not arise from a detached, intellectual contemplation of the two spouses; rather, they impart an immediate awareness of their respective presences by an array of vivid descriptions. They form an excellent means by which we may shift description from the physical plane onto one which depicts that eternal, transcendent bond existing between a divine encounter and gratitude. At this point a close relationship comes into existence between the physical and transcendent orders. Gregory favors a process of description, not explanation, two concepts discussed in the previous chapter, which articulates this order. Fidelity to the descriptive process prevents Gregory from lapsing into a polemical and therefore tedious train of thought. Beauty, an attribute embodied by the divine Bridegroom, can never be a explained or defined. Instead, the bishop of Nyssa shows how we must conduct ourselves in a manner befitting a Christian. His descriptions are not explained but are simply posited...exposed...for consideration that we may appropriate their truths into our lives⁽¹¹³⁾.

Keeping in mind these observations, we see that a metaphor shapes our thoughts according to a particular course of action we have chosen. It also functions as a container when it differentiates our reflections and activity from other available paths⁽¹¹⁴⁾. Gratitude (charis) is the source of a specific metaphoric expression which embraces these two attributes, direction and containment. As direction, gratitude moves outward from a divine encounter in order to communicate God's form (morphe) through metaphoric expressions. Our free acceptance of the gracious invitation extended by God is, of course, important for the realization of this metaphoric process. Thus gratitude's outward movement from a kairos event is patterned according to a charakter, a distinctive mark which confers a divine form to gratitude's communication. Thankfulness is also marked by a suspension, not a death, of our intellectual faculties which is the true sign of a Christian's relationship with God. At first glance this suspension intimates an emptying, not a fulfillment, but closer reflection reveals that this abeyance provides a new ground for forming metaphoric expressions of the informational order.

A metaphor belonging to the informational order transmits its morphe in accord with the revelation of God's presence through the midwife of gratitude. That is to say, a metaphor based upon the concept of information enables us to understand this transcendental relationship in terms of images and perceptions which are natural to us. Since this process is accomplished freely, we become effective transmitters of God's presence to other persons. The words of Psalm Nineteen (verse three) offers a fitting description for this role: "There is no speech nor are there words; their voice is not heard, yet their span has extended through all the earth." The "span" of gratitude permeates space and time through one's personal witness to God's presence. Its all-inclusive nature surpasses yet includes our use of metaphors by in-forming everyone we happen to encounter.

The definition of either a word or concept differs significantly from a metaphoric structure yet forms a necessary basic for it⁽¹¹⁵⁾. For example, a person may explain a familiar yet intangible concept as love. But to articulate something elusive as this through a metaphor implies that we relate it to a broader meaning as opposed to remaining content with its definition. The creation of a metaphor therefore entails an important means by which we understand ourselves in view of more comprehensive experiences, not through isolated concepts or words. As a result, a metaphoric structure embraces all our thoughts and actions while endowing them with a new pattern.

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In the process of creating a metaphor there exists a largely unconscious tension between a personal interpretation of the world at large and attempts to communicate these interpretations. We seek to make our insights public or objective, a process entailing the use of metaphors, in order to have them accepted and then validated⁽¹¹⁶⁾. In this way a larger audience participates in our personal experience which may either confirm, modify or contest our particular use of metaphors⁽¹¹⁷⁾. To be sure, we are taking a chance here. It requires that a communal foundation to our metaphoric expressions be established while at the same time allowing their originality to become self-evident. The tension involved in creating a metaphor thus implies a difference between the way an individual perceives the world and how another person or a group of persons view it. This gap either is either a vehicle for greater creativity or it can stifle impulses. If the latter course is chosen, our world view will never become a possession common to everyone.

The observations of Michael Polyani pertain to this act of creating metaphors and speaks of two complementary principles, "dwelling in" and "breaking out"⁽¹¹⁸⁾. That is, a conscious experience of an authentic framework must first exist whether it is a scientific theory to a musical composition. "Dwelling in" implies a passionate interest in a given field of endeavor where the cultivation of a contemplative outlook on life which acknowledges a higher, transcendent authority plays an essential role. This reflective vision is a gesture involving the whole person. It gathers into one whole those subsidiary components which give shape to a specific theory or insight, and by consequence, how our passionate involvement is verbalized though the metaphoric process. These perceptions are then submitted to a higher authority, God himself. By actually "dwelling in" our particular field of interest through contemplative vision, our attention is in accord with a broader awareness which bestows our activity with a public character. As a result, other persons can participate within our contemplative⁽¹¹⁹⁾ vision where our personal, self-centered vision is submerged and becomes universal. This newly assumed form does not destroy our "dwelling in" or fascination with what we have discovered; instead, we can now behold a larger pattern which both contains and surpasses our initial enthrallment.

Polyani calls that point at which our contemplation "breaks out" into this larger pattern as an ecstatic vision. Awareness now shifts from the conceptual framework which gave birth to insight into a genuine experience of this same framework. After introducing other persons into the subsidiary elements which compose our insight, we and they are both (focally) absorbed in a contemplation of what is now a mutual discovery. Persuasion is sometimes required to convey passionate commitment, but this personal contribution is submerged into a more universal reality which becomes evident to other persons. In Polyani's words, "And while it is thus breaking out, the mind is for the moment directly experiencing its content rather than controlling it by the use of any pre-established modes of interpretation: it is overwhelmed by its own passionate activity⁽¹²⁰⁾." Such passionate involvement applies to gratitude's expansive nature. Thankfulness makes no distinction between the expression of this sentiment and those persons fortunate enough to be influenced by our infectious enthusiasm. Even on the natural level, gratitude is one of those rare human experiences which approximates an encounter with the living God.

Polyani's observations concerning "dwelling in" and "breaking out" demonstrate the risks in creating an adequate metaphoric structure to bridge the span between material and spiritual creation. We may amplify his remarks in terms of what Mary Gerhart and Allan Russell call "knowledge-in-process" which is "best understood in terms not of how the answers change but how the questions do."⁽¹²¹⁾ Willingness to engage in this interrogation suggests humility in the face of what is unknown as opposed to relying upon access to a store of safe, ready-made answers and metaphors. It is therefore more challenging to pose questions ("break out") to our questions instead of cleverly manipulating the answers already at hand. In this fashion that self-delusion which springs from an elaborate process of explanation and description is avoided.

That self-imposed doubt which objectively questions assumptions central to our thought processes augments when we become aware of our inherent limitations. Such questioning participates in the formation of a world view and takes into account new input gathered from experience. A critical spirit of inquiry lays bear the "map" we follow to either explain or to describe the structure of our perceptions before moving on to greater clarification. This map is metaphoric by nature since our ordinary conceptual system uses images and figures to delineate how we get around in the world. That self-imposed doubt (another way of stating the on-going questioning process) also discloses two forms of naivete: the first with regard to an incomplete knowledge of the facts at hand, and the second when we are confronted with an outlook different from our current one. The first naivete implies blissful ignorance of alternative metaphoric expressions, whereas the second divulges the limited nature of our initial perceptions. This second form of awareness demonstrates whether or not our use of metaphors is valid in the face of deeper questioning.

Any tension between our experience of the world at large and an articulation of it is rooted in humanity's earliest stages of development when persons became aware that they were autonomous individuals not wholly identified with their surroundings. The ancient Greek proclivity for objective, absolute truth untainted by subjective experience was a significant advancement of this primitive advance. During the later stages of Western Civilization, the quest for objectivity and freedom from the whims of personal interpretation gave birth to the scientific method, a force which continues to exert a powerful influence. In addition to its advantages at promoting disciplined research, the scientific method is prejudiced towards our imaginative faculty. It is founded upon assumptions made by our intellectual faculties, an emphasis which has led to a neglect of the imaginative process. As Mark Johnson has shown⁽¹²²⁾, insights which find their source in the imaginative faculty have been assigned a secondary role due to a preference for rationality in today's scientifically oriented society. That is, the quest for objectivity has led Western civilization to maintain that a rational appreciation of reality exists independently from other forms of human expression. Inspiration emanating from the imaginative faculty is relegated to poets and artists who, despite their important contributions, often retain a marginal role in society⁽¹²³⁾.

This desire for objectivity inherited from the ancient Greeks becae more sophisticated through the development of the scientific method which, in turn, has exerted a pervasive influence over religious expression. Because of this, the introduction of personal or subjective experiences through revelation and inspiration is suspect. But a correct understanding of religion's contribution to mankind (which makes extensive use of the imaginative faculty) requires a closer examination of metaphoric expression which is often articulated through the descriptive process. Such contributions are communicated through a public forum which seeks to objectively express these subjective experiences. Here is greater range of freedom to construct a bridge between an individual's personal inspiration and its confirmation by other persons. This is not to claim that an objective, scientific approach has no value; rather, subjective experience, which requires extensive use of the imagination, needs to be acknowledged as essential to our human constitution.

Aristotle was the first to attribute metaphor as being an act of genius⁽¹²⁴⁾ in contrast to the Platonic tradition which held the imagination in lesser esteem and preferred the intellectual realm of transcendent ideas. This Platonic value in "a world out there" naturally downplayed the function which material creation enjoyed in producing metaphors. However, any true description of a reality not readily perceived by the senses must be rooted in physical creation as observed in Gregory of Nyssa's use of allegorical representation. The metaphoric process has an uncommon ability to draw parallels between dissimilar perceptions and to effectively transmit new insights from paradoxes which arise, for example, from that contrast between matter and spirit. It takes images from the everyday world and transfers them into vehicles for expressing personal, subjective experience. The objective plane of reality mirrored through our personal experiences gives birth to a new relationship between ourselves and that which was previously unknown. Without this process no sense could be made of the world on which new insights and a broader comprehension can emerge.

This understanding of metaphor is more comprehensive than a literary device belonging to the realm of language and artistic expression. Aristotle's appreciation for the dynamics of metaphor transcends its role in literature and reaches more deeply into the process of acquiring meaning both with respect to ourselves and the world. In later centuries appreciation for metaphoric structures assumed a secondary role, particularly during the Middle Ages when scholasticism became dominant which stressed syllogistic reasoning. From this point the ancient Greek dichotomy between objective and subjective knowledge became crystallized and eventually gave birth to the scientific method. As M. Gerhart and A. Russell have shown in their study⁽¹²⁵⁾, it was not until the twentieth century that due respect was accorded to our imaginative faculty in giving form to perceptions. By that time several centuries of technological advancement enabled persons to enjoy the fruits of the scientific method as well as exposing them its more questionable consequences.

Quite often new knowledge is obtained by transferring familiar perceptions to a realm where we have little or no information, for example, the spiritual domain. This may involve experimentation with different and sometimes unfamiliar metaphoric structures which give scope for increasing the breadth of our knowledge and for testing the originality of our experiences. In this manner new knowledge is eventually incorporated, and a much larger audience can share our personal discoveries. One way to communicate this discovery to other persons is by showing a new relationship between the two dissimilar realities we have recently uncovered through the metaphoric process. This fresh relationship is a horizon shift; it opens a new level of reality where the older meaning is enfolded within the newer one. Earlier notions are not discarded but transformed, thereby preventing a clean break with respect to valuable past experiences.

This transformation may be applied to a transitus from the educative realm to initiation where we at once grasp the confluence between our new meaning and the metaphoric expressions employed to describe it. One example pertains to the religious aspect of initiation which transcends both space and time as in the Christian sacraments. A harmony is established between the sacraments and the person initiated into them, an accomplishment which could not be realized if this person had remained exclusively within the educative realm⁽¹²⁶⁾. Although an unbridgeable gap seems to exist between older, more accepted meanings and the newer experiences, common denominators must exist among them which reflect this relationship. If this connection between two different realities is not made, we could not proceed from our limited viewpoint to a more comprehensive, universal world view. To resolve this dilemma and to open up a new perspective, the strategy of explanation is employed to interpret the future (new meaning) in terms of the past (older meaning).

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In his influential book, The Structures of Scientific Revolutions⁽¹²⁷⁾

, Thomas Kuhn has argued that in the course of history science contents itself with relatively long periods of "normal science" when basic concepts are not seriously questioned. Once this normal science gives way to a scientific revolution through asking deeper questions, theories change and give birth to whole new systems of concepts which become paradigms. These paradigms should not be mistaken as scientific theories; they are more comprehensive in that they tacitly inform both scientists and lay people alike in the process of gaining knowledge. Paradigms include a wholly different way of thinking, communication and perception, and do not come into existence as easily as a new scientific theory. They form world views which give birth to different metaphoric structures based, for example, upon the concept of information which had sprung from research in computer science.

The physicists David Bohm and F. David Peat have advanced an alternate view to Kuhn's paradigms⁽¹²⁸⁾ by maintaining that Kuhn draws too sharp a distinction between "normal science" and "scientific revolutions." When creativity is stifled, the result is fragmentation. Also, instead of focusing upon potential contributions to science, a researcher can be overcome by a type of stage fright where the scientist may be unduly self-conscious of the relationship between his or her research and the paradigm in which he or she is operating⁽¹²⁹⁾. Such heightened awareness of the self destroys creativity which requires spontaneous expression. Bohm and Peat further ask the question, "Is it possible to allow creativity to function at all times, not just during periods of scientific revolution?" By posing this question, both men are challenging an accepted means of perceiving reality (a paradigm) where an attractive meaning has become established for persons engaged in scientific research.

Bohm and Peat suggest the alternate notion of play which represents "a natural tendency within scientific thinking for ideas to converge," not necessarily to diverge. Convergence differs from a normal understanding of paradigms where culture and world views perform important functions. As a substitute for scientific paradigms, Bohm and Peat stress the value of play which allows thought to unfold into provisional knowledge. Once this provisional knowledge has been exposed to the world at large, it flows back to us as a fresh perception of reality. The introduction of play permits us to avoid any temptation to rigidly determine our perceptions by paradigms. Play also avoids a dichotomy between "normal science" and "scientific revolutions." In this manner creativity attains full range of expression, for the all-embracing nature of play observed among children makes no distinction between its own sphere and the realm of serious (adult) activity.

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Although Western Civilization was more inclined to consider metaphoric expression as a literary device intended to embellish a piece of writing, the role of metaphor and analogy are representative of two important ways of perceiving reality and should not be lumped together under one general category. For example, an analogy refers to one specific field of knowledge with which we are acquainted. This familiar knowledge is then transferred to another domain whose territory is unfamiliar. Despite the tension between known and unknown, there nevertheless exists a correlation⁽¹³⁰⁾ between these planes. Note the almost geographical character of an analogy; it is best understood through the comparison between two or more shapes. Analogy's rootedness within space and time or more specifically, gravity, thus structures our perceptions under the general category of up-down (vertical) and left-right (horizontal). These two orders can be easily transferred onto the non-physical plane for describing emotional and intellectual states.

These remarks concerning metaphor and analogy apply to a broad range of knowledge about the world because both utilize information available applicable to areas of knowledge awaiting discovery. Although analogous reasoning does not spawn revolutionary insights, it points to relational aspects about the world. Analogous reasoning thus augments our abstract comprehension of a given field of knowledge by enhancing incomplete images and ideas through what may be called a process of geographical transference. A principal advantage is that it immediately perceives, like the example of an analog timepiece, an association between two dissimilar realities. This correspondence allows us to apprehend relations which Bernard Lonergan places under the category of proportionate being⁽¹³¹⁾. Lonergan describes proportionate being as anything known by human experience, intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation. It is more closely related to the concept of order and the limits circumscribing it than to a quantitative expression of being, although this latter element is certainly included⁽¹³²⁾.

A metaphoric structure belonging to the informational order which describes a Christian's assumption of the divine form, morphe, utilizes analogous reasoning to enhance our description which is consistent with his transcendent reality. Metaphors now produce a complete restructuring of our perceptions as applied to both physical and spiritual reality. Analogies are brought into accord with the metaphoric structure of information for offering a more refined description of the divinity; they introduce a radical transformation enabling us to appreciate God's revelation. For example, Gregory of Nyssa speaks of passion (eros) which acts as a vehicle to express its opposite: "The soul must transform passion into passionlessness so that when every corporeal affection has been quenched, our mind man seethe with passion for the spirit alone" (Song Commentary, p.27). Here is a perfect example which makes us realize a transference of form, of morphe, from the human to the divine.

The operation of an informational metaphoric structure is quite different from one based upon the energy model which we examined earlier even though to the casual observer their operations appear identical. This similarity lies in the fact that both suggest a dynamism based upon images taken from physical reality which are then directed towards greater generalization and universality. Yet a metaphoric structure of information⁽¹³³⁾ represents what Ken Wilbur calls a transformational stage and implies a profound change as "a type of vertical shift or even a mutation in consciousness structures"⁽¹³⁴⁾. In contrast, we may identify the energy model with Wilbur's description of translation as "a simple horizontal movement within a given structure." This pattern implies place-to-place transition from one familiar entity (energetic movement) to another of the same nature without effectively revealing the transmission of God's form. On the other hand, the nature of information is to literally in-form, alter the shape of something, an ability which transcends the energy model. This transformation suggests more than a simple re-arrangement of furniture; a higher synthesis entailing transcendence is introduced. Such a model can look forward towards ever greater expansions of those concepts which better intimate the intervention of God within a kairos event. M. Gerhart and A. Russell have termed this intervention an "ontological flash" where a "pattern maker" questions established theories and examines empirical data to broaden our world of meanings⁽¹³⁵⁾. This newly discovered ability to discern a pattern where none had existed resembles that transition from the familiar domain of place-to-place energetic movement to the domain of information which can be put at the service of detecting the divine image in us.

CHAPTER EIGHT

We have seen how Gregory of Nyssa had borrowed from Second Corinthians 3.18 the key phrase "from glory into glory" and used it as a foundation on which to develop his metaphoric pattern of stability in movement and movement in stability. Having appropriated this Pauline expression, Gregory could organize his marital analogies which are subordinate to the sentiment of heart-felt gratitude. These analogies, in turn, describe the human bride's love for her divine Bridegroom, a theme eloquently communicated by the Song of Songs. I have singled out twelve excerpts of the phrase "from glory into glory" borrowed from St. Paul in Gregory's Commentary on the Song of Songs and have examined three central passages⁽¹³⁶⁾ where his use of metaphors and analogies function as transformational metaphors⁽¹³⁷⁾. They reveal the geographical movement we may initially associate with the phrase, "from glory into glory." In place of this dynamic, movement Gregory offers the paradoxical association of motion with stability, the primary example being the bride's continuous advancement in love and knowledge of her divine Spouse. At the same time she enjoys a genuine possession of him, but as soon as the bride attains the Bridegroom, he disappears and she resumes her search. However, the bride renews this search without a sense of loss; instead, her desire is intensified to possess him even more deeply.

The three passages cited in the first footnote of this chapter are central to Gregory's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs where analogical reasoning founded upon a heart-felt sense of gratitude plays a central role. Analogy fleshes out the transformational character which Gregory of Nyssa assigns to the metaphoric structure "from glory into glory" by reason of its geographical character. Because of this, Gregory's use of metaphor is the first and most important act of establishing new territory. His use of analogy also incorporates this newly acquired territory in his detailed description of the two spouses. Once this new land has been surveyed, the bishop of Nyssa advances his allegorical method⁽¹³⁸⁾. Although the modern mind may balk at this technique, a clarification of some of his teachings will make his sometimes enigmatic style more acceptable. In this fashion we can reach directly into the heart of his teaching while at the same time be at ease with regard to his allegorical flights of fancy.

Attention to the three passages from Gregory's Song Commentary immediately strikes the reader with their abundant references to dynamic, forward motion within the context of a marital relationship. After the Song Commentary has entranced its readers by this nuptial imagery, it prepares them for transferring this spousal relationship onto the spiritual plane. We are thus prevented from becoming preoccupied with the horizontal or "geographical" nature of these analogies, as it were, by reason of their magnetic appeal. The vertical, transformational dimension of "from glory into glory" governs the passages to such a great extent that any opportunity for remaining on the purely physical plane is averted. The three paragraphs from the Song Commentary also clarify the other nine passages where different aspects of the lengthy verse, Second Corinthians 3.18, are implied⁽¹³⁹⁾. Once the framework of Gregory's metaphor-analogy method is established, it sheds light upon the other uses of metaphor and analogy within the corpus of his writings.

The framework of metaphor-analogy may be illustrated as follows:

KAIROS EVENT GRATITUDE Analagous

from glory into glory representation

The first two circles represent Gregory of Nyssa's metaphoric expression, "from glory into glory." The first circle, "from glory," unfolds into a second circle, "into glory." This second circle commences an uninterrupted sequence of circles with a similar pattern which faithfully replicates the relationship existing between circle one and two. Now "from glory" and "into glory" provide a basis for a continuous unfoldment or replication of transcendent reality. The third and (by implication) successive circles represent those analogies which flow from Gregory's metaphoric structure in an in-formational manner or a transmission of God's form. They provide a true eikon or image of that bond which exists between God and a sentiment of heart-felt gratitude⁽¹⁴⁰⁾.

The first circle ("from glory") illustrates the transcendent Source of glory revealed by a kairos event while the second a divinely inspired spirit of thankfulness or "into glory." Both circles are not disconnected from each other by the apparently contradictory two prepositions, "from" and "into"; rather, they share a common ground of interpenetration as indicated by the overlapping area. This point of intersection reveals the unity existing between God and a spirit of heart-felt thankfulness which is devoid of any image of place-to-place movement and belongs to the transcendent order of information. It enables Gregory's principal metaphoric expression, "from glory into glory," to unfold without diminishment as demonstrated by the overlapping areas of identical circles which follow. If gratitude were absent in any subsequent metaphoric expression, God's presence would similarly be absent⁽¹⁴¹⁾. The area composed of "from" and "into" (indicated by the overlapping section) lacks dissipation as in the case of energetic movement; rather, this area indicates that original bond existing between God and thankfulness is maintained⁽¹⁴²⁾.

The second state which represents gratitude as having been informed by a kairos event (i.e., the first and second circles) does not occupy a subordinate position; rather, it is immediately in-formed (assumes the form of a kairos event) by God's self-emptying or kenosis⁽¹⁴³⁾. Prior to its expression through the metaphoric process, the transcendent form of a kairos event remains completely unrevealed or enfolded within itself. Kenosis provides the ground for a true metaphoric expression of "from glory into glory" which naturally flows from a heart-felt sentiment of gratitude.

Because the bond existing between God and a sentiment of gratitude forms an undivided harmony, they allow for greater fluidity of expression. This flexibility is more readily associated with pure awareness which I have suggested as the locus of our being made in God's image and likeness. In many ways this reference point is preferable to the more tangible concept of being because the former signifies more freedom and implies the existence of qualities which can be easily depicted⁽¹⁴⁴⁾. By its very nature pure awareness is elusive and cannot be subject to analysis. For example, the second circle illustrates that the overlapping area is not confined to one sphere; it partakes of the sphere belonging to a kairos event where God remains the Source of all metaphoric expressions together with the circle symbolizing metaphoric expressions of this Source. Gratitude therefore simultaneously partakes of God's own unique form and a metaphoric structure. The diagram further reveals that a kairos event employs gratitude for imparting God's reality to an informational metaphoric structure. Kairos accurately re-presents...makes present again...God's own presence through such a structure. An in-formational metaphor, in turn, is dependent upon the mediating principle of gratitude to reveal its source within a kairos event. Here is a movement of God's revelation (the Source of glory) from himself into gratitude which represents the form of thankfulness. Now divine glory has become fully revealed.

The second circle representing a metaphoric structure founded upon gratitude resembles the first circle or God's self-emptying within a kairos event. It, in turn, gives birth to a third circle and so forth. This perpetual sequence illustrates the whole chain of metaphors and analogies whose function is to explicate divine revelation. Because the second circle faithfully imitates the archetype of God's self-emptying through the mediating principle of gratitude, the realities symbolized by all three circles remain equal yet distinct and can never suffer the dissolution of energetic movement nor of linear progression from the past into the future. If, for example, we produce a copy of anything, we have recourse to an energetic process; we envisage a recollection of the original form (existing in the past) to be represented (in the future). But regardless of the copy's fidelity to the original, it remains a reproduction. This duplicating process implies the expenditure of energy to generate an indefinite amount of copies which reflect the original image. But in place of energy's dynamic principle, the pattern of information is more in accord with the transcendent nature of a divine intervention; it enables us to contemplate the spiritual unfolding of that archetype represented by the first two circles, kairos through gratitude to metaphor.

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Although we may recall past occasions of gratitude, it would be incorrect to claim that these recollections make present a transcendent kairos event. Remembrances of thankfulness parallels the recollective function of our memory. However, they differ from this faculty in one important respect, by their ability to make God fully present⁽¹⁴⁵⁾ to us, not simply recollections of it. Here we are confronted with a paradox. The transcendent character of thankfulness makes God present by reason of participating in his life without the mediating principle of our recollective faculty. At the same time gratitude prevents this faculty from taking a picture, as it were, of a kairos event. But the only "picture" obtained after an encounter God is that our normal perceptions of space and time have been altered. We look back (remember) upon such occasions and observe that the spacial-temporal dimension so basic to human experience had been effectively suspended. In this way the presence of God is sustained within our memory⁽¹⁴⁶⁾.

The three-fold structure of kairos-charis-metaphor assumes a distinct geometrical shape as the first circle discloses. In this fashion a transcendent kairos event and its revelation through a metaphoric structure founded upon gratitude offer fresh insight into divine life by using a familiar geometrical scheme. Akolouthia is a word which Gregory of Nyssa favors to suggest this character of God's revelation. This term, difficult to translate into English, is a sequence, pattern, succession or order. The concept of order belonging to akolouthia may then be applied to metaphoric structures of information as it traces God's revelation through the mediating principle of charis, gratitude. Akolouthia also suggests a logical progression as Jean Danielou has demonstrated in a study devoted to this word frequently employed by Gregory of Nyssa⁽¹⁴⁷⁾. For example, Danielou shows how Gregory applies akolouthia to cosmology: "quelle est la liaison necessaire entre ces faits [pertaining to creation], la loi de leur succession" (p.25). Gregory implies a transcendent kairos event moving towards future temporal consummation which resembles Sheldrake's morphic resonance and which differs from an indefinite series of cycles projected by energy's place-to-place movement. His concept of akolouthia is both an advancement of divine revelation and a principle found in nature; in this way he diverges from Greek philosophy which identifies akolouthia with a cyclic perception of reality⁽¹⁴⁸⁾.

Gregory's description of a Christian's perpetual growth in the love and knowledge of God reveals his own informational metaphoric pattern which had been influenced by his predecessors and their use of analogical interpretation with regard to Scripture⁽¹⁴⁹⁾. The creation of a distinctive metaphoric structure ("from glory into glory") bestows an equally distinctive pattern upon those analogies which expand the meaning of this primary structure. This secondary role played by analogous representation is manifest not only with respect to a given metaphoric structure but to other related analogies. These analogies enhance the primacy of a metaphoric structure founded upon the concept of information, of the divine morphe, as in the bride's numerous descriptions of her Spouse. They are to be shared and communicated by following a process inverse to the unfolding of a kairos event into a metaphoric structure based upon gratitude which terminates in analogous expression. That is to say, an analogy functions in a manner quite different from God's transcendent unfolding, the ultimate Source of its existence. Analogy refers backward, as it were, through a process of description and explanation in contrast to a kairos event's forward explication. It rests upon an informational metaphoric structure ("from glory into glory") and is thoroughly imbued by this same structure. Next, analogy proceeds back to the midwife or penultimate source of charis (gratitude) and finally to its ultimate Source, God. This inverse process remains valid only when analogical representation is faithful to its "backward" gesture and shows that the bond existing between a kairos event and gratitude is not sundered. By standing fast within that immediate "afterness" of gratitude's close association with God's presence, the use of analogical representation faithfully reflects our transcendent Source.

The well-known concept of mankind's "fall" illustrates an artificially perceived diastema, or alienation-as-distance from an immediate awareness of God's. The early Church found itself in a Hellenistic world permeated by diverse philosophical traditions. It was only natural that the Church articulate its teachings in concepts borrowed from some of the more influential philosophies of this time. One major philosophical tradition was Platonism⁽¹⁵⁰⁾ which offered compelling insights to describe both life in this world and our eternal destiny. A well known features of this system is that human nature had fallen from its original state of purity and communication with God. Mankind as a whole therefore suffered a descent from the realm of pure ideas, his true home. Our task now consists in discovering the correct means of purifying ourselves in order to escape this earthly existence ("down below") where we live in exile from these transcendent ideas.

The impact of Platonism upon Christianity and the subsequent course of Western Civilization has been enormous⁽¹⁵¹⁾. Since this philosophic system has exercised a dominant role in our common cultural heritage, it is difficult to find a world view untouched by this influence. The attempt to establish new meaning concerning our alienation from God thus confronts a formidable model. As its long history testifies, the Platonic world view was brilliantly successful in employing that schema fundamental to our way of perceiving reality, namely, "up-down." This schema finds expression in Plato's transcendent ideas which exist "up there" in heaven, whereas human beings conduct their lives "down here" on earth. Such a pattern is vertical by nature and has found its way into an equally vertical Christian interpretation of mankind's sinful condition which rests upon our almost unconscious experience of gravity⁽¹⁵²⁾.

Despite the elegance of Plato's system regarding the transcendent ideas the ambiguity of corporeal existence, his philosophical system and its subsequent interpretations are quite different from orthodox teachings on the Incarnation which expresses Christ's relationship with humanity⁽¹⁵³⁾. The inclination to look elsewhere for a resolution to life's difficulties commonly associated with Plato instead of focusing attention upon existence here and now leads to one of two errors: either to willful ignorance of these difficulties or to explain away humankind's precarious situation within the vicissitudes of temporal existence.

It should also be noted that modern scientific advancements have radically altered our perceptions of such fundamental realities as gravity, space and time. Despite these developments, they are often at variance with common sense which relates us to the familiar, everyday world. Common sense advises us to rely upon the immediacy of experience to function properly within the world. In a similar fashion, we trust our almost unconscious and immediate acceptance of gravity while continuing to articulate experiences in terms of that familiar vertical schema, up and down. As a result, we have a dependable foundation on which to map our perceptions of reality. But the account of mankind's alienation from God (chapter three of the book of Genesis) may be viewed in a light different from the more generally accepted notion of a Platonic "fall."

In contrast to the up-down schema typical of Plato's world view, Genesis records the expulsion of man from Eden, a symbol of paradise or intimacy with God, in terms of a "lateral," not vertical, movement which belongs to our of gravity: "He (God) drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (3.24)⁽¹⁵⁴⁾. Once the man had been expelled from Eden, he could not return because an angel armed with a flaming sword was stationed at the entrance (3.24). Despite this calamity, the author of Genesis portrays man occupying the same (horizontal) plane as Eden, neither above nor below it. The depiction of man's banishment in terms of a lateral schema is helpful insofar as it enables us to perceive transcendent reality still accessible. In other words, the transcendent sphere is present within the same horizontal plane where we actually live. This picture runs counter to the more common vertical schema where God remains "up in heaven," a alien to the field of human activity. The former interpretation orients our perceptions of transcendent reality within the context of the more familiar (horizontal) level of everyday existence as opposed to a vaguely perceived (vertical) realm foreign to us.

With this distinction between two contrasting schemata in mind, it is interesting to speculate in which direction Christian philosophical reflection and theology would have advanced if the horizontal schema depicted in the book of Genesis had gained more general acceptance. That "vertical" or Platonic world view which wielded great influence over the early development of Christian theological reflection contributed to a sharp distinction of our alienation from God. But instead of considering humankind's tragic estrangement from God in terms of a Platonic vertical framework where we are situated "below" a heaven which is "up there," the biblical schema sees heaven located (horizontally) "over there". The lateral perception of transcendent reality has greater appeal since this mode is more compatible with corporeal existence rooted in the earth. The fullness of heavenly life can never be directly accessible, regardless of which schema is employed. However, the lateral schema is a more natural framework for describing our experiences of (horizontal) existence.

Awareness of our "lateral" banishment from God has one principal advantage over the more dualistic character of a vertical schema; it allows us to interpret our exile as being on the same horizontal plane as Eden instead of a (vertical) "fall" from some inaccessible state of blessedness. This banished state is marked by a loss of God's presence impressed upon our memory. However, a lateral schema has includes something more basic than this recollective faculty. The word "impression" is more adapt here since it implies immediate contact with a person who does the impressing⁽¹⁵⁵⁾. The stamp or charakter of our divine origin can never be effaced even though the self-centered ego subjects it to numerous distortions⁽¹⁵⁶⁾. One distortion is a temptation to substitute a memory of our true nature and its divine Source for an actual impression of it. Focus upon memories transforms our awareness from its rootedness within the divine image and likeness which dimensions. Awareness of our true nature as illustrated by the garden of Eden narrative thus communicates an impression of it, not just a remembrance.

Any attempt to establish immediate contact with God which bypasses the mediating force of gratitude and its ensuing informational metaphoric structure cannot succeed because thankfulness remains indispensable for a true expression of transcendent reality. Throughout this essay I have delineated two ends of a spectrum, transcendence and the bounded nature of space and time. Instead of recognizing the natural unfolding of our human response to God through the medium of gratitude and the ensuing appropriate metaphoric structures, the self-centered ego is uneasy over the unknown instead of recognizing the unifying force belonging to a sentiment of heart-felt thankfulness. Previous to the ego's intervention, no sharp distinction existed between God's unfolding from transcendence and our limited world; both realms interact freely and spontaneously. Further examination of this misperception reveals that the self-centered ego has a two-fold awareness of the unknown, one regarding God's transcendence and the other of analogous representation. We can easily understand the ego's anxiety before a divine encounter in its attempt to manipulate analogous representation to its own interests. However, this endeavor does not succeed because the ego is not omnipotent, an attribute which only belongs to the transcendent order.

The history of early Christianity is replete with examples of the tragic process just delineated. For example, gnostic systems avoid a correct understanding of transcendent reality. If these artificially constructed systems conformed to the truth of Christian revelation, they would have to recognize that the self-centered ego needs to be dramatically curtailed. One typical gnostic trait is the lack of gratitude, an essential ingredient to orthodox Christian teaching. Gnosticism is a notable example of that uneasiness when confronted by this virtue and its avoidance by projecting a countless number of distorted analogical representations. By way of conclusion, we should be recognized that the very term "gnosticism" implies an intellectual assent founded upon the ego's willful assertion⁽¹⁵⁷⁾. Undue reliance upon this interpretation of gnosis compels us to choose an order inverse to God's revelation; we decide to expropriate his transcendence through the willful use of analogous representation instead of remaining open to his gracious summons.

CONCLUSION

One notable example of the conflict between hairesis and an orthodox interpretation of Christianity may be observed in Gregory of Nyssa's struggle with Eunomius who claimed to have knowledge of God's essence, ousia⁽¹⁵⁸⁾. A key principle on which Gregory bases his orthodox Christian teaching is his informational metaphoric structure, "from glory into glory." The analogies which flow from this structure stand in sharp contrast with the teachings of Eunomius. Excerpts from Eunomius' writings reveal that he ascribed to the widespread gnostic tendency of making analogies about God which reflect a direct knowledge of the divinity. His system is superficially attractive, but Eunomius establishes these analogies upon an un-informed Christian world view. When reading the dialogue between Gregory of Nyssa and Eunomius on the knowability of God, close attention to the text reveals the difference between the orthodox, Christian use of metaphors to defend God's unknowability and the gnostic disposition to know God directly. Even apart from the orthodox Christian position of Gregory, his views have a distinct appeal in comparison to Eunomius' gnostic tendencies. Despite the subtle arguments of the latter, Eunomius asserts his own viewpoint by claiming to have direct knowledge of the transcendent God. Once a person subscribes to such a position, the metaphors and allegories employed to support this claim are bound to collapse under their own weight. In addition to defective theological reason, they cannot be sustained without the binding force of heart-felt gratitude to God for his revelation in Jesus Christ as his Only-Begotten Son.

The four components delineated in this essay---kairos, gratitude, a metaphoric structure based upon the impartation of God's form and the use of analogous representation which fill out this metaphoric structure---are essential for an authentic Christian theology of God. We have seen that heretical interpretations of theology (as in the case of Eunomius) recognize elements of this four-fold process yet omit the essential element of gratitude. Furthermore, the definition of hairesis as a picking and choosing of one particular truth to the neglect of the others fails to see the relationship between other Christian truths. Gregory of Nyssa describes the right order of Christian revelation by the word akolouthia, "sequence." When expressing an insight based upon this akolouthia, all truths must be related to each other to form a single unity. This is the problem Eunomius confronts with Gregory of Nyssa. He intuited three of the four elements belonging to a correct Christian interpretation of theology (a kairos event, metaphor, analogy) and consented to their expression. However, he omitted the binding force of gratitude which allowed for an orthodox interpretation of Christ's revelation.

Eunomius could not subscribe to this four-fold relationship since it directly conflicted Gregory's orthodox metaphoric structure, "from glory into glory." This metaphoric structure has a two-fold advantage; it is open-ended or transcendent and embraces representation of human relationships as between the Song's bride and bridegroom. The Song Commentary offers numerous accounts when the bride appears to have reached a limit to her relationship with her divine Spouse. At such critical junctures Gregory of Nyssa utilizes the metaphoric structure, "from glory into glory," where the divine Bridegroom invites her to advance in awareness of her innate capacity for transcendence. The Bridegroom beckons his spouse to question the horizons of her world and those analogies she makes to articulate her love within these horizons. Introduction of the metaphoric structure "from glory into glory" reshapes the bride's world and broadens her horizons even further. At the termination of one degree of glory there exists a moment when the bride has exhausted her means of showing love for her divine Spouse. She requires new life if the love affair is to be kept alive. To rejuvenate the mutual love, arrival at the beginning of one stage of glory infuses the bride with an opportunity to revitalize her love. Furthermore, each time the bride attains a new stage she expresses gratitude for having arrived there.

I have considered a key word which Gregory of Nyssa employs for continuous growth, epektasis, the stretching forward to obtain a goal characterized by intense longing. This term shows that the human bride does not rely upon her memory for encounters with her divine Bridegroom. Epektasis is another way of expressing suspension of our recollective faculty and its transfiguration. Epektasis likes at the heaert of Gregory's metaphoric scheme of things much in the same way that its alternate expression, "from glory into glory," describes the various stages of growth associated with a divine encounter or kairos event. This form of progression, characteristic of Christian spiritual life does not partake of the movement associated with the space-time continuum; like gratitude, it is a midwife to situate a Christian on the transcendent plane. Epektasis in-forms the bride's movement in the search for her Spouse where she strives to receive a divine form which cannot be described in place-to-place movement. It thus enhances Gregory's understanding of metaphors through the image of a bride striving to perceive the mystery of God's transcendence. He does this by taking images from our senses (hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling) and transposing them to a spiritual level. A constant tension is at work between the identity of bride with her Bridegroom and her participation in his transcendence. Epektasis therefore situates the bride between awareness of her limitations and the mysterious presence of her eternal Spouse.

The movement of epektasis follows a distinct pattern of growth which not only limits the bride's horizons but reshapes the ground she is about to cover on the spiritual plane. Instead of the bride willfully selecting this pattern, it evolves out of the link (gratitude) existing between a divine encounter and the metaphoric structures she uses to describe her experiences. She both knows how God manifests himself and invites her to ever deeper levels of his hidden transcendental nature. As the dialectic between divine encounters and the metaphoric structures used to describe them continue to evolve, the bride grows in realization that her pattern of epektasis consists in the paradox of presence and absence of her beloved. If our minds remain uninformed by divine grace, we have difficulty in accepting this paradox because we have not yet abandoned those images and logic which arise from familiar place-to-place activity.

I have defined the metaphoric structure developed by Gregory of Nyssa as being informational by nature. The phrase from Philippians 2.6 accentuates the reality of God's form, morphe and does not depict it in terms of energetic movement. Gregory's fundamental intuition may therefore be interpreted as passage from one manifestation of God's form into, further, indefinite realizations of this same divine form. The Philippians verse also contains the Greek verb metamorphoo, "to be transfigured, transformed." This reference demonstrates that God's presence assumes a specific form, morphe, which is communicated whole and entire according to the progressive growth of epektasis. The bride lacks recollection of her previous advancements between each successive stage of glory but paradoxically employs this forgetfulness to make further advancements. Because the divine Bridegroom is both present and absent to his human spouse, he cannot be described in what I have posited as place-to-place energetic movement. Only the form of gratitude, charis, which participates in God's transcendence allows him to be detected. As we know from experience, a sentiment of heart-felt gratitude is perhaps one of the best ways available to incarnate God's presence in our lives and to transmit this presence to other persons who, like us, are made in the image and likeness of God himself.

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4. ⁴.Information theory was pioneered by the MIT scientist, Norbert Wiener. Simultaneous with the emergence of this concept is the theory of cybernetics which may be described as the way by which pieces of information interact with each other to produce predictable and repeatable forms of behavior. In his book, Cybernetics, (New York, 1963), Neville Moray sums up this new discipline as "the science of applied logic." (p.27).

5. ⁵.The concept of energy plays an important role in the teachings of the so-called New Age movement. This eclectic philosophical system combines such diverse elements as medicine, science, Christianity and Eastern religions and fashions them into a novel world view. However, it often applies a loose moral code of human behavior which reflects the pick-and-choose nature of this philosophy. I single out the New Age movement because it claims to possess a form of esoteric knowledge reserved for a chosen few. This system resembles those gnostic schools which flourished during the first centuries of the Christian era. They were founded upon a dualistic perception of reality, usually in terms of good and evil. In any gnostic system's interpretation of reality the acquisition of knowledge (about God) is supreme, often at the expense of emphasizing the role of love. This knowledge distinguishes a person from others who have not yet attained enlightenment (A term with broad application, depending upon which gnostic sect a person belongs). In short, knowledge equals power for most gnostic systems.

6. ⁶.It is interesting to note that British empiricism developed at approximately the same time and on the same soil as the Industrial Revolution. Both the advent of mechanically powered engines to take the place of human labor, as well as the philosophical infrastructure which advocated the application of these inventions, had their origin in the same country.

7. ⁷.The most prominent philosophers of British empiricism are Locke, Berkeley, Hume and J.S. Mill. They all lived during the first stages of the Industrial Revolution and sought to give expression to the newly discovered relationship between humankind and material creation which was economical by nature.

8. ⁸.In his provocative book, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), Allen Bloom has frequently made reference to the importance of John Locke with regard to economic and political activity. (cf. pp.361-64).

9. ⁹.Brain, Mind and Computers (Washington, DC: Gateway Editions, 1989).

10. ¹⁰.Sigmund Freud comes in for strong criticism since he applied physics to psychology in a rather naive manner. Jaki mentions Otto Rank who reproached Freud for being "trapped in the mechanistic world view at the very time when physics was just entering an entirely new phase of its course. The irony, however, had its logic. Subordinating as he did the conscious to the subconscious, Freud blinded himself to the pivotal role of consciousness that underlies the theory of relativity." (ibid, pp.183-4).

11. ¹¹Time Wars (New York, 1987: Simon and Schuster), p.23.

12. ¹².Within the context of early Christianity, the Greek term for "word" is logos which has a rich meaning not easily translated into English. One example is the phrase, "spoken expression," A Patristic Greek Lexicon (London, 1961: Oxford University Press), p.807. In the Gospel of St. John logos is used in reference to the person of Jesus Christ as the "expression" which God the Father has spoken or uttered. Within the Hellenistic world which influenced the development of early Christianity, "The notion of the logos first took form in a cosmological context, not a soteriological one. Above all, it gave an account of the immanence of the divine in the world." The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers by Louis Bouyer, (New York, 1963), p.222.

13. ¹³.Imaginative cognition will be discussed later, but it is introduced now as related to pure awareness or attention without an object. On this point, refer to the remarks of Hubert Benoit: "This movement of conversion (towards pure attention) is unconscious, since my attention is without an object in the measure in which it operates in the active mode. All that I observe in myself is a progressive diminution of the apparent reality of my inner imaginative world." The Supreme Doctrine, (New York: The Viking Press, 1959), p.192.

14. ¹⁴.The Presence of the Past (New York, 1989: Vintage Books), p.211.

15. ¹⁵.Ibid, pp.34-8. A definition of morphic resonance is found on p.108: "Morphic resonance takes place on the basis of similarity. The more similar an organism is to previous organisms, the greater their influence of it by morphic resonance. And the more such organisms there have been, the more powerful their cumulative influence. Thus a developing foxglove seedling, for example, is subject to morphic resonance from countless foxgloves that came before, and this resonance shapes and stabilizes its morpho-genetic fields."

16. ¹⁶.David Bohm and F. David Peat make an important distinction between awareness and attention in Science, Order, and Creativity, (New York, 1987), pp.212-13; 214-15: "The term `sensitive awareness' suggests the image of a person who is very watchful and perceptive and therefore disposed to respond even to the subtlest impressions of all kinds...This sensitivity is not, however, primarily concerned with already organized knowledge...This sensitivity is the source of all information that may later give rise to a perception and knowledge of form, order, structure, and ultimately all that has meaning in consciousness...Thus the word `attention' means literally `stretching the mind toward something.' This implies an inner activity that is needed to grasp the object of interest mentally...The mind is thus able to `take hold' of this content and grasp it as a kind of whole, at a higher and subtler level."

17. ¹⁷.Both men make an important though subtle distinction between awareness and attention in Science, Order, and Creativity, pp.212-13 (New York, 1987): "The term `sensitive awareness' suggests the image of a person who is very watchful and perceptive and therefore disposed to respond even to the subtlest impressions of all kinds...This sensitivity is the source of all information that may later give rise to a perception and knowledge of form, order, structure, and ultimately all that has meaning in consciousness."..."Thus the word `attention' means literally `stretching the mind toward something.' This implies an inner activity that is needed to grasp the object of interest mentally...The mind is thus able to `take hold' of this content and grasp it as a kind of whole, at a higher and subtler level." (ibid, pp.214-15)

18. ¹⁸.For a fuller dation, refer to Science, Order, and Creativity, pp.212-13.

19. ¹⁹.Attentiveness may be called a heightened sense of awareness during intense experiences of gratitude. Thankfulness is equated with the Greek term charis. In the context of the New Testament, charis frequently denotes grace or God's gracious communication.

20. ²⁰.Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, 1980).

21. ²¹.Mark Johnson attributes much of the failure for the imagination in Western culture to what he calls the Objectivist tradition. "[Objectivism] takes the following general form: The world consists of objects that have properties and stand in various relationships independent of human understanding...In other words, there is a rational structure to reality, independent of the beliefs of any particular people, and correct reason mirrors this rational structure." The Body in the Mind, p.x.

22. ²³.Jeremy Rifkin (Time Wars) has given an account of how the concept of time was influenced by the awareness of natural rhythms which were supplanted by such inventions as the calendar and clock. More recently our perceptions of time have become affected by computers in what Rifkin terms "the nanosecond culture." Here the lightening fast operation of computers threaten to upset our ingrained notions of time.

23. ²³.Gregory of Nyssa was long recognized by Eastern Orthodox Christians as an original thinker. However, his importance in the West was overshadowed by his fourth century contemporary, Augustine of Hippo. It was only in recent decades that the originality of the bishop of Nyssa had regained its rightful place. Much of the research on Gregory is contained in scholarly tomes and are in languages other than English. Despite this obstacle, a number of his major writings are available in English such as his important Life of Moses (translated by A. Malherbe and E. Ferguson, New York, 1978) and Commentary on the Song of Songs (translated by Richard (Casimir) McCambly, Brookline, 1987). In addition to these translations, From Glory to Glory, by J. Danielou & H. Musurillo (New York, reprint edition, 1979) offers a good introduction to his writings and philosophic background even though considerable research has been done since the publication of this book in 1961.

24. ²⁴.The following excerpt demonstrates spiritual movement: "But the veil of despair is removed when the bride [the human soul] learns that the true satisfaction of her desire consists in always progressing in her search and ascent: when her desire is fulfilled, it gives birth to a further desire for the transcendent. Thus the veil of her despair is removed, and the bride will always see more of her beloved's [God] incomprehensible beauty throughout all eternity." Commentary on the Song of Songs (Brookline, 1987), p.225.

25. ²⁵.The desire for a permanence free from the vicissitudes of change is reflected in classical architecture. For example, consider the dimensions of Greek and Roman buildings which convey a powerful impression of immovability, stability and balance.

26. ²⁶.In the context of this essay, the conventional notion of progress is related to energetic movement which implies a beginning and therefore an end or goal. Similarly, the faculty of our memory recalls past events with an intent to use data from this past for projection into the future. But movement as presented by Gregory of Nyssa belongs to a different order and is not identified with the spacial-temporal dimension. To conceive this better, we refer to the sentiment of gratitude, charis. Although thankfulness admits a distinction between subject-object relationships, it freely transcends a dualistic situation where the grateful person and the one to whom this sentiment is expressed become one mind and spirit.

27. ²⁷.Gregory borrows the work epektasis from St. Paul, Philippians 3.13: "I do not consider that I have made it [perfection] my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining [epekteinomenos] forward to what lies ahead." Epektasis contains two prepositions, epi ("upon" or "on") and ek ("out") which suggests the notion of "going out-upon." This combination of two prepositions with different meanings enhances Gregory's depiction of the soul's exit from its limited self-consciousness. It is interesting to observe that in modern Greek the term epektasis means an addition or extension to a building.

28. ²⁸.Charakter is used here in the original sense of a stamp or distinctive mark which bestows a particular form. This word suggests an intimate connection between that which effects the stamp (God the Father) and the stamp itself (Christ). For an example taken from the New Testament related to the union between God the Father and Jesus Christ, refer to Hebrews 1.3: "He [Christ] is the brightness of his glory and the express image [character] of his person, and he upholds all things by the word of his power."

29. ²⁹."Holography is a method of lensless photography in which the wave field of light scattered by an object is recorded on a plate as an interference pattern. When the photographic record--the hologram--is placed in a coherent light beam like a laser, the original wave pattern is regenerated. A three-dimensional image appears. Because there is no focusing lens, the plate appears as a meaningless pattern of swirls. Any piece of the hologram will reconstruct the entire image." The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, a series of essays edited by Ken Wilbur (Boulder, Co. 1982), p.6.

30. ³⁰.These two important terms are described in The Holographic Paradigm (pp.44-104) and in Science, Order, and Creativity, pp.172-180 & 186-190.

31. ³¹.Gregory's term for advancement, prokope, may be compared with Bohm's "holomovement" described as follows: "...there may be a common implicate order which goes deeper and deeper without limit and is ultimately unknown. This unknown and undescribable totality will be called the holomovement. It acts as the fundamental ground of all matter." Science, Order, and Creativity, p.180.

32. ³².It is helpful to keep in mind the literal sense of 2Cor 3.18, apo doxes eis doxan, "from (apo) glory into (eis) glory." This "from-into" dynamism expresses spiritual advancement which is a unified whole. Accent is laid upon the actual divine form (morphe) established by this advancement, not upon the tendency to divide it into segments. From now on this phrase from 2Cor 3.18 will be referred to as "from glory into glory."

33. ³³.In his book Up from Eden (Boston, 1986) Ken Wilbur situates the role of memory within the growth of humankind. He rightly locates it as a half-way house in our growth from the "no-memory" of pre-history to the "trans-memory" of consciousness-as-such: "Many of the mental-egoic activities are, in large measure, based on the past. That is to say, they are based on the memory records of past actions, past experiences, past events...That is itself not a bad thing--it is through the use of memory that mankind was able to pull itself out of its slumber in the subconscious. Odd as it sounds, memory is a form of transcendence, for it allows one to rise above the fluctuations of the moment. As mankind's self began to shift away from the body and toward the mind, toward thought and language, it began likewise to shift toward memory. The ego is in part a memory-self, and that is what allows it to rise above the fluctuations of the body" (p.197). Although Wilbur stresses the necessity of memory in humankind's evolution, we are using it in those circumstances when confronted with God's transcendence.

34. ³⁴.A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (Los Angeles, 1981).

35. ³⁵."The hypothesis of formative causation proposes that morphogenetic fields play a causal role in the development and maintenance of the forms of systems at all levels of complexity. In this context, the world `form' is taken to include not only the shape of the outer surface or boundary of a system, but also its internal structure. This suggested causation of form by morphogenetic fields is called formative causation in order to distinguish it from the energetic type of causation with which physics already deals so thoroughly. For although morphogenetic fields can only bring about their effects in conjunction with energetic processes, they are not in themselves energetic." (p.72).

"A `resonant' effect of form upon form across space and time would resemble energetic resonance in its selectivity, but it could not be accounted for in terms of any of the known types of resonance, nor would it involve a transmission of energy. In order to distinguish it from energetic resonance, this process will be called morphic resonance." (p.95). Both excerpts are from A New Science of Life.

36. ³⁶.The seven references are found in the Commentary on the Song: pp.68.8, 90.11, 98.11-12, 104.2, 104.12-13, 150.11-13, 440.1.

37. ³⁷.A reference to the inability of directly contemplating God is found in Gregory's The Life of Moses: "The divine word at the beginning forbids that the Divine be likened to any of the things known by men since every concept which comes from some comprehensible image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God." Translation, introduction and notes by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York, 1978), pp.96-7.

38. ³⁸.Jean Piaget, the well-known child psychologist, has done significant research into the nature of play as performed by children. Although I are using the concept of play in a different sense than Piaget's, his remarks on this point which he terms "the ludic function" are worth noting: "Play begins, then, with the first dissociation between assimilation and accommodation. After learning to grasp swing, throw, etc., which involve both an effort of accommodation to new situations, and an effort of repetition, reproduction and generalization, which are the elements of assimilation, the child sooner or later grasps for the pleasure of grasping, swings for the sake of swinging, etc. In a word, he repeats his behavior not in any further effort to learn or to investigate, but for the mere joy of mastering it and of showing off to himself his own power of subduing reality. Assimilation is dissociated from accommodation by subordinating it and tending to function by itself, and from then on practice play occurs. Since it requires neither thought nor social life, practice play can be explained as the direct result of the primacy of assimilation." Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood (New York, 1962), p.162.

39. ³⁹."Thus, as early as the beginning of the child's second year, Piaget discerns the `make-believe' games `characteristic of the ludic symbol as opposed to simple motor games.' They are also differentiated from imitation in that the function of imitation is to copy or accommodate to the objects of reality, while the function of ludic or symbolic play is to distort the objects of reality to suit the child's fancy. Imitation (based on accommodation to reality) and play (based on assimilating reality to private, egocentric thinking) therefore represent the extremes of the two functions which must work together to achieve equilibrium." Understanding Piaget: An Introduction to Children's Cognitive Development, Mary Ann Spencer Pulaski, (New York, 1971), p.104.

40. ⁴⁰.Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Kittel, editor (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1965), p.459.

41. ⁴¹.Diastema and Diastsis in Gregory of Nyssa. Introduction to a Concept and the Posing of a Problem, an article in Gregory von Nyssa und die Philosophie, edited by H. Dorrie, M. Altenburger, U. Schramm (Leiden, 1976), p.252.

42. ⁴²."We can conceive no mental image of such a gap (diastema), but it is our experience." Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence by Paulos Mar Gregorios (New York, 1988), p.95.

43. ⁴³."Inverse insight responds to a more subtle and critical attitude that distinguishes different degrees or levels or kinds of intelligibility. While direct insight grasps the point, or sees the solution, or comes to know the reason, inverse insight apprehends that in some fashion the point is that there is no point, or that the solution is to deny a solution, or that the reason is that the rationality of the real admits distinctions and qualifications. Finally, while the conceptual formulation of direct insight affirms a positive intelligibility though it may deny expected empirical elements, the conceptual formulation of an inverse insight affirms empirical elements only to deny an expected intelligibility." Insight: A Study of Human Understanding by Bernard Lonergan (London, 1957), p.19.

44. ⁴⁴.Ken Wilbur speaks of awareness of a personal ego as follows: "Thus, we can start to see why the thought process, the concepts, the ideas, and the memories were so important: in its drive to a promised immortality, the new self sense, in a fashion never before so grandiose, seized upon the characteristics of the world of thought. For thought, being initially static, seemed to offer something that neither nature nor flesh would: permanence. The word `tree,' for example, stays the same while all actual trees change, mature, and die. Thought promises eternity by delivering its substitute: permanence. No wonder Rank could say that all ideologies were immortality projects...Having used thought to transcend the body, we have not yet learned to use awareness to transcend thought. That, I believe, will be the next development in men and women." (Up from Eden, pp.199-200).

45. ⁴⁵.Concerning the relationship between eros and agape, Jean Danielou remarks, "Eros...c'est un pathos. Ceci comporte d'abord une nuance de passivite, l'idee d'une dependance a l'egard de quelque chose d'exterieur a l'ame. Le pathos, au sens propre du mot, est dependance de l'ame a l'egard de ce qui lui es inferieur. Ici, il est dependance, passivite, a l'egard de ce qui lui est superieur, c'est-a-dire de Dieu." Platonisme et Theologie Mystique (Paris, 1944), p.218.

46. ⁴⁶.Again refer to Sheldrake's remarks concerning morphic resonance which occurs on the physical plane: "A similar phenomenon has been demonstrated in an invertebrate, the octopus: observations on the survival of learned habits after destruction of various parts of the vertical lobe of the brain have led to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that `memory is both everywhere and nowhere in particular.'...These findings are extremely puzzling from a mechanistic point of view. In an attempt to account for them, it has been suggested that memory `traces' are somehow distributed within the brain in a manner analogous to the storage of information in the brain in the form of interference patterns in a hologram. But this remains no more than a vague speculation...The hypothesis of formative causation provides an alternative interpretation, in the light of which the persistence of learned habits in spite of damage to the brain is far less puzzling: the habits depend on motor fields which are not stored within the brain at all, but are given directly from its past states by morphic resonance." A New Science of Life, pp.172-73.

47. ⁴⁷.I refer again to Mark Johnson's book, The Body in the Mind (p.29), where he speaks of image schema. Johnson describes their function as "a recurrent pattern, shape, and regularity in, or of, ongoing ordering activities...I am identifying the schema as a continuous structure of an organizing activity." Johnson later says of an image schema, "It is, instead, a means of structuring particular experiences schematically, so as to give order and connectedness to our perceptions and concepts" (p.75). Johnson gives the simple example of our sense of balance. If this hidden structure of balance is lost, it becomes conspicuous by its absence.

48. ⁴⁸.Refer to Thomas Kuhn's notion of scientific revolutions below.

49. ⁴⁹.Johnson says that the objectivist view of rationality has come to dominate the Western view of reality and has denigrated the role of imagination: "It (the objectivist view) assumes a fixed and determinate mind-independent reality, with arbitrary symbols that get meaning by mapping directly onto that objective reality. Reasoning is a rule-governed manipulation of these symbols that gives us objective knowledge, when it functions correctly...It is important to notice that the Objectivist theory of meaning is compatible with, and supports, the epistemological claim that there exists a `God's-Eye' point of view, that is, a perspective that transcends all human limitation and constitutes a universally valid reflective stance. For example, meanings are treated as relations among symbols and objective states of affairs that are independent of how any individual person might understand or grasp those relations. It is alleged that there is a position outside this relationship from which the fit of symbol and thing can be judged." (Ibid, pp.xxi-xxii and p.xiii).

50. ⁵⁰.In The Body in the Mind Mark Johnson lists the major image schemata which dominate our lives. Of these he says, "My chief point has been to show that these image schemata are pervasive, well-defined, and full of sufficient internal structure to constrain our understanding and reasoning" (p.126).

51. ⁵¹.Gregoire de Nysse et L'Hermeneutique Biblique (Paris, 1983), p.54.

52. ⁵².Here the term "religion" is understood in the literal sense as "biding-back-to-the-(divine) Source" (re + ligo).

53. ⁵³.In a chapter on consciousness, Jeremy W. Hayward says of its interaction with metaphors, "Metaphors form complex webs or coherent structures, and these metaphor webs are the cultural presuppositions in which all our experiences are embedded. Understanding takes place in terms of entire domains of experience that are conceptualized into structured wholes. It is by forming these webs of conceptualization to represent our experiences that we pick out what is important in them for us, categorize them, understand them, remember them, and bring them to bear on future experiences as part of the background." Shifting Worlds, Changing Minds (Boston, 1987), p.128.

54. ⁵⁴."Movement produced by the will moves from virtue to vice and is properly called passion [pathos]." On the Making of Man, PG44.192B.

55. ⁵⁵.La Conception de la Liberte chez Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1953), p.62.

56. ⁵⁶.Within Gregory's Song Commentary there are seven important allusions to the soul as mirror of God: pp.68, 90, 98, 104 (two references), 150 and 440.

57. ⁵⁷."This new expectation, or expectation of satori [enlightenment, a term used by Zen], is an aspiration orientated towards `something' unimaginable, radically new, and not resembling anything that I know...My expectation is neither outside me or within me, nor attached to an object eventually perceived, nor to an I-subject eventually perceiving: it is focussed on the perception itself which joins subject and object. But this perception is itself imperceptible to me, like a point without dimension or situation. There is then virtual liberation from space, which is accompanied, as we shall see, by a similar liberation from time." The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought by Hubert Benoit (New York, 1955), p.174. In addition to this "expectation" so well delineated by Benoit is a realization of the role a given metaphoric structure plays within our lives. For more information on the role of our perceptions, refer to Chapter Two, "`Good and `Evil,'" pp. 6-14.

58. ⁵⁸.This phrase is found in Gregory's Commentary on the Song of Songs (p.203): "For how can what is invisible be seen at night? The bridegroom bestows upon the soul a perception of his presence [aesthesis tes parousies], although a clear apprehension escapes it since his invisible nature lies hidden. What, then, is the mystic initiation [mustagogia, a term usually applied to Christian baptism] which the souls experiences during this night? It is the Word [of God, Christ] touching the door. We understand by this door the human mind searching for what is hidden; through it the object sought after enters."

59. ⁵⁹.The French translation of aesthesis tes parousies comes much closer, "sentiment de presence." Refer to an article on this phrase which occurs in Gregory's Eleventh Homily in the Song Commentary by Mariette Canevet, La Perception de la Presence de Dieu a propos D'une Expression de la xie Homelie sur le Cantique des Cantiques. (Epektasis, Paris, 1972), pp.443-54. Within this article Canevet says (p.452), "L'ame elevee au degre de contemplation auquel Gregoire l'a conduite n'est pas privee de toute perception. Mais ce qu'elle recoit dans la nuit est une intuition de la divinite qui ne peut pas s'epuiser en concepts puisque les concepts, comme les mots, appartiennent a la categorie de la creature limitee et ne peuvent embrasser la nature incree."

60. ⁶⁰.On the dawning of this liberation Benoit says, "The imaginative activity subtilises itself and tends towards non-manifestation, although the mind remains awake, and continues to function. A `concentration on nothing' develops below the attention that is always held by images [and we may add, below our faculty of will]. My state then resembles that of the absent-minded scholar; but, as opposed to the scholar who is absent-minded because his attention is concentrated on something formal, I am absent-minded because my attention is concentrated on something informal which is neither conceived nor conceivable." (ibid, p.230)

61. ⁶¹.Johnson defines an image schemata is as follows: "[It] is a dynamic pattern that functions somewhat like the abstract structure of an image, and thereby connects up a vast range of different experiences that manifest this same recurring structure," The Body in the Mind, p.2. Johnson offers seven examples of schemata (pp.45-8) which create a gestalt structure: blockage, counterforce, diversion, removal of restraint, enablement, attraction. These, in turn, order our perceptions.

62. ⁶²."Metaphorical interpretations of various components of image schemata are structures in our understanding and experience of the world and, as such, are not ordinarily part of our self-reflective awareness, though they are part of our awareness. They can properly be called `structures of understanding' because they are patterns in terms of which we `have a world,' which is what is meant by `understanding' in its broadest sense." (ibid, pp.82-3).

63. ⁶³.Translation by A. Malherbe and E. Ferguson, p.95.

64. ⁶⁴.Ibid, pp.96-7.

65. ⁶⁵.Ibid, p.101.

66. ⁶⁶.Jean Danielou speaks of the importance of akolouthia which is related to diastematic extension "L'important pour nous est que l'akolouthia apparaisse comme characteristique de la restauration de la nature humaine par le Christ. C'est seulement progressivement que la grace en prend possession." Jean Danielou, L'Etre et le Temps chez Gregoire de Nysse (Leiden, 1970), p.35.

67. ⁶⁷.Commentary on the Song of Songs, p.19.

68. ⁶⁸. On the Beatitudes, PG44.1280C. Keeping in mind our (informationally) defined "above-below" relationship with God, refer to the remarks of Roger Leys: "C'est ce qui nous semble ressortir si clairement de l'emploi regulier des vocables epiballein, sugkerannumi, d'autres composes en epi--ou en--qui rappellent singulierement le `superadditum' de la scolastique, pour designer l'acte divine qui confere la ressemblance." L'Image de Dieu chez Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1951), p.98. Leys gives seven examples referring to Gregory's use of the prefix epi. One of these comes from the Commentary on the Inscriptions of the Psalms: "Therefore man is the great and honorable inhabitant of that city since he has received [epi-blethenta] from the beginning a stamp impressed upon his [human] nature." (PG44.605A).

69. ⁶⁹."Gregory argues, very convincingly [Against Eunomius, p.131] that to presuppose any diastema or gap in the Godhead, and ascribing a beginning in time for the Son, is by logical necessity to attribute a similar beginning for the Father, though this beginning of the Father may be somewhat earlier. For, if there is a gap or diastema, such a gap cannot be infinite, for diastema is by definition from one point to another." (T. Paul Verghese; ibid, p.250).

70. ⁷⁰.On this distinction which between the content of sin and its form, refer to Isaiah 1.18: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." Here the color of sin is altered, not its form. The morphe of sin remains within a person's memory which is attuned to the spirit of forgiveness and gratitude, not the burdensome spirit of guilt and shame.

71. ⁷¹.The prefix "non" is used instead of the more specific term "not." The former implies something conspicuous by its absence and is more suggestive of spiritual reality. On the other hand, "not" signifies a clearly defined negative element. Emphasis on the suggestive character of "non" avoids a clear-cut distinction between a negative and positive connotation and is more conducive for realizing that pure awareness transcends a subject-object regard.

72. ⁷².A reading of Gregory's scriptural commentaries reveals his tendency to employ allegory for describing transcendent reality. For example, refer to his opening remarks in the Prologue to his Song Commentary: "Because some members of the Church always think it right to follow the letter of holy scripture and do not take into account the symbolic and allegorical meanings, we must answer those who accuse of doing so: there is nothing unusual in searching the divinely inspired scriptures with every means at our disposal." (p.4).

73. ⁷³.The random character of thoughts and imaginative representations operates freely when the conscious ego is in a relatively dormant state. We experience this passivity in daydreaming or at the point of falling off to sleep. In these instances the ego's passivity can be mistakenly identified with a transcendent kairos event since the faculties of memory, imagination and intellect are inactive.

74. ⁷⁴.Observe, for example, our minds in a heightened state of concentration. In this instance we are unmindful of ourselves as individually existing selves because a particular task has absorbed our full attention. This concentrated mental state resembles the transcendent awareness of a kairos event when our memory has been suspended only in that both states are characterized by total absorption of our attention. Furthermore, both states lack self-centered awareness.

75. ⁷⁵.Refer to Psalm 139.15: "My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth."

76. ⁷⁶.Due to the Platonic gap between transcendent forms and created reality, it was only natural to seek a means to overcome this divide (We have inherited this perception which still exerts a powerful influence upon Western Civilization). A principle means of bridging the gap was recourse to the allegorical method. Plato himself employed basic themes as light and darkness as in his famous allegory of the cave. Cf. the remarks of Charles A. Bernard on this point, Theologie Symbolique, pp.20-21 (Paris, 1978).

77. ⁷⁷.The tendency to confuse uneasiness with our present condition can tempt us to forecast the advent of a kairos event. One notable example is millenarianism, an attempt prevalent during the early centuries of the Christian Church to determine the end of time when Jesus Christ will make his appearance. As Louis Bouyer remarks, millenarianism consists of two elements: "The first, obviously, is the mention in the Apocalypse of St. John of the thousand-years reign inaugurated by the first resurrection, that of the just, which seems to be anterior to a final unleashing of the power of Satan before the universal resurrection and the last judgment which will destroy evil totally and for ever. The second is a more or less formal conformation of the pattern of the final history of the Church to that of the history of Christ at the end of his life on earth." Ibid, p.172.

78. ⁷⁸.Again, refer to divine interventions in both the Old and New Testaments. In these instances persons who have received God's communication are active participants, not receptacles. They are frequently entrusted with a mission to fulfill the divine communication which they have received. The success of their mission depends upon whether or not they remain open to the invitation extended by God. Mission should not be confused with a sense of destiny where a person loses his or her personal identity with a remote, impersonal fate.

79. ⁷⁹.Life of Moses, translated by A. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (Paulist Press, New York, 1978), p.116.

80. ⁸⁰.La Conception de la Liberte chez Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, Libraire Philosophique, 1953), p.61.

81. ⁸¹.Regarding the faculties of will, intellect and imagination which participate in the God's transcendent nature, refer to Gregory's Song Commentary: "After this, the soul once again begins its ascent on high. No longer does the bridegroom's voice knock at her heart, but the divine hand penetrates inside through the door's opening...However, his hand reaches inside and rouses the bride's desire for seeing him. She considers as gain the knowledge of the hand of him whom she desired" (pp.206-7). The Bridegroom's hand, a symbol of his presence, reaches the very heart of his spouse. At the same time the hand respects and orders the bride's faculties: "Because the soul reaches from below to a knowledge of the transcendent and to a comprehension of God's wonderful works, it is unable to proceed further in curiously scrutinizing these works; rather, it marvels and worships him who alone is recognized by his works" (p.207). Here the bride's faculties remain fully in tact yet suspended while participating in God's life.

82. ⁸².Hubert Benoit (The Supreme Doctrine, p.46) has offers a clear outline of the "five modes of thought" which can be helpful to our discussion:

1st mode: Deep sleep, without dreams. The mind contains no images. A mode of functioning which is non-functioning.

2nd mode: Sleep with dreams.

3rd mode: Waking with reveries.

4th mode: Waking with definite thought that takes account of the real external present.

5th mode: Waking with pure intellectual thought.

The first mode bears a superficial resemblance to the fifth in that imaginative representations are absent. Within the normal course of human development, we pass through the second, third, and fourth modes before attaining the fifth mode. Furthermore, we often delude ourselves by tending to identify the first mode of thought with the fifth one. An interesting parallel to Benoit's five modes is found in Ken Wilbur's book (Up from Eden, pp.8-10) where he describes eight stages of in the development of human consciousness. Wilbur describes the first stage as nature, the physical realm devoid of any ego. The eight and final stage corresponds to Benoit's fifth mode of "waking with pure intellectual thought." Wilbur cautions, "I warn the reader that this circular figure [depicting the evolution of stages one through eight] is not meant to imply that the lowest stage (1) and the highest (8) run directly into each other; they do not...This overall movement--matter to body to mind to soul to spirit--constitutes the entire abstract skeleton of history, alpha to omega."

83. ⁸³.For example, observe the wondrous operations of our bodies which function independently from our mental representations. Our hearts, lungs, and other vital organs continue their natural course despite any "outside" interference from our rational faculties. This natural process of life, however, can be disturbed by unfavorable thoughts which everyone has experienced at one time or another. When we perceive the false separation between our bodies and mental representations, we view this predicament dualistically which drives a wedge between the two parts where one had never existed.

This quandary is based upon an innate preference for the so-called higher domain of our thoughts (even though they are often tumultuous) over the "inferior" plane of bodily functions. Our mistaken belief consists in the fact that the "transcendent" sphere of our thoughts must be defended against the "inferior" plane of our bodily existence. However, the inverse holds true: our bodies are rooted in this concrete world which function automatically without intervention from the "transcendent" sphere of our thought processes. Once we have become aware that such a dualistic view arises through our thoughts and imaginings, we better comprehend the turbulent relationship imposed upon our bodily existence by these mental representations. Now reliance upon our physical existence within the world is re-established instead of a false identification with our thought processes.

84. ⁸⁴.The opposite may also hold true. An overly disciplined mind can adhere to its mental representations with such force that it remains closed to the real world. Fate disguises itself as one such disposition where a person has become so identified with the future that escape from this self-imposed prison becomes impossible.

85. ⁸⁵.When the division between imaginative representations and their suspension are heightened, we may have recourse to false doctrines of salvation. To the untrained eye, some form of reconciliation is needed to rectify the situation. The world's great religions recognize this tendency to effect a synthesis where, in fact, none is required. They proclaim the necessity for humility or in the context of this essay, that we should avoid identifying life with thoughts and images regardless of their value. On the other hand, many doctrines related to gnosticism perceive the gap between thought and its suspension yet make the error of willfully imposing a synthesis where none is required. In the final analysis, gnosticism shares the ego's self-consciousness but organizes it into a coherent doctrine. Gnosticism may be defined as a projection of ego-consciousness under the guise of divine salvation. It seems to enjoy an advantage over true religious expression in that it has a number of sophisticated techniques for overcoming the division between our mental activity and its suspension. But one of the most reliable discerning factors between gnosticism and religion is that the former often lacks an abiding sense of gratitude. Instead, gnosticism disguises this deficiency with techniques which seek to manipulate divine intervention to its own ends.

86. ⁸⁶.Recall those earlier remarks concerning religious initiation. This process is characterized by rites which present a wholly different (divine) reality to a person who has not yet had experienced it. Rites commence with a simple introduction and proceed to a climax where a person apprehends a new dimension. Initiation bridges the gap between a familiar experience of reality and a transformed experience of it. Initiation is non-rational; rites are not explained but present a person with an immediate contact of the reality they embody. A person lacks awareness of the passage of time within initiation which exists outside the normal "profane" perception of time and space. He or she undergoes a process of acquiring concrete, detailed actions which are a preparation for union with God. Consider, for example, the rites of Christian initiation which are rooted within the perception of our bodily existence. Gnosticism also contains rites of initiation. Although the initiated person may experience a similar suspension of space and time, her or she is subtlety introduced into a distorted perception of these dimensions. This person, in turn, is encouraged to bring such misperceptions into daily life and to construct a deformed world view.

87. ⁸⁷.Our bodily contact with the environment may be viewed in light of humility. As Hubert Benoit remarks, "The whole problem of human distress is resumed in the problem of humiliation. To cure distress is to be freed from all possibility of humiliation. Whence comes my humiliation?...It is not powerlessness itself that causes humiliation, but the shock experienced by my pretension [that is, through thoughts and the function of the imagination] to omnipotence when it comes up against the reality of things...In our desire to escape from distress at last, we search for doctrines of salvation, we search for `gurus'. But the true guru is not far away, he is before our eyes and unceasingly offers us his teaching; he is reality as it is, he is our daily life." (ibid, pp.238-39). Benoit further remarks in this chapter that humiliation is transformed into an abiding sense of humility which remains in contact with "reality as it is."

88. ⁸⁸.Ibid, pp.226-7. Pagels gives the example of the weather as being an unsimulable complexity. The weather cannot be imitated in all its complexity and therefore transcends any models we make of it.

89. ⁸⁹."But image schemata, as structures of our organizing activities in our embodied experience, give us a more satisfying way of talking about relations between symbols and perceptual inputs. They are structures that emerge as part of our meaningful interaction with things `outside' us. They are structures that relate us to energies and forces that we encounter in the ongoing interactive process that constitutes our understanding, our having of a world." (ibid, p.205).

90. ⁹⁰.The creation of a metaphoric structure with assistance from the transcendentally in-formed image schemata occurs so fast that we are unaware of its operation. God imparts his presence through a kairos event which extends through the medium of gratitude to image schemata and then to an informational metaphoric structure. Since the four-fold nature of this gesture is difficult to rationally analyze, we require a suspension of the source to thoughts (that is, the memory) for appreciating it. Instead of analyzing this transcendent gesture, we are initiated into its form (morphe). The only true sign that such initiation has taken effect is by an abiding sense of gratitude which is a distinct mark of a transcendent kairos event.

91. ⁹¹.Again refer to Mark Johnson's observations on the role of image schemata: "The schematizing activity of the imagination, then, mediates between images or objects of sensation, on the one hand, and abstract concepts, on the other. It can accomplish this mediation because it can be a rule-following or rule-like activity for creating figure or structure in spatial and temporal representations...We are probing the preconceptual level of our experience at which structure and form first emerge for us." (ibid, p.155-56)

92. ⁹².Gregory of Nyssa frequently uses the word "participation" to describe the soul's association with God. One term is metousia which consists of the preposition meta (with) and the noun ousia (being). Thus metousia implies "being (sharing) with" the divine reality. For example, refer to the First Homily of the Song Commentary: "This, then, is the attitude [love] which he [God] commands to the souls of all who listen to him, for he summons us to share [metousia] his own life." For more information on the concept of metousia, refer to, Metousia Theou: Man's Participation in God's Perfection According to St. Gregory of Nyssa by David Balas (Rome 1966).

93. ⁹³.For one example of a metaphoric structure by which we perceive the world, refer to the remarks of Rupert Sheldrake: "The world machine [a model developed by nineteenth century mechanistic metaphors] of matter in motion has been transformed by relativity and quantum physics into a cosmic system of fields and energy. As Einstein conceived it, the universe exists eternally within the universal field of gravitation. He did not conclude that the universe was essentially constant because of his equations. Rather, he adjusted his equations to endow the universe with an eternal stability." The Presence of the Past, pp.4-5.

94. ⁹⁴.In contrast to those efforts at separating and confining matter from spirit, there are numerous biblical accounts where God reveals himself as distinct from the created realm. This revelation neither destroys nor denigrates creation; rather, it enhances creation. The tendency to effect a separation between matter and spirit runs contrary to this biblical view. It is a form of usurpation when egotistical impulses impose a pseudo-transcendence which is actually an extension of ego consciousness.

95. ⁹⁵.Consider, for example, the so-called New Age movement which is currently enjoying popularity. As a modern incarnation of gnosticism, it seeks transcendence from this world by a strange amalgam of science, Eastern religion and self-improvement. The New Age movement is generally characterized by narcissism in conjunction with a search for God. A close examination of its literature reveals that the word "energy" and related terms permeate much of its eclectic philosophy. Many people influenced by this movement are therefore inclined to apply energetic concepts to their perceptions of reality.

96. ⁹⁶.Refer to Hubert Benoit on this point: "We have said many times that our perception of an outside object was the perception of a mental image which is produced in us by contact with the object. But behind the exterior object and the interior image there is a single perception which joins them. Everything in the Universe is energy in vibration. The perception of the object is produced by a unitive combination of the vibrations of the object and of my own vibrations. This combination is only possible because the vibrations of the object and my own vibrations are of a single essence; and it manifests this essence, as one under the multiplicity of phenomena. The perceptive image is produced in me, but this image has its origin in the Unconscious, or Cosmic Mind, which has no particular residence, and dwells as much in the object perceived as in the Self who perceives it. The conscious mental image is individually mine, but the perception itself which is the principle of this conscious image neither belongs to me nor to the image. In this perception there is no distinction between subject and object; it is a conciliating hypostasis uniting subject and object in a ternary synthesis." (ibid, p.233).

97. ⁹⁷.Gregory of Nyssa is careful to speak of the important role initiation plays in the mystical life. Following Origen (second century), he assigns the gradual initiation process to three books of the Old Testament: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. For a discussion of this, refer to Jean Danielou's Platonisme et Theologie Mystique (Paris, 1944) pp.17-26. In the First Homily Gregory familiarizes us with the role played by Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Once this introduction has occurred he says, "Now let us enter the Holy of Holies, the Song of Songs. In the expression `Holy of Holies' we are taught a certain superabundance and exaggeration of holiness. Through the title, `Song of Songs,' the noble text also promises to teach us the mystery of mysteries." (p.48)

98. ⁹⁸.I prefer the term "mindful" instead of "remembrance" since the former implies a clear awareness of the ambiguous non-dual character proper to gratitude. Mindfulness also suggests participation where both persons share one unique transcendent reality without standing in opposition to each other.

99. ⁹⁹.Here two contradictory elements, memory and its suspension, achieve harmony. This harmony resembles a morphic resonance described by the biologist Rupert Sheldrake: "Thus morphic resonance from the patterns of activity of similar past organisms, and self-resonance from an organism's own past, can be seen as different aspects of the same process. Both involve formative causal connections across both space and time. Self-resonance, through its high specificity, stabilizes an organism's own characteristic pattern of activity, and resonance with similar past organisms stabilizes the general probability structure of the field. This is what enables an organism to come into being and gives it its potentialities. As it actualizes itself, its own particular structure will tend to be maintained by self-resonance within the overall probability structure of the field." (The Presence of the Past, p.134).

Sheldrake applies the concept of morphic resonance to animate and inanimate matter which is an illuminating example into how memory and its suspension are united. Morphic resonance implies the role of past experiences or memories which bestow form upon a particular organism. In the context of our essay, this new form, the in-formational gesture accomplished by a transcendent event, incorporates memory into God's own reality while allowing it to function.

100. ¹⁰⁰.Bernard Lonergan says that this unrestricted desire to know lies at the heart of all insight and is a primordial drive which consists in "the pure question." (ibid, p.9). Lonergan prefers the active verb "to know" as opposed to the static noun "knowledge." The former refers directly to the process of our mental operations, whereas the latter applies to the fruit of these operations which, despite their benefit, remain secondary.

101. ¹⁰¹. Recall that religion has been defined in the literal sense as "binding-back" to our divine Source.

102. ¹⁰².For an example of the in-forming capacity belonging to a kairos event, he Song Commentary: "The Word [Christ] desires us who are changeable by nature [i.e., subject to energetic movement] not to fall into evil, but by constant progress in perfection, we are to use our mutability as an ally in our ascent towards higher things, and by the changeability of our nature we are to establish it immovably in the Good." (p.164). Here the restlessness of energetic movement achieves stability within the Good (God).

103. ¹⁰³.Note the two movements at work with regard to re-ligion and metanoia as presented in the following diagram:

META-NOIA ----> placing the mind (noos) "after"..."beyond" (meta) the familiar realm of space and time.

RE-LIGION ----> binding-back-to-the-Source (within a kairos event).

The first example (metanoia) indicates a gesture backwards from the outwardly directed movement of human activity to its transcendent Source. This gesture occurs at God's invitation within a kairos event and transcends the recollection of past events which can have a determinative influence upon our behavior. The second example shows that once a person has made a ("backward") re-ligious gesture, awareness is shifted onto the transcendent plane which is free from the limitations of this world. Metanoia comes first and usually occurs less frequently, thus setting the stage for a stable, re-ligious way of life produced by a conversion.

104. ¹⁰⁴.Gregory of Nyssa speaks of a special capacity which enables us to perceive the presence of God. For example, refer to the Eleventh Homily of the Song Commentary (p.203): "For how can what is invisible be seen at night? The bridegroom [Christ] bestows upon the soul a perception of his presence (aesthesis parousies), although a clear apprehension escapes it since his invisible nature lies hidden. What then is the mystic initiation which the soul experiences during this night? It is the Word [of God] touching the door. We understand by this door the human mind searching for what is hidden; through it the object sought after enters." Notice the close relationship between aesthesis parousies (perception) with the sense of touch. Gregory uses it to show how the divine Bridegroom manifests himself. Our personal experience reveals that by reason of its immediacy, the sense of touch comprehends an object in a manner unlike no other sense.

105. ¹⁰⁵.For example, refer to the Arian controversy of the fourth century: "Arius...propounded a theological system according to which Christ was neither truly God nor perfectly man. Though he recognized the divine Son as an inferior deity, he reduced the divine principle embodies in Him to an impersonal force of divine inspiration; yet by allowing worship to be offered to the Christ whom he thus regarded as a demi-god, altogether separate in being from God the Father, he revived the spiritual errors of paganism." G.L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics, pp.67-8. (London 1984).

106. ¹⁰⁶.A digital clock does have the advantage of making us aware of time's linear direction and its basic sameness. Here the lack of a geometrical shape (a circle) suggests time's relentless movement into the indefinite future. On the other hand, the circle belonging to an analog timepiece clearly represents the repetitive nature of time. The hour hands always return to the same location from which they had moved.

107. ¹⁰⁷.Bernard Lonergan speaks of the distinction between description and explanation as follows: "Description deals with things as related to us. Explanation deals with the same things as related among themselves. The two are not totally independent, for they deal with the same things and, as we have seen, description supplies, as it were, the tweezers by which we hold things while explanations are being discovered or verified, applied or revised" (Ibid, p.291). With regards to metaphysics, Lonergan continues, "Metaphysics primarily regards being as explained, but secondarily it includes being as described. Primarily, it regards being as explained, for it is a heuristic structure, and a heuristic structure looks to what is to be known when one understands. Secondarily, it includes being as described. For explanation is of things as related to one another; description is of things as related to us; and so, since we are things, the descriptive relations must be identical with some of the explanatory relations." (ibid, p.394).

108. ¹⁰⁸.Successful Christian rebuttals to gnosticism make frequent appeal to the narrative quality of both the Old and New Testaments. For example, these refutations simply refer to the facts as narrated by scriptural texts. In this fashion gnostic interpretations are revealed for what they are, an explanatory attempt to translate divine revelation in terms of both intellectual and physical elements.

109. ¹⁰⁹.Here we may make a contrast between "representation" and "religion." Gnosticism often takes physical elements of reality as or re-presenting (re) the transcendent sphere, the reason for its disposition to combine the material and non-material aspects of existence. On the other hand, Christianity seeks to bind-back-to-the-Source (re-ligion, re + ligo) these material and non-material elements. In this way true religious expression distinguishes between both realities yet does not fall into the error of interpreting them in an explanatory manner. Rather, Christianity faithfully adheres to the descriptive or narrative approach to divine revelation and exposes the flawed nature of a gnostic world view.

110. ¹¹⁰.It would be more appropriate to speak not in terms of memory; rather, refer to the Greek word charakter which means a stamp. An example of this word may found in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1.3: "[Christ] is the brightness of his [God's] glory and the express image [charakter] of his person." Here Christ as charakter is presented as enjoying an immediate union with his Father. This intimate union cannot be solely articulated in explanatory terms as in the case of gnosticism but is simply described, a fact which the Epistle to the Hebrews proceeds to illustrate.

111. ¹¹¹.I say "re-ligiously" in the sense of gratitude returning to its transcendent Source. It would be mistaken to conceive this operation as a physical movement backward, for this suggests the linear place-to-place dynamism of energetic movement.

112. ¹¹².Epithumia: desire or longing in the sense of setting one's heart upon someone or something. This word is composed of two parts: epi, "upon," and thumos, "soul as principle of life, feeling, thought and passion." Thus epithumia is a "desire upon (epi)." The prefix epi conveys an intensification of one's desires. We can easily relate this term with epektasis, the stretching forth towards a person or object (of one's desire).

113. ¹¹³."The Canticle of Canticles is a contemplative text: theoricus sermo, as Saint Bernard would say. It is not pastoral in nature; it does not teach [explain] morality, prescribe good works to perform or precepts to observe; nor even purvey exhortations to wisdom. But with its ardent language and its dialogue of praise, it was more attuned than any other book in Sacred Scripture to loving, disinterested contemplation. One can understand why Origen commented on it twice, why Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Bernard and so may others preferred it over other parts of the Old and New Testaments." Jean Leclerq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York, 1962), p.92. Leclerq's remarks indicate that the Song, while descriptive by nature, is expository in the sense that it reveals or unveils (apokalupsis) a divine reality which had always been present.

114. ¹¹⁴.Mark Johnson has noted five consequences related to "in-out schemata" as they refer to our perception of containment: 1) protection from, or resistance to, external forces, 2) restriction of forces within the container, 3) these forces of restrain endows the contained object with a relative location, 4) this relativization within the maintain means that the contained object is either accessible or inaccessible to our view, and finally, 5) we experience transitivity of containment. (The Body in the Mind, p. 22).

115. ¹¹⁵.The act of defining sets limits or bounds (definio) to the concept signified by a word, whereas a metaphor amplifies a meaning which has already been determined. We have seen this metaphoric process in Gregory of Nyssa's Song Commentary where God's transcendence in the person of the Bridegroom is described in physical terms. When reality is perceived through metaphoric expressions, it works with definitions of words already been established and uses them for gaining insight into a new, higher reality. For example, Gregory of Nyssa first establishes or defines the marital relationship between Bridegroom and bride and enhances it by numerous descriptions. These new descriptions give birth to fresh insights describing the soul's encounter with God.

116. ¹¹⁶.With regard to the importance of validation Michael Polyani says, "Our personal participation is in general greater in a validation than in a verification. The emotional coefficient of assertion is intensified as we pass from the sciences to the neighboring domains of thought. But both verification and validation are everywhere an acknowledgment of a commitment; they claim the presence of something real and external to the speaker. As distinct from both of these, subjective experiences can only be said to be authentic, and authenticity does not involve a commitment in the sense in which both verification and validation do." (ibid, p. 202).

117. ¹¹⁷.The same process holds true for groups of people engaged in any enterprise of discovery. These groups may be quite diverse, ranging from primitive tribes to teams of scientists involved in research. The collective process which gives birth to metaphoric expressions is also applicable to an individual who seeks validation of his or her personal insights.

118. ¹¹⁸.Ibid, pp.195-202.

119. ¹¹⁹.The word "contemplation" derives from the Latin, con (with) + templum (temple, sacred area). It suggests a social act involving more than one person. By engaging in an act of "contemplation" several persons participate in one vision or experience share (con) the same sacred space (templum).

120. ¹²⁰.Ibid, p.196.

121. ¹²¹.Ibid, pp.62-6.

122. ¹²².Ibid, pp.ix-xvi.

123. ¹²³.Even the spiritual nature of man has largely succumbed to a rational world view. For example, it views the transcendent realm as the exclusive province of our intellectual faculties. Yet these faculties are established within our bodily experience which directly informs the imagination.

124. ¹²⁴."What I am calling the Aristotelian tradition, then, sees imagination as an indispensable and pervasive operation by which sense perceptions are recalled as images and are made available to discursive thought as the contents of our knowledge of the physical world. This tradition, in contrast with the Platonic, does not see imagination as an unruly faculty needing control [that is, by the intellectual faculties], since it downplays what we today would see as imagination's creative and spontaneous mode." (The Body in the Mind, p.144).

"By giving metaphor a basis in philosophy as well as in rhetoric, he [Aristotle] made truth as well as persuasion its goal and restored to metaphor a positive function....He did not think that the making of metaphors could be learned from others since it involves an intuitive perception of the similarities in dissimilarities. In his view, metaphor surpasses other forms of expression because of its ability to attract attention and to transmit maximum information most efficiently. He proposed that comparison and analogy be understood as forms of metaphor rather than vice versa." (Metaphoric Process, p.98).

125. ¹²⁵.Metaphoric Process, The Creation of Scientific and Religious Understanding (Fort Worth, Texas, 1984).

126. ¹²⁶.Sacraments are indeed descriptive yet presuppose a process of explanation which may not be immediately evident to the person being initiated. The very structure of a sacrament presupposes a step-by-step representation of the faith which reflects a carefully thought out consideration of Christian teaching. While unnecessary to the actual effect of a sacrament upon a person, this explanatory background gives birth to a description of their content. Behind the two-fold nature of a sacrament lies a divine reality which transcends and animates the initiated person with a profound sense of gratitude. Thus a unity is established between the explanation of a sacrament and the person being initiated.

127. ¹²⁷.University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962.

128. ¹²⁸.Science, Order, and Creativity, pp.25-7 and pp.52-8.

129. ¹²⁹.A person may be unconscious of the particular paradigm in which he or she is functioning. As Kuhn presents it, a paradigm lies in the background of one's scientific research and is not immediately self-evident. The almost unconscious nature of a paradigm becomes manifest when scientists are confronted with a revolutionary discovery which goes counter to this paradigm. Kuhn terms the source of such a revolution an anomaly: "Those characteristics [from which new sorts of phenomena emerge] include: the previous awareness of anomaly, the gradual and simultaneous emergence of both observational and conceptual recognition, and the consequent change of paradigm categories and procedures often accompanied by resistance. There is even evidence that these same characteristics are built into the nature of the perceptual process itself." (ibid, p.62).

130. ¹³⁰.The word "analogy" derives from the Greek analogia which means "proportion, amount, degree, correspondence, resemblance." Cf. A Patristic Greek Lexicon by G. Lampe, (p. 111, Oxford 1961). To amplify the meaning of analogy, refer again to the example of a digital and analog clock, two principal devices for telling time. The former shows time by the representation of numbers, whereas the latter employs the movement of hands on a disk. We are familiar with the analog method because it expresses time immediately. That is, we more readily grasp the passage of time by a symbol (the clock with hands) than by a digital representation. It requires more effort to process information offered by a numerical or digital symbol. In the latter example our mental process is one step removed, as it were, from the digital representation of time as opposed to an immediate grasp of analogical time. But with an analog clock we can more readily apprehend the passage of time which is in better harmony with how we perceive reality.

131. ¹³¹."In illustration [of a heuristic structure], one may point to the definition of proportional being. It is whatever is to be known by human experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation. The definition does not assign the content of any experience, of any understanding, of any affirmation. Yet it does assign an ordered set of types of acts, and it implies that every proportionate being is to be known through such an ordered set. Accordingly, the definition is an instance of a heuristic structure; but it is not an instance of an integral heuristic structure, for it does not exhaust the resources of the human mind in anticipating what it is to know." (ibid, p.392)

132. ¹³².Lonergan speaks of an extrapolation from proportionate being to knowledge of transcendent being (ibid, pp.641-44). The question which leads to this extrapolation is, "What is being?" Four elements are involved: 1) The pure notion of being is the unrestricted desire to know; it raises questions but does not answer them. 2) The heuristic notion of being is that which we grasp intelligently and affirm reasonably; it envisages all answers but determines none. 3) Restricted acts of understanding being solve some questions but not all. 4) The unrestricted act of understanding being is alone adequate, for being is universal and concrete.

133. ¹³³.The metaphor-information model may be seen in terms of an image (eikon) because an image has greater hold on our imagination. It suggests richer elements as opposed to a mental conception. An image implies that we participate in its reality and not remain simple observers. On this important point, refer to Geoffrey Scott's observation: "Architecture is an art of spaces and of solids, a felt relation between ponderable things, an adjustment to one another of evident forces, a grouping of material bodies subject like ourselves to certain elementary laws. Weight and resistance, burden and effort, weakness and power, are elements in our own experience, and inseparable in that experience from feelings of ease, exultation, or distress. But weight and resistance, weakness and power, are manifest elements also in architecture, which enacts through their means a kind of human drama. Through them the mechanical solution of mechanical problems achieve an aesthetic interest and an ideal value." (The Architecture of Humanism, second edition, New York, 1954, p.95).

134. ¹³⁴.Up from Eden, p.71.

135. ¹³⁵."What finally, then, is an ontological flash? An ontological flash is an event [kairos] which creates conviction. Such an event explodes conceptual horizons: it occurs in the realm of limit-question and involves what Ramsey called a disclosure. These moments of insight carry conviction precisely because they are limit-experiences. They instill a sense of completion, of perfection, and of beauty that prevents questioning." (ibid, p.151). This last phrase is striking, for our initiation into transcendent beauty elevates us above subject-object relationships.

136. ¹³⁶.In order to highlight the dynamic character of our ascent to God as described by Gregory, words which pertain to this ascent are in italics:

1) Pp.159-60: Therefore the Word says once again to the bride whom he has awakened, "Arise." And when she has come to him, he says, "Come." For one who has been called to rise in the way can always rise further, and one who runs to the Lord will always have wide open spaces before him. And so we must constantly rise and never cease drawing closer. As often as the bridegroom says, "Arise" and "Come," he gives the power to ascend to what is better. Thus you must understand what follows in the text. When the bridegroom exhorts the bride who is already beautiful to become beautiful, he clearly recalls the words of the Apostle who bids the same image to be transformed "from glory to glory." By glory he means what we have grasped and found at any given moment. No matter how great and exalted that glory may be, we believe that it is less than that for which we still hope. Although she is a dove by what she had achieved, nevertheless, the bride is bidden to become a dove once again by being transformed into something better. If this happens, the text will show us something better by this name [dove].

2) Pp.185-86: The Song now reads, "Who is this who comes up from the wilderness as pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the perfumer" (3.6)? If anyone should carefully pay attention to these words, he will find the truth of what we have already set forth. In theatrical displays those acting the designated plot are reckoned as other persons because they change their appearances by a variety of masks. The actor appearing now as a slave or a private citizen is seen a little later as a prince and a soldier; taking off the role of a commoner, he becomes a commander or is clothed with the garb of a kind. Thus it is among persons advancing in virtue; being transformed from glory to glory, they do not always remain in the same character, but according to the degree of perfection established in each person, a different character will shine in their lives; a different once succeeds the other because of their increase in the good.

3) Pp.253-54: The Word's voice is always one of power. As light shone at the creation by his command, and as the firmament was constituted at his bidding (Gen 1.2-24), the rest of creation appeared by his creative Word. In the same way, when the Word bids the soul that has advanced to approach him, it is immediately strengthened at his command and becomes what he wishes, that is, changed into something divine; and from the glory which the soul had, it is transformed into a loftier glory by a wonderful alteration. Thus the angelic choir around the bridegroom marvels at the bride and exclaims with admiration, "You have given us heart, our sister, our spouse" (4.9). For a state free from passion illumines the bride as well as the angels; it gives her kinship and sisterhood with the spiritual powers. Therefore, they say to her, "You have given us heart, our sister, our spouse."

137. ¹³⁷.Transformational metaphors are best understood in light of the concept of information and describe that introductory stage when we are introduced into the purely transcendent realm. Here transformation means that earlier spacial and temporal energetic perceptions have been permanently altered or "brought over" (trans: "across," "over") into a new realm. On the other hand, the concept of information pertains to this transcendent state once we are established within it. I are not making a distinction between the concepts of transformation and information; rather, both terms apply to the single reality of divine life while simultaneously describing two different aspects of it.

138. ¹³⁸.Harry A. Wolfson traces the development of the allegorical method as used by the Church Fathers in his scholarly book, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Oxford 1956), p.33: "The difference between the literal and the allegorical methods of interpretation is thus not that the former is devoid of any free element of midrashic interpretation and the latter contains an element of such interpretation but rather that whatever midrashic interpretation of the former method contains it always retains the literal meaning of the term interpreted, whereas the latter method always discards the literal meaning of the term and changes it to mean something else. Thus, in what he [Philo] calls his literal interpretation, the 'garments of skin' and the 'altar' retain their literal meanings, whereas, in what he calls his allegorical interpretation, the 'garments of skin' become the 'natural skin of the body' and the 'altar' becomes the 'soul.'"

139. ¹³⁹.2Cor 3.18 makes reference to the Holy Spirit, Pneuma. Gregory frequently mentions the Holy Spirit in his Song Commentary because this divine Person plays an important role in our transformation: "Therefore, by drawing near to the light, human nature becomes light. In this light it takes on the beautiful form of a dove, I mean the dove which indicates the presence of the Holy Spirit." (pp.150-1).

140. ¹⁴⁰.Once again the word eikon, image, is used here which has biblical connotations. The function of an image is to immediately reproduce the object it reflects by assuming the form (morphe) of the immediate relationship between God and a spirit of heart-felt thankfulness.

141. ¹⁴¹.I have earlier observed that gnostic systems are characterized by a lack of gratitude because they are more concerned with the self-propagation of their particular world views. They may therefore be associated with the concept of energy which stresses place-to-place movement.

142. ¹⁴².With regard to this important concept of information, refer to the concept of morphic resonance described by the biologist Rupert Sheldrake: "Unlike these kinds of resonance [which are already know to science], morphic resonance does not involve a transfer of energy from one system to another, but rather a non-energetic transfer of information. However, morphic resonance does resemble the known kinds of resonance in that it takes place on the basis of rhythmic patterns of activity." (ibid, p.108). The explication of a kairos event into gratitude is the chief "rhythmic pattern of activity" revealed through a metaphoric structure of information.

143. ^143.Gregory of Nyssa depicts the human bride as being simultaneously satiated and emptied once she has attained knowledge of her divine Spouse. For example, "Moses conversed with God face to face, as scripture testifies (Dt 34.10), and he thereby acquired a still greater desire for these kisses after the theophanies. He sought God as if he had never seen him. So it is with all others in whom the desire for God is deeply embedded; they never cease to desire, but every enjoyment of God they turn into the kindling of a still more intense desire." (p.51)

144. ¹⁴⁴.I do not wish to posit a rift between pure awareness and being as if they were diametrically opposed to each other. Rather, this distinction highlights the more flexible character of awareness which is inherently non-dual. A kairos event unites both awareness and being within its own transcendent reality: being is awareness and awareness is being.

145. ¹⁴⁵. The Roman Catholic Church calls that part of the Mass where the priest changes the species of bread and wine into the real presence of Christ the anamnesis. Although this Greek word is translated as "memory," it means something far richer than a simple recollection. Anamnesis (cf. Lk 22.19: "Do this in memory of me.") as applied to the Eucharist is a genuine making-present-again of Christ and is not a symbolic gesture. To perceive Christ's presence as a symbol implies that he is not fully present but remains elsewhere; that is, something else (the eucharistic bread and wine) represents him. If the bread and wine were regarded as mere symbols, we would deny the divine form (morphe) of Christ himself. This opinion prevents a person from receiving Christ's divine morphe. As the prefix ana to the word anamnesis suggests, the form of Christ is placed "upon" or "throughout" our memory through the altered species of bread and wine by an in-formational gesture. Christ's presence is effected by a process of initiation where our normal ways of perceiving reality are suspended in favor of his reality which transcends them.

146. ¹⁴⁶.For a biblical illustration of this remembrance of kairos, refer to the Book of Revelation (20.11): "Then I saw a great white throne and him [God] who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them." Note that the familiar dimensions of space and time are dissolved before God. This vivid passage describes what we have designated as the suspension of memory and our other intellectual faculties in a divine encounter. "No place (topos) was found for them." In other words, awareness of space and time detects no familiar reference point once our faculties have been suspended within a kairos event. John the Evangelist, the author of Revelation, received his vision "in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (1.10). John had first experienced a suspension or ecstasy on Sunday, the day commemorating God's rest after he had created the world. But before John could write his account, it was necessary for him to be initiated (by the Spirit) into the transcendent realm. Afterwards he could reflect upon his experience which consisted in the displacement of space and time. Once space and time was dissolved (20.11), John describes his vision of the new Jerusalem (21-22). The revelation of this heavenly city fills the displacement of the spacial-temporal realm and illustrates the transcendent reality which now fills it.

147. ¹⁴⁷.L'Etre et le Temps chez Gregoire de Nysse (Leiden, 1970), pp.20-4. Danielou variously translates akolouthia as "enchainement des idees" (p.18), "la suite" (p.42), "une suite necessaire" (p.44), and "le lien necessaire de deux propositions" (p.45). Gregory employs akolouthia with reference to such varied disciplines as logic, cosmology and divinization.

148. ¹⁴⁸.Refer to Danielou's remarks on this point: ".. .l'akolouthia apparait toujours liee a la realite du temps. Et c'est la ce qui finalement fait ici son importance dans l'oeuvre de Gregoire. Aucun mystere ne l'a hante autant que celui du temps. A la jonction de la pensee grecque et de la pensee chretienne, il en sent d'une part le tragique et la loi inexorable; il eprouve l'impatience des delais et l'anxiete des repetitions. Mais il ne repond pas a ce drame par l'evasion platonicienne hors du temps, mais par l'affirmation chretienne d'un sens du temps qui lui confere une valeur positive en le montrant comme le lieu d'un dessein divin." (ibid, p.29). We have called the "Christian affirmation of the sense of time" those instances when a divine intervention makes itself present within an initiation event.

149. ¹⁴⁹.Gregory is dependent upon the Christian allegorical tradition of the Alexandrian school whose best know representative was Origen (2nd century). For a scholarly presentation of Origen's thought and his allegorical method, refer to Origene et la Connaissance Mystique by Henri Crouzel (Desclee de Brouwer 1961).

150. ¹⁵⁰."The key to Plato's philosophy is his theory of knowledge. Being convinced that knowledge in the strict sense is possible, but that it cannot be obtained from anything so variable and evanescent as sense-perception, he was led to posit a transcendent, non-sensible world of Forms or Ideas which are apprehended by the intellect alone. His point was that, while sensation presents us with great numbers of particular objects which are constantly changing, the mind seizes on certain characteristics which groups of them possess in common and which are stable...The Forms thus resemble the universals of which modern philosophers speak, but we should notice that for Plato they had objective existence." J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p.15. (New York, 1978)

151. ¹⁵¹.Concerning Plato's influence as related to the development of Christian teaching, refer to From Nicaea to Chalcedon by Frances Young (London, 1983). Gregory of Nyssa, as well as virtually every Father of the early Church, had wrestled with various aspects of Plato's philosophy. Examples may be found in Jean Danielou's book, Platonisme et Theologie Mystique: Doctrine Spirituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1944).

152. ¹⁵².For another presentation of this up-down schema, refer to the remarks of C. Bachelard as quoted by Charles A. Bernard: "`Parmi les mouvements possibles, c'est le mouvement vertical lie a la notion de pesanteur qui doit, le plus, retenir notre attention. A la representation du mouvement vertical sont liees les representations de legerete ou de lourdeur, de bien et de mal, d'allegresse et de tristess...De toutes les metaphores, les metaphores de la hauteur, de l'elevation, de la profondeur, de l'abaissement, de la chute sont par excellence des metaphores axiomatiques. Rien ne les explique et elles expliquent tout.' C'est Platon qui remarquait avec predilection que l'homme leve naturellement la tete vers le haut, alors que les animaux la penchent vers la terre...Vaincre les pulsions biologiques pour s'orienter vers la vie de l'esprit, tel est le premier aspect du project spirtuel." (Theologie Symbolique, p. 31 (Paris, 1978).

Plato did not invent the up-down schema; he gave it a definite form which various philosophers interpreted after him. This up-down mode of perception is not the exclusive property of the earlier Greek philosophers; the vertical mode of perception is inherent to the way we perceive the world as the passage by C. Bernard implies. Ancient Greek ideas on this point are important simply because they lie at the foundation of the West's philosophical heritage.

153. ¹⁵³.Hans Urs von Balthasar had perceptively remarked that the Platonic tendency to prefer a place other than our physical world for an expression of beauty had given rise to an allegorical interpretation of reality: "Even Plato went behind the primal phenomenon by conceiving of a soul that fell into matter only as a second movement in its existence. This is understandable, since Plato thought he could salvage the unity of what dissolves in death only by locating such unity within a wholly separate (ab-stract and ab-solute) realm of the spirit. Thus in order to uphold the freedom and dignity of the spirit, Plato reduced that which was original to the status of the derivative. In so doing, he became the father of all who have put allegory (i.e. discourse about something else) in the place of symbol (i.e. a true sign), and also the father of all those who adopt a wholly superfluous and only apparently scientific attitude in order to investigate psychologically how the soul can break out of its interiority and enter the so-called `exterior world,' and what the alleged `reasons' for such a migration might be." The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. I: Seeing the Form (San Francisco, 1982), pp.20-1.

The interpretation of allegory in this text differs from the Platonic one, for allegory comes immediately after the kairos-charis unity which finds realization within a metaphoric structure of information. This "afterness" of allegory does not imply awareness of a dualism or the advent of self-consciousness except in those instances where the self-centered ego has come to birth.

154. ¹⁵⁴.On the pervasive influence of the Genesis narrative, refer to Claus Westermann's remarks: "General talk about Adam and Eve, paradise, the serpent and so on shows that the [Genesis] narrative still lives even outside the Christian ecclesiastical tradition. This in turn accords with the fact that the basic motifs of the narrative did not begin in Israel, but belong to the traditions of the human race which stretch both geographically and chronologically into the far distance and whose origins cannot be determined. But there is the widest of chasms between the broad sweep of the original meaning of these narratives and the restricted dogmatic meaning given them in their traditional Christian explanation. This is illustrated by the description `the fall' which has become the title of the story in all Western languages. When this description occurs today in scholarly works, and it often does, it is usually written in quotations marks. It has rarely been contest up to the present, so deeply is it rooted in Western tradition." Genesis 1-11, A Commentary (Minneapolis, 1984), p.275.

155. ¹⁵⁵.Refer to Hebrews 1.3: "He (Christ) being the brightness of his glory and the express image (charakter) of his person."

156. ¹⁵⁶.The Book of Genesis reads, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (1.26). Here a distinction is made between image and likeness. "Image" is a static concept, whereas "likeness" is more dynamic. With regard to Gregory of Nyssa's interpretation of these two terms, Roger Leys remarks, "Ou il precise il nous semble bien qu'il distingue entre eikon et homoiosis non sans doute comme entre deux chose differentes mais comme entre deux aspects d'une meme realite. La premiere, l'eikon, presente plutot l'aspect statique, originel ou terminal, de la ressemblance avec Dieu. La seconde, l'homoiosis, comme tout vocable en -sis, est une notion dynamique impliquant un devenir. L'homoiosis est la conquete ou la realisation progressive de l'eikon." L'Image de Dieu chez Saint Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1951), p.116.

157. ¹⁵⁷.As Jean Danielou has pointed out, gnosis has a positive side: "Il y a ainsi une gnose chretienne, qui est intelligence religieuse de l'histoire presente et connaissance anticipee de la cite future." Essai sur le Mystere de L'Histoire, p.326 (Paris, 1982). Danielou situates true Christian gnosis within a proper understanding of history and its anticipated fulfillment which keeps in balance transcendence and the limited nature of this world. Although Danielou does not expressly mention it, gratitude is crucial for true Christian gnosis.

158. ¹⁵⁸."Eunomius wanted to claim that all descriptions of the Logos [Christ] were analogical; he was Son of God metaphorically, not literally. Gregory [of Nyssa] of course accepts the analogical character of titles...but tries to distinguish between these and other names which have the function of defining his nature. `Son' and `only-begotten God' must be taken in a more literal sense. The principle of which he makes this distinction is that images used of his relationship with men are analogical, whereas names expressing his relationship with God are essential. Yet it was Gregory who insisted on God's incomprehensibility." Frances Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, (London, 1983), pp.112-13.