Getting out of the lab and into the dance

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139.14

The antidote to dualistic thinking - the false separation between God and creation, spirit and matter - is provided in the doctrine of the Trinity, in which God is perceived in dynamic relationship: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. This, in turn, finds further expression in God's creation of the world and his incarnation into that world to redeem it. So when the concept was first introduced into a culture whose whole outlook was dualistic, the doctrine of the Trinity required a completely new mindset.

One could say the same thing today: contemporary culture is governed by a secular mindset, which wants to ignore God. This means that our principal means of understanding the world around us, which we call "science", is inevitably handicapped. It is like watching a painting taking shape and basing one's perception solely on what appears on the canvass and refusing to acknowledge the artist, or listening to a piece of music and theorising about the notes but without taking into account the musician who is producing the music.

The Christian revelation is that we do not inhabit a mechanistic universe and trying to make sense of our surroundings as if that is the case will only ever lead to partial, if not erroneous, conclusions. What we do inhabit emanates from a God who expresses himself in acts of creativity, the products of which - be they animate or inanimate - he continues to relate to: sustaining, developing, redeeming. So that requires a fresh revolution in mindset for our own day and age. Instead of presuming to take an objective stance and trying to make sense of the universe as we perceive it, theorising about "the laws of nature", we need to start with the Holy Trinity and allow him to draw us into the dynamic rhythms of creating, sustaining, redeeming...