ABSTRACT
This chapter opens with a summary of the aspects of human life and experience which may intimate transcendence. Objections to any such conception, arising from the suffering, pain and evil spread over the world, are then stated, along with the dangers inherent in thinking of the divinity, if there is one, in anthropomorphic terms. We consider Simone Weil’s view that if there is a divine Creator, He would at a certain level have to absent Himself from creation so as to prevent it from collapsing back into the Creator. God is hidden, but at the same time He creates out of love. Weil’s notion of decreation, whereby both God and human beings empty themselves, is discussed, though we dissent from Weil’s notion that God loves Himself through us. A question as to the quasi-erotic aspect of Weil’s own mysticism is raised. Knowing that there is a loving God is not established by argument, but by patient waiting on religious experience. We ourselves are initially centred on ourselves, which is the root of original sin. We need to decentre in the way God has decentred in creation, creating a world autonomous of Himself. But God’s decentring requires that he engages in its suffering in His own person, which is what Incarnation amounts to. He re-enters the world He has renounced dominion over as a beggar. The timeless and complex nature of the Incarnation is considered by reference to Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks and Bach’s St John Passion. This is followed by considering Christ’s sacrifice and our relation to it, partly by reference to the St Matthew Passion, and then by an examination of the significance of the doctrine of hell. Looking at the world more generally, we can, following Simone Weil, see it in terms of a divine harmony beneath the surface appearance, a harmony which is reflected in some works of art. But in order to secure a religious view of life, grace is needed to raise us above our ineliminable imperfectibility. The chapter closes with some critical remarks on Weil’s almost exclusive stress on affliction, and on the problems raised by our material embodiment. Both creation and even more the Incarnation militate strongly against a wholly negative attitude to human embodiment and personality.
