Are We Volunteers?

A stunningly elegant emanationist cosmology results if we picture the Whole as a spiral-shaped creation divided into cycles. Each cycle of emanation, call it creative outflow, ends with the completion of an open circle, its beginning point is on the spiral below, its end point at the termination of the spiral above. Each cycle transcends the previous, thus represents either another degree of perfection or a new divine idea. The emanation itself contains the idea, a means of its realization, and the agencies required for its manifestation. The agencies may be understood in two ways: as laws designed for the present cycle and as free agents who may indeed oppose the divine intention—and, if they do, that too is part of the creative idea: it is foreseen, it is permitted (to use one of Swedenborg’s favorite notions), it is part of the creative intent. Whatever is is because God is.

Concerning the last point, I’d draw attention to “Ainulindalë,” the creation story in Tolkien’s Silmarillion. That title translates as “The Music of the Ainur,” beings created by Ilúvatar, the ultimate divine. One of the Ainur, the brightest and the best, Melkor, represents Lucifer, ever intent on destroying the splendid harmonies the Ainur produce, but Ilúvatar introduces themes in which the discord becomes the source of yet finer harmonies, showing how, despite the freedom of that the Ainur enjoy, nothing destroys the divine intent and everything contributes to Ilúvatar’s foresight.

This cosmological conception would assert that creation is eternal delight—of which Blake’s energy is merely a facet. Creation, even at the human scale, is an inexpressible totality in which intellect, love, and act are permanently fused. That the act of creation expresses itself through agencies and takes places with their free participation—of which opposition is itself a contribution—is also a matter of human experience. In religious cosmologies it is clearly mirrored in Mazdaism, the oldest higher religion, and echoed in the Kabbalistic tradition of Judaism.

If agencies participate in the creation, their descent into the void of possibilities is not some kind of punishment, fall, or banishment but is, instead, a freely chosen act. Thus it is depicted in Mazdaism, where each human is seen as a volunteer—and voluntarily assumes great risk in leaving the mansions of light to battle with chaos to save the creation; nay, it is also echoed in Tolkien’s great myth, where the Ainur are shown visions of Arda and invited to participate in its shaping. Now Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Ah, yes!