Creation and Evolution - Part 4 - Emanation

Now let us take a side trip for a short while to examine some concepts of creation which have been put forward over the centuries; beginning with a Greco-Persian concept which was adopted by the Gnostic Christians at one point, before they were purged from the Catholic church – the idea of ‘Emanations’

THE CONCEPT OF ‘EMANATIONS’:

Let me start by saying that I do not believe the idea of ‘emanations’ is a perfect fit with the essential beliefs of Religious Science, although some aspects of it come quite close. I found a good definition in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.utm.edu/research/iep)

The concept of emanation is that all derived or secondary things proceed or flow from the more primary.
It is distinguished from the doctrine of creation by its elimination of a definite will in the first cause, from which all things are made to emanate according to natural laws and without conscious volition.

We have defined God as the Creator, therefore God is "That Which Creates." Notice that any definition we put forward is a limitation or a box into which we can place a concept. The concept may or may not represent Reality - and do we know what Reality is?

The best way to describe emanation is to think of a rose. The scent of the rose emanates from the rose, but it also IS the rose. The color of the rose also emanates from the rose (albeit by reflecting light outward) and is part of the rose. A flower with no color or scent could not be a rose, because those are the very definition of the thing.

So does creation emanate outward from God, since we define God as Creator? If so, then it is not done by volition on God's part, but unconsciously - and thus creation is not what God DOES, but what God IS. Just as a rose is more than its scent or its color, so God is more than Its creation.

So in this model of thought our world flows from a source which cannot help Itself, and has no conscious will or direction, but which creates according to natural laws. Does the Creative Principle give off lesser beings and objects like a boiling kettle gives off steam?

The immediate problem here is two-fold: First, how can free will and volition, which we clearly believe we have, flow from a Creator who has none? This does not appear to make sense. Some doctrines got around the issue of our free will by having the entire world created by emanation from a lesser being, itself created by the Supreme Deity; then humanity created directly by the Deity, superior to the creator of the world, and master of all creation.

The Bible hints at this; in one spot it suggests that man is created to be above the angels. This is not normally pointed out in churches! This is a concept worth re-visiting, and we will do so.

Secondly, where do the natural laws come from? Were they created, and if so, by what, or whom?

There is another problem which is less obvious. Creation through emanation runs directly counter to evolution as we observe it, because it runs in descending stages, whereas evolution takes us from the simple to the complex in an ascendant fashion.

In most versions of the emanation concept, the Supreme Creator emanates or gives off lesser beings, not through an act of will, but because that is It’s very nature, and It can do nothing else. What can a Creator do but Create? However, it does seem to reduce the idea of God to a smaller stature than we feel comfortable with, as it implies that God does not Create through will, and since God’s role in the universe is to Create all things, it would suggest that God has no will at all. So much for the idea of the ‘will of God’, which gets blamed for most disasters!

This has a smattering of validity because in the absence of individualized Spirit, consciousness is not possible. Consciousness requires something to be conscious of, and hence an undifferentiated Being cannot express consciousness. Therefore at a certain stage of creation, the act of creation must be an unconscious one, since even self-awareness relies to some degree on a demarcation between Self and Other.

This raises the possibility that our individualized consciousness is part of a process of God becoming conscious of Itself, through giving birth to billions of 'points of view'. Perhaps we are the eyes through which God can look around at Its creation.