Today, I would like to take a break from our focus on church history and look at some of the consequences that flow from our examination.  In particular, I would like to focus on the two major ways we experience God: as the transcendent Creator who stands above and apart from all things, and as the imminent Lover of souls, who stands with us in every moment.  I have briefly explored this in my third newsletter, but now that we have a more substantial background together, we can go much deeper.

The Transcendent God

First, let’s explore the transcendent dimension of the Divine, because this is probably the God that you are most familiar with.  It is the God typically proclaimed in most Christian churches, and while it is accurate as far as it goes, it is partial and incomplete.  Because it describes only a part of the Divine nature, it must be considered erroneous unless it includes a description of the imminent dimension of God.

The transcendent God is understood to have created all that Is.  This is the God who, in the book of Genesis, said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  After creation, the transcendent God appears to have left its creation, and believers are promised that they will meet this God again after their death.  

Of note, this aspect of God is understood to be both judgmental and punitive.  The various religions of the world – both in Christendom and beyond – have catalogued quite a list of transgressions and have described, often in gory detail, the punishments that go with each transgression.

Within Christianity, these transgressions are labeled as sin.  The Western Churches have declared that the fundamental truth about humanity is the universality of our sin.  This was enshrined in Christian doctrine by St. Augustine, who was the first to clearly formulate the doctrine of Original Sin.

In this view, all humanity is condemned because of the sin of Adam.  Because Adam was disobedient to God, he was condemned to leave the idyllic Garden of Eden forever.  He is also condemned to work hard all of his life, and his partner, Eve, was condemned to the pain of childbirth.  For both, sexual intercourse is seen as sinful and the vehicle through which their original error is passed on to future generations.

Because of this notion of Original Sin, we in the Western churches have concluded that we ourselves are bad; that we are inherently defective.  From this, it follows that only God can heal us from our terrible sin and from our inherently rotten human nature.

This account of the relation between God and humanity carries a striking and little-noticed parallel.  After creation, the transcendent God appears to separate from his creation, not to be seen again until after we die.  In a similar way, humanity appears to be separated from God because of this Original Sin.  (So, in effect, human beings are just copying God’s separation from humanity! LOL)  We have the mistaken idea that a vast abyss separates us from God because of our inherent defectiveness.  In this view, only God can heal us and repair the separation that divides us.  Further, our inherent separation from both God and Creation can only be repaired for those who are obedient children of the Divine.

And who decides what obedience looks like?  Why, the authorities of the church, of course!  And this is where the church's authoritarian structure has corrupted itself.  I’m reminded of that wretched quotation from Lord Acton, who said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  

Just as power corrupts in the political sphere, it also corrupts in the religious sphere as well.  The flagrant instances of religious corruption are apparent to us all.  Pastor Jimmy Swaggart, with his hellfire and damnation sermons and his repeated dalliance with prostitutes.  Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and their wild and fraudulent timeshare schemes.  Joel Olstein and his many imitators preaching the gospel of prosperity.  Yeah, it’s prosperous all right.  It’s prosperous for Joel, who tells folks to send him their money, but it’s not so prosperous for everyone else.

And so, we have, in a shameless display, the corruption that dogs even the highest-minded religious pursuits!  It’s enough to make you barf.  And when innocents who are stirred by God to begin the spiritual quest see these scandalous goings-on, what are they likely to conclude? Yeah…

The Imminent God

Unlike the transcendent view of God, God's immanence is beautifully illustrated through the person of Jesus. This aspect of the Divine feels close and personal. It is the God who stands with us during our trials and struggles. This is the God who understands how hard it is to be human – how tough it is to have one desire pulling you in one direction and another pulling you in the opposite direction.

This is the God who loves us, understands us, and walks with us through “the valley of the shadow of death.” This is the God who never leaves our side, constantly whispering encouragement and guidance.

There is never a word of condemnation here. This is the God who describes Himself in the story of the Prodigal Son. The selfish son demands his inheritance and then squanders it. Finally, realizing that even his father’s servants are better off than he is, he decides to go home and ask his father to accept him as a servant. When the father sees his son returning, he throws a big homecoming celebration because the child who was lost is now found, and the one who has died has come back to life.

So, you might ask, how does this imminent God handle sin? How does he address our daily feeling that we are somehow broken or flawed?

When thinking about the notion of sin, it’s instructive to look at Jesus's actual words. He doesn’t ignore our wrongdoings or mistakes. The word Jesus used, translated as ‘sin,’ is hamartia. Hamartia is a military term that describes the distance between the center of the bull’s-eye and where your arrow or spear lands. Hamartia was translated from Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, into Latin as ‘sin.’ Like many English words, the word ‘sin’ was simply borrowed from Latin and plopped down into English. Over time, the meaning of our English word ‘sin’ has drifted far from its original military meaning.

The best one-word translation of hamartia/sin is ‘separation.’  Separation is the English word that best describes the distance between the bull’s-eye and where your projectile landed.  Thus, when Jesus refers to people as ‘sinners,’ he means that they are separated: separated from their neighbor, separated from their own innermost self, and always, separated from God.

Notice the vast difference here between the doctrine of Original Sin, which condemns all humanity for someone else’s wrongdoing, and the notion of sin as expressed by Jesus, the imminent dimension of God.  One is condemning and punitive; the other is gentle and suggests, by its very nature, the remedy.  

And what is the remedy for separation? Using the metaphor described in the Prodigal Son, the remedy is to return home. The remedy is for us to turn away from the self-centered behaviors that have separated us from our Father. There is no condemnation here, or threat of punishment if we don’t return. There is, however, an acknowledgment of the error.

There is a clear recognition that our selfish actions have caused our disastrous separation from the Divine. By following our own desires, we have hidden the essential unity that connects us all. And the essence of that unity? The essence—universally desired by all humankind—is love and acceptance. This is the splendor of the imminence of God – that, no matter what we do or how deeply separated we are, the love God has for us is never diminished!

Given the glorious and universally-desired nature of love, you have to ask yourself, how did we get separated in the first place?  What happened that we turned our backs on God, on our neighbor, and on our own deepest desires to be loved and cherished?

Let’s go back to the Prodigal Son for the answer. Why did the younger son ask for his inheritance and leave his father? He did so because he wanted to live the ‘high life.’ He aimed to be the Jeff Bezos of his time; the Elon Musk of the ancient world. He believed that being a big spender would earn him the love and acceptance he craved. The problem with this idea is that people don’t love the big spender for who he is; they love him for his money. And like all finite resources, money eventually runs out.

From this example, we can conclude that separation is essentially due to ignorance. The prodigal son believed he could buy love. He lacked the experience to understand that true love can never be bought with money.

We can push this line of thinking even further. If our ‘sin’ results from ignorance, then our salvation depends on understanding the implicit unity that connects all creation. In this perspective, salvation cannot be achieved through good behavior or deeds. It can only be realized as we come to see the unity that links God to Creation.

For most of you who are reading this, this is a radically different notion from everything you have been taught.  While ethics and morality are important in the imminent view of God, they are not the central feature.  There is no earning ‘brownie points’ for being a good person or for doing good deeds.  You do the good deeds as a reflection of the unity you feel with God and creation.  The more you understand this, the more imperative your moral behavior becomes.

Another crucial difference centers around the importance of belief.  In the transcendent view of God, belief is all-important.  In this view, your belief about the nature of God and the proper role of humanity constitute the guardrails that can keep you on the ‘straight and narrow.’  This leads to the mistaken notion that believing in the right way leads to salvation.

In my view, this is a remarkable mistake!  It’s remarkable because, on the face of it, it is simply ridiculous.  I can believe all I want that I have a million dollars, but my belief doesn’t make it so.  I can believe that I am the most handsome and charming man in the known universe, but my belief doesn’t make it so.  In fact, in this latter case, we have all met people who have believed they are very special and above everyone else.  We typically view these people as sad specimens of the human race.  The only place they are special is in their own mistaken minds.

From the imminent view of God, we are saved as we recognize our unity with the Divine.  This recognition is not dependent on a church or any kind of external structure.  It is not dependent on external authorities.  Instead, salvation depends on us: 1) on our seeing and understanding the nature of our separation, 2) on our learning about our essential unity with God, and, as a result, 3) on our experiencing the essential and underlying unity that binds us to the Divine.

As you might imagine, learning all of this is far easier said than done.  Ultimately, it involves a deep dive into non-duality, the actual experience of oneness with All-That-Is.  To address this, my team and I are hard at work designing a website to facilitate this deep dive.  I’ll keep you updated on the details as we get closer to the release date.

For now, it’s enough to notice that the imminent view of God has not been very well described by most of the theologies that arose following Christ’s execution.  Of the four original schools of thought, this view of God is best embodied by the Gospel of Thomas.  And, as you will recall, Thomas was universally suppressed by the Church, to the point where only one copy of his gospel has ever been found, and that didn’t happen until 1945.

*  *  *

Well, my apologies for being a bit long-winded today.  Thank you for suffering through all of this.  I’m doing my best to approach the spiritual journey with clear eyes and a commitment to discerning the truth.  My hope for us all is that we will open our eyes so that we can experience the marvelous love in which God holds us.  That we come to understand that we are not defective or broken.  A little slow… yeah.  A little hard of hearing… sure enough.  A little ignorant… yup!  But loved and cherished and always held close by the God who created us.

In the everlasting love of our Lord,

P.S.  These newsletters were written in a particular order, but due to the limitations of our email delivery system, we cannot send them in the order in which they were written.  We can send out the first five in order, but then the system sends out the next one, whatever that happens to be.

So, if you are suddenly moving from issue #5 to issue #whatever, it might be a little jarring.  If this sounds like you, I would encourage you to go back into our archives and do your best to read them in order. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

To access the other newsletter editions of the “Inside The Invisible Newsletter,” or if you’d like to read ahead or go back.

Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.