THE VISIBLE WORLD

Different meaning of the word world
Talk to the postman about “escaping the world” or reconnecting
about «dialogue with the world»? It seems that the Church in the last
time has significantly changed its attitude to the world and its values, especially after the Second Vatican Council! These are questions or objections that we often hear. They are not the rest new and cannot be said to be superficial, not mature phrases. Man’s relationship to the world and to God is a fundamental religious problem. We seem to be standing from the beginning before a dangerous choice between the two options. Neither looks promising. Either we are looking for
God in the world, then we face the dangers of pantheism, monism, materialism, or declare that God is fundamentally different from the world. But then we can’t avoid it the objection of materialists that religion distracts from the world. After all, Christian Asceticians say this clearly: “Love to God and love for the world are irreconcilable. » In the Gospel Vol. John, this idea comes often back and emphatically. If you were of the world, the world would love what is his, but because
you are not of the world, that I have chosen you out of the world, the world of you hates (John 15:19). And yet we read the same Gospel: For God so loved the world, that he gave his son of his birth, lest any man that believed on him perish, but to have eternal life (John 3:16). Christ is the Savior of the world and sends his disciples to the whole world (Mt 16, 15) to be the light of the world (Mt 5:14). It is  interesting that we, when we speak about the «world», we mean rather its size, space, the «living world». In Aramaic, in the word of Christ, the expression alma. The world also means a certain period of time, some time, about as when we say “today’s world”, in the “Roman world”etc. From this you can see that the word “world” can have several meanings. The four most important are the following:
1. the visible and invisible world, that is, all that God he created;
2. visible nature (what illuminates the sun, light; «World» originally means light);
3. human society (“living in the world”, “coming into contact with the world”);
4. corrupt society, bad environment, temptations («To warn the world»), that is, the world in a moral sense.
The visible world
«Only Christianity liberated the material world from prehistoric times
a curse, »rightly writes a modern theologian. They weren’t all systems are radically dualistic to see in matter all evil. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor religion could sufficiently resolve the relationship between God and the world. Either God will deal with the world, but then he will be from world dependent and will not be an almighty and happy God. Or he does not deal with the world, he is completely out of place, as Aristotle thought. But then the value of the world is small
and it does not remain, only to flee from it to God.
The visible world
In his beautiful homilies on Hexameron (i.e. work of creation in six days according to the Bible) shows St. Basil, how this gap between God and the world was bridged by the word of Scripture In the beginning God created … (Gen 1: 1) heaven, earth, plants, animals … all this is not against God nor outside of God, but it is his work. And God saw it good (Gen 1:12). The whole visible world is presented here
in the image of a beautiful garden, prepared for the one who has it
to inhabit, t. j. man the image of God (Gen 1:27). In this sense, of course, there is no point in speaking about «escape from the world». Spiritual books say opposite about the proper «use» of the world, about the «use of creatures». Example we read right in the first meditation of the Exercises of St. Ignatius: “Everything on earth is created for man to help him achieve the goal for which he was created.” now the basic rule on “enjoying the world” is then expressed:
as much as we can, and we must use as much as we can for good.
If the world is “good”, then it can only be a means for good. Everything else is not use, but abuse. Western authors like to show how everything can be used for a good deed: field, house, money, health, etc. Eastern writers, who are more prone to contemplation, speak with greater enthusiasm about the beauty of the world, its
harmony, colors. All this is then to serve us to remind us of the size and beauty of the Creator. Nature it then becomes the “glass soul”, the book in which we read about God. Modern authors add new considerations. They say on the responsibility of today’s man for nature, for the shape of the earth, to remain a clean and dignified abode to all people. “The visible world is beautiful,” writes St. Gregor Nazi an, «consists of heaven and earth …, each amount is tasteful
but the most harmonious and the harmony of the individual parts deserves praise. Everything is in the right proportions. Is an
it’s a perfect universe, order, beauty. »

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