THE VISIBLE WORLD

Different meanings of the word world
Talk to the postman about “escaping the world” or reconnecting.
About «dialogue with the world»? It appears that the Church has significantly changed its attitude toward the world and its values, especially after the Second Vatican Council! These are questions or objections that we often hear. They are old and significant, not superficial or immature. Man’s relationship to the world and to God is a fundamental religious problem. From the beginning, we seem to face a dangerous choice between the two. Neither looks promising. Either we are looking for God in the world, then we face the dangers of pantheism, monism, or materialism, or declare that God is fundamentally different from the world. But then we can’t avoid the objection of materialists that religion distracts from the world. After all, Christian Ascetics say this clearly: “Love to God and love for the world are irreconcilable.” In the Gospel of John, this idea is often repeated and emphasized. 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,» mean rather its size, space, and the «living world.» In Aramaic, the expression for the word of Christ is alma. The world also means a period of time, as when we say “today’s world,” “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 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, a morally compromised 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’ curse,” a modern theologian rightly writes. Not all systems are radically dualistic, seeing all evil in matter. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor religion could sufficiently resolve the relationship between God and the world. Either God deals with the world, but then he becomes world-dependent and is no longer 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), St. Basil shows 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). Here, the whole visible world appears.
In the image of a beautiful garden, prepared for the one who has it to inhabit, i.e., man, is the image of God (Gen 1:27). In this sense, of course, there is no point in speaking about an “escape from the world.” Spiritual books say the opposite about the proper «use» of the world and the «use» of creatures. For 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 for “enjoying the world” is expressed as follows: 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 used but abused. Western authors like to show how everything can be used for good: fields, houses, money, health, etc. Eastern writers, more prone to contemplation, speak with greater enthusiasm about the world’s beauty, its harmony, and its colors. All these observations remind us of the Creator’s size and beauty. Nature then becomes the “glass soul,” the book in which we read about God. Modern authors add new considerations. They say it is today’s man’s responsibility to care for nature and the shape of the earth, keeping it a clean and dignified abode for all people. “The visible world is beautiful,” writes St. Gregory Nazianzus, “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. It is a perfect universe: order, beauty. »