THE VISIBLE WORLD

 Different meanings of the word 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 simple, not mature phrases. Man’s relationship to the world and God is a fundamental religious problem. We seem to be standing from the beginning before the 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 the objection of materialists that religion distracts from the world. After all, Christian Asceticism say this clearly: “Love for God and Love for the world are irreconcilable. » In the Gospel of St. 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 (Jn 15:19). And yet we read the same.

Gospel: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but to have eternal life (Jn 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 also interesting that when we speak about the «world,» we think more about its size, space, the «living world.» In Aramaic, in the word of Christ, the expression alma. The world also means a certain period, some time, about as when we say “today’s world,” in the “Roman world.” etc. From this, it can be seen 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 (“life in the world,” “coming into contact with the world”);

4. corrupt society, lousy 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 damnation, »rightly writes a modern theologian. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor religion has sufficiently resolved the relationship between God and the world. They weren’t, all systems are radically dualistic to see in matter all evil. Either, God will deal with the world, but he will be dependent on the planet and not be an almighty and happy God.

Or he does not deal with the world; he is entirely improper, as Aristotle thought. But then the value of the world is small, and it does not remain, only to flee from it to God. 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 bends the word of Scripture zero, In the beginning, God created … (Gen 1: 1) not God, 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 the opposite about the proper «use» of the world, about the «use of creatures.» The 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.” Right now, then, the basic rule of «world use» is 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 using, 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 tremendous 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 then becomes the “school of the soul,” the book we read about God. Modern authors add new considerations. They talk about 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 Naziánus, «consists of heaven and earth …, each amount is tasteful, but the most harmonious and the total harmony deserve praise. Everything is in the right proportions. It is a perfect universe, order, beauty. »