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I do not condone bringing Buddhist practices into ones relationship with God. if it is not to do with God it brings no value.
Why think that "passive awareness" has nothing to do with God? Admittedly I don't quite know what that term means, but it brings to mind this verse:
"Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10).
What we are really talking about here is the training of attention. There are many ways to do it and they are not owned by any religion, culture, time or place. Science tells us that our capacity to be attentive is like a muscle that can be developed.
That is why I liken it to playing a sport or musical instrument. It takes effort and patience but then it can be used for anything, including seeking God and becoming attentive to God's presence always with us.
Listen, be attentive, be vigilant, be mindful, wait, watch. No religion owns what your mind can do. Our cognition has at least two capacities, Intellect & Reason. Reason sorts things our, explores them and uses lots of words. The intellect is deeper, more subtle, more like spirit. It doesn't need words.
I don't know if this is the right place for a nuanced discussion of the topic, but the claim that meditation is a natural skill that can be used to "become attentive to God's presence" is a bit problematic from a Catholic perspective. God isn't a thing in the world that we have access to via natural means or skills. Attention and concentration power may allow us to focus in on certain things, including divine things, but we have to be careful when identifying such things with God. This is admittedly a difficult subject.
Yes, we certainly cannot will God into action. But He is always there. It is our attention that is lacking. How is that problematic for a Catholic?
I have never heard that perspective. You are saying we can never encounter God? Only God's grace?Why? Because for Catholics God isn't a thing that we act upon, or sense, or grasp, or become aware of, etc. At best Catholics would say that the reality you speak of (the "God" that we are aware of) is a created grace given by God, not God himself.
You may change your mind when the mushroom clouds appear over the cities and the consequent nuclear winter sets in. Your solar panels won't be much use then.and yet here you are on a computer or phone talking to people on the internet, the product of science and technology. Science is not bad. It is how we use it.
I have never heard that perspective. You are saying we can never encounter God? Only God's grace?
Believe me, I have read St Thomas and St John. I don't think they say that anywhere. In fact, they speak of an intimacy. And it is an intimacy that is both acquired (otherwise there would be no reason for any spiritual practices) as well as graced (and even our spiritual practices are graces).
I have to backtrack. St Thomas Aquinas and I don't speak the same language. I don't spend much time with him anymore. St John of the Cross and st Bonaventure are more friendly. I know them better. In fact St John of the Cross says that God is the center of our souls. That intimate! St Bonaventure, we simply cross over into the unspeakable.
In fact St John of the Cross says that God is the center of our souls. That intimate! St Bonaventure, we simply cross over into the unspeakable.
I haven't looked at this in awhile, so my sources are not in order, but to speak off the cuff the idea is that God is not a proper object of human experience. The pain in your big toe, the butterflies in your stomach, the warmth in your breast, and the joy in your heart are passions, feelings, and experiences. They are not God.
This subject would be a good thread, I think.
I would agree that we cannot experience God directly, strictly speaking. Nonetheless, if what we experience is God's energies (EO) or graces (RC), it still seems acceptable to say that it is God we have experienced and not something created or other than God.
To use a common example, was the light on the Mount of Transfiguration Christ? Yes and no. It was not the Person, but it emanated from the Person and was nothing other than the Person (i.e. not created). (Is that a bad example?)
God is Spirit. The centre of man's being is his spirit. It is not the Spirit of God. Those who are born again have a new spirit where God is able and pleased to dwell. The soul is the capacity to express the content of the spirit - turning the sensing of the spirit (intuition) into words, expressing the joy in the spirit by emotion and responding to the direction of conscience and intuition by the appropriate act of volition.I have to backtrack. St Thomas Aquinas and I don't speak the same language. I don't spend much time with him anymore. St John of the Cross and st Bonaventure are more friendly. I know them better. In fact St John of the Cross says that God is the center of our souls. That intimate! St Bonaventure, we simply cross over into the unspeakable.
This may be what I am getting at, cultivating sensitivity to the spirit. Certainly it takes attention.More often, Christians are insensitive or even ignorant of the spirit.
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