Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Contemplation

Deacon Douglas McManaman

In my Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Atheism, I pointed out that God cannot be reduced, by the mind, to a concept, because in God essence and existence are identical, that is, God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens, and the apprehension of being (esse) is not a conceptual apprehension (being cannot be reduced to a universal concept without emptying it of all content). And just as dealing with concepts or notions that the imagination cannot get a hold of (such as potency, act, prime matter, the particle and wave properties of an electron, etc) is initially very uncomfortable and for some, evidence that such notions are nothing but philosophical nonsense, so too the idea of the intelligibility of being or existence that is outside of and other than the intelligibility of essence (not an object of simple apprehension) can feel as if Being Itself is nothing at all. In other words, when being is identified with essence, form, or idea, then the very idea that there is something outside of that, something extra-essential, namely God, would seem to imply that God is outside of being, which implies that God is the great Nothing (Nirvana as Nothingness; Emptiness but fullness)–which is why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana as Nothingness is not all that problematic. [1] 

Moreover, when I am conscious of myself, I immediately apprehend my own contingency, my own lack of necessity–I am, but need not be. Included in that apprehension is my awareness that the whole of me–my very existence–depends upon something other than myself, an awareness that can be rather frightening. The awareness of my own contingency takes place against the background of a pre-conscious awareness of non-contingency, the Necessary Being (just as my perception of a piece of chalk is made possible by virtue of a non-white background). This preconscious awareness of the Necessary Being is also the reason you and I desire a happiness that is sufficient unto itself, complete, and final and is thus not a means to an end–for we cannot desire what we do not know, and nothing contingent answers to those properties.[2]

Contemplation must aim at becoming increasingly aware of this divine presence within our deepest interior, a presence that is intelligible but not conceptualizable. Moreover, close friendship depends upon a mutual, free and gratuitous offering of self to one another, and so although there is a natural and pre-conscious knowledge of God that is the condition for the possibility of the pursuit of science as well as the pursuit of happiness, God is free to offer each person, within that interior, a deeper and greater sharing in his nature, a deeper communion, which amounts to a communication, a spoken Word. This is what we mean by divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine nature. This interior communication is also not an object of the intellect, but remains a preconscious awareness.

The goal of contemplation is a deeper love, a greater purity of heart, which is accompanied by a loss of a sense of “I”. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way (faster, smarter, more athletic, more talented, etc), there arises a definite felt sense of “I”. But think of when you are so wrapped up in a great film that you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything. The sense of “I” disappears (Fana). Rumi, the great Persian poet and Sufi, provides the following story that illustrates the importance of this loss:

One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked, “Who is there?”
He answered, “It is I.”
The voice said, “There is no room for Me and Thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked. A voice from within asked, “Who is there?”
The man said, “It is Thee.”
The door was opened for him”. (Jalal al-Din Rumi 1207-1273)

Along the same lines, Javad Nurbakhsh wrote: “I thought of You so often that I completely became You. Little by little You drew near and slowly but slowly I passed away” (The Path, Sufi Practices). Or, consider Husayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who writes: “Kill me, O my trustworthy friends, for in my being killed is my life.” [3]

Once again, that intelligible fullness of which I am aware within me is not an idea, not an object, but it is a presence. It is the presence of the primordial Silence. When you are alone in the forest, you are immersed in silence; however, there are spoken words (sounds) all around that carry the silence, for example, the wind that blows above, and in the distance crickets chirp, frogs croak, etc. These words carry and communicate the silence, as the Word reveals the first Person of the Trinity: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14, 9). We cannot make that silence the object of our thoughts any more than carrying a lamp around at night will allow us to see darkness,[4] but that silence is what we love, for that presence in silence is Love. Being Itself is the effusive principle and source of all that I can conceive and apprehend; creation is Silence burst into speech (Panikkar). 

Notes

1. Nirvana:  permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, unbecome, power, bliss, happiness, secure refuge, shelter, the place of unassailable safety, the real truth, the supreme reality, the Good, the Supreme goal, one and only consummation of our lives, the eternal; hidden; and incomprehensible peace. 

2. Aquinas writes: “To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else”. S.T, I, Q2, a1, ad 3.

3. “The “life” he speaks of is not the biological life of the body, but the true, eternal life of the Spirit (Ruh), which is realized only when the false self is slain.” The Wisdom of Mansur Al-Hallaj: Divine Love, Ecstatic Truth, and the Cry of Ana al-Haqq. Sapientia Mundi Press, 2025.

4. “We can certainly speak about silence as we can speak about what happened to me yesterday, or about X, or any subject matter. But the silence about which we speak is not a real silence, for silence is not an object.(about which you can think, speak.). We cannot speak about real silence, just as we cannot search for darkness with a torch in our hands. Silence cannot be spoken of without being destroyed, since it is not on the same level as speech”. Raimon Panikkar, Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility. Ed. Harry J. Cargas. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1995, p. 41.