What is Sacred, and what is Profane?

[This is one of twenty-one essays in the book Man and the Divine, published in August 2018. The book is available in ePub format from leading retailers of eBooks, such as Barnes & Noble, Blio, Kobo, Itunes, Inktera, Smashwords, etc. Information about Man and the Divine can be found here]

Questions which underpin the ancient world view:

The first question is the most profound of all, which is: why is there something rather than nothing?

How can the existence of the physical world be explained? It has patterns of behaviour (natural laws), but it is not clear where both the physical reality and its patterns of behaviour originate, and what sustains both.

A second question concerns the nature of the reality which underpins the reality of the physical world. Is it itself, or is its nature compromised by the emergence of a physical reality? This question is prompted by the idea that reality, in order to retain its essential nature, cannot be multiple, and cannot be subject to real change.

Following from this is the idea that reality must be beyond measure, beyond size, beyond existence in physical dimensions, be uniform in its nature, be complete, and also without limitation.

The implication of this view is that the physical reality which we experience represents a point of view of the transcendent reality. It is not real, but a representation or a medley of representations of what reality itself is.

It follows that all things, past present and future, are contained, as potencies, in the nature of reality itself. They are possible points of view. All things which have happened, and all things which may happen, are there.

It follows also, that, given this point of view, all knowledge of past present and future, all possible states of reality, are also present in reality itself.

This description of reality itself is a description of the plenum, which is something which contains all things. Not because it is a collection of things, but because it is, as it is, an undifferentiated whole.

This is the reality which was understood to underpin physical reality in the ancient world (at least by those of the sacerdotal class who had the leisure to discuss such questions).  It transcends everything physical, measurable, definable.

Ancient accounts of the creation of the physical world however suggest that the created world was in chaos at its beginning. What does this mean?

It means that, by whatever means the plenum gives rise to the physical world and its realities, by itself it cannot give rise to a rational creation. Its creations are not defined by anything approaching reason.

Ancient cosmogonies reflect this. The Enuma Elish from Mesopotamia has two distinct levels of divine beings. The first group is present during the initial creation, and the second group is responsible for the second and rational creation. The first group of gods are not gods after the pattern of the second group. The king of heaven does not have a name in Mesopotamia, or rather his name is his description (Anshar). It is two words joined together – ‘heaven’ and ‘king’. In the Mesopotamian context both heaven and the king were understood as representations or images of reality itself – representing some of the properties of the plenum.

In a sense therefore, the initial gods are simply gods which must be latent in the nature of reality itself, whether or not there is a rational creation underway. There must be a heaven, and there must be a king of it, if there is to be anything else. And somehow the first creation has to be destroyed, if there is to be a rational creation. The gods who are present during the first creation are there to serve the purpose of making it possible for there to be a rational creation.

It would be argued that we know these gods are real because we are now living in a rational creation. They also give rise to the gods who preside over the rational creation, and who have the power and authority to order the cosmos, and human society.

In the Enuma Elish, Marduk is the king of the gods, and his properties are described. Each aspect of Marduk has a name, as well as a description, and each of those names represents a god. So in effect, the description of Marduk is a collection of the divine powers of all the gods.

Each of the divine names of Marduk has a description, and each of these descriptions explains the particular form of rational and good order in the world, over which they and Marduk preside. So each of the gods can be understood as abstractions of aspects of the rational creation. They represent excellences in the world. Marduk represents the sum total of these.

This is the clue to grasping much of the ancient understanding what the divine is. Each described excellence resembles reality itself in terms of its properties. The excellence may serve social functions, as does a skill or specialism, but it should be performed for its own sake. The excellence is complete in itself, is whole, is at the apex of what is possible, and involves knowledge of the divine on account of its perfection. The performance of these excellences recalls the perfection and completeness of the plenum, and reinforces the presence of the divine in the world. 

Which brings us to another question asked in antiquity: can the divine be present on earth, within the world of physical reality? In terms of its representation, yes, since there are many things which share properties with the divine. The ideas of the limited, and that which is without limit, that which is perfect, whole and complete in itself; beauty, justice and good order, greatness, etc. The list can be extended. Hence the importance attributed to these properties in the ancient world.

But can the gods have existence and reality in the physical world, without compromising their essential nature? Evidently this was considered to be possible, though always a matter for some conjecture.

Why was it considered to be possible? This brings us to the most astonishing and subtle part of the ancient picture of reality. We need to return to the question of whether or not reality retains its nature on the creation of physical reality. It is easy for us to imagine that physical reality is here, with us, and the transcendent world of the plenum is somewhere over the horizon. But that would make the physical world a partial copy of the transcendent world, which would make reality more than itself. It would be multiple rather than single and simply itself. 

At this point, the human race made an enormous leap of understanding. Few would understand it fully and properly, but it stands behind the creation of civilisation and the great intellectual structures of the ancient world which we refer to as religions. The leap involved the recognition that, if reality was to retain its integrity and nature, then it could not stand behind a copy of itself. And if it could not stand behind a copy of itself, then there is no copy. If there is no copy, then the reality and the representation of it on earth are one and the same thing.

Many would have baulked at this idea. But the logic is impeccable. Further, there are several conclusions which can be – and were, drawn from this understanding.

The first is that all things on earth are representations of reality itself. We may not easily read them as such representations, but nevertheless, that is what they are.

Secondly, if all things are representations of reality itself, which is infinite, then all things in the physical world which have the properties of finitude, also are infinite.

Thirdly, the representation of space and time and difference is an illusion. These things are not real, but simply represent what is actually real in such a way.

Fourthly, if divinity is equated with the nature of reality itself, then all things are divine, whether in Heaven or on Earth.

The fifth conclusion is that since it is apparent that not everything on Earth is infinite as we encounter it, even if it possesses the property of infinity, along with reality itself, then everything on Earth has a double nature. It is both sacred and profane.

The sixth conclusion is that holiness, divinity and infinitude are properties which can be put on and taken off like a garment (the Sumerian concept of the Mes instantiates this idea).

The seventh conclusion is that we have no independent reality of our own, and that the world is the property and creation of the gods. Our perception of it is just that. We can understand it as a wholly secular phenomenon, or we can recognise and understand it as the property of the divine.

The eighth conclusion is that, in order to have good order in the physical world, we need to strive to become holy, acquire knowledge of divine things, and to do divine things, for divine things are possible on the Earth. This is the origin of the idea of sacralisation, which is the putting on the quality of divinity.