Free The Living Universe by Duane Elgin Page B

conscious of us.
    The idea that God is not separate from this world but is present within it is found in other Christian sources. Perhaps the most exciting was the discovery in 1945 of a collection of fifty-two religious and philosophical texts, not far from the village of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. Experts estimate that they had been hidden in an earthenware jar for roughly 1,600 years. This was an enormously important discovery as it includes texts that were thought to have been destroyed during the early Christian struggles to define orthodox Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts did not fit the accepted views of the times, so they were apparently sealed in a jar and hidden in a cave until they could be safely brought back to the public.
    The most famous of these texts, The Gospel of Thomas, opens with these stunning words: “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke,” and continues, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.” What does Jesus have to say in this gospel that shifts our view of death from an ending to a transformation? In the Gospel of Thomas, when Jesus was asked, “When will the new world come?” He replied, “What you look forward to has already come but you do not recognize it.” Elsewhere Jesus says, “. . . the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.” Jesus is clearly saying that what we are looking for—the divine presence—is around usand within us. Jesus says, “The kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
    Moving forward in history, in 1215 the Catholic Church put forth the idea of
creatio ex nihilo
as official church doctrine, declaring God to be “Creator of all things, visible and invisible . . . out of nothing.” In the 1300s, the great Christian mystic and theologian, Meister Eckhart, expanded on this theme and wrote “God is creating the entire universe, fully and totally, in this present now. Everything God created . . . God creates now all at once.” 7 No declaration could be more specific or explicit concerning our universe as a continuously renewing system.
    A number of Christian theologians now hold the view that God created our vast cosmos from nothing (ex
nihilo)
and that God upholds the universe through time
(creatio continua)
. 8 Continuous creation is the pouring forth of the universe in a continual flow, without ceasing, over billions of years. 9 The world around us is seen as an ever-emerging miracle of divine generosity, continually emerging from an invisible source. Creation is always new, always fresh, and always alive. The Catholic Church now teaches that creation is always journeying towards its ultimate perfection. Evolution, therefore, poses no obstacle to genuine faith, as Pope John Paul II said in 1985. Instead, he said, “Evolution presupposes creation . . . creation is an ever-lasting process—a
creatio continua.”
    Although there are many differences within the Christian tradition, there exists a strong thread that sees our universe as a sacred body upheld by a divine presence in a process of continuous creation. 10

Islamic Views
    Islam has its roots in the same tradition of a single God as Christianity and Judaism. The word
Islam
means submission in Arabic, and Islam asks its followers to surrender their lives to Allah or God. This dynamic faith emerged in the seventh century with the prophet Muhammad (570–632), a native of Mecca in Arabia. Within a century of his death, an Islamic state stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to central Asia. Today, with nearly one and a half billion followers, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world.
    Muslims believe Muhammad to