Holiness in Its Constellation

Chapter 1 discusses the notion that immanence and transcendence meet in the idea of God. Morally we find holiness in kindness (hesed), mirroring the generosity of God’s act of creation and the ongoing work of emergence, salient in evolution but dynamic throughout the cosmos. Intellectually holiness can be found, perhaps where least expected, in the sciences. For reason is our link with God, not cold but very much alive in the spontaneity and creativity that make it God’s image within us. Nature is no inert passivity but active and conative, a living theater in which God’s creativity tells its tale. And the transcendence visible in the liveliness that is God’s hallmark in nature can be emulated, as God commands: You shall be holy, for I the LORD thy God am holy (Leviticus 19:2). For God is the infinite Source of being, goodness, truth, and beauty. Every finite good points in the direction of its unbounded Source.