Guardini: “Who is God? The supreme Spirit,
and so pure, that the angels by contrast are ‘flesh’! He is the Endless,
Omnipotent, Eternal, All-inclusive One in the simplicity of his pure reality.
The Unchanging One, living in himself, sufficient unto himself. What possible
use could he have for a human body in heaven? The Incarnation is already
incomprehensible enough; it we accept it as an act of unfathomable love, this
life and death, isn’t that sufficient? Why must we also believe that this piece
of creation is assimilated into the eternity of God’s existence? What for? A
bit of earthliness lost and caught up into the tremendousness of eternity? Why
doesn’t the Logos shake the dust from
him and return to the pure clarity of this free divinity?,,, Revelation defines
such ideas as philosophy or worldly religion, to which Christian thought is by
nature and definition diametrically opposed. But then what manner of God is
this, with whom Resurrection, Ascension and throning on his right hand are possible?
Precisely the kind of God who makes such things possible! He is the God of the Resurrection,
and we must learn that it is not the Resurrection that is irreconcilable to
him, but part of our thinking that is irreconcilable to the Resurrection, for
its false.
“If we take Christ’s figure as our point
of departure, trying to understand from there, we find ourselves faced with the
choice between a completely new conception of God and our relation to him, and
utter rejection of everything that surpasses the limitations of a ‘great man’…
We must also completely reform our idea of humanity, if it is to fit the mould
Christ has indicated. We can no longer say: man is as the world supposes him to
be; therefore it is impossible that he throne at God’s right, but: since Revelation
has revealed that the Son of Man does throne at God’s right, man must be
other than the world supposes him. We
must learn that God is not only ‘supreme Being,’ but supremely divine and human Being; we must realize that
man is not only human, but that the tip of his essence reaches into the
unknown, and receives tis fulfillment in his Resurrection.
“It is the Resurrection that brings
ultimate clarity to that which is known as salvation. Not only does it reveal
who God is, who we are, what sin really means; not only does it indicate the
way to new accomplishment fort the children of God; we cannot even say that it “only”
propitiates sin, anchoring the superabundance of divine pardon in justice and
love – but something greater, more vital, in the concrete sense of the word;
resurrection consists of the transformation of the totality of our being, spirit
and flesh, by the recreative power of God’s love. Living reality, not only
idea, attitude or orientation. It is the second divine Beginning – comparable only
to the first, the tremendous act of creation. To the question: What is
salvation; what does it mean to =save, to have saved, to be saved – no full
answer can be given without the words ‘the resurrected Christ.”
“The Lord” R. Guardini H. Regnery (1954) 412-413.
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