DAY 1	DAY 2	DAY 3	DAY 4	DAY 5	DAY 6	DAY 7 - SABBATH
TRANSFIGURATION	WALKING ON THE SEA	STILLING THE STORM	WATER BECOMES WINE	FEEDING 5,000	FEEDING 4,000	EUCHARIST

It is thus apparent that the two textual cycles complement one another. We need to note the equilibrium subtended by the relation of these two narrative series. The 'creation' story emphasises the theology of transcendence, effectively contained in the three first episodes; the messianic series on the other hand, the story of 'salvation' remains necessarily focused on the four immanent miracle stories. Thus whereas the transcendent messianic events defer to the transcendent Days, as we have just observed, the opposite now applies. This means that as far as the theology of immanence is concerned, the events depicted in the gospel enjoy normative status. This is clearer in no other case more than in that of the Sabbath-Eucharist correspondence.

The pattern of Days in relation to the messianic miracles

Cana                               Day 4

Storm                                                           Day 3

5,000                               Day 5

Walking                                                       Day 2

4,000                               Day 6

Transfiguration                                           Day 1

        
Eucharist-Sabbath

 

Modes of Antithesis in the Creation Story

Logicians, particularly Buddhist logicians, as well as students of Gnosticism often speak as if there were such a thing as dualism, or duality. There is no dualism, only dualisms; no duality, only dualities. We have already affirmed the radical significance of form, that is structure in the P narrative. The text itself is split into juxtaposed theologies of transcendence and immanence in its serial halves, first (‘beginning’) and last. The latter is given to us incompletely, and the general inflection of this first creation story is in virtue of transcendence; the opening speaks of 'beginning' rather than end. That the second ('end') half of the week faithfully follows in parallel fashion the first, also tells for the predilection of the author(s) for transcendence. This means that the narrative will defer to the gospel and the Apocalypse, both of which contain texts of congruent shape germane to the meaning of immanence, a meaning already portended by the figure' earth', and by the humans created on the all but last, the sixth Day. There is more attention given in the second creation story to the immanentist perspective complementary to transcendence, but this is secondary. The emphatic rationale of 'beginning' is transcendence.

Even so, all the acts in both halves are binary. This is not to say that they are identical. Certainly for instance, light/darkness (Day 1) is different from night : day (Day 4). However, both surely are binary, and the two forms of polarity are indeed related. The mode of antithesis in the first case, Day 1,  is disjunctive (transcendent), whereas that of the second is conjunctive (immanent). We noted that the general or primary model for transcendence is space ('heavens'), whereas the paradigm for the latter is the male : female form of unity, exemplifying immanence within a text whose primary concern is the transcendent. We have still to assess the content of the Day 1-Day 4 narratives in order to reach a hermeneutic, but we need first to pursue the abstract form of the propositions. For in each case, Day 1-Day 4; Day 2-Day 5, Day 3-Day 6, we see the same configuration. Polar entities exemplary of transcendence which are juxtaposed with other polar entities exemplary of immanence. This means in effect that there is no simple dualism of mutually exclusive terms. There is in fact a third form of polarity, that which concerns the very relation itself of the archaeological and eschatological. Here the focus rests upon the copula, which we have represented as the ratio sign in the categoreal paradigm, transcendence ':' immanence.

There is really only one way to deal with the abstractions which form a component of the creation story at least as important as its content. That is to express the form of the propositions geometrically. The Day 2 story with its abstract notion of polarity and concomitant spatial dimensionality can be easily represented geometrically:





The relationship between the terms here is that of separation, the condition of their identification. The primary term is the first ('beginning') one, the above rather than the below. Hence this figure illustrates the mode of polarity we refer to as transcendent. We use that term specifically with its association to the word 'God' in mind, just as we will encounter the word 'heavens' as a periphrasis for God. This is not to blur the distinction between creator and creation; we are not equating space itself with God. But space itself must on this account be considered that entity in the created world which bears resemblance to the transcendent God. In the words of the Day 6 narrative, we can say that God makes space 'according to his image' (vv 26, 27)

This representation must be complemented by a another, one similar enough yet different enough also in order to illustrate the possibilities for analogy inherent in polarity. One that is which stands as 'end' to 'beginning', as 'earth' to 'heaven',  immanence to transcendence, the anthropic form of unity male : female to the spatiotemporal:


 
In this case, that of immanence, there is no primary term, for conjunction proscribes the process of identification of an term above and beyond that which is otherwise its opposite. The immanent mode of antithesis is determined by unity. The horizontal represents  the conjunction of opposites. It is as such distinguishable from the previous mode of antithesis. These two axes subtend a relation of maximum contrast to one another, as is suggested by the various terms 'beginning' and 'end', 'first' and 'last' and so on. However as already noted this contrast must not negate their essential similarity. In a threefold series only two members will occupy the peripheries; thus the first axis, the vertical of transcendence denotes absolute beginning, the fact that there was/is/will be no prior such entity. Space therefore is the prime instantiation of novelty. The opposite obtains in the case of the immanent conjunction, male and female. Here the absence of priority is out of the question as we see from the text which also depicts the animals in terms of sexual dimorphism. However the point of resemblance between this mode of antithesis, the antithesis of male and female, concerns the fact that nothing similar can follow it; it is in every respect last, teleological, eschatological.

The geometrical iconography representative of the form of the text must also reflect that relationship.  Therefore, their representation does not consist of two non-contiguous lines, but of intersecting lines. This relation between the two modes of antithesis the transcendent ('vertical') mode and the immanent ('horizontal') mode entails their representation as co-incident. The two axes intersect at right-angles, designating their essential relatedness and contrast, their similarity and difference. Here then, the vertical signifies the relation of disjunction between its two terms, and the horizontal the relation of conjunction between terms. The two sets of terms (opposites) are recognisably different but also related. This last point is worthy of emphasis: the two modes of antithesis while they are contrastive - disjunctive and conjunctive respectively - must be in relation with one another:




The two-dimensional matrix configures both the transcendent mode of antithesis, the 'vertical', and the immanent mode of antithesis, 'the horizontal'. Space exemplifies the former, whereas male : female exemplifies the latter. We have referred to these as forms of unity. They each, in varying ways, epitomise the meaning of the opening formula 'the heavens and the earth'. In other words, they are radical or ultimately general aspects of the universe and related analogously as both being polarities or antithetical modes.  This pattern is yet incomplete, for we are in the process of determining a third category. By means of varying degrees of emphasis, it represents the logical internal consistency of two of the three forms of unity. It illustrates the essential relationship between the two halves of the story, and it illustrates also those two pairs of rubrics, Days 2-5 and Days 3-6 in particular in relation to itself.

The iconography which emerges from the Genesis text, the pattern proper to the 'beginning' and 'end' forms of unity, and the relationship they subtend, is that of a plane. But we are dealing with a total of three forms of unity. The above iconography identifies only those forms of unity covered by the rubrics mentioned. It remains two-dimensional. In a sense, this matrix fails to refer to the most important entity of all. The creation story also itself appears to do just this. For where we might expect to find a textual link between the two halves of the narrative, one which would epitomise the troublesome ambiguity represented by the copula, the 'and' of the initial inclusio 'the heavens and the earth', there is silence. The proper place for any such text would be at verse 13, the pause between the first and second halves of the narrative.  This betokens their relation, and simultaneously the relation of each of the various forms of unity, light/darkness to day : night and so on.  The silence is more articulate than anything else in the narrative, since the narrative itself points to it unerringly though interrogatively. Thus the relation(s) denoted by the copula  is/are susceptible of more than one meaning. We come then by logical procedure to the third form of unity, the one subsumed under the rubrics of Days 1-4.

The point of illustrating the structure of the story in this way is that it demonstrates that a third mode of antithesis is operative. The theology of creation concerns three comparable forms of unity, put successively in the three pairs of Days. The third form of unity is signified by the light/darkness and day/night stories, Days 1-4. We have dealt only with the patterns established by the stories of Days 2-5 and 3-6. These establish the fundamental antithesis denoted by the two relata in the paradigm 'the heavens and the earth'. The third polarity concerns the ambiguous copula of this paradigm. We see it reflected in the narrative content itself and equally in the narrative structure that the iconography above represents. The two antithetical modes of antithesis do not obtain in isolation. Accordingly, we signified their relationship by the matrix (right-angle) pattern, which designates the plane of two dimensions. This puts terms themselves into a relation. In so doing, it generates a third mode of antithesis, which is explicit and which persists at the very heart of the text. What the structure of the story of creation ultimately designates is a polarity of polarities.  For the two modes of antithesis corresponding to the relata 'transcendence : immanence' or 'the heavens and the earth', engender a further mode of antithesis as their relation. The relation is that of a polarity whose terms in turn are polarities.

The third mode of antithesis therefore answers the question of the of the relation between any of the entities denoted by corresponding Days. For example, in the 1-4 pair, what is the precise nature of the relationship between the light/darkness and day : night? We assume that there is some meaning to the relation between the antithesis of the antitheses light/darkness and day/night and to the other two congruent instances of the same, those of Days 2-5 and 3-6.  This is the most prominent idea of the text. It is tantamount to the silent but present question of the relation of the terms themselves reflected in the two distinct halves of the story and so is all the more noticeable as requiring explication.

The third and final, or central mode of antithesis, like the third form of unity whose structure it postulates, is built upon the previous two. The text does not itemise it as a third thing in addition to the two already articulated; it employs no new third term - tertium non datur.  To do so would comprise the absolute sense of contrast obtaining between 'first' or 'beginning' and 'end' or last'. Rather it elaborates upon the relationality of the peripheral terms. So here the narrative is utterly faithful to the logic implicit in the initial categoreal paradigm. We shall see that the paradox of 'beginning' and 'end' ('heavens and the earth') defines the central and Christological pre-occupation of the narrative.

The third polarity (form of antithesis) consists of a paradoxical relation between those that are already given. It is paradoxical because it incorporates both transcendent and immanent forms of relation, both the disjunctive and conjunctive at once. This is precisely the situation referred to in the various Christological formulae 'beginning and end', 'first and last', 'alpha and omega', and of course by the opening formula 'heavens and the earth'. What is the meaning of the copula in these formulae if not paradoxical? A beginning is defined in opposition to an end, and so on with all the other terms formulating expressions analogous to the same paradigm. The final pattern of the structure of this narrative can now be proposed:




The prevailing use of ordinal numbers in Genesis 1.1-2.4a is both relevant and conspicuous. The story of 'beginning' is serial and profoundly imbued with structural patterns. This has suggested the procedure of analysing the patterns of opposition within the narrative and of configuring these firstly in terms of Euclidean two-dimensional geometry and then in terms of solid (three-dimensional) geometry. That is what the above iconography proposes. Two considerations follow immediately from the iconographical representation of the story. In anticipation of the Christology of creation theology, we may comment on this in passing.

Firstly, there is its connotation if not denotation of the cruciform. One usually conceives the cross as a two dimensional matrix. Abstract representations of the crucifixion do not as a rule, suggest the three dimensional matrix which we associate more readily with the spatial manifold. The cruciform is nevertheless three-dimensional. For it consists of a singular corpus and an already existing plane cross of vertical and horizontal. It is appropriate therefore, to reconsider this spatial (three-dimensional) aspect of the cruciform not the least because the emphasis then comes to rest on the corpus itself, as incorporating the axes already juxtaposed, vertical and horizontal - 'the heavens and the earth'. Their relationship can only be resolved by means of paradox. The crucified body is that paradox. We have here moved resolutely from the realm of abstraction to that of the real world - the world first envisaged in the second creation narrative, the world of toil, suffering and death. Hence we have reiterated the analogous relation between the creation series and the messianic miracles - beginning and end, creation and salvation. This is a theme which sits outside of present concerns, and we shall return to it later.

Secondly, this procedure of concentrating on the form of the story of creation by iconographical means suggests nothing so clearly as the three-dimensional spatial manifold. This returns us to our hermeneutic of the story and further to the interpretation of the messianic miracles. At the heart of the logical form of Genesis 1.1-2.4a is this configuration which reifies the principle proposition of the theology of 'beginning': namely that the unequivocally transcendent product of the same is identical with the initiation of the space of space : time.

We have seen the narrative draw a comparison between space : time and the male : female forms of unity. These it portrays in similar terms in both halves of the narrative, a portrayal which in turn serves to emphasise the singularity of Day 1. In the first half, there are the two sets of locations, waters above/waters below Day 2, and waters below (sea) : land etc., Day 3. The corresponding patterns of Day 5 and Day 6 involve the life forms pertaining to these realms. Thus the second half of the narrative reproduces this same pattern. The things created during Days 5 and 6 are living and sexually differentiated (male and female). The sun : moon and stars of Day 4 however, appear to stand outside this category. We noted nevertheless, in the interests of paradox, that the latter, do possess a seeming vitality and a virtual or metaphorical sexual dimorphism.

The description of these categories, space : time and male : female, in terms which are noticeably similar and comparable must not obscure their antithetical relationship. The Day 2 rubric is normative for the 'beginning' ('heavens'), just as the Day 6 story is represenative of the 'end' ('earth'). The clearest of any mode of antithesis, is that subtended in these figures. Binary terms alone are set in opposition to each other, as indicated by the opening formula 'heavens and earth'.  Space : time has to do with beginning, and although it is akin to the male : female form of unity, the latter always concerns 'end'. They consist in a relationship of genuine opposition despite the similarity of the terms in which the creation narrative presents them, waters and so on in the first half, sexually differentiated creatures in the second half. The relationship of these forms of unity, and corresponding modes of antithesis to one another, is given by the plane rather than the line. This puts the inextricable rapport which obtains between these particular forms of unity, space and male : female, without obscuring their intrinsic opposition. In other words, it follows the tendency of the narrative to identify the peculiar relation between these primordial and eschatological events. We  considered the similarity to each other of such terms by noticing that in a threefold serial order they are both peripheral. In a threefold series, only one member is bounded by other terms on both sides, the central member, signified by the copula ('... and ...') of the formula. The initial term is bounded by another term ('... and ...') only on one side, just as is the final term. However these peripheries are oppositional. It is important to follow the structural logic of these propositions here and now, because it concerns what will follow.

We can now distinguish between the iconography of plane and line. We can now assign the line to the third polarity  (the polarity of polarities), which expresses a paradox. This initiates another dimension altogether. The Christological form of unity - which we have yet to expound - and the mode of antithesis proper to it is expressed iconographically as linear rather than planar. This is in keeping with its singularity, its uniqueness as measured against the relationship of the other two categories. When the Christological (central) aspect of the creation story is considered, the relationship between the primordial and eschatological ('beginning and end') because of their relationship to it, is modified. There is a shift from two to three dimensions.

The relationship of the Christological form of unity to both space : time and male : female is equivalent. To conceptualise this, we need to conceive the plane A : A-B as rotating about the axis of rotation, the line A : B which signifies the Christological 'dimension' form of unity, the ' third' mode of antithesis, as consisting of both the primordial and the eschatological forms. It is easier to imagine this model in spherical  (planetary) terms, such as those of the earth's, in which the the plane configured by the equator, is given by the A : A-B plane of the iconography, and the line A : B represents the axis of rotation. Such a conceptual image points up the singularity of the Christological and of its proper mode of antithesis.


The primary logical proposition of the story of creation is the identification of the 'beginning' with space : time. In other words, the spatial manifold of three dimensions is the thing brought into existence, or created, and the thing which exemplifies Transcendence. Space : time is the one entity in the intelligible universe which, as marking absolute beginning, manifests the principle of novelty, and stands as witness to the identity of The Transcendent ('The Father'). It is the prime embodiment of everything conveyed by the term 'creation'.

The identification of this form of unity with the notion of beginning is conveyed more than once; that is, the text speaks of it emphatically. The text both in its entirety, and in one of its three parts expounds this proposition. If the same text in terms of its three parts, pairs of Days 1-4, 2-5, and 3-6, presents us with two other categories, that is because these stand in certain relations to space : time. But the text taken in its entirety, that is including the story of the Seventh Day, again positively asserts the idea of the spatiotemporal. Everything in the story is framed in terms of a temporal unit, the day. Additionally, the precise relation of the two clearly demarcated halves of the story, its 'the heavens and the earth' halves, expresses the ratio 3:4. This reflects the ratio of spatial to spatiotemporal dimensions. The story of the Sabbath denotes specifically, the one temporal dimension that cannot be understood as existing in itself. In the same way, time always occurs in relation to space. Only with that story does mundane time, as we know it, begin. To appreciate fully the primacy of the notion of space : time to the meaning of the text, is to begin to understand it.

The same space : time continuum is made in the image and likeness of God. If the question of the 'identity' of God confronts us with a triadic form, then the fact that space is a three-dimensional manifold tells for its provenance. To use the language of Genesis, space is made in the image and likeness of God. A mathematical and logical explanation for the reason why space consists of precisely three dimensions has never been advanced, nor could any such explanation be posited without, by definition, becoming metaphysics. The explication of the three-dimensional spatial manifold given in the story of 'beginning' is avowedly metaphysical. It construes the form of the spatial manifold in terms of its provenance in 'God', that is Transcendence.

We can now summarise some of the main points of our evolving hermeneutic of the Genesis creation story:

• beginning, actual 'creation', is identified with the inception of the space : time manifold, and primarily with its spatial aspect, the perspective of transcendence;

• although the tripartite form of space must represent the triadic order in God, thus identifying the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as Transcendence, space is more precisely identified with the Transcendent ('the Father');

• it consists in relation to two other forms of unity;

• one of these, namely the form of unity male : female, is related to it in direct antithesis as is last to first, end to beginning, alpha to omega;

• these formulae all evince the same ('Trinitarian') structure, all conform to the paradigm transcendence : immanence as is given by the initial formula of the story, 'the heavens and the earth';

• the three forms of unity (of which we have so far determined only two - space : time and male : female) are analogous to each other;

• every one of the three forms of unity evinces Transcendence, the Son, and immanence (the Holy Spirit);

• Transcendence is exemplified in the initial term of each form of unity, the Holy Spirit (and immanence) is exemplified in the final relatum, and the logos ('Christ'), by the relation itself as given by the ratio sign':';

• the central aspect of the narrative form (structure) and thus the focus of the narrative is the Christological and the same can be said of the forms of unity themselves;

• this can be expounded only in terms which constitute a paradox of sorts; and given the role of polarity, the most significant logical procedure in this exposition will involve the use of analogy.

We have just roundly contradicted a cherished commonplace of received theology which assigns the primary role in creation to the identity of Transcendence ('the Father'). This is epitomised in the creeds which speak of '... the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ...' Such interpretation has occurred in spite of the fact that

The emerging hermeneutic therefore includes in the work of creation the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is no way in which the structure of the P narrative can dodge the obvious import of a Trinitarian theology. We shall contend that the role of the Son in creation, in keeping with his status in the Johannine prologue, is both pervasive and inclusive. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any better way of dealing with the formal features of the text which results in an emphasis on the Christological category, for this alone brings into relation the primordial and eschatological. We shall say more about this in the discussion of light and time in the story. The degree to which this is so, that is, the degree to which the creation story is a Christology, defines the Son and the Transcendent in terms of parity.

The pooint is that the encompassing form of the propositions  involved in this narrative, their logic, is intrinsically triadic. The story of beginning in its pre-eminent concern with serial order and the coherent  integration of the individual rubrics or stories of 'Days', manifests a meaning that only a 'Trinitarian' interpretation can guarantee. It is true that space itself is notably three-dimensional and attention to this fact is nowhere spared in the story. That space is innately threefold speaks for its own characteristic quality as a)rxh= (beginning), rather than e)/sxatoj (end), as well as for the provenance of space,  God or Transcendence. Here again, the triadic pattern recurs as initial and final relata and the actual relation.  However,  the narrative addresses more than just 'the heavens', more that is, than just three-dimensional space. Space is radically contrasted not merely with time, its complement which completes it, rendering the continuum a  four-dimensional manifold. The completed archaeological form of unity, space : time, is contrasted with the eschatological form of unity, male : female. The narrative displays significant awareness of the polar opposition between these forms of unity as between 'heavens and the earth'. Thus the same pattern subtended by the primordial and archaeological, 'first and last', relata in each form of unity, the forms of unity themselves maintain  in their extensive relatedness.

At every point of the narrative we are confronted with dyadic and triadic structures - the dyad recapitulating the categoreal paradigm, the triad the threefold nature of 'God'. The story of beginning is the story of a morphological scheme - that of the integrity of the forms of unity - and it expresses the order in the cosmos as reflecting the order in God. Hence it evinces an equal concern for those identities, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as for the forms of unity proper to them. In any case, both these identities are present in the triadic structure of the purely spatial, and the spatio-temporal. To recognise the irreducibly and  radically dyadic and triadic patterns in the text is not to controvert the peculiar link between the spatial and Transcendence and beginning, but to do justice to their intrinsic relatedness. In other words, the story of beginning is about more than just beginning. It is about the triune nature of God.

Still wanting is the interpretation of the Day 1 and Day 4 rubrics. We have determined the identities of Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in the dyadic Days 2-5 and Days 3-6 and their corresponding forms of unity, space : time and male : female respectively. Now this pair of pairs, this polarity of polarities having pointed to the third form of unity as to the identity of the Son, means that we are left asking what is the actual central topos of this story. For this third entity, a third form of unity, is surely the most central notion of the text. Even if the overall shape of the narrative can be seen as representing the threefold dimensionality of space, which it portrays as an instance of transcendence in the universe and a major concern for any interpretation, the sheer consistency of the role of light in the story secures something of an equal status for its corresponding reality and whom it identifies - the Son. Not only do the story of light and darkness and the subsequent story of night and day initiate the two halves of the narrative; but every event is concluded with a refrain that seems to extol them as they are in themselves: 'And it was evening and and it was morning, a ... day.' Every time the narrative utilises  such language, it repeats the compresent concepts, light and time.  This places the logos on equal footing with Transcendence, and accords equivalent value, where transcendence is concerned, to the two entities corresponding to Transcendence and the Son, the first of which we have seen to be space  It is therefore not possible to put that space is the unique instantiation of transcendence in the universe. It is unequivocally transcendent, and it is uniquely related to 'beginning' qua 'beginning'. However the role given to the form of unity disclosed under the Days1-4 rubrics is on par with that of the spatiotemporal as far as transcendence is concerned; and likewise, the identity thereby revealed, the Son, is on par with the Transcendent as John recognises. We know that identity as none other than the logos,  as John refers to the Son, and we observe how nearly he adopts the language of the creation story. Not only does he recur to the metaphor of light in the opening of his gospel, but he later proposes a systematic pattern of days leading up to the story of the miracle at Cana. What then of the form of unity proper to the Son?

 


Having urged the recognition of the presence of all three identities in God in the creation, we are in a position to again remind ourselves that the larger compass of these  considerations  takes account of the existence of three narrative cycles of which two are formally analogous, and to these, the third, from the morphological standpoint, is in close proximity to the same two. The biblical literature contains three textual centres which in varying ways are cast in terms of one and the same morphological schema, the sevenfold series:

• Genesis 1.1-2.4a,

• the series of messianic miracles including the Eucharist, common to all four gospels, but at its most complete and probably best maintained in Mark, and

• The Apocalypse more or less as a whole.

In the latter the sevenfold pattern proliferates, although there is much other material besides. It is certain that these narratives connect with one another. They establish something like a corpus or literary whole. In an obvious way, taken as such,  they reformulate the categoreal paradigm with the creation story and the Apocalypse standing in relation to one another of beginning and end respectively. If we adopt an approach that understates the relata or terms, 'beginning and end', in order to underscore the relational process, that leaves  as the central concern the messianic series. The point of recalling here this broader pattern of our investigation is to add to what we have just stated concerning the Trinitarian aspect of the creation series. We have stressed the operation of both the Son and the Holy Spirit in the work of beginning. The morphology of the story and its content both urged this. Now we can re-affirm in a non-contradictory way, that the creation series remains weighted in favour of the identity of The Transcendent. This is not merely because of the primordiality of space, the category which identifies 'the Father'. In each of the texts involved in the broader patterns of our survey, we encounter a particular Trinitarian orientation. In each of these three discourses one identity in particular is prominent: The Transcendent in Genesis, the Son in the gospels, and in the Apocalypse the Holy Spirit. This observation is offered not in the way of a disclaimer to what we have just noted; namely the equal presence and work in the beginning of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Rather, having acknowledged the indubitably Trinitarian form of the text, we are now able to accommodate its clear particularity. Each of these textual centres has a given perspective, the appreciation of which is part of its meaning. There is no reason why such appreciation should obscure the presentation of God as threefold, nor the relatedness of any particular one of these texts to others, given their morphological rapport.

Again, in this introduction to the central concern of Christian metaphysics - the Son and that entity, a form of unity), proper to the Son - we have stumbled upon the the innateness to it of paradox. To tie together in one expression, beginning and end, is nothing if not paradoxical. The third form of unity, the Christological, emerged in the formal contours of the text, and referentially in the metaphors concerning light. The link between the spatiotemporal and the Christological form of unity, is analogous to the relationship of Transcendence and the Son. The first clearest indications as to the paradoxical and Christological form of unity are the prologue of the gospel of John, and of course the messianic miracles. Two of the latter in particular will concern us, the first and last, The Transformation of Water into Wine at Cana and The Transfiguration.  As theologoumena, these identify the Son; now immanent, now transcendent;  that is, now in relation to the Holy Spirit and now in relation to Transcendence. For its part, the Johannine prologue speaks of the logos as of light. 

The commonest interpretation of this description refers to the notion of 'reason'. The Greek itself means 'word' and points to the phenomenon of mind or consciousness generally although these terms tend to proscribe the affective aspect. Light, whether we are reading Genesis or John or Mark, more often than not, expresses the Christological. As a metaphor for the phenomenon we know variously by the expressions 'mind', 'consciousness', 'reason', 'feeling', and the like, it is apt in virtue of the clear association between the processes of thought/feeling which we experience not only in the waking state, but during other states of consciousness, including that of sleep. Light generally connotes day, and by extension the consciousness that accompanies our waking life. Even so the inclusion of 'evening' in the rubrics of the creation narrative, and its clear depiction in the outlines of the story of Day 4 suggest otherwise, as of course also will the diurnal/nocturnal dichotomy, manifest in the taxonomy of the messianic events:


Light is not the only metaphor for the Son, for it identifies the transcendent Son specifically, that is, 'Son of God' rather than 'Son of man', logos asarkos rather than logos ensarkos. In both Christological miracle stories  the creation series is invoked: Mark introduces The Transfiguration story with 'After six days ...' (9.2), while the introduction to the first miracle narrative in John contains an elaborate enumerative system. This includes three references to 'the next day' (1.29, 35, 43) and finally the phrase 'On the third day ...' (2.1) which introduces the miracle at Cana. This is not merely a fortuitously co-incidental echo of the six Day pattern of the creation. The first reference to 'the next day'  begins the story of the baptism of Jesus:


The words highlighted resonate strongly with sections of the first half of the creation narrative, including Genesis 1.1, 2. The prologue of John has already established a link between the logos and the first Day. The light motif dominates the first nine or so verses of the gospel; it will be resumed definitively in the second last and last miracle stories in John: The Man Born Blind and The Raising of Lazarus. The title 'Son of God', the foremost transcendent Christological title, comports perfectly with the first half of the creation narrative. Thus when we finally reach the introduction to the miracle at Cana, we note the antithetical title 'Son of man' (1.51). This story, which functions as the introduction to the immanent messianic miracles is introduced in terms complementary but counter to the previous three instances of 'the next day' (th=? e)pau/rion), namely 'on the third day' (th=? h9me/ra th=? tri/th?)).  A systematic echo of the first creation story is at work in the text from the prologue (John 1.1s) up to and including   the first miracle story (2.1s) part of which is the Johannine pattern of days. We may even reckon with the possible intention behind the numerical reference in the introduction to the first miracle story as an allusion to the three feeding miracles. What is certain is that this section of the gospel of John squares with the clear sense in which the Markan recension of the messianic miracles, whose introduction to the story of Transfiguration leaves no room for doubt, regarding the relation between creation and salvation.

The next two pericopae introduced by the formula 'the next day' (th=? e)pau/rion) concern discipleship. The first of these (vv 35-42) mentions John 'standing with two of his disciples', one unnamed and the other Andrew. In this passage there are several titles ascribed to Jesus: 'Lamb of God' (v 36); '"Rabbi" (which means Teacher)' (v 38); and '"Messiah" (which means Christ)' (v 41). All of these bear clearly transcendent inflections. Andrew is responsible for the occasion in the gospel of John at least, of  the meeting between his brother Peter and Jesus. This second 'next day' text is linked to the first by means of the figure of John the baptizer, regarding whose significance and the theology of transcendence, we will at a later stage propose as part of the meaning of the role of masculine polarity of the form of unity male : female, that is, the symbolic masculine. It will concern the same figure,  John the baptizer, as emblematic of asceticism, as of the symbolic masculine,  and 'Son of man', the corollary of the eschatological form of unity, male and female. This will help us unravel not only part of the meaning of the role of the John-Elijah figure in the last messianic miracle, Transfiguration, a Christology of transcendence, but also the enigmatic introduction to the first Christological miracle (1.51), a theology of immanence. It is important to note now the presence of this concept of the 'symbolic masculine' in this and the ensuing text (vv 43-51) which details the calling of Philip and Nathanael. The last 'next day' passage repeats the title used first by John, that used by his  two disciples, and adds another:


Here the gospel is modulating towards themes native to the theology of immanence, not the least of which is of course physical love, which forms the topos of the first miracle story. It is not certain whether the reference to the fig-tree alludes to the second creation story, in which the trees of the garden of Eden play such an important part. Certainly the verb 'to see' which also forms an integral part of that myth would suggest so. Moreover this image of an initial situation in which seeing and the sense of shame are played out, Eden, transformed into a subsequent scene, where shame has no apparent meaning much less a role, the reason for Jesus' remark concerning Nathanael, would more than suggest so:


We will be able to enlist such a reading of the exchange between the two men, Jesus and Nathanael, in our efforts to decrypt the 'Son of man' saying immediately prior to the miracle narrative. Moreover the entire series of three 'next day' pericopae, echoing the theology of transcendence of Genesis, but with particular reference to the anthropic category male : female, will be vital to the same enterprise.


Our specific truck is with the gospel of Mark, nevertheless the completion of the messianic series entailed reckoning the first sign in John's gospel as the first of the entire series, and now we are able to further justify the inclusion of that miracle story by noting John's referencing this same narrative to that of 'beginning'. This is perfectly comparable to what we find in the broader context Mark provides for the episodes. Both gospels clearly conceive these  messianic events in relation to the Days of creation. Mark's and John's texts agree not only in establishing the parameters of the messianic miracle series, but also as addressing the identity of 'The Son'. It is well worth noting that the introductions to both Christological messianic miracle narratives recur to the creation story, if not stories. (This observation will be of no inconsiderable value in attempting a history of the tradition of the miracle stories.)

We found that the  three-dimensional  and 'cruciform' pattern of the latter culminates in something of  an aporia, for we are left wondering just how to understand the paradox so central to the textual structure. The two forms of unity which espouse the terms of the category, 'beginning and end', the primordial or archaeological space of space : time and the teleological or eschatological male : female, emerge clearly from the narrative. Just what the copula represents, apart from paradox, is less immediately apparent.

The response from the opening of the gospel of John as our first recourse, answers that the Christological form of unity concerns mind or consciousness qua embodied. Not just the story of the miracle at Cana, but each of the three Eucharistic miracles, and the narrative of the Passion to which they point, seem to confirm this very unmistakably. The feeding miracles and the Eucharist are radical corporeal in their references. Remember that such events define the same Christological form of unity from the perspective of immanence. Every one of them involves quantities of food and/or drink. They pertain to the body. The mention of the body (swma), in the narratives of the Passion and the Eucharist, (Mark 14.22, John 19.38) to which the three miracles of feeding point, indexes the immanent theology of the Son. Hence, the feeding miracles are 'somatic' they are about the body; they reaffirm the reality of bodily existence. A fact of genuine importance in the beginning of the fourth gospel, where incarnation is so prominent a concept.

Now, whereas the feeding miracles address the phenomenon of embodiment, the transcendent miracles of the same series present us with the notion of identity. Their relation of complementarity, or contrast, but also more than is denoted by that term, to the feeding episodes, begins to amplify the portrayal of the psychophysical. We are still in the realm of immanence; the chiastic form assures the one to one correspondence of transcendent to immanent miracles, even while the former pertain so evidently to the first three Days. (It is only in the latter case, that of the Days, that we can speak of true transcendence, and then only of the first three Days as denoting  the transcendent unequivocally.) Therefore, the messianic series in its entirety seems to point to our own psychophysical being. This is the single conclusion to which the narratives in their structure and content point.

However, it by no means indicates that the gospel conceives of two independent entities, one a mind and the other a body. The parallel format of the Genesis taxonomy taken in isolation might have led to such a conclusion. But the constant sequential alternation of types of events, feeding and identity, and their Trinitarian structure which places an event of each kind, immanent and transcendent, in direct chiastic correspondence with each other,  precludes any such notion. The forms share a common structure: bipolarity. Their structure is analogous. They consist of two related terms identifiable as either transcendent (mind) or immanent (body), where the second of these terms, incorporates the former, that is, it represents the unitive or conjunctive aspect of the entity - mind and body. Thus taken as a whole, each 'form of unity' replicates the pattern of disjunction : conjunction, and their paradoxical relationality. This means effectively three different occasions of the same thing; in this case, (1) the transcendent logos or mind; (2) the immanent mind : body unity, that is, the embodied being, the living psychophysical entity; (3) and of course the relation of paradox obtaining between them. (This is why rendering the copula of the categoreal paradigm, like that of the various Christological titles, is so difficult - precisely because it is polyvalent; and was the reason for our substituting it with the sign for ratio ':'.) Central to John's concern will be the question of the relation of the logos to 'all things' (pa/nta), all psychophysical entitivity. This concern is at the core of the last miracle in the fourth gospel, The Raising of Lazarus, where it assumes a less abstract tone, as is given by the personal name of the man involved, and the portrayal of the close personal relationship of the two men - Lazarus and Jesus.

There is no better way to support our identification of the Christological with the 'psychophysical' than by claiming every one of the healing miracle stories in Mark, as well as those in John, as primary evidence. Each of these posits the identification of the Christ with the entity mind : body. We are proposing, on the basis of the theology of creation which the messianic events endorse, that the identity of Jesus 'the Son' is somehow uniquely manifest in the form of unity mind : body, in other words, that the Christological is the psychophysical. Mark has thirteen different accounts of Jesus healing the sick, amounting to a significant quantity of text.  We adduce every one of these as first order evidence for this postulate of the 'archaeological' link between the Son and the psychophysical. Each of the thirteen narratives about healing has as its premise, the lived body of our own being, or as we may say, aware of its dipolar nature, the mind : body.  Surely these texts are related in some way as touching upon Christological doctrine, the doctrine of mind : body. Embodied consciousness, mind : body, the psychophysical, this phenomenon occurs in relation the  Son as do the other two forms of unity in relation to the Holy Spirit and Transcendence; and that is to say that this particular form of unity is uniquely representative of the Son, whom it exemplifies specifically as nothing else can exemplify. (From here, the integration of the healing miracles and messianic events is one very direct step, and we will explain in more detail later the  relation  between the twelve or so healing miracles and the six messianic miracles.) So the claim that the prime exemplar of the identity of the Son is the psychophysical receives insistent vindication in Mark in the many stories of Jesus healing the sick.

We have now interpreted the rudiments of the messianic miracle series and the healing series both, to understand the third form of unity celebrated by Genesis 1.1-2.4a. We find the central relevance of mind : body to the doctrine of creation clearly given in the creation story itself. The Days 1-4 dyad in particular, expresses this category. However, the motif of light resounding in the morning/evening formula of each rubric, extends the reference of the Christological form of unity. That is, the story as a whole, determined by the repetition of the day-night pattern, reiterates the psychophysical category. Just as the story as a whole identified Transcendence and the spatiotemporal. Hence we may say that in terms of transcendence, the Christological category is equivalent to the primordial category, and the transcendence of the Son is on par with the transcendence of Transcendence itself. For the category of mind : body pervades the story to an extant equal to its presentation of the notion of space : time, as a result of the inextricable affinity between light and time. Logically, the creation story cannot speak of space : time without commensurately invoking the psychophysical form of unity. As inseparably as it relates the identities of Transcendence and The Son, the theology of creation, which is the theology of transcendence, relates these categories; space : time and mind : body. (This is something which contemporary scientific cosmology, to its own detriment has failed to do.) The repercussions of this extension of the category of the psychophysical, the pervasiveness and centrality of this the Christological category to the full range of entities involved, will soon occupy us.

In due course we shall resume modeling  the interpretation of Genesis story according to the icon of the three dimensional spatial/cruciform/planetary  manifold in respect of the messianic miracle series. We shall often have recourse to this figure in our discussion of the Markan mandala. Mark intends the fullest integration of the two series, and the creation narrative seeks and finds its consummation in the gospel. The 'beginning' and 'end' forms of unity, space : time and male : female respectively, we juxtaposed in the iconography of the plane. Their similarity as peripheral or terminal in the  morphological schema, defines polarity, and is guaranteed by both narratives. Thus in the first half of the Genesis text, Days 2 and 3 are similar, though highly juxtaposed in terms of disjunction/modified disjunction resembling conjunction, or as we might say, 'disjunctive synthesis', and in the second half Days 5 and 6 are also similar, though  once again, the difference of the human as the apex of creation from the sub-human realm, maintains their contrast correspondingly to their precedents. In the gospel we observe the similarity of the two transcendent miracles at sea, and the similarity of the two miracles of loaves and fish. These are the evangelical counterparts to the Genesis rubrics just mentioned. The morphology is the same in each case; three transcendent Days, three subsequent Days manifesting characteristics of immanence, but taxonomically defined as transcendent in virtue of the integrity of the creation cycle; three immanent, that is, feeding miracles, and three related miracle-events which are defined taxonomically as immanent in virtue of their chiastic belonging as counterparts to the former, but which nevertheless manifest characteristics of transcendence. In each of the four groups, two members are comparable or similar, whereas the third outstanding  or dissimilar event configures the Christological category.

The contrastive aspect of the similar events, which reify the identities of The Transcendent and The Holy Spirit, is not denied in illustrating their relationship in terms of two lines at right angles in a plane surface. This arrangement affords the maximum amount of contrast given the bipolarity of the structures involved. That all the structures involved are bipolar itself  argues for the use of linear iconography. This plane subtended by primordial and final terms, requires an axis. For there is not  simply a horizontal and a vertical which are non-tangent. The lines representative of the contrastive relationship of similar terms, are set at right angles. That is, they intersect. Such an intersection gives their relation, the relation of relations already extant.  Stemming from this same point of intersection is another axis which represents  the polarity of polarities, the pair of pairs, the relation of already extant relations: the resolution of beginning and end. This axis is categoreally differentiated from the other two in having features common with both, and so posits it as paradox. They, the archaeological and eschatological axes, configure the plane A : A-B. The A-B axis on the other hand, is the axis of rotation. We can express the relation between the polarities A and A-B convergent in the rotational axis A-B as that of 'transfiguration'  and 'transformation'. The relation of beginning to end cannot be otherwise understood. The meaning of space : time and male : female devolves upon the meaning of mind : body. The final relevance of the story of beginning is to propose that both the primordial and final forms of unity should concern us insofar as they illuminate the Christological event, mind : body. The latter alone remains the abiding, single, dominant focus of the narrative because the relation of the two halves of the narratives can be resolved only in terms of this central paradox.

The co-ordination of the archaeological category and the psychophysical, the categoreal analogy of transcendence, posits the logical validity of interpreting the structure of mind in the way indicated, by adopting the cruciform, and spatial/planetary manifold.  Mind is thus the real point of reference of space. There is a true sense in which we can speak of the anatomy of consciousness as consisting of mental 'dimensions'.  Such language is not metaphorical but analogical; it is not poetry but metaphysics. Spatial tri-dimensionality is in no way arbitrary. Biblical metaphysics describes the limitation of space to three dimensions as signal of its  very 'beginning'. The threefold aspect of the spatial continuum tells for its origination in God.  The cruciform, that is spatial manifold, is the analogical means of visualizing the concept of identity as it obtains in God. We see the three axes diverging with maximum variance from one another, and at the same time, representative of the polarity in God, transcendence : immanence, the result of their intersection at a single point. Employing the tri-dimensional (spatial) matrix) as a mandala is not simply the result of evident appositeness. The anatomy of the text itself would seem to advocate it as the nearest and clearest illustration of major logical postulates, those which concern the three modes of antithesis and their relationality. It constitutes a deliberate methodical step indicated by the text.  The three axes, signifying those identities, are set apart at maximum differentiation from one another. That the same three axes converge is plain to see. Thus far we can visualize the Markan mandala as evincing the transcendent aspect - threeness - of God. The possibility of the same model to configure the immanent aspect - oneness - of God remains just that for now, possibility.

In referring to the planetary -  or more specifically 'earthly' - pattern of the same matrix with its axis of rotation and plane, we have already alluded to such a possibility. The great majority of mandala in the eastern traditions at least, have been two-dimensional. The Markan mandala has decided advantages over this, first in its reckoning of the three modes of opposition, and secondly in its aspect of self-awareness as paradigmatic. In this latter respect, it follows the ascription by the fourth gospel of the quality of self-referentiality (reflexiveness) to the logos, that is to the Son. Put otherwise, that the model for space is the three-dimensional anatomy of mind, and not we should note the other way around,) accords with the postulate that mind itself contains or includes each of the three conceptual forms, and each of the three forms of unity, including itself mind, and the mind : body unity.

We have  not yet finished exploring the implications for Markan metaphysics of the relationship between light and time in Genesis, but before we pursue the matter further a note on Transcendence is in order.



The Christological category reifies the central rationality, relationality, adequation, of the categoreal paradigm. We have expressed this repeatedly as the sign for ratio - : - since this expresses better than the copula, its paradoxical status. We could aver the same thing by the expression 'juncture', meaning however ambivalently, now disjunction between itself and an alterity, (transcendence,) and now conjunction with its alternate polarity (immanence). We should note that there is no absolute identity between the alterity in the first case, and the alternate polarity in the second, even though there is some sort of continuity. The idea of the logos, that the entity obtains equally now as ‘thing in itself’, (transcendent) Mind, and now in conjunction with something other than itself,  (immanent) soma or body, postulates the relation between these.

We proposed the meaning of transcendence graphically in the above matrix. There, two axes, vertical and horizontal, express the two modes of opposition, the primordial and eschatological, modes of disjunction and conjunction respectively. The first of these concerns us here. Transcendence connotes identity. This is explicit in the first half of the narrative. Just so, we find identity the primary criterion for defining one of the two kinds of messianic miracle as transcendent, even though these three miracles exist within a series which in its overall taxonomic definition relative to the Days series, must remain definable as immanent at the the broadest or first level of analysis. Compound entities such as forms of unity, are necessarily not simples. As such, they delimit the possibility of identity. Each of the three transcendent terms occurs in conjunction with its immanent counterpart: the spatiotemporal (space and time), corporeal (mind and body) and anthropic (male and female) forms of unity all espouse the conjunctive mode of antithesis. This constitutes a form of unity. It is signified in the above iconography by the horizontal axis which also represents that specific form of unity, which  of the categories articulated in the creation narrative is most paradigmatic of unity (immanence) itself, male : female.

Thus the meaning of transcendence ensures nonetheless that each of these three transcendent entities also obtains in some form, independently of its existence conjunctively with its antithetical term. Transcendence means being void of relation; it is synonymous with 'separation', 'identification', the being itself of an entity. In the iconic representation of the creation story the vertical A axis signifies this meaning. The description of the 'waters above' separated from the 'waters below' admits to consideration the first term. The subsequent text has to deal with the remainder, the thing which is 'other' to the Transcendent, the thing other than heaven or space. Transcendent entities exist gratuitously as the in-itself and for-itself of being. It is wrong to conceive this merely as independence from that with which they exist in conjunction. The theology of 'beginning' does not expound the concept of transcendence in this manner. Transcendent mind  both is, and is what it is. Being and identity are here of a piece. The transcendence of an entity such as mind is not determined in relation to soma (mind : body), with which it nevertheless consists immanently. And the same is true of space which transcends time. Transcendent space - 'heavens' - exists as thing in itself. In the rubrics of Day 1 and Day 2, which deal most certainly with the concept of transcendence, the excision or separation of light from darkness and above from below is absolute.  This alone promises the identification of the thing in question: mind (Day 1), space (Day2).  It must be so, otherwise the relationship of contrast between transcendence and immanence would not be one of contrast, and  this in turn would prevent the possibility of paradox, of a third thing which is equally transcendent and immanent - the Christological.

In other words, every initial term in the forms of unity denotes an entity which must exist in se: space, mind and the masculine. That the masculine is problematic or polemical at the very least I do not deny here, but no intelligible theology of the Son of man can ever be reached without recognition of the transcendence of some kind as proper to the masculine. We shall have more to say concerning this directly, notably in relation to the phallos as semeion. Certainly the  transcendent status of the masculine presents logical as well as ideological problems for the same, albeit converse, reason as the immanent status of time.  In the former case we are discussing from the perspective of transcendence something which is structurally immanent, whereas in the latter we are looking at something innately transcendent, space, from the point of view of immanence. To put it another way, the male : female form of unity is weighted in virtue of immanence, the feminine; and the feminine signifies this very form of unity, male and female. Space on the other hand is formally at variance with this and if biased antithetically. Space is paradigmatic of unequivocal transcendence, in spite of its conjunctive form or aspect, space : time, a form of unity proper. Space tends to existence in se; it it that particular entity in the cosmos which is in itself and for itself, evincing beginning and identity. We will return to the issue of what precisely is meant by transcendent space, space without time. For the moment however, we are observing the notion of transcendence in terms of the Genesis narrative itself.  There it is presented precisely as disjunction or non-relationality.

Immanence is the conjunction of polarities such that no immanent entity exists in itself. There is no such thing as time in itself; there is only time in conjunction with space-time. Nor is there any body without mind. Logos of one or another denomination, necessarily imbues all soma, all bodiliness, all matter that is pa/nta:



That is to say that 'body' is always and everywhere mind : body. Embodiment of any kind entails mentality. We use the word 'body' here deliberately, rather than 'matter' - a term whose currency in scientific discourse seems increasingly dubious. It is an expression central to Christian metaphysics.

 Initially at least, we must predicate the same transcendent capacity of the anthropic category, even given the caveat the texts enter regarding the male : female form of unity - namely its being weighted in favour of immanence. There is no feminine in itself, but only in conjunction with the masculine. Or what is the same postulate, identity cannot be predicated of the feminine. In the abstract, the disparity between transcendence and immanence can best be expressed as identity : unity. To a certain degree, unity proscribes identity, just as identity itself entails non-determination and finally self-determination. The latter consideration entails a qualification concerning the meaning of the masculine in itself, or 'symbolic masculine'. For the tendency to conceptualise the masculine in juxtaposition to the feminine must in some sense be circumscribed. The masculine of masculine and feminine. male and female, is not what is meant by the 'symbolic masculine', the transcendence by the masculine of the anthropic form of unity.

For now  let us summarise these considerations as follows:

•         'Space void of time' exists; it is identical with  'the future'.  The temporal reference of that phrase gives lie to the fact that there is no temporal passage in the future. Things do not transpire in the future with the same causality that literally determines the present.  In this regard, the future stands in direct contrast to the past. Thus, we can say that the relationship subtended by the present and future is categoreally other than the relation subtended by the past and present. The latter is characterised by continuity, reaching to the present or at least to the boundary of the present with the past; the former however is discontinuous with the present, and if we are to conceive of a vector of present to future, it will have to to marked by the discrete as opposed to the continuous. That does not mean that the future is not ingredient in the present. It is, and that is the whole meaning of creation or 'beginning'. We see this mirrored in the pattern of contrast between transcendent and immanent messianic events, as the antithesis of a determined or caused occasion with a gratuitous one. The future exists, discretely vis-à-vis the present, and void of temporality. The future exists only as that thing with which time is otherwise always conjunct, namely Space. The creation narrative thus gives an increasingly succinct meaning to the word 'heaven(s)'. This timeless space of the future becomes virtually tantamount to God, in just the same way that 'heaven' can function as a periphrasis for 'God'.
  

•         That there is also a 'mind' which is transcendent of the form of unity mind : body, is repeatedly attested in the gospel, not least in the gospel of John. The Johannine theology of logos affirms this notion very plainly. It also seeks to address the question of the relation of the logos to the individual psychophysical being (John 1.9-13, and later in the story of Lazarus, chapter 11.) The meaning of the transcendent occurrence of Mind is synonymous with its persistence in se. Genesis and John agree on this tenet of biblical doctrine without remainder. Mind differs fundamentally from both space : time (with which it is nevertheless comparable in terms of transcendence), and male : female (with which it is equal in its realisation of the full extent of immanence). Mind is God. It is not created like space, nor does it end as does the eschatological event, male : female. John never loses sight of the identity between the Son and logos, that is transcendent mind:

•         The sense in which the masculine obtains 'in itself', as well as being controversial, must remain a qualified one, just as we noted the qualification of the act of disjunction during the third Day, where nevertheless, the notion of conjunction ('gather together') intrudes, as if to recall the immanent bias of the category, male : female.  For whereas Mind and Space are alike, equally transcendent entities, the male : female category occurs in contradistinction to the transcendent arche or beginning of space, in obedience with its nature as immanent. The defining term of this form of unity is the immanent one, the feminine. This was part of the meaning of saying that the primordial is weighted in favour of transcendence, and the eschatological in favour of immanence. Even so, as a transcendent entity by definition, the 'masculine' must exist in se. The idea of a transcendent masculine devolves upon the meaning of the term 'Son of man' - see for example John 1.51 - thus it points to the eschatological aspect of a world in which incarnation follows in time. The epoch which the resurrection inaugurates conforms to this polarity, the masculine, that of 'the Son of man'.

A   In short then, the forms of unity each consist of two relata; one a transcendent polarity, the other immanent. The transcendent relata are space, mind and the symbolic masculine. These entities always retain their identity. They are externally related to their  complements, space : time, mind : body and male : female respectively. As for the latter, the immanent relata, that is, the forms of unity proper, these are internally related to their transcendent poles. Internal relation of this kind, means that the entity in question, the  form of unity, or as we may say, the immanent relatum,  must be what it is in virtue of what something else, namely its transcendent component, is.

A further point concerns the significance of the full contrast between archaeological and eschatological. In relation to male : female we have also to qualify the application of the concept of creation proper. The circumlocutions or paraphrases for the two categories which converge upon the psychophysical insist that we modify the application of the idea of creation to the eschatological. Space is the one and only thing which evinces 'beginning' without qualification. The logical structure of the narrative of creation places the male : female category in direct juxtaposition with this. This entails a reasonable case for interpreting it ontologically sympathetically to the image of the state antecedent to creation presented in the story. The mention of the Spirit of God in the introduction suits this, since the anthropic form of unity, male : female manifests just that identity in God. Humankind represent the particular exemplification of the Holy Spirit in creation. This is not to suggest that the male : female entity exists without beginning identically to its state after the same or even comparable to it. The transcendent polarity of this form of unity - the (symbolic) masculine - involves something at least similar to creation, that is 'beginning', as is vouched for in the similitude of the Day 2 and Day 3 rubrics. The same also pertains to the rationale of the incarnation. Nevertheless, it is essential to maintain the propriety to the one category - space - of beginning, that is creation. This procedure allows for the fact of three identities in God, the fact of their optimal differentiation expressed iconographically (geometrically) as above. We can speak of the 'generation' - a notion which both creation narratives endorse (twodl:wot,) - of the eschatological category by the Holy Spirit as belonging to the context of creation. We shall revert to this distinction later, in considering the exclusive nature of the psychophysical as transfinite, in the discussion of the non-denumerability of mind.

One further note can be entered here concerning the problematic - because paradoxical - symbolic masculine. Discussion of gender has become so polemic and fraught with the demands of political correctness, that it is important to forestall any misunderstanding. The paradoxical status of the 'conceptual form' of the symbolic masculine arises because it is the immanent form or relatum of a entity which is defined at the first level as transcendent. Even if the form of unity male : female is weighted in favour of immanence, its occurrence in the creation taxonomy guarantees its definition as as categoreally transcendent - along with the other entities grouped there. Immanence proper remains the brief of the messianic miracle series. Transcendence is the polar antithesis of immanence. However, the arrangement or co-ordination of the three forms of unity, space-time, mind-body and male-female, locates the anthropic (human) category at one end of the continuum. This is significant. The reason for referring to the form of unity male : female as eschatological points to the same phenomenon. As a form of unity, this entity is one of a series of three entities all of which are transcendent; even so, it reformulates the opposing polarity immanence, within the extensive relatedness of these three categories. Just as space is weighted in favour of transcendence - it is the pre-eminently 'first' or transcendent thing in the universe- the final or eschatological category is weighted in favour of immanence, as being the 'last', which it clearly is from the historical-evolutionary perspective. This qualifies the transcendent term - the masculine - in this particular form of unity. The reason for referring to this paradox by means of the adjective 'symbolic', points to the sense in which it concerns humanity rather than just men, that is males. The conjunctive form of unity, male and female is the symbolic feminine; by contrast the disjunctive relatum  is the symbolic masculine. Any human, regardless of his/her gender, that is regardless of the event of his/her own sexual determination, can belong to either. This act of belonging to either is important and deserving of acknowledgement. Transcendence is everywhere associated, as space is, with freedom; yet the event of one's own sexual determination is a given. The fact that one is born already masculine or feminine, would seem to undermine the very basis of transcendence as gratuitous, expressed in terms of this category. So it does, because as noted, the anthropic is the least transcendent of the three transcendent categories; which is why we described it  as a paradox. Transcendence in the guise of freedom, occurs in this problematic category not as for example, in the modern instance of gender re-assignment, so-called. As an attempt to overcome willfully the determinate event of one's given gender, the latter must remain a pathetic failure, precisely because medical science is not capable of endowing any individual opting for such with the appropriate fecundity, the specific capacity involved in the (economic) reproductive process. The transcendence relative to the symbolic masculine is the possibility of self-determination in spite of one's sexual determination. It is then the realization of surpassing the givenness of sexual determination and everything the latter involves. As we proceed we shall observe that this is linked to the economic - and finally procreative - fact of human existence. It pertains in the first instance to the reproductive or generational aspect of creation.

The existence of freedom (transcendence) in relation to this category is real nonetheless. Where persons exist in relation to others (of either gender, though principally of the opposite gender,)  and so more or less independently of the familial norm, they embody the symbolic masculine. Thus  ascetics, whether male or female, express in a certain sense the 'symbolic' masculine as do the members of societies grounded in the phenomenon of fraternity or collective identity. This is the reason for the epithet 'symbolic'. This elective or voluntary experience of independence of the innate appetition to satisfaction of constraints which are both erotic and economic, though the latter is clearly the more important factor here, is the necessary evidence of the reality of freedom which signals the transcendent. Nor is the significance of the concept of gender identity wasted here. Though again, the full force of ambiguity is operative. That is, gender as just noted, is no occasion for volition.

Identity is in keeping with the compact of ideas definitive for transcendence, freedom, self-determination and so on. The concept of the 'symbolic masculine' since it is juxtaposed to the feminine, which is the equivalent of masculine and feminine, entails a certain indifference towards gender. It is less like a so-called 'third sex' than it is an archetypal asexuality, recalling the expression )#ed,e used in the story of the third Day to refer to plants in general - prior to their division into what are effectively if not the masculine and feminine of Day 6, then at least something like the 'archetypes' of these. It is effectively indifferent towards both polarities, masculine and feminine, of an order that we might readily associate with the psychology of the child, and later theologically with the idea of the 'angel' or spiritual being. In the Johannine prologue, where the evangelist is concerned to emphasise the gratuitous aspect of transcendence congruently with the imagery combining space and free will in the creation narrative itself, we find an echo of this theme - the transcendence of the anthropic polarity of masculine : feminine, as of the occasion of one's inevitable gender:


And for another, the enumerative aspect of collective identity presents genuine difficulties for philosophical psychology. We are accustomed to recognising identity - as indeed in the creation during Days 1 and 2 - in terms of singularity. Plurality introduces a discord.

The role of identity in occasions of transcendence ensures that the symbolic masculine be a collective phenomenon. The transcendence of the (symbolic) feminine by the (symbolic) masculine must necessarily be conventual, collective, generic - if not monosexual, consisting of one and only and the same sex, whether masculine or feminine. There thus arises the persistent dilemma in the association of the Son of man figure with the individual person Jesus (monogenou=j para\ patro\v - 'the only Son from the Father' (John 1.14)). The point is that the social phenomenon of collective experience both of identity, and of independence or freedom from the economic constraints imposed by the urge to reproduce one's species, repeatedly illustrated in the second half of the creation narrative, is the business of the symbolic masculine. Thus it covers instituted and collective forms of celibacy/homosociality as ostensibly disparate as those of the monastery and the army. Several of the eschatological Son of man sayings in the gospels play upon this very ambiguity, for example, the reference prior to Mark's story of The Transfiguration, 8.34-38, where there is very plainly a mix of martial imagery with that of another kind that militates against the compact between the family as social institution and the economic order. This strain of thought reaches a peak in The Apocalypse, teeming as it is with both angels and themes which gravitate around war. The latter is viewed as contrary to an order of society delineated figuratively as aligned with the feminine principle - which is the conjunctive masculine and feminine - broadly identifiable as economic.

The feminine as symbolic of an economic/ecological principle covers those situations when persons of either gender co-exist such that the experience of  identity, even a form of collective identity, is precluded or circumscribed. The exemplary form of difference here is that of gender, though it might also be that of 'race', age, religion and so on, The Apocalypse repeatedly mentions four: '... tribe and tongue and people and nation.' (Apocalypse 5.9 passim). But difference, alterity, whatever is other than that which can be assimilated into some sort of whole or unity, the principle mark of immanence, is highly constrained if not rendered a virtual impossibility. By definition such an ordering of human society depends less on elective choice. The element of will, of free option is circumvented by the concessions now made to our innate and animal constitution. Hence the inevitability of sexual differentiation into one of two genders which are destined to be finally thoroughly assimilated or incorporated into one of the two, that is the 'feminine', this must always run counter to transcendence qua identity. Much of the alleged misogyny The Apocalypse should be viewed through these lens.




We have interpreted the P narrative as the disclosure of three comparable and pervasive entities, 'forms of unity', namely space : time, mind : body, and male : female. We have urged that these exist as the unique instances of God, The Transcendent, the Son and the Holy Spirit respectively. We discerned the especial preference of the Genesis narrative for space : time as accruing from its emphatic awareness of the concept of ‘beginning’, the the reason for describing this very category as primordial. The narrative denotes space 

• (a) in the hexadic-triadic shape of the story of the six days, and therefore in keeping with the other two comparable forms of unity;

• (b) specifically in one of the three pairs of Days, 2-5 and

• (c)  in the overarching 3:4 pattern of the story as a whole, that is including the Sabbath, so delineating the spatiotemporal manifold.

However, we noticed about the same overarching pattern, that light occurs concomitantly with the incidence of the Day, 'morning and evening, or time unit. In other words, it is not possible for the author(s) to depict the pervasive nature of space : time, without also conferring upon 'light' a role of equivalent value. How are we to understand this? How are we to grant the accent on the spatiotemporal and safeguard its primordiality but at the same time, interpret the apparently proportionate status of the psychophysical? We say apparently, because in one sense the role of light is even greater than that of time.

The same peculiarly fundamental quality of light - and that which it signifies - was evident in its beginning both halves of the narrative. The first Day and the fourth Day have certain prominence due to them as beginning the two sections of the narrative, a narrative about 'beginning'. Consequently, placing the Day 2 rubric at the centre of the first half, encouraged our observation not only of its similarity with Day 3 by means of the water and spatial motif, but its comparability to Day 1 by means of the specific theme of 'division'. This ensured the subsequent observation of (a) above - the understanding of all three rubrics sympathetically to the importance of the concept of 'heavens' or space. Then there was the structure of the text. If we found it shaped into two antithetical halves, we concluded the existence of a third form of antithesis, a polarity of polarities. The logic of the narrative pointed conclusively to that third mode of antithesis which refers to the Christological component of the narrative. Indeed, this is the most salient feature of the text, this third form of antithesis. The story deliberately averted us to its paradoxical character by means of the ostensible and tacit interstice which stands adroitly verse 13 and verse 14, and which serves only to emphasise it.

The Christological form of unity, mind : body, subtends a relation of equivalence towards the primordial category which remains weighted in favour of transcendence or 'beginning', and also a relation of equivalence towards the eschatological category or 'end', male : female which is weighted in favour of immanence. This makes it both central and paradoxical in the morphological schema of these fundamental generalities. Mind : body is the central pre-occupation of the narrative, even though light and time function in tandem in the text, as in the universe. This means that the Christological category, even while it enjoys transcendence equally to the transcendence of the primordial category, space : time, must nevertheless be distinguished from the primordial event. The latter claim acknowledges that certain factors prevent us from maintaining that mind has a beginning akin to that of space even though their exemplification of transcendence is proportionate. This is a significant distinction, no mere theological nicety. It dissociates the provenance of mind from the animal and human procreative process and brings it into even sharper relief when juxtaposed against somaticity. It is clear that bodies have both a beginning and an end. We shall contend that mind as logos has neither.

Thus the role of light in the narrative designates the Christological category; it denotes Mind, the transcendent entity which persists in itself and which consists transformed in the form of unity, mind : body. However, the text claims more than that alone for the function of Mind.  Mind contains all the other phenomena. How else are we to comprehend the fact that their description is repeatedly cast in its term - light/Day/'morning and evening'?  By this, we mean to appreciate the peculiar 'epistemological/Christological' intonation of the story; to understand how true is the avowal that it remains the central pre-occupation of the theology of transcendence. 'Epistemological' is used here in the sense of a theory of mind, a metaphysics which takes as its central topic consciousness. The creation narrative indubitably is about actual entities, or things that exist. There is no arguing with the proposition that it is 'ontological'. "Let there be …", the ontological refrain resounds throughout the text. But there is more to it than just that; for each of the things brought into being are named, and evaluated. Accordingly, the motif that designates Mind among these actual entities, light, recurs to an extraordinary degree. Of this, there can be really only one correct interpretation: the significance of these things for Mind itself. In other words, the forms of unity are valuable precisely in virtue of Mind. Mind itself is one of those very things. In this sense the series of Days includes or contains itself. It envisions Mind curving back upon itself as reflexive. Therefore, the story reckons the self, the self that is always attendant upon consciousness. As far as it contains itself, or includes itself, the nature of Mind resides in just this reflexive quality. Whatever it does, for example, whether it knows, or whether it desires and so on, it does as a self of some kind. This answers in part the significance of the pivotal status of light in the story. It is consonant with John's hymn to the logos. 'Word' is a word. It is a term which refers to things in the world, but it refers also to itself at the same time. Thus a statement about language is made in the very language itself. That statement accords with the conclusion that the value of the recurrent metaphor for Mind, light, points to the relatedness of the other categories, as well as to itself, for itself, or what is the same, the function of this metaphor intends the inclusion of the other categories, as well as of itself, in itself. 

The incidence of the motif of light in the creation narrative indicates that the categories which it discloses are finally to be understood in relation to one of their own number, Mind. The real slant of the story is not ontological, but epistemological. What concern us in the final analysis will be not questions pertaining to the existence of any of the categories, space : time or male : female or mind : body, but the fact that their categoreal status disposes human consciousness. The peculiar significance of all the categories is their relevance for the mind : body event. 

The introduction to Mark's story of Transfiguration brought this into very clear focus. The very same purpose attaches to the fact that the Christological category introduces both sections of the creation story. This arrangement as well as the other factors in the story adding to the dominant note sounded by the psychophysical, complies with its structure. Such important aspects of the narrative signal the centrality of just that particular form of unity, mind : body. The creation narrative deliberately accentuates the significance of this form of unity. The various entities it lists are thus epistemologically significant. Their relevance is to the centrality to existence of mind : body itself. Mind is both pre-eminent, or as we may say, central, among the six categories of transcendence, and incorporative. Mind accounts for the other categoreal entities, including or containing them in the same way that it includes itself. This reflexiveness, or self-referentiality belongs to the very meaning of the word 'consciousness' and its synonyms: 'self', 'soul', 'spirit' and the like, just as it pertains to the meaning of 'identity'.

We cannot emphasise too much this proposition of the epistemic value of the three transcendent conceptual forms: space, mind and the symbolic masculine, and the three forms of unity: space : time, mind : body, male : female. In the final analysis, what Genesis and the gospel confront us with are constituents or elements of consciousness, those entities by dint of which communication through logos proceeds.  Communication between members of our own species depends on the basis of our common inheritance (understanding) of these several things classified by the P narrative. They are radically constitutive of mentation. They must be permanent and pervasive as morphological or organizational features of human sentience. For this reason they are labeled categories. Mental and emotional contact between persons could not be possible if we did not share this common mental rudimentary fund.

Where the creation story shows a marked concern for the relation between the Son and the Transcendent, and so too for the relation between Mind  and space, its stance favours transcendence. In other words, the attention implicit in the narrative towards both entities marks it as biased in favour of transcendence rather than immanence. The transcendent categories, Space, Mind and the symbolic masculine, espouse this polarity in varying modes. We are about to see that the synoptic gospels, as distinct from the P creation narrative, manifest a particular interest in the relation between the identities of The Son and the Holy Spirit, and accordingly in the affinity between mind : body and male : female, which is signal of the gospel's perspective as immanent.

 


The theology of creation is the theology of transcendence. It categorises three fundamental entities in the given world; to wit, space : time, mind : body, and male : female. These are ultimately general, fundamental or pervasive structures in the morphology of the cosmos. They occur in analogous relation to one another, even though, as representative of three identities in God who remain distinct, they personify the paradigm transcendence : immanence each with a different emphasis. It is this difference of emphasis vis-à-vis the latter which allows us to their relations as non-commutative and governed by analogy. The same, analogy, is implicit in the Christological category,  and the reason why we have repeatedly designated it by the sign designating analogous relations ':'. The bipolar structure of the three forms of unity, for each manifests the same binary (polar) anatomy which re-iterates the paradigm, generates their relationship of analogy one to another.  We may say, adopting the language of Genesis, that each is made 'in the image and likeness of God'. Space : time, the primordial event, is made in the image of 'The Father' (The Transcendent); the mind : body is the unique instance of God The Son, logos, Christ; the anthropic form of unity, male : female is made in the image and likeness of The Holy Spirit.

The order of the external coherence of the categories is neither that of the Days nor that of the messianic miracles. Neither the serial progression of the former, ordered as two parallel subsets, nor the chronological sequence of the latter arranged as chiasmos, neither of these indicates the extensive relations to one another of the transcendent categories. As for the series of Days, its enumerative schema requires that the narrative should commence with the creation of light, so unambiguously pressing the Christological category as the epistemological category , that which sweeps the entire series into beginning and end. For the just end of course, we must look to the messianic series, where the event corresponding to Day 1, Transfiguration, is the last episode. The series of messianic miracles also begins with an event signaling the identity of the Son, the miracle at Cana. The sequences in both cases accomplish other purposes, but to posit the three forms of unity in their actual logical relation to one another, it is necessary to ignore the actual sequences themselves and attend to the way the triadic patterns in either series recapitulate the categoreal paradigm.

The spatiotemporal, the psychophysical and the anthropic, all three forms of unity  maintain that morphology first indicated by the inclusio 'the heavens and the earth'. This secures their analogous relation. Each consists of two terms in relation. In each case the first term is the transcendent, the last term the immanent member. These terms reify transcendence and immanence in so far as these are common to the identities in God, but transcendence bears a special relationship to The Transcendent as does immanence to the Holy Spirit. Transcendence and immanence then have specific and generic meanings. The specific meaning of transcendence is 'the Father', the generic meaning of the same indicates the three identities in their difference from one another. The specific meaning of immanence is the identity of The Holy Spirit; its generic meaning, the unity or oneness of God.

Trinity entails two formal notions - hence two terms, one primordial and one eschatological. These are the threefold and oneness. The former is the concern of the P narrative, the latter is the abiding theological pre-occupation of the messianic miracle series and Eucharist taken as a whole. From the last statement it should be clear that the unity of God is discussed not in terms of  the lineaments proper to transcendence, threeness.  Rather the pattern of God's unity is fourfold. This is already adumbrated in the Genesis cycle, where the week is divided disparately into three and four Days. Almost everywhere we find the concept of immanence we discover the tetradic pattern.

Thus taken in itself, each form of unity encapsulates the triad as an epiphany, a manifest of 'God'. But each form of unity is distinctively structured in a way that expresses either the Transcendent, The Son or The Holy Spirit. It is this which also reflects the extensive coherence of these structures. The extensive relatedness of the categories and their individual accentuation are the same thing.  It is thus the space of space : time and the female of male : female which more than the alternative term in each case, it is these which reveal God, now transcendent, now immanent respectively. The Christological category  as party to both modes of emphasis, remains paradoxically in equilibrium.  We can say then that neither mind itself nor the soma, the unity of mind and body, is the more significant factor. This category integrates just as it separates.  Thus it disjoins and conjoins, not just each of the three categories, but the extensive relations of these categories. Hence it informs us as to the other forms of unity; or rather, they converge upon it. The Christological is the occasion of the co-incidence of the archaeological and eschatological categories. We can formulate the internal triadic structures of the three forms of unity as follows:

                                                                       transcendence : immanence

                                                                                      space : space-time   ('beginning                 

                                                                                       mind : mind-body      and

                                                                                       male : male-female    end')

The internal triadic form of each of the three forms of unity conforms to the paradigm transcendence : immanence. Additionally, we have already seen that two forms of unity, space : time and male : female, stand in a particular relation to one another. These latter, the primordial and eschatological forms of unity respectively, taken in (analogous) relation, answer to the binary form of the paradigm. These two categories together recapitulate the same order. Their relationship brings to light the paradoxical and central character of mind : body and fulfils the totality of the morphological scheme as announced in the opening words of Genesis:


The extensive relation of the three categories reifies the 'image and likeness of God'. It has both triadic and dyadic formal aspects. These are inseparable from one another, and manifest the recurring patterns of this text as of the messianic series.



The Categoreal Analogy


 

The words italicised denote the categoreal analogy of transcendence, and the words underlined, the categoreal analogy of immanence. It is certain that these converge or coincide at the Christological category. The Christological entity, the category of mind : body is accentuated in its transcendent pole, that of Mind proper, accordingly. That is, it persists in itself and for itself, independently, and self-identically. It is nevertheless also accentuated in its determination as immanent form of unity, soma, the conjunction of mind and body in virtue of the principle of immanence, unity. Mind is equal to space in its transcendence, just as the mind-body unity  enjoys parity with the anthropic form of unity, male : female, which is accentuated in virtue of immanence.

The morphology in the creation narrative, entails the proposition that the two peripheral forms of unity, those rubrics, Day 2 and Day 3, are so similar, inform us concerning the structure and content of the psychophysical. Those two forms of unity, one archaeological and the other eschatological, are co-incident with reference to the single focus of Genesis as of the gospel, the Son. The accentuated term in each occasion - now triadic space, now the inclusive feminine of the anthropic dyad -  refers now to transcendent Mind, now to mind : body disposed by immanence as unity. We shall discuss the first of these here under the heading of' the categoreal analogy of transcendence. This aspect of the analogy concerns the three pure conceptual forms, space, mind and the masculine.

Effectively, we have already elaborated this analogy as the iconographical representation of the modes of antithesis a propos of spatial tri-dimensionality, and the consequent bearing this has on the cruciform pattern and further on the paradigm of the planet rotating on its axis, an image which comports with the planetary imagery of the Day 4 Christological rubric. That is, we have already begun to examine the meaning of the triad in the creation story, in relation to space itself, in relation to mind and finally in relation to God. So far then, we have dealt with half of the basic formal outlines of the creation story. We have understood the first part of the triadic-dyadic, the 3 x 2 composite. What remains is further consideration of the significance of the twofold form.

This process of convergence of the primordial upon the Christological, or their co-incidence as analogously polarised, is tantamount to the proposition that the affiliation of the Son and Transcendence entails the 'shaping' by Mind of Space itself. But that is to invert the emphatic awareness of mind implicit in the text, and  to overlook the epistemological rather than ontological accentuation of the categories. The spatial three-dimensional manifold exists conformably to the persistence of Mind. Whatever space is in itself, and the same applies to the male : female as unity, is less important than its reality as an elemental factor in consciousness. It is here that the story of creation centres, upon the Son, upon the Christological; that is upon the epistemological, upon mind or logos. Hence the real import of both peripheral entities space : time and male : female, is to be found only in reference to psychophysicality. We can argue consequently that space is the way it is, namely tri-dimensional, because of mind; likewise the predominant formal constitution of the anthropic category the male : female dyad,  its binary configuration, defers to the psychophysical, about which we shall have more to say in the discussion of the messianic series, the 'end' series. It is in the Christological category, mind : body,  that the significance, source and reason, beginning and end, of both structural norms, the threefold and the twofold is realised.



The Convergence of the Categories

We still have to consider the analogy of the categories as entailed by their common recapitulation of the categoreal paradigm. This extensive relatedness of the transcendent categories, that is, the manner in which the analogy of polarity obtains between the three forms of unity, will serve as introduction to our study of the messianic miracles. The primordial and eschatological categories are co-incident, externally related, as the psychophysical.  Christian metaphysics considers that the central event in the cosmos is the form of unity mind : body. This Christological category is the ultimate frame of reference for the only two other entities comparable to it, space : time and male : female. Thus the two peripheral categories are co-incident with respect to the form of unity mind : body. But just what does this mean? For one thing, it entails that the discussion of spatial tri-dimensionality must always defer to the consideration of Mind. The ontological character of space does not concern us. Given the abiding focus of the creation narrative, that is, its radically Christological intonation, we can say that both formal aspects of the archaeological and eschatological categories, the threefold and twofold, stem from the central or focal topos: mind transcendent, and mind : body or soma. It is by reason of this pivotal entity, Christological mind : body that the contours of the other entities involved, space : time and male : female, are as they are. They are explicable in terms of it, nor is it definable according to them.

We can focus on two aspects of this co-incidence of the peripheral entities upon the Christological, its threefold, and twofold outlines. The threefold speaks for transcendence itself, and while the twofold can be logically connected to immanence, because in its most immediate determination it will be a binary conjunction of polarities, we shall more readily associate the figure four with immanence. Thus the second half of the narrative, in common with the immanent messianic events, is tetramorphic. The four last Days, like the four messianic events tell for immanence as does the threefold for transcendence. (In the case of the Days, the figure squares perfectly with the spatiotemporal manifold as four-dimensional.) We should make this point clear. Unity, the defining principle of the immanent, is not rendered in the two narrative centres as a simple. It is not singular. Unity as composite involves plurality. The singular, like the simple pertains more appositely to the vocabulary of transcendence, as bespeaking its arelational quality. Mind disjunct from the soma, space apart from space : time, and the symbolic masculine unrelated to the anthropic form of unity, these are single entities, not compounded ones. The point is that the unity or oneness of God, as opposed to the threeness of God, is always rendered in relation to the fourfold. Immanence, thus represents the unity of God; it is a tetramorphic manifold. This means of course, that the other great numerical cipher of both series, creation and salvation, the three, denotes transcendence. There are three identities, three self-same entities in God, not four, not one.


We have already discussed the threefold a propos of the archaeological entity, space, and affirmed the affiliation between it and mind. That the creation story itself appears to reify this threefold form concurs with the clear sense of the self-relationality or reflexiveness of Mind attributed to the same by the Johannine prologue. Hence in having said that mind seems to contain or include itself, which it does in the creation narrative as the extensive thing sweeping together in the one epistemological/Christological taxonomy while also enumerating itself as one of those very entities, this avowal sits well with the Johannine prologue and with a similar quality attributed to space in the Genesis text. For the shape of that text in general, its sixfold pattern reducible to the threefold, the cipher of transcendence, functions similarly. It points to itself.

The twofold and bipolar disposition of the spatiotemporal, rather than the triadic dimensionality of space itself, is its inherent divisibility into perspectival past and future. (We should not fail to note the role of consciousness here, a role which we will expand upon, in the later discussion of the messianic events.) Asserting the idea of the present by such an analysis effectively reduces the number of terms to two. We customarily speak of past, present and future as if three comparable realms existed. But this is an unnecessary multiplication of categories and confers upon the present something it does not possess. The simplest way to proceed is to accept the obvious antithesis between the past and the future. So also for consciousness; there is the trajectory from the present to the putatively infinite past which recedes backwards, and the trajectory from the same present to a similarly infinite future which proceeds forwards. Such an analysis follows the formulation of the categoreal paradigm, transcendence : immanence. We characterised the essential difference between these two relations as summed up in the terms continuous and discrete.

The present is not comparable to either the past or the future as far as their projection to infinity by consciousness goes. The present is distinguishable from both just as it remains the province of both. Nonetheless, present immediacy is not a third term. The present acts as point of reference for vectoral direction or perspectivity towards either the past or the future; thus we can conceive of movement from it in only these two ways. In this analysis the present is always the point of divisibility; it is 'juncture' of past and future, meaning both conjunction and disjunction, immanence : transcendence. There is no third thing given : tertium non datur.  The restriction of terms in accordance with the Occamist principle results merely on the one hand in the past which enjoys a continuous relationship with present immediacy, and on the other, the future which is discretely ingredient in present immediacy.

The same bipolarity is reflected in the event of sexual dimorphism, even though not all living things are sexually differentiated. Some living forms are hermaphroditic, and some reproduce 'asexually'. We make this note in the interests of the validity of the symbolic masculine, that qualified sense in which the masculine polarity figures transcendence. But the more general incidence living things involves the polarity male : female. The dimorphism of the eschatological category is co-incident with the dipolar perspectivity inherent in the spatiotemporal. Moreover they share this morphology as the central event, the occasion of their convergence. The significance of the analogy of the forms of unity concerns the mind : body. The morphological equivalence of these  two forms of polarity, one primordial, space : time, and the other teleological, male : female, and equivalent to their convergence or co-incidence, is ourselves as human persons, actual embodied consciousnesses.

We cannot indicate the fuller import of the term consciousness here, it is subsumed under the messianic miracles. That is, we cannot enter into the discussion of the threefold aspect of immanent consciousness. There is no binary configuration without the accompanying threefold pattern, and the latter belongs to the study of the miracle narratives themselves. But we can point to the convergence of bipolar space : time, past and future, and bipolar gender, male and future, in so far as it reveals intimately a vital aspect of the soma, the psychophysical entity. In this sense the anthropic category simultaneously stands as an elementary metaphor for the binary organisation of that part of our mental life described in the messianic events. The concurrence of the masculine with space qua the trajectory present-to-future and that of the feminine with space : time qua the trajectory present-to-past, concerns the very physical structure of the gendered body/bodies. Genitalia in the male are disposed 'outwards'. The 'phallos', to use a word consonant with the semiotic tenor of Markan discourse, replicates physically that trajectory congruent exactly with transcendence; the present-to-future. The 'phallos', is effectively 'centrifugal or 'efferent'. It is determined from an interior or centre outwards. The 'womb', and here again, the term I am employing is  highlights the nature of this discourse, is 'centripetal' or 'afferent'. That is, the feminine body is analogous to the complementary spatiotemporal perspective; it is directed inwards to a centre or interior rather than from it. The orientation of masculine and feminine as the physical disposition of the gendered soma, occurs analogously to the fundamental bifurcated disposition of the spatiotemporal continuum, which is oriented to future and to past respectively, and is so, in relation to consciousness. There can be no disregard of the role of consciousness here, that is, of the link between the awareness of time and the nature of mind. That is to say, time cannot and does not exist in any 'objective' sense truncated from the very observation or awareness of its existence by ourselves and by other living entities. This link between mind and time, which we first encountered in the creation narrative as the connexity between light and time, is confirmed by the Johannine prologue and the story of Transfiguration. We shall have to investigate it further at a later stage.


But does this procedure of regarding the body end there. Each classifiable bodily member engages the same semiology. That is to say, it is not merely the phallos which is 'phallic', neither is it merely the womb which embodies the feminine. All members of the body replicate this dichotomy. All members of the body consist with this fact of sexual differentiation as their premise. To cite just one example: the head. The head is physically predisposed in a forward, outward, centrifugal perspective. The means of sensation, eyes ears, nose, mouth, are all located on its front, its face. Indeed, that is what the word 'face' means. This spatial congruence with  forwardness, as with the future, means that the head is aligned with the masculine rather than the feminine. It conforms the 'phallic' polarity of embodiment.

Therefore the confluence of the binary disposition of space : time and the dimorphism of the anthropic form of unity, concerns human persons irrespectively of their given gender. Thus the semiology of the body, like the symbolic masculine, relates primarily to consciousness. The make-up of all men, and that of all women, is in the same sense, masculine and feminine. It conforms to the feminine as the type of this unity. This sits with what we have always put, namely that the feminine as the inclusive category, denoting masculine and feminine, signals the anthropic. This anthropology will be party to the theology of semiotic forms, an essential part of the Markan mandala. If we are to understand something of the connection between the body and consciousness, which connection will involve essentially the processive representation of ourselves to ourselves, in other words, that very self-referentiality or reflexiveness which we have already noted in connection with 'the Word', the mind, then we must attend to this aspect of the theology of semiotic forms - the intimate link between our self-representation and the disposition of the body as the convergence of the 'first' and 'last' of the forms of unity, those entities in the universe which conform themselves to the Christological event, mind : body.

This theology of semiotic forms is an important part of the sub-text of many of the healing miracle stories in Mark, as we shall see later when we examine them. There is indeed much more to Mark's understanding of the anthropic category, that of gender, in relation to consciousness, but it is introduced here as stemming from the logical formulation of the propositions contained within the creation story. That narrative displays the peculiar relationality of the 'beginning and end' categoreal forms of unity, space ; time and male : female respectively, with reference to the phenomenon of  the mind : body as the most prominent feature the cosmos. That Mark not only accepts and adopts it but uses it for further purposes becomes apparent as soon as we begin to penetrate the meaning of the miracle stories. We are yet to see that the final  significance of analogical correspondence between the past-future polarity of space, and that of feminine-masculine concerns not just the anatomy of human consciousness, the nature of (somatic) mind, but also a fully developed Christian eschatology, a theology of religion itself.



Our effort to understand the import of polarity and analogy vis-à-vis the creation narrative now requires a return to the text, particularly that of Day 3. The anthropic category is the last to be listed; and so it represents the culminating act of the hexad, during the last of the Days of creation proper. This is befitting the status of male : female as teleological/eschatological. We shall have more to say about this in the future, and in the interests of focusing on the creation story we allude only to it herein order to give more substance to the systematic description of the male : female form of unity as 'eschatological' employed throughout this study.

Both enterprises, the theory of evolution and certain eschatological doctrines accept one and the same epistemic underpinning, time, of which they nevertheless adopt different understandings. By time in the former case is meant the relation of past(s) to the present. In one real sense, the evolutionary episteme is faithful to the feminine perspective. It is not about the future in any probable relation to present immediacy. Evolutionary theory fights shy of any sustained reference to the future. It refuses to enlist any notion of final (teleological) causality, confining itself instead to the notion of causal efficacy. The future in its relation to present immediacy as understood by the theology of transcendence, is altogether other than the past. The latter relation is continuous and actualised; but the rapport between the present and the future is discontinuous. Just so, we equated the depiction of 'heavens' or space, given in the the theology of transcendence, as precisely void of temporal passage if by the latter we are referring to the relation of past-present. The episteme evolutionary theory-history is primarily about  the continuous trajectory of a past to the present, or that of pasts to the present if we distinguish the two episteme. This will mean of course, that any implicit eschatology within the epistemic dyad evolutionary theory-history must comport more correctly with those forms of religious consciousness which follow the same eschatological principle, that of the feminine rather than the masculine. That is why we have said 'certain' eschatological doctrines. We can refer to these briefly here in passing, as the samsaric religious sytems - those systems of religious consciousness whose prevailing eschatological components stress recurrence, rebirth, reincarnation. Such a vision emphasises actualised inheritance from the past, with which it enjoys continuity.

The two basic eschatological outlooks of world religions devolve upon two juxtaposed views of 'time' itself; broadly speaking these are usually identified as the cyclic (feminine) and linear (masculine). The metaphysics of samsaric religious systems - those of  the various families and schools of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism - do not envisage a singular, final fulfillment of mundane time  in just the way that this informs all three faiths representative of the masculine eschatological principle - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  Our intention here has been only to sketch in the very briefest detail the significance of the consistent reference made throughout this essay to the anthropic as the eschatological form of unity. This equation will stand us in very good stead in the discussion of the theology of religions. Its relevance to the feminist critique of religion will be fundamental.

If on the basis of Christian metaphysics, we establish the epoch prior to the incarnation as constituted in virtue of the feminine principle, we have then to note the equilibrium this sustains with the epoch after the same, the incarnation. Eschatology is thus broadly 'divisible'  into the two radical kinds - feminine and masculine, as duplicating the two epochs. I have hedged the word divisible with quotation marks, for this form of unity is accentuated by dint of unity, which the feminine principle embodies. Hence the eschatological reality conforming to the feminine is nevertheless inclusive of the masculine component. This is tantamount to the claim that the future, in some measure, is always already ingredient within the past. Aware of such subtleties we can nevertheless posit the consistency of two epochs, one prior to and one subsequent to the incarnation, on the basis of their eschatological predispositions. That the incarnation begins the second epoch, I am in no doubt concerning. This entails the proposition that it is logically, if not chronologically, prior not only to Islam but to Judaism as well. That it is logically prior to Judaism has been a guiding if unstated  premise of the hermeneutic of the creation story just announced. I am well aware of the contentious nature of this view, and that moreover concerning the chronological, even so I believe there is a reasonable case for arguing the chronological priority of Christianity to Judaism; that however is another story.

 

We are concerned in the first instance with the story of the third Day, the prototype for the creation of male and female sub-humans as well as humans. This occurs after the waters have been gathered together in one place, and the land has appeared and been named 'earth', and the gathering of the water has been named 'sea'. Thus another remarkable feature of Day 3 is that it contains two distinct if related events of creation. Firstly we should appreciate that the inclusion of two different if related events of creation makes possible the completion of the theology of transcendence insofar as the image of the gathering of waters and the subsequent appearance of dry land, adds a third metaphorical mode of opposition to the previous two; that is a third dimension to the emerging image of spatial dimensionality. It envisages the horizontal, as juxtaposed against the vertical imagery of the previous rubric, and the all-encompassing light motif, whose axis we have depicted as rotational in keeping with its equal manifestation of transcendent and immanent modes of antithesis. This conceptual form of the anthropic is provisional or circumscribed in its transcendence, due to the fact of its corresponding form of unity being weighted in virtue of immanence. So the story of the third Day completes the logic of the text, and the iconography of a space of three dimensions, and adds to the category of transcendent entities - which already includes mind and space - the third, the symbolic masculine. If we were to press the case for identifying the precise metaphor for the symbolic masculine, that is the transcendent masculine, mentioned by the text of the Day 3 story, it would have to be the sea. It is this part of the narrative which the messianic miracle, The Stilling of the Storm, extrapolates, not the details concerning the sprouting forth of living plants. Yet the latter is indispensable. For it leaves us in no doubt regarding the identity at work here - The Holy Spirit, the Spirit ('breath/wind') of God referred to in the introduction as 'moving to and fro over the surface of the waters'. All the activity of the third Day is the work of the life-giving Spirit.

The Day 6 rubric duplicates this, and so allows for a parallel distinction between sub-human animals, the creatures related to land rather than air or water, and humans. At the same time, the narrative intuitively grasps that a continuity of some sort between the earth animals and the humans is extant as part of the meaning of sexual dimorphism, for both are subsumed under the same rubric. If we refuse to concede this and the considerable formal arguments positing the continuity of the various life-forms, we are not doing justice to the sophistication and subtlety of the narrative. The governing principle of immanence, as of evolutionary theory is unity.


Concerning the concluding description of the sixth Day, a charge has often been levelled against the promise of God to the humans:


The charge, alleged by an ecologically minded hermeneutic of suspicion, or, one might just as well, say ideologically minded, is that this pledge to humankind, in addition to being effectively humanocentric, establishes the basis of, and in fact invites the exploitation of the creation by the humans. This criticism is disingenuous in the extreme, for it ignores just how consistently the text strives to realise the unity of the created order as the index of a unity which purports sympathetic understanding between the world of the sub-humans and that of the humans. To willfully overlook the impetus of the narrative drive towards completion, finally achieved only with the creation of humans, is plainly obtuse as well as counterintuitive. In fact the humans are here at one with the animals, and with the vegetative forms of life which preceded them. Proper reading and interpretation of the story yields the conclusion that the humans as conceived here are anything but carnivores. Time and again the creation is affirmed as 'good', a measure of some part of that good is the harmony between the various orders of created things. Polemical carping of this kind with its strident note of the dystopian is extraneous here; it is appropriate to the ensuing narrative. The subjection of the sub-human world to humankind is descriptive and not prescriptive. It is necessary to make these remarks because so widespread has the practice of projection of guilt onto chosen targets become. In fact one hesitates even to use the expression 'sub-human'. That however perfectly depicts the realpolitik of the existential situation.


Reading the complementary rubrics, Day 3 and Day 6, in parallel, as they are organised, produces a relation between the earth animals and humans which is commensurate with that of the earth and plants, as noted above. The expression 'male and female' (hbfq"n:w rkfzf) is applied only to the creation of the human couple (1.27); although we must note that the blessing and command to reproduce is given to the creatures of Day 5 as well as to the humans during the sixth Day, and by inference to the sub-human creatures also created during that day. That is, humans are conscious of the sexual determination of their own bodies. It would seem that the author is not prepared to impute the same capacity to the consciousness of animals. At the same time, this concerns the specific relation of the humans to the creator; for no other animal is made according to God's image.