In many ways, the heart of Christian spirituality is the relationship between heaven and earth. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray saying, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We do not distinguish between heaven and earth so that we can love one and hate the other. Rather, our priestly role in the cosmos is to unite them together as one.
This pattern reappears in many forms throughout the tradition and I have written about it in a few different places. Here are some links to essays that explore this topic from various perspectives:
When discussing the way heaven and earth relate to body and soul, I usually refer to our embodiment as the outer person and our soul as the inner person. This matches our lived experience, as we encounter the material world all around us and outside of us while we encounter the spiritual world with our inner senses in intangible contemplation.
However, the two-ness of human nature is inverted when considered in its oneness. The inside is actually the outside and the outside is actually the inside. We are like a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Our innermost nature is what encircles and protects our outermost nature. Aelred described this beautifully in his book Dialogue on the Soul,
“The human soul, made in the image of its creator, acts in its own body in somewhat the same fashion as does God in all his creatures. Therefore it fills its whole body, but not locally. For if it were diffused or extended locally, it would also be greater in the whole than in the part. And so it is everywhere in the body that is subject to it, if not filling it, nonetheless imitating the likeness of him who is everywhere in all his creatures.” (trans by Talbot)
In the same way that creation exists in Christ and is also diffused with the presence of Christ, so too the body exists within the soul. Our animal nature is held within the tender embrace of our angelic nature. The soul permeates the body in the same way that the ocean permeates a fish. The fish is contained by the water and yet the very same water flows through it and gives it life. Our animal nature is dependent upon our angelic nature to sustain it with rivers of living water flowing through the hidden recesses of nature.
The various atoms and molecules that constitute our embodied existence receive organisation, structure, and function from the soul. When the soul leaves the body, it immediately begins to rot and decay as the same molecules that once teemed with life return to dust and are scattered over the face of the earth. The body is destined for the grave, but the soul is immortal and its life continues even after the body has dissolved back into the cycles of nature.
The human being is a world in and of itself. It is a microcosm (little universe) that follows the same principles as the macrocosm (big universe). In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth. The heavens are the spiritual aspect of creation and earth is the material. You can read about our bodies as images of earth HERE and our souls as images of heaven HERE.
The angels of heaven are like the thoughts of the cosmos while the stuff of matter is its body. These two worlds, heaven and earth, are equally present in us as they are in the world around us. This makes human beings a third world that contains all of creation. Eriugena describes these three worlds in his homily on the prologue to John’s gospel. First, he describes the two worlds of heaven and earth:
“We should understand that there are three worlds. The first of these is the one which contains absolutely nothing but the invisible and spiritual substances of the angelic powers; whoever enters this world will fully participate in the true light. The second world is diametrically opposed to the first since it is constituted wholly of visible and corporeal natures. And although this world is situated at the lowest point of this universe, the Word was still in it and it was created by the Word. It is the first stage for those who wish to ascend through the senses to the knowledge of truth, for the different kinds of visible things draw the contemplative soul on to the knowledge of invisible things.” (trans by Davies)
Earth is the lowest point in the universe because it is the heaviest element, so it sinks to the bottom. You can read more about the four elements and how they relate to spirituality HERE. Earth is diametrically opposed to heaven, not because it is evil while heaven is good, but because earth is made of solid matter while heaven is made of ethereal ideas.
In other parts of his writing, Eriugena goes into more detail about this. He establishes heaven and earth as opposites and then has Christ, as the alpha and omega, at both the top and the bottom. Earth may be the lowest place in the universe, but it is not any further from God than heaven is. As the psalmist says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” (Psalm 139 NRSVUE)
When Eriugena says that the earth element is the first stage for those who wish to ascend through the senses to the knowledge of truth, he is referring to the Triple Way of the mystics which begins with our embodiment and moves into heaven through the contemplation of nature. Thus, our embodiment is the gateway to prayer and the beginning of wisdom. As Columbanus famously said, “those who wish to know the great deep must first review the natural world.”
Now that he has established the first two worlds, Eriugena goes on to describe the third:
“The third world is that which, like a middle term, unites in itself the higher, spiritual world and the lower, physical world, and makes both one. It is only in the human person that this world is found, in whom all creatures are united. For we are composed of both body and soul. Holding together the body of this world and the soul of the otherworld, we form a single universe. The body possesses the whole corporeal nature and the soul the whole of the incorporeal nature; united in a single whole, they constitute the entire universe of the self.” (trans by Davies)
Within the human being, the blessings of both worlds come together into a single whole. We experience the beauty of embodiment like our animal kin and we also have the capacity to understand the nature of things like the angels. Our nature is both top down and bottom up, emerging from the soil and descending from the stars at the same time. By uniting them together, humanity is the universal workshop, the midpoint between heaven and earth.
Inner prayer and contemplation, therefore, is about remembering what we already know, and becoming what we already are. To become fully human is to be everything everywhere all at once. The whole of creation exists inside you and is waiting to be discovered.
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