The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity

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For the Christian, salvific union, Redemption, is effected by the Incarnation of God:

God became man that man might become God. The first mystery is the Incarnation and the second is the Redemption. (from “Christic and Virginal Mysteries”, p. 155)

The Fallen condition perceives ‘concrete’ Existence and ‘abstract’ God. In the Incarnation, the Absolute is re-revealed as concretely and solely Real.

What is “abstraction” in the case of the logician becomes as it were corporeal in the case of the Word made flesh.

[The centurion Longinus, who pierced Christ’s side with his spear and cried “Truly this was the Son of God”] …has…been reborn, not because he has “understood” the Truth, but because the Truth has seized him existentially and torn him, with a “concrete” gesture, from this world. The Word made flesh is the Truth that has in a way become matter, but at the same time a matter transfigured and new-minted, a matter that is burning light, transforming and delivering. (from “The Cross”, p. 165)

The Absolute manifested in the human world is at once Truth and Presence, or one or the other of these two elements, but without being able to exclude its complement. The element “Presence” takes precedence in Christianity, hence the sacraments and the emphasis on the volitive aspect of man.… (from “The Mystery of the Two Natures”, p. 153.)

The Incarnation, by His immanent and transfiguring Presence reaffirms the judgement of God as He surveyed His creation: “And God saw that is was good.”

…the “avataric” marvel of Christ retraces, or humanizes, the cosmic marvel of creation or of “emanation”. (from “The Dialogue Between Hellenists and Christians”, p. 65)

Hellenists deemed the Incarnation to be unworthy of God owing to the frailty and impurity of earthly bodies;…Saint Gregory answers that sin alone, not fleshly materiality, is unworthy of God.…A proof of the compatibility between the human body and a divine inherence is provided by the inherence of the Intellect, which is of a heavenly order.…(from “The Mystery of the Two Natures”, p. 147)

The Incarnate Christ is the archetype in divinis, in which all Christians are called to partake (2 Peter 1:4) and by whose light Existence is transfigured or re-centred in that which alone is Real.