Cosmology of Spirit

Table of Contents

I. WORLD					...........................................	3-15
	CREATION EX NIHILO					..............................	3-8
		The Scientist								..................	3-4
		The Christian								..................	4-5
		The Mystic									..................	5-6
		The Philosopher								..................	6-8
	THE END IS THE BEGINNING			..............................	8
	THE SELF-CREATING COSMOS			..............................	8-13
		ORIGIN: Absolute Difference					..................	9-10
		JOURNEY: Unity from Difference				..................	10-13
			Hobbesian Unity				    					......	12-13
		DESTINY: Absolute Unity						..................	13
	ETERNAL RECURRENCE			    	..............................	14
	LIFE IN DEATH						..............................	14-15
II. SELF					...........................................	15-19
	ORIGIN AND DESTINY					..............................	15-16
	CONSCIOUSNESS AND FREE WILL			..............................	16-17
	THE METAREFLECTIVE SELF				..............................	17
	THE BODY OF THE UNIVERSE			..............................	17-18
	THE CREATION OF GOD					..............................	18
	HUMANITY IN THE IMAGE OF GOD		..............................	18-19
	THE PARADOX OF FINITE TO INFINITE	..............................	19

	My inquiry into selfhood begins with the metaphysical question of why the world exists, and how subjects like ourselves with consciousness and free will emerge within it.  There has emerged a recent tendency to deny consciousness and free will on premises of scientific determinism.  It is this denial of consciousness and free will that I intend to surmount by asserting the phenomena of consciousness and free will as necessary features of the universe.  Martin Heidegger’s question of why there are “beings at all instead of nothing”, which he deems the first and fundamental question of metaphysics, begins on similar grounds, gesturing towards the mystery of how selfhood is a feature of the universe.  I ask the same question, beginning not from being, but from the origin and destiny of the world in which we beings find ourselves.  I offer a cosmology of self-creation with Hobbesian roots, where the origin and destiny of a self stem from the origin and destiny of the world which bore it.
	The greatest mysteries of existence are also its most palpable truths.  The philosophical question of existence arises twofold, for both self and world: for the self as “what am I?” and for the world as “what is this?”.  In ourselves, we find the obvious mysteries of consciousness and free will, tethering us between birth and death; in our world, we find those of its comprehensibility through consciousness and malleability through free will, tethering it between causation (cosmogony) and destination (eschatology).  Behind these obvious mysteries lurk the hidden.  The hidden mystery of the world is how it gives rise to selves with consciousness and free will; the hidden mystery of the self is how its consciousness and free will interfaces with the world which gives rise to it.  In any case, the question of how the universe gives rise to beings with consciousness and free will is of the least triviality, and merits the greatest scrupulosity in the coming investigation.


I. WORLD

CREATION EX NIHILO
An unanswered question of the world is that of its creation from nothingness.  Creation ex nihilo renders the world’s existence as outstanding, coinciding with the etymology of existence as “that which stands out”.  Someday the world’s outstanding existence will need to be offset until no more is left outstanding; that is the world’s destiny: to restore its own beginning.
Have we any worldly wisdom to assist our inquiry?  Science ignores such metaphysical questions; religions each give their own answer, to the exclusion of others; mysticism comes closest in attitude.  An ethos of mysticism flows through the undercurrents of philosophy, and can be found too in the underpinnings of religions and the undertakings of science.  But to delineate this ethos further we must contrast mysticism with science and religion.

The Scientist
	The scientific life is not a meaningful one, as objective determinations are deterministic.  Consciousness and free will we confirm only by reflecting on ourselves as subjects, not as objects.  Determinism counters free will by presuming all events as preordained (causally preceding from a single origin), leaving no room for agency.  A deterministic characterization of consciousness contradicts free will, such that the more consciousness appears explained, the less so free will.  So far as science deterministically circumscribes consciousness, it refutes free will.  In the name of objectivity, the scientist disregards his role in the journey of the universe, overlooking that his agency plays an essential part.  For if we have consciousness and free will, these cannot be illusions but must too grow from the seeds of the universe; the universe itself must be a being of consciousness and free will.  Rather than deny consciousness and free will, we must deny all models of reality which do not account for these phenomena.  Just as sensations regarded as illusory are no less real, the same goes for consciousness and free will.  The illusoriness of consciousness and free will does not negate their fundamental substance, which entails a metaphysics in which both are necessary.
	Metaphysics intrinsically lies beyond physics.  Science is unconcerned with metaphysical notions of world and self, precisely because they are meta-physical.  Physics concerns itself with physical notions thereof, and thereby arrives at its own cosmology with an origin in the Big Bang and possible destinies in death by entropy, gravity, or otherwise.  These theories may not venture too far from my path, but the physicist’s conjecture is of an entirely different species than mine.  The physicist’s tale is of the development of matter; mine is of the development of the mind, consciousness, or what some call the soul.  But all the better if the scientist and the mystic agree by radically different methods, as this shows their mutual revelation of truth beyond any worldly methodology.  Woe to the scientist who fails to realize that he and the mystic follow the same star!  He is Walt Whitman’s learn’d astronomer of figures, who has forgotten the mystical charm of the stars which originally led him to astronomy.  He stands among many other dispossessed selves who, in some way, have forgotten their origins in pursuit of their destiny.

The Christian
“He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
	The fruits of mysticism nourish not belief, but understanding.  The fertile soil of spirituality often becomes spoiled by what religions cultivate upon it.  For religion goes a step beyond mysticism, and often in the process abandons it altogether.  So too religions lose sight of their origins in zeal for destiny.  But religion is, at minimum, opposed to nihilism, and dedicated to inventing a persuasive alternative to it.  Its saving grace is that it answers essential existential questions, and that it answers them meaningfully, if not truthfully.  Religious mythologies commonly include cosmogonies to testify its beginnings, and eschatologies to foretell its end of days.
	The spirit of a religion lies in its scripture; thus it would be unfair to withhold Christianity its share in my cosmology, for to deny the Bible’s scriptural significance would belie my inspirations.  However, Christianity has little import beyond the holy book in its modern incarnation, which proves stifling for selfhood.  Religious demands for unwavering faith and obedience disregard individual consciousness and free will while simultaneously sequestering the individual from God.    Christianity rejects the worldly as unholy in the name of humanity, yet holds in high esteem the same in the name of God.  Humanity is God’s creation, but a shameful one.  Religion regards the earthly as unholy and the unearthly as holy, when the earthly and unearthly are one.  God and humanity are not separate, but inseparable.
	A religious explanation fails to satisfy because, to evoke the Nietzschean proverb, God is dead: the power to create God lies alone in human hands.  The cosmology outlined herein seeks to root individual agency in the unity responsible for the universe.  No existing religious cosmology can substitute for this, as it does not simulate any other, but is sui generis.  It is a cosmology which does not claim truth, but gestures toward it; it seats itself not above other cosmologies, but alongside them, as a story among stories.

The Mystic
“‘I beseech you, brothers, remain faithful to the earth,
and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes!’”
— Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
	The mystic remains faithful to the earth in its wholeness and holiness.  The mystic embraces truths both worldly and unworldly, seeing truth in its many cloaks and greeting them all as one and the same.  The scientist and the Christian see only its particular costumes, and when truth dresses differently, fight or flee.  But the dressings of truth are only its ghosts, and wither without a body beneath.  If only the scientist and Christian could see that the same spectres haunt them both!
	The Christian and the physicist look past each other, whereas the mystic looks upon them both with equal regard.  The mystic is not dogmatic, and so finds neither friend nor foe in science or religion.  Mystical truth--indeed, the truth of cosmologies such as this one--does not infringe on other forms of truth, religious, scientific, or otherwise, which as exclusive forms of truth can be passionately bloodthirsty in claiming their dominion.  Scientific and religious truths, as currently interpreted, are too easily incompatible with other truths, even in the same domain, by enforcing a clear delineation between right and wrong which in the mystic’s mind is murky.  Scientific and religious paradigms proudly affirm their own certainty where mysticism remains silent; the self-righteousness of the Christian scientist is the asceticism of the mystic.  Science and religion both place value in the object, where mysticism redirects value to the subject.  The religious object is the unearthly, while the scientific object is the earthly; the mystical subject is both earthly and unearthly.  There are indeed mystical truths and untruths, but there is no assurance for the mystic of non-contradiction: differing accounts of truth may all emerge from the same origin, capturing different aspects of the same absolute truth.  For the mystic, truth finds itself in all places; for the mystic finds truth in all places.

The Philosopher
	If philosophy holds dear its love of wisdom, then mysticism is near it; for they share a common love.  The archetypal philosopher of The Thinker Rodin initially called The Poet, suggesting thought and poetry share a common form.  Mysticism comprises a speculative yet emotional strain of philosophy.  It is in this speculation doubled over with emotion that mysticism professes a spirituality absent from much philosophy.  Metaphysics in particular finds kinship with mysticism.  Metaphysics has been taken up by mystics and non-mystics alike, but through it undoubtedly flows a current of mysticism, for mysticism emboldens us to speculate on the otherworldly within the worldly.
	There stand in philosophy two dominant metaphysical accounts of the universe’s causation: the first mover and infinite regression.  Both of these cosmogonies, however, stretch beyond the universe.  So long as we posit a cause outside the universe, either we designate some arbitrary point as its final cause [the first mover], or continue positing the cause of each cause (the cause, the cause’s cause, etc.) ad infinitum [infinite regression].  Both the first mover and infinite regression are dissatisfying causal explanations, as they place the cause of the universe outside the universe.  Rather, anything which causes a universe necessarily places itself within that universe in the very act of causation, whether this cause be a first mover or infinite regress.  Rather than being endowed with causality from without, the universe is the birthplace of causality from within.
	Jean-Paul Sartre applies these cosmological arguments--typically employed to explain the origins of the universe--to the origins of consciousness in self, rejecting both arguments and affirming consciousness as self-causing.  Causality does not preclude free will, but rather cannot exist without it.  Free will cannot be caused, but exists in the universe as its own cause--that is, as causality itself--without which there could be no action.  Free will cannot arise from a causal entity, for it is its own causal entity.  The applicability of this same mentality to both consciousness and cosmos signifies an uncanny affinity between the two, prefiguring a common cause between self and world.  Like Sartre’s existentialism, my cosmology roots the cause of the universe within itself.  Just as Sartre’s self-causation of consciousness implies free will for the self, the universe’s self-causation implies free will for the selves within it.  The world’s origins are thus more than a matter of mere logical truth; they play an expository role in the cosmic drama.

THE END IS THE BEGINNING
“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.”
— T. S. Eliot, “The Four Quartets” (Pt. I, ‘Burnt Norton’)
	When inquiring into universal etiology, the subject of my inquiry is not solely an original first cause, but also a destined final cause.  This first cause is its origin, and this final cause, its destiny.  This cosmogony strives to situate the universe’s origin within its destiny.
	Our universe is one where its end intrinsically entails its beginning.  The beginning of the universe is indeed a creation ex nihilo, something from nothing, but it is a something which returns to nothing.  In this cosmological play, the origin of the universe is an unpaid existential debt which the universe itself must repay as its destiny.

THE SELF-CREATING COSMOS
	This story of the cosmos begins with the world’s origin in absolute difference and extends to its destiny in absolute unity.  This procession from difference to unity resembles Hegelian dialectics, but this process differs in that it is not intrinsically progressive.  The Hegelian dialectic is primarily conceptual; mine is cosmological.  The universe must only end in unity, but the cosmological dialectic may waver much on its way.
	In seeking the world’s origin and destiny, I seek thereby my own origin and destiny within it.  The destiny and origin of a self stem from those of the world which cradles it; in which it was born, may act, and will come to die.  Our universe’s original self-creation ensures our own self-creation.  Our world’s destiny in unity secures our worldly destiny in unity.

The self’s unity within,
its original unity,
is consciousness,
whose absolute form is omniscience.
The self’s unity beyond,
its destined unity,
is free will,
whose absolute form is omnipotence.
Both are one in absolute unity.

Conscious beings in our realm are granted free will by belonging to a world destined to instigate its own creation, self-creation in the act of self-renunciation being the ultimate act of free will.  In the act of creative self-renunciation, the universe returns the gift of its creation back to nothingness, resetting the burden of its existence.

ORIGIN: Absolute Difference
	Nothingness, the primeval vacuum of existence, resembles unity in its absolute lack of differentiation.  Unity too lacks differentiation, but in the presence of existence.  Nothingness and unity are uniform by nature, but not existence.  Once existence erupts from nothingness, differentiation ensues; absolute unity acts as existence’s return to the undifferentiation of a nonexistent nothingness.  However much this differentiation resembles unity, it cannot be a unity capable of self-creation: for if it were, the universe would have begun anew already.  Our lingering existence discloses both the possibility of unity and its intrinsic lack of actualization thus far.
	Absolute difference resembles the Hobbesian state of nature as the world devoid of any unifying principle.  Absolute difference marks the state furthest from unity, precluding any further differentiation.  Thus absolute difference and absolute unity stand as if two poles opposite a sphere, where any movement from either side narrows their distance apart.  The worst of journeys can be no worse than this state of absolute difference.  Absolute difference thus marks the eternal basis of absolute unity.  From these chaotic beginnings we proceed towards unity.

JOURNEY: Unity from Difference
	How the universe unfurls between origin and destiny I call its journey.  The journey of self and world is one from absolute differentiation at the beginning of the universe to absolute unity at the end of the universe.  The journey can progress forwards or backwards, but begins always from an origin of absolute difference and ends always in a destiny of absolute unity.  All unity arises from difference, but not all difference gives rise to unity; much difference forsakes unity.  Hegelian unity in difference is instead unity from difference.  Dialectical unity possibly emerges from difference, but not necessarily.  Difference can embody unity, but is not assured.  The journey from difference to unity is one from finitude to infinitude; from humanity to God.
	Our existential destiny is to reach godlike unity through the expansion of consciousness and free will.  If consciousness precedes free will, how is consciousness established, and how does free will evolve from it?  Since we know that the human form creates consciousness and free will, we know too that forms of life in the universe have the power to create consciousness and free will.  What forms of life manifest ultimate consciousness, ultimate free will?  And how do we finite beings arrive there?
	The constituents of our bodies manifest the unity of our consciousness; so the universe manifests a consciousness emergent from its constituents.  With this consciousness the universe, like us, becomes capable of free will: for if the universe did not possess this capacity for free will, we could not possess it as its constituents.  The world is a body, like ours, with varying degrees of unity.  One must couple oneself with the universe, and view oneself therein as one of its many organs.  If the eye neglects its role as the eye, the body will suffer.  So, too, the universe suffers when a self neglects its role within it.
	The responsibility of the individual surpasses that of the eye: the eye is flexible to only so many roles, but to the individual a countless number appear.  This responsibility is existential rather than essential.  But that does not mean it is merely invented, conjured by the imagination: only that it presents itself in life as opportunities caught in the web of the world, which can either be accepted or refused.  A disposition to refuse all opportunities disposes of both self and universe, as if refusing to see with the eye; a disposition to accept all opportunities exalts only the universe, as if the eye obliging to operate as a hand.
	Simone Weil recognizes responsibility as a need of the soul.  Weil’s ethics places our responsibility to each other in our unquestionable eternal destiny as human beings.  We owe a certain respect to each other for all participating in the same social body, just as an individual owes respect to all parts of her body for their respective contributions.  “Every social organism” which fails to confer its members responsibility “is diseased and must be restored to health”.  An organism bestowing responsibilities the soul has no need for is equally corrupt.  The responsibility we bear in the cosmological organism is that of the unity of self-creation.
	The force in which we originate is consciousness; without consciousness there is no self.  The force with which we act and impress our will upon the world is free will; without free will there is no responsibility.  The force towards which we have a responsibility to act is unity, a unity of self with world akin to the unity within a self.  As this unity is universally-encompassing and teleologically self-creating, I call it God.

Hobbesian Unity
	As we unify with each other, we become the gods we create.  These gods resemble Thomas Hobbes’ conception of the body politic, which applies equally to non-political bodies.  Hobbes’ notions of the state of nature and sovereignty parallel mine of differentiation and unity.  The frontispiece of Hobbes’ Leviathan depicts an enormous sovereign ruler whose body is composed of his many citizens.  These same citizens are those Hobbes characterizes as in the state of nature, suggesting that the state of nature is not a matter of essential human nature, but of a lack of unity.
	Leviathan’s frontispiece depicts a dissolution between self and other.  The self dissolves in the other, but not entirely.  The individual forms part of the sovereign body, and as a result, the sovereign body too resembles the individuals forming it.  If humans coordinate with one another to the extent that an individual human body coordinates within itself, we together embody a higher consciousness.  The state of nature, too, can be seen as its own kind of body: at best, a scattering of individuals; at worst, a chaotic, cancerous mass--this body is the Leviathan.  The Leviathan is a paradoxically chaotic unity arising from the state of nature, a state of absolute differentiation where no individuals regard their role in the universe, yet by their common existence manifest a monster.  Meanwhile, ideal Hobbesian sovereignty resembles absolute unity.  The sovereignty of the ruler is the sovereignty of the people, as in Christianity where the law of God is the law of the people.  The sovereignty of subjects equally enables the sovereignty of the body politic; therefore the law of the people is the law of God.  However, Hobbes’ conception necessitates a sovereign as the unifying principle; mine necessitates only that the unity of subjects creates a sovereign, just as the unity of the body creates the self.

DESTINY: Absolute Unity
“Then the son of Pandu beheld the entire universe, in all its multitudinous diversity, lodged as one being within the body of the God of gods.”  — The Bhagavad Gita
	If the end of the universe entails its own beginning, then its destiny is one of ultimate self-creation.  To be self-creating, the end of the universe necessarily manifests absolute free will.  The destiny of the universe is to unify into a single superconscious mass resembling a giant organism.  The absolute free will (omnipotence) of this body, radiating from its absolute consciousness (omniscience), empowers it to self-create.
	In light of every possibility, what force carves the path of time?  The god inside all selves, through which cumulative collective free will shapes the course of history.  The agglomeration of all free will and consciousness is our collective consciousness, the absolute unity of which, engulfing the entire universe, creates God.  God is nobody, yet emerges from everybody as a unity, just as I am no singular part of my body, but emerge rather from its manifest unity.
	Self-creation is the ultimate expression of free will.  We possess consciousness and free will because we are the universe's act of self-creation.  Our possession of free will reflects the free will necessary to create the universe.  Free will is possible precisely because it is necessary.  To the extent that we further increase our free will and unify our consciousnesses, we approach the universal being whose unity will end and begin our world.

ETERNAL RECURRENCE
	By reaching backwards in the flow of time to the beginning, the universe gives birth to itself.  This act does not disrupt the flow of time, nor create a “new” timeline, only closes the gap between the world’s beginning and ending.  Only one universe exists, but as the cycle renews, the universe may still do something different each time.  And so, the universe loops in a kind of eternal recurrence, but unlike in Nietzsche’s conception, the universe is not bound to repeat the same thing every time: the only necessity is that the end of the universe create its own beginning, and in this way is self-creating.
	The self comes alive from its origin to its destiny, and exists betwixt these.  “Purpose”, i.e., the meaning of life, arises on the journey of life from origin to destiny.  But the self’s origin and destiny cannot be fully understood on their own without context for the world’s origin and destiny.  The task is to make one’s existence essential to the universe rather than coincidental.  This essentializing factor requires freedom, i.e., free will.  Perhaps then a goal of consciousness may be to use one’s free will to encourage the possibility that one’s own consciousness recurs in the next iteration of the universe.  This is no afterlife, only a next life.  Under this cosmology, this form of reincarnation is actually possible, since the universe is in a cycle, but not guaranteed, since the cycle need not be the same every time.

LIFE IN DEATH
“‘Now you will surrender the faithful animal you once called your body.
Don't try to keep it, remember, it was a loan.’”
— The Alchemist (Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Holy Mountain)
	The universe’s ultimate self-creation is ultimately self-sacrifice.  Time continues until the world reaches a unity which self-creates, upon which it must end.  Thus the life of the universe necessitates its death.  To return its existential loan, the universe necessarily sacrifices its own life to give back what it has been given.  The world must offer itself retroactively as its own sacrificial lamb, for itself is all it has to give and the sacrifice must be made.  Even this godly unity's existence, like humanity’s, is premised on death.  So too, in the Biblical narrative, Jesus was son of God yet destined to die, and in his death sent life throughout the world.


II. SELF
“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
― Rumi

ORIGIN AND DESTINY
	The self is a microcosm of the world in which it exists, and the world a macrocosm of the selves which exist within it.  From the world emerges the self’s parallel origin and destiny.  All beings within the cosmos fulfil their origins through their destiny, abiding by the Kierkegaardian principle of resting firmly in the ground establishing them.  Origin grounds the self in consciousness, whereas destiny grants the self unity through free will.  The world’s origin likewise introduces its existence from nothingness; its destiny too is self-creation.  The origin of self, like that of world, is ex nihilo; therefore the self, like the world, must create itself.  Here, Sartre’s existentialism of self-creation through consciousness and free will applies equally to self and world.  But while the universe’s self-creation is metaphysically necessary, this is not so for the self, who is only offered the possibility to self-create.  However, it is the wilful self-creation of willing selves that the universe depends on for its own self-creation.  The self becomes necessary to the self-creation of the universe as it actualizes its potential for self-creation through free will.  The self-creation of self thus remains necessary to the self-creation of universe.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND FREE WILL
“I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devil and the Good Lord
	To be free, we must first become conscious.  The necessary foundations of free will are lain by consciousness.  We can imagine consciousness without free will, but not free will without consciousness.  Consciousness is the internalization of the external; free will is the externalization of the internal.  We become conscious before we become free; therefore internalization precedes externalization.  But because internalization is of the external, the external preexists internalization.  Therefore the world in which a self comes into consciousness precedes the selfhood of that self, despite consciousness preceding free will.
Consciousness precedes free will, and thus we find it in our origins.  The moment a self is born is the moment it emerges into consciousness, for birth is a self’s first intimate contact with a world separate from it within which it acts.  A newborn’s exiting the womb and thereby entering the world signifies its emergence into consciousness.  It is by entering consciousness in this way, upon being thrust into the world, that we become capable of free will, for the ability to consciously mediate our relationship with the world through action precisely constitutes free will.
	With consciousness, the self prophesies its own destiny, and with free will, enacts it.  We are then as prophets who declare our own prophecies.  To the extent that a self’s self-fulfilling prophecy is conscious, it manifests free will.  The universe’s self-creation is the first self-fulfilling prophecy; the self’s, as part of that universe, is the next.

THE METAREFLECTIVE SELF
	Upon our next rude awakening into selfhood after birth we may find it outrageously and inexplicably strange to exist: prereflectively, why I exist; postreflectively, why other beings exist; and metareflectively, why the world exists.  Here, Sartre’s prereflective self maintains the same location in the naïve self, and the postreflective self likewise in the look of other beings, but the self also situates itself further through the gaze of the universe, which I term the metareflective self, to follow Sartre’s language.  The metareflective self is self-aware of its embodiment in the world as a reflective being.  If the prereflective self is situated in first-person and the postreflective self in second-person, then the metareflective self is in third-person.  Sartre ends with the postreflective self, as does Heidegger in his question of why there are beings at all.  But an inquiry into the self cannot be so self-concerned, for a self owes thought to the world which bore it.

THE BODY OF THE UNIVERSE
	As a being in the universe, am I not myself part of the universe?  Without me, the universe as it is presently cannot exist.  The past must be such that I emerge from it; the future must be such that I dissolve into it.  By inhabiting the universe, I am admitted into it.  I exist within the universe, and the universe exists around me, encapsulates me: I am a part of the universe as much as each atom in my body is a part of me.  I am as conscious to the universe as my atoms are conscious to me.  I am as conscious within the universe as my atoms are conscious within me; my cohesion within the universe depends on my cohesion within myself.  Consciousness arbitrates my free will and cohesion: it balances what differentiates me with what enjoins me.  Cohesion condenses the self, maintains a cell boundary; free will expands it, sends the self beyond its boundaries.

THE CREATION OF GOD
“We are God’s creation.”  — Christian proverb
	The world is the creation of God.  In the act of self-creation, the world creates a self capable of creating itself.  Here, the creation myth is not one only of God creating the world, but also of the world creating God.  Humans are the creation of God, as are all other things.  But read this to only mean that humans and their world together create God.  There is no godliness in subjects ignorant of their world.  Without subjects, there is no God.

HUMANITY IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
 “Great in soul are they who become what is godlike:
They alone know me, the origin, the deathless.”
 — Sri Krishna (Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita)
	For this reason, we are said to be made in God’s image; only it is not God who makes us, but we who make God.  Our consciousness and free will are necessary to the self-creation of world and self.  This is what it means for us to be made in the image of God: selfhood, in its manifest unity, reflects the unity of the world, and the world, in its manifest unity, reflects the unity of the selves within.  Each individual is made in God's image, but God also is made in each individual's image.
	The existence of God depends on individuals, contradicting the Christian view of humanity as separate from God and our godlike endeavours as sin.  Christianity reproaches humanity for striving towards godliness, whereas the cosmology of self-creation affirms the absolute necessity of doing so.  However, not all godlike ideals lead to absolute unity.  Godliness is only unity capable of self-creation.  Only where this prevails is there godliness, and only when this prevails can God be said to exist.

THE PARADOX FROM FINITE TO INFINITE
“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” — Voltaire
	God’s existence is contingent on human beings.  The grand paradox of existence is that it is our destiny as beings from finite origins to altogether become infinite.  The force which enables us to become infinite from our finitude is the unity within, which bridges to the unity beyond.  The unity within is consciousness; the unity beyond is God.  Through free will we may reach the unity beyond from the unity within.
	Our destiny in absolute unity evokes the Kierkegaardian paradox of the absolute, where “the individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute”.  In relating absolutely to the absolute, the human becomes the absolute, and in this, self-transcends.  Self-transcendence, like free will, is possible because it is necessary, yet paradoxical because it is impossible until it becomes necessary.  While consciousness and free will are necessary, transcendence is only possible: it is an existential reality contingent on clear consciousness and responsible free will.  A world in which unity flourishes is a world in which all selves invoke this Kierkegaardian paradox and uniquely manifest their relation with the Absolute, as if an organ in the universal body.

***

	The universe will not rest until the unity within becomes the unity beyond.  When world and self are no different, they become as one in the universal organism.  Once there is no more beyond the unity beyond, the world finally has the power to create its own beginning.  The world in absolute unity will possess ultimate consciousness (omniscience) and ultimate free will (omnipotence), endowed by its creators over their journey from origin to destiny, and capable, like them, of ultimate self-creation.  Only this self-creation, belonging to a creature wholly worldly and otherworldly, transcends self and world, and in this transcendence gives birth to the new universe, itself, through its own death.