A Summary of the Article ‘God and the World: One Reality or Two?’ By John Macquarrie
The central concern of John Macquarrie in this article is to unravel the mystery of God, world and their relation. Any true insight into one of these notions would enlighten us about the other for they are inter-connected. A simple and enthusiastic response to the question, whether God and the world are one reality or two, is choosing either pantheism (one) or dualism (two). But, both are inadequate: the former though rightly understanding the ambiguity, mystery, awe and reverence of the world it fails to distinct God from the world; the latter, on the other hand makes them strangers/totally other forgetting their non-seperability. The correct answer/Christian answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Most Christian theology, respond to the question by conceiving God-world as distinct but share an asymmetrical relation. It means that the world is dependent on God but God is unperturbed by the world. It emphasizes the transcendence of God. It is monarchical model of God-world relation. Quite unsatisfied with such a response that contradicts one’s experience, some recent Christian theology explains the relationship by qualifying the transcendence of God. They hold that God who is outpouring in love cannot but be intimately related to the cosmos and us. The God-world relation hence is symmetrical-asymmetrical. This is organic model/alternative model of God-world relation. God-world relation for instance can be compared to the relation of our head to the rest of the body. The example though is poor. The fullness of God seems to demand both the poles, transcendent yet immanent, eternal and infinite yet deeply involved in time and history, of impassible and passible and so on. The answer therefore is not-two.
This is however a shift from the usual type of God-talk. Let us understand it through John Wisdom’s ‘parable of the garden’ from his book Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (Oxford, 1953). The parable is the discussion between two people who return to their long neglected garden to be surprised by some plants growing well. They begin to inquire whether a gardener has been taking care of it. Quite unclear, one firmly believes in the arrival of the gardener while the other denies the need of a ‘gardener’ for their growth. This represents the accustomed God-talk that revolves around the question, “Is there or is there not a being beyond the world who laid it out in the first place and who still cares for it?” - the traditional argument between theists and atheists. But, such an argument today has become irrelevant and incorrect: the two people, who return to their neglected garden, henceforth do not discuss about the gardener as one coming from ‘outside’, but about the plot of the ground. There is a shift, though gradual, from the talk about the possibility of seeing, hearing or otherwise detecting a gardener at work to a discussion on the immanent characteristics of the plot of the ground. Little by little the ground begins to reveal its apparently invisible pattern of gardenhood. We realize, then that the world is not God nor does it stand apart from God. Instead, it is in and through the world, the divine opens itself up, while remaining distinct from it. The insight is so radically new we are unable to adequately communicate it through human language, which always the case with any mystery. It takes shelter in analogy.
The central concern of John Macquarrie in this article is to unravel the mystery of God, world and their relation. Any true insight into one of these notions would enlighten us about the other for they are inter-connected. A simple and enthusiastic response to the question, whether God and the world are one reality or two, is choosing either pantheism (one) or dualism (two). But, both are inadequate: the former though rightly understanding the ambiguity, mystery, awe and reverence of the world it fails to distinct God from the world; the latter, on the other hand makes them strangers/totally other forgetting their non-seperability. The correct answer/Christian answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Most Christian theology, respond to the question by conceiving God-world as distinct but share an asymmetrical relation. It means that the world is dependent on God but God is unperturbed by the world. It emphasizes the transcendence of God. It is monarchical model of God-world relation. Quite unsatisfied with such a response that contradicts one’s experience, some recent Christian theology explains the relationship by qualifying the transcendence of God. They hold that God who is outpouring in love cannot but be intimately related to the cosmos and us. The God-world relation hence is symmetrical-asymmetrical. This is organic model/alternative model of God-world relation. God-world relation for instance can be compared to the relation of our head to the rest of the body. The example though is poor. The fullness of God seems to demand both the poles, transcendent yet immanent, eternal and infinite yet deeply involved in time and history, of impassible and passible and so on. The answer therefore is not-two. This is however a shift from the usual type of God-talk. Let us understand it through John Wisdom’s ‘parable of the garden’ from his book Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (Oxford, 1953). The parable is the discussion between two people who return to their long neglected garden to be surprised by some plants growing well. They begin to inquire whether a gardener has been taking care of it. Quite unclear, one firmly believes in the arrival of the gardener while the other denies the need of a ‘gardener’ for their growth. This represents the accustomed God-talk that revolves around the question, “Is there or is there not a being beyond the world who laid it out in the first place and who still cares for it?” - the traditional argument between theists and atheists. But, such an argument today has become irrelevant and incorrect: the two people, who return to their neglected garden, henceforth do not discuss about the gardener as one coming from ‘outside’, but about the plot of the ground. There is a shift, though gradual, from the talk about the possibility of seeing, hearing or otherwise detecting a gardener at work to a discussion on the immanent characteristics of the plot of the ground. Little by little the ground begins to reveal its apparently invisible pattern of gardenhood. We realize, then that the world is not God nor does it stand apart from God. Instead, it is in and through the world, the divine opens itself up, while remaining distinct from it. The insight is so radically new we are unable to adequately communicate it through human language, which always the case with any mystery. It takes shelter in analogy. 
Interesting Fact:
The authour time and again recognizes the ambiguity of the ‘world’. How true it is, the more we uncover the mystery of the world through science, we are never done with it. It is, precisely the starting point of the organic model of God-world relation.
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