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Welcome to the New Holistic
Theology Program

by Andrea Mathews

What is holistic theology? The word holistic has to do with the integrity of the whole and its constituent parts. And the word theology has to do with the study of God. Holistic Theology then, is the study of God in whole. It is not, therefore, the study of any one religion, nor is it the study of any one perspective of the Divine. Rather it is the study of every constituent part of the whole of God, as well as the whole of God itself.

How do we define the whole of God? Well, just like anything else, we often define it by the constituent parts of the whole. So, if I want to define personality, I might have to do so by defining the various components of the personality first and then coming to an integrated summation of those parts. We can describe at least some constituent parts of God that way. God is love. God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. God is all wise. But then we have to consider the refinements of these meanings. What does it mean, for example, to be omnipotent? Does it mean that humanity has no choice in matters of its own contending? Does it mean that all power, including the power of initiative, belongs to God? If that is true, then how do we explain the irrational urgings of the human mind? Or the seemingly “freak accidents” of nature? And how do we explain the behavior of one constituent part of God that appears to be incongruent with another?

We tend to think of God in terms of the name given to that God. Allah is one kind of God. Brahman another. Krishna another. The Christian God, still another. What if, however, these and others are all the same Being, but with different names given by peoples of differing tongues and cultures? Does this add more to the wholeness that is God or subtract from it?

The simple fact is that God, by whatever name, can only be explained within the heart and mind of each human being, though this is not often how we come to our understanding of God. Most of us come to that understanding through an education that includes some more or less rigidly placed standards on our behaviors. And these standards demand compliance by some more or less frightening eternal possibilities. For Christians the threat of hell looms ever large on the horizons of our choices. For Buddhists and Hindis the threat of bad karma hangs over the head of every option. But are these fears enough to stop a man or woman in the tracks of “sin?” So far, if we look at the realities of our world, we’d have to answer a resounding “no.” But an even bigger question is: Does our compliance with our education or religious upbringing create a path for us to a real and profound spirituality?

We tend to think of God in these terms that have everything to do with good and evil, punishment and reward. But is this true? Do we stand perpetually on the pendulum that swings from heaven between the two opposite poles of good and evil? If we are not good, are we bad? If we are not bad, are we good? Most Christians think of God as the all-good God who exists in opposition to the evil Satan. Buddhists make no such claims regarding any Higher or Super-human Being but put such choice fully in the hands of each individual human. Gnostics thought of each individual human journey as a transformative path to divinization—a journey that will ultimately make each of us fully aware of our own Divine nature. More recently many of the New Age or New Thought churches are beginning to question the good/evil continuum for its validity and wonder if it isn’t true that below all of our activities there isn’t some pressing Divine energy that brings us through the transformative power of experience itself to a deeper, truer and Higher Self.

Morality seems to have sprung from religion, but how does it fit into spirituality? For example, if the traditional Christian mindset is one in which good and evil figure as major components in the separation of God from man, what does that mindset do with verses from the Bible like these?

I am Yahweh, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil. I Yahweh do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7).

And

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-9).

Or:

Where can I go from Your spirit? Or to where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into the heavens, You are there. If I descend into Sheol, behold, You are there also. If I lift up my wings like those of an eagle, and dwell in the far-out parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me (Psalms 139: 7-10).

Further, in contemplating the seeming cognitive dissonance between what we believe and what we read here, how do we evaluate doubt and internal conflict? How do these conflicts and doubts help or hinder our growth? How do we interpret the real world into the world of the Bible, the Qur’an, the Bagavagita? How does the psychology of an individual factor into the spirituality of that individual? How does the face of God mesh with each individual face on the planet?

These are the questions that must be asked and either answered or accepted as eternal answerless questions by any individual who seeks to understand and own a holistic theology. The individual journey into the mind and soul of one’s own spirituality is the key to finding this holism. Though this journey can be made through the auspices of a particular religion, religion is not necessary to its completion. In fact, for many, the deepest part of this journey begins in medias res (in the middle of things), even in the midst of what some would call the dark night of the soul. Sometimes what we’ve known of religion, what we’ve known of faith just stops working for us. We find our dogmas dry-throated and unable to speak to us. We lose faith in the leaps between what we seem to know and what cannot be experienced any longer from the old framework. We cannot sense anything that even looks like God. We cannot pray or meditate. The world of spirituality, as we have previously known it, is dead to us. And we find that we long for something deeper, something more profoundly true, something that not only makes sense to the mind and soul but also to the body. We long for a Supreme Being or at least a sense of our own Beingness. And so begins the search for God in the middle of our life path.

While no holistic theology can provide the answers for you, it can help you begin to consider the options. It can help you to ask the questions and find methods that help you to find your own personal answers. And that is what the Holistic Theology Program at the American Institute of Holistic Theology attempts to help you to do. From the study of A Course in Miracles to a study of Fundamentalism, the program is meant to assist the student in finding his or her own God in whole. Come and explore your own soul while obtaining a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree in Holistic Theology.