Universe, incarnation, and humanity: Thomas Torrance, modern cosmology, and beyond

The paper discusses the sense of the spatial paradox of the
Incarnation along the lines presented in T. F. Torrance’s book Space,
Time and Incarnation and accompanying papers. The aim is to elucidate
the paradox in modern cosmological terms, as well as to give its further
interpretation based on modern philosophical developments. It is argued,
in particular, that the paradox of the Incarnation resembles a well-known
philosophical paradox of embodied subjectivity in the world, thus elucidating
an epistemological commensurability between the universe and humanity in
the Divine image. As an extension and development of Torrance’s reasoning,
a phenomenological interpretation of space as the explication of personal
relatedness to God is proposed. This interpretation implies the refusal of the
natural attitude with respect to space and the need for the acquisition of the
mind of Christ through whom and by whom the non-extended wholeness of
space is revealed to humanity.