Henry Corbin, Ismaili Gnosis and Modern Christianity

I am reading Henry Corbin's Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis again (just saw it on Amazon for $25 for a used copy...least expensive I've ever seen it...).

As I'm reading it, I'm listening to my wife's recent fascination with "heaven" after having read Heaven Is For Real and now moving on to Nine Days in Heaven, a "modern" rewrite of a nineteenth century book (at which I quipped "what's next, 30 days in heaven, then 3 months in heaven, each one upping the game?").

She questioned how we know they aren't true. A valid point. Of course, how do we know they are?

At which point I remembered the statement from the Acts of Peter quoted by Corbin in his book:

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui ("I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in").

And the lightbulb came on...

As for the child who was behind the Heaven Is For Real book, I realized, he, having been raised in a pastor's home, had no doubt heard stories and has experienced images of things he saw. He had a framework through which to filter what he experienced. His openness (his 'capacity' to use Corbin's term) allowed him to have the vision he had.

He lost me here:

“So what did the kids look like? What do people look like in heaven?”

“Everybody’s got wings,” [he] said."

At that point the story lost traction. While the father scours the Scriptures for other of his boy's descriptions, this one gets no such scrutiny. While I certainly can't deny his experience, the idea that humans have wings when they die is not supported by Scripture. This falls in the category of myth/folklore/tradition (or a child's imagination).

However, the idea of 'capacity' explains the different accounts in all the other books (and there are countless...) out there. Each one's capacity is framed within a certain context and it is through that context that these visison are filtered. After all, if they are, as Paul mentioned, beyond words, then we can only express them in the words and images that we know.

Modern Christianity has become, in many ways, Gnostic in this sense. This is not the "Gnostic" as opposed to "real" Christianity (whatever that is) but is a form of gnosticism, personal knowledge, that is present within churches, even, or perhaps especially, of the so-called fundamentalist/evangelical variety.

This drive for the "real" Jesus means many churches rise and fall with the vision of the pastor. It is often "pastor" not "church" centered. Of course these churches emphasize the "Holy Spirit" as their guide but it is peculiar that there are so many churches all claiming to be led by the same spirit and many of them have different litmus tests (Jesus prayer, speaking in tongues, your dress code, zip code, etc.).

We might argue that as long as they preach Jesus and him crucified we're all on the same team.

However, the "modern" church today seems to be quite gnostic in essence. Each Christian experiences "Jesus" according to his/her capacity for the theophanic vision of which Corbin speaks.

Personally, I'm ok with that. This actually helps me make sense of the New Testament (and, with it, the Hebrew Bible) and allows me the freedom to glean from Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant theology, along with books such as Corbin's.

If these things increase my capacity to experience "Jesus" then talem eum vidi qualem capere potui.