Why the senses were created
Why Man is a Macrocosm inside a Microcosm
Why the senses were created and why man is a macrocosm in a microcosm.
You must remember, dear reader, that God created the invisible world first and then the visible world.
“to reveal greater wisdom and the multiple purposes of nature”, as theologian St. Gregory pointed out.
God also created men as the last of all, with an invisible soul and a visible body.
He, therefore, created man to be a cosmos, a world in itself, but not a microcosm within the larger, as the philosopher Democritus declared and as other philosophers maintained.
Such philosophers considered man as a microcosm, minimizing and restricting his value and perfection within this visible world.
On the contrary, God placed man as a kind of macrocosm, a bigger world within the small one.
In fact, it is a larger world because of the multitude of powers it has, especially the powers of reason, spirit and will, which this large and visible world does not have.
That is why St. Gregory the theologian again affirmed that
God has put this second cosmos (that is, man) so that it is on earth as a great world within the small. A world within a world.
St. Gregory Pálamas noticed that humankind, this macrocosmos, adorns both the visible and invisible worlds.
Nemésio also concluded that man as a cosmos unites the two extremes of the upper and lower world and, therefore, reveals that the Creator of both is one.
The senses are the gate to which we experience a transition between both words.
Even when comparing man with the invisible world of Angels, he is again called a great world, while the invisible world is, in comparison, small.
Man includes in his world both the visible and the invisible world, while the angelic world does not include the elements of the visible world.
São Nicodemos da Santa Montanha (1749–1809), “Manual of Spiritual Council”, Chap. 1.
