I think that the little word, with, is the most Christian word. What I mean is that Christianity makes sense of it in a way that other religions can’t. For Christianity, with has wonderful ultimacy ; other approaches to life and humanness don’t have the resources to draw on to support it. Christianity alone makes sense of with. So with has about it zesty aura that is profoundly Christian

With implies a balanced togetherness, where individuals, nonhuman or human, sustain dynamic communion without absorption. In fact, if communion turns to absorption—the one absorbing the other—one of the individuals is absorbed, the absorbing individual has become a monster, and communion has been eradicated.

In a religion that professes that reality is ultimately one, one person with another or with a group is only ever a good on the way to something better: absorption. By the same token, in a philosophy that professes that ultimate reality is material (yes, there is something in that sentence that should raise a question: does material profess?), persons in with relationship, either with each other or with the material is dissipated by reduction.

Read more