The Yin Yang as an icon of God

“Without physical substance, the nature (of man and things) cannot be complete. Without nature, physical substance cannot be produced. The yang has the yin as its physical substance and the yin has the yang as its nature. Nature is active but physical substance is tranquil. In heaven, yang is active while yin is tranquil, whereas in earth yang is tranquil while yin is active. When nature is given physical substance, it becomes tranquil. As physical substance follows nature, it becomes active. Hence yang is at ease with itself but yin is fast moving without control” (Shao Yong). In the search for a manifestation of art to adequately describe, assess and symbolize God, I came up short. Behind every piece of art exists an artist, and if the premise is taken that God paints then who could thus adequately paint the painter? While I realize that the assignment posed was not designed to be taken literally but rather used as a symbolization of the nature of God, I believe that the nature of God can most adequately be described in the seeming goodness and awe of his very creations. By his creations, I mean to specifically point out the human issue when confronted with the issue of the Church, the very Church attempting to continually uphold the word of God. The one symbol which I believe can adequately describe the picture as painted by the painter is the Yin Yang.

The Yin Yang? The Yin Yang more immediately represents eastern philosophy and religion, a seemingly inappropriate symbol in a discussion dealing with the Christian God, Yahweh, the Father, the Lord. I see the symbol, though, as a message and manifestation of the balance of God’s creation and what man must accomplish and realize before he truly comes to understand God and theology. I’m not saying that God should or can be reduced to such a symbol but that, quite ironically, this black and white circle of the East represents the utter wholeness and oneness of the world that we live in today.

First of all, before delving into what the Yin Yang represents, we must understand the very nature of the archetypical representation of the Yin Yang. In this case, I am assuming the image to exist in a perfect circular harmony, an ever-conflicting yet ever balancing series of black and white, of light and darkness. The black, though, should not be mistaken for evil, but rather be embraced as a necessary counterpart to its other equal half. Even in the fullness of the black, a perfect circle of white harmony exists (and vice-versa), a consistent reminder of the inherent balance of the Yin Yang. I believe that this very balance overrides the conflict of the symbol, that the symbol signifies absolutely perfect coexistence. This very coexistence can be found in the world which God so gracefully created for the realm of man.

The image of the Yin Yang, I think, is more important today as a reasonable image of God due to the increasing secularization and calculation of everyday life. Particularly throughout the depths of the institutionalization of man, man makes a call to logic and the physical, the tangible over all else. Positivism reigns supreme, and science, while only a tool for discovery (and a valuable one, at that), leaps its bounds. Science in the current world exceeds its boundaries, as its authority ironically transcends the senses of the individuals transfixed with its very reliance on the tangible alone. Man’s utter submittal to a science-ridden dominance of everyday thought and activity eliminates the spiritual aspect of life.

The quote aforementioned appears to attack and assess this problem to its very roots, though. The Yin Yang, in however strange a guise, may be able to solve the consistently occurring issue of the secular versus the spiritual (and subsequently, tradition versus progress). As expressed by Yong, the yang portion of the Yin Yang represents the [spiritual] nature of all things, a nature without which the physical would be unable to thrive. The issue lies not in the yin (the physical) itself but the tendency of man to either ignore or place second the yang (the spiritual) when each should be placed on an identical plane even when seemingly only within the realm of the yin. Because the yang is at ease with itself and doesn’t manifest until present within its own world (heaven), individuals tend to lean towards the yin due to its active nature within its own physical world. The Yin Yang’s beauty, though, lies in its recognition of each portion of its being (yin and yang, physical and spiritual) as equal, no matter the “world.” Sure, each manifests itself through a different method depending upon setting, but each bears equal importance. It could even be argued that it is a natural reaction for man to consider the yin of immensely more importance, as the yin is what essentially maintains survival upon earth. Particularly in today’s Capitalist society, because the yang neither upholds life nor brings forth material prosper, it is ignored. I believe this ignorance and ignoring of the yang can explain why it is so difficult for man to simultaneously accept Jesus for who he was: both man and messiah, both Jesus and Christ.

In Jesus, God sent a perfect symbol of the Yin Yang as a representation of himself, a manifestation of the fullness of both yin and yang, for Jesus was both divine and human. Humankind, though, rejected Jesus for nearly the same reason why the yin yang (or at least the yang) has been rejected in the current day. The people didn’t like the idea of a messiah ruining politics and religion, they could not cope with the yang manifesting itself in an active manner amidst the yin, as the yang’s tendency tends towards passivity amidst the physical. Jesus was the exception, though, he represented the ideal symbol of the Yin Yang, the perfect harmony of physical and spiritual. The people could not understand this because they figured that both the yin and the yang could not exist in perfect harmony, that a figure such as Jesus was a ridiculously far fetched ideal. They believed (and some still believe today) that the perfection of the divine could never be manifested through a supposedly imperfect, sin-ridden being such as man. I believe he was rejected for the same reason that Western culture usually rejects the yin yang – how can a seemingly perfect white (yang) coexist without conflict amidst an imperfect, seemingly evil blackness (yin). In particular, people question Jesus’ ability to save himself, the question of the yang overcoming the yin and the light overcoming the darkness.

What they do not realize is that God sent Jesus knowing his second nature and knowing the inevitability of an end to human life. The point of Jesus life was, in fact, to die for the cause of humankind despite its inherent reliance on the yin. Rather than embrace Jesus as both Christ and Jesus (divine and human), individuals tend to separate the two natures, looking at him in scientific or historic context and then, completely separately, as God. Jesus embodied each simultaneously, though a direct symbol of the yin yang and what it truly means to balance two seemingly staggering opposites. I believe that once the human race accepts the ironically balancing dichotomy of Jesus Christ and thus subsequently, both God and the world as a whole will be understood to a much greater level.

I say this particularly due to the reliance of man today on logic and calculation. Due to this nature of thinking, the yin yang splits itself into two parts – the yin and the yang rather than the Yin Yang. Due to a singular method of thought, individuals emphasize one and only one part of the Yin Yang. What people do not realize is that each is a necessary and equally importance piece of the perfect whole. I actually believe that understanding the Yin Yang means to understand coexistence in racial, social, mental, emotional and physical harmony and understanding. Once we understand the Yin Yang, I believe we can gather together our differences in celebration rather than polarize them in opposition.

Take the very nature of the Yin Yang, for example. It consists of black and white, of the seeming symbols of good versus evil. Rather than emphasize their differences, the Yin Yang demonstrates the ability for each to understand each other, for each to come together upon a line of objective goodness. Even if one cannot find the “line” between the yin and the yang, though, the yang is found within the yin, and the yin within the yang. Even if one becomes entrenched in the depths of one side, the other side brings the individual back to “reality.” For example, if one lives a live consisting of only mysticism, religion and meditative isolation (a heavy reliance on the yang in a world where it is passive), the struggles of everyday physical life remind of the yin’s presence. On the other hand, just when man feels like he is on top of the (material) world (a heavy reliance on the yin in a world where the yang is hidden yet still present), a war or catastrophic event reminds the individual of the utter futility of the yin despite its active part in everyday life.

Once I discovered the Yin Yang as a meaningful and accurate symbol of God, my view of the world changed. I realized the inherent truth of many aspects of the Church: The Holy Trinity (and the coexisting balance of it), the divinity versus the humanity of Christ and the ever conflicting nature of tradition versus progress. I understood why exactly it is so difficult for humankind to accept what the Church says is true because of the very activity of the yin. The man should not be expected to uphold a sense of the yang in a world within which it upholds passivity. In fact, human nature tends towards the security, physicality and tangibility inherent in the nature of yin. Thus, as nature calls man to tend towards the yin, I certainly do not blame him.

However, on the other hand, I challenge him. I challenge the average man, the man tending towards the yin to, once he matures, realize that the yang actually does have a place in the material world. I believe it should be the responsibility of a mature individual to realize the yang at a reasonable point in time because I truly believe the yang will eventually reveal itself either through the yin or even without the aid of the yin. The issue with humankind lies in the continual reliance upon the yin despite the call of the yang – an ignoring of an equally important essence of God, an equally importance essence of the whole Yin Yang. Only through an embracing and understanding of the yang can one understand the yin and subsequently the entirety of the Yin Yang. Similarly, only through an embracing and understanding of the spiritual can one understand the physical and subsequently the entirety of God and his world.