The Atonement as an "Expression"

           Some have expressed (ha, ha) confusion over my use of the word “expression” when describing time and consciousness as the Atonement, so let me explain.

An artist has an idea and expresses it through a medium of their choice—words, pencil, paint, wood, metal, etc. The idea comes first and then it is expressed, the expression being the final outcome of the idea. The artist’s idea is the cause, the expression (the work of art) is the effect.

Cause and effect flow in only one direction, from cause to effect. It never reverses. An artist paints a picture to represent an idea. The painting does not affect the artist or idea that caused it. So, no matter how distorted an expression of the idea the painting may appear to be, the artist and idea are unaffected.

When an artist brings their idea into being, we call the product their “creation.” But in A Course in Miracles, the word creation does not refer to something brought into being, but to God’s Infinite Extension of God. This is its way of saying in God is All-That-is. Anything else is false and is referred to in the Course as “made.”

To understand time and consciousness as the “expression” of the Atonement, we begin with God as All. Being All, God must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite, so not-God can only ever be an idea. Moreover, as soon as the idea of not-God arises, it is simultaneously undone by God’s All-encompassing nature.

It is as though God thought, “What is my opposite? Oh, yeah, I’m All, I cannot have an opposite.” The idea of not-God never gets off the ground.

But, God’s Mind is powerful so even an impossible idea and its simultaneous undoing is expressed. It does not extend God, so it is not creation. It is made. The part of God where this idea of not-God and its undoing occurs is what we call consciousness, where the Absolute seems to have been made relative. As the idea of not-God contains time, the opposite of Timelessness (Eternity), it seems as though the idea of not-God arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. So, consciousness and time express what the Course calls the Atonement, or the correction of the perception of separation from God.

The way the Course puts it, as soon as the idea of separation from God arose it was given to (Holy) Spirit. This expresses the simultaneous undoing of the idea of not-God. So, consciousness and time, though having a false cause (the idea of not-God) belong to Spirit, their immediate Correction. They express the Atonement, the undoing of a false idea.

“The script is written” means because consciousness and time express an idea that was simultaneously over, the story of consciousness and time is a predetermined unfolding to reach the inevitable outcome of undoing. It is one cohesive story where every part is related to every other part, and every part’s meaning is in the whole—the Atonement—so cannot be understood apart from the whole. In other words, you cannot look at a moment in time to understand the Atonement, and you can only understand that moment as part of the whole Atonement.

Understanding consciousness and time as expressions undoes the idea of sin. Because cause and effect flow only one way, the Atonement only goes forward to total correction. At no time can it “backflow” and upset God, no matter how imperfect it appears at any given moment. In fact, as what unfolds in time is predetermined, every moment is perfect. Only judgment of parts of it makes it hard to see the perfectly unfolding whole.

So, you can only play your part perfectly, no matter to what degree the Atonement is expressed through you. More importantly, the expression is not you. Your Reality is God, the Cause of the Atonement. With cause and effect, cause is primary and the effect, or expression, is incidental as its cause, not its form, is its meaning. If you live in the material expression of consciousness and time, you live in a meaningless effect. If you live in the awareness of God as your Reality, you live at Cause and Meaning.

We are not equal in the expression—in the parts we play—of the Atonement but in the One Reality beyond the seeming story of the impossible idea and its undoing being expressed in front of us.

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