Can the Great Architect of the Universe create the world and take part in human vicissitudes? To answer this question, we must first of all look at the theological doctrines of the creation, which, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, are of two types: the creation according to the Old Testament, and the Trinitarian creation, based on the Gospels.
    The Old Testament creation is interpreted theologically as creatio ex nihilo, or creation from nothing. Saying that God ‘created’ the world means that God is distinct from the world that He himself wanted. Thus the world created by Him cannot have His own divine nature, nor can it be an emanation of His eternal being. It is simply contingent.
    A more profound explanation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo can be found in the Jewish Cabalistic doctrine of God’s ‘self-contraction’, which was first formulated and developed by Isaac ben Solomon Luria, in his doctrine of the Zizzum, which in fact means ‘contraction’ or ‘retreat into the self’. Luria took the old Judaic doctrine of the Shekinah, according to which the infinite God can contract His own presence in order to dwell in the Temple, and applied it to the creation. In the beginning, there is a sort of primordial mystical space, from which God withdraws into Himself, creating something that is not a divine being.
    This Jewish Cabalistic doctrine of God’s self-contraction was accepted into Christian theology by important thinkers such as Niccolò Cusano, JC Hamann, Fr Oetinger, FWJ Schelling, A von Oettingen and E Brunner.
    Is there a specifically Christian doctrine of the creation? What can Christian belief add to the Old Testament doctrines? Does it clash with these? The answer to the last question is that there is no conflict at all, for the Christian Trinitarian doctrine is a development of the Old Testament version. Just as in the Old Testament, God’s creation is seen as a saving revelation of God in the Exodus, the Covenant and the Promised Land, so in the New Testament God’s creation is seen as a saving revelation of God in the story of Jesus.
    Both of these interpretations of the creation contain the idea of continuity, of a God who creates the world and then continues to participate in the vicissitudes of humankind.
    But are we to think of the Great Architect of the Universe in the same terms? The problem is tricky if by the expression ‘Great Architect of the Universe’ we are to understand a specific conception of God. For to have such a specific conception might imply that Freemasonry had its own divinity and could be seen as a religion. But if it were a religion, we would then have to explain why it is open to people of different religious persuasions. It would also have its own theological answers, different from those of other religions, which it would try to impose or defend, causing conflicts with other religions and thereby precluding the possibility of its being universal.
    If we want to avoid this difficulty, we must not think of Freemasonry as a religion. In that case, there is no masonic god, and consequently the possibility of his having created the world does not arise. The God of Freemasons is the God of whichever religion masons believe in.
    What then is the significance of the Great Architect of the Universe? If he is not a God in the true sense of the positive religions, what is he? How can he be reconciled with the conceptions of God held in these religions?
    According to the Roman Catholic Church, the Great Architect of the Universe is a ‘super-god’ and Freemasonry is a ‘super religion’, putting itself in some way beyond or making relative specific religious identities. As I see it, this interpretation, which re-echoes the deism of the eighteenth century, misunderstands the true nature of the Architect and Ruler of the Universe.
    The best solution, in my opinion, is to think of the Great Architect of the Universe as the Deus absconditus or Hidden God: the En Sof of the Hebrew religion, the God of whom one may not speak because any description of Him as such would be meaningless, dragging, as it were, His Being into the world of manifestation and dialectical, rational conflict (for example, by saying ‘God is good’ our minds in this world are led to account for evil). As En Sof, the essential divinity is indefinable. This Hidden God, however, may reveal Himself through His attributes, thus assuming the forms and denominations typical of the positive religions, given historically and expressly through specific theological doctrines such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and so on.
    Understood in this sense, the Great Architect of the Universe is ineffable. To understand this ineffability, we should look at the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason in the Emulation Ritual. The Degree of Entered Apprentice is characterised by the “principles of Moral Truth and Virtue”. The Degree of Fellow Craft is characterised by the “divine science” and the relationship between man and God revealed in “the hidden mysteries of nature and science”, “even to the throne of God himself”. The Degree of Master Mason is also concerned with the relation of man and God, but goes beyond the rational to the expression of that “mysterious veil which the eye of human reason cannot penetrate.” The Degree of Master Mason goes to the “centre of the circle” (where “a Master Mason cannot err” - see my last article in FMT) and relies on enlightened intuition. As the ineffable rests on intuition and not on reason (being beyond dialectics), it is only in the Degree of Master Mason that the Architect and Ruler of the Universe can be considered as the Hidden God.
    This is why the Architect and Ruler of the Universe, or the Hidden God, can neither create nor participate in human affairs.

Prof Giuliano di Bernado, Grand Master of the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy, is a professor of philosophy at Trento University