From Myth to Metacosmos: Symbolic Orders of Possibility: 3 Symbolic Law and Moral Order: Religious Cosmologies

As philosophy abstracted possibility into categories of reason, religious traditions developed parallel yet distinct strategies: they construed the cosmos as a sacred order, binding together theology, ritual, and ethics. Here, possibility is not only a question of metaphysical structure but also of moral and communal orientation. The cosmos is meaningful to the extent that it reflects divine law, and human potential unfolds through alignment with sacred order.

Religious cosmologies codify possibility in at least three interwoven dimensions:

1. Theological — the cosmos is created, sustained, or regulated by a divine principle, whose will establishes the horizon of what can and cannot occur.

2. Ritual — symbolic practices re-enact or maintain cosmic balance, translating metaphysical possibility into embodied, communal life.

3. Ethical — moral law binds cosmic potential to human conduct, such that to act justly is also to maintain the world’s order.

Aquinas synthesises Aristotelian teleology with Christian theology, interpreting creation as an ordered hierarchy in which all beings orient towards God as their final cause. In this view, possibility is structured teleologically: every creature has a potential inherent to its essence, and human flourishing requires participation in divine law. Maimonides, within the Jewish tradition, likewise integrates philosophy and revelation, construing the cosmos as rationally ordered by God yet ultimately incomprehensible in full. For him, possibility is conditioned by the limits of human knowledge, where revelation guides where reason falters.

In Qur’anic cosmology, the cosmos is constituted through divine speech and sustained by God’s continuous command: kun fa-yakun—“Be! and it is.” Here, possibility is inseparable from divine will; the unfolding of the universe is both contingent upon and oriented by God’s words. Ritual and law (shari‘a) then actualise cosmic order in human practice, ensuring that life remains attuned to the unfolding of divine possibility.

Religious cosmologies thus operate as symbolic architectures of constraint and enablement. They delimit potential—what is possible is always mediated by divine law—yet they also expand it, offering humans a place within an ordered, purposeful cosmos. Sacred narratives, far from arbitrary, function as construal strategies: they shape the collective imagination of possibility, binding the cosmic to the communal, the metaphysical to the ethical.

In this synthesis, theology, ritual, and moral order converge to make possibility both transcendent and immanent. The divine sets the horizon, but human participation—through action, law, and devotion—actualises possibility within the world.