This may seem like a strange question, but let's put it in context! First of all, only a human could ask such a question. Why? Because humans have the conceit that God is their own, that they somehow possess God. The reason that this happens is that humans think of God in their own image! The term for this is 'to anthropomorphize'. God is Mighty, Powerful, Intelligent, Just, etc... Anthropomorphism in every epithet! So as Xenophanes said, if a cow were to describe God, God would exemplify the superlative degree of cowness. So too, human beings project their humanness onto God. Isn't this idolatrous? You betcha. The actual true nature of God cannot be put into anthropomorphic virtues, no matter how superlative---Almighty, All Wise, and so forth.
Now that the context is set, let us look at how God Might Be while putting the brakes on the tendency to anthropomorphize. Thomas Aquinas wisely wrote that we know THAT God is (Being), but cannot know what God is ( without a)projecting, b)anthropomorphizing or c)using metaphors----examples: a) projection-God is angry at us for destroying nature through fracking, b) anthropomorphizing-"God is a patient Judge." And c)use of metaphor: "God is a Rock of Ages."
Is there any way we can address God univocally---that is directly to the essence? Throughout religious history several attempts have been made: a) to name God, to know the name of God (YWHW-tetragrammaton) is to command God's presence, b)prayer allows a direct speaking to God, c) As mentioned in Aquinas, God can univocally said 'to be', and d) as Jesus so clearly stated God is LOVE. There are some others: God is Truth, God is Beauty, God is Light (not metaphorically but somehow literally), God is ONE (radical simplicity). If we attempt to "think together" God as BEING< TRUE
So what are we aware of that is ultimately simple, full of being, beautiful and true? It is life itself. Now does a human being have a greater awareness of life than a rabbit? Frankly I do not see why that would be the case. The rabbit is just as intimately alive and aware of their own life as a human being. The fact that the human can reason about 'life' or discuss it in abstract scientific manner, does not really add anything essential to the awareness of life that is germane to all living beings. It is a conceit, the conceit of species-ism.
Because it is accidental that man's way of being in the world is 'rational' and a rabbits is not, actually makes no difference in the approach to awareness of God. The rabbit knows God in a rabbit manner, whereas men and women know God in a human manner.
What happens in truth is as follows---this is the path of knowing. First of all one must be in order to know. Secondly one must be alive. Thirdly one must be aware of this life and finally knowledge arises. At the first level all being coheres in the foundation of knowing. At the second level living be discovers an act of knowing. Thirdly a sentient being knows and is aware of its life (which is the essence of thinking: awareness of life---in its root and simple sense). Finally, if you will, man enters the scene and knows using a rational soul. What I am writing here is a paraphrase of Aristotle's De Anima.
The reason this has been a stumblingblock for so many thinkers for such a long time, is that God is conceived in a complex, manifold manner by the complex and manifold human reason. However, in truth God is as simple as can be---this is the whole import of the search for Higgs-Boson (another vain and futile anthropomorphic effort). That which underlies all being and awareness is God---radically simple, radically present (nay Presence itself). Man thinks in a complicated, dissected, analytical manner. That is the nature of reason.
The rabbit does not think in such a complicated and fragmented manner but thinks in direct awareness of God's green world (this dandelion in yellow profuse bloom, this puddle). The human also has the same type of initial, simple grasp of things that is direct knowing through awareness but later covers up the transparent knowing in a veil of words and concepts---again this is the substance of man's intellect---to abstract from experience to language in thought. If you are a rationalist you deem this act somehow as valuable or great. As for myself, a naturalist, even though I am human, I do not hold the conceit that my intellect is any great thing. What is truly great is my participation in BEING, then in BEING LIFE; then in BEING (SENTIENT) Awareness of LIFE. All of this is GIFT. The only greatness that I am aware of in man is that man is thankful for this GIFT---this thanking, not thinking, is the essential attribute of man. God alone is true, good, one, and Beautiful---man's goodness is contingent upon God's goodness, all that man has of any value is God's. And the only manner of possessing this goodness is to give thanks since the EARTH AND ITS FULLNESS BELONG TO THE LORD. In many respects contemporary man is as Dostoevsky described "an ungrateful biped". Ungrateful, conceited, specie-ist, vain, full of destruction, contempt for beauty and truth. How else could something as pernicious as fracking even occur to a mind full of thanksgiving? Such diabolic greed could only occur to man, never to a rabbit or to a chipmunk. The fact that man fracks in itself should divest the humanist of the wind in his sails, there is nothing good in man that isn't already in nature. The rabbit is not one iota less valuable in God's kingdom. Man is a vanity.
Now that the context is set, let us look at how God Might Be while putting the brakes on the tendency to anthropomorphize. Thomas Aquinas wisely wrote that we know THAT God is (Being), but cannot know what God is ( without a)projecting, b)anthropomorphizing or c)using metaphors----examples: a) projection-God is angry at us for destroying nature through fracking, b) anthropomorphizing-"God is a patient Judge." And c)use of metaphor: "God is a Rock of Ages."
Is there any way we can address God univocally---that is directly to the essence? Throughout religious history several attempts have been made: a) to name God, to know the name of God (YWHW-tetragrammaton) is to command God's presence, b)prayer allows a direct speaking to God, c) As mentioned in Aquinas, God can univocally said 'to be', and d) as Jesus so clearly stated God is LOVE. There are some others: God is Truth, God is Beauty, God is Light (not metaphorically but somehow literally), God is ONE (radical simplicity). If we attempt to "think together" God as BEING< TRUE
So what are we aware of that is ultimately simple, full of being, beautiful and true? It is life itself. Now does a human being have a greater awareness of life than a rabbit? Frankly I do not see why that would be the case. The rabbit is just as intimately alive and aware of their own life as a human being. The fact that the human can reason about 'life' or discuss it in abstract scientific manner, does not really add anything essential to the awareness of life that is germane to all living beings. It is a conceit, the conceit of species-ism.
Because it is accidental that man's way of being in the world is 'rational' and a rabbits is not, actually makes no difference in the approach to awareness of God. The rabbit knows God in a rabbit manner, whereas men and women know God in a human manner.
What happens in truth is as follows---this is the path of knowing. First of all one must be in order to know. Secondly one must be alive. Thirdly one must be aware of this life and finally knowledge arises. At the first level all being coheres in the foundation of knowing. At the second level living be discovers an act of knowing. Thirdly a sentient being knows and is aware of its life (which is the essence of thinking: awareness of life---in its root and simple sense). Finally, if you will, man enters the scene and knows using a rational soul. What I am writing here is a paraphrase of Aristotle's De Anima.
The reason this has been a stumblingblock for so many thinkers for such a long time, is that God is conceived in a complex, manifold manner by the complex and manifold human reason. However, in truth God is as simple as can be---this is the whole import of the search for Higgs-Boson (another vain and futile anthropomorphic effort). That which underlies all being and awareness is God---radically simple, radically present (nay Presence itself). Man thinks in a complicated, dissected, analytical manner. That is the nature of reason.
The rabbit does not think in such a complicated and fragmented manner but thinks in direct awareness of God's green world (this dandelion in yellow profuse bloom, this puddle). The human also has the same type of initial, simple grasp of things that is direct knowing through awareness but later covers up the transparent knowing in a veil of words and concepts---again this is the substance of man's intellect---to abstract from experience to language in thought. If you are a rationalist you deem this act somehow as valuable or great. As for myself, a naturalist, even though I am human, I do not hold the conceit that my intellect is any great thing. What is truly great is my participation in BEING, then in BEING LIFE; then in BEING (SENTIENT) Awareness of LIFE. All of this is GIFT. The only greatness that I am aware of in man is that man is thankful for this GIFT---this thanking, not thinking, is the essential attribute of man. God alone is true, good, one, and Beautiful---man's goodness is contingent upon God's goodness, all that man has of any value is God's. And the only manner of possessing this goodness is to give thanks since the EARTH AND ITS FULLNESS BELONG TO THE LORD. In many respects contemporary man is as Dostoevsky described "an ungrateful biped". Ungrateful, conceited, specie-ist, vain, full of destruction, contempt for beauty and truth. How else could something as pernicious as fracking even occur to a mind full of thanksgiving? Such diabolic greed could only occur to man, never to a rabbit or to a chipmunk. The fact that man fracks in itself should divest the humanist of the wind in his sails, there is nothing good in man that isn't already in nature. The rabbit is not one iota less valuable in God's kingdom. Man is a vanity.
1 comment:
If we start out with the premise that non-human living creatures may “knows God in a rabbit manner, whereas men and women know God in a human manner” or a plant may know God in “plant manner” I think the more interesting and pressing question, at least to my mind, is how does Man’s apprehension of God differ. If you listen to Heidegger, (and I just re-listened to his interview with Monk Bhikktu Maha) with whom you are more intimate than I, but who in this interview is very much in agreement with other philosophers I’ve studied in greater detail, there is a fundamental break with other animals in man; he notes that “the essence of man is dependent on language…that means that it has a knowing relation to Being.” When the good Monk asked him if the pursuit of man’s essence is not better survived by extending our religious understand of God, Heidegger’s answer is that that relation to Being, if not to God, cannot be understood religiously. He goes on to say – crucially I think, that modern science is a “religion.” That relation of human to Being requires a “new method” which he describes as follows: “…this method can only be achieved in the immediate conversations from human being to human being, and by long practice...” and that initially “…only accessible to a few individuals,” although he believes that once the method is developed it can be thought.
Man has a “knowing” relation to God and Being, the rabbit does not, rabbit-kind is not “Fallen” humans have by having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And, whereas other living creatures respond and are aware of their environment, an organic awareness of the beneficence of God’s presence, only humans have the ability to respond to their own response (to use a GHM phrase). The problem, as I see it, is that this “higher” order faculty has led to a disillusionment, a disconnectedness from and a de-valuation of life; man, places himself above other creatures in the great Chain of Being, places himself just below the angels, and in his hubris loses sight of the “Gift” of life to all living creatures including Gaia. A scientific/reductionist/analytic approach to life kills that which it seeks to understand. But then, the preservation of life is not its object - rather control, power, dominance, territorially supremacy, status, is..
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