Part II: Further Thoughts On God, And Whether God Feels

 

When considering any question having to do with what we call “God,” it seems beneficial to return again and again to the truth of reality experienced. For perhaps the foremost problem or obstacle in thinking about “God” is the mind’s tendency to objectify, and in this case, to treat “God” as “a separate being.”  Such tendencies of thought when relating to “God” are intensified in the Christian tradition because of the existence and weight of doctrine and dogma, much of which communicates symbolically, and gives the impression of objectifying “God.”

First, however, let me clarify why I am writing “God” in quotation marks in the preceding paragraph. What or who God is in “Himself” human beings scarcely know.  Our language about “God” is always at best tentative, and it must be symbolic.  Giving “God” names, and speaking of “Him” as we do, can and often is misleading.  And yet, saying nothing does not seem fitting, either.  So for the present I will write a few words about that which we call “God,” understanding that these thoughts are crude, the formulations approximate, and that any language about “God” can be, and often is, misleading. 

“Religions” have often given the impression that “God has been revealed.”  Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even ancient “religions” in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece have given the clear impression that human beings know much about “God,” or “the gods,” or “the divine beings,” and so on.  I think that it is healthier and wiser to begin with the obvious truth, and to return to it repeatedly:  All of our speech about “God” or “the gods” is imperfect because our knowledge of God may not even deserve the name knowledge, but is at best a groping towards knowledge, a desire to understand what is ever beyond our full or satisfying understanding. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” is a far healthier or more true statement than “the truth of God was known to them” (Romans 1). Wiser is the Apostle Paul’s formulation in his letter to Christians in Galatia:  “Now that you have come to know God--or rather, to be known by God.”  We can know, apparently, that we are known; but who or what is knowing and forming us remains ever beyond our mind’s grasp.

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Return to the opening formulation: When considering any question having to do with what we call “God,” it seems beneficial to return again and again to the truth of reality experienced.

Whatever we think or say about God is one of several things, or a blending of these: (1) It may be a more or less mindless repetition of what we have heard or read about “God,” most likely from one or another religious tradition, scripture, liturgy, prayer, or doctrinal formulation. (2) Or, one’s own mind can develop some thoughts based on what one has heard or read about “God,” such as the “Triune God” of Christian dogma. (3) Or one’s imagination, moved perhaps by one passion or another, can imagine all sorts of things about “God,” and formulate them as “truth” or “revelation.”  (4) Or one can proceed more cautiously and circumspectly, presenting a more or less faithful exegesis of one’s experiences of the divine.  (5) Or one can recall and present in words another’s experience of the divine.  (6) Or, one’s formulations may be a combination of these or other kinds of discourse on “God.”  

I am seeking to avoid numbers 1-3 above, and to proceed mainly from numbers 4-5, to the best of my ability.  In other words, I seek to base my thoughts and words about “God” on the truth of reality experienced, especially by a prophet, apostle, philosopher, or mystic; or from some momentary lights in my own consciousness.  Although in Christian liturgy we necessarily use scripted language from the Judaeo-Christian tradition (in the scripture readings, in preaching, in songs, in the Eucharistic prayer, and so on), in one’s quieter meditations, or when speaking with those seeking understanding, we need to be more cautious, more analytically cautious.
 
Let us consider one of the greatest “revelations” in history for an example:  The experience by the man called “Moses” (Mosche) in or out of “the burning bush” on Mount Sinai.  What this one particular, concrete human being experienced on that occasion, and then formulated in words, remains probably the most significant and fundamental experience-formulation of the divine presence recorded in documents of human history.  It is recorded in the Book of Exodus (chapters 3-4) that God spoke to the man Moses, having drawn his attention through the appearance of what looked like a fire that burned, but did not consume a bush.  In any case, apparently what we call “God” broke into the consciousness of one particular human being, on one occasion.  In the midst of Moses’ awed and questioning mind, the divine Presence identified Itself not as a named, finite “god” dwelling on a mountain, not as a being of any sort, but simply as “I AM.”  Or from the written document (dated much later, of course, than the original experience), that is what Moses “heard” or experienced of the Divine:  “I AM WHO I AM.”  

Such an experience of the divine remains normative in “history.”  It is not for us to invent “gods,” or merely to have recourse to “the God of our tradition,” or so on, but to ponder and to be conscious of the truth as experienced.  And it is surely not for us to replace the truth of God for our own imaginations, for our own private and passing “self” or ego.  The often silly and shallow Swiss-French philosophe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, preferred his own fanciful musings to the truth of reality experienced.  In his novel, Emile, Rousseau asks the self-referential question, “Did God speak to Moses to speak to Jean-Jacques?” In other words, “What do I, Rousseau, need of any so-called “revelation” of God to Moses--or to anyone else? I have God speaking directly in my heart.”  Indeed, Rousseau says that he does have God speaking directly in his heart as “the voice of conscience,” which “makes man like God.”  Again quoting the Apostle Paul:  “Proclaiming themselves wise, they became fools.”  Or to put the matter more simply: Rousseau, drop your blind arrogance and self-centered existence, and open up to the truth of the God who did speak to Moses, and who speaks to anyone through that singular experience who will think about it, meditate on it, heed it.
 
From what can be known in the course of human history, God indeed spoke to Moses to speak to us.  Or more cautiously:  the divine communicated himself to Moses, who in turn communicated the truth of God to us.  But how did God “speak” to Moses?  What happened?  Assuming that Moses was a human being as we are, let us briefly consider the truth of reality, and how it is that a human being can “hear” God speak, or be moved by God.

What we call “human being” is essentially that part of the whole of reality that is between the Divine and other beings / material reality. Man is between God and the “sub-human.”  (Ways in which animals may or may not experience God is not here the question, but set aside for further thought later.) Man is a part of reality in which the Divine can and does move, break in, communicate, act.  Again, leaving aside the ways in which the Divine acts on other parts of reality, what we can know and experience is God moving us in consciousness.  When we question God, when we ask, “Who are you, LORD?” it is God himself moving us to question. What we experience is a restlessness, a wondering, a desire to know that which simply is, a desire to be rooted and grounded in what truly is and what endures, so that we do not simply pass away as all material being does. Desiring life now and forever, desiring what is really good (and not just an appearance of good), desiring the source of all that exists, desiring to glimpse that which is simply beautiful and present in all things beautiful, our minds are drawn towards God. The divine is that Presence in us moving us towards the Divine. Human is the being drawn to God; or to be human is to share responsively and consciously in God. All things are in God, but human is the mode of being in God mindfully, with awareness, with a desire for a more perfect union.

What is it that can truthfully be called “God,” based on such experiences as those of the great man, Moses?  Who or what is the God of Moses?  Who is it that speaks or is heard by Moses to say, “I AM.”  What is happening in Moses?  What has stirred him up?  Why does God move Moses?  In the context of Exodus, Moses is moved in order to stir him up to lead “my people Israel” from bondage into freedom under God.  Did God move Moses ultimately to lead all human beings, or even all of creation somehow, from bondage to death, to sin, to self, into freedom and fullness of life in He WHO IS?  Is Moses the Representative of the God to humankind, for one and for all?  If Moses, then why other prophets?  Perhaps we do not heed, and need reminders?  Why Christ?  To see what God-in-man fully looks like?  Why does the divine stir and move in each of us?  Can we not just hear words with our ears, obey, and live?  What is gained by encountering the Divine hiddenly in the truth of one’s soul or consciousness? 

Why does God seek man, human being?  Why does man seek God?  Why do I ask these questions?

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Let us consider once again, briefly, the question, “Does God have feelings?”  

What God is in and of Himself, we do not know. What we know of God is the Divine as experienced by particular human beings in history.  Men such as Moses and the Apostle Paul “heard” God speak to them, in them, but does that mean that God has a voice?  To have a voice, would not God have to have a body?  To be a body, would not God be bounded in space-time, limited, and bound to perish?  Does it not make more sense to say, “The divine Presence can be experienced in a human being as words, or as love, or as peace”?
 
When the divine is experienced as present in a human being, one may “hear,” or “see,” or “feel.”  Words can be heard in a receptive human being: “I AM.”  “I AM Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Words are heard, for the Divine communicates to the human soul in a way that a man can understand.  So God “speaks” Hebrew to Moses, Greek to Paul, Aramaic to the Apostles, English to Wesley, and so on. Or the  mind of a man, moved by the divine Presence, can “see” images, or pictures in the mind, in response to flowing Presence.  Or one feels “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,” when one is not “in his flesh,” in himself, but conscious of divine Presence here and now.

In God Or In Human Being

 

06 Oct 2012  (St. Bruno)
Note to a parishioner:  
 

I came across the note I wrote you yesterday morning in response to your question about feelings in God.  Your question surprised me, in that I had probably unconsciously assumed that everyone knew or realized that what we call "God" is neither body nor a human soul, but beyond everything material in any way.  Because feelings are functions of our being embodied, I presumed that it was self-evident that the divine does not have feelings.  Language that speaks of "God's love" or "God's anger," and so on, are symbolic expressions of what human beings experience of the divine, not of God Himself.  

This is the kind of question that should be raised and discussed in adult faith class.  In homilies I have referred to this conception of God quite a few times, but without explicitly linking it to "feeling language" as symbolic, or as expressing what the receiver experiences, not God per se.  In referring time and again to "I AM," to the God of Moses, I thought that it was evident that we are speaking of a presence beyond all bodily existence, not in any way caused, bounded, or influenced by space-time.  

Or to put the matter differently:  Why would a person think that "God" has feelings?  Do hearers take expressions of God's love or anger literally?  God is neither a being nor a person.  Beings, or "sentient beings," have feelings.  Beings exist in space-time.  What we call "God" is not a being.  Indeed, the best philosophers may speak of the divine as "non-existent being," to communicate the truth that God is non-existent, yet is.  

From the human side, when I read that "God's mercy came on me," or "the peace of God," or "God loves us," I have understood those expressions as communicating what a human being experiences of the divine, not what "God" is in and of "Himself."  Again, language of God is necessarily symbolic, and taking it literally distorts the truth of reality, and even the truth of reality as experienced. I was getting at this issue by speaking of biblical language, and the Christian story generally, as "mythical."  But I noticed how you balked at that, which I did not explore in my mind as indicating that you may be taking symbolic language literally.  

It is far better to take symbolic language literally (myth as historical reality, for example), than to dismiss symbolic or mythical language as "non-sensical," as many modern "thinkers" have done, and still do.  One can err in many ways, and usually, some ways are more damaging than others.  To think that "God feels love" may not do harm to one's life, although it may keep one living in mythical language longer than necessary.  

Let me conclude with a concrete example of how a philosopher deals with these issues / problems. Thomas Aquinas is both utterly profound, and very prudent in what he says, lest he confuse people, but also, to avoid getting declared a heretic, or burned at the stake. Whether or not he would directly address these matters as I have done here, I do not know, but he presses much further, much more purely, in his insight into the divine as simply "the act of to be."  That is all. The rest is fleshed out for our sakes. When Thomas writes about God as "self-diffusing Good," it means what those living within mythical understanding would say, "God loves us."  Note that "self-diffusing Good" attributes no feeling to God, but communicates the truth that human beings can see and know goodness from God.  To say, "God loves us," on the other hand, can suggest to a more literal understanding that God "feels love."  What one does with that, I do not know, but it leads to strange conceptions if one thinks about what one is saying.

Admittedly, language used in the scriptures, in poetry, in liturgy, is highly symbolic, and employs many mythical elements to communicate.  Indeed, we speak words out to God in prayer, although God has no ears, and does not need spoken words to discern what we think. We need to speak out generally. Silence is, however, more like God.

Just a few thoughts in a fuller response to your question.

In Christ,
Fr. Paul

"Aura Of Power"

10/04/2012

 

Please look at this 1.5 min clip from last night's debate [noted below]  The GOP added music, which I would not have done.  I will look for more clips. They may reveal more.

Obama is not used to being spoken to in that way.  Presidents do live in a bubble of believers and supporters. LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Baby Bush, Obama display the same reality. As a political scientist, this phenomenon stands out to me.  These men are treated as Emperors, as gods, and how dare anyone question them.  It is not at all a sign of political health in our country, but of a huge gap between rulers and ruled.  We are a democracy in name, an empire in reality.  We the People do not know or face this truth.

These political leaders need more genuine, open discussions with their opponents. Consider how the PM of the UK must speak before Parliament regularly, and how they are booed by opponents. That is much healthier than our American elevation of Presidents as Messiahs. (UK gives the divine aura more to the Monarch, removed from politics.) To my mind, this elevation of the Leader was what last night displayed. The same unmasking occurred to Reagan in 1984 in his first debate. These Presidents are not accustomed to being cross-examined or openly assaulted in public. They need more of it.  Reality breeds humility.

Friends, our elected political leaders are indeed a governing class, and largely removed from real life.  Both parties.  Virtually identical in this regard.

We see the truth of Lord Acton's insight: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Whether Roman or Chinese emperors, or Popes and bishops, or leaders of ideological mass movements, or American Presidents, the same disease of the arrogance of power and protection from the truth of reality shows up. And this reality of self-importance and self-worship is masked by political hoopla, smiles, handlers, media that share in the aroma of power, and so on.  

www.youtube.com/embed/dKMUHcgsbag

After The First "Presidential Debate" of 2012

03 Oct 2012

Folks,
This "Presidential debate" made me uncomfortable, and I need to think about why.  President Obama looked into the camera a number of times, and as I watched, I wished that Romney would do the same.  But Romney often addressed Obama directly, and looked at him, whereas Obama addressed Romney far less often. Also, for being old enough to be Obama's father, I thought that Romney looked younger and fresher, and Obama looked a little shrunken, tired. I am not sure why, but office has its burdens.

I have seen that on a "vote meter," Romney's impassioned speech to sit down with both Democrats and Republicans, discussion, and make decisions received a strongly favorable response. Indeed, this speech had the strongest response in the "focus group" in suburban Denver. Supposedly, suburban Colorado is a remarkably accurate predictor of Presidential elections in the U.S.  

But I wonder why the whole "debate" make me feel a little restless, uncomfortable? In good part, it seemed that each man spoke past the other, that they were not seeking common ground, but to make themselves look good, and the other bad. That is politics, but the lack of openness to reasoning together makes me, at least, feel uncomfortable. A good leader helps each person to feel that s/he is contributing something to the common good. Why could not either of these two men have said to the other, "You have a good point there, and I need to take it further into account." 

When so much power is at stake, truth is not the foremost goal.  Each side seeks victory in the polls, not to see "truth emerge in the marketplace of ideas."  I understand that, and expect it in our "democratic political system," but I much prefer genuine intellectual engagement to political posturing.  For my part, I pity men and women who get caught up in politics.  They are not evil, not fools, but they must compromise so much of nobility of character.  Political leaders often sacrifice goodness to the quest for power.

One thing for sure: Romney did a much better job last evening than Senator McCain did in 2008. Obama was, I think, weaker than he was in 2008, because he seemed less present, less engaged.  No doubt the office of President weighs very heavily on a person. Consider how Obama has visibly aged; the same happened to the younger Bush, and to Bill Clinton, during their tenures in office.

As I watched this "debate," I spontaneously thought that three times, Romney "hit the ball out of park," and that Obama did the same once.  But then, my preference for Romney may bias me to judge fairly of their qualities as debaters. It would be interesting to hear a truly objective analyst of the political scene to see what he or she would say.

The one line by Obama that most fascinated me was "I believe in America's [pause] future."  I was expecting, "people." How can one believe in what does not exist? The future is indeed empty of content. We must choose and act to make our present become future. Why did he not say, I believe that the American people can realize a good future," or some such formulation?  I wonder if Obama also could say, "I believe in America's past, and its present."  Or, "I believe in America."  The use of "future" deserves careful reflection because, as I said, the future has no substantial reality, it is merely possible. So how can it be the object of "believe?"  Maybe he meant, "I believe that America has a good future."  That could be. But frankly, our "future" is fully open, fully dependent on our choices and actions. Nothing in "the future" is guaranteed, fixed. Nothing is "pre-determined," except that "everything that comes into being must perish," including our country.  And this is a truth that Americans do not like to face, as I have discovered repeatedly while teaching courses in politics to American college students. 

These thoughts will be continued after I have more time to think.

"Holding God in Consciousness"

 

No mind other than God’s can “hold God,” so what this phrase really means is “Keeping conscious of God,” or “keeping one’s mind on and in God.” I have borrowed the phrase from St. Paul’s Letter to the Christians in Rome, ch 1:28, which reads: “Since they did not hold God in consciousness, God gave them up to a base mind....” I am translating literally from the Greek.Using the mind in the movement to God was well developed in the Greek-speaking world long before the epiphany of Christ. Below I will quote from two Greek philosophers who lived roughly around 500 B.C., about a century before the death of Socrates, 500 years before Christ. These verses may give you some idea of the mental culture which the gospel of Christ encountered in the ancient world:

From Xenophanes (c. 530 B.C.)

“There is one God, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in body or in mind. He sees as a whole, thinks as whole, and hears as a whole. Without toil he sets everything in motion, by the thought of his mind.”

From Heracleitus of Ephesus (c. 500 B.C.)

“One must follow the Logos [reason], which is common to all. But although the Logos is universal, the many lives as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves.
“The sun is new every day.” “Asses prefer straw to gold.”
“How could anyone hide from that which never sets?”
“That which alone is wise is One; it is willing and unwilling to be called Zeus".
“You could not in your journey find the ends of the soul, though you travelled the whole way; so deep is its Logos.”
“I explored my soul.”
“Human nature has no power of understanding; but the divine nature has it"
“Without faith the divine escapes being known.”
“It is hard to fight against impulse; whatever it wants, it buys at the expense of soul.”
“To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common to all, whereas in sleep each man turns away from this world into one of his own". “The Lord whose oracle is that at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign.”
"The thinking faculty is common to all.”
“All human beings have the capacity to know themselves and to act in moderation.”

Finally, one from Socrates, killed by the Athenians in 399 B.C.

“The unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.”

Government Or No Government

 Sept. 6

Two extremes of thoughts are tangling in my mind this morning, neither of which I find admirable, both disturbing:  One is a kind of motto developed by the DNC, and used in their video:  "Government is the one thing we all belong to."  The other comes from a "liberal-libertarian" whose article I read this morning, arguing for the needlessness of having any government at all.  Two extremes, both have wide appeal, apparently. 

The second view, which is really anarchistic, probably comes to us from Ayn Rand, and as far as I can tell, leaves the weak and poor utterly at the mercy of the wealthy and powerful.  Private "insurance companies" would take the place of any "coercive government."  The view is propounded by a professor in Nevada, and it typifies what I think of intellectual pursuits in American universities (other than physical sciences):  in large part, brain-washing by ideologues, left or right, who seem divorced from reality.  I pity our students and young people.  Best advice I would have for someone going to college now: study a physical science or engineering, and keep as free as possible from all ideologically-inclined courses taught under the guise of "history," "liberal arts," "political science," "philosophy," and so on.  And that is most unfortunate, as the life of the mind suffers.  But the main casualty of our ideologically-drunk culture is the life of the mind, real thinking.

As for the slogan from the DNC, that "Government is the one thing we all belong to," it is nearly an inversion of our Founding principles:  "We the People" form a government, and are in principle superior to it.  Civil society precedes and overarches any and all governments.  On a popular level, the common in "the people" or "the country" was captured in JFK's  well-known phrase, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."  (He did not say, "Government," nor did he tell folks to ask what Government can do for them.)  Here, we are all members of "the country," which has a government as a part of it, not as the whole; and government needs to defend the whole country, protect the weaker members from the strong, serve justice.  Or again, remember the classical understanding that nourished western thought for centuries, and is so unlike this Governmentalism heard at the DNC:  We all belong to the Whole, the universe; and participate in it with our bodies, souls, reason.  Not "government," but reason (logos) is the common (koinos) which all share--a view articulated 2500 years ago by Herakleitos of Ephesus. 

The claim that "Government is the one thing we all belong to" would be an ideological child of European "Democratic Socialism" from the late 19th century to the present.  It is based on the creed of Marx, but has dropped the call for violent revolution, and freezes the Marxist-Leninist stage of the "dictatorship of the Party" through government, not going on to Marx's goal of a "classless society" without any need for government.  In effect, this Democratic worldview is a more or less "benign" totalitarianism, in which the individual human being, and all non-governmental groups within society, are subservient to the "Government."  (And the "Government" is preferably controlled and dominated by one "Party," of course.)  This phenomenon was already analyzed by Nietzsche in the 1880's, who wrote about "the Idol State," and explained how degenerate Christianity, Socialism, and Democracy form the creed that creates a "herd mentality," making all subservient to the State.  Fascism, Soviet Communism, and National Socialism are all based on the same essential desire:  the individual and social units are subservient to the almighty, controlling, compelling, monopolistic Government.

So the liberal-libertarians want to dismantle the State, and at least the chosen spokesman for the Democrat Party (USA) seeks to elevate the Government / State as the one and only common reality to which we all belong.  I do not find such views "scary" (it is common now to find things "scary," as children do), but I find them disturbing, because these extremist views, detached from reality, have gained such a powerful grip in the consciousness of so many of our people.  "Age of ideology" indeed.  Common sense, with its grounding in reality, is increasingly eclipsed by ideological non-thinking. 

I must wonder, as I often have, if our country has not in reality become totalitarian, a way of life (or of death) developed mainly by men / women seeking power, and embodying their will to power in all-powerful institutions (mainly, Government).  What are political parties but means to get and to keep political power?  That is the foremost lesson of the recent party conventions.

Adult Faith Class on Romans

Why do I teach adult faith classes, and why do I think that they are significant for our parishes?

According to Catholic law and theology, a parish priest has three duties, listed in order of importance: teaching and preaching; celebrating the Sacraments; administration of parish properties. Preaching in the sense of proclaiming Christ is expected at every Eucharistic celebration. Teaching is the priest’s duty in his “care for souls,” in the effort to help ground human beings in the truth of Christ. Generally teaching our little ones is entrusted to worthy lay people in the parishes, who have a good grounding in their faith and desire to share that with our children. Adult education generally takes the form of initial instruction for non-Catholics who wish to enter our church (RCIA), and ongoing faith development, or mystagogy, for Catholicsseeking a deeper understanding of our common faith.

Regarding the significance of adult faith education, let me quote an exchange with a senior monsignor with whom I worked in Maryland. Parishes asked that I offer faith classes, but he refused to allow me, saying that “They are not needed. You learn your faith as a child.” As I said to the monsignor, “The faith you learn as a child is a child’s faith; it must grow.” It is that simple: Faith in God needs to grow into understanding, insight, wisdom, and ultimately, a more genuine love of God and of neighbor in God.

Our new class begins on 09 and 11 September at the times listed. After some thought, I have chosen to have us study together the New Testament letter often briefly called “Romans.” This letter is the longest and most developed presentation of the Apostle Paul’s understanding of our life in Christ. It justly can be called “the Gospel according to St. Paul.” Rather than present stories from the life of Jesus to flesh out the meaning of his death and Resurrection, the Apostle Paul explains the meaning of Christ for human life.

To enhance our understanding, I shall draw at times on Old Testament passages or from other letters of St. Paul, or from writings by Church fathers and theologians. But above all, we shall seek to read the text of “Romans” closely, and try to enter into its meaning and underlying spiritual experiences. Needless to say, we must proceed using not only reason, but the Spirit to help us understand this profound letter by the Apostle.

Please know that all adults and maturing younger people are invited to attend these sessions of our adult faith class.