if at any point we attach a terrestrial or anthropomorphic quality to our concept of ultimate reality -- "god said," "god wants," "god loves," "god knows" -- we are perpetrating a fallacy. if any aspect of the inconceivable (and surely ultimate reality must be inconceivable; to think otherwise is giving ourselves too much credit and nature too little) is reduced or translated to the conceivable, it ceases altogether to be inconceivable, and what we are describing cannot possibly be god, ultimate reality, or anything worth time exalting. if god or ultimate reality is beyond our comprehension (and it is), then it must be from every angle and in every aspect something we cannot sufficiently fathom or describe. if we say "god said," what we are talking about certainly cannot be god. neither the name we give a thing nor the metaphor we use to understand it must be mistaken for the thing itself. to allow our conception of the ineffable fact to precede the undiluted reality of the ineffable fact is foolish at best and fatally reckless at worst.
Ah, theology!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds a lot like Wittgenstein on religious talk at the end of the Tractatus, actually.
But, let's, for a moment, assume that a God exists. If he/she/it wanted he/she/it to be known by humans, they would do it in a way that would be possible for humans to explain anthropomorphically. That seems logical enough.
Or, I might take a page out of Wiesel and say "That's the way we're made, I guess, to be blinded by presence and haunted by absence."
Science says...
ReplyDelete...alot, but certainly not anything about metaphysics.
ReplyDelete