Good and God

[otherbrother]

For example, if you're a Christian apophatic, then you do not seek 'spiritual experience'.

The most profound accounts of Christian mystical speculation are not experiential at all.

And a general rule is, if that's what you seek, then you're looking the wrong way ...

At worst it's a form of idolatry, and very possibly 'a wilderness of mirrors'.

+++

I'm not trying to shut you down – rather that the secular world has appropriated 'spirituality' and 'mysticism' and doesn't really understand either in any profound detail – rather it's been rendered a 'product' to be commercialised and marketed.

I'm happy to discuss it, but we have to sort out the terms first.

Got this from internet: that highly reliable source of information!!!:

What is apophatic spirituality?


The apophatic or negative way stresses God's absolute transcendence and unknowability in such a way that we cannot say anything about the divine essence because God is so totally beyond being.

Now the pragmatist in me is left assuming there must be a few footprints that God leaves behind that we can follow. And I’m assuming those footprints are not only in the Bible. I felt something like being in God’s footprint (and even “presence”) when I was holding my granddaughter’s hand to comfort and support her during a medical procedure done on her. An atheist could have the same experience, but might attribute it simply to “feeling really alive,” which I would agree with also.
In a way, the atheist is honoring God by not even attempting to pretend to know something about God. Denying God’s existence is a way (probably not the best way though) of not contaminating a possible connection to Ultimate Reality by putting it into a little box of some sort.
All ways of suggesting that exploring an Atheist’s “spirituality” (or connectivity or unity or wholeness sense) is a worthwhile experiment and project.

 

[otherbrother]

Got this from internet: that highly reliable source of information!!!:

What is apophatic spirituality?


The apophatic or negative way stresses God's absolute transcendence and unknowability in such a way that we cannot say anything about the divine essence because God is so totally beyond being.

Now the pragmatist in me is left assuming there must be a few footprints that God leaves behind that we can follow. And I’m assuming those footprints are not only in the Bible. I felt something like being in God’s footprint (and even “presence”) when I was holding my granddaughter’s hand to comfort and support her during a medical procedure done on her. An atheist could have the same experience, but might attribute it simply to “feeling really alive,” which I would agree with also.
In a way, the atheist is honoring God by not even attempting to pretend to know something about God. Denying God’s existence is a way (probably not the best way though) of not contaminating a possible connection to Ultimate Reality by putting it into a little box of some sort.
All ways of suggesting that exploring an Atheist’s “spirituality” (or connectivity or unity or wholeness sense) is a worthwhile experiment and project.

My recent intentional autogenic practice of holding my heart in my hands has helped me channel some faith during everyday situations that prayer to a divine Other didn’t accomplish as well. Perhaps it simply IS a form of prayer that works better for someone who processes things more kinesthetically and haptically (not sure of proper forms of kinesthetic and haptic) than auditorially (or at least verbal forms of hearing).
This seems like attempting to be spiritual, as opposed to simply having clear thoughts about God’s possible nature or characteristics (such as not being bound to/by time or space).
Perhaps clear thoughts/thinking relies largely on a visual mode of processing (as in “I SEE”) when thinking that deeply/earnestly . Philosopher Wittingstein (sp?), father of symbolic logic, believed we think in pictures, He probably DID think in/with pictures, which liberated him from socially transmitted word thought. He could see out of the established boxes.

 

[Thomas]

Now the pragmatist in me is left assuming there must be a few footprints that God leaves behind that we can follow.

Yes, philosophy can feel its way forward, as it were.
And Revelation discloses something of the Divine Nature, although it cannot reveal all of it, or rather that to whom it is revealed cannot comprehend all of God, because God transcends 'objects' of comprehension.

Apophatism and cataphatism go hand-in-hand in religious thought. Apophatic statements are a corrective of an idolatry that can creep into the cataphatic dialogue – For example I used to speak of 'the Absolute' until I saw that the Absolute was becoming something of an idol in that its a fixation.

In a way, the atheist is honoring God by not even attempting to pretend to know something about God.

I think that's more accurately the agnostic? Does not the atheist simply deny the existence of a deity in any shape or form, and stop the dialogue dead in its tracks?

We can know something about God – just not everything. And there's a world of difference between knowing something about God, and knowing God – in the same way any man can know something about being a father, but then when he becomes a father, it shifts to a new level.

Denying God’s existence is a way (probably not the best way though) of not contaminating a possible connection to Ultimate Reality by putting it into a little box of some sort.

Apophatism asserts the existence of God, but accepts that whatever we predicate of God, falls short of the mark.

From a religious point of view, to advance in terms of spirituality must necessarily accept the idea of the transcendent, be it God or Ultimate Reality – spirituality is then a dialogue.

All ways of suggesting that exploring an Atheist’s “spirituality” (or connectivity or unity or wholeness sense) is a worthwhile experiment and project.

Again, you'd have to define what is included in 'spirituality' and what is excluded.

In the Abrahamic sense, any atheist spirituality will reach its limit and a point which the Abrahamic would regards as clearing the ground to begin? I don't know, I don't know how the atheist defines 'spirituality'?

 

[otherbrother]

We have to be careful (as theists) of projecting anthropological traits onto the divine. I am an apophatic believer, yet believe God and the idea that God determines origins and ends, and the Divine Will tends in that direction, and the Good is in relation to that.


Rather, I think God in line with Christian philosophers, as Pure Act.

The idea of God as Pure Potential brings in a whole class of problem: If there is potential, then there is possibility of Change, so then we have time ... so again we err by predicating temporal things of the Eternal.


I would suggest the Golden Rule – it's universal, it's ancient, no-one disagrees...

Thomas,
Regarding this that you said :

“The idea of God as Pure Potential brings in a whole class of problem: If there is potential, then there is possibility of Change, so then we have time ... so again we err by predicating temporal things of the Eternal.”

It doesn’t seem an error of anthropomorphism if Chopra’s name of God (Pure Potential) is understood as meaning from our human perspective as we look towards the great Unknown, (the apophatic God), as opposed to a statement about God’s nature. It’s just a good name from OUR perspective, NOT from HIS. It’s a nickname, not God’s proper name.
WE do live in time and space, so the nickname should reflect that reality. What’s on the other side of that reality we can’t really say anything about.
Suppose the way overall reality is is like a tangled fishing line, seemingly impossible to untangle (solve the riddle, complete the puzzle).
If we begin with the end of the filament that’s nearest us (the only untangled part) AND WORK OUR WAY TOWARDS THE TANGLED MASS/MESS, then we can at least have a reasonable sense that it can be eventually untangled.
The quantum theorists’ term “quantum entanglement” simply means it appears a tangled up mess when using our reasoning based on classic objects that stand or sit neatly each in their own place. If our logic were more like energy fields, water, fire, dynamic dances, the quantum level interaction would appear coherent and even harmonious.
So we can start with God’s touch in our lives. That’s the untangled end of the fishing line.
From there, we may make some reasonable inferences about God’s nature, but all the while realizing that the line beyond us is but a tangled mess . This end of the fishing line thing is why subjective truth needs to be given a lot of weight, and why we ARE all potential prophets/messengers.

 

[otherbrother]

Thomas,
Regarding this that you said :

“The idea of God as Pure Potential brings in a whole class of problem: If there is potential, then there is possibility of Change, so then we have time ... so again we err by predicating temporal things of the Eternal.”

It doesn’t seem an error of anthropomorphism if Chopra’s name of God (Pure Potential) is understood as meaning from our human perspective as we look towards the great Unknown, (the apophatic God), as opposed to a statement about God’s nature. It’s just a good name from OUR perspective, NOT from HIS. It’s a nickname, not God’s proper name.
WE do live in time and space, so the nickname should reflect that reality. What’s on the other side of that reality we can’t really say anything about.
Suppose the way overall reality is is like a tangled fishing line, seemingly impossible to untangle (solve the riddle, complete the puzzle).
If we begin with the end of the filament that’s nearest us (the only untangled part) AND WORK OUR WAY TOWARDS THE TANGLED MASS/MESS, then we can at least have a reasonable sense that it can be eventually untangled.
The quantum theorists’ term “quantum entanglement” simply means it appears a tangled up mess when using our reasoning based on classic objects that stand or sit neatly each in their own place. If our logic were more like energy fields, water, fire, dynamic dances, the quantum level interaction would appear coherent and even harmonious.
So we can start with God’s touch in our lives. That’s the untangled end of the fishing line.
From there, we may make some reasonable inferences about God’s nature, but all the while realizing that the line beyond us is but a tangled mess . This end of the fishing line thing is why subjective truth needs to be given a lot of weight, and why we ARE all potential prophets/messengers.

Did I stumble upon a possible bridge between apophatic (unknowable God nature) and other forms of “belief” in god?
Seems I’m in agreement with both you AND Tony (his discussion of Baha’i beliefs). It seems initially contradictory on my part, but after some further reflection, FEELS like a potentially instructive PARADOX instead. Or Koan: “sound of one hand clapping.”
Makes perfect sense to me!!!!!!!

 

[otherbrother]

Thomas,
Regarding this that you said :

“The idea of God as Pure Potential brings in a whole class of problem: If there is potential, then there is possibility of Change, so then we have time ... so again we err by predicating temporal things of the Eternal.”

It doesn’t seem an error of anthropomorphism if Chopra’s name of God (Pure Potential) is understood as meaning from our human perspective as we look towards the great Unknown, (the apophatic God), as opposed to a statement about God’s nature. It’s just a good name from OUR perspective, NOT from HIS. It’s a nickname, not God’s proper name.
WE do live in time and space, so the nickname should reflect that reality. What’s on the other side of that reality we can’t really say anything about.
Suppose the way overall reality is is like a tangled fishing line, seemingly impossible to untangle (solve the riddle, complete the puzzle).
If we begin with the end of the filament that’s nearest us (the only untangled part) AND WORK OUR WAY TOWARDS THE TANGLED MASS/MESS, then we can at least have a reasonable sense that it can be eventually untangled.
The quantum theorists’ term “quantum entanglement” simply means it appears a tangled up mess when using our reasoning based on classic objects that stand or sit neatly each in their own place. If our logic were more like energy fields, water, fire, dynamic dances, the quantum level interaction would appear coherent and even harmonious.
So we can start with God’s touch in our lives. That’s the untangled end of the fishing line.
From there, we may make some reasonable inferences about God’s nature, but all the while realizing that the line beyond us is but a tangled mess . This end of the fishing line thing is why subjective truth needs to be given a lot of weight, and why we ARE all potential prophets/messengers.

Thomas,
After reading some of your comments more thoroughly, what I am saying here is not at all inconsistent with your apophatic view. Yo DO say we can discern some aspects of God’s nature. Just not the whole picture.
I can live with that. Meaning both I can accept it reason-wise. AND I can use that qualifier to help live a better life. To tap into God’s goodness.
But also frees up the potential usefulness of “Good” as a common ground with non-theists, since the mutual experiences of “good” IS like the exposed end of the tangled fishing line.

 

[Thomas]

(Pure Potential) ... doesn’t seem an error of anthropomorphism if Chopra’s name of God (Pure Potential) is understood as meaning from our human perspective as we look towards the great Unknown, (the apophatic God), as opposed to a statement about God’s nature. It’s just a good name from OUR perspective, NOT from HIS. It’s a nickname, not God’s proper name.

Then is not that an anthropomorphism, and applied to God, an erroneous one.

Created natures have both actuality and potentiality, and we can speak of realising human potential.

God however, transcends all temporal dimension and determination, so to speak of God as 'Pure Potential' is a categorical error – God is all that God is, no more and no less, and there is no potential in God to be anything other than as God is.

A further argument states that:
"the state of potentiality precedes that of actuality; before being realised, a perfection must be capable of realisation. But, absolutely speaking, actuality precedes potentiality. For in order to change, a thing must be acted upon, or actualised; change and potentiality presuppose, therefore, a being which is in actu. This actuality, if mixed with potentiality, presupposes another actuality, and so on, until we reach the actus purus.
(Catholic Encyclopedia)

WE do live in time and space, so the nickname should reflect that reality. What’s on the other side of that reality we can’t really say anything about.

But God transcends time and space utterly and absolutely – so to apply conditional nicknames to God is an error and the door to idolatry – it casts God as the exemplar of what we think is best.

We can speak about the othert side of reality – Philosophy in its traditional sense does, Metaphysics certainly does. Science does, to a degree. With certainty, only as a matter of faith, but even so, we can speculate.

This end of the fishing line thing is why subjective truth needs to be given a lot of weight, and why we ARE all potential prophets/messengers.

But that's not what Tony and I are talking about.

I would conditionally agree with you – we are all capable of union with the Divine – theosis, or divinisation – the transformative effect of Divine Grace. Tony, I think, might disagree, however.

 

[Thomas]

Did I stumble upon a possible bridge between apophatic (unknowable God nature) and other forms of “belief” in god?

At that level, beliefs are either apophatic (negative) or cataphatic (positive affirmations) – both are held in tension in most religions?

 

[otherbrother]

God however, transcends all temporal dimension and determination, so to speak of God as 'Pure Potential' is a categorical error – God is all that God is, no more and no less, and there is no potential in God to be anything other than as God is.

But God being God, WE get potential from it/Him/Her. God acts like potential to us because we get unseen resources (either by shoring up our own potential, or extra potential from another Source.
Again, I tend to think about how “God” functions in our lives, which probably makes some anthropomorphism necessary and good. Did you see my metaphor of the tangled fishing line? I agree with you that God as God is too hard (tangled) for us to understand. But we can grasp the end of the fishing line, and begin to unravel SOME of God’s nature in relation to us. For example, we feel supported love while turning to God. So, for us it can’t be all wrong to say that God is )or at least has a whole lot to do with) love.

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

But God being God, WE get potential from it/Him/Her. God acts like potential to us because we get unseen resources (either by shoring up our own potential, or extra potential from another Source.
Again, I tend to think about how “God” functions in our lives, which probably makes some anthropomorphism necessary and good. Did you see my metaphor of the tangled fishing line? I agree with you that God as God is too hard (tangled) for us to understand. But we can grasp the end of the fishing line, and begin to unravel SOME of God’s nature in relation to us. For example, we feel supported love while turning to God. So, for us it can’t be all wrong to say that God is )or at least has a whole lot to do with) love.

My understanding of this is that we are made in the Image of the Messengers. All we can know of God is of that Image. The Messengers are the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, the force of creation, or the Love force which contains all the Words and attributes Given of God.

None of these Words or attributes define God, as God is outside of all that is created, beyond any understanding we can have.

I see every attribute is a path to that image God has given us, it is unconditional Love.

Thus is why we must embrace the Messengers to be born again in that image. The Messengers, such as Jesus, are the "Self of God" appointed in every age, as God so chooses.

It is a massive topic, many tangents of thought available and many understandings in each of the tangents.

Regards Tony

 

[otherbrother]

My understanding of this is that we are made in the Image of the Messengers. All we can know of God is of that Image. The Messengers are the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, the force of creation, or the Love force which contains all the Words and attributes Given of God.

None of these Words or attributes define God, as God is outside of all that is created, beyond any understanding we can have.

I see every attribute is a path to that image God has given us, it is unconditional Love.

Thus is why we must embrace the Messengers to be born again in that image. The Messengers, such as Jesus, are the "Self of God" appointed in every age, as God so chooses.

It is a massive topic, many tangents of thought available and many understandings in each of the tangents.

Regards Tony

As long as we are awakened by, gain insight via participation with, messengers, I have no problem with that.

 

[Thomas]

Now the pragmatist in me is left assuming there must be a few footprints that God leaves behind that we can follow.

Well, using the modern concept of the Divine, then no, there is no reason why there 'must' be, as God is so radically different from the created world that the two are incomparable.

But there are reasoned arguments for believing in God, although they are neither proofs (nor could they be) – how can the world prove anything that so transcends it?

There are ways open to reason – Aquinas' "Five Ways" for example, the 'The Book of Nature" is another, and, of course, the schools of Greek philosophy another – but these Gods are not the 'God of Scripture'.

I felt something like being in God’s footprint (and even “presence”) when I was holding my granddaughter’s hand to comfort and support her during a medical procedure done on her. An atheist could have the same experience, but might attribute it simply to “feeling really alive,” which I would agree with also.

There you go, it's a subjective interpretation. Many have lost their beleif when in the same situation, the outcome was not as they hoped ...

In a way, the atheist is honoring God by not even attempting to pretend to know something about God. Denying God’s existence is a way (probably not the best way though) of not contaminating a possible connection to Ultimate Reality by putting it into a little box of some sort.

But is not denying it is just putting it in a closed box?

All ways of suggesting that exploring an Atheist’s “spirituality” (or connectivity or unity or wholeness sense) is a worthwhile experiment and project.

I'm not sure an atheist would agree with you. It's a bit like a Catholic saying 'you don't believe in God, but you do, really, you just don't know it.'

 

[Thomas]

It doesn’t seem an error of anthropomorphism if Chopra’s name of God (Pure Potential) is understood as meaning from our human perspective as we look towards the great Unknown, (the apophatic God), as opposed to a statement about God’s nature. It’s just a good name from OUR perspective, NOT from HIS. It’s a nickname, not God’s proper name.

Does that not mean it's an anthropomorphism, though?

I'm not rejecting cataphatic statements: "God is Good" is axiomatic, even for the apophatist. "Gos is Love" is another. But "God is Pure Potential" seems a contradiction, because it says there is something that God is (actually) and yet there is that which God is not (a potentiality)?

I can see that within the Divine exists every human potential, indeed in the Divine exists all potential being ... but then it's axiomatic that the Divine transcends all being, all possibility ... if there is 'potential' in God, I can't see nor imagine what it could be, any more than I can imagine a God-more-than-God?

Suppose the way overall reality is is like a tangled fishing line, seemingly impossible to untangle (solve the riddle, complete the puzzle).

I'd rather say the Overall Reality is 'Simple' and not tangled at all – I rather think it's we who get into knots of our own making, the 'thicket of views' the Buddha warned against ... it's we who tangle ourselves up.

The quantum theorists’ term “quantum entanglement” simply means it appears a tangled up mess when using our reasoning based on classic objects that stand or sit neatly each in their own place. If our logic were more like energy fields, water, fire, dynamic dances, the quantum level interaction would appear coherent and even harmonious.

OK, but that's talking about the world in a way we can offer an analogy of understanding God – I'd I'd agree and say God is not a noun, but a verb, not a thing, but a dynamic ... but then God transcends even that ...

... and why we ARE all potential prophets/messengers.

Quite.

 

[otherbrother]

I can see that within the Divine exists every human potential, indeed in the Divine exists all potential being ... but then it's axiomatic that the Divine transcends all being, all possibility ... if there is 'potential' in God, I can't see nor imagine what it could be, any more than I can imagine a God-more-than-God?

Even on the (as far as we can tell) human level, a new idea or artistic creation comes from nowhere, from nothing. Even though we may trace back and see how out of nowhere we may have woven together various fragments, earlier ideas. Out of nothing comes something. Peekaboo!
I think it suggests that the nowhere or nothing is from a different DIMENSION that we can’t see or adequately translate.

 

[otherbrother]

I'd rather say the Overall Reality is 'Simple' and not tangled at all – I rather think it's we who get into knots of our own making, the 'thicket of views' the Buddha warned against ... it's we who tangle ourselves up.

Yes, That’s why I think the Quantum theorists chose the word entanglement. Entangled when we try to understand it with our traditional linear logic. If we can learn to think more dynamically (Tree of Life phase?) the deeper dimension of reality may not seem so entangled, only highly interactive.

 

[Thomas]

Even on the (as far as we can tell) human level, a new idea or artistic creation comes from nowhere, from nothing. Even though we may trace back and see how out of nowhere we may have woven together various fragments, earlier ideas. Out of nothing comes something. Peekaboo!
I think it suggests that the nowhere or nothing is from a different DIMENSION that we can’t see or adequately translate.

The unconscious?

In my MacGilchrist readings, I think the message was the relation to the left brain's tendency to a philosophia (that has resulted in an ongoing bifurification of the contemplation of nature into ever more specialised and granular sciences that exist in only a vague relation to each other, and are essentially reductive in nature) the right brain's tendency to an holistic and inclusive mythopoeism (which has its own flaws and errors).

In short, for the Left Brain, the Right Brain is 'another dimension'? (Which modernity writes off as ignorance and superstition).

Suppose then that Christ, a religion of the Word, the Logos (which is a philosophia) nevertheless offers a mythopoeic vision – a un , delivered into the hands of an increasing philosophianism (or scientism – pseudoscience being an example of the destined failure of the Left to act like its own Right)

The appearance of Christianity then happened fortuitously – or providentially – with philosophy and the two should have worked in union (which is what the early Fathers tried to do) to establish a society founded on the essential dignity of the human person as an autonomous created nature according to the Biblical narrative.

Just some ramblings ...

 

[otherbrother]

Yes, That’s why I think the Quantum theorists chose the word entanglement. Entangled when we try to understand it with our traditional linear logic. If we can learn to think more dynamically (Tree of Life phase?) the deeper dimension of reality may not seem so entangled, only highly interactive.

One way to detangle is to engage in mindful thinking. Rooting one’s consciousness in a whole-mind state behind the part-mind activity known as thoughts. Not that it would necessarily correlate directly with whole mind and part mind, but slower synchronized brain wave activity can be maintained during beta wave activity. The alpha, delta, and theta wave activity may be able to be integrated with beta. Integration of sleep states and wake states would deepen and expand consciousness, so as to better let “God” signals inform rational thought.
The theory is that the deeper brain states are like radio receivers for signals/information and perhaps packets of energy from deeper dimensions of overall reality.
Unfortunately, we live in a world that is largely devoid of meditation, contemplation, mind skills. There would have to be a cultural movement akin to Christ’s (and Paul’s?) Way, or, for that matter the Taoist’s Way, before such skills could be developed, and spirituality grown.

 

[otherbrother]

The unconscious?

In my MacGilchrist readings, I think the message was the relation to the left brain's tendency to a philosophia (that has resulted in an ongoing bifurification of the contemplation of nature into ever more specialised and granular sciences that exist in only a vague relation to each other, and are essentially reductive in nature) the right brain's tendency to an holistic and inclusive mythopoeism (which has its own flaws and errors).

In short, for the Left Brain, the Right Brain is 'another dimension'? (Which modernity writes off as ignorance and superstition).

Suppose then that Christ, a religion of the Word, the Logos (which is a philosophia) nevertheless offers a mythopoeic vision – a un , delivered into the hands of an increasing philosophianism (or scientism – pseudoscience being an example of the destined failure of the Left to act like its own Right)

The appearance of Christianity then happened fortuitously – or providentially – with philosophy and the two should have worked in union (which is what the early Fathers tried to do) to establish a society founded on the essential dignity of the human person as an autonomous created nature according to the Biblical narrative.

Just some ramblings ...

I think your ramblings and mine both suggest the possibility, and need for, brain integration that could improve worthwhile outputs, such as seeing our interconnectedness, love-power, etc.

 

[otherbrother]

I think your ramblings and mine both suggest the possibility, and need for, brain integration that could improve worthwhile outputs, such as seeing our interconnectedness, love-power, etc.

The generalized nature of the right brain might be an interface to the deeper brain wave states. But the left brain can help us translate those vague messages (intuitive insights) into terms we can use in the surface reality that our existence has left us in.

 

[Thomas]

One way to detangle is to engage in mindful thinking.

Oh, indeed!

Rooting one’s consciousness in a whole-mind state behind the part-mind activity known as thoughts. Not that it would necessarily correlate directly with whole mind and part mind, but slower synchronized brain wave activity can be maintained during beta wave activity. The alpha, delta, and theta wave activity may be able to be integrated with beta. Integration of sleep states and wake states would deepen and expand consciousness, so as to better let “God” signals inform rational thought.

Well there's two things here ... and there's no evidence of direct causation.

Mindfulness and meditation is a process, and the brainwave results can be replicated, I'm told, by reading poetry, by listening to music, by simply observing nature ... they're all ways of engaging with the world.

A Zen master once observed that if you wanted to see true and authentic no-mind, then don't look at Zen masters, look at, say, a basket-weaver at work, how his hands move, how they make with almost complete detachment from what it is they're doing ...

But '"God" signals' are not part of the world, they're extraneous to it, although immanently there – in Him we live and move and have our being – but we cannot 'tap into' God like some deep-space signal source or some background quantum happening ... not God as I understand it, anyway ... there's no 'technique' which, if you get it right, obliges God to respond.