The recent essay 'Jews Need To Get Personal With God' (WSJ, Sept. 11, p. A13) - by law professor Roberta Rosenthal Kwall - badly exaggerates the value of personal deity belief. Indeed, the underlying trope is that such belief is an "impoverished form of spiritual sustenance." But to use the term 'impoverished' assumes the belief in a personal deity more real, and more authentic than simple acknowledgement of a higher power- which is false.
This despite Prof. Kwall citing a number of statistics including:
- "77% of American Orthodox Jews maintain a widespread belief in a personalized conception of God."
That is, they "fully believe" that God is involved completely in their everyday lives.
- "A further 12 percent continue to believe the same"
But among "religiously liberal Jews:
- The majority "believe in a higher power but don't typically believe a more personalized conception of God"
Across the liberal Jewish religious spectrum the same Pew study found only "12 to 37 percent showed belief in a personalized God" so the rest were deemed by Ms. Kwall to be "impoverished of spiritual sustenance"
But on what basis? What REAL basis? There is none because all God concepts are relative one to the other. For example, the typical Western -oriented Christian regards his or her deity as a personal God, while the typical Hindu regards his or her deity (Brahmin) as impersonal. Even if all other things are equal, how can there be such a vast gap in human perceptions? The fact of such a perceptual chasm must mean either: a) God does not exist - at least as specified by either group, or b) God exists, but no human mind is capable of grasping even the most elemental conception accurately. Philosopher Joseph Campbell observes[1] :
"’God’ is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer
to something that is known. But the transcendent is unknowable and unknown. God
is transcendent, finally, of anything like the name of "God". God is
beyond names and forms.”
James Byrne[2]
is equally adamant:
"The idea of God as Being is the creation of the philosophical gaze, a
result of the drive to objectification which is the hallmark of the history of
metaphysics. It is the ‘God’ which is argued about in theism and atheism, and
which can only be a projection of humans"
This is the first hint that "God" does not really exist other than as
an artificial construct in the human mind. So when humans invoke the word "God" - whether in a personal or impersonal sense - they are really objectifying something they don't have a clue about. (This is
buttressed by the fact that so few are able to provide the necessary and
sufficient conditions for it to exist.)
Byrne then goes on to cite the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion (from
his work, ‘God Without Being’, 1991) who challenges people to think of
-G-O-D- or God in a non-conceptual way. That is, only with a strike through
when the word is written, to indicate no one has the capacity to describe,
grasp, conceptualize or manipulate the underlying entity. In effect, as Byrne
observes, “to think -G-O-D- is unthinkable is to reject the entire basis of
onto-theology.”
If then the entity is de-conceptualized it can’t be debated, nor can any devotee, theologian (or law prof) laud one approach, i.e. belief in a personal deity, over its opposite. Hence, Roberta Kwall muddles the issue when she insists based on the Pew survey statistics (ibid.):
"These findings suggest why most American Jews - who are religiously (and politically) liberal - don't think of faith in God in the same way as Orthodox Jews. Further, the autonomy ethic that is so comfortable for the non-Orthodox Jewish Americans can be seen as diametrically opposed to the ideas of divine command and judgement so deeply embedded in traditional Judaism".
But the exact same thing might be said of progressive or liberal American theists who more and more are content to affiliate and believe in a higher power, or 'Force', rather than an all-powerful patriarchal entity who rules by command and fear. (The latter choice more typical of evangelicals or those like my late brother, Pastor Mike, e.g.
Pastor Mike Challenges Me to be Honest and He Will “Leave me alone”
Yes, Mike was an extreme believer in an all powerful, punishing, control god, but I'd argue little different from the strongest Orthodox American Jew that Ms. Kwall supports. (The key giveaway being its yen for 'judgment' - just as Pastor Mike's).
But both Pastor Mike and Prof. Kwall miss the key point predicated on the relativist nature of god concepts and so beautifully articulated by Alan Watts in his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity (p. 24):
"(True) Belief is the insistence that truth is what one would wish it to be. The True Believer opens his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. This belief clings to self-deception..
True Belief has thus become an attempt to hang on to life, to grasp and keep it for one's own. But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with an ocean wave in a bucket."
The last reference to trying to grasp an "ocean wave in a bucket" refers to
Bohm, in his superb book 'Wholeness and the Implicate
Order', refers to this oceanic state as the "implicate order"
and its being a higher dimensional reality into which we are subsumed. Another
term he used is the "Holomovement". Another term often
used is "the Dirac Ether". The relation of previously
(living- biological) individualities to the Dirac Ether might be depicted as I
show below:
INDIVIDUALITY:
DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER)
This then gives a nice analogy, between the ocean and individual waves. The “ripples” on this Dirac sea are the distinct material forms or assorted biological individualities perceived as separate entities in the universe - because (in our explicate order) we are generally unaware of the implicate order. Nonetheless, the remarkable insight is that within this order separate forms (individualities) emerge as purely illusory. By analogy, the separate waves one sees on the ocean surface are illusions - at least in the sense they cannot be removed and placed on the beach one by one for inspection. (Hence Alan Watts reference to trying to walk off with an ocean wave in bucket.)
The fact which neither Pastor Mike or Prof. Kwall grasped that there is no version of Theism that is absolute, or uniquely true or valid, because there is no god concept that is such. Everyone with a god-concept is working within a framework of relativity and uncertainty, and in the end the form of faith or devotion that works for a person shouldn't be denigrated as impoverished. (Unless it consigns whole religions, or groups to "eternal damnation.") So liberal Judaism's tolerance template is on the right track.
Further, given the subjectivity, any one form of Theism can always be totally rejected by another on the basis of “sacred text” analysis and respective revelations. This is completely analogous to there being inadequate information to distinguish one religion's claims as true to the exclusion of all others. In the case of individual religions, or religious traditions, the embodiment of the respective truth claim is found in a "sacred revelation," or holy book. For example, the Holy Bible for Christianity, the Talmud for Jews, the Koran for Muslims and the Upanishads for Hindus.
The problem is that the ancient writers, for each scripture, suffered from the same limitation of comprehension that their modern counterparts do. Their neural capacity was just as finite as that of present-day humans, and just as conditioned toward a particular conceptual allegiance. Take the account in Genesis and how it describes God's behavior: one instant creating the world and calling it "good" then becoming disenchanted and wiping it out in a flood, while bemoaning that a mistake was made.
Now, a genuine God (God-GOD) can’t make mistakes (since perfection is surely a divine attribute). However, a human brain is quite likely to project its flaws onto its own concepts. Thus, the God making the mistakes in Genesis is actually an artifact: the projection of the ancient writer’s own ego onto his God concept, writ large.
Prof. Kwall would do well to appreciate that before admonishing liberal American Jews to commit to a relationship "with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." But why do that when it's no more real than committing to a belief in just a higher power?
Kwall's answer is suspect: "American Jews have been experiencing unprecedented trauma and despair with escalating antisemitism around the world...they could benefit from a personal relationship with God in our increasingly insecure environment."
But how can one have a "personal relationship" with an entity that is "the creation of the philosophical gaze"? (James Byrne's definition based on the tendency to objectification.) It would seem to me, the ubiquitous insecurity of any believer (not just Jews) would be more likely reduced by embracing the nonjudgmental, everyone is welcome stance she ties to the liberal, higher power believers as being "impoverished".
It is truly amazing more otherwise intelligent people can't see this, something
I can only attribute to intellectual blindness.
See Also:
Opinion | Why My Gen Z Students Are Fascinated by the King James Bible - The New York Times
Excerpt:
At the liberal arts college where I teach Renaissance
literature, few of my students seem to practice any organized religion. For
some, even the names Adam and Eve prompt only vague recognition. So when I
assigned bits of the King James Bible last spring, I was surprised by the
fascination it inspired.
My students marveled at how its language was used by
17th-century writers, appearing in daring poetry and polemics against retrograde social norms. They were perhaps
even more impressed by the history behind the text: how some 50 mostly
forgotten academics created a book that bridged chasms of geography, gender,
race and class as the default English Bible for Protestants for hundreds of
years.
We were ahead of the curve. These past few months, more Americans have been discussing the King James Bible — just not for the right reasons. In June, Texas moved forward with a plan to make passages from the King James required reading for public school students. Despite some notable defenses, the plan has caught major flak for its dubious constitutionality and mandated curriculum. I won’t try to redeem it here.
But I do thank Texas for putting the King James back onto
our cultural radar. The text is a master class in collaboration, close
attention to language and ideological humility. It’s exactly the book we need
now, in our lonely, laconic times..
And:
Brane Space: "True Belief" as a Disease of the Mind
And:
Examining Theism - And The Necessity Of Invoking God Concepts
And:
DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf (gci.org.uk)
And:
The Difficulty Of Communicating Absolute Truth Statements
References:
[1] The Power of Myth, Anchor Books, New York, p. 56.
[2] James Byrne, God, Continuum Press, 2001, p. 151.
[3] The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, Ed. Ken Wilber, New Science Library, 1982.
No comments:
Post a Comment