Re: The Central Topic
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:58 pm
I'm not sure why you often require the questioner to demonstrate their worthiness before addressing an issue, asking them to repeatedly draw Excalibur out of the stone so to speak. I can assure you my questions are genuine and I'm trying my very hardest to understand a framework of reality which is very difficult for the modernist mind to understand. I'm equally prepared to land before the demands of a supreme intelligence or face the abyss of the void.Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:57 amBefore such questions can be addressed, we should really question our motives. It's no secret that the God question is very charged. Part of the reason is because in the last few centuries humanity has generally entered a stage where we did away with any higher Intelligence. For many this is connected with a feeling of relief. Richard Dawkins also uses such comparison. He says that most of the atheists he had 'converted' report a feeling of release, as if a great burden fell from their shoulders. And this is understandable. It's simply the feeling of not having to care for anything but our own desires and their intellectual justifications. There's no longer any need to be vigilant, to observe the kinds of thoughts and feelings that pass through our soul and to try to guide them (except for compliance with agreed upon social and legal norms).Anthony66 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:02 am I know you've touch on this subject from time to time, but how does SS approach the topic of God? From what I understand, such a being would be one with the unfolding reality, approachable via the gradients of our thinking activity. He would not sit on the other side of an unbridgeable chasm that can only be crossed via a vacuous leap of faith. Conversely, in our current state of evolution he is to be found far "behind the veil", essentially inaccessible to most.
In terms of the traditional language and descriptors used in Christian theology, what are reasonable? (given these are but conceptual designations):
- ground of being
- omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient
Would we understand his being to in someway encompass all beings or is there some manner of separation?
- infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (Westminster Shorter Catechism)
Or are all such questions better left alone?
We should really get a good feeling for this. We should be perfectly clear of this tendency in us, to feel as top level authority which has simply decided to behave within a consensual system. Not because there's anything inherently true, good, right, etc. in that system but because it would be too much trouble if misbehaving. From this modern stage, the questions about God can become very misleading. That's why I wouldn't go into your questions now. Not because we can't speak of them in any meaningful way but because it would be useless unless the ground is cleared.
The question of God will have to be approached from another side. Trying to list the attributes of the Divine secretly puts us in the Flat MAL picture, where we imagine a grand Divine Bubble that we try to characterize. The questions one secretly asks are "Is there such Bubble at all? If yes, is it worth my time to seek some relationship with it?"
This is related to the two questions.
In other places we could speak differently but in this forum, where almost everyone has built some conception of MAL, we can't make even a step forward unless one tries to meditate on the question: "What is the nature of the 'spiritual space' between the souls?". Everyone would merrily use the metaphor of vortex of consciousness but what is the medium between the vortices? Of course the templated answer would be "consciousness!" But do we really try to understand the consequences of our thus abstractly posed answer?
Seriously, I don't know for how many times already we arrive at this point. Before asking about the attributes of God, we should be clear with ourselves if we are capable of thinking about be-ing in a way different than nicely spatially separated bubbles/vortices.
Unless one feels a glaring insufficiency in the 'spiritual vacuum model' (dark/instinctive/unconscious spiritual space between vortices) then it's quite useless to speak about attributes of God because the latter will be considered to be nothing but yet another grand vortex in the flat spiritual vacuum, around which smaller vortices decide to orbit.
They question to meditate on is "What is the nature of be-ing (if any) which is responsible for the 'fluctuations' of the 'spiritual vacuum' - both intra- and inter- human vortex. If one doesn't feel this question to be central to the mystery of our existence, it's quite pointless to speak of anything else.