{"id":2850,"date":"2020-10-28T07:14:57","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T07:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/10\/28\/god-the-inconceivable\/"},"modified":"2020-10-28T07:14:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T07:14:57","slug":"god-the-inconceivable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/10\/28\/god-the-inconceivable\/","title":{"rendered":"If God is Uniquely Unique, How could He be Addressed in Prayer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My entry God as Uniquely Unique<\/a> ended on an aporetic note. I acknowledged the following sort of objection, but had nothing to say in response to it. How could the ontologically simple God be of any religious use to the suffering creature wandering in the desert of the world? <\/span><\/p>\n

"Such an utterly transcendent God as you are describing is ineffable!  He is the God of the philosophers, not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. I want a God with a face, a God that can be addressed in petitionary prayer, a God that is a Thou to my I."<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem can be put like this. The exigencies of the intellect drive us toward the simple God, a God so utterly transcendent as to be inconceivable to us.  The exigencies of the heart, however, move us toward a personal God with whom one could enter an I-Thou relation. Is it possible to mediate this opposition?  <\/span><\/p>\n

Is it possible to stand astride Athens and Jerusalem, with a foot in each, and not topple over or be torn apart?<\/span><\/p>\n

A letter from Robert Deinhammer, S. J., of Innsbruck, Austria suggests a way.  Here is his letter followed by my translation:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ich bin gerade wieder einmal nach l\u00e4ngerer Zeit auf ihrem Blog gewesen und finde Ihren j\u00fcngsten Eintrag \u00fcber die einzigartige Einzigartikeit Gottes sehr wichtig.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ich w\u00fcrde mit P. Knauer sagen: Gott f\u00e4llt nicht unter Begriffe, er ist absolut unbegreiflich. Wie kann man dann von ihm reden? Antwort: Wir begreifen von Gott immer nur das von ihm Verschiedene, n\u00e4mlich die geschaffene Welt, die aber auf ihn hinweist und ohne ihn \u00fcberhaupt nicht sein kann. Geschaffensein bedeutet im Rahmen einer relationalen Ontologie ein "restloses Bezogensein auf \u2026\/ in restloser Verschiedenheit von \u2026". Dies erm\u00f6glicht auch "hinweisende" Rede von Gott: Die Welt ist Gott \u00e4hnlich und un\u00e4hnlich zugleich; Gott seinerseits ist der Welt gegen\u00fcber aber nur un\u00e4hnlich. Die Relation der Welt auf Gott ist vollkommen einseitig. In diesem Sinne f\u00fchrt nat\u00fcrliche Theologie nur zur Einsicht, dass Gott in "unzug\u00e4nglichem Licht wohnt" (1 Tim) und wir als blo\u00dfe Gesch\u00f6pfe keinerlei Gemeinschaft mit ihm haben k\u00f6nnen. <\/span><\/p>\n

Vor diesem \u00fcberaus dunklen Hintergrund erl\u00e4utert allein der Inhalt der christlichen Botschaft, wie dennoch Gemeinschaft mit Gott ausgesagt werden kann: Wir sind von vornherein aufgenommen in eine g\u00f6ttliche Relation, n\u00e4mlich in die ewige Liebe des Vaters zum Sohn, die der Heilige Geist ist. So kann Gott auf die Welt real bezogen sein, ohne dadurch von der Welt abh\u00e4ngig zu werden. Aber gerade weil diese g\u00f6ttliche Liebe nicht ihr Ma\u00df an der Welt hat und deshalb auch keine Macht der Welt dagegen ankommen kann, kann man sie auch nicht einfach an der Welt "ablesen" oder durch meditative Versenkung erkennen. Sie ist nur erkennbar im Glauben an die Botschaft Jesu: Der Sohn hat eine menschliche Natur angenommen, um uns in einem menschlichen Wort sagen zu k\u00f6nnen, das wir an seinem Verh\u00e4ltnis zum Vater Anteil haben. In diesem Sinne wird dann auch Gebet erst m\u00f6glich: Jesus Christus nimmt uns hinein in sein Sprechen zum Vater.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

………………………..<\/span><\/p>\n

I have just now visited your blog again after a long while and I find your most recent entry on the unique uniqueness of God to be very important.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would say, with P. Knauer, that God does not fall under concepts; he is absolutely inconceivable or unconceptualizable.  But then how can one speak of him? Answer: We conceive of God always only by way of that which is different from him, namely, the created world which points to him and which without him cannot be at all.  In the context of a relational ontology, creaturehood means 'a total relatedness  to . . . \/ in total difference from . . . .'  This makes possible 'pointing' talk of God: the world is both like and unlike God; God on his side, however, is only unlike the world . The relation of the world to God is completely one-sided or unilateral.  In this sense natural theology leads to the insight that God "dwelleth in inaccessible light" (1 Timothy 6:16<\/a>) and we mere creatures can have no kind of community with him.<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

But if God so dwells and is unapproachable by us, and we can enjoy no community with him, how are we to explain the Christian message that we nevertheless can have community with God? As follows. We are from the outset taken up in a divine relation, namely, in the eternal love of the Father for the Son, which relation is the Holy Spirit. In this way God can be really related to the world without thereby becoming dependent on the world.  But precisely because this divine love has no worldly measure and also cannot be opposed by any worldly power, one cannot simply 'read it off' from the world or know it by non-discursive meditation<\/span><\/span>.  Divine love is knowable only by faith in the message of Jesus: The Son has assumed a human nature in order to be able to say to us in human words that we share in his relation to the Father.  In this sense prayer is first possible: Jesus Christ takes us into his speaking with the Father.
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How is community with God possible given his absolute transcendence? That is the problem. If I understand the above, the solution requires both Trinity and Incarnation. Within the Godhead, the Son loves the Father and the Father the Son. This eternal relation of love is the Holy Spirit. God, in the person of the Son, becomes man. "And the Word became flesh and dwellt among us."  Fully human and fully divine, Jesus Christ brings the divine into the creaturely realm.  The transcendent becomes immanent without ceasing to be transcendent. God acquires a human face and speaks saving words within the range of human hearing. <\/span><\/p>\n

The question cannot be suppressed: Is not the solution as problematic as the original problem?   The exigencies of the discursive intellect drive us beyond it to the simple God who lies beyond the discursive intellect and is devoid of human meaning. The restoration of such meaning, however, via Trinity and Incarnation, also involves inconceivabilities, as any good Unitarian will be quick to point out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My entry God as Uniquely Unique ended on an aporetic note. I acknowledged the following sort of objection, but had nothing to say in response to it. How could the ontologically simple God be of any religious use to the suffering creature wandering in the desert of the world? "Such an utterly transcendent God as … Continue reading “If God is Uniquely Unique, How could He be Addressed in Prayer?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divine-simplicity","category-trinity-and-incarnation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}