THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR METAPHYSICS

STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS, VOLUME III

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR METAPHYSICS

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Richard M. Martin whose life of work in the field of logic showed the highest genius and creativity. As can be seen from his chapter in this volume, "On Some Theological Languages," the broader concern of his work was life itself, up to its highest realization in life divine. Like Descartes, he felt that logic can now make possible significant advances in Metaphysics and even theology.

The presentation of this paper in Jerusalem, which Prof. Martin considered in some ways the culmination of his service in philosophy, occasioned intensive debate with Prof. John Findlay. That interchange was reflected by Richard Martin in his "On Philosophical Ecumenism: A Dialogue," which has been added as a fitting appendix to the present volume.

Prof. Martin has pointed the way. He presents an inviting challenge to a younger generation of philosophers to develop the similar combination of professional perfection and personal peace required to follow the pathways he pioneered.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to The State University of New York Press at Albany for permission to reprint R.M. Martin, "On Philosophical Ecumenism: A Dialogue," Chap. VIII of Primordiality, Science, and Value (Albany, New York: State Univ. of New York Press, l980), pp. 120-136.

Introduction

PART I. METAPHYSICS AND GOD

1. God and the Problem of Being

by Ivor Leclerc 3-13

Comment: Salvino Biolo 15-21

2. Religious Experience

by H.D. Lewis 23-38

3. Critique and Hermeneutic in Philosophy of

religion

by Benoit Garceau 39-51

4. On Some Theological Languages

by Richard M. Martin 53-77

Comment: Jan Van der Veken 79-81

PART II. METAPHYSICAL TRADITIONS AND THE DIVINE

5. The Hindu Metaphysical Tradition on the

Meaning of the Absolute

by Jehangir N. Chubb 85-103

Comment: Margaret Chatterjee 105-110

6. Metaphysical Traditions and the Meaning of

the Absolute: The Locus of the Divine in

Chinese Thought

by Ellen M. Chen 111-131

7. God - To What, If Anything, Does the Term

Refer? An Eastern Christian Perspective

by Metropolitan Paulos Gregorios 133-143

8. God, Philosophy and Halakhah in Maimonides'

Approach to Judaism

by David Hartman and Elliott Yagod 145-180

Comment: Isaac Frank 181-189

9. Philosophy, Man and the Absolute God:

an Islamic Perspective

by Bahram Jamalpur 191-202

Comment: Francis Kennedy 203-205

PART III ORIGIN AND THEOPHANY

10. Origin: Creation and Emanation

by Richard V. DeSmet, S.J. 209-220

Comment: Hugo Meynell 221-225

11. Harmony in Nature and Man

by Ewert Cousins 227-238

Comment: Jan Plat 239-241

12. The World as Theophany

by Jean Ladriere 243-259

13. On the Reduction of Temporal Categories

Within the Process of Divine Intervention

by Evanghelos A. Moutsopoulos 261-263

Comment: F. P. Hager 265-271

PART IV. FREEDOM, THEOLOGY AND ETERNITY

14. Evolution and Teleology

by Evandro Agazzi 275-286

Comment: Susanne Mansion 287-291

15. Absolute Being and Freedom

by R.J. Njoroge 293-305

16. Freedom and Omnipotence: Love and Freedom

by Frederick Sontag 307-315

Comment: Thomas A. Fay 317-321

17. Philosophy, Religion and the Coming World

Civilization

by Leroy S. Rouner 323-331

Comment: Joseph Nyasani 333-335

18. Time and Eternity

by J.N. Findlay 337 -347

Comment: Kenneth L. Schmitz 349-353

APPENDIX

On Philosophical Ecumenism: a Dialogue

by Richard M. Martin 355-371

INDEX 373-377

Classically, human understanding of oneself and of one's relation to nature has been founded upon an awareness of one's relation to the divine. Though diversely understood, this has constituted the source, the goal and the deepest meaning of Being. As such, it has provided the basis of personal dignity and the inspiration to strive for a life of harmony with others in justice and peace.

Many developments, in philosophy and beyond, have opened new possibilities for understanding the implications of this for all facets of human life. Often, however, they have implied an emphasis upon either the immanence or the transcendence of the divine in a manner difficult to conciliate one with the other. Further, issues implied in the resultant notion of progress have raised anew questions concerning the nature of God. In turn, in the West this has implied a renewed concern for the meaning found in earlier Eastern and Western religious philosophies. In developing, as will as technologically advanced, societies this has raised the question of the presence of God in all dimensions of human life.

The present volume presents a study of these issues by The International Society for Metaphysics (ISM), hosted by Dr. Nathan Rotenstreich at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem. It begins by situating the study of God in relation to metaphysics, religious experience and logic. This is followed by a search of the great religious and metaphysical traditions for their sense of the divine. In this light God is studied as the source and goal of all, and consequently as the context for human freedom in time and eternity.

This is the last volume in the ISM series on the person. It follows other works on Person and Nature,¹ and Person and God². Upon completion of these studies the ISM undertook an intensive series of investigations regarding society, and its issues of unity, truth and justice, and the good. It extended these two series on person and society to the field of culture and cultural heritage understood as personal creativity in community and in history. Together, they constitute an effort to promote the development of metaphysics as a living discipline in our day.

1. George F. McLean, ed. (Washington: University Press of America and The International Society for Metaphysics, 1988).

2. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. (Washington: University Press of America and The International Society for Metaphysics, 1988).

GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF BEING

IVOR LECLERC

We today have arrived at a juncture of thought at which both the question of God and the question of being require basic reconsideration. Contemporary scientific development has necessitated the latter, and this has inevitable implications for the question of God.

Besides that, in our time it has become easier to see that in respect of God the ontological issue runs up against peculiar features and also singular aporiae. For example, the question can significantly be raised, whether God exists--by contrast with other areas of inquiry, in which it would not be significant to ask whether man, or nature, or society exists. In these areas the pertinent questions would be, what is man? what is nature? what is society?; that is, the issue is concerning the ontological status of man, etc., the kind of being which is to be accorded to man, etc. Earlier ages raised the question of the proof of the existence of God, but not whether God exists. That the later question has become common in our time makes it more readily appreciable not only that there is a singular significance about the question, namely that it can significantly be raised, but that the question itself is singularly problematical.

What exactly does the question entail? What does "exist" mean respecting God? Historically the verb "exist" and the abstract noun "existence" arose from a need terminologically to distinguish "that it is" in contrast to "what it is." So to ask whether it is or exists entailed that the "it" in question be something able to stand out or forth, appears manifest itself. This implied, primarily, that the "it" be a "being" which is the "subject" of "what," i.e., of properties or attributes--the latter "existing" only in a derivative sense of the properties of the being as subject. The question facing us is whether the terms "exist" and "being" can consistently and coherently be used in the same sense with respect to God as to natural beings. This is an old issue in the history of philosophy, but it is facing us today with renewed urgency and puzzlement.

This issue has a twofold aspect: one is ontological and the other is categoreal. These are, however, closely interconnected, and neither can be tackled in disjunction from the other, nor can one be taken as unquestionably prior to the other; on the contrary, they intrinsically involve each other. The recognition of this is especially crucial in regard to the question of God. This point needs special emphasis, for not only is there a long and powerful tradition that the fundamental category is "being" --that is, what is ontologically primary is "being," and that it is this which is categorially the subject in thought, so that whatever is the subject is categoreally "a being"--but with regard to God this tradition has in this century received an interesting and emphatic reaffirmation by Whitehead in his Process and Reality with his proclamation that: "God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplication."¹ Accordingly Whitehead explicitly maintained that God is to be conceived as an "actual entity" or res vera, categoreally no different from any other actual entity or being.² This tradition, however, cannot today be simply accepted as a presupposition; it has to be critically examined and justified. For to accept it as an unexamined presupposition constitutes begging the issue which we have seen to be crucial today.

The question now is how we are to proceed with regard to this ontological and categoreal issue. It is evident that fundamental in this is "being," and accordingly that the prime requisite is clarification with respect to "being." The requisite clarification is not simply one of the meanings of the word, for as we are concerned with it the word occurs only as a term in philosophical thought; so what we are up against is "being" as a philosophical problem, and one of singular profundity, difficulty, and complexity. In tackling this problem it will not suffice to take, or to seek to clarify, the conception of being in any contemporary philosophical theory of system. For, in the first place, it is precisely every such conception which it is necessary to subject to critical scrutiny. Secondly, every such conception stands in the inheritance of some two millennia of ontological thought, involving different theories and thus divergent meanings of "being," much of which has come in the course of time to acquire the status of tacit presuppositions; consequently the adequate clarification of contemporary conceptions of being necessitates that these presuppositions be brought fully to light and scrutinized. In this we have one of the greatest difficulties involved in the inquiry into the problem of being.

In view of this difficulty it seems to me that the best, most satisfactory, and perhaps the only effective way to tackle the problem of being is by an historical inquiry. For, by examining theories of being in their origin and development we can most readily become clear as to what is included in them and thus what has come to be inherited in subsequent generations of thought. The historical procedure is, however, fraught with a crucial difficulty. It is all too easy, as the history of philosophy amply testifies, to interpret earlier thought in terms of current conceptions and presuppositions, and to do so involves completely frustrating a main purpose in adopting the historical approach, viz., to bring to light current presuppositions. It is accordingly highly important for the inquirer to be specially on guard against such insidious anachronisms. Of course the difficulty will not thereby necessarily be eliminated; but it can be significantly diminished and, in the course of critical scholarship, overcome.

The historical inquiry into being is unquestionably a considerable and complicated task, to be fittingly undertaken in a lengthy monograph and not in a brief paper. All that is possible here is the presentation of some conclusions which are the outcome of such an inquiry.³

For the origin of the concept of "being" we have to go back to Parmenides. It is true that to on and ta onta, as Jaeger has said, were used from the very beginning of Greek natural philosophy in the sense of things immediately and tangibly present.⁴ But it was Parmenides who for the first time became aware of the philosophical import and implications of the words. The question of how and why he was brought to that awareness, highly relevant as it is, cannot be entered into here. For us now the point is that he discovered the singular significance of saying: esti, "it is"--not, "it is something-or-other," i.e., using the verb in its usual copulative function, but in a distinctly new sense; and that he went on to bring out the implications entailed in that new sense. These implications, Parmenides saw, were entailed in the Greek verb "be" per se.

This becomes clear by an examination of the verb. Fundamentally relevant here is that the Greek verb einai, "to be," stands in contrast to, and excludes, "becoming"--which is expressed in Greek by an entirely different and unrelated verb gignomai, having the primary meaning of "to be born." In a recent highly important and detailed study of The Verb `Be' in Ancient Greek,⁵ Charles H. Kahn has shown that in this is exemplified a basic feature of the Indo-European verb *es-, namely, that it functions to express "the stative aspect, by which it contrasts with verbs meaning to become, arrive at, get, and the like."⁶ This stative value is especially strong in Greek, for in this, as Kahn points out,⁷ "almost alone among European languages, the stem *es- has remained rigorously durative, admitting no aorist or perfect forms like fui and been in the conjugation of eimi." His investigation reveals "that the typical or primordial use of the verb is for a living creature or more especially a person as subject (as is always the case in the first- and second-person forms); and that the verb itself indicates a station or position of that person's body at a given moment or over a certain stretch of time."⁸ Thus the verb "indicates the extrinsic position or presence of the person in a given place. If no place is specified, the verb alone may indicate simply that the person is present somewhere or other, i.e., is alive (at a given time)."⁹ From this analysis it becomes clear why the Greek verb "be," in addition to its primarily copulative function, also has locative, vital, and veridical uses,¹⁰ and that it has the fundamental sense of "presence."¹¹

This fundamental sense is what Parmenides clearly saw: what is, is now present. Therefore what is not there, present (e.g., the Pythagorean void) simply "is not" at all. Further, since the verb "be" excludes "becoming," what is must be all complete, what it is, now in the present. Parmenides having brought to philosophical consciousness what basically is entailed in the Greek verb "be"--viz., that what is, to eon, "a being," implies its immediate presence and its exclusion of all becoming--this determined subsequent ontological thought till Plato, and beyond.

Advancing from the new philosophical approach of Socrates, Plato concluded that it was necessary to admit duo eide ton onton, "two kinds of things,"¹² but he was then faced with the problem of what was entailed in saying that both are "onta." Evidently they both were onta in the sense of "things present"; but when account was taken of what is entailed in the verb "be" as established by Parmenides, it became clear that only that kind which is eidos, "form," since it alone was without becoming, could be regarded as on alethes, "true being," as to ontos on, "beingly being."

Plato was responsible for a further, most important advance in respect of the concept of being. For this he adopted and adapted the word ousia to a new philosophical meaning. The ordinary meaning of ousia was that of "property, possession, what is one's own."¹³ The argument in the early Dialogues establishing the eide (forms) sometimes required Socrates to make the point that things have each their individual form, whereby they are distinguished as each that particular thing, and that this meant that the individual form is idios, "its own," pertaining to that individual itself, and he began using the word ousia to express this, thereby generalizing the meaning of property, possession, as what is "one's own," "proper to," "exclusively individual to," beyond what is ordinarily considered "property."¹⁴ In this context ousia is usually, but not quite adequately, translated as "essence" - essentia was a coinage from the Latin infinitive, esse, to render the Greek term ousia in its later, fully developed sense.

In these early Dialogues it is quickly argued that each "form-itself" also has its ousia, in the sense of what is its own, of what properly belongs to it.¹⁵ Then from the Republic onward it is evident that Plato had become increasingly aware of the implications of the fact of the word ousia having derived from the verb "be," more particularly that it entailed a fundamental connection between what in a thing is "its own" and the "to be" (to einai) or "being" (to on) of the thing. In the Republic, ousia mostly continues primarily to express "what is its own" (essence), but at 479 c and in most instances of its use in the Theaetetus, ousia has the meaning of "being," but in a new sense. In this the word ousia is not merely an alternative to the participial action noun to on, "the being" (analogously to "the thinking," "the running"), but expands that meaning of "being" to include the sense of "what is its own."

This new compound sense of ousia is that which is prevalent throughout the later Dialogues. Moreover in these, this compound meaning comes to be extended also to to on, so that in these late works to on is, in the crucial instances, not adequately rendered by esse, "das Sein," "l'etre," or "Being" (the gerund in English replacing the infinitive), or by "existence," for these catch only part of the new sense.

It is this new fully developed sense of ousia and to on which is taken over by Aristotle, as is clear from his analysis in Book VII of the Metaphysics. The appreciation of this, however, tends to be blocked by the traditional translation of ousia in Aristotle by "substance," a word which most inadequately renders the meaning of the Greek term. In Ch. 1 Aristotle makes clear that the question, ti to on ("what is being"), is the question tis he ousia ("what is ousia").¹⁶ That is, he was acknowledging the full connotation of to on ("being") as developed by Plato and expressed by the term ousia. Starting the chapter with the reminder that to on has many senses, Aristotle points out that first it indicates to ti esti ("what it is") or tode ti (a "this" or "individuality"), which means that which is primarily (touton proton on) is the "what" (to ti estin), and that this is the very thing which is indicated by ousia (hoper semainei ten ousian).¹⁷ In other words, the "what" is that which Plato had argued is "its own," which is "individual to it" and to indicate which he had used the word ousia. The fundamental connection of the "what" which is "its own" (entailed in the word ousia) with "being" Aristotle brings out more fully in a phrase (which became for him a technical term) viz., to ti en einai, "the what it is to be." That is, this phrase denotes the "what" which is peculiar to it, its "own," whereby it is.

But Aristotle was aware of an important incongruity in Plato's doctrine of ousia, in which ousia, what is "its own," is ascribed to both physical things and the forms. Aristotle argued that while a physical on is manifestly a singular individual, its to ti en einai or ousia thus appropriately indicating it as tode ti (a "this"), a "form-itself" (eidos auto kath auto) is not thus singular, for it is that which is "participated in," which entails that it is fundamentally universal. But a universal indicates "a such" (to toionde) and not "a this" (tode ti), and therefore a universal could not be ousia.¹⁸

Aristotle was thereby brought to a most important conclusion in respect of "being." Plato's theory of the forms per se as "being" had to be rejected; on the contrary, it was the other kind of onta, which Plato had denied the status of to ontos on, that had to be regarded as to proton on, "being" in the primary sense, for ousia properly pertained to it alone. This meant that for Aristotle it was the physei on, the physical or natural being, that which is in "becoming," which strictly is to on and ousia. That is, Aristotle found it necessary to reject the conception of "being" deriving from Parmenides and which was grounded in the verb "be" as excluding "becoming." He had arrived at a new conception of that which is a "being" in the primary sense as essentially "in becoming," and which had therefore to be conceived as in a process of change (kinesis) from dynamis (potentiality) to energeia (actuality).

What did this entail in respect of the status of form? He agreed with Plato that in a physical being eidos (form) is to be identified with to ti en einai (essence), and thus the ousia, of the being. Categoreally considered, this meant that form constituted the predicates of the being as subject. That is, a form "is" only as a quality, quantity, etc., of "the being" which is its subject.

But Aristotle saw that the categoreal issue was quite crucially raised in another respect. Since a physical being is in becoming, in kinesis, this entails a substratum, not only as the recipient of the forms, but as underlying the supersession of forms, without which one could not think or speak of "it" as changing. This meant that a physical being had necessarily to be "composite" (synolos) of hyle (matter) as the substratum and eidos (form). Now hyle and eidos could not be "constituents" or "parts" in the sense in which elements are constituents of a compound whole, for the "elements" (by the very meaning of the word)¹⁹ of a natural being would themselves have to be natural beings.²⁰ Therefore hyle cannot have the status of "a being" (to on); it is "that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any of the categories by which being (to on) is determined."²¹ As itself not "a being" it is therefore not known as beings are known, viz., in terms of the categories; it can be "known" only analogically and relatively.²² The other component of natural being, viz., eidos, likewise has to be accorded the status of an arche (source) of being--that eidos cannot have the status of "a being" is amply evident from his critique of Plato. Further, analogously to hyle, there is also a peculiarity in regard to the "knowledge" of eidos; since the forms are that in terms of which there is knowledge, they themselves cannot be known in the way the physical things are: eidos is the arche (source) of knowledge as well as of to on (being). In thus distinguishing between to on (being) and the archai (sources) of being, Aristotle had attained a formulation of a categoreal insight of the utmost importance, which Plato had been able to state only in terms of mythos or simile.²³

This insight was inherited by Plotinus. In common with the new movement of thought of that era he had accepted a single, divine, arche (source) of all things, in place of the three archai of Plato and Aristotle, and maintained that this One, as the arche (source) of being and of the forms (in terms of which there is knowledge) accordingly cannot itself be known and transcends being (ou me logos, mede episteme, o de kai epekeina legetai einai ousias).²⁴ For Plotinus "being" (to on, to einai, and ousia) is identified with the first emanation, nous,₂⁵ the enaction (energeia) of whose ousia is the second emanation, psyche, which is to ontos on.²⁶

Augustine took an importantly different position on this, one which has been determinative of most subsequent thought. Plato had identified form as to ontos on, because only form was in itself changeless, immutable; Augustine held that only God was supremely immutable and perfect, so that only God deserved the title of Vere Esse.²⁷ For Augustine God is "the being" which most completely "is," whose essentia signifies perfection.

This Augustinian ontological position, which became the accepted doctrine of most Christian theology, namely that the source of being is "a being," was found to involve many aporiae with which thinkers struggled for a millennium. Central and basic to these is the issue of "being." Augustine had followed in the ontological tradition of Parmenides and Plato. In this the approach is from the meaning of to on ("being") to the identification of that which accords with that meaning. Plato, following Parmenides in holding that the fundamental connotation of "being" is immutability (since the Greek verb "be" excludes "becoming"), identified the forms as "beings" in the basic sense. This connotation of "being" as immutability was inherited by Neoplatonism and accepted by Augustine, who identified God as "being" in that sense. The Augustinian position therefore maintains "a being" as the single source of all other "beings."

Important difficulties in this position soon emerged. If "being" fundamentally connotes immutability, how can physical things, which are manifestly in "becoming," be regarded as "beings" at all? God could not then be the source of being, since God alone is "being"; God could only be the source of "becoming." But if "being" and "becoming" stand in mutually exclusive contrast, this entails the absolute transcendence of God, with no relation to "becoming." The Neoplatonic solution to this difficulty was to identify "to be" (to einai, esse, "das Sein," "l'etre") with form as ousia, essentia. Then a natural thing in becoming "is" by virtue of its form, its "essence." But this involved further difficulties. First the Arab and then Western thinkers saw that this deprived "being" of the feature of its meaning which had been basic in Greek philosophy, namely "presence." In other words, a separation of "existence" from "essence" had occurred. Accordingly, if "being" means "essence," there is no way to account for "existence," and for the "individuality" (tode ti) which "to be there, present," "to exist," primarily entails, as Aristotle had correctly insisted. Aquinas sought to remedy this by emphasizing the features of act" (which Neoplatonism had originally identified with "form," but which had, analogously to "existence," became lost to "essence") and identified "act" with "esse," "to be." But with this new conception of "being" the original difficulty still remains, for "being" still retains the fundamental connotation of immutability, standing in exclusive contrast to "becoming," and thus the problem is not resolved of how "being" can be the source of "becoming."

Another most important aspect of these difficulties emerges in the categoreal issue. With the conception of God as "a being," the source of all other "beings," it was entailed that, categoreally considered, the same mode of thinking pertained in respect of God and the other beings: each is "a being" of which attributes are predicated. Early however it became evident that attributes could not be univocally predicated of God and creatures, and from the Pseudo-Dionysius, with his "superlative theology," to Thomas Aquinas, with his doctrine of analogy, a way out of this categoreal problem was sought. Though both were thought of as "beings," a fundamental difference between them as "beings" had to be acknowledged, and to meet this situation Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Occam developed the theory of transcendentals as predicates pertaining solely to God.

But in this we are up against a singularly difficult issue, namely, whether the "source" of being can at all validly be thought in terms of the categories, which manifestly pertain to physical things, i.e., in terms of "a being" of which attributes are predicated. Aristotle was more profoundly aware of this issue than was anyone, not only before but also since. He saw that the fallacy basic to the thought of the physical philosophers was that they had conceived the arche (source) of physical things as itself a physical thing (e.g., water, etc.). He saw that the same error vitiated the Platonic doctrine, which maintained eidos (form) as the arche of the changing physical onta, beings, but conceived form as itself to on, "a being." Plato himself was indeed aware of the fallacy of the "third man" involved in this and, it seems to me, made an important attempt to overcome this difficulty in the Timaeus through depicting the forms, along with the demiourgos and the receptacle, as the archai of the physical world. Aristotle was clear that not only hyle, but also eidos was not to be understood in terms of the categories, for eidos is the arche of the categories; for him the gnosis of the forms could only be meta noeseos,²⁸ by direct intuition.

It seems to me necessary today to face the question whether the aporiae involved in the dominant doctrine of God as "a being" which is the source of all other beings, are not grounded in the same basic mistake which Aristotle saw in Platonism. I would suggest that this is the case.

The alternative is that we conceive God as "source of being." In our conception of God we have therefore to proceed from "being," and thus how "being" is conceived is crucial. The "being" in question is evidently that of the entities validly understood in terms of the categories. It is to be noted that the word "being" here is the participial action noun; I shall distinguish²⁹ it typographically as "being." This "being" entails "presence"; but it entails more than simply "presence" ("existence," Dasein). Primarily, the "being" must be that of "a being." This means that "being" entails "individuality," in the double sense of an individual and of what is individual to it, i.e., "essence" in the sense of its own peculiar definiteness. It is to be emphasized that "being" does not connote only "essence," and that essence does not constitute "being," for "being" entails "acting." Also, this "being" cannot exclude "becoming," but rather includes it.

Now this "being" necessarily entails "source," in a threefold respect. There is required a source of its "definiteness," and equally so of its "acting." Further, since "acting" entails "end," also required is a teleological source. The question then is whether these three "sources" can validly and coherently be combined into one. It seems to me that this cannot be done without falling back into the error to be avoided. Also involved in this is that while "source" of being entails transcendence of being, "transcendence" here cannot validly entail temporal precedence, for this would imply "a being" as precedent. "Source" has to be transcendent and immanent. The Divine, I would say, is more particularly to be identified with the teleological source, but we should not fall into the error of completely separating the three sources from each other.

Emory University

Atlanta, Georgia

1. A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 521.

2. Ibid., p. 28.

3. Ivor Leclerc, The Theory of Being, An Inquiry into Ontology. (In preparation).

4. Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 197, note 2.

5. Charles H. Kahn, The Verb `Be' in Ancient Greek, Part 6 of The Verb `Be' and its Synonyms, ed. W. M. Verhaar (Dordrecht/Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1973).

6. Ibid., p. 217.

7. Ibid., p. 219.

8. Ibid., p. 224.

9. Ibid., p. 224.

10. Ibid., pp. 156ff; 233-35; 330-70.

11. Cf. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, p. 197, note 2: "Homer and Hesiod speak of ta eonta as that which exists at present and contrast it with ta essomena and ta proeonta, things as they will be in the future and as they were in the past. This very opposition proves that the word originally pointed to the immediate and tangible presence of things."

12. Plato, Phaedo, 79 A.

13. Cf. R. Hirzel, "Ousia," Philologus 72, 1913, pp. 42-52.

14. Especially interesting as illustrative of this is Gorgias 471 B, in which Socrates says: ekballein me ek tes ousias kai tou alethous (to drive me out of my property, the truth).

15. Cf. Protagoras 349 B; Euthyphro 11 A; Cratylus 423 A, 424 B; Phaedo 65 C., 76 D - 77 A.

16. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII, 1028 b 4.

17. Ibid., 1028 a 14-15.

18. Ibid., 1038 b 34 - 1039 a 2.

19. Aristotle, De Caelo 302 a 16-18.

20. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1028 b 8-13.

21. Ibid., 1029 a 20-21 (Ross tr.).

22. Aristotle, Physics 191 a 8-12, 194 b 9.

23. Plato, Timaeus 29 D; Republic 308.

24. Plotinus, Ennead, V, 4, 1.

25. Cf. Ennead, III, 8, 8: all ousia kai to tauton to einai kai to noein einai.

26. Cf. Plotinus, Ennead, IV, 7, 85.

27. Cf. Augustine, Confesiones, Bk. VII, ch. 11: "For it is only that which remains in being without change that truly is."

28. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1036 a 5-6.

29. It is important to distinguish "being" as a nominalized participle from "being" as a gerund substituting for the nominalized infinitive, and thus from des Sein and l'etre.

COMMENT

SALVINO BIOLO

The thought-provoking report of Professor Leclerc about the fundamental problem of being, that invited us to a "basic reconsideration," convincingly emphasizes from the start the close relationship of the two metaphysical aspects of the central topic: the ontological aspect that considers being as such, and the theological aspect with its consideration of God.

1. In regard to his introductory remarks, it seems essential to propose some preliminary questions closely connected with the fundamental problem of the existence of God.

Prof. Leclerc points out that contemporary scientific development gives a rather negative meaning to the question: "whether God exists." This seems to be the predominant attitude also of most modern philosophy. Is possible to see in the traditional distinction proposed by Leclerc between "that it is" and "what it is," the implicit transcendental opposition between, and mutual relationship of, essence and existence?

I feel rather perplexed in observing how Leclerc, who seems strongly influenced by the thought of Whitehead, states the basic question as follows: "whether the term `exists' and `being' can consistently and coherently be used in the same sense with respect to God as to the natural beings." The term same means "identical" rather than "similar but different," and could insinuate at the beginning an attitude suggesting a univocal knowledge of being that would lead in turn to a pantheistic conception of God.

Another crucial point is the twofold aspect of being: ontological and categorial. Why are these two terms so closely interconnected, when the term "categorial" seems to imply a deviation from the correct transcendental and analogical notion of being? I doubt that it is philosophically justified to use the term "categorial" in referring to being, particularly in the usage of Whitehead quoted by Leclerc. In this quotation referring to God he says: ". . . res vera categorically not different from any other entity or being." I would like to specify my difficulty in this way: being as such transcends everything, that is, it penetrates and supercedes all reality since it involves and is involved in all being, in every aspect and mode of being. Thus it embraces and overflows every category. Being is immanent in all its determinations and may not be confused with any determination whatever: "it is neither a thing nor an idea, it constitutes the profundity of things and the objectivity of ideas."¹

2. Concerning his interpretation of Greek philosophy,

Prof. Leclerc quite correctly emphasizes the enduring stability of being as found in Parmenides, but neglects the differences found in later thinkers.

Considering the explicit ontological and theological nature of the topic, it would have been helpful to consider more deeply the metaphysical aspects of God as supreme Beauty found within the Symposium of Plato. This work reaches heights of sublime transcendence in the field of Greek philosophy, which embraces not only aspects of absoluteness and uniqueness but also multiplicity and becoming, as in Heraclitus. Both aspects are reconsidered by Plato and explicitly developed by Aristotle. Although Leclerc gave the two great masters special consideration, he might have more clearly focused their thought to allow an interpretation closer to the traditional one.

Referring to Plato he provides an initial orientation to the analogy of being when he reveals his fundamental distinction between the identical and the different in both things and ideas. Does Plato exclude completely the real and true nature of being in the things of this world, even if they appear like shadows in comparison with the reality of ideas? If so, what do the typical Platonic insights of mimesis (imitation) and of metexis (participation) imply, considering the terms of their operations? These basic insights, because they imply a doctrine of analogy, should not be neglected; they include both a certain similarity and a greater dissimilarity in regard to the respective reality of things and ideas. This holds to a much greater extent when we consider the supreme ideas of the Good and of the Beautiful?

I agree with Prof. Leclerc's acknowledgement of Aristotle's fundamental contribution to our central problems. As one who is in agreement with the "perennial philosophy," I would like to suggest that the metaphysical principles of Aristotle should be developed in a different and more coherent direction. For example, his solution of the classic dilemma of Parmenides (being either is or is not) rests upon the basic distinction of potency and act, that suggests an ontological difference between beings as they are this or that, but an ontological similarity between beings as they simply are. This opens a pathway to the future development of the logical and ontological aspects of intrinsic analogy.² It is true that every material thing in this world is a "composite" sunodos of matter and form. But "matter and form" are the principles of intrinsic causes within the natural constitution of material being. The "composite" also demands, as Aristotle explains, the extrinsic "efficient and final" causes of that composition.

Considering further Aristotle's interpretation of the knowledge of being, Prof. Leclerc makes a fundamental point: "eidos is the arche (source) of knowledge as well as of to on" (p. 9). Certainly in answer to the question: what is being? Aristotle replies that the cause of being is its immanent form (Met. Z, 17). But allowing that such an interpretation is possible and coherent, I would like to suggest a development in the line of Thomas Aquinas' thought and founded upon an Aristotelian insight. Let me explain further: the eidos is a proximate formal principle of the knowledge of being and not an agent. It is of being as known, but not of being as made to be.

3. Regarding his brief consideration of both St. Thomas and St. Augustine, his brief mention of St. Augustine is correct but is too partial, both for what it says and what it does not say. Augustine has not only provoked struggles among thinkers, but both as a theologian and a philosopher he suggested a radical solution to the problem of the origin of being from God.

The passage from the Confessions quoted partially by Leclerc, in its completeness certainly affirms the absolute being of God, but also attributes being, that is relative by participation, to other things:

The relationship of beings to God is one of dependency in their common reality, but opposition in their similar yet different being. Some lines earlier Augustine, in one of his most brilliant insights, had explained this very similar idea about the dependency of created things, including the mind itself:

Augustine accepts the transcendence of God from Platonic philosophy but develops it differently in order to accommodate God as Creator according to the Jewish-Christian revelation. It is metaphysically important for our common problem to emphasize that this Doctor of the Church also uses the term `source' (fons) about God to explain that he is the Principle of all: . . . these knowing God, found that in Him was both the cause of the whole creation, the light of all true learning, and the source of all felicity."⁵ "Source" is here clearly used in a metaphorical way to express the metaphysical category of first cause, that is the Creator.

Considering Prof. Leclerc's treatment of St. Thomas, whose conception of analogy is very different from that of Duns Scotus and Ockam, I would like to stress that he further explains the doctrine of creation systematically with an explicit distinction betweem--but not by separating--essence and existence. Therefore being is not only identified with "to be" but also implies "it." Thus Thomas both sought and found a mode of expression that would resolve the supposedly rigorous contrast between the being and becoming of creatures. He could say that the Creator is "a being," but such a singular being that He is the Pure Act of being, who freely makes beings that are capable of, and contain the reality of becoming. In a similar way there is no reason to be frightened of the "same mode of thinking" being used in regard to God and other beings. The correct way of thinking about, and predicating value of, God and creatures is analogous not univocal. Nor is it equivocal but similar and different, although the difference is a major one because He is the cause propria of all things.

Therefore, strictly speaking, God is not "Wholly other" but "simply different." Total difference is repugnant because it would create an abyss between God and creatures who are related to Him.

4. Regarding the principal conclusions to be reached and the final problems that need to be resolved, it seems that when Prof. Leclerc affirms that: "there are aporiae involved in the dominant doctrine of God as `a being' which is the source of other things," he multiplies rather than resolves the problems. It is not clear to what dominant doctrine he is referring. He formulates the question by focusing on the problem of the origin of beings from God, beginning from a conception of being.

In order to clarify my interpretation and to discover some solution for the main problem, I would like to propose two questions and two possible solutions.

My first question in the form of dilemma regards the origin of beings from God: Is it by emanation or creation? My dilemma is proposed both in reference to the missing solution in Aristotle, whose fundamental principles I can accept, and also in order to seek a further clarification from Prof. Leclerc about the term "source" in reference to God. "Source" more strongly suggests a metaphor than a technical philosophical category. Only if that word means "active cause," and in this context creative cause, is it acceptable. Otherwise I cannot see any way of overcoming almost impossible difficulties. It is precisely here that we have need of the doctrine of analogy where we try to use the fundamental and universal category of "cause."

Leclerc finally asks about individual being which includes becoming: "Now this `being' necessarily entails `source' in a threefold respect."

The first aspect: "there is required a source of its definiteness." The word "source" here is overburdened with too much meaning, considering the delicacy and importance of the fundamental question of the origin of being. I therefore think that in this context "source" may be (a) the substantial form which is the intrinsic principle determining and specifying being as this or that substance or essence; (b) an accidental form which is a further actual determination of the substance; or (c) the extrinsic efficient Principle, which is the first Cause of singular beings.

It is essential that we do not confuse the constitutive intrinsic principles with the extrinsic transcendent first Principle who is God. Here is the crucial aspect of the entire question. If by "source" Leclerc means the creative Cause of being, then I am in agreement with him. However, if by "source" he means something less as immanent in this world, then I cannot agree with his vague use of the word. This is not to deny that the transcendent first Principle is also immanent, but actively and creatively immanent. Such a first Principle is not to be identified with beings who are relative in their dependence.

The second aspect: "and equally so of its acting." Because "to act is the consequence of to be" (operari sequitur esse) it is necessary to make some further distinctions that are a logical application of those we have already made.

First of all: If "source" means the first Cause that makes every being exist and consequently act, then the expression is acceptable. However, if by "source" he means an intrinsic principle like substance or accident, then the logical consequence must be a type of pantheism.

The third aspect: "Further since `acting' entails `end', (there is) also required a teleological source." Because "every agent works for an end" (Omne agens agit propter finem) in a determined manner, and this indicates the ultimate existence of an intellect, we must still distinguish: (a) if "teleological source" means final, extrinsic Cause as an ultimate end to which all is oriented and ordered, it is acceptable. In this instance this final cause must therefore be identified with the first Principle from which every thing originates. This first Cause or Principle makes the teleological order residing in every contingent being, and must be both the first Intelligence and Will that thinks and wills the existence of beings. However this does not appear to be what Leclerc means. (b) On the contrary, if "teleological source" means some principle internal to beings as a constitutive element of their very natures, then it must simply be denied, because it inevitably leads to pantheism.

Finally it seems to me that the crucial point we must always emphasize is that God is both transcendent and immanent. He is transcendent because, insofar as He gives being to all creatures, He is superior to all relative beings. But by this very same fact of creation He is also immanent, in that He is intimately present causing what is most intimate in beings to be: "Yet you were deeper (intimior) than my deepest self and higher (superior) than the topmost height that I could reach."⁷

In regard to his final statement: "The Divine is more particularly to be identified with the teleological source," I prefer finally to explicitly call that "source" God, insofar as He is the creative "source" which makes the teleological order of the universe including man. But let us not call God "source" if by this we mean an internal principle that is identified with the nature of created things. This seems to be the error that should be avoided at all costs because of the danger of pantheism.

As far as the second question is concerned I would like to refer briefly to the general conception of God and being and to the presuppositions related to these questions. What fundamental conception do we have of man as far as he conceives and knows being, and finally God? Only if we are grounded in a sound epistemology and methodology of the knowing and conscious subject can we be capable of both certainty and truth. Unless we are intellectually open to the notion of being and consequently to self-transcendence, and to the absolute transcendence of the Ipsum Esse, we cannot have any answer to the problem of being and the mystery of God.

Gregorian University

Rome, Italy

1. "L'etre apparait comme le sens des phenomenes, ce qui le pose et permet de les affirmer. Il n'est ni chose ni idee; il fait la profondeur des choses et l'objectivite des idees." Joseph De Finance. La connaissance de l'etre. (Paris: Desclee de Brower, 1966), p. 36.

2. "The notion of being penetrates all other contents, and so it is present in the formulation of every concept. It cannot result from an insight into being, for such an insight would be an understanding we have not attained. It is, as has been said, the orientation of intelligent and rational consciousness towards an unrestricted objective." Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Insight (London: Longemans, Green and Co., 1957), p. 360.

3. Confessions, VII, x, 17.

4. Ibid. VII, x, 16. It is very significant: " . . . sed superior quia ipsa (=lux) fecit me, et ego inferior quia factus ab ea."

5. The City of God, VIII, 10.

6. St. Thomas, III C.G., 66, 6.

7. St. Augustine, Confessions, III, vi, 11. "Tu autem eras intimior intimo meo et superior summo meo." It belongs to the brilliant genius of Augustine to have recognized the intimate relationship existing between the immanence and transcendence of God.

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

H.D. LEWIS

The notion of religious experience appears to me central to all discussions of major religious issues today. It is however a notion about which there appears to be a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are terms like `Nature', and `Freedom', which admit of such a wide variety of interpretation (some of them sharply contradictory) that their use tends to become almost pointless. `Religious experience' is apt to fall into this class. It is sometimes used to refer to any religious activity or practice whatsoever, and thus to become quite otiose. This is the use that some have in mind when they say that they have never had a religious experience; they just mean that they are agnostics. For others `religious experience' means some very peculiar type of experience, like having visions or hearing voices, or having a distinctively mystical experience. For some the term is associated, with some but only very limited justification, with an excessively emotional religious indulgence. In its main use, and in the profound importance ascribed to it by devout persons in all ages, the term stands for none of these things. It is important therefore to indicate just what we should normally understand by `religious experience'. I shall attempt to do this as fairly as I can within a limited space, and I shall also try to give a brief indication of how this relates to other major concerns.

I shall waste no time over those who think of religious experience primarily, and perhaps exclusively, in terms of paranormal phenomena. Such occurrences need not in fact be properly religious at all. To what extent they may be I have discussed in Chapters XIV and XV of my Our Experience of God.¹ Those who have had paranormal experiences in the context of their religious life, ascribe importance to them only in relation to other aspects of their faith; usually they minimize their importance and treat them as quite peripheral to their essential commitment. This is why it seemed to me so unreasonable for a critic of the standing of Alasdair MacIntyre, in a well known book² some years ago, to make such heavy weather over claims to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, etc. Did she `speak Aramaic', did she `remember Galilee'? Questions of this kind seem to me to show a total, indeed obtuse, insensitivity to what religion is essentially like, even in the contexts where visions and voices and other forms of `the marvelous' are in fact invoked.

But we must be equally careful not to think of religious experience merely in terms of some features of human experience as a whole or some generalizations or deductions from what our situation as human beings is like. Religious experience, in essentials, is not incipient metaphysics, however important it may be for metaphysical reflection. Its peculiar significance derives from its being a distinctive experience which people undergo, as they may have a moral or an aesthetic experience. This does not mean that it is always easy to recognize or delimit, as in the case for example, of some forms of pain. But it would be quite wrong to identify it with features of experience which all can recognize, or with natural occurrences to which some further religious significance may be ascribed. Religious experience is essentially religious, a distinct ingredient, to my mind a vital one, in an essentially religious awareness, and identifiable as such.

I go out of my way to stress this because of a prevailing tendency, in current philosophy of religion, to think that so much of religion is initially neutral, even the sense of the numinous according to some. In my view, we cannot produce any proper form of religion out of non-religious elements. There is indeed a place for the interpretation of experience; perception for example looks very different as the philosopher considers some of its extraordinary features. The last thing I wish to do is to discourage reflection on religious awareness, or to present it as a raw datum which some may accept, others not, and no more. We need in fact to think more carefully about it than anything else in religious commitment at present. But we must not, in the process, so dilute it that it is nothing recognizable in and for itself.

The same goes for some fashionable views which equate religious experience with an alleged contentless relation with God sometimes known as an `I-Thou relation'. I have a very great regard for Martin Buber, and I wish more heed were paid by those who refer to him to my fairly close discussion, in Chapter XIII of The Elusive Mind, of what emerges in a positive way from all that he had to say on this theme. But I make no sense whatsoever, in human or in divine relationships, of a mere relation to which no kind of a distinctive precise significance can be attached. The nearest we get to this is the insight or intuition into the inevitability of there being God, and of this I shall say more shortly. But an encounter which is no particular kind of encounter, a `meeting' which cannot be characterized in any way, appears to me to be just nothing. To make the invocation of it a way of by-passing all the hard epistemological problems is just an escape from our intellectual responsibility, it plays into the hands of contemptuous agnostics.

For related reasons I dismiss all accounts of religious experience in exclusively emotional terms. Emotion plays its part, but the core of religious experience, I submit, is essentially cognitive. How then should we understand it?

At the centre, it seems to me, is the enlivened sense of the being of God or, if that at this stage is too theistic a term, of some supreme transcendent reality - as involved in the being of anything at all. This is what lies behind the traditional arguments. We all know their inadequacy as arguments, notwithstanding all the refinements attempted in recent times. But they still haunt us, and this seems to me to be because they reflect in different ways the conviction that there can be no ultimate fortuitousness in the being of things. We seek explanations of the way things are, not as a mere psychological compulsion but as rational beings. We do not give up when no sort of explanation is possible, we insist that it must be available somewhere; but no finite explanation is fully adequate, each proceeds in terms of the way we actually find that things cohere, but there remains the question why they should be this way at all, or why anything at all should exist. We can, at least without sheer inconsistency, say that it all just happened, that somehow things began to be out of a total void and took the remarkable course which enables us to manipulate and understand our environment, in terms of perfect concomitant variation even to the astonishing vastness and complexities of macroscopic and microscopic science of today. We may not contradict ourselves if we say that all this just came into being out of nothing, but is it credible? Why should anything start up at all, much less take the remarkable intelligible shape they have out of just nothing? On the other hand it is equally unintelligible to suppose that the world has always been, that in no sense has there been any sort of origination. `Always' in this sense becomes meaningless. Aeons beyond all computation, and certainly beyond imaginative realization, we can at least comprehend, but a strictly infinite past is just not intelligible.

It is these radical antinomies that compel us to recognize some more ultimate reality in which all that we can, in principle, comprehend is rooted, but which is not itself comprehensible beyond the recognition of its inevitability, a mystery, not partial but total, in which everything there is is invested, but not the mystery of mere bewilderment, the mystery of real transcendent being.

Philosophers put this in fairly sophisticated terms. But the sense of it, however imperfectly expressed, does not require great sophistication. It is elicited in various ways, not least by what Jaspers has called `limit situations', and I have ventured myself elsewhere to indicate in more detail how the sense of the transcendent is awakened in the minds of the most naive as well as of sophisticated persons and societies. It can be traced back as far as recorded history goes. Art and practice as well as intellectual reflection involve it. But granted some intimation in this way of a supreme or transcendent reality, how do we go from there?

It is at this point that I would wish to invoke the idea of religious experience. I wish to stress very much that I do not appeal to the notion of religious experience as such to establish the existence of God, least of all in the naive form of insisting that there must be God because we experience him. That would clearly not do without indication of the sort of experience this is and how it is warranted. It could be a gigantic begging of the question. Religious experience properly comes in at the point where we ask, how we go further than the sense of some ultimate all-encompassing mystery involved in all that we are or find.

There are of course some who do not seek to go further. They stay at the sense of profound wonderment at the essentially incomprehensible source of all there is, sometimes almost to the point of the repudiation of finite being. In practice actual religion has rarely been able to remain at this rarefied level. Present existence claims its rights and our attention. Finite existence cannot be denied any more than the infinite, even if it finds no better place than some mode or articulation of the infinite. At some level there appear, from the remotest times to our own, particular practices, attitudes, obligations, varied and suggestive symbolism, all intimating that the sacred which, in one sense, we cannot approach and whose essential mystery we cannot fathom, is nonetheless peculiarly present, `in thy mouth and in thy heart', as one scripture puts it, that it involves a way of life for us, a purpose, a formative influence in personal and social history, a meaning and a presence articulating itself in all manner of ways and leading, in some instances, to highly refined formulations of belief, even to the curiously presumptuous intimacy of petitionary prayer. Men speak of meeting God, of `walking' with him, of hearing his voice, of turning away from him, of encountering his wrath and, in the same awareness almost, finding him a seeking, reconciling God who draws all men to their ultimate fulfilment `in him'. They even speak of God incarnate as a living, limited finite creature who died in a scandalously shameful way. How is any of this to be warranted, affirmed or rejected? What meaning can it have?

It is here, in my view, that religious experience is the seminal and vital consideration. I do not, of course, wish to deny, that the `insight' into there having to be God, along the lines indicated, is itself an experience. But it is so in the sense that all cognition is experience. To apprehend that twice two is four, or that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, is experience. But no one would claim, in these cases, that we know from experience, on the basis of what we find or observe, that these things are so, as we know that grass is green and fire is hot. `The appeal to religious experience', as it is sometimes called, is not a strictly empirical one, in the sense of empiricism which confines it to presentations of sense, but it has more in common with it than strictly a priori knowledge.' Certain things are claimed on the basis of certain things that have happened.

The one qualification of this, and it is a vital one, is the point already noted, namely that at the core of religious experience, is the enlivened insight into the being of God. We do not know this because things happen in any particular way, but, essentially, because they happen at all. The insight involved is peculiar but certainly not quasi-empirical. On the other hand, the enlivening of this insight in peculiar conditions, and the repercussions of it on other crucial aspects of particular experiences, seem to me to be the raw material out of which all other genuine religious awareness is built - and by which it is tested.

At this point there is a very close analogy between the way we know one another and the way we know God. We do not know the existence of other persons generally in any a priori or in any intuitive way, though some philosophers do make that strange claim. We know all we know about other persons, I submit, in some mediated way, however close and intimate this may be. Without some evidence we would not know the existence of anyone. But the being of God we know quite differently, as indicated. It is in no sense a matter of evidence as this usually goes. But all the rest is, and it is along these lines that I, at least, react to the familiar challenge of empiricist critics - what would count for or against your belief? For the existence of God I answer `nothing'. It is not that kind of awareness, it is a quite peculiar insight about which nonetheless much may be said, again along the lines indicated. But for all other affirmations, the live particularization of profound devotion, we turn to specific evidence, to what counts for or against, to what can, in some respects at least, be analyzed and set forth, though by no means in exclusively sensible terms.

I make a special point of stressing this, as so many who are concerned about religion, at highpowered professional levels or more simply, fall back before the fashionable challenge on either blind appeals to authority or some vague noncognitive attitude or commitment for which there is no rational justification. Interest in religion may be revived today, in fleeting and transitory ways, by simple-minded appeals to emotion or hysteria or palliatives to those who hunger for spiritual sustenance - or we may make do for a while with attenuations which but thinly disguise the essential secularity of our attitudes. But this will not last. Religion needs justification, most of all in a sophisticated age like out own. No great religion can survive without it.

It is this justification of what is distinctive in the claims of the great religions, and the means of assessment and the basis of dialogue, that is to be found essentially, in my view, in religious experience, rightly understood. The points of convergence as well as the differences can be much better understood in these terms and a means made possible of maintaining our distinctive stances while entering with genuine empathy and appreciation into the religious devotion of others. It will also be a very great gain indeed, in all religions, to show that we are fully equipped to confront the demand for justification and fully take the point of empiricist critics, though by no means entirely on their own terms.

Let us return, then, now to the question what a religious experience involves besides the enlivened sense of the being and mystery of God. I want first to add here that, if the transcendent is to function adequately as the ultimate answer to our `why questions', or as explanation in the very special elusive sense indicated, it must be deemed to be complete and adequate in all respects in itself, in other words perfect in the evaluational sense as well as self-sustaining. I do not see how anything less than supreme perfection could meet the case, and in this context I would like to refer you to a quite admirable, but not I suspect sufficiently regarded, book by Professor Sontag entitled Divine Perfection (Student Movement Press). The sense of the holy is essentially evaluational, and does not become so, as is implied in some readings of Otto, by further schematization. This point I must leave as it is for our purpose.

The main point to be stressed now is that the sense of ultimate being, mysterious beyond any fathoming in what it must be in itself other than ultimate perfection, has a distinctive impact on other formative features of the total experience in which it occurs. It corrects the perspective in which we view the world around us, it highlights what is of greatest import for us, it makes us see the familiar anew, as in art and poetry; and it does this under the insistent sense of transcendent being unavoidably having its place in our thought. The transcendent claims what it stimulates for its own; and God, whom no man hath seen, the impenetrably Holy, removed and remote as infinite being from finite, becomes a closely intimate articulate presence in the very core of our own essentially finite awareness.

The substance of what we come to learn about God in this way is finite. It may present difficulties but no difficulties beyond our understanding and resolving in the normal exercise of finite intelligence. What we learn is finite and has no irresolvable mystery in it, much is indeed very simple, however astonishing on occasion. The peculiarly divine factor comes in when these exceptional insights into our own situation and its requirements are seen to be induced in a very sharp way, deepened and refined, under the impact of the movingly enlivened sense of the Holy and the transcendent. As I have put it elsewhere, God puts his own imprimatur on certain insights and sensitivities, he underlines, as it were, certain things in our experience and writes his own mind into them. They come to carry his authority additional to their own. They are what he specifically wants us to note. The devout acquire the art of listening and heeding what is communicated thus within our own sensitivity and concentration.

One feature of exceptional importance in this process whereby our understanding is extended in the enlivened sense of the involvement of our lives in a supreme and transcendent reality is the refinement and deepening of moral awareness. The view has often been advanced that we cannot ascribe genuine objectivity to ethical principles unless they are considered to be expressly dependent on some religious reality. This seems to me to be dangerous doctrine. It is plain that persons with no religious awareness or commitment can have profound appreciation of moral ideals and splendid devotion to them. There is no inconsistency or logical impropriety in their being so. The objectivity of morals is autonomous, as I have stressed myself on many occasions, and some of the most notable and persuasive defenders of moral objectivity have been prominent agnostic philosophers such as G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad. Their case, a very convincing one to me, does not rest at all on religion. Ethics has no more direct dependence on religion than mathematics or science. But this does not preclude morality from being, as most persons would take it to be, at the very heart of reliion.

It is so not just because the ultimate is also supreme perfection, and commitment to it is also therefore commitment to what is surpassingly good, but also because it is in the refinement of ethical understanding, in the sharpening of conscience as it may more popularly be put, that the peculiar disclosure of divine intention for us takes place. It is in the voice of our own conscience that the voice of God is most distinctly and significantly heard. This does not make conscience an essentially religious faculty, but it does make it the pre-eminent medium within which the articulation of the mind of God to us takes place. It is here above all that we find our exceptional clue to what God is like and what is our own involvement and special relation to him.

None of this means that devout people are morally infallible or have a monopoly of all good sense and advance in ethical understanding. There are perversions of religion and profound misunderstandings about its nature that have been very gravely detrimental to ethical good sense and which have from time to time brought religion itself into serious discredit. The refinement of moral understanding involves moreover a great deal besides the sharpening of ethical insight as such; it requires sound appreciation of the facts and circumstances in various situations and the over-all consequences of various policies. On these matters the devout may not always be the best authorities, and religion certainly confers no immunity from error on matters of fact. Nor does it always carry with it the guarantee of the finest ethical insight as such. The agnostic may sometimes excel in both regards.

What we can say however is that, other things being equal, the enlivened sense of the transcendent carries with it essentially a refinement of moral sensitivity and that it is moreover to this source that the most impressive advances in ethical principles over the years have been due. This is not the place to justify the latter submission in detail. My concern at the moment is more with the general contention that, while it is inherently impossible for us to rise beyond our finite nature and comprehend the being and mind of God as it is for him, we find the incursion of the divine into specific human experience, and thereby a preeminent clue into what our relation to it should be, in the peculiarly religious toning and refining of moral experience.

This is not the only example, far from it. We may speak in similar terms of our appreciation of the world around us and its significance, and of the impetus this has given, among other things, to the advance of science. The artistic attitude is in the same way close to religion here, and each has immensely fructified the other for that reason. But it is not primarily a matter of general affinity as of moments of profound religious awareness in which the deepening of religious insight as such takes its course in the blending of itself with perceptions and sensitivity in other secular regards which thereby afford distinctive matter, apprehensible in the normal secular way by us, out of which the fullness and the richness and the intimacy of genuine religious existence is shaped, and by which it is also corrected and criticized.

Correction and criticism are indeed of very great importance here. For the distinctively religious factor, in a total religious experience, operates upon and within the other secular features of our situation. These often have faults of their own, and this is how it comes about that we sometimes sincerely ascribe to the voice of God items which are only too grievously marked by our own limitations and failings. It would be fine in some ways if the mind of God were disclosed to us in some indelible and wholly unmistakable way, written in the sky or on tablets of stone or of gold in some inscription which is indisputably divine. Dispute, and presumably doubt, would be at an end. But it does not happen that way. Short of being God ourselves what sanction could we invoke, what are the credentials of a message so conveyed? There is indeed no such way for the voice of God to be heard by finite beings. He speaks in the ways we can understand in his peculiar obtrusion into the normal exercise of the faculties with which he has endowed us. But it is not the mere exercise of finite powers that is involved. There is the peculiar transformation of them which we have the reasons indicated for ascribing to divine intervention in the enlivened sense of the transcendent already described.

A genuine prophet can, for these reasons, be sincerely mistaken, and devout persons have always to be searching out their own minds and hearts to be as sure as they can that what they take to be the voice of god is not the voice of their own errors and failings, or at least tinged by these. That does not preclude firmness of conviction and deliverance. The prophet may speak with authority, but he must be mindful also that he is but a medium, a vessel that is often cracked and broken.

One particular feature of the fallibility of genuine prophetic awareness is the involvement of all of us in the particular circumstances of our age and society. When, as in societies at a relatively low level of moral development, the sense of the divine impinges upon their attitudes, the progress they make will be correspondingly limited and sometimes distorted. If the ethical understanding of a community has not advanced beyond the level of crude retribution and collective guilt, there may well be a genuinely religious ingredient in the perpetuation of ideas which a more enlightened age would find morally abhorrent. What we have to be constantly heeding is the intertwining of genuine religious disclosure and insight with other all too fallible aptitudes and interests of finite creatures. Much in the sacred scriptures of various religions will become more intelligible to us and can be viewed judiciously in their proper setting if we think, as indicated, of divine disclosure as a leaven in the totality of our own aptitudes and aspirations. At the same time the distinctiveness of the transcendent influence must not be lost or wholly merged in the finite media on which it operates.

The precise moment of genuine religious awareness, operating within the functions it claims for its own operation, may not always be easily delimited. It may be sharp as in sudden conversion, but even in these cases there is often a period of subtle maturing in which truly religious elements come to their open and more explicit formulation. More commonly, although religious awareness and sensitivity may be clear and explicit, it has its own ebb and flow, it merges itself in other concentrations of attention, it may be gentle and unobtrusive, in acts of worship or meditation, much as aesthetic awareness is not always easily delimited and isolated from the observations and attentiveness which it takes up into itself. It is for these reasons that some may even fail to detect the moment of live religious awareness or allow it in retrospection to be lost in the media which it embraces. This, in particular is where very careful thought is needed in our times to detect and uphold the element of genuine religious awareness against crude and bogus travesties of it.

This is all the more the case because the live religious awareness lives on in other experiences and practices and also perpetuates itself dispositionally in our way of living as a whole. Its occurrence may be known obliquely and indirectly, and this in notable cases is no mean assurance of its presence. It may well become apparent by its fruits. But we can never rely on that alone. The enlivened individual awareness is the indispensable religious factor, and it is out of it preeminently that the distinctively religious shape of any faith is formed.

In my fuller discussion of these matters, in my book Our Experience of God, I also ascribed particular importance to what I described as the patterning of religious experience. There are significant recurrences and variations which I sought to describe. It has often been found, for example, that the enlivened awareness of transcendent being often comes about in situations where we have least justification for expecting it, for example in states of an overwhelming sense of guilt. The latter, especially a sense of grievous wrong-doing, comes between us and one another and between us and God, it drives us on our own inner resources which dry up without the sustaining sense of the world around us and of other persons. It is in this debility that we find the real penalty of sin. But, surprisingly, it is often in just this situation of despair and desperation that men have found the onset of the renewed awareness, sometimes gentle, sometimes disturbing, of infinite being as the end and sustainer of their own existence; and life as a whole becomes renewed again and transformed. The recurrence of this, its variations and the extension of it into the religious consciousness of various societies, builds itself up over the ages into the sense of God, not as mere remote sustainer or `Unmoved Mover', but as a seeking reconciling God peculiarly involved in what we are and in our relationship with him. This is, to my mind, a very important aspect of the emergence of the more theistic forms of religion.

The same may be said of other situations of desperation, whether we bring them on ourselves or not. It does not follow that distressing circumstances and evil are straightaway resolved. Appalling evil is still with us and presents the severest tension and strain for religious commitment. It is not a problem I can lightly deviate into now. But in these situations also men have found the sustaining and recurring sense of God invading their attitudes as a whole and giving them renewal of strength. God comes to be known as `an ever present help in trouble'.

My submission, without pursuing any of these illustrations in further detail here, is that it is in the substance and the patterning, which I would also much stress, of the moulding and refining of otherwise neutral sensitivities and attitudes by the insistent impact of the transcendent rather than in a priori and essentially empty attempts to determine abstract properties of God, that we find the vindication and shaping, as well as the appropriate critique, of the more particular affirmations and practices of actual living religions. The parallel with `other minds' is here very close. We do not, as I have persistently maintained elsewhere, know the minds of other persons as we know our own; however close our relationships may be, however intimate, there is an essential element of mediation. The relation we have with God is no less intimate and close because it comes in the mediation of the peculiar modification of our own experience, it is as close as finite-infinite relationships can be, and to those who experience it profoundly there is no barrier that matters.

For many who persist in an agnostic or skeptical view of religion I suspect that a major determinant of their attitude is the expectation that religion must vindicate itself for them, if at all, in some form of supernatural experience of which finite beings are not capable at all. This is the sophisticated version of the expectation that the astronauts may discover God for us. What we need is to know better where and how to look, and to persevere more in the demanding discipline of looking in the right way. Far too often we take it all to be a matter of a few formal considerations one way or the other when in fact it is a matter of living committed lives in the closest association with the witness of profound experience over the ages.

Closely related to the same mistake is the supposition that religious experience is essentially and wholly a private matter. It has to be initially and in itself private, but what matters most is not the intimations of God that we may chance to have in our more exclusively private existence, but rather the absorption into our individual awareness of the wealth and significance of the sustained and developing religious awareness of men down the ages. It is not in a void that we encounter God but in all the rich diversities of our cultures and the formative part of religion within them. This is what must come alive for us in our individual experience.

This is what is sustained for us in various ritual and symbolic practices. How these function, and where they are genuine and healthy, is a subject in itself. There can clearly be perversions and parasitic imitations, just as there can be over-intellectualized treatments of practices where the true significance is closely bound up with the figurative and symbolic expression. Symbolism is not a thing apart, a decorative superimposition, it is a major, and often indispensable way of articulating what is profoundly perceived and felt and finds its appropriate depth in the fertilization and sustaining of one another's experience within a continuing social unit. At the same time the symbol is not final, and the ritual must not become an end in itself, much less be exploited for purposes extrinsic to its proper motivation, indeed as has sometimes happened evil purposes.

All the same, in the last resort, the symbol is not final and it does not exist for itself. It derives its proper power from the continuity of the experience it expresses. The same is true in art. Poetry, or other forms of art, which depend entirely on lively image or emotional overtones, is not the finest. It palls unless it high-lights or exhibits something distinctive and notable, however impossible it may be to distil the meaning from its figurative expression. The symbol must not, in religion, take wing on its own, it must be anchored in experience.

The same is true of the more formally credal expressions of religious truth. There is a place for sophisticated formulation, acutely difficult though it is and full of pitfalls, but it is not, alas as has too often been assumed, an a priori intellectual exercise. It proceeds on the basis of what is taken to be conveyed in the medium of live experiences enriching and extending one another in a variety of social contexts. This means that the theologian has a peculiarly difficult task and requires a greater variety of skills and aptitudes than is usually realized, least of all by the practitioners themselves--a point which I much stressed elsewhere.³ It is particularly hard because one has to be responsive to the symbolism, and the appropriate artistry, and also to the critical assessment of all which these convey.

A very serious pitfall, most of all for Western theologians and religious thinkers, is to take some striking religious symbol or story out of its context in the total themes of the scriptures in which it appears. This has happened, for example, when juristic metaphors in the New Testament have been made the basis of doctrines of retributive punishment and vicarious suffering in ways appalling to any moral or intellectual sensitivity. Creda1 affirmations do have their important place, most of all in religions in which the historical factor is important. They help to concentrate attention in the right way. But they must proceed on the basis of what is initially made evident in the formative disclosures in experience.

In Semitic religion there is usually accorded an exceptionally important place to a distinctive form which divine disclosure in human experience is alleged to have taken in a particular stretch of history. This is not the place to assess that claim or the even more astounding claim that the one transcendent reality was able, in some way which baffles all comprehension, to so limit itself as to enter into a fully human limited form in the culmination of the process which had been taking shape in Hebrew history. This remains the central Christian affirmation and I myself make very little sense of recent attempts to retain the formulae and ritual practices of the Christian faith if these central themes, as they seem to me, of the New Testament and traditional Christian understanding are so eroded as to bear little relation to the sources from which they came and the meaning they would normally be given. Far better, it would seem to me to abandon them altogether, though that is far from what I myself commend.

At the moment the question is not the soundness of the distinctive claims of the Christian faith or any other. But there is one point I do want to stress, namely that the assessment of these and like affirmations must, in the last analysis, go back to the profoundest appreciation of the subtle interlacing of normal sensitivity with divine intimation. If this adds up, in the available evidence about Jesus and his background, to the central affirmations of the New Testament and traditional Christian thought, so be it - it is what I myself think. But if the central claims are not to be sustained along those lines I know of no way in which they can be so sustained that can stand in the light of open reflection and criticism today.

It remains most important, however, to recognize that, which ever way the evidence points in respect to the distinctive stances of various religious, this is no bar to the profound recognition of one another's insights and achievements. We have learnt much better today how much of mutual enrichment of one another's experience and insight is possible in this way. The differences, where they remain, must not be blurred, any more than they must be hardened by misunderstanding. We can reach across to one another's practices and histories to the great deepening and enlivening of our own experience, and the gain in this way to the West today is much too evident for me to need to underline it now. We have learnt enormously from varieties of experience that were new to us, and the range of our sensitivity has been much extended. Meditation has acquired a new depth for us, and flights of religious imagination opened up that were little known before. My contention is that the major clue for understanding and assessment, when expertise and scholarship has done its work, is the religious toning and directing of religious experience along the lines indicated.

There is one point of considerable substance which I would like to add. It refers to what I was saying at the beginning about the initial awareness of the transcendent. In my understanding, the transcendent is altogether beyond and other than finite being. Creaturely existence, though wholly dependent, is not any part or mode of ultimate being. This is however much in dispute, not only in extensive features of Eastern thought but in Western philosophies from Plotinus to Hegel and contemporary mystical philosophers like W. T. Stace. This again is a vast issue in itself and the opposition of view varies a great deal in its sharpness. I maintain, however, that this is the crucial issue for today in religious thought. It is not an easy one, and we all have our attachments to entrenched positions which we find hard to surrender. My own allegiance has been made plain in one publication after another. I strongly insist on the distinct reality of finite existences and especially on the peculiar distinctness of persons. On the line we take on this issue will turn, more than on anything else at present, the ultimate understanding we have, and even the sensitivity to genuine religious reality as such. It is an issue we must firmly face, though the last thing we must fall into is the temptation to settle the question lightly out of hand to ensure easy accommodation and good will. The right sort of good will does not call for that sort of price, and is contaminated by it. But we must have this central issue steadily before us, and it is on our success in coping with it, I maintain, that the best eventual progress will be made with all our other major problems and our power to share the wealth of one another's insights and experience.

I have spoken mainly of communication and assessment of truth. No space is left to consider the part which our own responsiveness plays in the process as a whole. The wind may blow `where it listeth' but `prayer and fasting' has its place too. An age committed to exclusively secular pursuits, and those not always the most elevated, can hardly expect to be well appraised of things that have to be `spiritually discerned'. What Simone Weil and others have brought to mind for us about heeding and `waiting on God' is immensely relevant, and this means more than being religiously attentive in a general way, it means also the continual response, in practice as in thought, of individuals in the ebb and flow of the illumination they have in their own religious experience and what they assimilate from the religious life of their community. It is in these terms, in the exchanges of genuine response, in the part we play ourselves in the formulation of our own religious awareness, that we come again, if I may further reflect my personal allegiance, to our understanding of the more theistic approach to religion and our proper participation in it.

Religious experience, so conceived, is not passive, and it does not under-rate the essential mutuality of living, personal relationship as involved centrally in it. The language of prayer and devotion, of struggle and surrender, as well as the essential serenity, bring us to the vitally personal character of religious existence which we are also apt to overlook, even though some like myself may be inclined to over-stress it. The `God of the living', even of the wayward and rebellious, the relentlessly seeking God, is the God I have encountered in my own experience.

I hope such an element of personal testimony is not out of place. What matters for us here is that, in discussion and amity, we should enter into one another's views and sensitivity with as much imaginative insight and empathy as we can. Where the gaps can be closed let us hasten to do so, but our main concern is with the truth and `the wind of the argument withersoever it takes us'. We must understand as much as we can across the boundaries, with humility as much as with firmness. There is no place in true religion for confrontation or rancour, there is all the place in the world for empathy and humility.

King's College

University of London

NOTES

1. See also Chap. 3 of my Persons and Life After Death (London: Macmillan, l978).

2. New Essays in Philosophical Theology, Chap. XI.

3. "What is Theology?" Freedom and History, Chap. XVII.

CRITIQUE AND HERMENEUTIC

IN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

BENOIT GARCEAU

When called to reflect on religion, as on other works of man, the philosopher seeks to understand it. But there are many ways to understand a phenomenon, firstly, to grasp its meaning and to express it in clear and distinct concepts; secondly, to explain it or to sort out the conditions which make it possible; finally, to judge its value. Any search to understand a phenomenon must attempt to answer three questions: What is it; Why is it thus; and Is it as it ought to be? These three questions call upon three different yet indissociable functions of the intellect: its hermeneutic, explanatory, and critical functions.

The philosopher who has decided to try to understand religion soon discovers that he is entering a domain dominated by a separation of the methods of understanding and a fragmentation of religious language. This discretely respected division of labor reserves for the theologian the hermeneutic of religion, for the psychologist and the sociologist its explanation, and for the philosopher its critique. This fragmentation of language arises not only from the fact that each of these disciplines employs a particular mode of understanding, but also from the fact that within each of these languages there are numerous and varied concepts of religion.

It is necessary for philosophers to confront this situation with courage and lucidity, recognizing that their principal task by which they have something valid to contribute to the understanding of religion is to seek to overcome this fragmentation in the human understanding of religion. Guided by this fundamental intent, the only way open is to redo on one's own each of the three questions which religion raises for the intellect--to carry out a repetition of the three, hermeneutic, explanatory and critical functions of the understanding in relation to the religious fact. This implies that the philosopher of religion begins to listen to the theologies, the religious sciences, and the critiques of religion in order to be sure how religion is understood. Above all one must examine closely the presuppositions and consequences of each of these groups of disciplines and thus prepare the elaboration of a theory of religious practice.

What is thus sketched out is nothing less than a new type of philosophy of religion which has become necessary by reason of a break-up of religious language. It is new in contrast to the two principal ways in which, in the western tradition, philosophers have studied religion by using either hermeneutic or critique. Whereas the former was a reflection from within the faith and aimed at understanding its content, the latter dealt with religion as a given which did not escape the rule of reason. It submitted religion to a model of rationality with the more or less explicit goal of guaranteeing the autonomy and freedom of reason in relation to religion. This is not the occasion to write at length on the difficulties raised by each of these approaches to a philosophical study of religion. It is sufficient to note that each employs a particular function of the intellect--either hermeneutic or critical. The hermeneutic of religion only partially answers the questions asked of the intellect by the religious fact. The critique of religion, when separated from a hermeneutic, risks being satisfied with generalities which reduce the religious given to a pre-established rational framework. Both lead to a very impoverished language--a kind of Logos without Praxis.

In this initial sketch of a "repetition" of one mode of discourse on religion, I propose to reflect on a particular type of critique of religion in order to show how it is impossible for the critique to isolate itself from the hermeneutic: how it is necessary at a certain stage for a critique to appeal to a hermeneutic. I have chosen the critique developed in these times especially in the Anglo-Saxon context of empirical philosophy. In order to situate this, I shall begin by comparing it to other existing types; then I will show the manner in which this critique, which is entirely taken up with judging the value of religion, finds itself driven, despite itself, to restate a presupposed question regarding the nature of religious faith.

The empiricist critique of religion took the form of a critique of the validity of religious language, that is to say, it disputed the right of such language to be a candidate for truth or falsity. That questioning was carried out in two different manners; first, in the name of a theory of meaning which stipulates the criteria to which all language must conform in order to be considered as a possible candidate for truth, and second in the name of a theory of knowledge or of a general epistemology. The critique of the meaning of the expressions of faith is a relatively recent enterprise developed by analytic philosophy of religion. It questions something prior to the truth of the expressions of faith, namely, their aptitude for being held to be sensed--the only type of expressions concerning which one can ask if they be true or false. The skepticism that inspires this is not a theological one, questioning in the name of historical data or of a philosophical worldview the truth of religious faith. Rather, it is a "meta-theological" skepticism which questions the validity of the language of faith uniquely in the name of a logical analysis of language. Only with difficulty can this critique of meaning, though it depends ultimately upon a theory of meaning, be isolated from a general theory of knowledge, in particular from a model of knowledge borrowed from the practice of science and rationally justified only on the basis of the fruitfulness of science.

In contrast, the critique of the validity of theological language or discourse based upon a theory of knowledge manifests greater sincerity and clarity regarding its presuppositions, and is practiced today by some followers of the critical rationalism of K. Popper. It does not stop at the language of faith, nor is it preoccupied with judging whether or not it has meaning. Rather it sees in religious faith a transgression of the essential function of reason, namely, to submit to criticism all hypotheses, to try to refute all conjectures without ever pretending to have ethical certitude and without any other manner of approaching truth than through its passing the test of falsification.

I would like to attend to the first form of the critique of the validity of the language of faith, that which is based upon a theory of meaning. According to this theory, which has been reformulated several times since the heydey of logical positivism, a statement can be held as declarative or having a referential value--and therefore being a candidate for truth--only if in principle it is able to be controlled, or subject to verification or falsification, on the basis of empirical evidence. The critique itself consists in judging that statements made by a believer regarding God have only the appearance of declarative statements, since the believer is incapable of showing the manner in which these statements could be verified or falsified. Hence they should be eliminated from all language which claims truth.

One could think that this critique of the validity of language regarding faith presents the believer with a much less serious challenge than the critique of the genesis of religion¹ introduced in our culture by the three masters of suspicion, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche, which seem to create a much more profound crisis for religious faith. This consists in holding the language of faith to be that of a consciousness which is false or not really as it appears; that it is language which has been elaborated with the aim of concealing and justifying the unrecognized interests of one's consciousness. The Marxist theory of ideology, the Freudian analysis of illusion, the Nietzschean genealogy of morals do not consist in questioning that its statements are true or that they are possible candidates for the truth. More radically, they consider them to be residues of the unconscious, whose origin must be reconstructed, even in its material conditions, in order to explain them and to allow consciousness to become independent of them. The radical character of this critique is clear for, as S. Breton has shown, it is the critique not only of a principle, but of all principles. Any discussion on the truth or falsity of a theological statement is prohibited when from the outset it is held to be ideological or illusory, and explicable by illogical individual or social factors.

What gives the critique of the validity of religion its importance is that without it the critique of its origin is not justified, for it is the critique of validity as a necessary presupposition for the critique of origin. When the critic of ideology or of illusion undertakes to retrace the origin of a thought in order to explain it, he is convinced that this research has interest and promises useful results. But this research can be of interest only if he is convinced that religious thought, which he wants to explain by the material conditions of its possibility, does not have the right to be held as true and that despite this it nonetheless persists in being cultivated by many. From the beginning among critics of ideology or of illusion there is always an implicit value judgment on that which one attempts to explain as being an anomaly or a symptom of a sickness which must be explained by him in order to free the patient. This value judgment, unless it be only a prejudice, rests upon a critique of the validity of the language of religious faith.

In Marx, one finds one of the most significant examples of this necessary dependence of the critique of the origin of religion upon a critique of its validity. He is convinced that religion is both a false substitute for true happiness and a form of protest against human misery, and hence that it will disappear when man takes into his own hands the direction of his existence. But this conviction depends upon another which is less explicit in Marx's work, but constantly necessary to justify the first. This is the conviction common to all rational atheists that religion has its source in ignorance of the powers of nature and of society, and that it would disappear with the progress of science, just as did alchemy and astrology with the progress of chemistry and astronomy.² Only this rationalist postulate--which, it is necessary to insist, deals with the validity of a language of faith--explains that among the products of consciousness enumerated in the German Ideology--religion, morality, art, philosophy--only religion must completely disappear. Morals, philosophy and art can be transformed and become moments of human praxis; only religion cannot be retained, precisely because it is presupposed to be irreconcilable with scientific progress. This means that the Marxist critique of the origin of religion is based upon a prior critique which the Enlightenment proposed as its program and which the meta-theological skeptic of our era takes up once again in order to assure its success, namely, the critique of the validity of the language of faith.³

Therefore, let us examine more closely this critique of the validity of religion which is carried out in the name of a theory of meaning. This is not the place to present a history of the debates provoked by this critique since it first was formulated in a precise manner by A. Flew.⁴ Nor is it the place to examine all the strategies employed to demonstrate, either against this critique the validity of the language of faith, or in agreement with this critique that its result has been to purify religious faith from unsuitable language. I prefer to focus instead on an answer to this critique which I consider most satisfactory because it comes from analytic philosophy itself in which the critique is rooted, and because it submits each of its two principle theses to scrupulously careful examination. This is R.S. Heimbeck's reply in his work Theology and Meaning.⁵ For reasons I do not understand this has received little attention by analytic philosophers of religion, though it offers the most convincing criticism of the empiricist critique of the validity of the language of faith.

The first thesis of meta-theological skepticism, according to Heimbeck, cannot withstand criticism. It is not true that an expression must be verifiable or falsifiable in order for it to have a referential value or to be used to express a proposition. To believe so is to fail to note the difference between the criterion of meaning of a statement and evidence of the senses. The criterion of meaning designates the conditions which must be fulfilled in order that a statement may serve to express a true or false proposition, while evidence of the senses designates the sensible conditions which must be satisfied in order that we might know or have the right to believe that this proposition is true or false.⁶ Now, the sufficient and necessary condition in order that a statement might express a true or false proposition is not that it be controlled by verification or falsification: its verifiability and its falsifiability only constitute sufficient, but not necessary conditions for its referential value. The fact that a statement is verifiable or falsifiable, that is, controllable, suffices for one to suppose that it says something about what is real, but it is not necessary that it be controllable in order for it to have such meaning. The sufficient and necessary condition of its referential value consists rather in the fact that it has with other propositions relations of implication or incompatibility.⁷ Applied to theological language, this criterion allows one to recognize among the statements used by the believer those which are declarative propositions and hence candidates for truth or falsity. The statement "God is love," for example, has referential value if it is used by the believer in such a way that it entails relations of implication or incompatibility with other propositions. That is to say, if the believer, in making this statement, implies that "God knows all men, wants their well-being and in order to realize it is prepared to give himself," and if it excludes that "God wants the eternal misery of all men."⁸

Having shown that the requirements of verifiability or falsifiability imposed on theological expressions so that they may have meaning result from an unfortunate confusion between verification and semantic entailment, between falsification and semantic incompatibility, between sensible evidence and criterion of meaning, Heimbeck attempts to prove that the second thesis of meta-theological skepticism is equally untenable, and that theological statements are as a matter of fact verifiable and falsifiable in a decisive manner on the basis of empirical givens. Let us note immediately that this task is not strictly necessary in order to refute the empiricist critique of the validity of theological statements; this refutation was already accomplished when it was shown that these expressions do not have to be controllable by verification or falsification in order to be held as valid. If they maintain relations of implication or incompatibility with other propositions these statements have a referential value; they serve to express propositions and are candidates for truth. But Heimbeck wants to do more.

For the skeptic who is steadfast in claiming that a statement has cognitive value only if there exists in principle a way of controlling it empirically, he takes up the task of showing that in theological language there are propositions (and precisely those which provide the foundation of this language) which are not withdrawn from the requirements of falsifiability and verifiability. If his argument succeeds in convincing the reader, then one can see what it promises: to justify one's recognizing objective value for statements of faith which serve as principles for all theological discourse. In this sense, such discourse, far from being reduced to what Wisdom and Flew called a "picture preference,"⁹ would have the value of propositions susceptible to being empirically controlled.

A theological system, according to Heimbeck, is formed from two different kinds of propositions: those which admit of no relation of implication or incompatibility with empirically verifiable or falsifiable propositions (for example, "God exists," "God is triune," "God is omnipotent"), and those which maintain such a bond (for example, "God raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, near Jerusalem, at time₂" which implies the truth of the following two propositions: "Jesus of Nazareth died near Jerusalem, at time₁," and "Jesus of Nazareth was alive in the vicinity of Jerusalem, at time₃").¹⁰ In traditional Christian theism, propositions of the second kind, grounded on empirical data, serve as the foundation for the first. Heimbeck finds it strange that in recent meta-theological debate one is exclusively occupied with the first.¹¹ An abstraction has been performed upon the language of faith, retaining for submission to logical analysis only the propositions not having any relation of implication or of incompatibility with empirically controllable propositions. However, when he asserts "God loves all men"--a proposition without empirical incidence--the believer bases the assertion on this other: "God sent His own Son in order to offer his life for the sins of the world," and this on still another: "The Word was made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ," and this finally on this other which implies empirically verifiable propositions and excludes others: "God raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, near Jerusalem, at time_.2"¹² It is necessary therefore, holds Heimbeck, to reverse the flow and apply logical analysis on those propositions anchored in statements of observable facts which serve as principles procuring for all others their positive legitimation.

Heimbeck has no trouble showing the falsifiability of these empirical theological propositions. If a theological proposition has a purely empirical consequence and if this consequence is falsifiable in a conclusive way on the sole basis of empirical data, then the antecedent proposition (by analogy with modus tollens) is ipso facto falsifiable in a conclusive manner on the sole basis of empirical data. If there is some purely empirical factor which is incompatible with a theological proposition and if this incompatible is verifiable in a conclusive manner solely on the basis of empirical data, then the antecedent proposition (by analogy to modus pomendo ponens) is ipso facto falsifiable in a decisive way on the sole basis of empirical data.¹³ For example, the proposition "God raised Jesus of Nazareth near Jerusalem, at time₂" is falsifiable in a decisive way on the basis of empirical data from the fact that it implies "Jesus of Nazareth died, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, at time₁", and "Jesus of Nazareth was living, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, at time₃". These are falsifiable propositions on the basis of empirical givens, or on the basis that they exclude that "Jesus of Nazareth was dead at moment₃", which is itself verifiable in a conclusive manner on the basis of empirical data.

Are such theological propositions having consequents or empirical incompatibles equally verifiable in a conclusive manner? Are they controllable to the extent of being able to be verified by empirical evidence? Yes, maintains Heimbeck, on condition that one acknowledge the originality of the reasoning employed by the believer in order to adhere to this kind of proposition. It is no longer a question of a reasoning by implication or incompatibility, but by inference proceeding from an agglomeration of the signs of that which is found signified therein.¹⁴ To exclude this type of reasoning, under the pretext that it is never conclusive, is, in his opinion, to hold a monolithic conception of reason, to acknowledge only one method, and to be obliged not to recognize the validity of a process which is used not only by clinical psychology and history, but also by the physical sciences.¹⁵ Certainly, this reasoning from signs to the thing signified implies an a priori. The choice of empirical data serving as signs signifying the truth of a theological proposition is itself determined by the context to which belongs the theological proposition which empirical data are able to verify. But this circle in which reasoning by signs moves is not unique to the believer; even the scholar cannot avoid selecting empirical data on the basis of a theoretical proposition which the same date serve to control or justify.

The effort made by Heimbeck to show that theological language is empirically controllable led him to defend three closely related theses: 1. In theological language, everything depends upon an aggregation of empirical propositions joined to propositions which are conclusively controllable on the basis of empirical evidence; 2. These propositions, which give all the others their positive justification, are falsifiable and then empirical incompatibles are verifiable; 3. Finally, these propositions are verifiable to the degree that they are the result of an inference from signs to what is signified. Of these three theses, the second is unassailable if the two others are true. In effect, if there are empirical propositions at the source of theological language, which are obtained by inference from an agglomeration of signs and which are verifiable by those signs, there is no difficulty in allowing that in this language there are propositions which are falsifiable in a conclusive manner on the basis of the evidence of the senses.

But does theological language truly rest upon an aggregate of empirical propositions, and are these obtained by inferences based upon an agglomeration of signs? This question is raised by Heimbeck's reply to the critique of the validity of the language of faith. Evidently, this is a question to be resolved by research on the nature of theology and faith, which is a matter for theology. This means that at this stage in its development, the critique of the validity of theological language calls upon an hermeneutic of religious faith, and that the philosopher must therefore suspend his critique and question the theologian in order to learn how religious faith understands itself and how it judges its own language.

M.L. Diamond's¹⁶ recent reaction gives important evidence that the question raised by Heimbeck's work concerns the nature of theology. One of the rare representatives of analytical philosophy of religion to take Theology and Meaning into account, Diamond's brief commentaries help to understand the silence which surrounds this book. In Diamond's view, Heimbeck's position rests on an extremely naive conception of theology, that of the "fundamentalist" who presupposes that everything in Scripture is to be taken according to the letter and that Scripture has unquestionable authority. With such a conception of theology, Heimbeck excludes himself from the debate on the verification of statements of faith and condemns himself to not being heard by the participants involved in this debate. Though they recognize that "fundamentalists" have no difficulty in verifying the statements of their faith, fundamentalists remain of no interest because their criteria of credibility are irrevocably outdated by the development of science and have been abandoned by more enlightened theologians.¹⁷

This reaction is very significant. Heimbeck's answer to the critique of the validity of theological language is criticized and rejected in the name of what theology ought to be. Because it employs a conception of theology which one judges no longer to be in agreement with the criteria of rationality developed by scientific thought, Heimbeck's thesis does not have the right to be heard in discussions on the validity of theology. This reaction reveals a more or less conscious decision at all costs to keep the debate on grounds of validity. This concerns no longer, however, the validity of the expressions of faith, but that of a conception of theology which is to be kept or done away with according as it is or is not in conformity with the criteria imposed by scientific reason.

However, Heimbeck's thesis raises a question of truth--more precisely, a double question of truth: (a) Is it true that theological language depends upon an aggregate of empirical propositions obtained by inference from an agglomeration of signs? and (b) Is this language itself true? The first question calls, as we have underlined, for a hermeneutic of theology and of faith; the second calls for a critique of the language of faith, no longer as to its origin or validity, but as regards its truth.

What does a philosopher engaged in the debate on theology and verification learn from a hermeneutic of religious faith? One learns two elementary truths without which this debate will be poorly oriented from the outset. One learns, in the first place, that religious faith cannot be reduced to the inevitable outcome of a challenge which would be imposed from without, as would be the case of just any fact. If the Jewish faith is never separable from the experience of the Exodus, if the Christian faith always refers to witnessing the resurrection of Christ, they are, for all that, not understood by those who live them as inferences proceeding from empirical data, similar to the adherence of an historian or psychoanalyst to an hypothesis suggested by reading documents. To liken it to the attitude of a scholar who concerns himself with a theory which can be abandoned and replaced as soon as it no longer succeeds in giving an account of all the facts would be to misunderstand faith. To acknowledge in theological language, as Heimbeck does with good reason, the utilization of the criteria of falsifiability and of verifiability in a manner which is not very different from that which one finds in scientific language, does not necessarily imply that faith itself is inferred from empirical data and is able to be certified or controlled by such date.

Though its certitude is always without evidence, faith never does without signs. This is the second elementary truth which a hermeneutic of faith would bring to light. The presence of signs is necessary for the birth and maturation of faith in another person. In this, faith in God does not have a different status. Whether furnished by the sensible universe, by Scripture, or by the intimate life of the believer, signs are necessary mediators of religious faith. Understood by the believer as an invitation from God who is taking the initiative to address himself to his creature and as communion with him--and not only as an adherence to a discourse on God--faith, like any other communion between subjects, is possible only if based upon communication by signs. It is therefore not altogether wrong to conceive the language of faith as resting on elementary propositions which, in turn, are based upon a reading of signs by one who is disposed to believe signs.¹⁸

Is this reading of signs by the believer shielded from criticism? No, no more than it escapes the question of truth. But the type of critique that it calls for is not primarily the critique of its origin or that of the validity of its language. It needs a critique of its truth. This is more exigent than the other two for it does not restrict itself to evaluating the language of faith on the basis of an aggregate of objective criteria of validity, nor to judging faith on the basis of the material conditions which seem to explain it. Anticipating in a way both of these critiques, it seeks overall to judge the language of faith on the basis of what is ultimately intended by faith, and to judge faith itself on the basis of the signs by which it is nourished.

This certainly is a critique immanent to the life of faith, and carried out by the faith and for the faith. That the first critique of religion comes from faith itself, is a fact too often ignored by many analysts of religion. Religion is poorly described if its originality is not taken into account. One considers one's faith to be an absolute and exclusive certitude: absolute because it is the result neither of a system of thought nor of social or psychological factors, but of a conversion based upon God's initiative; exclusive because it does not present itself as the establishment of one meaning among others, but as the sole affirmation of the ultimate sense of the universe. Much more, one is convinced that only one's faith is apt for critiquing its own expression, for deciding on the value of all that one can imagine, conceive, or say of the God envisaged by one's faith.

Moreover, not only do enlightened believers claim the critique of the language of their faith as a task for which they alone are fitted, but they see in it an indispensible task for the health and development of their faith. Without it faith soon succumbs before one or another of the two crises through which it will inevitably pass: (a) that which is produced by the transcendence of its object, that is, of God who must never be assimilated to a being of the world nor thought of as if he were a being among others; or (b) that which is produced by the refusal of the non-believer to admit that what the believer holds as true, with absolute certitude, has meaning and can be true.

If a philosopher judges the truth of the language of faith, they can do so only in the name of the first principle of his philosophy which they consider evident. Any philosophy worthy of the name founds itself, in the last analysis, on a particular answer to the question: "what is the real?", an answer which is commonly called one's "ontology." It is clear that not all ontologies are equally hospitable to the affirmation of God. One who holds a materialist ontology, for example, cannot avoid judging to be false any statement of faith affirming the existence of a God that is the creator of the universe. He will make it seem that he is appealing to a logical analysis of faith language to show that it is unintelligible or incoherent, but he will already have decided, by the type of philosophy he has decided to employ, that the language of faith is an error. Other ontologies could come to a more nuanced judgment--e.g., certain idealist ontologies--and lead to the decision simply that, though the language of the faith is not true, it symbolizes at the level of representation what philosophy knows to be true.

There is, however, a way in which the philosopher and the believer can share the critique of the truth of theology. If they agree to admit that theological language rests on a believing reading of signs, they both are faced with the crucial question: based upon what conditions does the interpretation of signs become possible? This reflection aimed at explicating the a priori of communication by signs is an urgent task for philosophy of religion, preliminary in all cases to the apparently more rigorous, but less decisive, disputes on the validity of the language of faith.

University of Ottawa

Ottawa, Canada

2. This aspect of the Marxist critique of religion has been brought to light by N. Lobkowicz, "La critique de la religion chez Marx," Les Etudes Philosophiques, 3 (1976), 317-330.

3. A good example of the critique of the validity of religion aimed at establishing its falsity and assuring the truth of the skepticism of the Enlightenment before undertaking the critique of its genesis, is to be found in Kai Nielsen's Contemporary Critiques of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 1. See my work on this subject, "La philosophie analytique de la religion: contribution canadienne 1970-1975," Philosophiques, 2 (1975), 307-308.

4. "Theology and Falsification," New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. by A. Flew and A. MacIntyre (London: SCM Press, 1955), pp. 96ff.

6. Heimbeck, Theology and Meaning, p. 48.

7. Ibid., p. 56.

8. Ibid., p. 91.

9. See Flew, "Theology and Falsification," p. 97.

10. Heimbeck, Theology and Meaning, pp. 172-73.

11. Ibid., p. 174.

12. Ibid., pp. 175-76.

13. Ibid., p. 167.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., pp. 245-46.

16. Diamond, "The Challenge of Contemporary Empiricism" (cited in fn. 5), p. 45.

17. ". . . they [contemporary empiricists] regard fundamentalism as so hopelessly outmoded by the development of scientific standards of believability, that they do not even bother to challenge the thrust of its factually meaningful statements" (ibid.).

18. Note that Thomas Aquinas, who saw a triple sense to the word religio (i.e., religare, reeligere, and relegere), conceived of religion as an attitude by which man joins himself with God by choosing him as his supreme end and by ceaselessly rereading, as in a book, that which God expects of him. See Summa Theologica, II-IIae, q. 81, a. 1.

ON SOME THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGES

RICHARD M. MARTIN

Important steps in the study of linguistic structure have taken place in recent years. By `linguistic structure' is meant here deep structure, logical structure or logical form, semantic structure, "source" form, or whatever. The deep form is usually contrasted somehow with so-called surface form, but just hwat the difference is supposed to be is far from clear. In any case, the exact study of logical form has recently come to the fore and now occupies a very central role in contemporary linguistics. And on the more philosophical side, there has been sufficient progress to provide genuine guidance in the analysis and reformulation of the metaphysico-theological aspects of our language. Because of the obvious alternatives here, in terminology and in the semantics involved, let us speak of theological languages, in the plural, each of which may be regarded as a specialization of some one basic linguistic format or "source" system.¹

It would be unwise, I think, and not conducive to conceptual progress ("progress in clarification") to disregard in metaphysics and theology these recent achievements in the exact study of language. As we enter the last decades of the twentieth century, not to take account of them, it would seem, is to remain retardataire and to rest content with horse-and-buggy procedures and concepts in a day of highly sophisticated methodologies. In taking these achievements into account, indeed, in embracing them as our best guide in the formulation of theories, we must not think that the great traditional views are therewith threatened or to be abandoned. On the contrary, they are threatened only when we fail to bring them into harmony with contemporary knowledge. Here, it seems to me, is a great shortcoming in recent theology. There had been all manner of talk about God's being dead and then found again, about the emotive need but cognitive unacceptability of talk of God in general, of God's revelation in the historicity of man's experience, of demythologization, of God and out of process, of the hermeneutics of theological language, of the "peculiar" or "odd" character of much of it, and so on and on. No doubt valuable points have been raised in such discussion, of which account should be taken.

Unfortunately, however, there has been little really deep study aimed at harmonizing theological discussion with the methods of mathematics, logic, and the empirical sciences, with the results, yes--countless attempts, most of them rather spurious, it is to be feared. What is urgently needed, it would seem, is a profound methodological seriousness in theological discussion, to bring it to the high level of logical sophistication from which it should never have been allowed to decline in the first place. The subject is of infinitely greater seriousness in human life than those in which scientific techniques have won the day hands down. Modern science has, after all, been a tremendous theoretical as well as practical success, whereas theology has had a great fall, at least in the popular view. Let us never forget, however, that success is a kind of "bitch goddess," to be pursued and ravished only at one's peril.

What is God? Jesting and unhappy humanity has been asking for several millenia and not sufficiently tarried the answer. Of course, all manner of attempts have been made to approach this most fundamental metaphysical question, but most of them have been but partial, emphasizing this or that feature at the expense of others. Volumes have been written on these partial answers, as the history of philosophical theology and metaphysics amply attests. And much that is precious from these volumes must be retained. We should not reject valuable insight and the dearly won progress, however slow, that constitutes the history of these subjects. But at the same time we should not be slavish imitators of it, paying no heed to newer and vital developments of relevance. Unfortunately, much of the philosophical theology of our time, as already in effect suggested, has been written as though no progress had been made in the logical analysis of language since the time of Aristotle or even St. Thomas. Such study is dismissed as irrelevant, or in any case not helpful. And, still more unfortunately, where such study has been taken into account, it is not the real thing that is used but some illicit surrogate. The real thing is not easy to come by, and hence it is no wonder that so little recent progress has been made in the use of serious logico-linguistic theory in philosophical theology.

Form to most is a secret, Goethe has told us. Yet without it--order, system, structure, logical connection, rationality--we can do no discursive thinking whatsoever. We could perhaps do all manner of mental things--perceive, feel, believe, rejoice--but nothing that could be dignified as thinking in any ordinary sense of the word. So we should pay some attention to form, logical form, right at the start of our discourse. And the curious fact is that the more attention we pay to it, the less we seem to know about it. Form is all fine and tidy only to those who inquire little concerning it.

The comments here in Par. I are merely introductory. In Par. II items in the logical machinery needed are enumerated. In Par. III we glance at some recent analytic work on Plotinus. In Par. IV some comments concerning the language needed for St. Anselm's ontological proof are given. Attention is called, in Par. V, to important work on the ex motu argument of St. Thomas. In Par. VI we turn to Whitehead and the seminal notion of a primordial valuation. A discussion of the logical foundations of metaphysical idealism occupies the remainder of the paper. The comments in Par. VII are introductory. In Par. VIII a few fundamental principles are laid down, and generalized somewhat in Par. IX. In Par. X the problem of harmonizing the language of modern science, including the mathematical theory of sets, with the language of idealism is discussed. St. Thomas's five signs of will are introduced in Par. XI, and it is shown how an adaptation of the theory of them may be accommodated upon an idealist basis. The theory of the divine will is made somewhat more exact in Par. XII. In Par. XIII there are a few somewhat general comparative comments, and in Par. XIV, there are some glimpses beyond, concerning science, faith, and aesthetic feeling, the theories of which cry out for further development on the basis of what has preceded. The reader may choose for himself the sections that interest him most.

By way of a preliminary, let us note very briefly how logico-linguistics has been helpful in enabling us to clarify some of the historically great theological views. And let us consider, first, the system of Plotinus (which has had so profound an effect on the Islamic world). It may well be contended that Plotinus as the first really systematic theologian in the West.

The fundamental relation in the Plotinic system is that of emanation, so that we may let

`x Em y'

express that x emanates into y. Em is presumably a totally irreflexive, asymmetric, and transitive relation. In addition. let `One' be a proper name for the Plotinic One or Unity, and `All Soul' for the Psyche or All-Soul. And let `Int' be a one-place predicate so that `Int x ' expresses that x is a Form or that it is a member of the Intelligible Realm, of Nous. And let `Obj x' express that x is an object of the lower cosmos, of the lower world of Nature or of the Sensibles, among which are included human bodies. Roughly, then, we have these four expressions for the four Plotinic levels; two of them, note, are proper names, and two of them are predicates. The proper names are for the multiplicities, which, however, also have a kind of unity, a secondary unity or fusion, let us say.

Clearly these four realms are mutually exclusive in appropriate senses, and jointly exhaustive of the whole cosmos. Concerning the One, there are some special principles as follows.

|^_(x)(~x = One One Em x),

|^_~(Ex)(~x = One. (y)(~y = One x Em y)),

|^_(x)(Int x One Em x),

|^_One Em AllSoul,

|^_(x)(Obj x One Em x).

And also

|^_(x)(Int x x Em AllSoul).

|^_(x)(Obj x AllSoul Em x),

and

|^_(x) (Obj x ~(Ey) x Em y).

Concerning the One, very little can be truly said not said in terms of `Em.' Thus also

|^_~ F One,

for most precidates F not containing `Em.'

The converse Em of the relation Em enables us to handle the "return to the One," which plays so central a role in Plotinus' ethics and theology. (Recall that x bears the converse of R, R, to y if and only y bears R itself to x, for all x and y.) We can read ` Em' as `aspires to the condition of', `desires to return to the purity of', and the like. The Plotinic theology is implicit in the theory concerning Em and Em as regards the One.

A very fundamental problem in Plotinus is to provide for the multiplicity of individual souls in terms of the unity of the All Soul. Roughly this is done in terms of the "Couplement" of the All Soul with individual bodies. The individual souls are thus handled as intensional constructs of a certain sort.⁴

Let us reflect next for a moment upon the celebrated argument of St. Anselm, concerning the existence of God regarded as id, quo maius cogitari non potest. Note what must be provided even to formulate this definition in an exact way: a Russellian singular description ofor some unique entity, a theory concerning the relation of being greater than, a theory of knowledge concerning concepts or conceiving, a theory concerning ability or capability, and then of course some doctrine as to how all these are interrelated.⁵ Think how complicated all this is when we look at it from close to, much more complicated than ordinarily thought. It is failure to come to terms with the complications involved that has vitiated most recent discussions of the subject. And until we have looked at the subject closely we cannot be said to understand it in any very deep sense. Gott wohnt im Detail, as an old German adage has it, whether we like it or not.

Let `Per x' express that x as a human person, and `x Able e, `F'' express that x is able (capable) of doing e as (intensionally) described by the one-place predicate `F'. And let `x Cncv e, `G'' express that x conceives of e under the predicate `G', and `e₁ Gr e₂' that e is greater than e₂. Also `a Des e' (or `a Des x') expresses that a designates e (or x). We may then let

`Uns e' abbreviate `~(Ee') (Ex) (Ea) (Eb) (a Des x . b Des e . Per x. x Able e', <a, Cncv, b, `{e<sub>1</sub> (Ee<sub>2</sub>) e<sub>2</sub> Gr e<sub>1</sub>} `> )'.

Here the cormers are used in the sense of Quine's quasi-quotesand `{e<sub>1</sub> --e<sub>1</sub> ---}' stands for the virtual class of all e<sub>1</sub>'s such that --e<sub>1</sub>--. And `<---->' is a suitable event-descriptive predicate. The definiendum may read, following Hartshorne, `e is an unsurpassable entity'.

In any steady gaze ar Anselm's view, certain principles must be assumed, some of them to be gotten out of the actual text of the text of the Proslogium or elsewhere, and some of them to be supplied as necessary addenda. These latter perhaps are too obvious to have been written down, or perhaps are to be presumed as taken for granted, or perhaps are principles the need for which has not been recogmized heretofore. And so it is with all of the historically great philosophical views. Considerable latitude must be allowed to make the reconstructed theory fit the text. The fit is not given automatically and considerable ingenuity is often needed to make it even approximative. The fact, as sad one perhaps, is that we always have to be content with approximations; and, even more annoyingly, there are always alternative approximations that assert themselves with perhaps equal cogency. Thus, we should never claim very much victory even if the fit we achieve seems fairly close. The same is true, incidentally, whether we use methods of modern logical analysis and reformulation or not. The best that we can ever say, it would seem, is that a given historical view is mertely the disjunction of the most likely alternative readings of it, howsoever formulated.

In order to prove that God exists uniquely, i.e., that there is one and only one unsurpassable entity, it must hold that soeone ("even the fool") conceives of something under the predicate `Uns', that every unsurpassable entity (if there are any) exists, that there areno two unsurpassable entities, and that anything conceived as unsurpassable is in fact unsurpassable. With these principles provable fro prior principles governing `Able', `Cncv', and `Gr', it may be proved that

|^_E! ( e . Uns e),

where `E!' is construed essentially as a Principia Mathematica, *14.02. Whether such prior principles are acceptable, and whether the primitives here are suitable for the intended purposes, are of course questions that remain open -- here asfor any theological, or indeed even scientific, theory.

Important logico-linguistic work on the ex motu argument of St. Thomas has been carried out by J. Salamucha.⁶ Very briefly and somewhat simplified, his work may be described as follows. Let `Mx' express that x is one of the entia realia in loval physical motion, and let `x M y' express that x moves y or is the cause of motion in y. Concerning these notions some assumptions are made, that

(Ex) Mx,

(x) (Mx (Ey) y M x),

(Ey) (y C`M . (x) ((x C`M . ~x = y) y M x)),

(x) (y) (x M y ~ y M x),

(x) (y) (z) ((x M y . y M z) x M z),

(x) (y) ((x C`M . y C`M . ~x = y) (x M y v y M x)).

Here C`M is the campus or field of the relation M, i.e., the class of entities that bear M to or are borne M by some entity or other. These assumptions then state that there is an entity in motion, that evey moving entity is moved by some entity, that there is a "first" entity in the campus of M that moves every other entity in the campus of M, and that M is an asymmetri, transitive, and connected relation. From these assumptions--not all of them are actually needed--it is provable that

(Ey) (~My . (x) ((x C`M . ~x=y) y M x)).

Salamucha discusses in some detail the justification of the assumptions here on the basis of Aquinas' text, especially as in the Summa contra Gentiles, I.c. 13. He also considers proofs of some of the assumptions, and a number of alternative approaches tot he proof as a whole. His concern is primarily with the validity of the argument given the premisses. This indeed was the primary concern also in the remarks above about Anself. In both cases, of course, a deeper discussion is needed to determine the acceptability of the assumptions, and indeed of the entire linguistic frameworks, in the light of modern scientific knowledge. In the case of Anslem, it is doubtful that appropriate scientific meanings of `greater than' and `conceivable' can be found. In the case of the Iex motuR argument, the theory of motion involved is probably at best naive in the light of modern physics. However, such judgements are by not means final, and the essential contents of these proofs may well be forthcoming in other ways.

From St. Thomas to Whitehead is a leap of several centuriesin time but a natural next step for systematic theology. Much that is St. Thomas is obscure because clarified on a Whiteheadian basis.⁷ And it may well be that the notion of a primordial valuation is the reatest single contribution to theology inall the years from St. Thomas to the present. Unfortuanately, however, Whitehead does not characterize the notion explicitly, scarcely if ever givesan example, and says nothing concerning the structure of the language in which the primordial valuations may be expressed. Nor does he subdivide them in any way but treats them rather isocephalically, gaining therewith a rather unpliable theory. Later on we shall try to broaden it somewhat in order to gain more flexible notions, with which to characterixe the divine will. But for the present, let us consider only primordial valuations as they occur in Whitehead.

The primordial nature of God, it will be recalled, is "the unconditioned conceptual valuation of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects" with respect to their "ingression" into, or applicability to, each and every "actual occasion."⁸ Thus where a is an n-place predicate standing for an n-adic eternal object, the "propositions" a e₁...e_n is "valuated" in the primordial nature, perhaps even to just such and such a degreee, where e₁,...,e_n are any actual occasions. To express this we may write (with the numerical superscript 'i')

a PrimVal¹,...,e_n .

The primordial naute then is just the totality of all (acts or states of) primordial valuating. Where Fu `F is the \ifusion of the virtual class F, we may let

`png' abbreviate `Fu `{e (Ea) (Ee₁)...(Ee_k)(Ei) (O ^<= i ^<= 1 . ((PredCon₁ a . <a, PrimVal¹, e₁>e) v (Pred/Con₂ a . <a, PrimValⁱ, e₁, e₂> e) v ... v (PredCon_k a . <a, PrimValⁱ, e₁, ...,e_k>e))) '.

Here `PredCon<sub>j</sub>a' expresses that a is a j-place predicate standing for a j-adic eternal object. Here j is said to be the degreeof the eternal object. We need not assume that there are eternal objects of degree greater than some pre-assigned `k'. So k here is the degree of the eternal object of highest degress admitted, in the sense of having a name for it as a primitive.

Note the really stupendous all-inclusiveness of the png. Every hair of one's head is primordially "valuated" with respect to every eternal object, and this to just such and such a degree. The fundamental meaning of `ought' is presumably provided for here. Every actual occasion ought to have just the properties, to speak loosely, ascribed it in the primordial valuatings. The png is thus more the source of value, however, then of fact or of scientific law. It might be thought then that the definition is too restricted, not providing the png with sufficient breath or power. It is all-inclusive with respect to value, but that is all. In a moment we shall broaden the notion considerably, in connection with the discussion of absolute idealism. In terms primarily of `Primvali' essentially the whole of Whitehead's theology may be formulated, so that little more concerning it need be said here.

In the articulation of these various historical views emphasis has been placed upon the primitive vocabulary needed. It is the choice of this that is crucial, and differences here of course may result in radically different theological systems. Some modicum of clarity concerning the primitive vocabulary must be achieved before we can frame fundamental principles or axioms. Strictly, of course, the two must go hand-in-hand, but in practice the choice of primitive notions usually comes first. But this is only the beginning, the foundation, and should not of course be mistaken for the full edifice.

The foregoing comments, about Plotinus, Anselm, St. Thomas, and Whitehead--chosen in part because of the availability of technical studies concerning the language--structures implicitly employed--are merely preliminary to the main intent of this paper. Let us try now, in what follows, to do what is commonly thought impossible, namely, to reconcile--nay, to bring into indissoluble union--the basic insights of philosophia perennis with logico-linguistics. The latter, as we have already seen, is "subject-matter neutral," and hence metaphysically so; it should be as useful for the articulation of any one theological view as well as any other. In any case, this reconciliation is the theme to be explored. If we succeed, at least to some extent, we shall be close to a conception of God, suitably characterized formally and rationally, embracing all fact and value in its "real internal constitution," and of such grandeur and majesty that we would all do well faithfully to surrender our whole lives to comprehend it, and "above all things in the words of Peirce in a related context to shape the whole conduct of our life, and all the springs of our action into conformity . . . " with it.⁹ In this way we should be well on the road to a meeting not only of east and west, but also to characterizing in a most intimate way the union of religion and science, on the other. An overambitious goal, perhaps, but at least one for which it will be worthwhile to help prepare the way, in this ecumenical metaphysical congress devoted in part to the notion of God.

"What is that, knowing which, we shall know everything"? It is not easy to know the real, internal constitution of God's nature, and perhaps no one has ever known it fully. Perhaps no one has ever known it even partially, although this is doubtful. Beliefs, intimations, surmizes, and the like, have often sufficed. No matter, the notion of God should be characterized, it would seem, in so grand a fashion as to contain, in some specific sense, all knowledge of all beings and happenings, here, there, and everywhere, past, present, and future. In particular God's nature should contain, in a most intimate way, all scientific law, both causal and stochastic, as well as all boundary conditions. Hence implicitly it should contain all factually true statements. But God is not merely the repository of truth, but of value, of beauty, and goodness, as well. Science and value, whatever the shortcomings or defects of our knowledge about them, should be properly fused, it would seem, in any satisfactory characterization of the real internal constitution of God's nature. Failure to attain this fusion is to rest content with an only partial and hence inadequate characterization.

The perennial theme "that being is one and identical with God the creator," as Richard Taylor puts it, ". . . is rediscovered in every age and in every corner of the world. It is at once terrifying and completely fulfilling. It will never perish and nothing will ever replace it. Nothing possibly can; its endurance is that of the stars."¹⁰ But even the stars may come and go and still be terrifying. Only if we add the insight of philosophia perennis, that being is in its real nature akin to mind or spirit, in some sense, do we have the basis for a view of the kind described. Whatever spirit is, being is "identical" with it, and being one, so also is spirit. "There is only one river, which here and there assumes new forms or is modified in this way and that, either briefly or more lastingly. Here it assumes the form of a ripple, there of a waterfall, and numberless other forms in other places." Being here and now is a material object, but there and then a mental act perhaps. No matter what forms or shapes it assumes or however it is modified, it still may be regarded as identical in character with God the creator, "that from which the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of this world proceed.

Let `AS' be a primitive individual constant designating Absolute Spirit or Mind. Immediately we note, as a first metaphysical principle, that AS exists.

Pr l. |^_E!AS.

The existence of individuals is handled here predicatively, where

`E!x' is short for `~x = N'.

N being the null undividual.¹¹

Pr 2. |^_(x) (y) ( (x Manif y v x Emb y) x = AS).

Pr 3. |^_~(Ex) (x Manif AS v x Emb AS).

Thus AS alone manifests or embodies enything, and nothing whatsoever manifests or embodies it. Also nothing is both manifested and embodied by anything.

Pr 4. |^_~(Ex) (Ey) (x Manif y . x Emb y).

We may now define

`SubjSp' as `Fu `{x AS Manif x}'

and

`ObjSp' as `Fu`{x AS Emb x}'.

Thus the realm of subjective spirit is the fusion of (the virtual class of) everything manifexted by AS, and objective spirit is the fusion of (the virtual class of ) everythig embodied by AS. These definitions give a very natural way of providing for the two Hegelian realms. Should they be regarded as mutually exclusive? If so, we need to postulate that every part of a manifested or embodier individual is also manifested or embodied, respectively. Thus, where P is the part-whole relation, we have also that

Pr 5. |^_(x) (y) (z)( ( x manif y . z P y) x Manif z)

and

Pr 6. |^_(x) (y) (z) ( (x Emb y . z P y) x Emb z).

Also it should then obtain that

|^_~(Ex) (~ x = N. x P SubjSp . x P ObjSp),

that SubjSp and ObjSp have no non-null part in common.

If thst two spheres are taken to exhaust the cosmos, we have also a Principle of Completeness, that

Pr 7. |^_ (x) (~x = AS (AS Manif x v AS Emb x)).

But perhaps there are realms of derivative being other than these two, or even altogether different. Perhaps the two Hegelian ones are themselves unjustifiable on the basis of modern science, and constitute an illicit dichotomy. These difficult questions we need not attempt to answer for the moment, but we should note that the foregoing material may easily be extended to allow for any number of derivative realms of being--or even for none at all. But let us assume at lease one. And let us speak of manifestation in a wider sense for the moment, so as to include embodiment, as well as whatever further kinds of process are appropriate for generating the given kinds of entities. Thus we let `Manif<sub>1</sub>', `Manif₂', and so on, be primitives, and we let

`U<sub>1</sub>' abbreviate `Fu {x AS Manif_i x '.

Thus the universe of entities _i is merely the fusion of the entities to which AS bears Manif_i, for each i. For each relation Manif_i we then have principles analogous to Pr 2 and Pr 3, and an appropriate extension of Pr 4.

If i = O, absolute monism results. AS is the only reality and there is nothing else except m^-ay^-a. Even the name `AS', the very inscriptions of Pr 1-Pr 4, and so on, would be dropped. They would all be items of m^-ay^-a and thus presumably not worthy of rational discourse. But even if i>O, we could still hold to a form of the doctrine of m^-ay^-a in regarding the entities of U₁, U₂, and so on, as m^-aya-items but allow rational discourse about them. However, if the discourse is to be in accord with modern logic and science, it will quickly be seen to be so important for our human life, and so insistently objective and compelling--and indeed so difficult to come anywhere near getting it right--that the point of talk of m^-ay^-a at all is seen lost. Surely the AS is not the less great, the less worthy of our total and all-absorbing effort to grasp it, if we regard the derivative entities to be genuine in some sense, if only as manifestations of it. In fact, the situation is the other way around. Let us embrace the derivative entities as worthy of our love and respect, and make every possible effort to come to see most intimately how they are interrelated one with another. It is in this way, in part, that we can come to know the grandeur and munificence of the AS itself. However, our "knowledge" of it need not be exhausted therewith, but rather enhanced.

The manifested objects of the U_i's are to comprise whatever it is that our cosmos contains. Precisely how we are to populate them is of course an incredibly difficult matter. Surely they must contain the objects needed for the sciences in their most developed stages. We must not rest content with the ontology of centuries back nor even with the "stale" science of yesterday. But to spell out in detail the ontology of even one science, at its present state of development, would be very difficult, and would tax even the greatest practitioners. Nonetheless, we may suppose it to consist of a presumably small number of U_i's in terms of which the desired assertions of that science can be made. And similarly for other sciences. And we must never suppose that any characterization of the U_i's needed for science would ever be final or complete. On the contrary, they would always be semper reformanda, and would exhibit enormous variation in the hands of different practitioners in the same field even at the same time.

Of particular interest for philosophers of logic and mathematics is the U_i, or the U_i's, needed for both. If logic is taken as standard, first-order logic, as throughout this paper, no assumption concerning the U_i's needed be made. On the monist view, our only individual is AS, plus the null and world individuals. The latter, however, would be identical with AS, and the null individual N has the proper that

~E!N,

that it does not "exist" in the appropriate sense. (Of course N is a value for a variable, but that is something else again). And if i>O, the U_i's are merely those of the sciences as already provided.

Logic as such has no ontology. For mathematics, however, the situation is very different. Let us think of it set-theoretically, in terms of the Zermelo-Fraenkel-Skolem system. Here two U_i's are needed, one for individuals or Urelemente--Zermelo himself insisted upon their admission, it will be recalled--and one for the realm of sets. No harm need arise from admitting the Urelemente, the very entities that may be presumed to populate the cosmos. The admission of a domain of sets, however, postulates entities that do not populate the cosmos in any obvious sense. Even so, this matter need not deter us, for we may use merely our Urelemente but allow set-theoretic talk about them in the manner of the "moderate" realism of Duns Scotus.¹⁴ In this way classical mathematics in the set-theoretical sense may be preserved, and used, moreover, as a basis for the other theoretical sciences. For this, of course, a new primitive is needed, and for applications to the sciences, such new primitives as those sciences require.

The question arises as to whether, once the U_i's required for the sciences have been arrived at, any further ones are needed. Do the ontologies of the sciences suffice for all discourse?--other of course than that concerning the AS and its possible manifestations in SubjSP? Well, surely yes, if `science' is construed widely enough. Note that the question is merely one about ontologies, not about the modes of discourse allowed concerning the items admitted in that science. One and the same act, for example, may be said to occupy such and such a place-time in one context, but to be immoral or illegal or prohibited or whatever, in others.

Mental entities are the occupants of the realm of SubjSp, and any interesting metaphysical idealism may be presumed to admit such entities. The basic items here are no doubt individual souls or minds, and mental acts are presumably dependent upon these fundamentally. It is a bit mysterious as to just what an individual mind is and how it is to be individuated. You have one and I have one, and they are alike in both being minds. Let yours be m₁, and mine m₂, and let m₃, m₄, and so on, be those of others. The calculus of individuals allows us to form then the "group" mind

(m₁ m₂ m₃ m₄ -----).

Even this group mind does not of course exhaust the AS, the latter being infinitely greater. Is this group mind a part of the AS? If so, then each individual mind is also, each being a part of the group sum. Equally difficult is the question as to how the individual souls or selves are related to the mental acts of or pertaining to them. And this in turn leads to the problem as to how such acts themselves are to be individuated.

Individual minds result from the AS by one kind of manifestation, bodies by another. Does the human person, a unique complex of mind and body, result by still a third kind of manifestation? Some idealists might well contend so. To bring then a mind, a body, and a person together, we need the Of-relation of possession.¹⁵ It is not clear whether the mind possesses the body, or the body the mind, or the person the mind, or the mind the person, or the body the person, or the person the body. Perhaps there is possession in all of these ways. In any case, if bodies, minds, and persons result from separate kinds of manifestation, a suitable way of bringing a body, a mind, and a person together must be at hand to provide for a concrete human person.

The idealist, of course, regards minds as par excellence the real entities, they being like unto the AS itself. Rather than to regard the other types of entities as arising by other kinds of manifestation, perhaps they should be regarded rather as the result of the concentration of soul-stuff in some particular way or other. Each material object is merely soul concentrated in a certain way. The notion of concentration, the very prototype of mental activity, then would play the role of the relations of manifestation. But concentration is mental in a way in which the relations of manifestation are not. And if "subject" and "object" are alike, both must be mental. Thus the following "principle," where Conc is the relation of concentration, might well hold,

namely,

||^_(x) (AS Conc x x Like AS).

Everything that results from the AS by concentration is itself like or similar to AS. And likewise,

||^_(x) (x Like AS x P AS),

that everything like AS is itself a part of it. The former principle might well hold without the latter. If the two principles are taken together, a genuine monism, even a pantheism, is achieved. The development of idealism in terms of the theory of concentration would be more Vedantic that Hegelian. Principles akin to Pr 2-Pr 4 and Pr 6-Pr 7 would obtain, with `Conc" in place of `Emb", no change being required in Pr 1 and Pr 5.

For the purposes of the subsequent discussion, and to simplify, lit us presuppose the theory above as developed in terms of the Hegelian `Manif' and `Emv'. But whatever modifications ofthis might be thought desirable can easily be presupposed equally well.

Howsoever the fundamental ontology is arranged, the AS has remarkable tasks to perform and must be given some remarkable properties, akin to those of the Thomistic God and the Whiteheadian primordial nature. To see this let us consider again the primordialvaluations constituting this latter, which will be helpful as a heuristic, enabling us to flesh out the theory underlying St. Thomas' "five signs of will."

The five signs of will, it will be recalled, are operation, permission, precept, counsel, and prohibition, but St. Thomas is nt too clear as to precisely how these are to beconstrued. The words are used analogically. "A man may show that he wills something . . ." by doing it "directly when he works in his own person; in that way thesign of his will is said to be an operation. He shows it indirectly, by not hindering the doing of a thing; . . . In this the sign is called permission. He declares his will by means of another when he orders another to perform a work, either by insisting upon it as necessary by Iprecept, and by prohibiting its contrary; or by persuasion, which is a part of counsel."¹⁶ St. Thomas goes on to note that "since thewill of man makes itself known in these ways, the same five are sometimes called divine wills, in the sense of being signs of that will. That precept, counsel, and prohibition are called the will of God is clear from the words of Matt. vi. 10: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That permission and operation are called the will of God is clear from Augustine, who says: Nothing is done, unless the Almighty will it to be done, either by permitting it, or by actually doing it." These very dignificant but difficult comments should be helpful in attemptingto characterize the divine will, whether sonstrued Thomistically or not.

Among the operations we should surely include all the manifestations and embodyings. These operations concern only the ontology. In addition, there are the primordially ordained circumstances, lawsand do on. Let

`AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n'

express that the AS primordially operates or has it obtain that the n-place predicate a, standing for a virtual class or relation, apply to or denote x₁, ..., x_n, in this order.

That the AS is the "creator" of all entities (other than himself) is in effect provided by Pr7 above. But he is also the ordainer of all scientific, moral, and aesthetic law, and this aspect of the divine activity can be stipulated only by bringing in the relation PrinOp. Thus suppose ax₁...x_n obtaind, for fixed x₁, ..., x_n, and a, not just factually but as the result of, or as an instance of, some scientific law. Then it would obtain that

Pr 8. |^_AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n,

for such a, x₁,...,x_n. Nor need Pr 8 be restricted to just scientific law. It should be extended to instances of whatever laws are thought to obtain in any of the spheres of knowledge. And if one or more of the x_i's are allowed to be numbers, natural, real, or complex, even laws of a probabilistic kind may also be included here. Think what a staggering principle Pr8 then is, incorporating as it soes all the laws governing the cosmos, construed in the most inclusive possible sens. But surely the AS must be conceived as so great as to incorporate no less.¹⁷

Clearly also it holds that

Pr 9. |^_(y) (a) (x₁)...(x_n) (y PrunOp a,x₁,...,x_n y = AS,

so that the AS is the only entity capable of the primordial operations. And also

Pr 10. |^_(a) (x₁)...(x_n) ((AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n . a Des_vc F) Fx₁....x_n).

Whatever is primordially ordained to obtain does actually obtain. But the converse need not hold. Not all that obtains is primordially ordained to do so. (The `Des<sub>vc</sub>' here is the sign for the designation of virtual classes, where `a Des_vc F' is short for `(PredCon<sub>1</sub> a . (x) (a Den x <sup>=_</sup> Fx))', `Den' being the primitive for denotation.¹⁸

The primordial operations need not be confined to just the demands of scientivic law, as already noted. Moral and aesthetic laws, if there are such, are included, and even such boundary conditions as might be thought to obtain independently of law. Perhaps even there are miracles in some sense as the direct result of a primordial operation. If so, the stipulation of such is presumed included here

St. Thomas speaks of prohibition in a somewhat narrow sense, of prohibiting the "contrary" of a precept. Here let us speak rather of prohibiting the contradictory of an operation. Thus we may let

`AS PrimPrhbt<sub>Op</sub> a,x<sub>1</sub>,...,x<sub>n</sub>' abbreviate `AS PrimOp -a , x₁,...,x_n'.

where -a is the negation of a. There are other kinds of prohibition, which we shall meet with in a moment.

The primordial operations concern all objects whatsoever, including human persons, actions, events, states, processes, and the like. The precepts and counsels, on the other hand, may be thought to concern only human beings and their actions. Let `p' be a variable for persons and `e' for actions of trhe kind humans are capable of performing. And let P be a virtual class of persons satisfying such and such conditions, and A a class of suitable actions. Thenwe may let

express that it is a primordial precept that persons of the kind P should be persons who perform actions of the kind A, under appropriate circumstances. Presepts alway seem to be general in this way applying to all perfons and actions of given kinds. Counself, on the other hand, may always be regarded asspecific, applying to a given person with respect to a given action.

Are all counsels covered by a precept? It is tempting to think so, whether the precept is explicitly known or exhibited or not. If so, we may let

`AS PrimCnsl p,e, `P',`A'' abbreveiate `(AS PrimPrcpt `P', `{q (Ee') (q Prfm e' . Ae')}' . Pp . Ae)',

so that p is counseled to do e relative to P and A just where it is precepted that all P's do A's and p is a P and e an A.

More general definitions, with variables in place of the constants, may be given by letting

`AS PrimPrcpt a, {p (Ee) (p Prfm e . b Den e)} '

be the primitive form and then letting

`AS PrimCnsl p,e,a,b' abbreviate `AS PrimPrcpt a, {q (Ee')(q Prfm e' . b Den e)} ' . a Den p . b Den e)'.

Note that by means of precept the AS in effect "orders" a person "to perform a work" by "insisting upon it as necessary," in some social, moral, or aesthetic sense. And surely some generality must obtain as a condition for the necessity. Hence the use of the class terms `P' and `A'. Cousel, however, is always specific and "persuasion is a pate of it." Only a person, even a sum of persons, can be persuaded and hence counseled in this sense.

There are relevant kinds of prohibition corresponding with precept and counsel. Thus we let

`AS PrimPrhbt<sub>Prc</sub><sup>p</sup><sub>t</sub> `P',`A'' abbreviate `AS PrimPrcpt `P', `{p ~(Ee) (p Prfm e . Ae)}'',

so that persons of the kind P are prohibited in this sense from being persons who perform actions of the kind A. And there are also prohibitive counsels, so that

`AS PrimPrhbt<sub>Cnsl</sub> p,e,`P',`A'' abbreviates `(AS Prim- Prhbt_Prcpt `P',`A' . Pp . Ae)'.

More general forms of these definitions, with variables in place of the constants `P' and `A', may also be given.

Clearly, corresponding with Pr 9, we should have that

Pr 11. |^_(x) (a) (b) (x PrimPrcpt a,b (x = AS . (y) (a Den y Per y) . (y)(b Den y Per y))),

when `Per' is the predicate for persons.

Also where

`p Oblg a'

expresses deontically that p is obliged to be a person of the kind denoted by a, we whould have that

Pr 12. |^_(a)(b)(p) (AS PrimPrcpt a,b, . a Den p) p Oblg b).

This principle assumes that whatever is primordially precepted, so to speak, is deontically obliged. This at least should hold, but not the converse. There are surely obligatory acts not determined so primordially.

No doubt much takes place in the cosmos that is primordially neutral, in hte sense of being neither the result of an operation not operationally prohibited. Thus, where `PredCon_na' express that a is an n-place predicate constant,

"AS PrimNtrl_OPa,x₁,...,x_n' nay abbreviate `(PredCon_n a . ~AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n . ~ PrimPrhbt_OP a,x₁,...,x_n)'.

And similarly for human actions that are neither covered by precept nor presept-wise prohibited. Thus also

`AS PrimNtrl<sub>Prcpt</sub> `P',`A'' abbreviates `~AS PrimPrcpt`P',`A' . ~AS PrimPrhbt_Prcpt `P',`A')'.

Here too, a more general definition may easily be given.

Note that in the foregoing only `PrimOp' and `PrimPrcpt' have been needed as primitives, in addition of course to `Manif', `Emb', and `AS'.All the other primordial predicates have been defined within the linguistic framework embodying quantification theory, identity, nereology (or the calculus of individuals), and of course some semantics and event theory. The deontic notion `Oblg' is also presumed avaiable, either primitively or by definition, but it is not a purely primordial notion, beint relative always to a given social group and a specific deontic code.

There is also the all-important notion of a primordial permission, to which we now turn.

It is clear, if nothig is done other than its being done either by the Almighty or being permitted by him, that the operations and permissions exhaust the divine will and that the other "signs" are to be handled as subdivisions.The operations and permissions are thus to be mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. Under the primordial operations are included the manifestations, embodiments, operations proper, and the operational prohibitions. These operations are all such that their results, so t speak, must obtain if our cosmos is to be the way it is. All the other primordial notions are included inthe permissions, whose results may be violated in our cosmos. Note the implicit distinction here between the operations and permissions, on the one hand, and their "results," on the other. The results of the one must obtain, but those of the other need not. On the other hand, the operations and permissions themselves sonstiltute the necessary activity of the AS, if our cosmos is to be what it is.

The prohibitions include just the three kinds, operational, preceptual, and counsel-wise, the precepts both the proper and prohibitive ones, and similarly for the counsels. The primordially neutral comprise the operationally neutral and the preceptually so. The primordial permissions, as already noted, then comprise all the primordial activities not included in theoperations, i.e., the prohibitions, the precepts, the counsels, and the primordially neutral. These comments may all be summarized by means of three additional definitions. We may let

`PrimOp e' abbreviate `(Ea)(Ex₁)...(Ex_k) (<AS, Manif,x₁>e v<AS, Emb,x₁>ev<AS, PrimOp, a,x₁>e vAS, PrimOp,a,x₁,x₂>e v ... v<AS, PrimOp, a,x₁, ...,x_ke)',

`PrimPrmsn e' abbreviate `(Ea)(Eb)(Ep)(Ee')(Ex₁)...(Ex_k) (<AS, PrimPrhbt_Prcpt. a,b>e v <AS, PrimPrhbt_Cnsl, p,e',a,b>e v<AS, PrimPrcpt,a,b>e v<AS PrimCnsl, p,e',a,b>e v<AS, PrimNtrl_Op,a,x₁>e v ... v<AS, PrimNtrl_OP, a₁x₁,...,x_k>e v <AS, PrunNtrl_Prcpt'a,b>e)', and

`PrimPrhbtn e' abbreviate `(Ea)(Eb(Ep)(Ee')(Ex₁)...(Ex_k) (<AS,PrimPrhbt_OP, a,x₁> e v ... v<AS, PrimPrhbt_OP, a,x₁,...,x_k>e v<AS,PrimPrhbt_Prcpt, a,b>e v<AS, PrimPrhbt_Cnsl, p,e', a,b>e).

These definitions introduce the notions of being a primordial operation, permission,or prohibition, respectively.

Note the use of the variable `e' for an act or state. And recall that the expreseeions enclosed in the half-diamonds are event-descriptive predicates. Thus `<AS, Manif,x21>e', for example, expresses that e is an act or state of x₁'s being manifest by AS. Extensive use is make of such predicates within event logic. ¹⁹ REcall also the special use of the parameter `k' for the degree of the primitive predicateof greatest degree needed as a primitive, and where there are assumed to be primitive predicates of each degree n where 1 ^<= n ^<= k.

The notion of the divine will may be thought to be jully analyzed in terms of the disjunction of thise three. Thus

`DW" may be short for `{e (Prim_OP e v PrinPrmsn e v _PrimPrhbtn e)}'.

The DW is thus merely the virtual class of all primordial operations, permissions, and prohibitions.

A few principles over and above Pr l-Pr 12 above that should presumably obtain are as follows.

Pr 13. |^_(a)(x₁)...(x_n)(AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n (PredCon_n a . ~x₁ = AS. ... .~x_n = AS)),

Pr 14. |^__~(Ea)(Ex₁)...(Ex_n)(AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n . AS PrimPrhbt_Op a.x₁,...,x_n),

Pr 15. |^_~(Ea)(Eb)(AS PrimPrcpt a,b . AS PrimPrhbt_Prcpt a,b),

Pr 16. |^_(a)(b)(x₁)...(x_n)(AS PrimOp (a b) ,x₁,...,x_n ⁼ (AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n . AS PrimOp b,x₁,...,x_n)),

Pr 17. |^_(a)(b)(x₁)...(x_n)((AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n v AS PrimOp b,x₁,...,x_n) AS PrimOp (a b) , x₁,...,x_n),²⁰

Pr 18. |^_(a)(b)(x₁)...(x_n)((AS PrimOp a,x₁,...,x_n . AS PrimOp (-a b) ,x₁,...,x_n) AS PrimOp b,x₁,...,x_n).²¹

Some of the various principles given may need some modification in the light ofa more thorough presentation. The whole theory of primordiality in fact cries out for further elaboration and development, being still in its infancy.

The analysis of the primordial valuations and hence of the divine will, given above, agrees with that of St. Thomas to some extent. A few additional points of parallel are as follows. Thomas notes that "there is no reason why the same thing should not be the subject of precept, operation, counsel, prohibition, or permission." Clearly one and the same human act can be the result of a prohibitional operation as well as a prohibitional counsel, and hence of a prohibitional permission. St. Thomas contends also tht "God ordains rational creatures to act voluntarily and of themselves. Other creatures act only as moved by the divine operation; therefore only operation and permission are concerned with these." This contention agrees with the foregoing, permission here being taken in the sense of the primordially neutral.

"All evil of sin," St. Thomas notes also, "though happening in many ways, agrees in being out of harmony with the divine will. Hence, with regard to evil, only one sign of will is proposed, that of prohibition." The evil of sin is precisely what is primordially prohibited by precept. (There is no sin as the result of a primordial operation, all such constituting the primordially good). "On the other hand," St. Thomas goes on, "good the humanly good stands in various relations to the divine goodness, since there are good deeds without which we cannot attain to the fruition of that goodness, and these are the subject of precept" italics added. The primordially good is the subject of precept, and counsel above was taken as instantial of precept. But St. Thomas construes counsel here rather differently, "for there are other goods," he says, "by which we attain to it the fruition more perfectly, and these are the subject of counsel." Here counsel seems to be concerned rather with supererogation. But even some precepts might be stipulative of the supererogatorily good, so that even this last remark could be seen to accord with the foregoing.

Any philosophical discussion of God's will must perforce be speculative, as indeed is the foregoing. There would not seem to be much point in discussing it at all, however, without some analysis of what the phrase is supposed to designate. At best we can merely hypothesize what this might be, and thus we never could be said to know it in any more direct sense. Even so, hypothetical constructs are useful in theology just as they are in theoretical science.²²

Note that the foregoing hypothetical reconstruction of some features of metaphysical idealism has been given is a semantical metalanguage incorporating a theory of acts. It would seem very doubtful that a more restricted kind of logical framework would suffice for this purpose. Note also that the primordial notions have been handled intensionally. These are given by reference to a predicate rather than to a (virtual) class or relation the predicate might designate. The reason for this is the familiar one concerning the intentionality of obligation, to which the primordial notions are akin. It would not do to say, in a deontic logic, for example, that one is obliged to be an F, for F might be equivalent with some G, with respect to which one is not obliged. Reference to the predicate `F' here instead of to the virtual class F prevents any such unwanted consequence. Hence the intentional treatment, within a semantical meta-language, of the primordial notions throughout, in terms essentially of Frege's Art des Gegebenseins.

An alternative, more sophisticated way of handling manifestation and embodiment, and even some of the promordial relations, suggests itself if a numerical measure is introduced. We may think of the AS as manifesting itself in x to just such and such a degree. All entities manifested to the same degree would then be of essentially some same kind. The very difference between manifestation and embodiment could then be handled in terms of difference of degree. Embodiment would be low degree of manifestation. Let

`AS Manifⁱ x'

express that x is a manifestation of AS to just degree i. If i = O, we could let x be the null entity, and if i = 1, we could let x be AS itself. AS then manifests itself to maximal degree. Physical objects have low degrees attached to them, and highly mental ones have high degrees. And similarly for the primordial precepts, some of which are more binding than others. Here too it might be of interest to introduce a numerical degree. Whitehead speaks of the degree of a primordial valuation, as noted above. No one, it would seem, has ever developed such a theory in any detail, however, for natural theology and the use of numerical measures are not ordinarily thought to go hand in hand. A quite sophisticated view would result if a suitable numerical measure were introduced, and no doubt some interesting notions would be forthcoming in terms of it.

Nothing has been said thus far concerning physical time, space, casuality, and the like. Any attempt to locate the AS with respect to any of these is quite foreign to the foregoing. It is rather the other way around, all objects of the physical world themselves being embodiments of the AS. Hence the foregoing theory is all couched in the Fregean tense of timelessness, so to speak, as in that of spacelessness, causalitylessness, and so on.

Of course, only the barest logical maquette of the full theory concerning AS has been given here. Indeed, to flesh out the foregoing in adequate detail would be a formidable task indeed. Nonetheless, certain general features of what the fuller development would be like should be evident. In particular it would comprise foundations for a theory of objective value as contained in the primordial precepts. Thus, as far as this scheme goes, there is no essential dichotomy between fact and value, but each is handled in its separate way. Nor is there any easy reduction of one to the other. Each is given its proper dignity and the way is left open for discriminating all manner of interconnections between the two. Note also that there is here no illicit dichotomy between reason and faith. Again, it is rather that a rational scheme is available in which a theory of faith may be incorporated. Indeed, it may be that faith, in a suitable sense, is our highest rational activity, for it is always reasonable to let one's mind wander to an O altitude! The task of natural theology in fact may be thought to be just this.

But faith is nothing if it does not issue in action, as many writers in the tradition of philosophia perennis have eloquently affirmed. And indeed the notion of the AS is of such staggering grandeur and magnitude, that it seems eminently rational that we should "shape the whole conduct of our life . . . into conformity" with it. To do this, in fact, should be our whole aim, everywhere and always, as the great writers of that tradition have been continually affirming across the centuries. "To interpret the absolute we must give all our time to it." The pursuit of science, of beauty, and of goodness are alike here given their proper role in this endeavor.

There is something compelling about human feeling at what we take to be its highest, in the full experience, say, of a great work of art. It is doubtful that such feeling can be suitably and fully explicated on any other basis than one such as the foregoing. We can go a long way in analytic aesthetics without it, but always with a most essential human ingredient left out--the depth and quality of authentic aesthetic feeling at its best.

The positive contribution of the present paper is merely to have made seem tentative suggestions towards giving the philosophia perennis the logical backbone it is often thought to lack. Usually in discussions of the AS there is too much logically irresponsible misstatement. But so lofty a topic would seem best served by using such clean-cut logical notions and techniques as are now available. Surely we should let idealism, along with other metaphysical views, grow with the advance of knowledge.

Milton, Mass.

1. Cf. Zellig Harris, "The Two Systems of Grammar: Report and Paraphrase," in Papers in Structural and Transformational Linguistics (D. Reidel, Dordrecht: 1972).

2. Cf. the author's Belief, Existence, and Meaning (New York University Press, New York: 1969), Chapter VI.

3. See the author's Events, Reference, and Logical Form (The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C.: to appear) and Semiotics and Linguistic Structure (The State University of New York Press, Albany: to appear).

4. For further details, see the author's "On the Logic of the All-Soul in Plotinus," to appear in a volume edited by P. Morewedge (The State University of New York Press, Albany).

5. See the author's "On the Logical Structure of the Ontological Argument," in Whitehead's Categoreal Scheme and Other Papers (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague: 1974).

6. J. Salamucha, "The Proof `Ex Motu' for the Existence of God: Logical Analysis of St. Thomas' Arguments," New Scholasticism XXXII (1958), 334-372 (first published in Polish in 1934). Cf. also J. Bediek, "Zur Logischen Struktur der Gottesbeweise," Franziskanischen Studien, XXXVIII (1956), 1-25; and L. Larouche, "Examination of the Axiomatic Foundations of a Theory of Change," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, IX (1968), 371-384 and X (1969), 277-284 and 385-409.

7. See the author's "Some Thomistic Properties of Primordiality," The Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, to appear.

8. Process and Reality (The Macmillan Co., New York: 1936), p. 46. Cf. also Whitehead's Categoreal Scheme and Other Papers, Ch. III, "On the Whiteheadian God."

9. C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers (Harvard University Press, Cambridge: 1931-1958), Vol. VI, par. 467.

10. Richard Taylor, With Heart and Mind (St. Martin's Press, New York: 1973), Proem.

11. On the null individual, see especially the author's "Of Time and the Null Individual," The Journal of Philosophy LXII (1965), 723-736. To characterize the null entity we need of course the calculus of individuals.

12. Pars. 385 and 386.

13. For useful expository remarks, see especially H. Wang, From Mathematics to Philosophy (Humanities Press, New York: 1974).

14. See the author's "On Common Natures and Mathematical Scotism," to appear in Ratio and also in Peirce's Logic of Relations and Other Studies, Studies in Semantics, Vol. 12, ed. by Thomas Sebeok (Peter de Ridder Press, Nisse, The Netherlands: 1977).

15. Cf. the author's "Of `Of'" to be presented at the VIIth International Congress at Dusseldorf, 1978.

16. Summa Theologica, I, q. 19, a. 12.

17. PR8 is of course oversimplified, but a more general formulation and discussion is not needed for the present.

18. Cf. the author's Truth and Denotation (University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1958), p. 106.

19. See again Events, Reference, and Logical Form and Semiotics and Linguistic Structure.

20. The ` ' and ` ' are the signs for the union and intersection respectively of virtual classes.

21. Cf. an alternative treatment of the primordial relations in the author's "On God and Primordiality," The Review of Metaphysics 29 (1976), 497-522. See also "Some Thomistic Properties of Primordiality," and "On the Logic of Idealism and Peirce's Neglected Argument," to appear in Idealistic Studies and also in Peirce's Logic of Relations and Other Studies.

JAN Van der VEKEN

The value of Professor Martin's contribution lies especially in his serious and thorough application of current logico-linguistic theory to the study of religious language. What he intends to show is how logico-linguistic theory can help shed more light on the principles and structures of the main philosophical systems. For this purpose, and by way of central paradigm, he attempts a hypothetical reconstruction of at least some characteristics of metaphysical idealism in a semantic metalanguage. An essential feature of metaphysical idealism is that God is identified with being and that being is conceived as absolute Spirit. One can therefore speak of a monism of the Spirit. The wider purpose, however, is to offer a meta-system that can serve to formalize various philosophical and theological systems such as those of Plotinus, Anselm, Aquinas, Hegel and Whitehead. A few critical remarks are in order here.

1. From a theological point of view there arises the question of identifying the metaphysical absolute (Absolute Spirit, hereinafter referred to as AS) with the religious absolute (called God). AS has at least several characteristics of the Thomistic God and Whitehead's "primordial nature." Nevertheless, Thomas employs a different category as the ultimate and all-encompassive notion, namely, being, whereas Whitehead speaks of "creativity." This would appear to be a point worth noting in formalizing metaphysical idealism. What is to be said about God cannot be deduced from the basic category AS.

2. A second question that can be raised concerning the project itself of formalizing religious language is that before any logical analysis one must first decide which type of philosophy is to be developed. This applies also to the project of formalizing religious language. Which language shall be formalized? Clearly, a prior decision has to be taken here.

Popper's distinction between "context of discovery" and "context of justification" can be insightful here. The expression "justification" can be substituted in this case by "articulation." A logico-linguistic method can therefore only be of service on the level of articulation, not that of justification and not from a heuristic viewpoint. But whence come the fundamental insights of the great philosophical systems such as absolute idealism?

First, there are important themes which continually arise in the history of philosophy and which have brought some people to speak of "philosophia perennis." Thus Martin says: "that being is one and identical with God the creator . . . is rediscovered in every age and in every corner of the world." It is in this context, however, that caution should be observed before identifying the problem of God with the problem of being.

A third element of the "context of discovery" in connection with religious language is our actual experience of the universe. "If our cosmos is to be what it is . . . ." The relation between facts in the world and a view on the totality is one of implication or incompatibility.

3. With regard to formalizing religious language, it must be said that a so-called scientific theology has to comply with the same rules as those which hold good in the formation of scientific theories in other fields.

First, theoretical constructions are useful in theology just as in other disciplines. It should be noted however: theology looks for relations of the type p--> q and not for the less complex p-->q (in other words theology looks for necessary conditions of possibility and not for conditions of the type p-->q). In the latter case reasoning from the consequence to the cause is not justified (the problem of verification and the reasons why falsification is to be preferred to verification in the formation of theories). In the case of a necessary condition it is permissible to deduce from the givenness of q the givenness of p.

Secondly, a theology which intends to speak scientifically must insist on being as systematic as possible, that is, it must systematize as many statements as possible with the aid of as few fundamental principles as possible. Martin indeed succeeds in formalizing the principles of absolute idealism with the aid of a few basic concepts (AS, Manif., Emb., Prim. Prcpt.). All the other primordial predicates are defined within the linguistic framework with the aid of the theory of quantification, identity, the calculus of individuals, and ultimately with the aid of some semantic rules and principles of the "event theory." The question that now arises is whether this formalizing contributes anything from a strictly heuristic standpoint. It would seem that such a method, while able to shed more light on the coherence of certain theological principles, nonetheless actually fails to provide any new insights.

Thirdly, not only logico-linguistic systems but the insights of current theories of science can teach us rather a lot concerning the relation between the data of experience and the paradigms we employ to grasp the data of experience in a coherent and systematic conceptual framework. Paradigms are employed in theology as well as in natural science. Kuhn especially has pointed out that science usually develops with the aid of paradigms. In other sciences, too, Kuhn accepts the presence of irrational, dogmatic components. Lakatos wanted to mitigate Kuhn's "irrationalism," while Feyerabend stands more on Kuhn's side. For Kuhn "normal" science is the cumulative process in which transmitted principles of a scientific community are schematized, articulated and generalized. Martin's project fits into the context of this theory of science. The extensive awareness that there is, in any case, something which transcends man is rooted in experience as interpreted by religious language. The systems of Platinus, Anselm, Aquinas, and Whitehead, as well as that of so-called absolute idealism (Parmenides, Spinoza, and Hegel) can then be seen as so many paradigms to clarify in a conceptual manner what is given in metaphysical and religious experience, taking into account the demands of logical coherence and adequacy to experience. Though we do not consider the strength of the logico-linguistic method to be found on the level of content, it is nevertheless a useful instrument whereby the current achievements of the so-called formal sciences can be integrated into the study of religious language.

THE HINDU METAPHYSICAL TRADITION ON

THE MEANING OF THE ABSOLUTE

JEHANGIR N. CHUBB

In order to give an adequate exposition of the Hindu metaphysical tradition it is necessary to clarify some important preliminary issues. Of Hinduism, more than of any other religion, it may be said that it is not a monolithic creed. Within Hinduism one has come to expect some variety in ways of thinking and speaking of the Supreme Being and an even greater diversity of theories concerning man's relation to the Supreme Being. Added to the difficulty of this bewildering diversity of creeds is the reminder of one important trend in Hinduism which points beyond all creeds and concepts to that "from which speech falls back and the mind retires baffled, unable to reach it." Hinduism is both credal and non-credal. This itself would present some difficulty in talking about the Hindu religious tradition. The difficulty is aggravated owing to the fact that its many creeds do not, at least at first sight, cohere to form a single, unified body of teachings concerning the ultimate Reality.

This situation naturally raises the problem of identification. How shall we define Hinduism? Is Hinduism in any sense one or is it merely the name of a conglomeration of doctrines, aproaches, spiritual practices, and forms of worship exhibiting a rich diversity or, as some would say, a chaotic multiplicity? Is Hinduism one religion or a miscellaneous group of religions with nothing more than a geographical unity to bring them under a common label?

One of the purposes of this paper is to show that Hinduism is the name of a unified whole, but that in traditional Hinduism this unity is only a potentiality and a promise that has been realized only partially and imperfectly, leaving a number of tensions and conflicts unresolved. The question, what constitutes the unity of Hinduism has come to the fore in recent times and it is my belief that in the massive and luminous writings of Sri Aurobindo the final unity of Hinduism has not merely been indicated but actually accomplished. As I have said in my article: "Sri Aurobindo as the Fulfillment of Hinduism,"¹ "Sri Aurobindo has added a new dimension to Indian philosophy. He has brought to fruition its penetrating but imperfect search for unity and has raised the spirit of Hinduism to a full and liberated consciousness of itself."

I am aware that this view would be contested by many who could claim to speak with authority on Hinduism and whose views deserve respect. I shall presently consider alternative answers to the question, what constitutes the unity of Hinduism, assuming that it is possible to interpret Hinduism as a system that can comprehend in a coherent unity all its diverse manifestations. But it should be noted that the controversy here is not over the question, what do the different schools of Hinduism teach, but how are these diverse teachings to be correlated and what principle of interpretation or synthesis should we employ to bring order out of apparent chaos? We may say that the question, what is the Hindu metaphysical tradition on the Absolute is at the first order level of reflection.

The difficulties of exposition which I have raised above will carry us to a second order level. This should make it clear that the method to be used for giving an exposition of the Hindu conception of the Ultimate is not purely a historical one, not a matter of correct exegesis alone. I do not mean merely that presentation must include interpretation and critical evaluation. This would still keep the inquiry at the first order level. What is further needed is an explanatory hypothesis, a vision of an emerging unity, in the light of which the materials provided by historical study are to be interpreted and unified. It is similar to the difference between recording facts of history and interpreting them in the light of a philosophy of history. The facts could be correctly presented and yet seen in a new light. Thus in giving an exposition of the Hindu concept of the Ultimate one has to answer not only the question, what is Hinduism but, more importantly, what is Hinduism trying to become?

It is obvious that the answer to this question cannot be found by merely examining "the Hindu metaphysical tradition" understood as an already developed set of doctrines which are accepted by all enlightened Hindus as forming the core of Hinduism. We may, however, understand "Hindu tradition" not only in terms of a tangible body of doctrines but also, more etherially, in terms of a spirit seeking embodiment. The latter refers to the characteristic form which the spiritual quest has taken in India and which may be described as a search for Truth in its fullness, a search that intends to leave no possibility unexplored and is undeterred by the apparent conflicts and contradictions in its many findings. Undoubtedly, Truth in its fullness must also be a self-consistent whole, but there is always the danger that by adopting a rigid and narrow idea of self-consistency, as most religious philosophies have done, including many schools of Hinduism, one may rest satisfied with a vision of Truth that is partial and truncated. The Hindu tradition is nebulous and elusive with respect to its content but more fully articulate with respect to its spirit and inspiring impulse. Its spirit dwells not in one body but in innumerable bodies, but also breaks out of them. It transcends its manifold expressions and remains doctrinally indefinable.

It is with reference to its spirit that we must indicate how the unity of Hinduism is to be understood and how it is to be achieved, for in traditional Hinduism the unity is still submerged in a mass of conflicting claims and counter-claims. The religious mind of Hinduism aspires after a vision of wholeness in which, to use Meister Eckhart's words, "there is no denial except the denial of all denials." But in the history of Hinduism, particularly in the scholastic period, denial, partisan thinking, and the refutation of `rival' theories was the accepted procedure. It would, however, be a mistake to regard the strongly polemical writings of the great Acaryas and their followers as entirely out of line with the spirit of Hinduism. The ideal of unity is that of a richly diversified oneness. The diversity is no less important than the unity. To achieve this richness of content each element of the diversity must first be allowed to develop along its own lines in isolation from the other elements, and even in opposition to them, in order that it may discover its own potentialities and articulate itself fully. The achievement of unity and harmony is a dialectical process in which tensions and oppositions must be allowed to develop almost to the breaking point before they can be resolved and embraced in a healing oneness.

This perhaps explains why, though in the Gita we are presented with an admirable structured, comprehensive synthesis of all the major strands of Hindu spiritual experience, the unity was not preserved but was broken up in the succeeding centuries into several contending schools of thought. The unity of Hinduism in the Gita was in a way too premature, since the nisus within each of its elements to develop along its own lines and find its own specific mode of self-fulfillment, had not yet been appeased.

It is in recent times that the problem of discovering the underlying unity of Hinduism has come to the fore. In conformity with the spirit of Hinduism one should adopt a non-partisan approach to this problem. There are broadly two conceptions of unity or universality, the missionary and the non-missionary. The former, paradoxically, sustains itself through exclusion and offers at best a procrustean type of universality, universal by the very force of its narrowness. Truth is here walled in and cast into a more or less rigid mold and what lies outside it is dismissed as error and darkness or the dim twilight of half-truths. Or, taking a more liberal attitude, what is outside it is regarded as below it, representing a partial or lower truth whose sole value is that it is a preliminary stage to something beyond it, helpful, at best to the individual to rise at last to the highest stage--one's own--where Truth abides in fullness.

In an approach that is free of any suggestion of partisanship and condescension the ultimate reconciliation of the seemingly opposed viewpoints must be sought in an integral and all-embracing Whole in which all the positive contents in the diverse competing elements are held together and harmonized, not by being arranged hierarchically as representing ascending steps to the highest truth contained in one of them, but as concurrent and complementary poises of an indivisible Reality that dwells indivisibly in each and all of them while at the same time remaining transcendent and indeterminable. Hinduism, according to me, is the Spirit of Truth revealing itself through a slow, evolutionary and dialectical process and finally bursting forth fully in the integral vision and experience of Sri Aurobindo.

The Indian view of Brahman and of the universe may be called pantheism. Pantheism is an ambiguous term and one must hasten to add that Indian pantheism is a view which is compatible with panentheism which, while recognizing the immanence of Brahman in the universe (which is Brahman itself in self-manifestation), also insists on affirming the transcendence of Brahman. Pantheism as presented in the G^-it^-a, for instance, is the view that there is nothing outside the being of Brahman. The Upanisads declare "All this is verily Brahman" and "As from a blazing fire sparks fly forth by the thousands, so also do various beings come forth from the imperishable Brahman and unto Him again return."

It should be pointed out here that Indian dualistic philosophies occupy a position half way between the G^-it^-a pantheism and Christian dualism according to which the universe and human souls are not only outside the being of God but are created ex nihilo, i.e., individual souls are not eternal since in some sense they have an origin. All schools of Indian philosophy, however, regard individual souls, j^-ivas, as eternal. But in my opinion such a view can be held consistently only within a pantheistic framework, since it is unthinkable that there could be anything outside the being of Brahman which is coeternal with it. Brahman is and must be "One without a second."³

In the Upani_.sads, what may be called the essential as distinct from the integral nature of Brahman is indicated in the question, "As from the knowledge of one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, so what is that knowing by which all things become known?" This is consistent with pantheism according to which the Supreme is not only the efficient cause but also the material cause of the universe. But there is no single picture of Brahman that emerges unambiguously from the Upanisadic texts. Brahman is referred to as personal, saguna, as the Lord of the universe. "Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the supreme Godhead above all godheads." "From fear of Him both Indra and Wind and Death as fifth do speed along."

The concept of Brahman in the Upanisads and in Indian philosophy generally is basically non-anthropomorphic. By this I mean that Brahman is regarded as the Transcendent Being which differs both in existence and nature from the purely phenomenal or finite being, not merely in degree but essentially in kind. There is a qualitative distance between the purely finite and the Infinite. But here it is important not to overlook a radical difference between Christian dualism and Hindu pantheism. According to the latter the human individual in his true nature belongs to the Transcendent and not to the phenomenal order or the order of created beings. There dwells within "the cave of his heart," to use an Upani_.s^-adic simile, a hidden divinity or a hidden Self which has connaturality, not with the mundane and the perishable, but with the Divine and the Everlasting. This hidden reality is not something that we have to become or grow into; we are that eternally.

Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.

I have so far given an exposition of the supreme and timeless ineffable Being, Brahman, in its transcendent poises of personality, impersonality and sheer ineffability, according to the spirit and underlying intent of the unwritten Hindu metaphysical tradition. I shall now consider the relation of Brahman to the cosmos, the world of changing, developing and perishable things.

Parin^-amav^-ada runs into difficulties because of a mistaken assumption which it does not question that there must be a temporal link between the timeless Brahman and the temporal phenomenal order. Sri Aurobindo does not commit this mistake. For him timelessness is only one of the multiple poises of the Infinite. In this connection he mentions two poises of the Transcendent or Eternity, Timeless-Eternity and Time-Eternity. To these we may add the poise of Eternal Duration. Timeless-Eternity is, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, "the non-manifest timeless, utterly eternal and an irreducible absolute self-existence." Timeless-Eternity articulates itself, as it were, as Time-Eternity in preparation for projecting out of itself the field of manifestation and for bringing into being the phenomenal order. The language of time and succession which is used to state the relation between these two poises is only a convenient way of speaking and not to be taken literally. Time-Eternity, says Sri Aurobindo, is "the Infinite deploying itself and organizing all things in time." It is a simultaneous Eternity of time in which past, present and future are forever together.

On the pantheistic view we do not have a relation between the world and God considered as two different things. The world is God; it is God in the process of self-manifestation. But it should not be forgotten that there is no temporal relation between the three poses of the Transcendent. Timeless-Eternity, Time-Eternity and Eternal Duration cannot be brought together into a common temporal framework.

It is time to consider a rather obvious objection which the concept of integral Hinduism I have tried to present has to face. Such a view apparently ascribes irreconcilable predicates to the same Reality, such as `personal', `impersonal', `static', `dynamic', `ineffable but conceptualizable', `sheerly ineffable'. It may be said that one in each of these pairs of predicates may be true but not both, for they cancel each other out and their simultaneous affirmation would be in flagrant violation of the law of contradiction.

It would be pertinent to ask what precisely the law of contradiction forbids us to say. I suggest that what it forbids is not a statement of any particular kind but a mode of utterance which uses two sentences both of which are intelligible, but in such a way that in the result nothing whatever has been said. The statements of transcendent metaphysics that ascribe apparently incompatible predicates to the Infinite are not such empty utterances in which something is asserted and denied simultaneously in such a way that in the end result nothing at all is either asserted or denied. They are genuine statements and the problem arises only when we ask how the two predicates in each pair are to be accommodated in the same subject.

As a first step towards answering this question it will be necessary to show that the Infinite does, as a matter of fact, accommodate within its being all the apparently incompatible predicates mentioned above. This raises the question, on what principle shall we select predicates which can truly be ascribed to God? The answer is: only those predicates can be considered which are compatible with divine perfection. Thus it would seem plausible to say that God is good but not that God is evil, that he loves us but not that he hates us, that he is self-existent but not that he is dependent for his being on another.

The next question is, how do we make a selection among predicates which are compatible with the divine perfection so as to decide which of these are to be ascribed to God and which are not? The answer to this question is crucial to our understanding the simple or indivisible and yet multi-faceted nature of the Supreme Being. The answer simply is that no selection need or indeed can be made among the possible predicates that can be ascribed to God. This is because in God there are no `accidental' qualities, nothing that is but may not have been. We can give no meaning to the statement that a predicate is compatible with God's being except that it represents a mode of divine perfection. In the case of a finite subject what is compatible with its nature may or may not be actualized. This is because the actualization of possibilities in the case of finite beings depends partly on conditions and circumstances outside their being and essence. The Infinite in contrast to the finite does not depend on anything outside itself for any quality of its being. Hence whatever is compatible with God is in God and is God.

It will not be difficult to discern in this statement echoes of the ontological argument. But there is an important difference in my argument which enables it to preserve its validity even when the ontological argument is shown to be invalid. My argument does not claim to prove the existence of God but merely to prove that God does possess all those attributes which our intellect sees to be compatible with the divine essence. The passage is not from concept to existence, but from concept to the nature of that whose existence is not being called in question. The argument may be stated in the maxim: in the case of God's nature or being the possible is the actual.

Let us now consider the third pair of predicates or the distinction between the ineffable which is conceptualizable and the sheer ineffable. The truth of the former has already been established in showing that the different poises of the Infinite, static-dynamic, personal-impersonal, are modes of divine perfection. But how shall we show that a poise of the Supreme which is totally inexpressible in concepts, words and images, the Void of the Buddhists, is also a possibility compatible with divine perfection and therefore necessary to the total divine perfection: Such a poise of the Infinite would not be coordinate with its other poises since it is not another determination of the Infinite, but points to the Infinite as the Indeterminable. It would, therefore, be better to call it, as I have done above, the core of the Ineffable; or we may call it the super-essential being of God. Like impersonality, indeterminability may also be explained with reference to the freedom of the Infinite. If the Infinite freely determines itself in a number of ways it is not tied to its own self-determinations. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, "It is perfectly understandable that the Absolute is and must be indeterminable in the sense that it cannot be limited by any determination or any sum of possible determinations, but not in the sense that it is incapable of self-determination."

It would be in conformity with the spirit of Hinduism to point out that the above deliberation on the nature of Brahman does not reply solely on a conceptual analysis or on a theoretical consideration of abstract possibilities. In Hinduism, if logic does not actually follow spiritual experience, its pronouncements are nevertheless not regarded as authoritative or well-established unless they are confirmed by spiritual experience. The conceptual analysis which I have given above gains strength and support from the fact that all the self-determinations which I have ascribed to Brahman, as also the reference to Brahman as the indeterminable, have been directly verified over and over again throughout the history of Hinduism, from the Vedic times to the present.

One last and perhaps the most important step has to be taken for the solution of the problem of the so-called conflicting truth-claim. We have still to show how the diverse and seemingly incompatible affirmations we have made concerning Brahman are to be reconciled. Or, to put it differently, we must indicate how the seemingly incompatible predicates or poises are held together in the being of Brahman. Can the intellect indicate or make intelligible how things are held together in the Supreme or throw any light on the intrinsic possibility of the union of modes of perfection in God?

Here we come to the boundary of reason beyond which it cannot penetrate. We saw that because of the qualitative distance between the Infinite and the purely finite we have to acknowledge that the modes of divine existence and nature must remain incomprehensible to the intellect. This is true equally of the mode of union of attributes in the divine Substance. At this stage Logic, without abdicating, opens the door to Mystery, not the Christian-type sheer Mystery which has to be accepted on faith alone, but a Mystery continuous with logic though transcending it, and erected on the pedestal of reason. It is a Mystery not thrust upon the intellect but one that is affirmed by the intellect itself, reflecting autonomously on the nature of the Supreme Being. In short we have here Mystery within the heart of logic.

Let me make this point in a more analytic and less mysterious way. The different poises of the Infinite are unified in its being in a way that is utterly unique and therefore totally incomprehensible to the intellect. But this is something that the intellect itself can understand and endorse. The Mystery is a consequence of a unique characteristic of the Infinite, so unique that it defines its very status and which it, therefore, does not share with any finite existence. This characteristic is postulated by reason and is not received by us through a take-it-or-leave-it supernatural revelation. I am referring here to the fact--and this is recognized by Christian thinkers as well--that God's being is simple and indivisible. `Simplicity' is itself a rather complex notion, but I shall try to simplify it insofar as it affects the question under discussion.

The Infinite is simple or indivisible in the sense that its being is totally integrated such that it could never be true to say of the Infinite that it is partly something and partly something else. If such a move were possible there would be no `mystery' and no serious problem of reconciling incompatible predicates. This can always be done by making a distinction within the being of the subject to which the predicates are applied. One could then say that in one aspect the Infinite is personal and, in another aspect, impersonal; dynamic in one aspect and static in another, and so on. Such a differentiation of aspects within a common subject is possible only in the case of a finite, temporal being, since, being finite, he can shift the center or stress of his consciousness from one part of his being to another, while the rest of his being remains subconscient and unattended to.

Logic and Mystery divide between themselves the `that' and the `how' of the divine perfection. Though we must remain con-tent to recognize that the `how' or the actual mode of union of the diverse elements in the divine being is incomprehensible to the intellect, we may perhaps get a distinct and oblique hint of it when we reflect on an analogous situation that obtains in the sphere of the purely finite. Such a situation arises when we make assertions about the world which are not empirical but categorical. Thus we may have two views concerning the way in which the world of our experience is to be described or interpreted. On one view the world consists of a series of events and there are no permanent or even semi-permanent substances (the Process view). The second view holds that the world consists of things undergoing changes and that events are precisely these changes that take place in substances (the Substance view).

The next question would be, which of these two incompatible views is true? My answer is that both these views are true and that they do not contradict each other. This is because the two views, though distinct, are not mutually related with reference to the question of determining their truth-values. They cannot be brought into a common logical framework in which they can be compared with respect of truth or falsity. The reason for this is that each view contains and absorbs the other. In terms of what is empirically verifiable neither view denies anything that the other asserts; or to state this more positively, each accommodates in its perspective all the claims made by the other that can be empirically tested. Hence the two views cannot be coordinated or placed side by side. It would, therefore, not be correct to say that one is true and the other false. They are both true, alternatively, depending on which view we start with. But whichever view we start with the other view is al-ready taken up in it and therefore cannot present itself as a separate and rival view. Each contains and is contained in the other.

Similarly we may say that there is no real distinction between the many poises of the Infinite and they cannot be coordinated or brought together within a common logical framework where they confront each other in mutual and irreconcilable opposition. We may bring this discussion to a close with a quotation from F.H. Bradley who holds that his Absolute is `somehow' a non-relational unity. We have shown that reason itself points to Mystery and have given an example of an analogous mystery within finite experience. Hence we may conclude in the words of Bradley, "What must be and what in a particular case is shown to be, that certainly is."

Finally, we must raise the question, what, according to Hinduism, is the purpose or explanation of the self-manifestation of Brahman as the seemingly imperfect order of evolutionary Nature? In traditional Hinduism only two answers are given. They are m^-ay^-av^-ada--the whole phenomenal order is a vast illusion--and lil^-avada, the view that the Lord creates the universe without any purpose, as pure sport (lila). I have already shown the logical incoherence of m^-ay^-av^-ada. Lil^-av^-ada is true in the limited sense that the Lord, being perfect, can have no unfulfilled purpose which he needs to accomplish through the process of creation. This in itself does not lead to a denial of teleology within the universe. Just as time is not at the origin of creation and yet the created order is temporally structured, so also, though an unfulfilled purpose cannot initiate the self-manifestation of the Divine, a purposive, evolutionary movement towards a divine fulfillment in time may well be the secret and final aim of the Divine's self-manifestation. Lila does not contradict telos and may well contain it within itself. Indeed, without an immanent purpose the Divine `sport' would, in view of the intense and universal suffering which is so strikingly a feature of it, become, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, "a cruel and revolting paradox."

1. International Philosophical Quarterly, June 1972.

3. St. Thomas holds the curious view that one can assert without any conceptual incoherence that God created a world that is eternal. But in what sense could God have created it? Clearly the being of an eternal world would not be dependent on God. At best one could say that the continued existence of the world depends on God but not its original existence. Even this partial dependence would not be intelligible unless God is thought of as a temporal agent, which he is not according to St. Thomas.

MARGARET CHATTERJEE

It might be both disconcerting and necessary to begin by saying that the concept of the Absolute is absent in the majority of the schools of Indian philosophy. The thought of the sub-continent does, however, include three forms of absolutism- spiritualistic or that which derives from the Upanishads, theistic, and nihilistic. Hindu thought shows an interesting pendulum, from an elaborate cosmogony in Vedic times to Upanishadic absolutism, then to various forms of theism, on to reformist types of monotheism in the nineteenth century. All these diversities show that Indian thinkers were always interested in the destiny of man, the metaphysical foundation of human freedom, detachment rather than attachment. Three other things must also be stressed: (1) that it was believed that liberation could be attained by a diversity of paths; (2) that the special experiences of special people were as relevant as logical arguments to the discovery of the supreme Being; and (3) that intellectual exercises must be backed up by yogic practices. The types of locutions used in elucidatory discourse about the Supreme being in the Hindu tradition are threefold: (1) the neti neti path or via negativa (2) metaphorical language (3) paradox.

Professor Chubb's paper, I suggest, unwittingly faces us with the question whether there is a difference between the metaphysical and religious import of absolutism. Hindu thought sees no difficulty in conflating the two. In the thinking which stems from Greek cum Judeo-Christian origins it has been stressed time and time again that the philosopher's concept of the absolute can by no means provide a focus for religious consciousness. The Advaitin, however, adheres not merely to a particular form of philosophic absolutism, but this constitutes for him a form of "religious belief". However, Professor Chubb regards Advaita as being wanting in some way, otherwise he would not project Sri Aurobindo's philosophy as going beyond Advaita in a desirable manner. He claims both that Aurobindo belongs to the Hindu tradition and that in his philosophy he raises "the spirit of Hinduism to full and liberated consciousness of itself". He thus sees Aurobindo as a kind of apex or terminal point.

This is also referred to by him as a spiritual quest described as a quest for unity. But there seem to be two quests for unity mentioned by him. There is the "problem of discovering the underlying unity of Hinduism"--he significantly speaks of `unity' and 'universality' interchangeably. There is also--again according to Chubb--the unity which the Hindu is alleged to be seeking: his search for the Truth, for wholeness. The truth is said to burst forth, be it noted, not in a system, but in an "integral vision and experience" of a particular person. Regarding these two senses of unity, Chubb's language at times resembles that of thinkers like Bhagwan Das and Radhakrishnan who maintained a universalistic thesis about san<sup>-a</sup>tan dharma-- the inspiration of which was a pre-independence nationalist impulse. One of India's most original theologians, P. D. Devanandam, on the other hand, has spoken of Hinduism as a `family of religions'. If we take this line we are under no obligation to produce an essence, a reified something as the alleged unity underlying the members of the family. We need not even invoke family resemblance in the style of one of the twentieth century prophets. I would myself hold the view that the unity of Hinduism (including under this the specific cultural factor of religion) is found at the level of practice--rituals, pilgrimages, institutions etc.--and not in philosophical content.

As to the second sense of unity to which Chubb refers, the alleged quest of unity, we need not adhere to this stereotype any more than we need adhere to the stereotype of `otherness' which it is customary to associate with the so-called religions of transcendence but which has been criticized so ably especially by Rabbi Abram Heschl, among scholars in recent times.

Chubb is sympathetic to the Advaita form of Vedanta and speaks of this as pantheistic. Although the point is somewhat a verbal one, and a matter of definition, it seems difficult to maintain the pantheistic thesis if we say, as he does, that according to Advaita there is (I quote) "qualitative distance between the purely finite and the Infinite". More tenable is his point about ineffability. It is notoriously paradoxical to speak of the ineffability of Brahman and yet maintain the possibility of aparoksa jnana, to speak of what is anirbacaniya or unspeakable as Sat-cit-ananda. Now what Chubb suggests is this. Here we find not a collision of logic with experience or that experience takes us beyond logic (and these are two of the possible answers offered by others) but we have he says, and I quote, "a Mystery continuous with logic though transcending it, and erected on the pedestal of reason". No doubt here we are certainly aware of the inadequacy of concepts. But how can mystery be continuous with logic? What Chubb has in mind, I think, is the notion of a transformed sort of consciousness as advocated by Aurobindo, which would be able to do precisely that - take one, so to say, where reason left off.

We need to know now why Chubb should regard Aurobindo as in some way or other 'fulfilling' the Hindu tradition. His main merit, in Chubb's view, is in accepting Advaita minus the theory of mayavada. The Gita, he says, brings out the nature of divine transcendence, a kind of transcendence, I would be inclined to say, not too different from the early conception of Yahweh in Judaic thought. But the full significance of divine immanence in his view is brought out in the divine descending movement - a redemptive process - proclaimed by Aurobindo. Chubb raises the question of God's attributes, saying that these are such as are "compatible with divine perfection". This way of putting it is more in line with Leibniz's phrase "the compossibility of positive predicates" than with anything in the Hindu tradition. Aurobindo's absolutism is open-ended, the openness stemming from human possibilities (something quite compatible with a loose form of karma theory) and the possibilities of divine initiative. It is also clearly a form of absolutism, which looks upon the destiny of man with hope, which thinks in terms of an evolutionary perspective which would transform human nature and therefore human society. Aurobindo's goal was no less than the divinization of man upon earth - a plurality of individual ascents with the pilgrims all returning to illumine the cave - that is to say a model with many levels and movement both upwards and downwards.

Let me fasten on six points.

(1) The first is a warning about regarding Advaita Vedanta as the crown and summit of the Hindu tradition. The way in which Aurobindo himself draws on many diverse strands of religious thought in the sub-continent is good evidence of the diversity within Hinduism. From Tantra he derives the concept of shakti which he puts in place of cit. The idea of centres of consciousness is also a Tantric idea. From the Mahayana Buddhist concept of Bodhissatvahood he derives the motion of redeeming humanity. From Sankhya he adopts the idea of an evolutionary process directed towards the liberation of man. From popular religion in Bengal he takes the idea of the Divine Mother. The Hindu tradition encompasses all these and more. This encompassing is expressed by Aurobindo himself in his use of the word `integral'. Aurobindo departs from the Advaitic tradition in more ways than he conforms to it. There is no time to spell this out now, but one of the key points which illustrates my contention is his treatment of the gap between sacchidananda and the phenomenal world. He sees this not so much as a metaphysical divide but as a challenge. The param<sup>-a</sup>rthika and the vyavah<sup>-a</sup>rika are to be brought closer together by the s<sup>-a</sup>dhak who, in the words of another tradition, returns to the cave. If we are to fasten on to the most provocative contribution of Advaita to our theme it will be no doubt the concept of nirgun Brahman, the idea that attribute language will always be inappropriate with reference to what is ultimate. The inexhaustibility of the divine is to be experienced and not fitted into the straight-jacket of our human intellectual categories. But here of course we run into the risk of pitching the experience in so high a key, to use a musical metaphor, that not only is it beyond reach, but the very use of the word `experience' loses its justification.

(2) The second issue concerns evolution. Aurobindo understood evolution not in terms of becoming more and more saintly or more and more intelligent but in terms of becoming more and more conscious. What is interesting here is that mind is not regarded as the terminal point. Beyond mind is spirit. The cultivation of inwardness--something which is the mark of the advance toward spirit--enables man to act as the spearhead of the cosmic evolutionary process. Supra-mental rationality is the top rung of a Jacob's ladder which cannot be thrown away. In terms of the Hindu tradition we have also to note another departure on the part of Aurobindo. The new order will arise not from the destruction of the old, from the ashes of great conflagration, from pral^-aya, but from a process of transmutation. Upanishadic tradition had spoken in terms of realizing what one is. Aurobindo states emphatically in Life Divine, "It is in his human nature, in all human nature to exceed itself by conscious evolution, to climb beyond what he is."

(3) The third issue concerns transcendence/immanence. To my mind what Aurobindo brings into the Hindu tradition is a conception of man as a self-transcending being. Built into the very fabric of things are possibilities between which men can choose, as if there were a divine conspiracy involving man, so that the world could be made nearer to the heart's desire. Man himself is understood as a tool of the immanent power at work in the universe - a power risen to self-conscious awareness. This highlights a new dimension of the transcendence/immanence issue--the dimension that concerns, not the question of cosmic origin and dependence, but the role and destiny of man.

(4) The fourth issue concerns lila as a principle apparently vastly different from that of telos. Both lila and telos are anthropomorphic ideas. Each, however, has different resonances. In Aurobindo's thinking, as in the thinking of the shakta, divine creativity is understood not in terms of antecedent will but as an outpouring of dynamism. Even the word `emanation' does not put us on the right track. The divine cosmic dance of Shiva is the most potent symbol of this energy in Indian art. The image symbolizes both energy and delight. While Aurobindo had hailed in Heraclitus a fellow-devotee of divine energy he had found the element of ananda, of joy, lacking in Heraclitus. Lila then should be understood as an outpouring of creativity, not as an arbitrary activity which is antithetical to eschatology. It is significant that Aurobindo abandoned the cyclical analysis of change given by the ancient Hindus, making room not for a linear view of change so much as a spiral where joy and sorrow each have their place. The cross-fertilization between Heraclitus and the Hindu tradition in Aurobindo produces strange results. For example, Aurobindo speaks of the soul as a spark which is not merged in the fire. His conception of the destiny of man is certainly not one of `merging', but of an order of consciousness where individuality is retained, something consonant with the splendid image used by Professor Findlay at the close of his paper.

(5) A fifth and tough metaphysical problem centres on the place of contradictions. Shankara deals with this by resorting to level language with movement in one direction so to say, the higher cancelling out the lower. It must be stressed that, in facing the problem of contradiction, Hindu thought resorts neither to sublation nor to antinomies of choice. Aurobindo seems to resort to two ways: in terms of philosophical discourse he resorts to poetic language and in terms of religious experience to the inner realization of the s^-adhak. The Hindu religious tradition accommodates surd elements into a view of life conceived of as made up of various states. Tantric thought encourages a deliberate espousal of the grotesque, the unclean, etc. All this of course is not to come to terms with logical contradiction. Hindu religious thought tends less to analogical reasoning than to parable and poetry. The fragmentary view of truth provides sanction for saying not only that each man is partly wrong but that each is partly right. This is the metaphysical basis of nonviolence and perhaps prevents whatever absolutist elements there may be in the Hindu tradition from being tied up with statism. If the verdict of logic and the s^-adhak's experience diverge from each other, the Hindu religious tradition favours the latter rather than the former. It would be generally expected that intellectual exercises cannot take one far once human ignorance, the Hindu counterpart of finitude, is admitted.

(6) Sixth, and finally, I would like to mention some of my own reservations about the concept of `realization' which provides perhaps the biggest stumbling-block in Hindu religious thought--a stumbling-block especially if one is used to thinking of the Supreme being in terms of "sum qui sum": the mah^-av^-akya of the book of Exodus. There must always be a major divide between those who speak in terms of the quest of a supreme religious experience and those who speak in terms of the quest of a supreme Being. One might wonder if there is such a thing as a paradox of realization pertaining to the former. Have not yogic practices perhaps been aimed at providing some sort of safeguard against this? My other reservation is whether the concept of realization can admit of progress in spiritual life. Can there be a further growth in identity? Aurobindo is able to think in terms of spiritual growth precisely because he avoids the language of merging and draws on the Vaishnava tradition in no small measure. These considerations take us beyond metaphysics. But we have already seen that there is no hard and fast line between metaphysics and religion in some of the thought- systems of Indian origin and in such systems one is adrift in a flooded monsoon territory where it may not be easy to find our bearings.

Delhi University

Delhi, India

METAPHYSICAL TRADITIONS

AND THE MEANING OF THE ABSOLUTE:

THE LOCUS OF THE DIVINE IN CHINESE THOUGHT

ELLEN M. CHEN

INTRODUCTION:

What, according to the Chinese, is the divine, where is it located, and how does man partake of it? In Western philosophy such questions are treated in metaphysics. But the term metaphysics¹ presents itself as a problem when we apply it to the Chinese terrain. For the Western man knowledge and consciousness are identified with the divine. Plato's divided line (Republic, 509-511) shows that the realm of science, taking mathematics as the paradigmatic science, is already removed from the physical realm, being intermediary between the natural world of change and the divine world of changeless forms.² In the Western tradition down to the seventeenth century, metaphysics or natural theology meant the study of subject matter beyond and transcending the physical realm.³

But the Chinese had a very different notion of what was divine and where the divine was located. In Chinese metaphysics, there was no negation or transcendence of the physical realm as such; the divine was always conceived as in nature or nature itself. In the Western tradition influenced by the Greeks the divine was beyond nature, to be identified with thought or intellect. The Chinese had always identified the divine with life or creativity; it was no other than tzu-jan, the self-creative power of nature itself.⁴

This difference in the understanding of the divine is crucial in grasping the cultural and spiritual dimensions of the Chinese. Metaphysics, as the science of the divine, is man's search for the highest values and his effort to embody these in his person and activities. Hence, a different understanding of what constitutes the divine and where it is located results in very different manifestations of realizing the divine in human life. The main purpose of this paper is to show that major religious philosophies in the Chinese tradition--philosophical Taoism, Confucianism, religious Taoism, and sinicized Buddhism--all share in this affirmation and devotion to the physical realm as divine.⁵

In the allegory of the cave (Republic, 514-520) Plato portrays man as pitifully oblivious of his existential plight. Only through an arduous process of ascent could he manage to leave the dark imprisoning cave, emerge into the light of the day, become acquainted with clear and distinct objects in the real realm, and finally recognize the sun as the Father, generator of life and intelligence of all beings.

Whether Plato propounded a two-world theory is a matter of debate.⁶ At least most scholars agree that ontologically, the divine is not to be identified with the physical realm of our sense experience. Things in this world participate in the separate divine exemplars which are never fully embodied in this world of generation and corruption. The physical world into which mortals are born and in which they conduct their lives is not the locus of the divine. To rise up to the divine we must ready our mind's eye for a greater influx of light and vision.

In contrast, for the Chinese, the union with Tao is through a process of descent. The Chuang Tzu (6:14) speaks of dropping one's body and limbs, repudiating intelligence, departing from one's physical form and getting rid of consciousness. The divine is Hun-tun, the faceless one; and Hun-tun dies when it is opened to consciousness (7:7); Complete Works, p. 97.

The myth of four stages of consciousness in the Chuang Tzu (2:15); Complete Works, p. 41, serves best to illustrate the Taoist approach to the divine. The best and most blessed state is when consciousness is yet unconscious of itself; this is the undifferentiated continuum, a unity-without-multiplicity. The second is when things come to be, yet interpenetrate; there is consciousness of the existence of things, yet there is no consciousness of the lines of demarcation among them--this is the state of multiplicity-in-unity. The third is when consciousness of the boundaries of things appears. Thus names⁷ standing for different entities come to be. However, because there is yet no consciousness of the distinction between good and evil, the world is still without internal strife--this is the state of multiplicity-and-unity. The last state arrives with the awareness of the distinction between good and evil. At this point strife enters the world, thus the unity of the world is irretrievably lost--this is the state of multiplicity-without-unity.

From this myth it is clear that in Taoism consciousness is not the pathway to the divine. Hun-tun,⁸ the unconscious state, is the divine state, while consciousness as a movement away from the divine is the cause of alienation, strife, and death.

Thus Taoism also presents a two-world theory: the divine world of original nature and the superstructure created by human intelligence. Man's return from the conscious human realm to the sacred natural realm is through a relaxing of consciousness, it is a return from the dazzling light of the sun to the soothing dimness of the moon.

In Plato, forms are bits of immutable and immortal beings by virtue of their perfection and self-identity. The immortality of anything consists in either being an imperishable self-identical form or having the capacity to be assimilated to such a form. While the body with its senses grasps only perishable objects and thus is perishable, the intellect is capable of apprehending immutable forms.⁹ Man's hope for immortality, therefore, rests with his mind. This is through identifying first man with his soul, then his soul with his mind--taking thinking to be the most excellent activity of the soul--and finally, his mind with the imperishable forms. The conviction is that mind, which has no nature of its own, derives its nature from the object of its knowledge,¹⁰ for the knower becomes what is known. Man's anchorage onto the unchanging, self-identical, immutable forms through his mind guarantees the immortality and permanence of his soul.

In Taoist metaphysics, change alone is immortal. Change means renewal which guarantees continued life and perpetual youth; immortality belongs to what can change continuously without ever exhausting itself.¹¹ Within this perspective the individual who identifies his life with his own fixed and limited form which circumscribes its change is destined to perish. Immortality consists in shedding one's form, individual or specific, in repudiating the intellect and breaking the shell of individuality which rigidly determines and separates the self from others,¹² in sinking down and expanding the self so that it eventually becomes merged with the universal life force--this matrix which gives rise to all forms and individuals is alone immortal.

The Taoist sage is not an independent form capable of subsisting by itself. His umbilical cord with the All unsevered he "values drawing nourishment from the Mother."¹³ The Taoist yogi situates himself at the meeting point of the conscious and the unconscious. His dying is at the same time a resurrection; one moment he is emerging into the being and determination of individual existence, another moment he reverses to the non-being of universal becoming.¹⁴

In such a metaphysics, forms as specific and individual determinations are passing expressions of the universal process of becoming. Immortality consists not in holding on to these passing expressions, but in becoming one with the all transforming life force itself. Death happens to him who has reached an awareness of the self cut off from the totality.¹⁵ He who can render his life fluid, who can be indifferent to this form or that, who can assume any form any time, passing from one form to another with ease, is capable of long life.¹⁶ The Taoist does not hold on to his self-identity, but rejoices in becoming the butterfly, bird, fish, indeed all forms of life.¹⁷

The philosophical Taoist concept of immortality is clearly modeled upon the natural world itself. The natural world, devoid of consciousness of self, assumes endless transformations, and thus is long lasting. The Tao Te Ching says: "Heaven and earth are long lasting. . . . Because they do not live for self, therefore they live long." (Chap. 7) In Aristotle, divine immortal substances do not have their seat in the sublunary realm¹⁸--which explains the lowly position assigned to the physical realm in Aristotle's metaphysics. In Taoist metaphysics, Tao as the principle of change underlying all is the life pulse of the physical world itself, thus the affirmation of the physical world as divine in Taoist metaphysics.

CONFUCIANISM: The Divine as Creator of Life, Immortality Through the Species Life

In Confucianism the divine is life and what is creative of life: the I-ching speaks of I as a power that `gives and furthers life without end.'¹⁹ The main difference between the Taoist and the Confucian is this: the Taoist abandons himself to the divine as cosmic life, thus he returns to and blends with the natura naturans; the Confucian steps forward to take upon himself the burden of caring for the world of ten thousand beings, thus he devotes himself to the well-being of the natura naturata.

In the Teachings of Confucius and Mencius, we witness thought emerging from life, the conscious issuing forth from the unconscious, and man stepping forward from nature.²⁰ But what happened in Greek philosophy--where intelligence, once emerged from the matrix of life, claimed its independence from life--never happened in China. Confucius did not exalt reason over life. What was aimed at was the mean in perfection.

Confucius said: I know why the Way does not shine.²¹

The intelligent goes beyond it,

The stupid falls short of it.

I know why the Way does not operate.²¹

The capable goes beyond it,

The incompetent falls short of it.²²

That the intelligent and capable can go beyond, and thus eclipse the light of the Way and render it inoperative, shows that for Confucius the Way is still the Way of nature. We have seen that Taoism regards intelligence as the unholy element, a useless outgrowth of nature.²³ The Taoist perfect man is in the state of Hun-tun, transcending knowledge and virtue. In Confucianism, if nature is holy, man is also holy--his intelligence and moral insights are genuine endowments from Heaven.²⁴ In their right measure human thinking and action should not break the boundary of nature; for man to go beyond nature would be as undesirable as if he were to remain in complete ignorance. The goal is the harmony and balance between man and nature, between thought and life.

In Confucianism there is a real unity and continuity between Heaven, earth and man. To a Confucian the entire universe is one holy family, with Heaven and Earth as the great Father and Mother generating all beings in between. Since I am given life and provided with life's sustenance, my response to my existence is one of gratitude to Heaven and Earth, and a deep sense of fellowship and devotion to all beings in the world.

This means that ethics is the most holy concern in man's spiritual union with the divine. The whole conception of Confucian ethics is built upon an affirmation of the goodness and holiness of life, nature and natural inclinations.²⁸ This is opposed to Kantian and certain strains in Christian ethics according to which virtue, as the autonomy of the moral will, is at war with the inclinations of nature.

In Confucian ethics good and evil are understood to be what furthers or destroys life on earth.²⁹ A good ruler imitates heaven and earth by acting as father and mother to his people; he has compassion for them, eases their hardships, assists in their planting and harvesting which sustain their lives and livelihood.³⁰ A reckless ruler prevents growth and destroys life on earth, imposes public works or military duties at harvest time.³¹ Such a ruler loses his `Mandate of Heaven' (t' ien-ming).³²

If we reflect on the meaning of ming, the mandate, we immediately see the connection between ming meaning `command' and ming meaning `life.' The power to command is vested in him who holds the power of life and death: the ruler commands by holding the life and death of his subjects in his hands. But in this capacity he is merely imitating the rule of heaven--the Li chi³³ says that the ruler is called `Son of Heaven' because he is the representative of Heaven on earth. In Confucianism Heaven as the yang, the ultimate source of life, holds the power of conferring or withdrawing life from any earthly ruler. Only the ruler who obeys and carries out the commands of Heaven is blessed with continued life and power on earth, while he who displeases Heaven shall have his physical and political life cut short.³⁴ The political empire is verily a divine vessel which must be borne by the ruler with the utmost care and reverence. Only as long as the earthly ruler submits himself to the will of Heaven does he continue to hold the Mandate of Heaven.³⁵

The intrinsic connection between life as divine and virtue as rooted in, and in turn as sustaining nature, determines the Confucian understanding of what is immortal. Since each individual owes his life to his family and society, his immortality is premised on the furtherance of his family and societal life. There is a way of immortality for the public person.

Immortality for the private person consists in furthering the life line of his family. The Confucian sense of personal morality revolves around this central obligation. One's parents, having given one life and love and thus participated in the creative and nurturing act of Heaven and Earth, deserve one's special reverence. In the same way one must also participate in this creative act by giving birth to a male heir who will perform the sacrifices and carry on the family line after one's departure. When Mencius says: "There are three unfilial states, the greatest among them is to die without a (male) heir,"⁴⁰ he meant that the extension and continuity of the family line on earth is the most sacred duty of a filial son. Such a statement, needless to say, had led to great injustices to women and inflicted mortal sufferings on wives who failed to produce a son. What it showed was the blind Confucian will to live and give life. To a Confucian life flows from Heaven, but the concrete life activities are manifested on earth; thus in a sense everything depends on what happens on earth where the divine drama of life unfolds.⁴¹

Religious Taoists range from those who merely aim at long life to those who fervently affirm their belief in the possibility of physical immortality.⁴² The fact that religious Taoism enshrines philosophical Taoist texts among its sacred canon⁴³ shows that at least scripture-wise there is continuity from philosophical to religious Taoism. Of course, for those religious Taoists who believed that man's summum bonum consisted in physical immortality, the same texts must be interpreted to suit their religious needs.⁴⁴ Here we shall not expound the techniques involved in internal and external alchemy,⁴⁵ but merely try to point out the theoretical presuppositions of the elixir seeker and use as our main text the Pao P'u Tzu. In its insistence on physical immortality in this very life and body as the only acceptable mode of man's participation in the divine, religious Taoism presents a theory unique in the history of religions.⁴⁶

The desire for long life and immortality have always been the deepest desire of the Chinese. The Tao Te Ching (chap. 59) aspires to "the way of long living and lasting seeing." Yet because it does not see a way to physical immortality as such,⁴⁷ its ideal is to live as long a life as nature permits. The Chuang Tzu strikes a tragic note in the face of death. Then, rising to the occasion it affirms the marvelous transformations that all things constantly undergo. Intoxicated with this vision of cosmic change, the tragedy of personal death is overcome. The Chuang Tzu not only accepts life and death equally, but it identifies them forthrightly and laughs at those who observe various regimen in hopes of prolonging life.⁴⁸ In the thoroughly relativistic universe of the Chuang Tzu, in which one starts a journey today to arrive at one's destiny yesterday and in which to live one second is considered equal to the life-span of Methuselah, even the delaying tactics employed in the Tao Te Ching are abandoned.

In Confucianism the divine and creative is identified with Heaven, the yang principle which fertilizes the earth and gives rise to all beings. Confucianism fixes its gaze upon the living universe of ten thousand things. The individual's duty is to further the species life of man, participation in which constitutes his immortality. Religious Taoism also identifies the yang as the divine.⁴⁹ But, unlike the Confucian, the religious Taoist so affirms his individuality that he wants to keep himself alive indefinitely.

In the Mencius (3A:5) we are given the origin of the burial custom as another example that filial piety, as all other virtues, is rooted in the feeling component of man. Because humans could not bear the sight of their parents' bodies being devoured and mawed by foxes and wild cats, they started the custom of interring the dead. Now this unbearable feeling is applied to himself by the religious Taoist when he visualizes himself as dead. He simply abhors the thought of his own death, with or without proper burial.

The religious Taoist identifies himself with the coming out process. Refusing to be re-absorbed into the ground he must look for a way to maintain his body permanently separate from the body of the earth. It is not that he repudiates the physical universe, but this is the very way he affirms its goodness and divinity. If life is good and immortality is the desire of all, then man must find a way to attain immortality. To him the position of philosophical Taoism is inconsistent and untenable. By accepting the inevitability of perishing it negates its own thesis: this physical world can be recognized as good and divine only if the subject-object, ego-world relationship is maintained. Reabsorption of the ego by the world, which abolishes the ego, also abolishes the significance of the world for the ego. The Pao P'u Tzu criticizes the Tao Te Ching and particularly the Chuang Tzu for identifying life and death.⁵¹ This only shows the loss of heart on the part of these authors. While the philosophical Taoist accepts fate passively, his religious counterpart, James Ware remarks, "was Confucianist enough to insist upon doing something to achieve personally a share in God's permanency."⁵²

Thus religious Taoism comes to fulfill the desideratum of philosophical Taoism. The true man (chen jen) is not one to accept the fate of other beings. Universal perishing, which swallows up all others, need not apply to him. Although most things in nature are doomed to perish, man can do ordinary nature one better by finding a way to be exempted from the fate awaiting all others.⁵³ Indeed, nature is full of exceptions and man, endowed with intelligence by heaven, is already an exception to other beings. Perhaps taking a hint from the Lieh-Tzu⁵⁴ which says that to enrich oneself by stealing from nature one can get away with impunity, the religious Taoist sets out to steal the secret of immortality from heaven and earth. For those courageous, persevering, rich and fortunate few who are willing to follow through the regimen, immortality or at least extremely long life can be attained. The religious Taoist's priority is shifted to discovering and appropriating the secrets of the universal creative power for the purpose of nurturing and making immortal his own body.

This consists in recognizing that the immortality of the physical universe and the immortality of the physical individual are premised on two different principles. The universe is immortal by virtue of its cyclical movement by which yin, yang and all opposites generate each other, thus life leads to death which in turn leads to new life. In contrast, individual life is associated with yang alone, yin being exactly what leads to death and perishing. Thus in order to maintain himself in existence, the individual must not hold on to the universal Tao which exacts his death, but to the yang principle within him which alone guarantees his continued life.

Already, the Pao P'u Tzu believes, there are in nature substances such as gold and other precious elements which, due to their predominance of yang, can last as long as heaven and earth. Such substances, once extracted from the womb of the earth, are not reabsorbed into the earth. If man can find a way to ingest such substances and make them reconstitute his blood, sinews and organs, he shall so strengthen the yang in him that he will be immune from the encroachment of yin,⁵⁵

There is no room to explore the interesting question of body-soul relationship in Chinese Taoism and contrast it with Western and Christian views,⁵⁶ or to discuss the role of moral and spiritual perfection in the make-up of the Taoist immortal.⁵⁷ We do wish to point out that in his search for freedom and immortality the religious Taoist seeks to transcend the limitations of a corruptible body. Yet it is still an immortality not away from, but within the physical universe. There is transcendence of the social order, with its interminable relationships which weigh down the free spirit. But the immortal who can rise above the earth to roam in any part of the vast universe has no inherent objection to making his abode on earth. In the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition immortality was conceived through identifying man with his soul and then through liberating his soul from entanglements with the body and the physical world. Immortality was based on the soul's renunciation of, and liberation from, the body.⁵⁸ The religious Taoist, however, identified the seat of his life with his body and believed that only when his body was made strong enough would the spirit it housed not be dispersed and perish for lack of proper dwelling.⁵⁹

The religious Taoist wants to keep the candle of his life burning without end,⁶⁰ the Buddhist nirvana is exactly the blowing out of this candle. There is no greater antagonism to the Chinese love for life than Buddhism in its original teaching. Buddhism's overall influence on China has been to produce a negative attitude toward life and the world.⁶¹ It also introduced into the Chinese psyche a note of rebellion against the sufferings and evils in life. Though these were experienced by the Chinese, they were neither clearly articulated nor fully confronted within Taoism or Confucianism.⁶²

Yet the Chinese over long years had adopted Buddhism and made it a part of their spiritual heritage. We shall ignore the doctrinal differences of various schools of Buddhism that arose and disappeared in China. Instead, we shall mention those elements in Chinese Buddhism which demonstrate the continuity of our theme. In our view the metaphysics of T'sen-t'ai, Hua-yen and especially Ch'an, carrying on the Chinese vision in the unity and harmony of man and nature, were the result of the intellectual assimilation of Buddhism by the Chinese. Pure land, stressing sincerity, filial piety, love, and salvation for all, may be considered the Confucian branch of Chinese Buddhism; it was the result of the emotional assimilation of Buddhism by the Chinese.

The language of Chinese Buddhism remains negative. Yet through a strange kind of logic it turns negation in the service of affirmation. Thus, through a negative language a most positive doctrine emerges.⁶³ Two points can be mentioned.

In Christianity man's union with God is understood to be a vertical ascent, moving away from creatures and things to rise up to God.⁶⁴ In Chinese Buddhism, salvation involves a process of going back to the non-differentiation of man from other beings in nature. If transiency, the root of sorrow and suffering, is the character of all existing beings, living or non-living, sentient, or insentient, rational or irrational--this is the doctrine of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada)--man is in the same situation as all other beings. Thus, if man finds salvation, it is not his salvation away from the rest of nature, but together with all nature. The Mahayana Buddhist discovers Buddhahood in himself through discovering Buddhahood in all things. Instead of lifting himself above nature, love for all is premised on the individual's identity with all in the Tathagata-garbha.⁶⁵

The important question for the Mahayana Buddhist is not so much his own salvation as the need to transcend his deluded consciousness.⁶⁶ Through the doctrine of no-ego Buddhism enables the believer once for all to comprehend the message of the Buddha, namely, that salvation does not aim at the fulfillment of the self distinct and apart from others--as with the doctrine of substance in Western philosophy--but is mainly an integrative process. There is no such thing as the salvation of the `I' alone, there is only the salvation of the `I' in solidarity with the `all' in the Tathagata-garbha. The buddhisattva must refuse salvation until all is saved, because there can be no entrance of Nirvana for him without the `all,' this `all' which includes all sentient and even all non-sentient beings. But if all must enter and none is to be forsaken, then samsara is nirvana and nirvana is samsara.⁶⁷ The doctrine of no-ego in Mahayana teaching is the complete antithesis of the doctrine of substance as self-sufficiency and self-identity in Hinayana and Western philosophy.⁶⁸ Even the Absolute of the Tathagata is not a substance.⁶⁹

The Chinese Buddhist does not merely sink down and identify himself with all beings which are marked by transitoriness, he sinks down and identifies himself with this very transitoriness which constitutes Buddhism's definition of evil and suffering. True to the Taoist insight,⁷⁰ for the Chinese Buddhist the truth and reality of all things is exactly this birth-death, generation-extinction, appearance-disappearance, being-non-being that we find in the world. Salvation does not consist in the separation of one of these correlatives regarded as value from its disvalue, as in Western metaphysics in which the divine is conceived through the severance of form from matter, act from potency, life from death, being from non-being . . . etc. Rather, transcendence is attained by identifying and yielding oneself unconditionally to this dynamic naturalness (tzu-jan)⁷¹ which accepts and embraces all opposites, because this dynamic naturalness is no other than the Absolute itself.⁷²

Mahayana, by positing a pantheon of Buddhas and Buddhisattvas and by affirming the efficacy of grace in salvation, is the negation of Hinayana as a doctrine of self-help. Ch'an is the negation of Mahayana to the extent that it so affirms the samsaric order and everything in it that the need for salvation is completely overcome. Sooner or later one must realize that there can be no true liberation by running away from anything. Wu (satori) is this very awakening that Buddahood is not anywhere else, but immediately within oneself; thus there is no need to search for anything. Further, if Buddhahood is in everything, everything is as holy and dignified as Buddha himself. This entails that any subordination of one being to another or one value to another is a needless bondage. The Ch'an Buddhist bows to neither the Buddha nor the Patriarch.⁷³ "Kill the Buddha if you happen to meet him."⁷⁴

On the devotional side, the identity with and compassion for all beings means that the Mahayana Buddhist aims not at transcending physical life as such, but man together with all beings must transcend evil, suffering, and alienation. Thus a new orientation begins. The devotee prays not for the end of rebirth. Instead, he prays that he be reborn in the Pure Land where life without suffering is interminable.⁷⁵

That Nirvana in Pure Land is conceived as entrance to a special land shows the deep-seated Chinese attachment to the land. That the Pure Land is understood to be situated in the west is even a clearer indication of what the Chinese conceive to be divine and immortal. If the sun represents consciousness, value and distinction, the Western Land as the land of sunset belongs to the unconscious. Salvation in Pure Land means reentrance into the primordial womb wherein all things are yet pure and undefiled.⁷⁶ In Christianity nature as physical world is always what is yet to be redeemed.⁷⁷ For the Chinese, nature, land, and sleep⁷⁸ redeem man from sufferings and evils.

The Pure Land of Limitless Life is the answer to the deepest desires of every Chinese. While the Indian is obsessed with ways which will liberate him from rebirth, while the Western man aspires to immortality in a transcendent realm which is the total opposite of this physical order,⁷⁹ the Chinese aspires to immortality in a land in which all forms of being, men, animals, even inanimate things, are preserved.⁸⁰

In retrospect Buddhism through its mahakaruna teaching⁸¹ supplied a much needed salvation doctrine to the Chinese mass. Both Confuciansim and Taoism are elitist in character. The insight that Buddha nature is in all things has its precedence in the Confucian notion of jen as the heaven endowed seed of virtue and sagehood in all men which should never go untended for a single moment.⁸² But in practice Confucius' doctrine of rites and rules of propriety did not extend down to the common people.⁸³ The vision of universal salvation is certainly closer to philosophical Taoism which repudiates the Confucian one-ordered hierarchical universe: we read in the Chuang Tzu that Tao is in all those things that humans consider lowly and valueless.⁸⁴ Yet the Chuang Tzu repudiates love. Since fishes swimming in the ocean forget themselves as well as all other things, love or compassion is quite unnecessary.⁸⁵ The religious Taoist is not only an elitist, he is an egotist. Such salvation as he conceives it precludes universal applicability.⁸⁶ Indeed, while consigning the vast majority of mankind to perishing, his appeal is to exceptions in nature, even exceptions among men.

Pure Land is more true to the Chinese aspiration because it is a pure faith. Philosophical and religious Taoisms and Confucianism are strictly speaking faiths seeking understanding which had to look for evidence in the face of lived experiences. But faith, unhampered by such considerations, simply declares the heart's desire. The Pure Land vision is the consummation of the Chinese vision of the divine, which, as it was in the earliest consciousness, reaffirms itself throughout successive stages of religious evolutions in China. Today the Chinese are still inspired by this faith in the goodness of land and life, though under a very different ideology and thus through very different expressions.

In this paper we have tried to show that for the Chinese the physical universe is the locus of the divine. In China the opposition between the spirit and the flesh is not couched in the imagery of the opposition between man and nature. Rather, because for the Chinese the natural world is the locus of the divine, all major forms of Chinese thought have taken nature to be the ultimate standard. In that regard we may say that Taoism has served to articulate the Chinese aesthetic ideal, art is man's transcendence of self toward the creativity in nature. Confucianism, as the ethical ideal of the Chinese, takes virtue to be rooted in nature, and the highest ethical ideal being the harmony among humans and nature. Buddhism in China transformed itself into a world-affirming religion and, instead of renunciation of life, the Chinese Buddhist prays for unending life. Even the Chinese notion of science in religious Taoism did not go beyond imitating nature by capturing nature's secrets to immortality, and the Chinese theory of law and government is flatly an effort to imitate the effectiveness of nature which governs by non-action. Unlike the Greek mind, the Chinese mind never declares its independence from nature, but bending back it models itself upon nature, always holding nature up as its norm.

St. John's University

Jamaica, New York

1. The term `metaphysics' was coined by Andronicus of Rhodes (60 B.C.) who in arranging Aristotle's corpus found a body of treatises without a title. After reading the contents he decided that these treatises pedagogically had to be studied after the study of Aristotle's physical treatises. Thus he called this body of work Ta meta ta physica, hence metaphysics.

2. In Pythagoreanism and Plato, the power for abstract thinking as exemplified in mathematics is a requisite in man's ascent to the divine. This is the origin of the division of sciences into physics, mathematics and metaphysics in Aristotle (Meta. 1026a16-20), although unlike Plato, Aristotle was not keen on mathematics. This emphasis on the power of abstraction as a liberation from matter colored classical theory of knowledge. The same classification of the hierarchy of the sciences, with obviously less justification, continued into the Middle Ages. See St. Thomas Aquinas, The Division and Methods of the Sciences, trans. A. Maurer (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1958).

3. Christian Wolff (1679-1754) in his Philosophia sive Ontologia (Frankfurt-Leipzig, 1729) divided metaphysics into three special branches: ontology or natural theology, cosmology, and psychology, each with its distinct subject matter.

4. The Tao Te Ching, chap. 25: `Tao fa tzu-jan.'

5. Neo-Confucianism as both an affirmation and negation of the basic Chinese reverence for the physical order occupies a unique place in the development of the Chinese psyche. It deserves a full treatment at a separate time.

6. John N. Findley, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, (New York: Humanities Press, 1974); Charles P. Bigger Participation: A Platonic Inquiry, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968); Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, (New York: The Humanities Press, 1931); and Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1947). The first two affirm while the last two deny the existence of a two-world theory in Plato.

8. I have avoided translating Hun-Tun as Chaos. Chaos in Western philosophy understood as the `unordered given,' `an antecedent irrational surd' has a negative content entirely alien to the Taoist term. However, since the publication of two pioneering volumes, David L. Hall's The Uncertain Phoenix: Adventures Toward a Post-Cultural Sensibility (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982) and N.J. Girardot's Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism: The Theme of Chaos (hun-tun) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), I am ready to drop my reservations.

9. Phaedo, 78-80.

10. Aristotle, De Anima 429a20-28.

11. The I-ching, The Great Appendix, II, chap. 8. See James Legge, trans. The I Ching (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), p. 399.

12. In the Chuang Tzu, these are called `sitting forgetfulness' (6:14), `fasting the mind' (4:2), and `today I have lost myself' (2:1); Watson's translation, pp. 90-91, 57-58, and 36 respectively.

13. The Tao Te Ching, chap. 20.

14. The Chuang Tzu, 2:3; Watson's translation, p. 39-40.

15. According to the Chuang Tzu (1:3), `The ultimate man has no self, the spirit man has no accomplishment and the sage has no name;' Watson's translation, p. 32.

16. The Lieh Tzu, chap. 1. A.C. Graham's translation, The Book of Lieh-tzu, (London: John Murray, 1960), p. 20.

17. The Chuang Tzu 1:1, 2:11; Watson's translation, pp. 29, 49.

18. Aristotle discovers three kinds of non-sensible immortal substances: God, the Unmoved Mover (Meta. XII, 7), the intelligences which move the planetary spheres (Meta. XII, 8) and the human reason which upon death exists apart from the body (Meta. XII, 1070a24-26; De Anima III, 5).

19. The I-ching, The Great Appendix I, chap. 5. Legge's translation, p. 356.

20. Mencius, IIIA:4.

21. See Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 99, note 14 regarding interchanging this line with the fourth line. 22. The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 4.

23. The Chuang Tzu, 8:1; Watson's translation, p. 98.

24. Mencius, VI.A:15 & 16.

25. Nicomachean Ethics, 1178a22-23.

26. In every subject matter of study, whether physics, metaphysics, ethics or politics, solitude or self-sufficiency is finally the highest value for Aristotle. See Whitney J. Oates, Aristotle and the Problem of Value (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 316.

27. The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 13. Max Weber's statement in The Religion of China (New York: The Free Press, 1951), p. 155, that Confucianism had no metaphysical foundation is misleading. Such a statement is based on the biased view that metaphysics, which is man's search for the divine, must be equated with other-worldliness.

28. Mencius, IV.B.12 & 26, VI.A.7.

29. See Mencius, VI.A.8.

30. Analects, I:5.

31. See the Book of Documents, trans. Bernhard Karlgren (Stockholm: Reprinted from the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin 22, 1950), p. 59.

32. See Analects 2:4; Book of Odes, Ode number 267,

33. See Li Chi, trans. James Legge (New York: University Books, 1967), Vol. 1, p. 107.

34. See Karlgren, p. 26.

35. C.K. Yang remarks that "the Confucians fully endorsed the divine character of political power by supporting the concept of the Mandate of Heaven. Mencius' (ca. 372-288 B.C.) reinterpretation of the concept of Heaven's will in terms of the people's interest and public opinion resulted in a redefinition of the duties of the ruler, but did not offer a secular theory on the origin of power." Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 108. See also Herrlee G. Creel, The Origins of Statecraft in China, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 44-45.

36. The Tso Chuan (Tso's Commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals), Duke Hsiang, 24th year.

37. See The Book of Documents, 1:1 `The Canon of Yao'; V:6 `The Metal-Bound Coffer'. See Karlgren, p. 1 ff, 35ff.

38. Unlike the Taoist, the Confucian individual desires name and fame that accrue to the self. See Analects 1:1; The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 11.

39. For the Chinese, writings and words possess the numinous quality of the holy and the spiritual. Mencius treats speech and spiritual power as belonging to the same category (The Mencius 2A:2). Confucius regards the words of sages to be as awe-inspiring as the Mandate of Heaven (Analects 16:8).

40. Mencius 4A:26.

41. In Confucianism, the honor of the ancestors comes from their living descendants; the dead is promoted or demoted according to how his posterity is doing on earth. Thus rank or achievement in this world is a deadly serious matter. Filial piety prescribes not only paying respects and procuring comforts for parents while they are alive and observing the proper rites when they have departed, it requires that one be an achiever, inasmuch as a man who is a failure is by definition an unfilial son. See The Doctrine of the Mean, chaps. 16, 17, 18.

42. Nathan Sivin in "Chinese Alchemy and the Manipulation of Time" delivered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 25, 1976. (This is a summary of Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China [Cambridge, England: At the University Press, 1954-1974], V, Part 4). "The dominant goal of Chinese alchemy was contemplative, and even ecstatic. . . . The alchemists constructed their intricate art, made the cycles of cosmic process accessible, and undertook to contemplate them because they believed that to encompass the Tao with their minds--or, as they put it, with their hearts and minds (comprised in one word, `hsin')--would make them one with it."

44. Ho-shang-kung's commentary on the Tao Te Ching is full of these examples. See Ho-shang-kung's Commentary on Lao-Tse, trans. Eduard Erkes (Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1950), especially chaps. 5 and 6.

45. See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, England: At the University Press), Vol. II, pp. 139-164; Vol. V, Part 2; Nathan Sivin, Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968).

46. The origins of philosophical and religious Taoisms will be dealt with elsewhere. From a study of the thought sequence it is clear that historically philosophical Taoism as a distinct school of thought arose as a rebellion against the emergent rationalism in Confucianism. Thus it harked back to a mythical past prior to the emergence of consciousness, reason and morals, when man and nature were not yet separate. Religious Taoism, on the other hand, originated from ancient shamanism. Their vision and some of their practices could have been from time immemorial. But shamanism, as Professor Mircea Eliade pointed out in Shamanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 449, already marked man's emergence from, and his effort to control, nature. Thus to the extent that philosophical Taoism's central insight is the seamless unity of man and nature, whereas both Confucianism and religious Taoism entered the stage when man became conscious of his distinct existence in nature, religious Taoism is on the same side as Confucianism.

47. See my paper `Is There A Doctrine of Physical Immortality in the Tao Te Ching?', History of Religions, Vol. 12, No. 3 (February, 1973), 231-249.

48. The Chuang Tzu, 15:1. Watson's translation, pp. 167-68.

49. See Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), Vol. II, p. 431.

50. The Pao P'u Tzu, 14:3a by James R. Ware, trans. Alchemy, Medicine, and Religion in the China of A.D. 320, (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1966), p. 229.

51. The Pao P'u Tzu, 8:5a; 14:9b.

52. Ware, p. 2.

53. The Pao P'u Tzu, chap. 2.

54. The Lieh-Tzu, chap. 1. Graham's translation, pp. 30-31.

55. Fung Yu-lan, p. 431.

56. Cf. Needham's Science and Civilization in China, Vol. V, Part 2, pp. 71-126, "The drug of deathlessness; macrobiotics and immortality-theory in East and West."

57. In the outer chapters, the Pao P'u Tzu addresses itself to these issues. See also Mircea Eliade, Immortality and Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 284-292.

58. Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), p. 287ff.

59. The Pao P'u Tzu, 5:1b. Cf. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. V, Part 2, p. 85ff.

60. `That-which-is' is the palace of `that-which-is-not.' The body, being the abode of the inner spirits, is like a dike. When the dike crumbles, water is no longer retained. It is also like a candle. When the candle is at its end, fire no longer dwells there." The Pao P'u Tzu, 5:1b.

61. See Hu Shih "The Indianization of China" in Independence, Convergence and Borrowing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937). To counter Hu Shih's position, Kenneth Ch'en in The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973) points out those aspects of Chinese culture that have influenced Buddhism in China.

62. Perhaps due to this very affirmation of nature as good, and human nature as but an extension of physical nature, in China there was never a real head-on confrontation with the problem of evil. In this it differed from classical Western philosophy, which by locating the divine beyond the physical realm, readily identified evil with matter, and Christianity, which by taking the soul as ordered to God and the body as ordered to the soul, distinguished between physical and moral evil, the seat of which was in the soul. In the Neo-Confucianism of Chu Hsi, ch'i, translated by Wing-tsit Chan as `material force', was taken to be the principle of evil. But this position was never consistently worked out.

63. See the Heart Sutra (Prajna-Paramita-Hrdaya), the Diamond Sutra (Diamond Prajna-paramita), and The Awakening of Faith (Mahayana sraddhotpada-sastra).

64. That the Christian mystical universe is a hierarchical one is evident from the titles of treatises by the mystics. Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote the very influential "On the Celestial Hierarchy" and "On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy," was probably the first one to coin the word hierarchy in Christian theology. Walter Hilton, a fourteenth century English mystic, wrote "The Ladder of Perfection" which reaches from earth to heaven. From St. John of the Cross, the mystic's mystic, we have "The Ascent of Mount Carmel." See William Ralph Inge, Christian Mysticism (New York: Meridian Books, 1948).

65. See The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, a Buddhist Scripture on the Tathagatagarbha Theory, trans. Alex & Hideko Wayman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974).

66. The Awakening of Faith, trans. Yoshito S. Hakeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 32-33.

67. Nagarjuna (2nd Century A.D.) was the first one to enunciate this doctrine in the Madhyamika-karika, XXV, 19.

68. Cf. Aristotle's description of God in Metaphysics, XII, 7.

69. See D.T. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1930, 1957), p. 136.

70. Walter Liebenthal says: "The Chinese Buddhist were all Taoists whenever they wrote philosophy." Chao Lun, trans. Walter Liebenthal (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2nd edition, 1968), Preface, p. xii.

71. See `The Recorded Conversations of Shen-hui' in Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, pp. 443-444.

72. Hui-ssu (514-577) of the Tien-t'ai school says: "Owing to the accomplishment of concentration, one knows that the cycle of life and death is the same as Nirvana, and owing to the attainment of insight, one knows that Nirvana is the same as the cycle of life and death" (Ibid., p. 405). This paved the way for Shen-hui (670-761) of southern Ch'an to declare that enlightenment "means entering Nirvana without renouncing life and death." (Ibid., p. 441).

73. Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, trans. Chang Chung-yuan (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), p. 120.

74. Chan, p. 447.

75. The three sutras of the Pure Land sect in China and Japan are the Larger Sukhavati (vyuha), the Smaller Sukhavati, and Kuan-Fo-ching.

76. We suggest that the Tathagatagabha performs the same function as Hun-tun in Taoism.

77. In Christianity physical nature as the given has to be purified and exalted to enter the realm of spirit. See a miniature from the 15th-century French Book of Hours, showing Mary with the Holy Trinity, in C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols (New York: Dell, 1964), p. 226. This picture shows that even when Mary, as nature and body purified, is elevated to Heaven, she still sits demurely alone in a corner, subordinated to the Trinity which occupies the center of the painting.

78. Mencius, 6A:8.

79. Traditional arguments for the immortality of the soul is premised on its rationality. Thus irrational beings are inadmissible to the divine realm. Even the Christian world with its celestial and terrestrial hierarchies, with saints and angels singing praises to God, pales before the richness of the Pure-Land terrain wherein animals and even stones attain immortality, not as means of enjoyment for gods or men, but on their own account.

80. See P'eng Chi-ch'ing, Ching-tu sheng-hsien lu (Records of Saints in Pure Land) (Taipei, 1974).

81. Buddhism teaches that the divine, whether as Buddha, Amitabha or Kuan-yin, is mahakaruna, unbounded love which crushes all barriers. See D.T. Suzuki, The Essentials of Zen Buddhism (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1962), p. 345.

82. Mencius, 6A:8, 11.

83. See Kuan Feng and Lin Yu-shih, "Third Discussion on Confucius," in Chinese Studies in Philosophy, 2 (1971), 246-263.

84. The Chuang Tzu, 22:6.

85. Ibid., 5:5, 6:3 & 5.

86. Hsiao, T'ien-shih, Ju shih ho ts'an, Tao-chia yang- sheng-hsueh kai-yao (Essentials of the Taoist Way of Nurturing Life, Integrated with Confucian and Buddhist Teachings) (Taipei, 1962), argues that the perfection of an immortal requires intellectual, moral and spiritual perfection. Otherwise what is the value of immortality or in what way is an immortal man better than an immortal ass? Well, in the Pure Land, there are immortal asses.

Chen-jen

Ch'en Kuo-fu

Ch'i

Ch'ih-yu

Chun-tzu

Han Fei

Ho-shang-kung

Hsin

Hsun Tzu

Hua-yem

Hui-ssu

Hun-tun

Kuan-fo-ching

Hsiao T'ien-shih

Pao P'u Tzu

P'en Chi-ch'ing

Shen-hui

Shen Pu-hui

Tao fa tzu-jan

T'ien-ming

T'ien-t'ai

Tso-chuan

Tzu-jan

Wu

Yu

GOD - TO WHAT, IF ANYTHING,

DOES THE TERM REFER?

AN EASTERN CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

METROPOLITAN PAULOS GREGORIOS

If I were to treat simply "The Christian View of God," I would have more or less to read out the title, go into a fairly large period of silence, and then conclude with "thank you, friends, for sharing with me the Christian view of God." For in your silence, you would also have expressed the Christian view of God. Please do not imagine that the length of the silent period would have been due to my going into a trance or something of that sort. It simply happens to be the case that silence would be the best way to speak about our ignorance of God, and it takes time to give adequate expression to that ignorance.

The ignorance can, however, be of two kinds, one natural, and the other taught. The natural ignorance is not to be regarded as somehow superior to the taught or acquired one. In this particular case, the movement from natural ignorance to taught ignorance (docta ignorantia) is itself a process of growth and self-realization which makes the acquisition of the knowledge of the unknowability of God itself a creative process of considerable value.

But religious leaders do a lot of talking about God, not always knowing what is being talked about. In this paper, I shall treat three questions, mainly:

The perspective from which I write is that of an eastern Christian trained in the west. That may in itself lead to contradictions, which my friends may be able to detect and point out to me. But the basic ideas are from a tradition which Eastern Christians regard as the authentic Christian Tradition. This tradition does not follow the thought of an Augustine, of a Thomas Aquinas, or of a Karl Barth. It was shaped through the centuries, and formulated to a fair extent by the three Cappadocian Fathers--St. Basil of Caesarea, (died ca. 379 A.D.), his younger brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, (died ca. 395 A.D.), and their friend and colleague St. Gregory Nazianzen, (died ca. 390 A.D.). They were Asians from what is today the north-eastern part of Turkey. On the foundation which they formulated subsequent eastern Christian thinkers have built-- among the Byzantines Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, among the Slavs Khomiakov and Soloviev. The foundation still remains adequate to the needs of this modern age, and what I say here owes much to this eastern heritage.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his second Theological Oration, quotes Plato who had said that it is difficult to conceive God, but that to define him in words is an impossibility.¹ The Christian Father then goes on playfully to say that this is clever of the philosopher in that he gives you the impression that while Plato himself has been able with difficulty to conceive God, he has no responsibility to tell us what he has conceived since in his view it is impossible to define God in words. The Nazianzen then goes on to say: "But in my opinion it is impossible to express Him, but yet more impossible to conceive Him."² He continues in the next paragraph: "It is one thing to be persuaded of the existence of a thing, and quite another to know what it is."³

It was Gregory of Nyssa who made this point philosophically clear. The Nazianzen was of the view that it was the feebleness of our equipment, the limited nature of our mind, that causes the incapacity to comprehend. He even hoped that some day we will overcome this incapacity and know God, so that we would know him as we are known.⁴ His colleague Nyssa went further, and made certain basic clarifications:

Nyssa agrees that we can have faint and scant apprehension of the nature of God through our reasonings about what God has revealed of Himself, but that this does not amount to any comprehension.⁵ However, this unknowability is not a unique characteristic of God alone. The creation itself shares this unknowability. For example, can we claim to know, exhaustively, notions like space or time or even the human mind, Gregory asks. We can have notions about them, but we also know that these notions have to keep changing again and again in the light of experience.

Nyssa insists on the basic distinction and difference between the Self-existent and the Contingent, or the Uncreated and the Created. The Platonic assumption of the co-eternity of Creator and Creation is explicitly rejected by Nyssa as well as by the other Cappadocians. Basil stated that the universe had a beginning, that this beginning is also the beginning of time, and that time and the world as we now know it will also come to an end.⁶ Even heaven is not co-existent with God, but was created and therefore has a beginning.

Nyssa made the same distinction between "He who is" and "the things that are" (ho ontos on and ta onta). The "one whose being is" is not in the same class with "those that merely exist." In fact Gregory has three classes:

1. the Being who has being by His own nature,⁷

(and in between these two),

3. those things which are capable of moving towards being or non-being.⁹

The latter two are dependent on the negation of, or derived from, the first, i.e., He who is.

The distinction between the Uncreated and the Creation, in Gregory of Nyssa, may be summarized as follows:

Uncreated Being

1. Self-derived

2. Self-generating

3. Self-subsistent

4. Not subject to non-being

5. Perfectly good

6. Is what it wills and wills

what it is, hence does not

move from arche to telos, nor is in process of becom- ing

7. Simple

Created Existence

Other-derived

Other-generated

Contingent upon the will of the Creator

Capable of moving into being or non-being

Capable of good and evil

Always has to become what it is, or move into non-being, hence always becoming or perishing.

Compound

The simplicity of God does not, however, preclude either conceptual distinctions or distinction of persons. One of the conceptual distinctions made classical for Eastern thought by Gregory of Nyssa is the distinction between ousia and energeia. It was not a distinction created by him. Most likely it was created by his adversary, Eunomius of Cyzicus. He used the distinction as a major tool in vanquishing his adversary, the Arian heretic. Eunomius had developed the distinctions among being, operative power, and operated effect, i.e., ousia, energeia, and erga. The distinction had an epistemological function, namely that human reason could deduce the nature of the operative power from an understanding of the operated effect, and from the understanding of the operative power move to the nature of its being. The erga or operated effect can be an object of our understanding, which then becomes the first step to ascend to the second step of understanding of the energeia and then ascend to the third step of understanding the ousia.

This is what Gregory refuted. He held that there was no clear road from erga to energeia or from energeia to ousia. The wind is the energeia which creates the ergon of a sand-dune. But if you did not know what the wind was, how can you move from the knowledge of a sand-dune to the knowledge of the wind? Or in today's terms would a photograph and a green leaf constitute sufficient ground to understand the nature of light? Can you understand a human being from his excretions and from a ship which are both his erga?

Gregory thus denies the assumption that we can move from the knowledge of Creation to the knowledge of the Creator.

He rejects also the principle of analogia entis or analogia fidei. The only analogy he concedes is the analogia metousias, but this does not lead to a knowledge of the ousia of God. The analogia metousias helps only to compare the degree of participation in the energeia of God. The degree of participation is measured by the degree of conformity to the good by the impulsion of the will of each towards the good. The energeia thus does not lead to knowledge of God's being. It is only God's energeia which we can know or apprehend.

Words about God can serve a useful purpose in so far as they lead to the worship of God, or to greater participation in the good.¹¹ But they cannot capture or conceive God nor can they adequately express His being. As Gregory of Nyssa says:

To sum up then, words about God are certainly not descriptive but evocative. Their main purpose is not to provide knowledge, but to lead to worship. His names as well as any descriptions we make about Him are our creations, related to our experience of His operations. His ousia or being remains beyond all grasp. For He is not like the things that make up the created order. His being is sui generis and no analogy or reasoning can comprehend it. There is no concept adequate for apprehending the Truth of God.

All doctrines are verbal. This applies also to the Doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine composed, after all, of words. It is a human creation, developed out of the understanding of the energeia of God that reaches out to us.

The central energeia that has reached out to us is the person of Christ, Christians believe. The central form in which God's ousia impinges upon us through His energeia is the form of a man who was born in Palestine 2000 years ago. This is the heart of the Christian faith and experience; it is from this that the doctrine of the Trinity takes shape.

But this doctrine is much misunderstood, not merely by Muslims and Jews with their more strict monotheism, but also by very many Christians. St. Basil makes it clear that one cannot attribute any kind of number to the Godhead, because Divinity is without quantity and number relates to quantity.

Here our logic comes to a standstill. The Cappadocians insist that they are not Tritheists, and yet they do not want to ascribe the number One to God without qualification. A heroic effort is made to explain this problem in the famous Epistle 38 attributed to St. Basil, but which was probably from the pen of his brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa. Yet another vigorous effort is made by St. Gregory in his oration, "On Not Three Gods," to defend himself against the charge of Tritheism. But the result seems to me unsatisfactory. If the Unity of God is in the same genre as the unity of the gold in three gold coins, then we are justified, by the ordinary use of language, to speak of three Gods, as we speak of three coins.

But this certainly is not the intention of the Cappadocians. A more mature point of view is expressed by Nyssa in his first book against Eunomius. He had already made a distinction between the operation of God ad extra¹⁴ and the mutual immanent relations within the Godhead. There he also makes clear that enumeration is possible only for circumscribed finite realities. The Divine life has no parts or boundary. The names which we give God, including those of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have "a human sound, but not a human meaning."¹⁵

Or again,

No number, no measure, no duality or non-duality, no monism or non-monism--all our usual categories have to be folded up and laid away. You must forgive me therefore if I fail to give you a satisfactory metaphysical account of the Three-in-One. I do not have any understanding of the mystery, of that mystery I am sure because of my faith. But I have no concepts, analogies or illustrations by which to explain the Holy Trinity. Three things I derive from that doctrine:

The patristic tradition has examined all efforts to explain the Trinity in terms of analogies in creation, and have rejected them as inadequate. Even the Nazianzen who sometimes used the analogy of the human mind and human word to denote the relation between the Father and the Son, had to say:

He mentions expressly the course, the fountain and the river, the sun, the ray and the light, and then concludes:

Gregory Nazianzen, as well as Gregory of Nyssa, who had both a fairly high view of the use of philosophy, would both admit that philosophical language is not at all suited for the discourse about God. It is better to be silent, or if you must give utterance, to use the hymns of praise. And the Nazianzen himself has given us many such hymns, for example, this translation by Bossuet:

Comment vous appellerai-je, O Vous,

A qui tout nom peut convenir et le seul qu'on ne peut nommer.²⁰

If God is not a body, then there is already something awkward about speaking about God's transcendence and immanence because these have to do with location, and location for non-spatial entities is inconceivable for us.

Whitehead's effort to find a non-spatial or temporal transcendence has not quite yet succeeded. The kingdom that is always in the future denotes only the transcendence of history itself. Those who speak about the future of God as the future of history commit the double iniquity of identifying God with human history in a manner that is not legitimate and of taking human history to be the whole of the universe.

On the other hand, those who claim that God's being is independent of the being of the universe, shoulder the heavy burden of explaining the state of that independent being in relation to the universe. The difficulty for me is to understand words like `independent' or `self-sufficient' in relation to God. Sufficiency and dependence are terms that belong to quantity and relation in a created world; to apply these, even in a negative sense, to the Uncreated Being seems difficult.

In the first place, as Gregory of Nyssa says, to be infinite is to transcend all boundaries, whether of conception or of time and space. The infinite cannot stop at any boundary and must by necessity transcend all--whether the boundaries be intellectual, quantitative or qualitative. Gregory insists that every finite being must of necessity come to the boundaries of its finitude, whether in concept or being, and the infinite always extends beyond. The definition of the infinite being is not that beyond its boundaries there is nothing, but that beyond every boundary, being is.

The transcendence of God is thus not merely conceptual or qualitative or temporal or spatial. It is in transcending every boundary that the infinity of God is manifested.

But let us beware about the false statements: a) that God is beyond the creation, as if God was nonexistent this side of the boundary of creation; or b) that God is "wholly other," so that the creation can exist along-side of God as His "other."

Both ideas, to which Professor Boyce Gibson refers in the slender volume of essays edited by Professor John Smith, i.e., the idea of God's self-sufficiency and non-dependence, on the one hand, and his "wholly otherness" with occasional sorties into the universe, on the other hand, are in that form unacceptable to the Eastern tradition. Neither an "immobilist" view nor an "interventionist" view of God is acceptable.²¹ Boyce Gibson completely misunderstands the authentic Christian tradition of creation when he asserts:

Gibson's mistake is in using the adverb "formerly," for the authentic tradition holds that time has its beginning only from creation, and that there was not, to parody the Arian formula, a "then when the Creation was not," though it has come from non-being into being. Perhaps his bigger mistake is his direct insistence that theology "is committed to getting the analysis straight."²³ What presumption!

The analysis of God's transcendence and immanence cannot be straightened out in such categories as apply to relations within the creation.

Gregory of Nyssa does the trick more dialectically than most modern philosophers. The principles of logic applying to the spatio-temporal creation cannot be applied to the Godhead. There we can only say that from the side of the Universe, we experience both discontinuity with and participation in God. What it would be like from God's side we cannot conceive.

God's immanence also is understood by Gregory in a fairly sophisticated way. We can only indicate that understanding in fairly quick short-hand. God's operative energy is the ground of the creation. It begins, it moves, and it reaches its appointed destiny, only by virtue of God's will and word. The creation is God's will and word, and that is the principle of immanence. Existence is always by God's will and word, and when the will-and-word is withdrawn, there is only non-existence. Thus the authentic Christian tradition does not regard the cosmos as the body of God, or as something outside of God, for outside God there is only non-being. It is in God's will-and-word that the universe has its existence, and it is by will-and-word that God is immanent in Creation.

Reason or ratio is always a proportionality between reality and knowledge. The dualism between reality and knowledge is itself grounded in the other dualism of subject and object, which in turn generates the concepts of the pour-soi and the en-soi, the object-in-consciousness and the object-in-itself.

All these dualisms cry out to be overcome. But they will not be overcome by reason or ratio, which is what generates the dualities. The irrationality of reason, exemplified by the classical antinomies of Kant, cannot be overcome by reason.

The concept as such belongs to the realm of reason and stands in need of overcoming. It is a kind of puerile naivete that drives logicians and philosophers to capture reality in a net of concepts. We are part of that reality, and no equipment we have is capable of subducting reality from our minds. Let us give up that wild-goose chase.

For a thinking person, the word God should not stand for a concept. It is a symbol pointing to many things:

a) an affirmation of the contingent, therefore,

un-selfsufficient and dependent character of our

own existence as well as of the reality in which we

participate--the reality we call the universe;

b) an affirmation that the cause of all causes is of a

different genre than the links in the causal chain;

c) an affirmation that all created things have to move

towards a goal which is ultimately good.

This is also what the Cappadocian Fathers meant by the term Creator. The Creator, who does not owe his being to someone else, has caused this universe to begin, keeps it going and will lead it to its destined end. The one who does that is personal, i.e., capable of responding in freedom to others. He/ she is also love and wisdom. He/she cannot be captured in concepts. But he/she can be loved and united with. There all duality gives place to the union of love.

In fact it is God's freedom which makes him/her beyond the reach of our finite grasp. The human person with a great capacity to understand, has also the great capacity to bring that which he/she understands under his/her control. Every science generates its own technology. If we could comprehend God, we would also devise the technology to control Him and use Him, i.e., to enslave Him. The freedom of practically everything else is such that despite its freedom, it can be subdued by our analytic reason, at least to a certain extent. Even humanity, the highest and most evolved element in creation, we so seek to understand, control and manipulate. Do philosophers expect that God would place him/herself as an object of our comprehension, so that he/she too can be enslaved by us? Ask love for the answer.

Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

Metropolitan of Delhi and the North

President, World Council of Churches

1. The English Translation of Timaeus 28 E, by John Harrington reads: "To discover the maker and father of this universe is indeed a hard task, and having found him it would be impossible to tell every one about him." Timaeus, Everyman's Library, 493 (London, New York, 1965), p. 14. See the Greek text which is itself somewhat different.

2. Second Theological Oration: IV.

3. Idem: V.

4. Idem: XVII.

5. Contra Eunomium II: 130, PG 45:953.B.

6. Hexaemeron I:3.

7. To on, ho tei heautou phusei to einai echei.

8. To me on, ho en toi dokein einai monon estin.

9. See De Vita Moysis, P.G. 44:333, Gregori Nysseni Opera vol. VII:I:40.

10. Contra Eunomium I: 274-275. PG 45:333D, GNO I:106-107.

11. Contra Eunomium II:136. PG 45:956.

12. Ibid. II:149. PG 45:956.

13. Epist VIII: Tr. Roy J. Deferrari, St. Basil, The Letters, Loeb. Classical Library, (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1926), vol. I. p. 52.

14. On Not Three Gods NPNF. Vol. V, p. 334.

15. Contra Eunomium BK I:39 NPNF, p. 93.

16. Contra Eunomium I:26 NPNF, p. 69.

17. C.E. I:26 NPNF, p. 69.

18. My own formulation.

19. Oratio Theologica V: XXXI NPNF. Vol. VII p. 328 A.

20. Cited by J. Plagnieu, S. Gregoire de Nazianze, Theologian, p. 333 note. (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, 1951).

21. A Boyce Gibson, "The Two Ideas of God," in John E. Smith (ed.) Philosophy of Religion (New York: London, 1965), p. 61 ft.

22. Ibid., p. 65.

23. Ibid., p. 67.

GOD, PHILOSOPHY AND HALAKHAH IN

MAIMONIDES' APPROACH TO JUDAISM

DAVID HARTMAN and ELLIOTT YAGOD

This paper on the absolute in the Jewish metaphysical tradition does not pretend to do justice to the variety of approaches, both mystic and rationalistic, found in the Jewish tradition. Although Judaism has generally revolved around a common normative tradition, there has never been an officially recognized Jewish theological or philosophical approach to God. One finds, then, parallel movements of diversity of views on theological issues, on the one hand, and attempts at gaining consensus of behaviour regarding the legal patterns of Jewish spirituality, on the other. Leibovitch appeals to this important historical fact in order to deny that theology has significance in Judaism and to argue that law alone constitutes the essence of Judaism.¹ While sharing his concern with neutralizing the importance of factual judgments in Judaism, we nevertheless believe that the relationship between empirical and metaphysical assertions, on the one hand, and the Halakhah (Jewish law), on the other, is considerably more complex than the position he expounds. In this paper, we shall attempt to focus on a strand within the Jewish metaphysical tradition, namely that which emerges out of the Maimonidian tradition.

To understand why we chose Maimonides, it must be noted that striving for consensus of practice regarding the law was a vital feature of the Jewish tradition. One may even claim that theology entered the Jewish tradition via its influence on practice. Scholem has argued that the esoterric teachings of the mystics were able to capture the minds of the broad community because this theology offered one a symbolic approach to practice. Mystic theology transmuted the meaning of practice and turned halakhic practice into symbolic mystical experience.² In other words, theology entered into Jewish spirituality only if it could transform, in some way, the nature of practice. It is the law which mediates the theological in the Jewish tradition.

Maimonides was a rare figure who was a recognized master in both Halakhah (Jewish law) and philosophy. Maimonides is the great codifier of Jewish law. While his influence on the development of Halakhah was unique and outstanding, he was, also, one of the great teachers of philosophy and metaphysics in the Jewish tradition. His work, The Guide of the Perplexed, influenced the development of Jewish philosophy. There were other serious Jewish philosophers who did not threaten the anti-philosophic strand in the Jewish tradition because they did not command the enormous respect, halakhically speaking, which Maimonides had in the community. Maimonides' great talmudic erudition made him a threat in philosophy. You had to confront Maimonides' philosophic views because you could not ignore his halakhic views.

Secondly, what makes Maimonides important in our study is that as an individual he was an archetype of the halakhic mind who embodied the entire scope of the halakhic discipline. No facet of the law was unknown to him. One can not claim that he was not a legalist; yet, on the other hand, he was seriously engaged in philosophy. Pines claims that, in contrast to many other Jewish philosophers, Maimonides' approach to philosophy was not apologetic. There was a genuine openness and commitment to the philosophic tradition. His concern with philosophy was a concern with truth and not simply with demonstrating the merits of the Jewish tradition.³

Professor Efraim Urback in his recent work on rabbinic thought repeatedly emphasizes that in the rabbinic tradition the primary concern was practice.⁴ In attempting to formulate theological notions or a metaphysics of history, the rabbinic mind always asks the important question, "How does this theory relate to practice, how does it affect practice?' Urbach states that the rabbis were not interested in a coherent metaphysical tradition per se. Their major question was with what view of the universe and God would inspire one to observe the commandments with greater devotion. The emphasis was upon love and fear of God; theoretical speculation was introduced as a way to motivate practice. This view is shared by many rabbinic scholars as well as by students of the biblical tradition. The Jews are anchored to practice. Both the biblical and rabbinic traditions relate man to God, not via a metaphysical philosophic system, but through forms of practice embodied in the life of the committed person: not the mind, but the will; not thought, but action.

This practical tendency in the biblical and the rabbinic traditions led Spinoza to criticize Maimonides' placing philosophy within the biblical tradition.⁵ Spinoza was critical of Maimonides' claim that the prophet must necessarily be a philosopher. For Spinoza, Moses had a gifted imagination but did not ground his teachings on universally valid principles. The Bible is a book of laws and Spinoza goes so far as to claim that universal morality is beyond the scope of the Bible. The Bible is shot through with legal particularism so that to maintain that one finds in the Bible a philosophic conception of God is to distort both the spirit and the content of the Bible. The major figure of whom Spinoza was most critical was Maimonides, because if Maimonides were right then philosophy and revealed law could merge. If Spinoza were right then the primacy of law in the Jewish tradition would displace any tendency towards metaphysical speculation.

The Spinozistic criticism of Maimonides was continued by the contemporary historian of philosophy, Isaac Husik, who claimed that Maimonides was unaware of the enormous gap separating the tradition that emerged from Athens and the tradition that emerged from Jerusalem. The Bible was concerned with morality, the Greeks were concerned with theoretical truth. This polarity between theoretical and practical perfections also influenced Leo Strauss' approach to Maimonides.⁶ The major critique of Maimonides, then, focuses on his being a master halakhic legalist who maintained that the metaphysical tradition was intrinsically rooted in the Jewish tradition. The task of this paper is to show how Maimonides was able to integrate what appeared to Spinoza, Husik and others to be two incompatible traditions.

Let us now examine some of Maimonides' statements which characterize his approach to the relationship of practice and theory in the Jewish tradition. Maimonides, in the Guide, III, 27, states:

To Maimonides, the uniqueness of Torah as distinct from other legal systems is that whereas nomos is concerned solely with social well being, Torah is also concerned with knowledge of God, i.e., with imparting correct beliefs.⁷ The primacy of metaphysics is mentioned not only in The Guide of the Perplexed, but also in his codification of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah. In "The Laws of the Foundations of the Torah" IV, 13, Maimonides states that the study of the law is "a small thing" and the study of physics and metaphysics is "a great thing":

Although the study of metaphysics is primary and of greater value (we shall soon indicate in what sense), nevertheless the study of the law is prior in time because practice of the law leads to social well-being and thus creates the social and political conditions necessary for enabling many people to engage in the study of metaphysics.⁸ Placing study of metaphysics above study of the law upset the religious sensibilities of many halakhists.⁹ They were far more perturbed by this statement in the Mishneh Torah than by The Guide of the Perplexed. Placing the study of philosophy above the study of talmud was perceived as undermining the very primacy of the legal tradition. Yet, this statement was made by the great master of the legal tradition. The primacy of philosophy is mentioned again in the Mishneh Torah at the end of "The Laws of Repentance" as well as in Chapter 2 of "The Laws of the Foundations of the Torah." There the claim is made that only through metaphysical knowledge of God can one arrive at the goal of love of God. Worshipping God out of love is made possible only by philosophy. The law does not create love, it creates social well-being. Metaphysical knowledge of God, i.e., following the path of the study of physics and metaphysics, creates in man the capacity to love God.

In the Guide, III, 52, Maimonides repeats the claim which pervades his total philosophic world view: practice creates reverence for God whereas knowledge creates love:

The critique of Maimonides for having elevated philosophy to so high a level had two features. First, it appeared to be a distortion of the tradition since the tradition emphasized practice. The tradition's concern with study always had as its goal the study of law. Guttman and Scholem, who relate the contemplative tradition in Maimonides to the talmudic emphasis upon study, are only partially correct since when the talmudic tradition spoke of the importance of study it always had in mind the study of the law.¹⁰ It did not refer to metaphysical contemplation of God. Therefore, Maimonides appears to undermine the basic Jewish emphasis on the primacy of practice and on the primacy of the study of the legal tradition. This was typical of medieval critiques of Maimonides.

Secondly, Maimonides seems to be indifferent to the centrality of history. Maimonides' attempt at understanding God in ontological terms, as the perfect necessary being and not as the God who freely reveals Himself in events in history, appears to negate the God of the Jewish tradition. The primacy of an- event-based theology, of open-textured events, and of the spontaneity and the radical freedom of God to reveal Himself in events stand in utter contrast to a theology of the God of metaphysics, the absolute, self-sufficient God who draws man to worship Him in virtue of His perfection. It is in great historical events that one finds the living God of the Bible. In Maimonides' thought, history appears to play a very limited role in mediating the religious passion for God. Maimonides, therefore, is alien to the Jewish tradition because his approach a) undercuts the centrality of legal study and b) neutralizes the centrality of events and of history in one's relationship to the absolute.¹¹ We shall cite examples of how Maimonides completely turns around certain obvious currents within the Jewish tradition.

1) In the creation story in Genesis the obvious direction of the story is that of days leading up to the creation of man and of the Sabbath. Man's being created last points to an anthropocentric creation. God's creation of nature is meant to serve His unique creation, i.e., man. In fact, one of the most popular classical commentaries on the Bible quotes a midrash which asks why the Bible began with the account of creation since the Bible is essentially a book of law. The answer given is that the creation story has a didactic point, namely, to teach that since God is the creator of the world, He has the right to give the land to whomever He pleases. Therefore, Israel's justification for the land of Canaan comes from the story of the creation of the world. According to the spirit of this midrash, were it not for a moral-practical justification, the account of creation would appear pointless. Maimonides, however, does not see in the account of the creation of nature (and in reflecting on the God of nature) the centrality of man. He sees rather a theocentric universe in which man is insignificant in comparison with the intelligences and with the richness of the infinite Being, who creates a universe as a consequence of the overflow of His infinite power and perfection.¹²

2) The story of the encounter between Moses and God, where Moses asks for the divine name, also reveals Maimonides metaphysical perspective. The midrashic approach to `Ehyeh-Asher Ehyeh' (I will be who I will be) [Exodus III, 14] reflects a God who announces to Moses and to the people that He will be present in their struggle. He is a God who can be relied upon to be responsive in history.<sup>15</sup> Buber remarks in his essay, `The Faith of Judaism':

Buber's approach is similar in spirit to that of the midrash. Maimonides, however, in the Guide, I, 63, writes:

To the midrash and to Buber, Israel requires the knowledge that God will be present with them in their suffering. To Maimonides the slave people, who are beginning their pilgrimage to become a holy covenant people, must know that the God of being is a necessary existent and that the predicate, I am, is identical with the subject, I am. What a change in spiritual climate! How could Maimonides take a dramatic statement rooted in history, a promise to be ever present--"I shall be there"--to be a statement of the proposition that God is the necessary existent?¹⁵

3) In the first commandment, `I am the Lord thy God who brought Thee out of the land of Egypt', where the central focus is the liberating power of God in history, Maimonides' interpretation is that God is a necessary being not dependent on anything other than Himself. Divine self-sufficiency, perfection, and autonomy, are the content of the first commandment. To Maimonides, the first half of the sentence is intelligible without the second half. One can understand the meaning of `I am the Lord they God' independent of the description `who brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' For Yehuda Halevi, as for the Mekhiltah, the liberating experience of the exodus from Egypt and reflection on God's power in history confirm the reality of God for Israel.¹⁶

4) What characterizes Jewish prayer is the feeling of divine presence and responsiveness to man's suffering condition. The Halakhah gives expression to this vital element in the structures of the amidah prayer: three blessings of adoration, followed by thirteen petitional requests, concluded by three blessings of thanksgiving. Fundamental to this experience is the feeling that man can pour out his needs to God, that man can bring his needs to a God who is called Our Father, Our King. The God to whom one prays is the God who is with me in my suffering, the God whose shekhinah (indwelling) suffers with Israel during their entire galut (exile). In contrast to the profound intimacy and expressiveness felt by the praying Jew before God, one ought to consider the religious atmosphere and the tone of Maimonides' treatment of negative theology (Guide I, 50-60), where the fundamental point is that there is no comparison between God and man. In these chapters of the Guide one discovers that language is necessarily deficient regarding God. One can never talk about God's essence, one can only talk about God's action. Any statement which aims at asserting anything about God must be transformed into a negative statement. God is existent becomes He is not non-existent. God is alive becomes God is not dead. God knows becomes God is not ignorant. Statements describing God's compassion, feeling, and mercy are but human projections in no way attributing affect to God:

The gap between a religious world view coming out of the Bible and the midrash, and Maimonides' world view is obvious in Maimonides' treatment of negative theology, and, above all, in his statement that true prayer consists in silent reflection. Language is a compromise and the ultimate religious ideal is to express adoration not through poetic description of God but through contemplative silence:

Maimonides, the great master of the Jewish halakhic tradition, was an honest and coherent thinker. How could he have missed so obvious a difference in emphasis and in outlook between the religious experience of the absolute which comes through in his legal and his philosophic writings and that of the Jewish tradition? Our concern is not to discover the historical philosophic influences on Maimonides' world view. This has been done by Professor Pines in his introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed. Our concern will be to indicate internal religious concepts emanating from the Jewish tradition which may have influenced Maimonides' philosophic religious outlook.

The two internal principles which may have led Maimonides to his profound embrace of the metaphysical tradition were a) the principle of idolatry and b) the notion of love of God. These two central categories of the Jewish legal tradition may account for Maimonides' metaphysically oriented descriptions of God, the insistence on negative theology, and his statement that Moses taught the notion of God as necessary existent to the Jewish community immediately after their departure from Egypt.

Maimonides, both in the Mishneh Torah and in the Guide, claims that "the foundation of the whole of our Law and the pivot around which it turns, consists in the effacement of these opinions from the minds and of these monuments from existence" (Guide III, 29). Maimonides has in mind the idolatrous opinions of the Sabians. Likewise, in the Mishneh Torah, "Laws of Idolatry," II, 4, Maimonides writes:

Maimonides codifies the halakhah that the prophet has the right to temporarily suspend any norms of Jewish law. There is only one case where suspension, even temporarily, is not permitted and that is with regard to the laws of idolatry.¹⁸ The uncompromising demand to reject idolatry is the central concern of the law. Toleration of anything that may lead, in any way whatsoever, to one's embracing idolatry undermines the essential purpose of the law. Maimonides, therefore, codifies the laws of idolatry in the first book of the Mishneh Torah, the Book of Knowledge. In his introduction to the Mishneh Torah Maimonides explains the purpose of the first book:

In "The laws of Repentance," III, 15, Maimonides wrote regarding the definition of the heretic:

Maimonides classifies together in the same law one who claims that there is no God, one who believes in polytheism, and one who believes that God has a body and a form. This decision evoked the rage of the Rabad:

The gist of the disagreement is that the Rabad cannot understand Maimonides' insistence on calling an otherwise pious, halakhic person a heretic. How can one who lives sincerely by the law, who follows all the commandments and who is committed passionately to every detail of the discipline of Halakhah, be classified together with one who is an idolater? How can the great enemy of Jewish spirituality, idolatry, be found in the heart of one who is totally loyal to the Halakhah?

Maimonides was undoubtedly aware of the likelihood of such objections, yet his opposition to false notions of God was uncompromising. Essential to understanding Maimonides' metaphysical treatment of God in the sections on negative theology in the Guide, are chapters 35 and 36 in part one. Maimonides claims there that although he realizes that the study of physics and metaphysics are esoteric disciplines requiring great preparation and great maturity and are not disciplines capable of being studied by the masses, nevertheless one should not withhold from the multitude knowledge of the fact that God is incorporeal and that He is not subject to affection. Maimonides writes:

A central motif in Maimonides' writings are his repeated arguments for teaching the masses about God's incorporeality. In the same chapter, Maimonides writes:

Maimonides concludes the chapter with the same principle he used in the Mishneh Torah to categorize the different forms of heresy:

Maimonides was philosophically convinced that false belief regarding the nature of God is idolatry.²⁰ Hence he had to face the halakhic implication of this claim. Idolatry is not only mistaken forms of worship, but is, as well, a mistaken conception of the object of worship. Idolatry is constituted not only by how I worship but, more importantly, by whom I worship. False belief, e.g., belief in divine corporeality, entails idolatry in that instead of worshipping God, one is worshipping a figment of human imagination. Hence, correct belief (philosophy) is crucial in order to correctly identify and describe God and thus avoid worshipping false gods.²¹

The purpose of the law, however, is to correct mistaken forms of worship:

The law protects Israel from the mistake idol worshippers made in developing intermediary worship. The Halakhah provides a correct way of worship which will not lead to removing God from the consciousness of man through mistaken forms. Essential idolatry, however, involves not only mistaken forms of worship but mistaken conceptions of God. This is only corrected by understanding how unity and corporeality are contradictory. Only by understanding physics, the nature of change, the relationship between potentiality and actuality, the structure of nature, etc., can one root out an idolatry based, not upon wrong practice, but upon mistaken belief.²²

Maimonides considered mistaken practice to be a lesser sin than belief in corporeality. In Guide I, 36, Maimonides writes:

In other words, Maimonides says to the Jewish community, who have a defined way of worshipping God which distinguishes them from pagans, that, if they lack a philosophic understanding of God's otherness, idolatry will reappear in the house of Jewish Halakhah. Paganism will grow in Jewish soil if man does not understand how unity and incorporeality entail one another.

Maimonides then argues that, if you want to excuse Jews of this mistaken notion because the Bible itself may be responsible for teaching men that God has a body and that He is subject to affections, you ought to hold a similar attitude with regard to a gentile idolater, for he worships idols only because of his ignorance and because of his upbringing. Maimonides does not allow a double standard. He does not allow the tradition's rage against idolatry to be turned outward and not inward. The philosophic knowledge that Maimonides gained from the Greek philosophic tradition was of central importance for his understanding of the Jewish belief in the oneness and uniqueness of God. Wolfson correctly points out that the Bible taught only that God was other than the world. The notion of divine simplicity and the notion that corporeality is a negation of the concept of unity are not biblical, but rather philosophic.²³ Maimonides' knowledge of philosophy gave him a new understanding of idolatry.

Maimonides, however, was not only a philosopher. As a committed halakhic Jew he could not keep this knowledge from the community. He knew that the law did not allow any compromise regarding idolatry. He did not follow the path of many medieval philosophers, like Averroes and those within the Jewish tradition, in allowing the masses to believe that God was corporeal .²⁴ Were Maimonides only a philosopher and not a halakhist, he would surely have refrained from evoking the wrath of the Jewish community by claiming that pious halakhic Jews with incorrect theological beliefs were idol worshippers. If, as Leo Strauss claims Maimonides only sought a justification for philosophy but not an interpenetration of philosophy and law, he should never have codified the principle that he who believes that God has a body is an idolater and an heretic. His insistence that the whole community accept certain basic truths of metaphysics even if only on the basis of authority is grounded in his "halakhic" commitment to the community and to the halakhic principle of not allowing any compromise regarding idolatry.

Metaphysics, then, for Maimonides is a complement to the law. Philosophy continues the battle of the law to uproot the last vestiges of idolatry in the world. Moses, therefore, had to teach the community about the nature of God in order to uproot idolatry from within the Jewish people. It is not arid philosophical rationalism that inspires Maimonides. The motivation is not that of the esoteric elitist intellectual, but that of the observant Jew committed to the principle that "he who rejects idolatry accepts the entire Torah."²⁵

The goal of Torah which makes it unique among legal systems, is its concern with developing love of God. Love of God, according to Maimonides, is nurtured only by philosophical knowledge. Even though Maimonides recognized the limitations of the intellect and restricted the scope and nature of knowledge of God, he still believed that only knowledge, comprised of the intellectual discipline of physics and metaphysics, would lead man to love of God.

In chapter ten of "The Laws of Repentance," chapter four of Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah, chapter fifty-two in The Guide of the Perplexed, part three and throughout the Guide, Maimonides expressed his conviction that theoretical knowledge and opinions make possible the love of God.²⁶

Why are the disciplines of physics and metaphysics unique in enabling a person to achieve love of God? Why are the practice and the study of the law only necessary and not sufficient conditions for achieving love of God? In order to comprehend philosophy's unique contribution in producing love of God, one must compare Maimonides' understanding of creation with his approach to revelation. Creation, to Maimonides, reflects the overflow of God's perfection. Olam hesed yebaneh, the world is an expression of God's love and power. Central to Maimonides' understanding of God's revelation in nature and of man's relationship to the universe is the realization that man is not the center of God's creation. The world does not exist for man; God's creative power and wisdom were not exclusively focused on the creation of man. Hence, a most important function of metaphysical reflection is to heal man from feelings of grandiosity. Man realizes, when reflecting on the cosmos, that he is insignificant in the light of the hierarchy of beings. Metaphysics and philosophy, then, from a religious perspective, create humanity. Philosophy heals human egocentricity. Philosophy locates man in a theocentric universe where he cannot but realize his modest and humbling place in being.²⁷

Maimonides' treatment of Job in the Guide III, 22-24, is placed after he established clearly man's place in the hierarchy of being. One can tolerate suffering if one gains a proper understanding of one's significance in being. Reorienting one's place in being is Maimonides' explanation of the conclusion of the book of Job. Job did not receive an answer to the problem of evil; he received a different perception of being and of himself which enabled him to continue living despite his suffering:

Maimonides was not referring to theodicy, but, rather, to a way of transcending suffering by gaining another perspective on being. Philosophy's presentation of an objective world independent of man, where man occupies a most modest position in a hierarchy of perfections culminating in the awesome, ineffable perfection of God, transports man from an anthropocentric to a theocentric universe and thereby gives man the strength to cope with human suffering.

This insight is also present in Maimonides' treatment of the akedah, the binding of Isaac. Maimonides analyses the story of Abraham only after treating of the human implications of the study of physics and metaphysics (Job). Abraham, the founder of belief in the God of history is asked in the command to sacrifice his only son Isaac (history), to express a relationship to God which, in fact, negates the significance of history:

Abraham's going through the experience of the akedah symbolically demonstrated that the ultimate goal of Torah lies beyond history. The archetypal act of love of God is constituted by the ability to abandon history. Maimonides' treatment of Abraham and of Job reveal his belief in the liberating power of philosophy to direct man to live in history, after having discovered meaning beyond history.²⁸ In chapters eight through twenty-four of the third part of the Guide, Maimonides elaborates the practical implications of negative theology. Job and Abraham dramatically represent the radical implications of divine otherness which is the central notion of the theory of negative theology.

Maimonides attributed a liberating function to philosophy. For disinterested love to be possible, man's understanding of himself, the world and the essential purpose and meaning of life must undergo radical transformations. So long as man is anchored solely in history and is concerned exclusively with human needs, he cannot recognize and therefore love a God who does not exist for the sake of man. Philosophy creates the conditions for love because it enables man to appreciate an objective reality independent of human needs.

As mentioned above with regard to idolatry, a central biblical motif is God's otherness and difference from the world. Philosophy, e.g., the analysis of unity, non-corporeality and negative attributes, offers a more exact and rigorous understanding of God's otherness. This movement to revealing the implications of divine otherness is the movement of the one seeking love of God. Love is expressed in the confirmation of the independent worth of the beloved. It is only philosophy which gives meaning to man's affirmation of God's independent existence. In Maimonides' writings, the yearning quality of love finds expression in knowing how the universe reveals the actions of God. Love becomes passionate when the universe is perceived from a theocentric perspective. Knowing what God is not and how He is radically other than and separate from the world provides man with the intellectual tools for self-transcending relational love.²⁹

While philosophy points to divine perfection and to divine manifestations which are indifferent to and independent of human needs, the revelation of the law is substantially different. In the Guide III, 32, Maimonides explains how to interpret the meaning of many laws in the Torah. Reminiscent of Hegel's notion of the cunning of reason, Maimonides argues that God utilizes the given conditions of history to further His purpose. God does not ignore the given context of history. The revealed law is not indifferent to the limited capacities of people. The law reflects the patience of the divine teacher who works with the actual materials of history. Although, logically speaking, God could change the nature of man to accord with the practices of a perfect law, God, argues Maimonides, chose not to. God chose to adopt the role of the teacher patiently seeking to overcome the limitations and shortcomings of the people of Israel.

For example, at the time of the giving of the Torah, animal sacrifices constituted the accepted form of worship. No one, claims Maimonides, thought it reasonable to worship a god other than by offering animal sacrifice. God accepted this pattern of worship, even though this pattern of worship was characteristic of paganism, and He permitted its use in Jewish worship. Because, Maimonides argues, man cannot be expected to change suddenly or to completely give up patterns of behaviour to which he has become accustomed, He restricted animal sacrifices to specific places and to be administered only by certain people, i.e., priests. Prayer, a higher form of worship, was permitted by anyone and in all places.

In other words, there is a hierarchy of forms of worship. While legitimizing sacrifices, the law's intention was that man will eventually transcend this form, and will adopt a higher form of worship. Similarly verbal prayer is a stage meant to be superceded by the highest form of worship, i.e., contemplative silence. Silent prayer reflects man's ability to be moved by God's perfection independent of His responding to human needs. There are, then, three stages of worship in history: 1) the stage of eradication of idolatry by limiting animal sacrifices; 2) worship grounded in God's responsiveness to human needs, i.e., verbal petitional prayer; and 3) silent adoration of God because he is God.

Revelation of God's wisdom in the law, as distinct from His revelation in nature, is a response to an imperfect human condition. Study of the law reveals God's legislative involvement with men. The study of the law reconfirms for historical man his central importance in the divine scheme. "The Torah spoke in the language of man." God is perceived in the law from the perspective of human needs. Maimonides was very comfortable claiming that there are human purposes for the commandments. In contrast to a mystical approach, to Maimonides, commandments reflect what is good for man.³⁰ They have no meta-historical significance. The cosmic significance that mystics attributed to the commandments is alien to Maimonides' attempt to make the law totally earth bound.³¹

Besides focusing on divine absolute perfection, philosophy leads to love of God by healing of the imagination. To Maimonides, imagination is the great enemy of religious development.³² Human imagination is both the source of idolatry and of inauthentic love. At the end of the Guide, III, 51, Maimonides proclaims that individuals whose knowledge of God is based on imagination, and not on knowledge of objective reality, are outside the palace of the king. Only the philosopher enters into the palace of the king, i.e., is able to love God, because only the philosopher has some grasp of the reality of God independent of human imagination:

For love to be real, the object of one's love must be recognized in itself. Imagination creates a narcissistic love, a love of one's own creation and not of an independent reality. Man is liberated to love only when the passion of love emerges in response to an objective reality and not to a subjective projection of what one imagines God to be. One loves another human being only if one can respond to another as another and not as a projection of one's needs and imagination.

PHILOSOPHY, THE HALAKHAH

The central question which will be dealt with now is whether the disinterested love of God which results from the study of philosophy can be legitimately identified with the highest goal of the Halakhah. Martyrdom was traditionally considered to be the purest expression of love of God.³³ How can disinterested love of the absolute become the paradigm of the most valued achievement of this religious way of life? Is this not simply a hellenization and hence a distortion of Judaism? In the biblical and rabbinic traditions, one confronts the primacy of history and law. God, in the Bible, is fundamentally the lord of history. His autonomy consists in his freedom to break into history miraculously and spontaneously. Scholem correctly observed that Maimonides neutralized the pathos of the messianic yearning, for, in principle, messianism is unnecessary in Maimonides' thought.³⁴ Contemplative love of God is possible, though rare, without redemption in history. To Maimonides, messianism is merely a shift in political conditions. Human nature remains the same. There is no rupture or new creation in history.³⁵

Guttman claims that Maimonides ignored the important difference between contemplative communion and moral communion.³⁶ Husik says that Maimonides was deceived in not realizing that the Bible is fundamentally practical and not theoretical. Were we to accept the implications of the aforementioned views, we would be compelled to conclude that Maimonides, the great teacher of the law, was unaware of the fact that his profound religious passion to become a lover of God was essentially foreign to and a gross distortion of the Jewish tradition.

Scholars have argued that this is the great puzzle of Maimonides. This, however, is not the only possible orientation to Maimonides. Maimonides' neutralization of the religious significance of history and of divine miraculous interference in the fixed structures of reality, and his emphasis on cultivating a passionate love for a God who draws men in virtue of His perfection, and not in virtue of His ability to satisfy human needs and requests, may have their roots in various features of talmudic Judaism. While Judaism's preoccupation with abolishing idolatry justifies and explains Maimonides' interest in philosophy, this does not imply that the ethos and the religious orientation of philosophy ought to become dominant for the Jew. In identifying the disinterested love of God of philosophy with love of God of the Halakhah, Maimonides was giving expression to certain features of talmudic Judaism which, we believe, both explain and justify his radical move.

Our use of the terms "certain features of talmudic Judaism" is due to the fact that the aspects of talmudic thought chosen for discussion do not constitute the dominant orientation of rabbinic Judaism. As Professor Urbach has shown, there are many diverse schools of thought in rabbinic Judaism. In this paper, we present a particular strand that is characteristic of an important aspect of the talmudic tradition. This strand provides the grounds for the development of a spiritual orientation which enables one to live with the gap between the biblical world of divine immediacy and the post-biblical world, which is silent and unresponsive to man's moral condition. Nature becomes neutralized and, so to speak, demythologized, and the biblical passion is reinterpreted so that men's relationship to God is no longer sustained by the visible and public interference of a moral God in the processes of nature and history.

The following passages in the Talmud exemplify this spirit:

To fully appreciate the radical shift in sensibility from biblical thought, compare this with several biblical passages:

To Adam He said, "Because you did as your wife

said and ate of the tree about which I commanded

you, `You shall not eat of it,'

Cursed be the ground because of you;

By toil shall you eat of it

All the days of your life:

Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you.

But your food shall be the grasses of the field;

By the sweat of your brow

Shall you get bread to eat,

Until you return to the ground--

For from it you were taken.

For dust you are,

And to dust you shall return."

(Genesis III, 17-19)

Do not defile yourselves in any of those ways,

for it is by such that the nations which I

am casting out before you defiled themselves.

Thus the land became defiled; and I called it

to account for its iniquity, and the land

spewed out its inhabitants. But you must keep

My laws and My rules, and you must not do

any of those abhorrent things, neither the

citizen nor the stranger who resides

among you; for all those abhorrent things

were done by the people who were in the land

before you, and the land became defiled.

So let not the land spew you out for

defiling it, as it spewed out the nation

that came before you.

(Lev. XVIII, 24-28)

If, then, you obey the commandments that

I enjoin upon you this day, loving the

Lord your God and serving Him with all

your heart and soul, I will grant the rain

for your land in season, the early rain

and the late. You shall gather in your

new grain and wine and oil--I will also

provide grass in the fields for your

cattle--and thus you shall eat your fill.

Take care not to be lured away to serve

other gods and bow to them. For the Lord's

anger will flare up against you, and He

will shut up the skies so that there will

be no rain and the ground will not yield

its products; and you will soon perish

from the good land that the Lord is

giving you.

(Deut. II, 1-17)

A key expression in the talmudic passage quoted above, is "did hu shelo titzmah" (it is right that it should not grow). Stolen wheat or grain ought not grow; a raped woman ought not become pregnant. Nature ought not respond and give of its strength and bounty to the consequences of evil. In other words, the expectations that nature and morality are organically related, and that the lord of history and the lord of nature are one are legitimate and worthwhile expectations. Yet, although the talmudic author legitimizes this biblical sensibility, he realizes that it does not accord with what in fact happens. This is another form of the generalization, "olam ke-minhago noheg" (the world maintains its natural course). There is a natural minhag, literally a custom. (Strauss remarks that the term used is minhag, custom, and not tevah, nature).³⁷ One cannot live expecting nature to reflect the moral law. One is trained to have an organic sensibility in the sense of believing that the world should" express moral distinctions, yet, one is taught to accept the non-realization of this organic relationship. This demythologization, this learning to live in a universe that is strange and unresponsive to my deepest moral yearnings is very definitely a characteristic of talmudic Judaism.

There are other texts which also reveal this sensibility:

The struggle with acknowledging the discrepancy between the biblical promise and the given reality finds expression in the talmud's asking "Perhaps there was no such happening?" How do we know that a child who listened to his father and sent away the mother bird really died? The text then simply says: "Rabbi Jacob saw an actual occurrence." The text, however, continues to ask, "Perhaps he sinned?" Perhaps he sinned in his thoughts? How can one ever know if a person is truly righteous? How can one know that the person who died really didn't deserve his death? What we notice, then, is an attempt in the text not to give in too easily to an empirical reality which falsifies religious expectations. Yet, in the end, one cannot ignore the evidence Rabbi Jacob brings which negates biblically-inspired expectations. Rabbi Jacob, however, doesn't conclude that there is no God. Rather than claim there is no reward, he concludes, "sekhar Mitzvah behai aimah lekah" (there is no reward for precepts in this world). While biblical anticipation remains, it is transferred to another time. In the present reality, one must live with the gap between what the bible promises and what one actually experiences:

This text also reflects the difference between the historical reality of the talmudic period, i.e., the destruction of the temple and the exile, and the reality depicted in the Bible. In the prayer of Moses, God is great, mighty and awful. This is accepted as a correct description of God. Moses is the highest authority for halakhic jurisprudence. His authority embraces not only normative behaviour but also what is to count as correct descriptions of God. The crisis of religious language begins during the time of Daniel and of Jeremiah. Descriptions of divine power appear at odds with a reality where the children of Israel are enslaved by foreign nations. "God is awesome" does not accord with the Temple being destroyed and pagans fornicating in the holy of holies.

One could have said, "I do not fully understand Moses' prayer because I'm not a Moses. Moses' language is correct and I shall use it even though my own reality offers disconfirming evidence. Who am I to Judge?" There were (and are) those who continued to believe in reward in this world. Perhaps the righteous are "rewarded" by suffering and the wicked "punished" by prosperity so that in the world to come each one will fully receive his due, i.e., the righteous only rewards, the wicked only punishments.³⁸

In the above text, however, the author did not negate his own perception of reality, but he did not claim that Moses' language was false. The biblical description as reflected in Moses' prayer is placed in suspension. A new response to the gap between my reality and the authoritative normative reality is adopted, i.e., silence. You continue praying but you do not utilize that language which is disconfirmed by reality. The men of the great assembly widen the range of the meaning of language, by widening the range of experience relevant for confirming this language.³⁹ The word "mighty" in the biblical context refers to God's victorious power in history. Prophets defeat kings, pharoahs submit to the overwhelming might of God. The reality of the talmudic writers did not confirm a God who was powerful and victorious and, therefore, they were compelled to reconsider the meaning of divine power.⁴⁰ The men of the great assembly interpret power to mean the compassion and the long-suffering mercy of God. Self-control in the face of blasphemous provocation constitutes the new meaning of power:

In God's self-control, Israel, in exile, finds a way of continuing to use biblical language. Biblical divine power continues to be present, but in a neutralized form.

A most important statement in the text, besides the shift in meaning of biblical language, is the question how did Daniel and Jeremiah have the right to remain silent and not submit to Moses' authoritative and hence correct description of God? The short and simple answer was that God loves the truth and therefore they would not lie. Believing that God insists on truth enabled them to be honest to their own experience, and not to allow Moses' language to define their altered reality.

The three examples discussed above reveal the tension in talmudic thought between the organic mythic consciousness of the Bible and the sober realism of talmudic Judaism. In talmudic Judaism, one encounters the world of divine responsiveness and mutuality ("If you will hearken to my command, I will . . . ") not in everyday reality but in institutionalized memories, e.g., the biblical readings and the ambience of the Sabbath and the festivals.⁴¹ The talmudic Jew inhabits two worlds: one where history and nature reflect God's power and judgments and another world where violence and corruption yield wealth and prosperity. Titus enters the holy of holies with a prostitute and mockingly challenges God to dare strike him down. In response to this event, the talmud points out that Titus failed to realize that divine power often takes the form of divine silence.

The talmudic age testified to divine silence and to the tragic dimension of Jewish approaches to history. A major concern of talmudic Judaism was how to continue as a spiritual people in a world that does not confirm biblical expectations. The talmudic sages never give up the biblical organic consciousness. They retained the belief in God's power to reveal Himself openly in history, but tried to restrict and to confine it to past memories and to eschatological hopes. The crucial question facing any analyst of talmudic Judaism is how effective was this attempt at restricting the biblical mythic consciousness? Was it successfully neutralized? Did it cease being, in Jamesian terms, a live option? Or did it remain constantly just below the surface threatening to explode in the face of rabbinic sobriety and realism? This is a difficult but inescapable problem to resolve. One must examine currents in Jewish mystical and philosophic thought to discover the various forms that the interrelationship of biblical and rabbinic thought assumed in Jewish history.⁴²

One thing, however, is clear. One who internalizes talmudic suppression of biblical consciousness can build a spiritual life in the absence of responsive historical events. The everyday spiri-tual existence of the talmudic Jew is characterized by loyalty to the law. To rabbinic man, God is present in history because His law is present. Because the Torah and the covenant are eternally binding, God's presence for man is confirmed. The law, and not events in history, mediates divine concern. Instead of seeking instances of God breaking into history, the rabbinic teachers expand and elaborate biblical law to cover enormously wide ranges of experience. As more of reality falls under the authority of the law, God's will and influence become more deeply felt.

The receiving of the Torah was not perceived as an event of the historical past, but as an ever-present challenge. "When you study My words of Torah, they are not to seem antiquated to you, but as fresh as though the Torah were given this day" (Psikta d'Rab Kahana, piska 12, sec. 12). The written law was not perceived as a closed system of law. Elaboration and expansion of the Torah made the revelation at Sinai a contemporaneous event for students of Torah.⁴³ The passion of the encounter with the living God of the Bible is retained but is expressed in uncovering new layers of meaning in Torah.

Though he is silent regarding the tragic dimension of history, talmudic man is extremely articulate and confident about his ability to understand the range of meanings contained in the revelation of the law:

The student of Moses, Akiba, uncovers dimensions in Moses' Torah which Moses himself does not understand. Yet it is Moses' Torah that is the basis of Akiba's legal inferences. Akiba is dignified and articulate; he has mastered the complexities of divine speech coming out of the Torah. Nevertheless, though articulate in the realm of the law, halakhic man lapses into utter silence when trying to understand the Lord of history:

To the questions, "Why choose Moses and not Akiba to stand at Sinai?" and "Why does Akiba, the illustrious genius of Halakhah, end his life in so horrifying and shocking a manner?" the answer given is, "Be silent, for such is My decree."

Rabbinic halakhic man, however, feels dignified and confident in the academy of learning:

Prophecy may not decide a problem of Jewish law. "Heaven" may not interfere in the development of Torah. In order to sustain the emergence of the halakhic process talmudic man proclaims the priority of human reason before the intrusions of revelation in his use of the biblical phrase "(Torah) is not in heaven." (Deut. XXX, 12) God gave the Torah to man, and man, with the use of reasoning and argumentation, is autonomous in guiding its development.

In a text reminiscent of Spinoza's comparison of the prophet with the philosopher, the midrash compares the scribe, i.e., the scholar of Torah, with the prophets:

In the talmudic development of the law, one does not need prophecy or the intervention of God to confirm the legitimacy of a legal argument. In supplanting the prophet as leader of the community, the scholar presents the credentials of intellectual competence to reason and argues persuasively about the law.⁴⁴

These features of rabbinic Judaism, i.e., the preeminence of human legal reasoning above prophecy, the neutralization of the mythic-organic passion of the Bible, and the attempt at curbing the expectation of divine confirmation in history, create the conditions for the emergence of a spiritual outlook in which one's relationship to God is not spiritually nurtured by the miraculous presence of God in History. The God of the Halakhah is similar, mutatis mutandis, to the perfect God of Aristotle. For the Halakhah, God is perfect and his wisdom is reflected in the structure of the law; for Aristotle God is perfect, and His wisdom is reflected in the structures of reality. In the former case, human reason is adequate to uncover divine wisdom in the Torah, in the latter case, human wisdom can understand God's wisdom in nature. One is drawn to God through the development of His Torah without the aid of revelation or other non-rational intrusions in history. The passion of the talmid hakham (the talmudic scholar), like the passion of the philosopher, involves a movement from man to God, i.e., the passion of eros. Aristotle's God, who attracts man in virtue of his perfection, can be loved by rabbinic Jews insofar as eros and the neutralization of dramatic historical events have become part of their religious sensibilities. Yehuda Halevy clearly understood the profound difference between a tradition grounded in revelation and one grounded in reason.⁴⁵ The battle between philosophy and revealed religion was not only a question of competing truths; it involved, as well, questions of human adequacy and the legitimacy of human reasoning. Eros and agape characterize the poles of the profound conflict between a tradition grounded in revelation and one nurtured by human initiative and creativity. The talmudic tradition that we have isolated is a tradition which neutralized the religious need for grace, for miracles and for the idea of a God who breaks into history. This particular tradition may have influenced Maimonides to assimilate the Greek metaphysical tradition into rabbinic Judaism.⁴⁶

Maimonides did not regard history as being the principal location of the relationship of man and God. As Urbach has shown, Maimonides went very far in banishing the prophet from having any relationship to the development of the law.⁴⁷ Maimonides was personally averse to magnifying the place of miracles in the tradition.⁴⁸ He did not believe that history will ever offer a permanent solution to the human condition.⁴⁹ The law will be present and needed in (his conception of) the messianic world. Human freedom and susceptibility to sin are unchanging features of life. "Olam ke-minhago noheg" (the world maintains its natural course) is the quintessence of Maimonides' theory of history. He rejects the eschatology of a new creation and only insists on belief in creation. Eternity a parte ante is rejected in order to introduce a theology of will, which, in turn, makes possible the giving of the Torah.⁵⁰ Maimonides did not require a theology of history where history would end supernaturally or otherwise. He, therefore, accepted eternity a parte post and rejected eternity a parte ante:

Maimonides' philosophical orientation did not seek to restore God's miraculous interference in history in the messianic world. He required the notion of God's will to justify the authority of Halakhah. Yet, after introducing a theology of will and hence making sense of the revelation of the Torah, Maimonides undermines the prophetic, eschatological passion by accepting eternity a parte post. Maimonides, like his talmudic predecessors, sought to cultivate a passion for God grounded in disinterested love of God.

No doubt the above is not the only way to make sense of the rabbinic tradition. Many great masters of the mystic tradition were talmudic scholars. The movement from the talmudic tradition to the Greek metaphysical tradition is certainly not a logically inevitable one. Yet, one ought to be very cautious when analyzing the notion of the absolute in the Jewish tradition. The problematic and interesting nature of this theme results from the fact that the Jewish tradition considered the biblical and the rabbinic traditions to be one tradition. The written Torah (Bible) and the oral Torah (Mishnah, Talmud, etc.) are one. Once the Jewish spirit united both traditions into one single revelation, it became possible and intelligible to interpret Ehyeh asher Ehyeh as ~I am that I am"--I am the necessary being--and not as "I will be with you in your suffering." Because Maimonides was the great master of talmud, he was bold enough to introduce his legal codification, the Mishneh Torah, with four chapters dealing with the primacy of the metaphysical tradition and to claim, in Hilkhot Talmud Torah, that the discipline of "talmud" included both the study of law and of philosophy.⁵¹ Surprising and unpredictable spiritual orientations and sensibilities emerge in a tradition where one of its respected teachers, R. Johanan, can say:

Hebrew University and

Shalom Hartman Institute

Jerusalem

Quotations from The Guide of the Perplexed are from the Shlomo Pines translation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963.

Quotations from the Mishneh Torah are from the Hyamson translation (Jerusalem, 1965).

Quotations from the Bible are from The Torah: The Five Books of Moses (Philadelphia: J.P.S., 1962).

Quotations from the Talmud are from The Soncino Talmud.

1. See Y. Leibowitz, Yahadut Am Yehudi U'medinat Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1975), p. 15.

2. Gershom G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, trans. by R. Manheim (New York: Schocken, 1965), pp. 94-100, 122-130.

3. Shlomo Pines, "The Philosophic Source of The Guide of the Perplexed," in The Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. CXXXIII-CXXXIV.

4. Emphraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, translated by I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1975), pp. 17, 18, 36, 65, 284-5. See Julius Guttman, Philosophies of Judaism, trans. by David Silverman (New York: Anchor, 1966), pp. 30-43.

5. B. Spinoza, A Theological-Political Treatise, trans. by R.H.M. Elwes (New York: Dover, 1951), chaps. 1, 2, 7 (pp. 115-119). See S. Pines, "Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Maimonides, and KanNt," Scripta Hierosolymitana, xx (1968), pp. 3-54; Leo StrausNs, Spinoza's Critique of Religion, trans. by Elsa M. Sinclair (New York: Schocken, 1965), chap. 6; D. HartmaNn, Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest (Philadelphia: J.P.S., 1976), p. 237, n. 6.

6. Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1952), pp. 78-94; D. Hartman, Maimonides, introduction and chap. V.

7. Guide II, 40.

8. Ibid. III, 27, Mishneh Torah, "Laws of Repentance," chap. IX.

9. See comments of the Kesef Mishneh to Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, IV, l3; Isadore Twersky, "Some Non-Halakhic Aspects of the Mishneh Torah" in Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. A. Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967).

10. See D. Hartman, Maimonides, pp. 44-45; J. Guttman, op. cit., p. 177; G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1971), p. 25; T.B., Kiddushin 40b, Baba Kama 17A.

11. See the passionate yearning for Olam Haba (an ahistorical relationship to God) in Maimonides' introduction to Helek, M.T., "Laws of Repentance," VIII, and in Guide III, 51.

12. See Rashi's commentary to Genesis I, 1 and Midrash Tanhuma, Berashit II. See Guide III, 13-14; Leo Strauss, "Jerusalem and Athens," The City College Papers, VI (New York: 1967), pp. 8-10, 20, for an analysis of the differences between the place of man in the hierarchy of being in Greek and in Biblical thought.

13. "Ehyeh-Asher Ehyeh. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Go and say to Israel: I was with you in this servitude, and I shall be with you in the servitude of (other) kingdoms." (T.B., Berakhot 9b). See Midrash Raba, Exodus III, 6.

14. Martin Buber, Israel and the World: Essays in a Time of Crises (New York: Schocken, 1948), p. 23; see M. Buber, Moses: The Revelation and the Convenant (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), pp. 39-55; Kingship of God, trans. R. Scheimann (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 103-106; Emil L. Fackenheim, God's Presence in History (New York: N.Y.U., 1970), pp. 3-34, for a serious attempt at making sense of God's presence in history in the modern world.

15. See Strauss, "Jerusalem and Athens," p. 17. For earlier interpretations of Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh as making a metaphysical and not a historical statement, see H.A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1929), vol. 1, pp. 19, 210: C.H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964), p. 4. For critical textural analysis, see B.S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), pp. 60-77 and Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus (New York: Behrman House, 1969), pp. 78-84.

16. "`I am the Lord thy God': (Ex. 20:2), Why were the Ten Commandments not said at the beginning of the Torah? They give a parable. To what may this be compared? To the following: A king who entered a province said to the people: May I be your king? But the people said to him: Have you done anything good for us that you should rule over us? What did he do then? He built the city wall for them, he brought in the water supply for them, and he fought their battles. Then when he said to them: May I be your king? They said to Him: Yes, yes. Likewise, God. He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, divided the sea for them, sent down the manna for them, brought up the well for them, brought the quails for them. He fought for them the battle with Amalek. Then He said to them: I am to be your king. And they said to Him: Yes, yes" (Mekhilta). Trans. J.Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia: J.P.S., 1933), tractate Bahodesh, V). See Yehuda Halevi, Kuzari, I, 11, 25, 83-89; IV, 3.

17. Guide I, 64, p. 157; II, 5, p. 260; III, 32, p. 526, 51, p. 623. See F. Heiler, Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion, trans. S. McComb (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932), chap. IV.

18. M.T., Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, IX, 3, 5.

19. Isodore Twersky, Rabad of Posquieres (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962), pp. 282-6.

20. See Leo Strauss, "How to Begin to Study the Guide of the Perplexed," in The Guide of the Perplexed, op. cit., pp. 20-24. Wolfson claims that declaring openly, as opposed to simply accepting "in one's heart," belief in divine corporeality constitutes idolatry. See his interesting discussion in "Maimonides on the Unity and Incorporeality of God," JQR, 56 (1965), pp. 112-36.

21. "Hilkhot Abodah Zarah" deals with practices that were prohibited in order to protect the community from pagan and idolatrous influences. The laws of idolatry, therefore, begin with an account of how mistaken forms of worship were responsible for the growth of idolatry and the disappearance of monotheism. In chap. I of "Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah," Maimonides deals with idolatry based upon a false understanding of the notion of the unity of God.

22. Guide, I, 55.

23. H. Wolfson, "Maimonides on the Unity and Incorporeality of God," and Philo, II, pp. 94-101.

24. See D. Hartman, Maimonides, p. 294, n. 92.

25. See Guttman, op. cit., p. 159.

26. Guide I, 39; III, 28; see D. Hartman, Maimonides, p. 265, n. 6l. See Pines' introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed, pp. xcv-xcviii, cxi, cxv; "Spinoza's tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Maimonides and Kant," p. 26, and his forward to D. Hartman, Maimonides, for the changes in Pines' approach to Maimonides' understanding of knowledge of God. Pines' present position is that Maimonides seriously doubted the possibility of metaphysical knowledge of God.

27. See M.T., Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah, IV, 12.

28. The description of Abraham of the akedah should be balanced by other texts describing his efforts to establish an historical community dedicated to the belief in the unity of God: Book of the Commandments, positive commandment III: M.T., Laws of Idolatry, I; and Guide III, 51, p. 624.

29. See Guide, III, 51, pp. 620-623; I, 59, p. 139.

30. See Guide, III, 26, 28, 31.

31. See G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1941), pp. 25-37; On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken, 1965), pp. 95, 127, 130.

32. Guide, I, 52; II, 12.

33. Mishnah Berakhot IX, 5. See Urbach, op. cit., chap. XIV, and p. 443.

34. "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea" in The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 30.

35. M.T., The Book of Judges, "Kings and Wars," chaps. XI, XII.

36. Guttman, op. cit., pp. 177-8. See I. Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (New York: Meridian and Philadelphia: J.P.S., 1958), p. 300.

37. "Notes on Maimonides' Book of Knowledge," in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1967), p. 273 and Natural Right and History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 81-3. See Maimonides' Eight Chapters, VIII; Notes by Prof. Louis Ginzberg to I. Efros, Philosophical Terms in the Moreh Nebukim (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1924), pp. 134-5.

38. T.B., Kiddushin 39b. See Urback, op. cit p. 268-271; 436-444.

39. See different versions of this midrash in T.J., Megillah, III, 7. In the Babylonian version, the prophets, Daniel and Jeremiah, initiate the problem. The men of the great assembly offer a solution by reinterpreting the categories. In the Jerusalem version, the prophets themselves indicate the direction of the solution.

40. See Mekhilta VIII, for examples of the wide range of uses of notions of divine power. Rather than offering a strict definition of divine power, the Mekhilta collects a variety of correct uses of the concept.

41. See G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, pp. 95, 120-1, 132-3, 130-135.

42. See G. Scholem, "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea," especially, pp. 17-24.

43. See Gerson D. Cohen, "The Talmudic Age," in Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People, edited by Leo W. Schwarz (New York: Random House, 1956), pp. 143-212.

44. See D. Hartman, Maimonides, pp. 102-126.

45. Kuzari, I, 1-13, 98, 99.

46. See Urbach, op. cit., pp. 303-4, for a discussion of the relationship of grace (hesed) and law. Our exposition supports Urbach's interpretation of the bold statement in T.B., Pesahim 118a: "To what do these twenty-six (verses of) "Give thanks" correspond? To the twenty-six generations that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, and did not give them the Torah, but sustained them by His grace." "There was need of grace," comments Urbach, "so long as the Torah had not been given." For a different approach which emphasizes the need for grace in Maimonides' quest for knowledge of God, see Simon Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish Thought, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, chapter 7, Philadelphia, J.P.S. 1974.

47. E. Urbach, "Halakhah u-Nevuah," Tarbiz, 18 (1946), pp. 1-27. See D. Hartman, Maimonides, pp. 116-122. In contrast to Maimonides' approach, see Yehudah Halevi III, 41. This difference is not unrelated to differences of their overall philosophic world views.

48. See D. Hartman, Maimonides, IV. See Maimonides' "Treatise on Resurrection" and "Eight Chapters," chap. VIII; D. Hartman, Maimonides, chap. IV.

49. M.T., "Laws of Repentance," IX, and "Kings and Wars," XII.

50. Guide, II, 25.

51. M.T., Hilkhot Talmud Torah, I, 11-12. See I. Twersky, "Some Non-Halaklic Aspects of the Mishneh Torah," pp. 111-118.

52. Urbach, The Sages, chap. XII.

COMMENT

ISAAC FRANCK

Dr. Hartman devotes a very substantial part of his paper to an exposition of the dialectical tension in the millennial mainstream of Jewish theological and metaphysical thought, between the two ideas of God: on the one hand the Biblical - Halakhic - liturgical - psychosocial - anthropocentric - emotive - personal - mitzvah oriented idea of the God of human history and of the history of Israel; and on the other hand the contemplative - speculative - conceptual - theoretical - analytico-logico-philosophical - abstract idea of a "wholly other," distant, imperturbable God, Whom one loves disinterestedly, with a metaphysical and intellectual love akin to Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis. Where I would be inclined to question Dr. Hartman is:

The fact of course is that the tension between these two God-ideas has persevered throughout the centuries, and is very much a dynamic focus in the thought and writings of such 20th century philosophers of Judaism as Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Abraham J. Heschel, Mordecai M. Kaplan, Emil Fackenheim, Louis Jacobs, and in Israel, Yeshayahu Leibovitz and others. But perhaps the most cogent evidence of the continuing tension is conspicuously discernible (l) in the spirited and ever self-renewing controversies around the philosophical views of Maimonides that have punctuated without abatement the history of Jewish thought from the l3th century to our own day; and (2) in Maimonides' own assessments of his philosophical idea of God. It was not only Isaac Husik¹ and Julius Guttman,² preeminent historians of medieval Jewish thought, who saw the disjunction between Maimonides the philosopher in The Guide of the Perplexed, and Maimonides the Halakhist in his Code (the Mishneh Torah) and his other works in Halakhic Judaism. Maimonides' contemporaries and those commentators who wrote about his work during the two centuries immediately following him--men like Shem Tov Falaquera,³ Kaspi,⁴ Narboni,⁵ Shem Tov,⁶ Anatoli,⁷ Ephodi,⁸ and others--had many ambivalences and evidenced many dialectical tensions about the Maimonidean doctrine of God. They perceived in the idea of a remote, wholly other God--who is totally unaffected by human feelings and conduct, who does not respond with anger or joy to human transgression or worship, and whom the philosopher truly worships only through detached contemplation--a threat to the received idea of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Jewish people's traditional God of history, Giver of the Commandments, and Dispenser of reward and punishment, and to civil and political tranquility. One of these very early commentators, J. Kaspi, wrote: "If the people were to find out about this doctrine, they would not be able to tolerate this truth, and would grow wild and uncontrollable in their conduct."⁹ It is thus not to be wondered that in some Jewish communities the study of The Guide of the Perplexed was banned, and in many of the Yeshivot, the Talmudic Academies in Eastern Europe, the study of The Guide was forbidden.

As for Maimonides himself, it seems clear to me--and in this I follow the interpretation of the late very great scholar, Leo Strauss,¹⁰ and also of a short and neglected work, in Hebrew, by an Israeli scholar, Yaacov Becker¹¹--that Maimonides had in mind two distinct, though over lapping, audiences for the Code (i.e., the Mishneh Torah) and for The Guide, respectively. He wrote the Mishneh Torah principally for the masses and teachers of the Jewish community with the objective of strengthening, elevating, deepening, enriching their commitment to Torah Judaism, their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their dedication to a life of inspired ethical rectitude and nobility, and to a society of justice and mercy. For that audience, the fulfillment of the commandments and a sense of reciprocal personal relationship and involvement with the God who was the source of these commandments were the methodologies for the pursuit of these goals.

The Guide was written for a select audience of religiously committed Jews who had been exposed to philosophical and scientific ideas, analyses and speculations. They were struggling with doubts and perplexities which science and philosophy raised in their minds about aspects of their faith, and were in search of a cogent philosophical frame of reference for their Judaism. In The Guide Maimonides hoped to provide answers to those troubled by these doubts and perplexities, erect for them a firm philosophical foundation for Judaism, and thus strengthen their commitment to it. He hoped that there could be a steady and even accelerated increase in the overlap of the two groups, facilitated in part by exposing the small number of the philosophically-minded intellectual elite to a searching analysis of "the reasons for the commandments" - ta'amei hamitzvet - in relation to the Maimonidean philosophical God-idea.

Contained in The Guide, at times explicitly pointed to and at other times hinted by indirection, was what Maimonides preferred to have remain a secret doctrine, not to be revealed to the community, a doctrine of a distant, totally different, imperturbable God, true worship of Whom takes the form of intellectual love and contemplation. Maimonides distinguishes in several places in The Guide between "true belief" and "necessary belief," "Emunah Amitit" and "Emunah Hekhrahit." True belief is the philosopher's belief in the philosophers' God, a God Who does not need customary worship, Who is totally unaffected by whether or not the Halakhah or the Commandments are fulfilled, Who does not get angry and does not rejoice (these are only anthropomorphic metaphors). On the other hand, belief in the God of traditional Halakhah, the God of the Commandments, Maimonides calls necessary belief, necessary for the people, for the maintenance of social tranquility, for a civilized social order, and for humane conduct toward each other on the part of humans. The careful reader of The Guide will note how often Maimonides refers to the "Ormah elohit," i.e., "God's shrewdness" in having ordained the ritual laws and observances, not because God has any need for them, but as a "ruse" (Shlomo Pines' translation), a kind of trick in order to reduce cruelty and injustice and achieve just and humane relationships among humans. For example, the cult of animal sacrifices was ordained in order to wean away the people of Israel from human sacrifices, a barbaric cult that was widespread among the pagan idol worshippers who surrounded Israel at that time.¹² Other such "Divine Ruses" are referred to in The Guide.

The obvious question that confronts us is, why should this Maimonidean, detached, wholly other, imperturbable God be sufficiently perturbed to have any concern for the justice and tranquility of the social order among humans, or for the fulfillment of Commandments generally? And why should the philosopher, who understands the true belief and the passion for the intellectual contemplation and love of God, be concerned with fulfilling the Commandments? In the text of The Guide, using an example, the question takes this form: "For God, and for the philosopher, what difference does it make whether the animal to be eaten is slaughtered by the prescribed, ritual, humane method, or whether its meat is simply cut from the flank of the living animal¹³--(again a widespread practice among the pagans of the time)?" Permit me to defer the answer to this question while I turn to a very brief consideration of the second theme in this commentary.

In characterizing the Philosophical God-Idea of Maimonides, Dr. Hartman quite properly and vigorously stressed the AntiIdolatry motif constantly reiterated throughout Jewish teaching about God, and especially the forceful and aggressive Anti-Idolatry of Maimonides. One surpassingly important element in the Philosophical God-Idea developed at length in Maimonides' Guide is the utter unknowability of God by the human mind.¹⁴ God's essence is completely unknown to man; only His existence is known. No affirmative attributes can be attributed to God. God is completely, utterly unknown and unknowable. "Our knowledge of God," says Maimonides, "consists in our knowledge that we are unable to comprehend Him."¹⁵ The Guide's theology is a radical Negative Theology. What is known to man is necessarily known to him in terms of human knowledge, as he knows the world of his existence. Now, God can not be known to man because essential knowledge of God is available only to God himself. According to Maimonides, for man to try to know God is as if man tried to be God.¹⁶ This doctrine is summarized in a sort of precept: "Ilu y'dativ, he-yitiv," "If I knew Him, I would be He," a precept found in Joseph Albo's "Ikkarim."¹⁷

The doctrine of the utter unknowability of God is ancient in Jewish Philosophy. It was well developed by Philo,¹⁸ reiterated by Saadia¹⁹ in the l0th century, and by Maimonides, Albo, and later philosophers of Judaism. But Maimonides espoused a radical negative theology. He formulated the vigorous warning that ". . . he who affirms that God has positive attributes . . . has abandoned his belief in the existence of God without being aware of it."²⁰ No wonder then that Maimonides admonished the reader of The Guide that the doctrine of God's unknowability "Should not be divulged (or revealed) to the masses,"²¹ and that Leo Strauss suggested that this teaching ". . . contradicts the teaching of the law . . . and is even subversive."²²

But this doctrine, though apparently heterodox, is of even more ancient vintage. The prophet Isaiah is quoted by Maimonides in the course of his exposition of the unknowability of God, and in support of this doctrine. Isaiah declared, in the name of God: "Lo mahshvotai mahshvoteikhem, v'lo darkeikhem d'rakhai . . . ." "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways . . . ."²³ However, my own interpretation is, though I believe it to be hinted by Maimonides, that this doctrine of God's unknowability dates back even further, to Moses. When Moses inquired of God, "Who shall I say sent me?" the reply Moses heard was the incomprehensible and awesome words, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh . . . ,"²⁴ generally translated as "I am who I am,' or "I will be who I will be," the words confronted him with a double incomprehensibility. First, the meaning of the words, simply as words, was incomprehensible. Second, the Being to Whom the words ostensibly referred was incomprehensible. Moses later pursued the enigma by asking God to show him His (God's) nature. In the reply that Moses received to this later question are provided implicitly the unravelling and separation from each other of the two earlier enigmas. For in hearing God's reply, "Ki lo yir'ani ha'adam vahai . . . ," ". . . for man cannot see me and live . . . ,"²⁵ Moses learned that the Entity or Being to which "Ehyeh" refers is indeed, and must forever remain, incomprehensible. But he also learned that the linguistic problem is resolved, and that the meaning of the words "ehyeh asher ehyeh" perhaps ceases to be impenetrable. Though God gives it as the answer to the question about His identity, the locution "ehyeh" is not substantival, it is not the equivalent of a noun; it is not a name of anything; least of all is it a proper name, like Socrates. The locution is an admonition, a directive, which says "Do not inquire into what I am, because I am incomprehensible. I am what I am, ask no further. Man cannot know me, I am wholly different."

This doctrine of God's utter unknowability is the ultimate anti-idolatry. It is possible for us to know only what God is not, and what is not God. "Only God is God."²⁶ Anything known or knowable is not God. God is utterly different and unique. To worship anything known or knowable is idolatry. To give one's ultimate and absolute allegiance or loyalty to anything but God, to any known or knowable thing, to any person, or aggregate of persons, or to any human institution, is idolatry. It is only that wholly other, utterly unknowable God of Philosophy that is worthy of contemplation and of pure, disinterested, intellectual love.

Now, you may ask, isn't this radical Negative Theology barren of consequences, morally vacuous, tantamount to a vague mysticism, and destructive of any Rational Theology? I think not. It is not Mysticism, because it does not itself claim to have, and radically rejects all claims to the possession of, any access to some intuitive mystical insight into the essential nature of God. The fact that God is unknown is a mystery, but this does not make the doctrine of God's unknowability a doctrine of Mysticism. The doctrine is not destructive of Rational Theology, because it is not a Theology of silence, akin to the Wittgensteinian precept: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent." On the contrary, this Theology imposes on the theologian who espouses it the duty to do a lot of talking, by way of "unsaying,"²⁷ morning, noon, and night, all the many things that humans have said and will continue to be saying in their talk about God, even when they claim that God is unknowable. It is not an ethically vacuous doctrine. It does have ethical consequences.

Which leads me to my third and final theme, namely the answer to the question I mentioned earlier, as to why the Imperturbable God, and the philosopher who contemplates and disinterestedly loves Him, should be at all concerned about the traditional commandments. Here I complete the circle, and come around to an agreement with one aspect of Professor Hartman's thesis, though I arrive at it from another direction. It is perhaps paradoxical, but in Judaism even the non-anthropocentric, philosophical, idea of an utterly different God converges toward the Halakhic, socio-ethical, Commandment-oriented traditional mandates for social existence.

l) For Maimonides, the highest, most noble pursuit of the philosophical Jew is indeed the contemplative love of God. However, a necessary condition, that may make possible this kind of contemplative life for an increasing number of philosophically minded persons, is a Torah-society. Its norms and adherence to Commandments will assure the tranquil, just, and civilized order that maintains the conditions for a philosophical life.

2) If only the unknowable God of Radical Negative Theology is worthy of worship--of the highest, ultimate, absolute loyalty and allegiance--this has consequences for social ethics, for norms and prescriptions by which to govern interhuman relationships. In all human societies there is an unavoidable, inescapable need for the exercise of authority, for superordinate and subordinate relationships and positions of humans in the social order. A traffic light system is an exercise of the authority, and a police system enforces this authority. What are the limits of authority of humans and human institutions in a society?

Therefore, in the perspective of Radical Negative Theology, what are the limits of the authority of humans and human institutions when they perform necessary superordinate roles in relation to other human beings? It seems to me immediately and most obviously entailed by this doctrine that no human being(s), no human institution, no human law, may demand or expect or coerce the supreme, ultimate, and total allegiance, loyalty, or obedience on the part of any other human being. No human being(s) or institutions may "play God" toward, or "Lord it over" any other human being. No human(s) may exercise any absolute authority over any other person. The exercise of such absolute authority over other humans is self-idolization; it is the "absolutization of the relative;" and it also coerces the victim who accepts such absolute authority to in fact practice idolatry: ". . . for unto Me are the children of Israel servants, not servants to servants."²⁸

Thus, the otherness and unknowability of God in the Maimonidean, philosophical God-idea, the true God-idea which Maimonides wished to keep secret from the masses, does entail a system of social ethics. But the masses were not prepared to understand and accept the true beliefs about God and live by them. Indeed, these true beliefs would be likely to lead the masses to violent and disorderly conduct. They need the necessary beliefs, e.g., that God is a dispenser of reward and punishment, not because they are true, but rather as a means to an end, in order to maintain a civilized society.

Maimonides does not provide a traditionalist resolution between these two divergent God-ideas, nor does he claim to have done so. The disjunction between these two God-ideas seems to me irresolvable in traditionalist terms, and while the attempt so to resolve it is an interesting exercise, its product strikes me as only an addition to almost 800 years of tension and confusion, rather than as a contribution to clarity. This tension will continue, and, not withstanding the tension, the spiritual and intellectual vocation of Judaism will struggle on as heretofore. Philosophically, what is important is not resolution, but rather clarification, a very modest adumbration of which I have tried to contribute in this brief commentary.

Kennedy Institute of Ethics

Georgetown University

Washington, D.C.

1. Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1941).

2. Julius Guttmann, Philosohies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964).

3. Shem Tov Falaquera (1225-1290), Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed (Moreh Hamoreh).

4. Joseph Kaspi (1279-ca.1340), Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed, and Amudei Hakessef Umaskiyot Hakessef.

5. Moses Narbeni (R. Moses Yosef of Narbonne) (died after 1362), Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed, Goldenthal, ed. (Vienna, 1852) (See Husik, Fn. 1 above, p. 449.)

6. Shem Tov Ben Joseph (ca. 1461-1489), Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed.

7. Joseph Anateli (ca. 1194-1256), Malmad Hatalmidim.

8. Ephodi, (a Hebrew acronym for Profiat Duran) (died ca. 1414), Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed.

9. Joseph Kaspi Amudei Hakessef Umaskiyot Hakessef, p. 8.

10. Leo Strauss, "The Literary Character of the Guide for the Perplexed," in Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1952), pp. 38-94.

11. Yaacov Becker, Mishnato Haphilosophit Shel Rabbenu Moshe Ben Maimon (Tel Aviv: J. Shimoni Publishing House, 1955).

12. Moses Maimonidos, Guide of the Perplexed, Shlomo Pines, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), III, 32 (pp. 526, 530-531 in Pines' translation) and III, 47 (p. 593 in Pines' translation). On the "Divine ruse," see e.g., Guide III, 32, especially pp. 526-529 in Pines' translation.

13. Guide, III, 26, pp. 508-509 in Pines' translation.

14. Guide, I, 51-60.

15. Ibid., I, 59, p. 139.

16. Ibid., I, 60, and III, 21, p. 485 in Pines' translation.

17. Joseph Albo, Sefer Ha-Ikkarim (The Book of Principles) Isaac Husik, trans. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1946). Volume II, p. 206.

18. Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), Vol. II, Chap. 11, pp. 94-164.

19. Gaon Saadia, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Samuel Rosenblatt, trans., (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1948).

20. Guide, I, 60, p. 145 in Pines' translation.

21. Ibid., I, 59, p. 142 in Pines' translation.

22. Leo Strauss, "How to Begin to Study the Guide of the Perplexed," in Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, Shelmo Pines, trans., pp. xlviii ff.

23. Isaiah, LV, 8-9.

24. Exodus, III, 14.

25. Ibid., XXXIII, 21.

26. Elliott E. Cohen, in an article in the early 40's.

27. Anton C. Pegis, "Penitus Manet Ignotum," in Mediaeval Studies, XXVII (1965), pp. 212-226, especially pp. 219 ff.

28. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin, 22b.

PHILOSOPHY,

MAN AND THE ABSOLUTE GOD:

AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

BAHRAM JAMALPUR

It is necessary to clarify the precise meaning of four fundamental concepts: philosophy, independence, man and God.

Philosophy, by its very nature, is the reflection upon reflection; as the reason of all reasons, philosophy is the primordial search for the ultimate horizon of meaning. In intellectual history, there are two fundamental definitions of philosophy:

2. Philosophy as the Possession of Wisdom

What most concerns the Eastern world, and particularly the Islamic tradition, is the philosophy as the possession of wisdom.

No matter which definition of philosophy appeals to us, however, we are talking about human philosophy and not philosophy as such. Whatever the ultimate and the Divine ground of philosophy may be, philosophy as a human phenomenon begins with man and is essentially related to humanity in general.

Philosophy does not belong to any particular man, race, society, nation, language or religion. By the grace of God, it is the outcome of human understanding which calls itself into question and so transcends all conceivable categories. Most certainly and on contrast to what the late Professor M. Heidegger has claimed, philosophy is not Western in its essence, nor is the only proper philosophical language not Greco-German. Philosophy is not the slave of any race, language or religion, because Wisdom in its very essence transcends all traditions. Philosophy begins with the presence of man in the world, encompasses all cultures and hopes for the transcendence of man in order to comprehend the Ultimate Mystery.

Independence is a mystery that unfolds itself throughout man's history but never reveals itself in any perfect form since for man, as a limited being in the world, there can be no Absolute Independence. Note that by independence we do not mean liberation. Independence is above and beyond liberation. One attempts to liberate one's self in order to become independent and yet one may become liberated without achieving true independence. Liberation as a political concept by necessity assumes a prior period of its negation, but independence as a positive ontological phenomenon must itself be independent; thus it is a self-asserting concept.

For men of Wisdom there can be no true independence without an authentic philosophy of independence and there can be no genuine philosophy of independence without the veritable independence of philosophy itself. The ground of independent philosophy is man's self-consciousness in time and in history. Therefore we must unfold the notion of man in the light of self-consciousness and within the mystery of time and the context of history.

What is man? Man is a being in space and time: the former accounts for his material dimension whereas the latter constitutes an essential dimension of his spirituality. Man, in truth, is a temporal being; he is a-being-in-the-world who experiences the process of becoming, which conditions his very being. This conditioning is so fundamental that it manifests itself in his entire system of thought. As an objective being in the world of becoming he experiences a collection of factual events which we call the objective or the quantitative sense of time. However, due to his reflective power of consciousness man, as an internally dynamic being, is able to go beyond the objective perspective and condition his environment through what we may call the subjective or the qualitative sense of time. It is the subjective interpretation of the objective world of temporal events that creates history.

Man is an historical being. In the light of quantitative time, history creates man and, in the light of qualitative time, man creates history. Matter, in the sphere of body, is the symbol of the will to power. Spirit, in the sphere of consciousness, is the symbol of the will to love. The ontological unity of power and love is the symbol of the will to justice which constitutes humanity within society and history.

In substance, "spirit" has two essential dimensions: first, the inner self-identity or "I" which asserts itself from within and by means of reflection upon itself; and second, the qualitative manifestation of the ego in time and through history. Both aspects of the phenomenon of history are truly necessary and complementary for the everlasting search for meaning in the realm of self-consciousness. The first aspect is the ground of self-identity so that the spirit may be identified by human consciousness and retain its ego throughout history. The second aspect is the ground of the temporality of spirit which permits it to unfold through the mystery of time, and to leap beyond factuality in order to comprehend the transcendental aspect of history.

If "spirit" were limited to the ego it would have lacked the necessary "elan vital" for its conscious unfoldingness, and if it were limited to pure manifestations then it would have lost its self-identity. Therefore, spirit by nature must possess both ego or reflection upon itself, and manifestations or the unfolding through time and history.

The ultimate hope of any spirit is to become truly and completely conscious of itself, and this is completely realized only when the implicit unity of the spirit becomes explicit. The ontological assertion of the explicit unity of spirit can be observed when the will to power and justice are united in and through love. In the light of the spirit, the qualitative interpretation of time, which constitutes history, provides us with the possibility of authentic self-consciousness, which in the form of philosophy is the ground of independence.

We must remember that man can become politically free yet remain philosophically dependent. In order to become philosophically free, philosophy itself must experience independence. In truth, it is the destiny of philosophy to experience independence and gain freedom. Philosophy as the possession of Wisdom calls itself into question and for this reason after confrontation with various other disciplines asks about itself in a manner that transcends all limitations. In fact, it is the duty of philosophy, not only to confront other disciplines but also to confront itself and provide us with a critique of its own.

In the beginning religion based on revelation, science based on the study of facts, mysticism based on intuitive illumination, and philosophy based on reason, were all unified in their search for Truth as it revealed itself on the human horizon. But in the course of history, a necessary yet only a temporal separation took place, so that philosophy might have a chance to reflect objectively upon other disciplines while developing its own self-awareness. Despite this fundamental separation, we must never forget that the call for the harmony of religion, science, mysticism and philosophy has been with us from the very beginning. The foundation for such assertion is the belief in the ultimate Unity of Being (Wahdat al-Wujud). The ultimate recall of Eastern Wisdom in general and Islamic Philosophy in particular is the awareness of various levels of human understanding despite the unity of the whole. This is the ultimate reason why philosophy, after its early separation, must return to the state of togetherness with religion, science, and mysticism. Philosophy at the level of self-awareness through independence, becomes completely conscious of this primordial duty. According to this line of reasoning, this discussion does not center about a purely exclusive philosophy, but rather is devoted to the spirit of independent philosophy within the Islamic tradition.

There are two basic schools of thought within the Islamic tradition, namely, Falsafa and Irfan. Unquestionably Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Malavi (Rumi) are the best representatives of these Islamic movements. Consequently, we will devote the rest of our discussion to a comparison of their notions of the Absolute God.

The most fundamental presupposition of Islamic thought is that God and Man are so essentially related that, for us, the full understanding of one demands the full knowledge of the other. Man cannot know man if he does not know God, and man cannot know God if he does not know man. We must not forget, however, that such assertion does not deny the absolute priority of God's Being and the knowledge of God over man, since such claim is valid only in relationship to man and not in itself. God has created man in His image, which implies that man possesses the image of God. Furthermore, since God does nothing in vain and there is nothing accidental about His divine intentions, God must have great love for man, whom He has created in His image. This love by its very nature encompasses man's being and overflows from his inner being; in the final analysis it must return to its origin. In short, God has a unique love for man and man, as the image of God, has a unique love for God.

According to Islam, God's love for man, which is ontologically prior to the creation of man, is a mystery, even to the angels. The angels ask God why He wants to create man as His own representative on earth rather than angels, since man shall commit sin whereas angels will not. God's answer to such a common sense objection in The Holy Quran is that "I know what you do not know."¹ A mystery even in the angels, God's love for man is a mysterious reality, even to man. Whatever the reason behind such a gift, man's love for God, which in the beginning under the grace of God was in harmony with God's love, is ontologically dependent upon God's love for man.

The temporal break of this mysterious relationship, according to The Holy Quran, is based on disobedience which is attributed, first of all to Satan² as the personification of evil and second, to man who possesses a weakness for evil as a separation from God.³ If religion is taken to be what The Holy Quran tells us, namely, "The Way to God," then the purpose of Islam as the universal religion becomes clear. It is to awaken man and restore the temporally interrupted relationship so that, through submission to God's will, man can possess his unity with the whole creation, know himself, and finally, love God for whom he has been created. This is a well-understood objective of Islam which has been accepted by almost all Muslim thinkers. Therefore, the Muslim philosopher has one ultimate purpose in mind, namely, to make explicit the mystery of the God-man relationship which is expressed so implicitly in the highly symbolic language of The Holy Quran. Performing such a noble task, the philosopher must know, not only God, but also man. Knowing that he is inwardly related to himself and existentially so involved in the mysterious relationship to God, the philosopher may begin with himself, and then in the light of the divine grace, seek to know God. But the real knowledge of man comes after the philosopher becomes aware of the divine reality and realizes the image of God. Only then can he make explicit the implicit mysterious relationship of God and man which ontologically are never separate, yet whose relationship is temporally broken.

Let us now begin with the notion of God, which has the utmost priority in the Islamic world, and focus our analysis on the comparison of Inb Sina and Molavi's understanding of God in terms of Being.

The philosophies of the Sina and Molavi both center around Being, since without Being Ibn Sina's esoteric metaphysics would not make any sense. Therefore, we may say that there is an implicit fundamental agreement between Ibn Sina and Molavi that Being is the mystery of Hikmat. Our aim in this section is to present a view of Being which through synthesis can encompass the essential assertions of both the esoteric approach of Ibn Sina and the mystical approach of Molavi, and yet point to the dialectical tension between two Muslim thinkers. Whatever the mystery of Being may be, both Ibn Sina and Molavi agree on the following four main points: First of all, Being cannot be reduced to merely a notion in our mind, since it implies reality in itself, and reality cannot be reduced to a sheer subjective notion. Therefore, any philosophical system that reduces the meaning of Being simply to an abstract term that can exist only in man's mind stands outside this tradition. Second, man does not begin his search from non-being but rather from an implicit awareness of Being, and this is not acquired through abstraction but is given to man. Third, whatever the implicit meaning of Being may be, it cannot be defined,⁴ since it is most primordial. Fourth, man must seek to make explicit the notion of Being, not by sheer conceptualization and abstraction, but through "intuition" and in the light of illumination.⁵

One of the fundamental presuppositions of Ibn Sina is the implicit assumption of his ontology that there is a correspondence between the transcendent Being in reality and being as the transcendental concept. On the one had, Being in reality which transcends all beings is intelligible in itself, since its origin is Thought Thinking Thought. On the other hand, Being is the first transcendental concept, which transcends all concepts and comes into man's intellect as the root of his intelligibility. Being in the objective world of reality is the most real and so the most intelligible, which gives reality and meaning to all other beings. Being, in the subjective world of man, is the most universal and so the most intelligible idea which gives reality and meaning to all other concepts.

Since every true concept corresponds to a real being, the hope of man is to reach an understanding of the transcendental concept of Being which would mirror the real transcendent Being in reality. Man can accomplish this task, only because he is a bridge between the objective world of reality, since he is a being in the world, and the subjective world of intellection, since he is in the possession of his own intellect. Man must seek to make explicit the implicit notion of Being so that he may realize The Pure Being of God, which is Thought Thinking Thought.⁶ Although Ibn Sina never loses sight of conceptualization and argumentation, in his more esoteric writings⁷ he not only points to the limitations of logic but emphasizes the utmost importance of "intuition" which comes from the Divine Illumination through the Agent Intellect.

According to Ibn Sina, in the light of two fundamental logical notions that man's intellect acquires without any inference, namely, "necessary" and "possible," man realizes the meaning attached to the Necessary Being and the Possible Being.⁸ Being, in the fullest sense, refers to the Necessary Being or God. Therefore, once the meaning of God as the Necessary Being in and through itself is understood, then its denial involves a necessary contradiction.⁹ Thus, in the fullest sense, Being, the first transcendental concept, refers only to the Necessary Being in itself, which transcends all beings. Now insofar as Being represents the being of a created world, namely, the possible being, whether it be necessary through another or possible in and through itself it points not only to the emanation of God in the possible world, but also the presence of the meaning of Being in every possible concept.

On this level, on which the term Being is applied for ten categories, one substance and nine accidents, Ibn Sina warns us against the view that Being is simply a name which, not on the basis of one meaning, is shared by ten categories. For if this were the case, then the meaning of "substance is" would be the same as "this is a substance," and to assert that "substance is" would be the same as "substance substance," which are absurd consequences. If Being would not be used for ten categories, according to one meaning, then we would have ten meanings of being and then ten meanings of nothing, which is absurd, since we would not be able to say that an entity either is or is not.¹⁰ Then Ibn Sina tells us that Being is not a genus because, unlike a genus which is applied equally to all of its species, the meaning of Being in the created world refers first to a substance and secondly, to accidents; and in the realm of accidents, first to quality and quantity and secondly, to other more dependent accidents.

Molavi, however, does not quite agree with the parallel hierarchy of beings and concepts in Ibn Sina's ontology, where Being as reality transcends all beings and Being as "Idea" is the first transcendental over all concepts. Molavi has no quarrel with Being as reality. He agrees with Ibn Sina that Being, insofar as it points to Reality in its most primordial sense, refers to God. Being in itself is God, and God in Himself is Being.¹¹ But Molavi disagrees with Ibn Sina on three accounts: First of all, Molavi denies the possibility of man ever having a concept that may mirror God.¹² Of course, there is no disagreement between the two thinkers as to the impossibility of a finite being such as man ever being able to perceive The Infinity.¹³ Molavi opposes Ibn Sina's construction of a positive notion of the Necessary Being in itself, which though, it transcends all of our concepts, yet as the first transcendental, can reflect God. Molavi insists that any true awareness of God, which is mystical in its nature, is by no means bound either to an ordinary or a transcendental concept. Man possesses no concept of God, since God is understood in terms of "The Vision" which provides no ground for an image or a direct rational concept. Man becomes aware of God in terms of what we may call Beyong Being--a Pure Non-Conceptual Vision of Truth--that only "The Great Silence" can communicate.¹⁴ Second, based on the denial of the positive concept of God, Molavi disagrees with Ibn Sina that the discursive philosophy, by its very nature, can gain any Divine Insight. Of course, Molavi takes the discursive philosophy to be nothing but a system of rational construction founded on a limited tool called logic which, in fact, is taken to be a barrier against the true vision.

Molavi's objection at this point, which appears a number of times in Masnavi,¹⁵ is quite unfair and misleading since, as we indicated before, Ibn Sina's metaphysics is so related to the esoteric ontology that by no means can it be reduced to a simple logical system. In the theology of Isharat va Tanbihat,¹⁶ Ibn Sina claims that there are two different, yet related, channels to truth. One is "The Discursive Method," which provides a system of knowledge, and the other "The Intuitive Method," which provides the vision of Truth. Ibn Sina points to the beginning and the end of human knowledge as the sphere of "intuition," which implies that although logic is used, its application is limited to a sphere between two realms of "intuition." Yet in a rare occasion in Danishnamah-i `Ala'i¹⁷ he asserts that all knowledge is first found by "intuition" and that the discursive method is limited to teaching. Thus, he admits not only the possibility but even the actuality of a mystical knowledge when all is seen through "intuition."¹⁸ Also, the language of The Recital of Bird bears witness that when it comes to the vision of Truth, man acquires a different mode of consciousness.¹⁹ On the basis of these remarks, it seems that Molavi has misunderstood Ibn Sina's philosophy by reducing the system to the surface of Shifa; yet it is fair to note that the difference between the two thinkers still remains, since Molavi totally denies the value of any discursive thinking and asserts that only Intuition provides us with the vision of God. Third, Molavi, unlike Ibn Sina, applies to the world a paradoxical statement, namely, that on the one hand, the world is real insofar as only God is Real.

It seems that what Ibn Sina conceives about the notion of "Matter" Molavi applies to the created world. "The Prime Matter for Ibn Sina is not nothing but a `negative potentiality' that possesses no form."²⁰ This, of course, leads to two basic problems: First of all, how can God create what possesses no form? Second, since creation is understood as the outcome of God's knowledge, how can God know that which has no actuality? Whatever the possible solutions to these unsolvable problems may be, it is clear that "the Prime Matter" is so far removed from the Divine emanation that one may say that it possesses no being.²¹ Molavi, who does not believe in the Aristotelian notion of matter,²² applies a similar paradox to the created world, namely, that when it is taken to be Being, then God is Beyond Being, and when God is seen as true reality, then the world, though it is the manifestation of God, possesses no being of its own; and in truth, the world qua world is Nothing.²³

In order to grasp Molavi's understanding of God, we must focus our attention on the notion of the Absolute. The Absolute, by definition, is the unconditional reality that conditions all reality since it transcends Being, and so we may call it Beyond Being. In its "ultimateness" it stands above the logical, the epistemological, and the existential dichotomy of subject and object. The unconditional Absolute, by virtue of being the Absolute, can neither be considered an object nor a subject. The Absolute is not an object, since it is not a non-reflective entity. The Absolute is not a subject, since for every subject there is an object that stands outside of its realm, whereas the Absolute is such that none can stand outside of its sphere.

In truth, the Absolute encompasses the subject and the object, Being and non-Being. The Absolute, on the one hand, is above the subject and object dichotomy and, therefore, cannot be approached either as an object or a subject; on the other hand, the Absolute is so close both to the object and the subject that "knows" them qua object and qua subject through "love." This is because, although the Absolute in itself is beyond and beyond, owing to its ultimate desire to be known through love, it manifests Itself, which constitutes the world of subject and object dichotomy. The world is a mirror that reflects God implicitly whereas man in the world is a polished mirror that reflects upon this reflection and becomes the explicit mirror of God.

Since without man the world is nothing but an unpolished mirror; then we may say that without man the world cannot love God. Man then not only completes "the circle of existential manifestation," but by loving God, gives meaning to the world. Because nothing stands outside of the Absolute, man as knowing God through love, is nothing but the highest manifestation of The Absolute Loving The Absolute.²⁴ Thus, Molavi rightly claims that through love as true union, all are absorbed by and through the Absolute. Therefore, the mystic can "see" that, in truth, there is no other reality but the Absolute.

For the sake of comparison, let us once again reflect on the fundamental notion of God in Molavi's mystical ontology and Ibn Sina's esoteric metaphysics. First of all, both thinkers agree that there is a reality named God who is the Absolute One. God is the Absolute because He stands above the object and subject dichotomy and, therefore, can be considered neither a thing nor a limited consciousness. The Absolute God is One because there is none like God. We must note at this point that although both Ibn Sina and Molavi make use of non-Platonic language concerning God, their notion of God cannot simply be identified with Plotinus. For Plotinus "The One" has no duality, and since knowledge implies the duality of the subject and the object, One is taken to be above thought, so that It cannot know itself or any other being.²⁵

As we indicated before, Ibn Sina defines The Absolute as Thought Thinking Thought and Molavi, although he admits to the unmanifested simple Absolute which is totally present to Itself, claims that the Absolute in Its manifestation is thought which seeks to be known through Itself. This brings us to the first seed of disagreement, namely, when Ibn Sina uses the term "One" he means the absolute simplicity of God's unconditional reality, which necessitates that from "One" comes only "one." Molavi, however, has no quarrel with "the unconditional," since he also believes that, with the exception of man, none can condition God. But Molavi cannot admit to the absolute simplicity of God in the sense that Ibn Sina uses this rather complex terminology because, for Molavi, there are two dimensions of the Absolute, the not-manifested and the manifested.