Saving God by Johnston Mark

Author:Johnston, Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2009-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

There is a thing inherent and natural

Which existed before heaven and earth

Motionless and fathomless it stands alone and never changes

It pervades everywhere and never becomes exhausted

. . .

I do not know its name, but I call it Tao

I name it Transcendent.

Now: there is a profound inner tension introduced into monotheism by these reflections on the tetragrammaton. If the Highest One has actually announced that he is Being or Existence Itself, then much of what counts as sacred writ and law is merely a projection of our anxieties and fixations onto the Highest One.

It is no good trying to dismiss that thought by repeating the old denigrating remarks about the god of faith versus the god of the philosophers; for, as Benedict himself emphasizes, the god of faith introduces himself in terms that invite characterization by way of Greek, and in particular Platonic, philosophical idiom.

If the Highest One is Existence Itself, then much of the description of the Highest One in the three monotheisms is at best metaphor, allegory, a series of honorific titles, or a web of analogy. Existence Itself cannot literally be “a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.”

That kind of consideration has itself led many to simply reject Existence Itself as “the god of the philosophers, not the god of faith.” But that familiar gambit is busted once we think ourselves inside the ban on idolatry (a main point of the foregoing). For as we shall see, once Existence Itself truly comes into view, it is then much more difficult (though not impossible) to conceive of a Higher One. And after Existence Itself comes more clearly into view, it will seem patently idolatrous to regard the anthropomorphic accretions of this or that historical faith as definitive of the Highest One.

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