Is The Ineffable an empty concept?

[tentative]

Hi Ucc,

I’m almost done for the day so this is going to be short.The ineffable is just that. Past words, but it isn’t to say that is has no existence. It simply has no existence than can be expressed in words. It is beyond that which is manifest. I place my comments in religion because that is where discussion of spiritual understanding seems to fit. I enjoy science or any other discussion of the observable universe and that is the realm of social sciences , natural sciences, psychology, or even philosophy in that much of that which is discussed has manifest observable constituancy.

Hope this makes some sense, otherwise, tomorrow, my friend.

JT

[illativemindindeed]

@Uccisore

Suppose I have a very special dog. Unlike most dogs, which tend to have a definite form, a certain number of legs, and so on, my dog doesn’t have any qualities I can name. The only thing I know about him is what he is not- that is to say, he is not limited by any human conception of dogness, he is not in a particular place, and does not bark in a particular language that only certain dogs can understand. Add to this that my dog is invisible, and unbound by all physical limitations like location and time.
My question is, why does this dog matter? It may or may not act in the world, but even if it does, I have no way of knowing what events are acts of dog, and which are not. Since I know nothing about my dog, I don’t know if it’s him scratching at the window, or the wind. I don’t know if I should leave food out for him, call to him, or any of that, for my dog may not have any of these needs, and even if he did, I may not be able to satisfy them with with my limited human conceptions of dog food.
Is an ineffable god any different than no god at all?

I apologize if I am reinterating what someone else might have said, I dont have time to read the entire thread yet.

To answer your question… no, there isnt a difference. But there is a difference between your conception of the ineffable dog and the ineffable God that sparked the inquiry for this thread (presumptuous of me on many levels, my bad). The ineffable God cant be completely explained, but its not entirely ineffable in the sense of knowledge. There are some things we know about what could be described as God. Hence there wouldnt be the word, or a definition attached to it. Basically, in its entirety, God (or whatever) is ineffable. But pieces of it are known. For instance, me and you. We could be considered pieces of this ineffable existence, which through its divisions are only known. <— my two cents.

[jeffl]

[size=150]HELLO?!?!?[/size]

@jeffl

The ‘effable’ aspect of God presents as Truth and Idea; and the speaking becomes the doing. Catharsis (i mean ‘the flash,’ the catharsis of the Cathars) is an Idea that includes and encompasses you, as opposed to you encompassing the idea.

In as much as something is completely ineffible, then i agree with you.

I realize that talking about the flash might draw attention to certain historical events and political structures; but that’s not a problem, is it?

I am quite sure that there is a measurable sequence of events in the brain that correspond to the flash and the subsequent visions; i have a feeling that the visions represent a semantic settling that occurs as a result of the catharsis. It seems to me likely that the semantic settling is itself an instance of natural (egoless) evolution. I would argue this as an ‘effable’ aspect of God; if Truth did not exist the this ‘flash’ wouldn’t happen.

I can see how if you didn’t want there to be ‘Truth’ then you wouldn’t adress this issue; but then what kind of philosopher would you be?

[Uccisore]

Something for you to think about until tomorrow (or whenever,) Tentative:

I certainly agree that this here is the best place for spiritual discussion. What I was asking is, what is it you think you know about the Ineffable that makes discussing it a spiritual matter?

[jeffl]

Why so offensive, Ucci?

[thirst4metal]

Hello F(r)iends,

@tentative

Yes, we can express what WE feel, believe, and understand, but it says nothing about all that we would call God, does it?

Of course it does. All we can call god is all that god can be to us…
What good is a god we don’t understand?
What value is there to you in a godless universe?
What value is there to you in a universe with a god that awe cannot understand?

A god we cannot understand, a god that cannot be expressed is a god that does not relate to us in any way… As Uccisore asks: why even talk about this type of unknowable, inexpressable concept? Surely there are some qualities of god that can be expressed? Otherwise, why the need for god, why the need for discussion on god? If god is everything, then everything we ascribe to god is not too far from accurate. If your “statements are about a personal spiritual nature”, and our “understanding of that which is”, why would you call this inexpressable, unknown, or ineffable?

-Thirst

[Mastriani]

All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.

thirst,

I won’t speak for brother tentative, but to my perception you are making the same mistake that others are making, and it coincides with tentative’s assertions about words.

Unknowable and inexpressable only as a matter of form. If I may, perhaps some questions for you, brother thirst:

What makes you presume to be able to understand and express formlessness, when all of your defintions are tied to form, and can express and understand nothing that is not of form?

What makes you presume that the limitless and infinite can be expressed and understood by means of the limited and finite?

What makes you presume that in defining “God” by your terms and limited capabilities, you have not made “God” less than “God”?

How does one of hydrocarbon matter define that which is only energy?

If I define thirst4truth by Mastriani’s words, thoughts and perceptions, have I not made you less you, and more me? Is this an accurate definition of thirst, or a bogus one subject to my quite possibly limited and erroneous beliefs?

The real question here is if we are allowed to limit God by our words, is it still God? Or is it just what we are capable and willing to accept of God, even though that brings God down to our level?

You do not relate to that which is beyond you by form, but by spirit. Only in spirit, separated from form will the ineffable become “known”. At which point, the “you” that is believed to exist, will cease, and God will be all there is … that is when you will “know”.

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

@Mastriani

All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.

This post is both funny and perceptive. An ineffable God is just another way of saying “I don’t know”. The problem becomes when someone believes that it is actually a valid statement of belief when actually it is a statement of agnosticism.

Main Entry: ag·nos·tic
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known, from gignOskein to know – more at KNOW
: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable;

Mr. Flanders,

You must certainly be making a jest here?

Agnosticism is far removed, and ultimately separate from a stance of ineffability. The remarkable thing about an agnostic is that they generally are unsure, uncertain, as to believing period.

Ineffable only means, not expressable in words. Plainly, not interchangeable, at all.
Sagesound

Even if it isn’t interchangeable, a person can still say when and where the experience occured, and what effects it had, thus hinting towards it and making it a bit easier to be found by others.
=)

[Mastriani]

All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.

Dan,

Or you could just be obfuscating the path of another with words that either have no meaning in their experience, or are wholly confusing, or wholly erroneous through the perception of an inexperienced person/mind???

[tentative]

Hi Ucc,

Nice Mothra! I knew you’d see the light.

What I was asking is, what is it you think you know about the Ineffable that makes discussing it a spiritual matter?

I really don’t think there is anything that can be put in word form that allows us to say more than the most vague about spirituality - anywhere. What I know of my spirituality simply isn’t expressible in words. As thirst has pointed out, given that we are part of all that is, including our spiritual nature, we can speak of the manifest universe as a part of that which we would call God, but any projection we make of that which is metaphysical is just that: a projection. What we may ‘know’ of the metaphysical is an impression, an intuitive sense of, but not a ‘knowing’, and goes past words or language.

Without boring everyone to tears, please consider what words really are. They are nothing but symbols that point toward reality. They are not reality itself. Most everyone here understands this and yet…

Consider the irony in this whole thread. I’ve been saying that words are incapable of expressing any knowing of God. But all the discourse has been carried forward in words! More over, the discussion has been more about returning or validating a word understanding of God and almost nothing about an individual’s experiencing of God. Why? Because each of our experiences is personal and not expressible in any way but the most vague and indeterminate. Each of us experiences from the tiniest of perspectives, using a system of expression (language) that is woefully inadequate in conveying reality. Still, we continue to say that God is this, God is that. We give authority to words without asking if there are any limitations to language.

So one more time, that which is, is ineffable. I refuse to put God in a box made of words. My sense of the nature of God is more than can be contained in language.

JT

[Uccisore]

This question needs some special attention:

tentative

Yes, we can express what WE feel, believe, and understand, but it says nothing about all that we would call God, does it?

 Yes, it must. If you feel, believe, and understand certain things about God, then expressing those things is saying something about God.  The possibility exists that you are wrong, sure, but if you thought you WERE in fact wrong, they would no longer be your beliefs and understandings. 
  But on a deeper level, what I'm talking about is the connection between God and these beliefs. If you have a certain feeling, and you believe that feeling is related to God - and not your mother, or a lawnmower- then you are making a claim about God. Namely, that God is somehow different from mothers or lawnmowers such that it can bring about this feeling in you. Again, think about the fox-tracks analogy I mentioned.  The very act of connecting anything you feel, believe, or understand to the Ineffable by saying they [i]pertain[/i] to one another makes a statement about God,  just the same as saying that 'these are fox tracks' makes an implied statement about the nature of a fox's feet. 

Now I’m going to get nit-picky, because this is an important issue.

I really don’t think there is anything that can be put in word form that allows us to say more than the most vague about spirituality - anywhere.

Since it is clear that people do say a great deal about spirituality, I'm going to have to dig a little deeper into this statement. When you say 'allows us to say', do you mean 'allows us to say with certainty' or 'allows us to say reasonably', or which exactly? 

What I know of my spirituality simply isn’t expressible in words. As thirst has pointed out, given that we are part of all that is, including our spiritual nature, we can speak of the manifest universe as a part of that which we would call God, but any projection we make of that which is metaphysical is just that: a projection.

I don't see this as radically different than how language is applied to anything else. It's all a projection.  A painting of a tree is far, far, different from a tree, but I would never say that trees are unpaintable. Also, I have doubts (expressed by Omar, I believe) that you can know [i]anything[/i] that isn't expressible by words. You imply as much above, but language is too deeply connected to thought, for me at least. 

What we may ‘know’ of the metaphysical is an impression, an intuitive sense of, but not a ‘knowing’, and goes past words or language.

 What we may know of rocks and trees and so on 'goes past' words or language insofar as I've understood you so far- but it suffices well enough in most cases.  Suppose I say 

“This ear of corn is big and yellow.”
This sentence is a small, paltry thing compared to the unique majesty that is an ear of corn- don’t mistake this for sarcasm. However, those few words are capable of bringing about a powerful, accurate mental image in my audience, provided my audience has themselves experienced corn before. It points at all those things that would be difficult or impossible to express in words, using common experience as a conduit.
If something in ineffable, the break-down must in one of two places. Either the speaker hasn’t the vocabulary to express themselves (which I doubt in your case), or the audience has no similar experience for the words to point at. Do either of these describe the reason you feel spirituality is ineffable?

Without boring everyone to tears, please consider what words really are. They are nothing but symbols that point toward reality. They are not reality itself. Most everyone here understands this and yet…

…and yet we are able to talk about all sorts of things, up to and including God, despite the above being true in all cases.

[jeffl]

You all really have a thing about the Truth; and not in a good way.

The Truth is the only aspect of God that presents. The strength of the Mahabharat is the truth of nationhood. The strength of the Old Testament is the truth of family (and the family of Truth.) Buddha’s strength is the weakness of deluded self, maybe?

If there were no Truth, invention would be impossible because cognition would be impossible.

You can ignore this if you like but, at your own peril. Such ignorance is, i think, the unforgivable blasphemy.

[thirst4metal]

Hello F(r)iends,

@Mastriani

I won’t speak for brother tentative, but to my perception you are making the same mistake that others are making, and it coincides with tentative’s assertions about words.

Yes, you are right. I was making the same mistake.

@Mastriani

Unknowable and inexpressable only as a matter of form. If I may, perhaps some questions for you, brother thirst:

What makes you presume to be able to understand and express formlessness, when all of your defintions are tied to form, and can express and understand nothing that is not of form?

But the fact that we can consider formlessness gives us a method to express formlessness. It may not be exact but it is an idea, and it is a start (and perhaps an end). There is form and ‘not form’. We can conceptualize ‘not form’. Similarly we can conceptualize infinite, boundless, limitless. These very words are in fact expressions of those very things. So I would suggest that in this sense, the concept of ineffableness is (and must be) redefined.

@Mastriani

What makes you presume that in defining “God” by your terms and limited capabilities, you have not made “God” less than “God”?

How does one of hydrocarbon matter define that which is only energy?

If I define thirst4truth by Mastriani’s words, thoughts and perceptions, have I not made you less you, and more me? Is this an accurate definition of thirst, or a bogus one subject to my quite possibly limited and erroneous beliefs?

If we express god to the full limits of our understanding and capabilities then that is all that god can ever be to us. Whether or not we have managed to express or conceptualize god in god’s fullness is irrelevant. Besides, god cannot be made less than whatever god is… By calling a Rose a flower, we do not reduce the glory of the flower. By calling a flower a plant or a thing or a soul-less creation we do not take anything away from this plant/flower/thing. Is it still a rose? Yes. But if our limits of understanding deem just a flower than that is all it can be to us…

I would argue that we are made of only energy too: e=mc²

And if you define me by your words, you may not paint me in my exact likeness but that is a far stretch from claiming that it is impossible to paint a likeness of me… Nothing is ineffable.

I don’t know that we will ever know…

-Thirst

[tentative]

Hey Mothra!

Ucc, you use examples (mother, lawnmower, ear of corn) to suggest an ability to compare ideas or concepts of that which is or is not God. Your examples are all things we can see, touch, and provide extensively detailed descriptions. But the totality of that which is God is completely beyond that which is manifest. That is the issue. We aren’t talking about microbes or stars, but that which is beyond those things. Could I talk about my experiencing of what I call God? I could, but I would be saying nothing about that which is, I would be saying words about words. Words are limited and limiting in any saying of that which we would call God. That is why I say ineffable.

thirst,

I don’t know that we will ever know…

You will, and you won’t. It may sound silly, but you will only know when you cease to know…

Something for all to consider: If that which is God is knowable in language, in collections of words, then the definitive “knowing” would have occurred thousands of years ago, and we could simply read those words and we too would know. But apparently, there is a little more to “knowing” God than words will allow, or there would be no need for this thread, or for a religion forum, or for any religion at all. Everyone would just “know”.

[Mastriani]

All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.

These very words are in fact expressions of those very things.

Exactly expressions, which lack the ability to be the determinate totality.

Likeness, yes. But similarity is not the genuine article.

Yes we can appreciate the flower, the rose … but we cannot be the flower or the rose.

Form can appreciate the formless, the ineffable. But form being substance, cannot be formless.

You do not redefine ineffable, it, like everything else, is what it is.

It is understandable, but not beneficial, that you seek to make the irreducible, reducible, so that it can be understood.

The error still stands, in my opinion.

[Uccisore]

tentative

Your examples are all things we can see, touch, and provide extensively detailed descriptions.

But you would agree that other people cannot precisely share our vision, or our sensation of touch, yes? That the inadequacy of the words is shored up by sharing common experience?

But the totality of that which is God is completely beyond that which is manifest. That is the issue. We aren’t talking about microbes or stars, but that which is beyond those things.

 Well, then that's the beginning of talking about God.  What do you mean by 'beyond'? We can start with a naive assumption. Pretend that I'm young, and when you say God is 'beyond' stars, I take you to mean that He is physically further away from us than they are. Would you disagree with me (about the way you intended the word to be taken, if nothing else)? Could you correct me? Beyondness is the first attribute you apply to God. So you are describing Him just fine in words. What it comes down to is, 

• When you said ‘beyond’, did you actually mean something, or were your hands spasming across the keyboard? Obviously the former.
• Since you meant something by ‘beyond’, could you describe what you meant in more words i.e., define ‘beyond’ as you used it in this context?
• What implications does the beyond-ness have? Are their other traits of God we can infer from His beyondess?
  And that’s just from ‘beyond’. If there are other words you would apply to the Ineffable, we can do similar.

Could I talk about my experiencing of what I call God? I could, but I would be saying nothing about that which is, I would be saying words about words.

This is where we disagree, perhaps because I'm so enamoured with Thomas Reid these days. Your experiences of God are not God, that is true. Your words about your experiences are not your experiences, so certainly, there is a certain indirectness when you talk about God. No matter how good you speak, it will never amount to pouring God into my ear through a funnel. 
All I want to convey is, that we claim to know much more about God than we realize. Really, it's the "Unknowable" that I want to challenge here more than the "Unspeakable", though they are connected.  The keystone situation to this whole conversation is your experiencing of what you call God.  I know I've said this before, but it bares repeating: If you have a strange experience, it is your choice (informed by reason) that you call that experience "An Experience of God".  That you concluded such is only possible because you have certain beliefs about your experience, and certain beliefs about God, that make the two compatible. You think that the experience is like[i] this [/i], such that it's proper to think of it as a godly experience, and you think that God is like [i]that,[/i] such that He could bring about the sort of experience you had. 
 That God is 'beyond', and that God can cause whatever experiences you've had, are two pretty substantial things to believe about Him. I would be very surprised if there were no way to put either of these into words.

[thirst4metal]

Hello F(r)iends,

@tentative

Something for all to consider: If that which is God is knowable in language, in collections of words, then the definitive “knowing” would have occurred thousands of years ago, and we could simply read those words and we too would know. But apparently, there is a little more to “knowing” God than words will allow, or there would be no need for this thread, or for a religion forum, or for any religion at all. Everyone would just “know”.

I don’t see how you could logically make this assertion. If god is limitless, then our experiences with god would never cease and we would have new experiences all the time, new understandings, new knowledge, new data to process. Everyday we know more of god and everyday there is more to know… Knowledge itself is not static! Yes, there is more to “knowing” god that just what limits language sets, but two things to recognize: (1) The limits of language continuously expand (2) Assuming that we reach the maximum limit then that is all that god could ever mean to us and should mean to us and will mean to us…

Also, some would argue that in a sense, our knowledge of god is profound.

Mastriani, if our BEST expressions lack the ability to define a “determinate totality” then that is OUR determinate totality and to US that is all that god: can be, will be, is… Also, this is not about being or knowing… it is about understanding. We do not need to be formless to appreciate formlessness. We do not need to be a flower to appreciate a flower. There is benefit in appreciation of a thing which we cannot be and cannot fully define.

-Thirst

Edit: A few spelling corrections…

[omar]

Hello Uccisore:
Ever been to Italy in May?

— Well, what I would say is that comparison to the Ineffable has already broken down at this point. If you’re willing to present something, and show that it has qualities which commit or exclude it from a group, you’ve already gone a step further than the Ineffable.
O- I just point out that definitions are a two-way street. Like you said, it is a game we play. If we begin from the proposition of “ineffable” then no-game can ever come about, which I know you agree with. It does not help to compare it with a special dog or an “Actual Entity” because both are effable.

— Literally, yes, that’s all it means. But of course it really means much more than that. If the above were all that mattered, ‘ineffable’ could be used to describe a peculiar stomach cramp.
O- No because then it is like a stomach cramp; it shares a quality with a stomach cramp and therefore is describable, is effable. I repeat, I doubt that the ineffable means at all. We think in language, so that even our private language is really public. Often, people feel an undescribable feeling towards another. It might be that they just have not examined thoroughly such inner emotions. Like God, such people escape any further examination by saying that they are in “Love”. It might be the same with people who choose to describe what they believe in as the Ineffable; only difference in that I respect their choice because while we may be able to know our feelings towards another better with time and examination, no such guaranteed can exist for that which exists more by the declarations of the faithful, than by objective perceptions.
Some might say:“Well what about the order in reality?”
That “Order” is all part of the faith.

— I have not yet heard someone claim to believe in the Ineffable, and also to believe in God as a seperate entity.
O- Good point. By naming It “Ineffable” they hope to liberate “God” from previous baggage and criticisms.

— The unspoken assumption is that one takes the place of the other, one is instead of the other. This is huge, this is substantial. If we really know nothing about the Ineffable, why is it assumed to fill the ‘God’ slot in someone’s philosophy?
O- This is Negative Theology, Uccisore, and goes back, way back in time, and I consider it a method for seeking. Suppose I say that God is just; I must then say that God is unjust, so that God is not limited by what I consider to be just. His ways are not our ways.
Remember Elijah too. He found God not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, all which are public manifestations of nature and often were deemed Gods, but in a gentle whisper, which I suppose, as gentle whispers go, was audible to just Elijah.
With that in mind, I prefer the position that calls God “Ineffable” than that which calls, what is essentially a personal experience, “God” and then proceeds to treat it as obvious.
As a notion in physics, God is either obvious or incomprehensible. From these alternatives, I go with the latter.

— Even in this though, there IS universal agreement. You said you hated Picasso, and I immediately understood you to be indicating that you didn’t find Picasso to be beautiful, because we don’t hate what is beautiful.
O- So? We still do not share a universal agreement on what is Beautiful. Like God we might agree that there must be a God, but disagree on what that God or gods are like. We use the word but mean incredibly different ideas.

— Saying “You know that feeling you get when blah blah blah? Beauty is like that,” is a perefectly valid way of building language.
O- We build our language, but still get no closer to understand what is actually beautiful.

[Uccisore]

Omar

Ever been to Italy in May?

Can’t say I have. What’s it like?

I just point out that definitions are a two-way street. Like you said, it is a game we play. If we begin from the proposition of “ineffable” then no-game can ever come about, which I know you agree with. It does not help to compare it with a special dog or an “Actual Entity” because both are effable.

You're certainly right.  What I would content is that if someone here has spoken about the ineffable (if you'll permit the expression) enough that we are clued that they believe in it, it's not really ineffable at all.  In other words, such people ARE playing the game, even as they say they aren't, in fact, saying they aren't playing can be a pretty good move. So, twofold:

All the ineffable gods we hear reference to on this forum are effable, or else we wouldn’t have heard of them.
If anyone really does believe in an ineffable God, they by nature aren’t talking about it here.

No because then it is like a stomach cramp; it shares a quality with a stomach cramp and therefore is describable, is effable. I repeat, I doubt that the ineffable means at all.

It seems we agree then, but are coming at it from opposite directions. Yes, I agree with you that something truly ineffable wouldn’t be like a stomach cramp or anything else. Likewise, I believe that it’s impossible for a human to experience anything ineffable, and so, I believe references to God as the ineffable are in error.

Good point. By naming It “Ineffable” they hope to liberate “God” from previous baggage and criticisms.

It’s both a liberation and a constraint- calling God ‘ineffable’ liberates God from some of the rules and criticisms that come along with religion. Calling the Ineffable ‘God’ constrains the Ineffable to being something like God- making it effable after all.

With that in mind, I prefer the position that calls God “Ineffable” than that which calls, what is essentially a personal experience, “God” and then proceeds to treat it as obvious.

I’m still not convinced that there can be any good reason to tie The Ineffable to god-talk. If it is truly a series of experiences and intuitions that cannot be put into words, it cannot be like anything that can be put into words- and hence, there can be no reason to have The Ineffable occupy the God-slot in philosophy. To do that, the honest thinker would have to admit “The Ineffable functions as God in my philosophy because, like many conceptions of God, the Ineffable is like this”. Once that line is crossed, the ineffable simply becomes the poorly-described.

So? We still do not share a universal agreement on what is Beautiful. Like God we might agree that there must be a God, but disagree on what that God or gods are like. We use the word but mean incredibly different ideas.

  We may not have agreement on what is beautiful, but that doesn't keep us from agreeing on what beautiful is, if you follow me.  Even if we find completely different things beautiful, the word can still have meaning and foster concensus if our [i]reaction[/i] to the various things we call beautiful is consistant and similar enough to be compared.  Beauty is one of those qualities that is completely contained, I suppose, in the reaction it brings out in observers. The nature of that reaction is every bit as useful in pointing at beauty as is the specifics of what makes you or me feel that reaction. 
 So- I know what beauty is without need of you, because I experience things as beautiful. 
       I know that you experience beauty, because you have the same reaction as I do to various things- even if not to the same things. 
      Fortunately, we are all humans, and beauty comes in degrees, so there is overlap- we [i]will[/i] find things that we both find beautiful, it's inevitable. That makes the understanding easier, but isn't necessary, I don't think. 
  I don't think God operates like this much at all, as an aside.

[tentative]

Hi Ucc,

Yes, there is a dilemma or paradox to, on the one hand, say that there is no way to express an understanding of that which is God (in words) and then attempt to use words.

To say ‘beyond’ means just that, and therein lies silence. I can say, in words again, that I have a feeling or understanding, or a knowing of that which is God, but the saying is, as Mastriani pointed out, form speculating about formlessness. We can can share metaphors all day long, nod in agreement, and will have said absolutely nothing of
knowing. That has been my point all along. There simply is no way to encompass God with words. I understand that many (most) will disagree with this. After all, it is comforting to say I “know”. We’ve been taught to know, and to know in words. For someone (me) to suggest that there are limits to where words can takes us runs counter to ‘conventional’ thinking. But that’s just me.