“‘Agnostic’ means one who knows not; agnostic means one who only knows one thing, that he knows not. Be an agnostic. This is the beginning of real religion.
Don’t believe, don’t disbelieve. Don’t be a Hindu, don’t be a Jain, don’t be a Christian, otherwise you will go on groping in darkness forever and ever. Unless you drop all ideologies, all philosophies, all religions, all systems of thought, and go inside empty, with nothing in your hand, with no idea,… How can you have an idea of God? You have not known him. Just go within, with a great desire to know, but with no idea of knowledge. Go with an intense longing to know, with a passionate love to know what is there, but don’t carry any ideas given to you by others. Drop them outside. That is the greatest barrier for the seeker on the path of truth.”
Osho
"There is godliness, but there is no God.
You have to grow into godliness; it is not something ready-made that you can posess. It is not something that you can pray to, it is not something you can ask anything of. It is not already there, it has to be created in the innermost core of your being. It is like love - it has to bloom in you, you have to release its fragrance. You have to become godly. Only then is there God; otherwise there is no God."
Osho
"Mystycism is the experience that life is not logic, that life is poetry; that life is no syllogism, that life is a song. Mysticism is the declaration that life can never really be known; it is essentially unknowable.
Mysticism is the delclaration that life consists of three categories; one, the known; another, the unknown; and the third and the most important, the unknowable - that which has not been known and will never be known. And that is the essential core of it all."
I don’t understand your statement. Death of reason philosopher? Hardly. I use reason constantly. I’ve even been known to dabble in formal logic on occasion. Perhaps you should go back and read the last quotation. There is the known, - subject to reason. There is the unknown -subject to reason as it becomes known. There is the unknowable. Really quite simple stuff. Simple unless you wish to assume that all can be known. That is the position of science, to continue reducing the not known until everthing is known. Reason isn’t dead, it just knows its place.
I love this. Thank you again, JT, for your ability to cut to the chase and make us think. Make me think. God, to me, is love; to be loved and to give love. It is that simple… and that complex. I yearn to “release the fragrance of it” within myself, but, better yet, in the arms of another. And if it is just the simple embrace of my children, then I may one day die without ever really knowing its essence, but may find some satisfaction nevertheless. Afterall, life isn’t perfect, but I can only relish in the hope of it happening. I can still find joy in that.
Dorothee Sölle wrote many books on God, but rejected theism without compromise. The God of whom she spoke was a powerless and helpless God:
“In all religions, a question mark has been set against the omnipotent and serene gods by the sufferings of men. But only in Christ does the concept of a suffering God appear. Here alone is it the suffering of God which is shouldered by a man. Only in Christ does it become clear that we can put God to death because he has put himself in our hands. Only since Christ has God become dependent on us. Christ did not identify himself with a calm spectator of all our troubles. Christ, by his teaching, life and death, made plain the helplessness of God in the world; the suffering of unrequited and unsuccessful love.â€
For Dorothee Sölle, ‘God’ seems to mean the spirit of love since Jesus, a love which remains unrequited and unsuccessful and expresses more a ‘power-less-ness’ in the world instead of a power or agent comparable to human power or agency. It is found in human actions and under human control. If God who ‘suffers by reason of his unsubstantiated, or only partly substantiated existence in the world’ is to be more fully substantial, then through free human action as an expression of love.
In “Political Theology†Sölle is explicit about the implications of this understanding of God. She rejects apocalyptic hope and embraces prophetic hope, which depends upon human obedience. She asked rhetorically: ‘Can God … independently of whatever “the world,” and therefore society, does or fails to do … bestow forgiveness directly on a penitent man and make possible a new beginning for him?’ Her “Political Theology†declares that the future is in our hands and that we are called by the Gospel message to personify the love of God in the world.
Sölle’s comments about God are largely negative, but this is not because she is opposed to using language about God altogether. What she opposes is language about God that depreciates human responsibility or expresses ideology. She believes that the idea of God as a totally free and independent being expresses the ideals of the entrepreneur and the macho male rather than anything to be found in Jesus. Despite having flirted with feminine Theology, she differentiated later:
“The more I grew in the socialist movement, the more I discovered a new God-language. The point for me is not merely to overcome a sexist language by changing the pronouns, because a female imagery can include domination and wrong protection as well. I think it is more important to overcome the inherent substantial machismo in the God-talk, its bourgeois male ideals. The adoration of power and independence established the eternal alien determination of human-kind. When one of the main political goals of democratic socialists is the workers’ co-determination and self-control, how can we stand a God-talk based on the refusal of democratization and self-determination? If God is not ready to give up his power, if he does not want us to determine our fate, we cannot trust him. He is then nothing but a somewhat liberal capitalist, and our trust in that end would make us more childish than we are. The God we are in need of is not a private owner, nor a capitalist with a human face. There is only one legitimization of power and that is to share it. Power which is not shared, in other words, which is nor transformed into love, is domination; to adore it means to will slavery.â€
Incarnation or Menschwerdung from a different perspective. This language isn’t completely foreign to Christianity (II Cor.2:14-16): “Now thanks to God, the One leading us at all times in triumph in Christ and revealing through us the fragrance of His knowledge in every place, for we are a sweet fragrance of Christ to God …†This fragrance was generated by means of sacrificial fire, and Paul using it figuratively means that those who devote themselves to the Way are consumed by the love of God to even withstand violence.
The idea of the seed growing in the hearts of men was used to envisage the fruits that grow out of one seed, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold, when the word of God falls on good land. That is he who does not lack understanding, who allows the Word to have root in himself, able to overcome affliction or persecution or the anxiety of this age and the deception of the riches.
This is a statement that I often spoke towards the end of my sermons – “the good news is that there is a song of life that even sounds from the grave, striking a chord at every occasion, willing us to join in and praise Being itself, the Mystery that gave us a life of discovery and fascination. It is a song that even the tuneless under us can sing, they can sing it in their hearts, with their hands, with their feet, with their concern for others and with their care for all living things. Sing along, become a resounding choir against the deafening din of a mechanised and unpersonal consumption-machine. Follow the man on the cross, who showed that life is worth his sacrifice.â€
Trinity, again from another perspective. We must loose the shackles of Fundamentalism and learn to live and trust free from of the uncompromising Despot of fundamental groups.
Thank you for those quotes from Sölle of whom I’ve never heard of until now. They have intruiged me quite a bit and I will be looking into her work a bit more.
Quite true. Our godliness, through which God becomes apparent to us, is beyond any rational - ie - linguistic or conceptual construct. But we must remember that even conceptually, the term “God” must contain all - rationality must be included.
The issue lies in attempting to force ‘God’ into a rational construct, which must fail. To put words in Osho’s mouth, God, and our own godliness is inhibited to the extent that we demand complete rationality, or knowing.
Please re-read the last quotation. I believe it explains the issue far better than my poor explanation.
If I were to try to find the single defining difference between that which is spiritual and that which is merely religious, it would have to be in the diametrically opposed viewpoints. Those of spiritual capacity look inwardly to their own awareness and heart understanding. The merely religious look outwardly trying to find their God in books, and other idols. Those who are capable of spirituality understand that they are a part of God while the religious see themselves as seperate from, outside looking in, constantly looking for the door to heaven.
God as love… Yes. How could any begin to be sensitive to their godliness and not become an expression of love? And in that expression of love, God is revealed - to all who can see.
It’s the whole field of philosophy of religion (as conceived by several philosophers, from Michael Martin to Richard Swinburne) that you cast doubt on. It was my favorite field, but now, since reason is faith, debates are less interesting. Philosophy is less interesting. It was the meaning itself of my life which was shaken by your terrible news. We can no longer show something to be true or false, likely or unlikely. Reason is no longer an authority to distinguish truth from falsehood. Your theory of the godliness and inner truth can easily be doubted by other cyberphilosophers. Everything can be doubted. Reason is destructive of itself. Reason cannot bear rational enquiry into itself. What is obvious for me is just a construct of my mind, and it may be not obvious for another one. It was Dunamis’ dangerous idea.
The truth is inside. Not outside. There is nothing terrible about this, except perhaps the disappointment of discovering that what you seek isn’t contained in someone’s wise words, this book or that book. Ignore me. Ignore Dunamis. Ignore all the ‘knowing’ you’ve collected. Go inside and explore yourself and the world around you… It is a process of discovery, that is truth. And it is your truth, not a second-hand version of the truth.
I believe that you are on to a very important point here. It is fascinating that a source of inspiration can become an idol, a representation or symbol of the deity which is used as an object of worship. I have been going back to look at Dorothee Sölle and a thoughtful talk she had with Martin Buber. With his first question, following the initial period of silence, Martin Buber looked at the Theologian Sölle and said, “Theo-logia, how do you do that? There is no Logos from God!†There is so much talk about God that suggests that people don’t listen to God. There is so much talk as though one has facts to discuss, instead of narratives, poetry and attempts to approach the Mystery.
Sharing in the nature of God means we have to discover what God is attempting to do within us - where is the “Wind†blowing? Where are we being guided to? What does the inspiration of the scriptures do to our souls? What awareness has the Spirit of love roused? Those who mistrust this voice, who would rather spend their time deep down in a book, miss the opportunity to live the vision. I heard once that we have to differentiate between living our dreams and dreaming our life away.
No, everything that I could find can be doubted, especially by cyberphilosophers who doubt everything. There are those who attempt to explain away whatever I could experience by biology or who say that it COULD be explained by biology and there are those who say that no one knows for sure.
I think you don’t fully realize the tragedy of the death of reason, unless you are made out of another stuff than me. If you know the truth, you are a being superior to me. As for me, I have no more points of reference. All can be said, all can be thought, and all can be denied without shame.
Forget all that superior stuff. We’re all sojourners here, no one more special than another.
One more time. Reason is not dead. No one functions without reason. Many have argued that reason is all we have to make sense of ourselves and the world. Science takes the position that there is only the known and yet to be understood unknown - but we’re working on that. Rely on reason. It serves us well.
That said, there are at least two paradoxes all of us face. The first is language. We dilegently try to fit the universe into linguistic forms and say we ‘know’, but reality just is, and isn’t the words and concepts. Reality is beyond language. A metaphor: You understand what water is, but there is no way you could explain all that water is to someone who has never tasted water. Water is an experience, not a word. To take the metaphor further, language is like trying to drink water with a toothpick. We dip the toothpick and receive a drop, dip and another drop, and on and on… reality comes a drop at a time - for all of us.
The second paradox, and the most difficult to explain, is that the ‘truth’ of reality cannot be explained from one to another. If I tell you what reality is, I shall have deceived you. If you accept what I have said, you will have deceived yourself and accepted second-hand clothes. And so, I have nothing to say about your truth. That is why I said to ignore me.
Hopefully, you’ll see this. Our truth resides within us, and yes, there is a commonality of awareness of truth, but it is only in each of our experiences.
