Martin Buber published a book called “Eclipse of God”. He is in my opinion an existentialist philosopher because when it comes to the questions about beliefs and the revealed answers, he is far more interested in the dialogue, in the questions themselves than in the particular answers. The dilema that he and others face is about how to reconcille God’s trancendence, with our relationship with Him.
In the Chapter called “religion and Philosophy” he makes two statements that really brought it home for me:
“Complete inclusion of the divine in the sphere of the human self abolishes it’s divinity. It is not necessary to know something about God in order to really believe in Him: Many true believers know how to talk to God but not about Him.” His emphasis.
One sentence later he writes:
“He who refuses to limit God to the transcendent has a fuller conception of Him than he who so limits Him. But he who confines God the immanent means something other than Him.”
Now I am sure that many will object to these statements, but they might miss the positive side of it. It is not that Buber denies a personal relationship as a possibility, but he is trying to find the golden mean that preserves God’s mystery, the mystery of the infinite, and the encounter, the real palpable encounter with a Thou, Mind to which we relate, we encounter etc.
Insisting on God’s infinity and transcendence loses the confidence that he can talk to Him, while the one who forgets His transcendence is likely to talk about Him, yet he means something different than the Infinite and Eternal. When there is much talk, words begin to describe only more words, as words become meaningless because they no longer carry the awe of God, but instead your understanding of God.
So too close and we hold ourselves; too far and we have nothing to hold on to.
Buber’s solution, seems to me, to advocate a dialectic that is never confortable with it’s self or with’s it’s answers, but remains closer to God, as if in a wrestling match.
“God” is a term made by man and for man. I can say “God is X”. But I think that it is not important what you say about God, what He is or isn’t as much as what you say to God. Buber’s theology has been helpful for me to realize this. I am nonetheless in a dilema, but for me, a dilema is the beginning of the conversation.