The Vision of God, and Knowing

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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“Lord God, Enlightener of hearts, my face is a true face; for You, who are Truth, have given it to me. My face is also an image; for it is not Truth itself but is the image of Absolute Truth. Therefore, in my conception I enfold my face’s truth and image; and I see that with regard to my face the image coincides with the facial truth, so that my face is true insofar as it is an image. And subsequently You show me, O Lord, that with respect to the changing of my face Your Face is changed and unchanged, alike: it is changed because it does not desert the truth of my face, so also it does not follow the changing of the changeable image. For Absolute Truth in Unchangeability. The truth of my face is mutable, because it is truth in such a way that it is image; but [the Truth of] your [Face] is immutable, because it is image in such a way that it is Truth. Absolute Truth cannot desert the truth of my face. For if Absolute Truth deserted it, then my face, which is a mutable truth, could not continue to exist.”

- De Visione Dei, chapter 15

Nicholas de Cusa gives, in this remarkable passage where he compares the Truth to the experience he has when looking at the face of a painted Icon, that is “an image in such a way that it is Truth”, the confirmation of the truth of his own face. What is curious in consequence to me, is that in that we look into the faces (and words) of others so as to verify, and indeed produce our sense of what is “objectively” real, epistemologically do we not follow Nicholas de Cusa here, that the world - in the light of our rationality (internal cohension of thoughts), in the light of our many vocabularies and social practices of justification - stares back at us, confirmingly in some way. For instance, is this not the subtle confirmation that Science is what Nietzsche called “the most exact humanization”? Is not here in this passage, both the intersubjective foundations of the epistemological, a facialization produced by the gaze, reflected in a painter’s hand, but also the suggestion the cohesion of perception itself, what de Cusa calls “in my conception I enfold”, grounded in the fundamental act of some degree of projected intentionality in the things observed?

Dunamis

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Maybe I’m just slow this morning, but I read that about three times, and on the fourth time started getting angry. Aside from the roundabout way of saying what I suspect is simple, he keeps personifying God and addressing his role in all this, which is distracting.

My takeway, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that everything is subjective, science is just another form of subjectivity built around human nature. Science being a more precise mirror of what we are about, according to Nietzsche.

It gets me thinking, again, that there are different kinds of subjectivities and truths. Some seem more foundational, some more elective. I’m not sure if “seem” is the right word.

ANY clarification will help.

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Gamer,

Maybe I’m just slow this morning, but I read that about three times, and on the fourth time started getting angry.

You are right, you are slow this morning. It usually only takes you two read throughs of my posts before getting angry.

It gets me thinking, again, that there are different kinds of subjectivities and truths.

This is my thinking, that there are different kinds of confirming subjectivities, not just a general anthropomorphizing by man. What I am following through on is Davidson’s concept of triangulation, that man confirms and in fact creates an objective real through triangulating the shared world with the interpreted behaviors of an assumed other observer. This works not only for the shared world, but also for the triangulation of our selves, that the intersubjective actions of others give us clues to our own reality, that is who we are. Here de Cusa is having a tremendous triangulating experience with a painting painted by a painter. The “truth of his own face” is confirmed by the subjectivity, the intention projected onto the Icon. How much I wonder is the objective world accomplished in it perception through the projected mental states on things in this world? Is the world epistemologically panpsychic in degrees? A famous renaissance trope was that there were two texts written by God, the Bible and the physical world. It seems to me that the world indeed works as text to be read, in comment on itself and ourselves, that the projected intersubjectivity that de Cusa experiences here, and the projected intersubjectivity that Davidson assumes works in triangulation of the world and that Dennett assumes is an interpretive descriptive convenience of what we call “minds”, all lay a kind of layering of mentalities that confirm our sense of what is, and also the “truth of our face”.

Dunamis

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This is how I would ‘qualify’ it to myself.

my face is a true face; for You, who are Truth, have given it to me
…god as creator cannot and will not lie through the physiognomy of his creatures who look out upon His world.

My face is also an image
…an image is also a reflection

for it is not Truth itself but is the image of Absolute Truth
…truth as subset and possibly as a distortion of the absolute but nevertheless aligned to it making it relative to time. Any image of an Absolute can only exist as a distortion of it otherwise it cannot exist at all devoid of any reality granted to it.

To me he clearly implies this when he says…
Therefore, in my conception I enfold my face’s truth and image

and especially when he affirms…
Absolute Truth cannot desert the truth of my face. For if Absolute Truth deserted it, then my face, which is a mutable truth, could not continue to exist.”

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“my face is a true face;”

But what’s a false face? You’re really not telling me anything.

“for You, who are Truth, have given it to me”

This says:

•My face is true because Truth gave it to me.
•Truth gives out faces.
•Everything Truth gives out has to be true.

(No wonder people hate philosophy.)

"…god as creator cannot and will not lie through the physiognomy of his creatures who look out upon His world. "

AHA! So that’s what that stoner frat boy meant back in '97 when he said
“God can’t and won’t lie, he’s a good guy, you could, like, totally trust him. He’s a straight shooter, plus, like, if you’re a person who looks out on his world, then you’re, like, really safe, then he totally, totally won’t lie.”

Monad, are you in Sigma Chi, you bastard, I knew it was you. Ooga Booga Ooga Booga Blah Blah Blah! Oh shit, duuude!

Tell me one more time like I’m three. Sans poetry. I want to get it. Really.

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Gamer,

Tell me one more time like I’m three. Sans poetry. I want to get it. Really.

Unfortunately, I can’t really explain it sans poetry, without going into a bunch of technical language that will just sound like bad poetry to you. I appreciate the effort to understand what I poorly explain.

Dunamis

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Are you conceding that you poorly explained it? I never suggested that, really. But if that is the case, I am relieved.

The residue of this little encounter, whether related or not, has left me facing the “truth” of my solipsism again.

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Gamer,

Are you conceding that you poorly explained it? I never suggested that, really. But if that is the case, I am relieved.

If it is not clear to someone as perceptive as you, after I had even tried to expand on the description, I surely have failed.

Dunamis

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Ah. This thread explains a lot.

I can see now why you reject Nietzsche’s intellectual solitude and his challenge to power, as a way to deal with your own insufficiencies, as a way to cope with your dependence and growing addiction with your own existence, as a way to manage your inability to ….manage.

The existential conundrum: sacrifice reason and gain a vacuous world of hedonistic temptation urging you to act incessantly, to build without knowing why, forget and live, surrender to instinct and remain content with the imagery of yourself in the eternal Other.

In this regard, you would find Cioran’s condemnation of life, as a blasphemy against life itself, a product of another “lonely” soul struggling with eternity and its place within it.
Just another loser justifying itself.

And what of Kierkegaard or Foucault or Kafka?
All ‘troubled’ souls that did not find solace in the ephemeral but sought it in timelessness and failed (?).

What of the great curmudgeon himself, Schopenhauer, and his vulgar ‘truths’ concerning human beings and academics; especially them?
Just another lonely, desperate man, unlike you, yet still relevant and talked about, whereas your contentment will vanish in shattering of smoke and mirrors.

Psychology coming to save the day, by focusing its unidirectional eye upon what does not fit into the mould or sticks out uncomfortably or reminds us of our own delusions.
This too must be healed like reality.

What of all those that do not shy away from discomforts or shame, what of fear now?
What of morals?
What of those that want to look into the uncomfortable void and stare it down, or at least, die trying?
All products of illness, martyrs of cultural unawareness, trying to become relevant.
What of Deleuze and his ideas about tears in reality enabling divergence from repetitive reality, enabling free-will?
What of the Flux and times degrading forces?
What of change?

There is no imperfection; all part of a cosmic Will, pulling the strings above and beyond time and space.

No, yours is a “healthy” mind, mesmerized by its own image; its own gaze staring back at itself, a reflection of the supreme eternal. How you run from your own reflection? You choose to paint it in your image instead and then you stand there in wonderment at your imaginary brilliance.
You already live in a Loving universe, full of benevolent encounters.

Be damned Darwin and your sickly concepts about the progressive essence of strife and about how everything competes and struggles and suffers and grows through this very fight!!!
Be damned Lucifer’s principle, be damned Prometheus be damned Silenus!!!

No!!! We are all one, from one, returning to one. The eternal Will, Truth, Love, Self, God, call it by what name makes you tingle and all warm inside.
Then call it your objectivity or better yet, defame all objectivity so that the subjective is all that remains…… and then? Then fill up that emptiness with whatever suits your tastes.

If there is no truth accessible to man, then my truth wins by being more “attractive” to my sensibilities.

Multiplicity? A form of cosmic absurdity, a test of time, a challenge against the animal side.
Be damned reason, as well!! Let us surrender to emotion and what better emotion to surrender to than……?

No, yours is a universe of eternal likeness and brotherly civility, cultural edifices that enable the myths to persist.

Have you seen a dog raised on plenty and in relative safety?
It wags its tail at every bystander and gaily greets every guest or even every nightly intruder when he crawls through the window.
It has that naïve charm of a puppy, all happy and joyous, making it both contagious and….attractive.
How cute.

You enter a room full of strangers and you are filled with …compassion. No anxiety in you, you have risen above such animalistic concerns, you have found God.
In a painting no less.

You are under his protection now, under his undelying Love.
So safe, so taken cared for, so …friendly.

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god is a dictator.

when Eve took a bite of the “forbidden fruit”(thanks Eve by the way) god(who ever that is) got mad(a Human reaction and condemed us all, seems all to Human to me.)

if god is all knowing how come he did not know Eve would do this action? is Eve above god? apparently so!!
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You know, Satyr, you’re persona is almost perfect by my judgement. You are a blend of all the right attributes for a philosopher today. I almost envy you.

What strikes me the most is your practical approach, and your refusal to waste time with the esoteric nonsense that passes as philosophy today. When I read your stuff I find myself wanting to polish it, and I say to myself “this guy would be dangerous with me by his side.” And yet, you are so utterly miserable you make me want to smack my momma.

Oh yes, I spent some time at your site and I can see you, my friend. You’re not angry at all. Your problem is this: you are an exceptional thinker who has no audience, so you rage against everything in sight. You are attacking because you cannot help, and you want to help, but you think its too late.

You’re like a hybrid of the Hindu Schopenhauer and the Militant Nietzsche…and that makes for some irritable chemistry inside.

Here’s some advice: if you find yourself involved with fools at ILP, just abandon them, and don’t worry about what the spectators think. This place is like a fucking soap-opera/fashion-show, if you haven’t noticed, so find a few like minded people and stay with them. I mean, if I might ask, why all the ranting and raving? Just tell 'em to fuck off or leave yourself. You can curse, you know.

And here in this thread. Yeah, I think its bullshit myself, but I’m not going to bother Dunamis unless I think I can convince him. I’m affraid its too late for that. His head is packed with centuries of useless chatter. He does make a fine performance in the Social Sciences forum though. Hey, anything against Capitalism I’m all for. What will replace it? Who cares, anything but that.

So pick your battles, Satyr, and don’t fuck with the Dunamis. No, not because he’s right, but because that dude is here ALL DAY and he will wear you out. :wink:

And by the way, I’m your biggest fan. And that makes you a bad-ass, 'cause I’m the shit.

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détrop

An audience….yes.
Hasn’t that always been the contradiction burdening those that damn those psychological needs? Those human needs.

There was a time when I cared, when I wanted to change things, but now I’ve grown accustomed to my indifference.
I don’t even recycle anymore.

It’s hard to ignore a fool spouting inanities and then accusing you of that which he is most guilty of, as if I’ve claimed to be anything but a weak human being.

Quite “irritable”. But I’ve learned to control it.

I can curse?

I’ve been banned before for my inflammatory language.
Believe it or not I was banned once from one forum for posting my ‘What about Bob?’ essay.
Meanwhile there were idiots there spouting insults and stupidities without censorship.
Go figure.
Some ‘truths’ hurt more than others.

If it weren’t for the fact that most of them secretly fear that I might be right, I wouldn’t be getting the responses and attention I’m getting.

I understand your advice though.
But it’s so difficult to find enough ‘like-minded’ people.
Imagine my surprise when I first discovered the internet and thought this would open the doors of possibility, where I could find quality, only to discover that the internet and Forums with pretentious labels like ‘Philosophy Forum’ were no more than extensions of mundane, superficial reality.
Only here some of the morons have read a few books.

I then decided to have some sport and play with the simple-minded. I even grew to get all emotionally involved, as a participant in the ‘soap-opera’.
But it becomes tiresome.
Eventually stupidity wears you out. It’s part of the vampiric quality of human nature.

What’s that quote say? I can’t remember it precisely:
“The simple-minded pull you down to their level and then defeat you with their experience there" or words to that effect.

I couldn’t care less about changing his mind, or anyone else’s.
I just enjoy releasing the wolves into the sheeple and watching them scramble for safety, all the while baying Love poems and altruistic, Theistic calls for eternal mercy.
It’s fun.

I think I’ll take your advice and ignore that……loving, enlightened mind of human compassion.
I’ll leave him preach to the choir and watch them chant psalms and cross themselves and take that all powerful drug….What is the most psychotropic drug known to man?
Which is the most mind-altering, inebriating chemical?

Could it be produced by the body? Could it be called ….emotion?

Ah what a terrible fight. Reason has to fight against such terrible odds.
And what does reason offer in return for the loss of contentment and hope and stability and false safety?
Uncertainty, struggle, resistance….power(?)

Reason was meant for the courageous.

Thanks for your kind words.
I’m heartened by the knowledge that there is, at least, one intelligent mind here and I’m not talking to myself or enjoying myself in solitude.

Now I think I’ll be silent for a while :evilfun:

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Well, just between you and me, cursing is the feeble mind’s attempt to express itself. But sometimes it’s a necessary short-cut.

So you’re godamn fuckin’ right you can curse. America wants free speech, so be it! And if Ben doesn’t like it he can fuck off too, or ban me. Won’t be the first time. Or second for that matter.

Alright, I’m gonna hold you to that. One day we’re going to argue, you and I, and I’m gonna clean you up, a little polishing, and we’re gonna get you a little place by that rock in Greece (wasn’t that where it was? I forget.) after we get you published and some money in your pocket.

But here’s the thing. You’re going to get pissed off during our argument and you’re going to want to treat me like the others. You gotta let it loose, man, I can take it. But I’m gonna hit you hard, real hard, and its gonna hurt. So remember those words above and don’t dissappoint me.

I am very sensitive to climatic changes. I could say fuck it and turn religious at the drop of a hat. Don’t make me do that because I’ll take you with me if I got to drag you by your hair. (You do have hair, don’t you?)

Nevermind. I think I’ve hijacked this thread. I’ll meet you in the Side-Effect thread if you want to talk.

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détrop

What “Side-Effect” thread?

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Wow… You two… Are funny!

I have no clue what Dunamis is saying, but I dont have a clue what he says half the time… Nothing against you Dunamis, you are no doubt just a little to eloquent for me… But seeing as how Gamer had problems too… Maybe im not so bad… Anyways, What im concerned about is what the hell Satyr is complaining about? Or maybe it wasn’t complaining… But it sure was not exactly kindly words he spoke… So Satyr, if you dont mind, what did you understand in Dunamis’ post, and what is there to belitle? I hope you dont consider me one of those morons that would be a waste of time to speak to… because I would really like to have a conversation with you, or detrop for that matter, in depth. Cuz I love people with vigor, and you two got plenty of it. So whats the problem guys???

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Perhaps this should be included in your signature… :laughing:

Regards,

James

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Gamer ~

Why assume I believe it? The intent was to try and understand what old Nick meant in all its medieval mentality . There’s as much religious poetry in their outlook as there is actual philosophy and that was the whole point, at least to me so I don’t know what it is you’re so upset about.

Anyways, it’s good to know you’re still wielding a club and eating raw meat. Your expressions remind me of that opening scene in 2001 when humanities first genius figured out what else could be done with a bone besides scratching his back.

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Monad, I did not think you believed it literally, but I could see how someone else might think you did. Next time you could set up your exegesis by clarifying your intent.

I usually find old poetry to be obscurantist by definition, which is a shame because there are certain ideas and poetic graces that I bet can only be formed when you smell like an ox and there’s no TV.

The passage creates a nice, internally logical sort of relationship between the typical biblical God and man. But it loses its power when you don’t accept the basic premises, the scaffolding which holds up his imagery.

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R.T.,

So Satyr, if you dont mind, what did you understand in Dunamis’ post, and what is there to belitle?

Don’t worry. He didn’t understand the post at all. Not a clue. He just saw the words “God” and “Truth” and got confused and excited. “Confused and excited” is one of the favorite states of goat-men, so he went off on tirade that included a lot of bad Nietzsche parody and the what-not.

It’s funny the ones that go on and on about the “strong” as a virtue are never the strong, but the wannabe’s. One never hears the strong actually talk that way. But that he doesn’t understand something never stopped Satyr though - just another occasion to wax confused and ranting - a quality that detrop heartily commends, no doubt for personal reasons.

Dunamis

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I think it’s a phase people go through, usually at a time in life when they need to feel strong or empowered. A knee jerk reaction to forces in their lives that would have them conform, give in to convention prematurely, religion, sacrifice or altruism. I don’t see it as out of the pot into the fire. It’s a right of passage. I suggest they read Iron John or Fire in the Belly. Two books about being a man for gods sake.

By the way, a real man doesn’t tell well-intentioned, gentlemanly scholars like Dunamis that they are wrong, weak and full of shit. (Rather, a real man couches it in a hamfisted vague irony, with a sprinkle of genuine positive regard.)