Rational knowledge (or scientific thought) is deduced from experiences which categorizes reality as we see it. In this sense, it compares and contrasts the material world. In doing so, it unintentionally creates opposites in order to distinguish one thing from another. Rational knowledge, in this sense, has a limit. I am not saying we have reached that limit, and I don’t think we ever will, but nonetheless it still exists.
Western religions attempt to explain the unknown and herein lies the major problem. Explaining the unknowable (ie the supernatural realm) is impossible. They explain it through words which are in itself concepts and explanations of the perceivable and visible reality. The supernatural does not oblige by any of the rules of the visible reality therefore making any explanation of such absurd and meaningless. Rational knowledge, as explained above, cannot be applied to the metaphysical world.
“Fishing baskets are employed to cath fish; but when the fish are got, the men forget the baskets; snares are employed to catch hares; but wehn the hares are got, me forget the snares. Words are employed to convey ideas; but when the ideas are grasped, men forget the words.”
- Chuang Tzu
“There the eye goes not,
Speech goes not, nor the mind.
We know not, we understand not
How one would teach it.”
One must experience it for oneself. Descriptions are merely words which cannot describe the unknowable for they are constructs of the knowable. THerefore, writings or teachings of such are meaningless. Experience is the only way to understanding the metaphysical world.
P.S. As you can probably tell, I’m getting into Eastern philosophy. I just picked up “The Tao of Physics” which inspired this post. I’m not very far into it but I’m already loving it.