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Monday, October 12, 2015

Michel De Montaigne: "Oh Senseless Man, Who Cannot possibly Make A Worm, And Yet..."

Alan: When we define our Gods with too much particularity, we damage the undefinable One. 

The damage is worse when we "arrange the account" to make it seem God "himself" dictated it.
Devout Catholic, Blaise Pascal

The etymological roots of the word "define" render any attempt to provide precise definition of God not only laughably self-contradictory but blasphemous.




define (v.) Look up define at Dictionary.com
late 14c., "to specify; to end," from Old French defenir, definir "to finish, conclude, come to an end; bring to an end; define, determine with precision," and directly from Latin definire "to limit, determine, explain," from de- "completely" (see de-) + finire "to bound, limit," from finis "boundary, end" (see finish (v.)). Related: Defined; defining.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=define


Consider.

 "Define" derives from the Latin words "de" "finere" meaning "to impose limit, to establish a finite end, to bring to an end, to come to an end, to conclude, to finish."

To define God is perhaps the worst way to approach God who, in the view of un-crazed Christians, must remain essentially undefinable and without limit.

 In effect, to "define God" is to abuse divinity by limiting it to the confines of human capability. ("Confines" also derives form the Latin "finere.")

The Magnum Mysterium is essentially incomprehensible.
"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight:  he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand... The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious and everything else becomes lucid... A symbol from physical nature will express sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind. The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything." 
G.K. Chesterton

To pretend otherwise, even under aegis of Divine Inspiration, belittles The Beyond although our earthly lives may sometimes touch The Immanence.

We can, for a while, feel ourselves -- even know ourselves -- in indivisible communion with The One.

 But this same communion leaves us at risk of ego inflation disguised as The Will of God.

Gandhi provides crucial perspective: 'Although every drop of The Ocean partakes of The Ocean's nature, no single drop is The Ocean.' (Quoted from memory.)
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