"Because I have been accustomed with every other object to distinguish between existence and essence, it is natural for me to believe that the existence of God can be separated from the essence of God, and that thus God may be conceived as not actually existing." Decartes
I got excited when I read that part... that sounded like something I discovered in AFL last year... that "God" doesn't exist, but like Love... "God" is that which brings everything into existence. That was one of my favourite takeaways from last year's AFL. And then I read on...
"But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it appears that the existence of God can no more be separated from the essence of God than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, can be separated from the essence of a [rectilineal] triangle. It is as impossible to conceive of God, that is, a supremely perfect being, as lacking a certain perfection, as it is to conceive a mountain without a valley." Decartes
Decartes lost me during his math lecture. I'm a poet, not a mathematician. I can't look at the idea of "the Absolute" through the lens of a triangle. So that part didn't impress me at all.
But the mountain and valley analogy... that one will stay with me for more than just the argument of the existence or non-existence of what most call "God". (That's right, Tom... most, not all.)
I posed the following inquiry on the AFL group chat:
When one has to decide or argue ... Does God exist or does God not exist. Does that not already come with presupposed baggage? What kind of God are they talking about. The answer to that question can go in any direction depending on their conclusions about the God that exists or doesn’t exist. And does not that baggage change with every one that’s arguing?
I already put forward in Day 2 why "God" doesn't work for me as a descriptor. And arguing isn't why I'm taking Atheism for Lent. It is about discovery for me. I'm a poet. I'm not a theologian, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a mathematician, I'm not a lot of things. But the artistic, poetic part of me wants to delve in to the dark with the all of them, but maybe bringing to the table a different perspective. I value those voices... the ones that come with their own unique voice and offer something profound at a table filled with theologians, scientists and mathematicians.
I don't get that tired from the material of AFL, but I get tired and overwhelmed at some of the banter on the social media platforms. I realize that when sitting at this table, I am with heads more intensely invested in this than I am. When I started dabbling in philosophy, I wasn't really prepared for what looked more like my high school biology lab. I wanted to be in for the discovery of thought, not the dissecting of the frogs. I understand there is a place for all that... I just feel overwhelmed listening to it. I find myself wanting to go back to my poetry and find something in my own language I can understand.
Decartes mentioned that without valleys, you have no mountains. I imagine that the mountains are the theologians and scientists... up in the heights trying to outdo each other. But the Poet is the valley. The one trying to find meaning, but choosing to look in the dark places, the low places, and content when not seen or heard. Where Decartes says... What are mountains without valleys? ... I say... what are theologians and scientists without poets?
Richard Rohr has been an amazing voice in the last years for me. I did a google search for Richard Rohr and Poetry and found the following on a blog post from 2015 entitled "Richard Rohr on Religion and Poetry". I found a nugget in one of the paragraphs, but read the article and figured I needed to share the whole thing. I bolded the paragraph that stuck out for me.
The Apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill in Greece and rebuked his listeners for what they called “the unknown God.” He could explain God to them, as I feel like I could do myself as well, and of course we assume we are correct based on dramatic demonstrations of divine law. So in that spirit I take issue here with the semantics of the word “Mystery”, but I share this quote anyway because I wholeheartedly agree that we need to do much more with metaphor:
“Robert Frost wrote that great poetry ‘begins as a lump in the throat . . . a homesickness, a lovesickness.’ Poetry stirs something you can’t explain. When it comes, you just know that it is given out of nowhere. That’s when you experience radical grace. Poets try to find the perfect word to name the inner experience. The goal of great poetry is to get right to the heart of the experience so that it resonates with your own inner knowing and you can say, ‘Yes! That is true!’
Before 500 BCE, religion and poetry were largely the same thing. People did not presume to be able to define the Mystery. They looked for words that could describe the mystery. Poetry doesn’t claim to be a perfect description as dogma foolishly does. It’s a ‘hint half guessed,’ to use T. S. Eliot’s phrase. That’s why poetry seduces you and entices you into being a searcher for the Mystery yourself. It creates the heart leap, the gasp of breath, inspiring you to go further and deeper; you want to fill in the blanks for yourself.
Poetry does this by speaking in metaphors. All religious language is metaphor by necessity. It’s always pointing toward this Mystery that you don’t know until you have experienced it. Without the experience, the metaphors largely remain empty. I think this has led to the ineffectiveness of much organized religion. The metaphors religions use are usually true, but we too often defend the words instead of seeking the experience itself. Merton once said that when you hear Jesus say that you must ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’ you are supposed to stop breathing for a few minutes. Instead we just argue about it.
The word metaphor comes from the Greek and means ‘to carry across’–to carry a meaning across, to carry you across. If you’re still living mostly out of the left brain, you think that the word has to perfectly define. But the right brain realizes that the better way to describe the moment is through a metaphor, indirectly. Probably the most quoted lines from Emily Dickinson are, ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant — / . . . / The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind –.’
I’m convinced this is the present impasse with so much of institutional religion: that we have for centuries “perfectly” defined, delineated, and described the Mystery. And all you have to do is believe your denomination’s dogmatic definitions and you are a member in good standing. This is not working. It is not transforming people.
C. G. Jung did not consider himself an opponent of Christianity, but wanted to be its “pastor” to re-enliven its life changing myths and metaphors. He looked at his father and his six uncles, who were all Swiss Reformed pastors, and he knew they were not happy, generative, or in love. For them it was all just ‘a human commandment, a lesson memorized’ (Isaiah 29:13). Jung believed that the course of Jesus’ life was the perfect map for the transformative journey–if only people would go inside their own souls.
I think poetry gives you resonance more than logical proof, and resonance is much more healing and integrating. It resounds inside of you. It evokes and calls forth a deeper self. That is the power of good poetry and why poetry can work so deeply. When religion becomes mere philosophy, accurate definitions, moralisms about others, rituals and dogmas in the head–that is the beginning of the end of religion as actual transformation. Now no one knows what to do with their pain except project it onto other people.
Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets, says, ‘Poetry is a life-cherishing force, for poems are not words, after all, but fires for the coal, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread for the hungry.'”
Richard Rohr
