Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLVII
“If you have a concept, for example of God, and yet you for one reason or another cannot or will not or must not give it any definite form, how do you know you even have a concept?” Itwethey muses. Itwethey's musing is related to the thoughts about “openness.”
“Or is it that you do have a concept, with content and form, a subject with a predicate, and all the rest, but that you refuse, because of dishonesty or self-delusion, or perhaps fear, to say what the form of the concept is, and just say it, for example of God, ‘it cannot be given any definite form’, as a device for protecting yourself, for disguising your lie?” Itwethey asks. “If we can say the word God, we have something in mind, we have something definite in mind. We could force ourselves to say what that is rather than being coy about it.” Why would we be coy, and for whom? It must be for ourselves, because there is something frightening in revealing to ourselves what we definitely think about God—any definite thing we think about God is tawdry, petty, inferior, impoverished in relationship to the power and majesty we must trust God possesses...To limit God and sincerely believe God could be so limited,would be frightening--a frightening reduction—it’s a castration of God (it takes guts (and even with, there’s a feeling this is in very poor taste) to write the very words.)
Itwethey shares a desire with many others (Jews, Christians, or perhaps all theistic religions?) to leave as “open” in understanding and feeling any definite characteristic, trait, quality, or other conceivable feature of God and this “leaving as open” is primary within Itwethey’s religious feeling. That this is so had led Itwethey to view his beliefs in God as “undogmatic.” (“Undogmatic”—it’s a way for Itwethey to deny what he’d learned had been taught to him...That teachings were teachings…To deny the history arriving at the notion of “leaving as open” of God. The extremely peculiar and circuitous hidden network of thoughts behind this seemingly unproblematic connection of ideas lived and bled over in history and congealing here as some natural,plain, and simple thing—this is what Itwethey must get after (getting after the acolytes and apostles of “openness” is merely a part of it.))
Earlier, Itwethey had said, “God is a confined space.” Now Itwethey is telling us something about a “leaving as open” of God. There’s a contradiction, and probably also a paradox: it could be the “leaving as open” of God which results in or contributes to God being lived as a confined space, but Itwethey does not believe pushing or pursuing either the contradiction or the paradox will be fruitful. It is worthy of remark, however, that we would reach this moment or place where God would in any way be discussed in relationship to either open or closed.
“Or is it that you do have a concept, with content and form, a subject with a predicate, and all the rest, but that you refuse, because of dishonesty or self-delusion, or perhaps fear, to say what the form of the concept is, and just say it, for example of God, ‘it cannot be given any definite form’, as a device for protecting yourself, for disguising your lie?” Itwethey asks. “If we can say the word God, we have something in mind, we have something definite in mind. We could force ourselves to say what that is rather than being coy about it.” Why would we be coy, and for whom? It must be for ourselves, because there is something frightening in revealing to ourselves what we definitely think about God—any definite thing we think about God is tawdry, petty, inferior, impoverished in relationship to the power and majesty we must trust God possesses...To limit God and sincerely believe God could be so limited,would be frightening--a frightening reduction—it’s a castration of God (it takes guts (and even with, there’s a feeling this is in very poor taste) to write the very words.)
Itwethey shares a desire with many others (Jews, Christians, or perhaps all theistic religions?) to leave as “open” in understanding and feeling any definite characteristic, trait, quality, or other conceivable feature of God and this “leaving as open” is primary within Itwethey’s religious feeling. That this is so had led Itwethey to view his beliefs in God as “undogmatic.” (“Undogmatic”—it’s a way for Itwethey to deny what he’d learned had been taught to him...That teachings were teachings…To deny the history arriving at the notion of “leaving as open” of God. The extremely peculiar and circuitous hidden network of thoughts behind this seemingly unproblematic connection of ideas lived and bled over in history and congealing here as some natural,plain, and simple thing—this is what Itwethey must get after (getting after the acolytes and apostles of “openness” is merely a part of it.))
Earlier, Itwethey had said, “God is a confined space.” Now Itwethey is telling us something about a “leaving as open” of God. There’s a contradiction, and probably also a paradox: it could be the “leaving as open” of God which results in or contributes to God being lived as a confined space, but Itwethey does not believe pushing or pursuing either the contradiction or the paradox will be fruitful. It is worthy of remark, however, that we would reach this moment or place where God would in any way be discussed in relationship to either open or closed.
posted by Yusef Asabiyah at 2:56 PM
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