Thank you for the pointer and for the excellent questions. I agree with Schaefer up until the point of exclusivism. Exclusivism says "Your error is a necessary condition for my truth". As such it reveals more about the nature of the "truth" being defended then the real or imagined "errors" it tries to defend against.
I agree with Schaefer that the problem Plato and others had is that their concept of God was not sufficiently "big". I submit for your consideration, however, that this is precisely the same problem that all exclusivist views share. An infinite God cannot be contained in any creed, let alone a finitely recitable one, for it He could then He would not be very "infinite" at all.
The reason why talk about God is confusing is because God is literally beyond reason. As Kurt Goedel first showed in the 1920s and as Gregory Chaitin has since greatly elaborated, reason and rational thought are astonishingly narrow windows onto the whole of possibility. When we step beyond what is rational reason perceives this as paradox. But paradox is unavoidable because it is embedded in the nature of rationality itself. That is the essence of Goedel and Chaitin's work. Thus we cannot rationally understand what it means to be both separate and one because such concepts are not subject to rational analysis any more than is the concept of the Trinity in Christian dogma.
As to what I believe, I believe that the concepts of "life", "love", "freedom", and "truth" are reflections of the same unity. I believe that whatever beliefs we hold about God, to the extent that they are not independent of spacetime, are cultural constructs which reflect their heritage more than they do the divine reality. I believe that God is both consistent with and orthogonal to everything, that the mathematical concept of the continuum is probably the closest we can rationally approach the naming of the nature of God, but that the heart knows that the nature of God is unconditional love.
I believe that God has no needs and that the concept of a needy God is a root of all the ills that have been done in His name throughout history.
I believe that because God has no needs God cannot fail.
I believe that because God cannot fail there is no other who can fail.
I believe that because there is no other there is nothing to want.
I believe that because there is nothing to want there is nothing required.
I believe that because nothing is required, nothing is judged.
I believe that because nothing is judged, nothing is condemned.
I believe that because nothing is condemned, nothing is conditional.
I believe that because nothing is conditional, nothing is superior.
And finally I believe that none of this is new, that it has been known forever and expressed in numberless ways in every corner of the universe and that this knowledge is hidden in every heart, only waiting to be greeted. |
