Now that I think of it, the three would indeed make for interesting dinner companions. (And I can use a few... I almost wrote this blog entry on how very much I miss the 'pre-health kick' days when I could have unwound tonight with any one of a hundred others who still smoked, drank, ate, laughed... but I decided that pining for paradise wasn't on the menu at the moment, at least not in that incarnation.) Naturally, what I am writing of is reviewing my notes for theological studies in varied areas. Bear with me, dear readers, for winter is a time when my brain goes into hibernation. I hate the cold, the dark, the claustrophobia in the winter coat, not being able to have packed lunch in a park or feel warm breezes, and being spared the comfort of windows wide and a well aired flat. Those of you who are ones for intercessory prayer will kindly remember me - that my brain thaws before I sit exams in May.
There comes a point in study, I have found, when one has read so many authors on the same topics that separating 'who said what,' while trying to form one's own arguments and perhaps manage a little originality along the way, that one must step back from further research for a time and review what one already has. (That my attempts in that area today made me all the more convinced that I'm approaching brain death is another topic for another entry.) I started out, this morning, with reviewing the Deuteronomistic History, specifically with reference to the Books of Kings. Now, even one like myself, who is a member of the Monarchist League and who entertains idealistic images of a very Catholic theocracy, can be inclined to find Kings to be (dare I admit this?) not only rather bloodthirsty but discouraging, and occasionally very boring. But I did have an odd thought about Elijah (which I'm writing here lest some insanity lead me to record it on exams, which would never do.)
Zealots such as Elijah, and those in any era who receive divine revelations personally and the like, are unlikely to have on their minds what your garden variety theist is thinking of at the moment. (Bear with me once again... I reviewed Amos yesterday, comforted by the thought that I well might not be the most pessimistic creature in history, and was diverted by the idea that not all of his hearers, the king in particular, might have been enchanted by his fixation on social justice. I'm no capitalist, as my readers know, but I do have this sense that there were those who would have found much to praise in Jeroboam's kingdom.) I'll not even dwell on that slaughtering 450 priests of Ba'al was rather excessive in its own right. No, I'm thinking on a very basic level. It was a time of drought - and Yahweh's seeming opponent, Ba'al, was widely thought, in the influential Canaanite circles, to control life (not only human, but of nature), naturally including the rains. I doubt Elijah, who would not have been the most refined of dinner companions on the best of days, was exactly endearing to people who would have hesitated to risk raising the ire of Ba'al, just in case the rains really did depend on him!
Yet the Elijah incidents reminded me of an element, related to worship even in times when monotheism was not yet firmly established, of which I'd never before thought in relation to the era of Kings, or perhaps of the entire Old Testament period. I had always thought of the image of God in the monotheistic faiths as one of revelation, of course. Still, I had never seen the marked contrast with idols such as Ba'al in that Ba'al (et al) did not communicate, and was not active, loving, etc., in the lives of the people. The pagan gods were seen as in control of forces (and demanding placating often enough), but were remote, where Yahweh, however transcendent, had a unique immanence.
Skipping ahead to this afternoon (pondering the revisions of the Deuteronomistic Historians and other redactors had me exhausted around the time Elijah boarded the chariot, so I needed to move to another topic for a while), it was back to philosophy of religion, and a review of notes about the design argument. (Having recently reviewed Hildegard of Bingen's notes about the humours of the unicorn and gryphon, I couldn't quite deal with the cosmological argument, because I have a strong sense that what we can imagine does not necessarily exist at all. This not to be hard on Hildegard, since hers was a time when zoology was studied in libraries...) I've written previously of my struggles with this topic, so I'll just share a thought which came to me today - and which reminded me of an eternal struggle that makes the one between Yahweh and Ba'al seem rather trivial by comparison.
Paley's time, and Hume's, was a heyday of deism among professed Christians. (I'm not suggesting that either of those writers was promoting deism, but, since the design argument does not attempt to present attributes of the Deity, such as omnipotence, love, omniscience and so forth, I would imagine a deist would find much of it appealing.) In case anyone has not noticed, I happen to be a theist - but I'll concede that deism must be very restful at times. A god who merely set creation in motion, then left us more or less on our own, eliminates the 'problem of evil,' the pain of unanswered, fervent prayer; the recognition that God is Almighty yet seems to have no interest in relieving suffering (...anyone who writes me about God's sending suffering to us as a necessary element in developing holiness will receive forty years in Purgatory - and don't think I'm not connected!)... well, such a concept removes many of the dilemmas with which the theist must struggle, burdened with questions yet knowing there are no answers.
Many saints, mystics, and theologians of the theistic faiths would have seen God as unknowable in His essence, and I would agree. (Even if I light candles to the Infant of Prague now and then... folk religion is not without other benefits, and my mother used to get amazing results from that novena.) Even if we speak of God as, for example, omnipotent or all-loving, basically the divine is so far beyond our comprehension that we cannot truly define what those attributes mean. Yet I'm sure that Elijah, looking down from wherever he ended up on his chariot ride, is not surprised that Yahweh (the Trinity, Allah - the god of the monotheists) has many millions of those who adore and love Him to this day, where Ba'al and friends are a distant memory by comparison. (I say 'by comparison' only because, though I know of no Ba'al societies, any Google search will show that some pagan gods still have a following.) Yahweh communicated - revealed Himself, even if our comprehension was limited and his transcendence side by side with the immanence - loved, suffered with us, was active in creation.
The dilemmas about evil and so forth will never be resolved - there are no answers. But deism is not such a comforting place to be after all. I may be a cynic, apophatic, often going through my daily prayers (all liturgical) without a stir of comfort or emotional 'connection.' Yet I know, as I'm sure Elijah did and as Jews and Christians know to this day, that, for all the philosophical problems deism can seem to remove, it presents a larger problem!
How does one worship a "Ground of Being," or a "Source" who merely set the world in motion? Creeds can never capture all of what God is - nor can reason, or theology, or anything fully within our power to analyse. But Hebrews pained by Babylonian captivity, just to choose one example relevant to the redaction I mentioned earlier, still could worship. Effectively, worship is all that we have - everything in our relationship with God. Much will arise from this - moral improvement, social involvement, virtue, actions (even if not so dramatic as Elijah's.) We cry out, one way or another, for what goes beyond comprehending or seeking to practise orthodoxy. We don't know much at all - and, the more we explore theology, the more we concurrently may be stricken with awe yet aware of how we've barely scratched the surface and never will.
"Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit." It makes perfect sense on one's knees, does it not? Yet I defy anyone to explain it in 'exam terms.' :)
In case I do not "see" you before then, I wish you a blessed Lent.
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