I have often begun an introductory class in philosophy with the Famous quote of Xenophanes (d. 480 B.C.) which states: “But if cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.”
Each species would form their own god in their own species’ image. What an amazing figure must exist for rabbits! And whales!
You may think I am pushing my undergraduates to a form of radical relativism with Xenophanes’ quote. Certainly it can be read that way. However, my goal is to demonstrate the utter lack of conformity to reality of any species-bound attempt to depict god, i.e. to render one’s god in one’s own image.
Are mortal men constructing God in their own image? Unfortunately, and in almost every case, the answer is a resounding “yes!” The expression ‘flowering lilac tree’ captures to a certain extent the phenomenon it refers to.
The expression ‘God’ refers also to this ‘flowering lilac tree’ in the sense that ‘God’ refers to the Being which creates and sustains all other ‘beings’, including the lilac tree. And yet, ‘the expression ‘God’ refers to more than this---a unified entity, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, etc…
To construct an image of one’s God is by definition ‘idolatry’. The real violation here being that one places something else before God. This is more common than you may imagine. Every time we say ‘god’ we are in some sense making ‘god’ work or make sense in our language, obviously our language will fall short of expressing the fulfillment of being, pure beauty, in short ‘awe’. (Awe is the term that describes the appropriate human response to God’s Presence.) We cut short, truncate, hypostasize, the ‘momentary glimpse’ and make it function in a predicate-verb syntax.
One day Professor Franz Mayr and I were discussing Plato, and he made a very insightful remark concerning a very small detail (it seemed to me) in the Plato text, I can’t remember which dialogue, we were discussing this ‘momentary glimpse’ or shall I say ‘momentary grasp’. It is something you catch ‘at the corner of your eye’ a momentary arrest of the ordinary and a glimpse into true goodness and a grasping of the kingdom of beauty. For Plato, this is what philosophy is all about---getting this ‘glimpse’ out of the corner of one’s eye---not a resolution, or answer, strategy or plan. Philosophy according to our culture has almost nothing to do with ‘philosophia’ for the Greeks. An analogy that may hold: the devoted Bach listener when confronted with contemporary street pop ‘music’ honestly wonders is music the same in both cases?
How many academic philosophers have you met, read or studied with sparked “a sense of wonder”? Well if they did not, then you deserve your money back, this is ‘pedagogy’ or learning of some sort but it is not ‘philosophia’.
Each species would form their own god in their own species’ image. What an amazing figure must exist for rabbits! And whales!
You may think I am pushing my undergraduates to a form of radical relativism with Xenophanes’ quote. Certainly it can be read that way. However, my goal is to demonstrate the utter lack of conformity to reality of any species-bound attempt to depict god, i.e. to render one’s god in one’s own image.
Are mortal men constructing God in their own image? Unfortunately, and in almost every case, the answer is a resounding “yes!” The expression ‘flowering lilac tree’ captures to a certain extent the phenomenon it refers to.
The expression ‘God’ refers also to this ‘flowering lilac tree’ in the sense that ‘God’ refers to the Being which creates and sustains all other ‘beings’, including the lilac tree. And yet, ‘the expression ‘God’ refers to more than this---a unified entity, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, etc…
To construct an image of one’s God is by definition ‘idolatry’. The real violation here being that one places something else before God. This is more common than you may imagine. Every time we say ‘god’ we are in some sense making ‘god’ work or make sense in our language, obviously our language will fall short of expressing the fulfillment of being, pure beauty, in short ‘awe’. (Awe is the term that describes the appropriate human response to God’s Presence.) We cut short, truncate, hypostasize, the ‘momentary glimpse’ and make it function in a predicate-verb syntax.
One day Professor Franz Mayr and I were discussing Plato, and he made a very insightful remark concerning a very small detail (it seemed to me) in the Plato text, I can’t remember which dialogue, we were discussing this ‘momentary glimpse’ or shall I say ‘momentary grasp’. It is something you catch ‘at the corner of your eye’ a momentary arrest of the ordinary and a glimpse into true goodness and a grasping of the kingdom of beauty. For Plato, this is what philosophy is all about---getting this ‘glimpse’ out of the corner of one’s eye---not a resolution, or answer, strategy or plan. Philosophy according to our culture has almost nothing to do with ‘philosophia’ for the Greeks. An analogy that may hold: the devoted Bach listener when confronted with contemporary street pop ‘music’ honestly wonders is music the same in both cases?
How many academic philosophers have you met, read or studied with sparked “a sense of wonder”? Well if they did not, then you deserve your money back, this is ‘pedagogy’ or learning of some sort but it is not ‘philosophia’.
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