For once, I'm not doing this at the last minute. Everyone should be proud of me.
For the assignment:
1. God is not material.
2. God is not tangible.
3. God is not mortal.
4. God is not predictable.
5. God is not definable.
We learned on Sunday that God can only be discribed in negatives, like I put above. We learned some other stuff, but what I really want to say is that I don't completely agree. I think what was meant was that God cannot be consistently definable in positives. However, in the story of Sodom and Gemorrah, God is vengeful. Same with Jonah. For my #4, God is not predictable, but He [gender issues ignored] is unpredictable, at least in stories like last week's carob trees and city walls. God is intangible, undefinable, immortal. He is many things. In many parts of the Torah, and the Passover seder, we hear that God is kind. It can be argued that God is selfish, to want himself to be the only god the Jews will worship, but maybe he is truthful, because the others are false. He is, like humans, inconsistent.
Maybe this means something. In the Renaissance, people believed they were special because they were created in God's image. [The Sistine Chapel's ceiling shows that - Adam reaches for God.] Well, the Hebrew Bible says that too, right in Genesis, and we are unpredictable, and inconsistent, just like God. I don't know if it's complete blasphemy to contradict Maimonides, but something tells me that it's our job as Jews. I think I posted something about that before. And I do, because I was created in God's image, and that makes, as the Renaissancians believed, me very special.
I have another contradiction for you. If, for example, you say "God is not kind," wouldn't that contradict tons of examples of extreme kindness in just the Torah alone?
The final one, which I thought of at 7:45 [too early] in the morning, and I'm not sure if this makes sense AT ALL, so just bear with me, is if you say "God is God." That's definitely a positive, but you can't do that. Saying "God is not human" doesn't cover all the options - maybe God is a seal if you go by that. You can keep on adding things until, basically, you say "God is not anything on Earth." But God is everywhere, right? So how can you say that? I guess my point is that defining God in any way just seems sort of... silly. Much like my musical philosophy, actually, I believe that if you believe God exists, He [g.i.i.] exists for you, and if he doesn't, defining Him won't bring you any closer to believing.
:: about ::
- Micaela Brody
- Senior graphic design major at Boston University. Enjoys long walks to grab coffee and good everything bagels with lox cream cheese from New Jersey. Gets invested in television characters and curates iTunes playlists carefully. Favorite cheese: St. Agur blue. Favorite glyph: pilcrow.
3 comments:
i like ur thinking...its basically exactly what i was trying to say, only a lot more coherent and wise;-)
i AM proud of you. posts ahead of time are always commended.
your negative statements are quite traditional... except for number 4. that's a very interesting idea... what does it have to say about prayer, then? can we expect G?d to answer our prayers?
you use very absolute language when you say that you "learned on Sunday that God can only be discribed in negatives." let's be clear: that's what Rambam believed, and even he agreed that G?d is described positively at times (when Moshe argues with G?d so the Israelites are not all killed after the Golden Calf, Moshe calls G?d merciful and patient and a lot of other descriptive terms).
i like how you then follow with some reservations and ideas of your own. you get what these assignments are about. thank you for challenging and critiquing what you learn. that's the mark of a good student.
right. despite Rambam's seemingly hard-lining stance, we effectively make positive descriptions of G?d all the time. when we make a brachah, we implicitly label G?d as a king... we don't say he's not NOT a king... so how does that hold up under Rambam?
also, good use of the reflexive property.
except: can't G?d NOT be G?d if G?d wants... are you limiting G?d that way... defining G?d, as it were?
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