Interesting side comment. I certainly think you are on the right track. However, I'd like to suggest a thought experiment.
Imagine people 2000 years ago, and their concepts of how the material world operates. Planets? Atoms? Quantum energy? Giant metal ships that weigh many, many tons flying through the air?
The material, intellectual development of our civilizations has taken gradual time, step by step, by step, building on each previous building block. How about with the spiritual? History shows that spiritual understanding moves forward primarily in leaps. One understanding prevails for many, many centuries, then someone comes with a completely new level of insight, and the whole paradigm moves up a level.
Compare us now re: the material world compared with the understanding that prevailed say, 500 years ago. The level of details and intricacy we understand is completely incomparable. Like comparing a daisy to a giant oak.
The material world operates and functions on highly complex yet very knowable, mathematical and physical laws and principles. Why should we think that the spiritual dimension does not function in the same way? Both are created by the same creator.
How can we know the material world? because we are part of it, and we contain all the elements within it. We are microcosms.
So there are two points here. One, that we can indeed understand the nature of God, because God created us, and we are part of both the material and spiritual world. It's just that, like Jesus message and understanding of God was light-years ahead of the understanding that Moses brought, we're still due for a final installment. We're not there yet, but everything in the scripture indicates that's where we are headed.
Two, we need to understand the limits of intellect. The intellect thinks that it can 'know' everything, but there are many things that transcend intellect. Love transcends, for example. So, a man studying basketball via books, reading every book he can find about basketball, for 5, 10, 20 years, will still never "know" what basketball is. True 'knowing' means experiencing, so that the intellect is lifted, but the intellect is still less than the actual experience.
The Israelites experienced God on one level. As their master, lord, with themselves as servants. But Christians experience God on a completely different level (if we allow ourselves); experiencing God as a father, a close friend, where we are beloved not as servants, but as precious children.
What if the final step is something above all that? Jesus described his experience, of being in the father and the father being in him. The father being the inner, Jesus himself being the outer. Both one and the same. Jesus experience of God was completely a full, but no matter how he describes that experience, we can only ever understand it like the man studying basketball in his room. We only get a very small taste, now and then, of God. But what if we were fully immersed in the experience of God, 24 hours a day, fully resonating with God? Again, scripture indicates that this is where the entire history of 'salvation' is headed.
Just as we have body spirit and flesh, both given from out Creator, likewise, we can have both spiritual knowledge - or internal knowledge - and flesh-based knowledge - external or material knowledge.
At the fall of the human ancestors, not only the ancestors became separated from God, but their entire lineage - us - fell into ignorance of God, both internal ignorance (of the spiritual reality) and external ignorance (of the material reality).
It makes sense that in the history of God restoring humanity back to him, fully, that he created two streams of learning by which humanity could overcome our ignorance. We might consider that religion is the instrument for overcoming internal ignorance, and science is the instrument for overcoming external ignorance. (I mean religion in the sense of the spiritual civilizations and methodology, not in the sense of institutions).
I believe that at some point, we are destined to upgrade our spiritual understanding, so that internal ignorance is replaced by internal knowledge, and external ignorance is replaced by external knowledge, and then the two will unite and reinforce each other.
Science and Religion are two sides of the same coin, reflecting the dual aspects of humanity - flesh and spirit. At some point, we will be able to understand God's works and God's nature to the level that we understand the external universe.
However, the point needs to be re-emphasized, that this will only come via the experience of God, not via intellectual effort. Once you have an experience, then you can begin to do a breakdown, analyse and develop theories that account for the experience. That's how science works. This is also how spiritual understanding works. Someone has a profound, new experience of God, and then articulates that in terms on a level of the intellectual development of the day.
THat last point is key. Today, we are on an intellectual level that is like that oak tree, compared to the people, including disciples, of Jesus time. So how on earth could he explain things in detail, when they could not grasp even the basics.? he couldn't. but after 2000 years of training, of edging closer and upgrading out intellects, when finally God is ready to give us the final upgrade, it will be on a level no one in history has imagined.
Oh, except for Paul, he declared, "on that day, I will know, even as I am fully known". He saw it.
The real key to this is to be able to conceive that in fact, while God is a God of mystery, he is also a God of maths, of laws and principles, and is highly, highly detailed in all things. The final veil will be lifted when we begin to perceive spiritual reality to the same extent that we perceive material reality.
Interesting commentary, FractalizingIron. We're in agreement for the most part although using different terminology and concepts in some areas.
We need to understand the limits of intellect. The intellect thinks that it can 'know' everything, but there are many things that transcend intellect.
That, and "we can indeed understand the nature of God, because God created us, and we are part of both the material and spiritual world" sounds a LOT like Iain McGilchrist, who I've mentioned to you(?) before. His books discuss the two intertwined, co-dependent, yet very distinct worlds brought into being by the two hemispheres of the brain. Your comment that the intellect thinks it can "know" everything" echos a point McGilchrist makes repeatedly about the Left hemisphere. He goes well beyond that, actually:
The left hemisphere is not in touch with the world. It is demonstrably self-deceiving, and confabulates - makes up a story, when it cannot understand something, and tells it with conviction. Michael Gazzaniga first demonstrated this in split-brain patients. Subsequent research shows that, unlike the right hemisphere, which tends toward self-doubt, it takes a distinctly flattering view of its own capabilities. ~
ibid, p. 31
It [the left hemisphere] is not reasonable. It is angry when challenged, dismisses evidence it doesn't like or can't understand, and is unreasonably sure of its own rightness. It is not good at understanding the world. Its attention is narrow, its vision myopic, and it can't see how the parts fit together. It is good for only one thing - manipulating the world. Its world is a representation, a virtual world, only. It neglects the incarnate nature of human beings, reducing them to the equivalent of brains in a vat. It reduces the living to the mechanical. It prioritises the procedure, without a grasp of its meaning or purpose. And it requires certainty where none can be found. ~
ibid, pp. 31- 32
The left hemisphere tells us that the quest for meaning is meaningless, because it is not equipped to deal in meaning or understanding, but manipulating and processing. ~
ibid, p. 33
Meaning emerges from engagement with the world, not from abstract contemplation of it. ~ ibid, p. 36
I believe the essential difference between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere is that the right hemisphere pays attention to the Other: to whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves, with which it sees itself in profound relation. It is deeply attracted to, and given life by, the relationship, the betweenness, that exists with this Other. By contrast, the left hemisphere pays attention to the virtual world that it has created, which is self-consistent but self-contained, ultimately disconnected from the Other, making it powerful -- but also curiously impotent, because it is ultimately only able to operate on, and to know, itself. ~ ibid, p. 23
Experience is forever in motion, ramifying and unpredictable. In order for us to know anything at all, that thing must have enduring properties. If all things flow and one can never step into the same river twice - Heraclitus's phrase is, I believe, a brilliant evocation of the core reality of the right hemisphere's world - one will always be taken unawares by experience: since nothing is ever being repeated, nothing can ever be known. We have to find a way of fixing it as it flies stepping back from the immediacy of experience, stepping outside the flow. Hence the brain has to attend to the world in two completely different ways, and in doing so to bring two different worlds into being. In the one, that of the right hemisphere, we experience the live, complex, embodied world of individual, always unique, beings, forever in flux, a net of interdependencies, forming and reforming wholes, a world with which we are deeply connected. In the other, that of the left hemisphere, we "experience" our experience in a special way: a "re-presented" version of it, containing now static, separable, bounded, but essentially fragmented entities, grouped into classes on which predictions can be based. This kind of attention isolates, fixes and makes each thing explicit by bringing it under the spotlight of attention. In doing so it renders things inert, mechanical, lifeless. But it also enables us for the first time to know, and consequently to learn and to make things. This gives us power. ~ ibid, p. 22
We're in agreement for the most part although using different terminology and concepts in some areas.
Indeed. So glad you pointed this out. I've dealt with language as an instrument and medium most of my life, and one truth about language (including the conceptual structures it manifests) rings out clear in the realm of communication. Language, as an instrument for communication, requires correlation, as well as overlap, of definitions. While two English speakers may think they share the same language, and on one level they do, on another level, they each have unique languages for understanding and describing the world they encounter and think about. The meanings that different words, ideas, expression have for them are very often unique in some way, given the unique nature of the individual's experiences.
Thus, it is more often the case than not, that the development of communication and a commensurate development of mutual understanding requires the work of building a common 'language' between the people engaged in the communication. What A means by 'hope' is not always what B means by 'hope', and it can change easily depending on the context either uses it in.
Sometimes that common language is there, but it can often happen that two parties think they mean the same thing with a particular word or expression, only to find out that they in fact mean quite distinct and different things.
On the other hand, different terms and expressions, and even different conceptual structures, can and at times do, refer to the same thing or point towards the same reference point. Recognizing when that happens is sometimes an important step in the sharing process. Also, sometimes, it can be that elements from this angle and that angle, as expressed by different terminology or concepts, can be the very things that help augment each other and move the development of a common map forward.
Reciprocity is by nature the most powerful dynamic of the universe.
Interesting side comment. I certainly think you are on the right track. However, I'd like to suggest a thought experiment.
Imagine people 2000 years ago, and their concepts of how the material world operates. Planets? Atoms? Quantum energy? Giant metal ships that weigh many, many tons flying through the air?
The material, intellectual development of our civilizations has taken gradual time, step by step, by step, building on each previous building block. How about with the spiritual? History shows that spiritual understanding moves forward primarily in leaps. One understanding prevails for many, many centuries, then someone comes with a completely new level of insight, and the whole paradigm moves up a level.
Compare us now re: the material world compared with the understanding that prevailed say, 500 years ago. The level of details and intricacy we understand is completely incomparable. Like comparing a daisy to a giant oak.
The material world operates and functions on highly complex yet very knowable, mathematical and physical laws and principles. Why should we think that the spiritual dimension does not function in the same way? Both are created by the same creator.
How can we know the material world? because we are part of it, and we contain all the elements within it. We are microcosms.
So there are two points here. One, that we can indeed understand the nature of God, because God created us, and we are part of both the material and spiritual world. It's just that, like Jesus message and understanding of God was light-years ahead of the understanding that Moses brought, we're still due for a final installment. We're not there yet, but everything in the scripture indicates that's where we are headed.
Two, we need to understand the limits of intellect. The intellect thinks that it can 'know' everything, but there are many things that transcend intellect. Love transcends, for example. So, a man studying basketball via books, reading every book he can find about basketball, for 5, 10, 20 years, will still never "know" what basketball is. True 'knowing' means experiencing, so that the intellect is lifted, but the intellect is still less than the actual experience.
The Israelites experienced God on one level. As their master, lord, with themselves as servants. But Christians experience God on a completely different level (if we allow ourselves); experiencing God as a father, a close friend, where we are beloved not as servants, but as precious children.
What if the final step is something above all that? Jesus described his experience, of being in the father and the father being in him. The father being the inner, Jesus himself being the outer. Both one and the same. Jesus experience of God was completely a full, but no matter how he describes that experience, we can only ever understand it like the man studying basketball in his room. We only get a very small taste, now and then, of God. But what if we were fully immersed in the experience of God, 24 hours a day, fully resonating with God? Again, scripture indicates that this is where the entire history of 'salvation' is headed.
Just as we have body spirit and flesh, both given from out Creator, likewise, we can have both spiritual knowledge - or internal knowledge - and flesh-based knowledge - external or material knowledge.
At the fall of the human ancestors, not only the ancestors became separated from God, but their entire lineage - us - fell into ignorance of God, both internal ignorance (of the spiritual reality) and external ignorance (of the material reality).
It makes sense that in the history of God restoring humanity back to him, fully, that he created two streams of learning by which humanity could overcome our ignorance. We might consider that religion is the instrument for overcoming internal ignorance, and science is the instrument for overcoming external ignorance. (I mean religion in the sense of the spiritual civilizations and methodology, not in the sense of institutions).
I believe that at some point, we are destined to upgrade our spiritual understanding, so that internal ignorance is replaced by internal knowledge, and external ignorance is replaced by external knowledge, and then the two will unite and reinforce each other.
Science and Religion are two sides of the same coin, reflecting the dual aspects of humanity - flesh and spirit. At some point, we will be able to understand God's works and God's nature to the level that we understand the external universe.
However, the point needs to be re-emphasized, that this will only come via the experience of God, not via intellectual effort. Once you have an experience, then you can begin to do a breakdown, analyse and develop theories that account for the experience. That's how science works. This is also how spiritual understanding works. Someone has a profound, new experience of God, and then articulates that in terms on a level of the intellectual development of the day.
THat last point is key. Today, we are on an intellectual level that is like that oak tree, compared to the people, including disciples, of Jesus time. So how on earth could he explain things in detail, when they could not grasp even the basics.? he couldn't. but after 2000 years of training, of edging closer and upgrading out intellects, when finally God is ready to give us the final upgrade, it will be on a level no one in history has imagined.
Oh, except for Paul, he declared, "on that day, I will know, even as I am fully known". He saw it.
The real key to this is to be able to conceive that in fact, while God is a God of mystery, he is also a God of maths, of laws and principles, and is highly, highly detailed in all things. The final veil will be lifted when we begin to perceive spiritual reality to the same extent that we perceive material reality.
Anyway, just a few ideas.
Interesting commentary, FractalizingIron. We're in agreement for the most part although using different terminology and concepts in some areas.
That, and "we can indeed understand the nature of God, because God created us, and we are part of both the material and spiritual world" sounds a LOT like Iain McGilchrist, who I've mentioned to you(?) before. His books discuss the two intertwined, co-dependent, yet very distinct worlds brought into being by the two hemispheres of the brain. Your comment that the intellect thinks it can "know" everything" echos a point McGilchrist makes repeatedly about the Left hemisphere. He goes well beyond that, actually:
from The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
And below, from Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World -- a good place to start btw; the paperback is only 32 pages:
Wow. Literally, wow. So interesting.
Indeed. So glad you pointed this out. I've dealt with language as an instrument and medium most of my life, and one truth about language (including the conceptual structures it manifests) rings out clear in the realm of communication. Language, as an instrument for communication, requires correlation, as well as overlap, of definitions. While two English speakers may think they share the same language, and on one level they do, on another level, they each have unique languages for understanding and describing the world they encounter and think about. The meanings that different words, ideas, expression have for them are very often unique in some way, given the unique nature of the individual's experiences.
Thus, it is more often the case than not, that the development of communication and a commensurate development of mutual understanding requires the work of building a common 'language' between the people engaged in the communication. What A means by 'hope' is not always what B means by 'hope', and it can change easily depending on the context either uses it in.
Sometimes that common language is there, but it can often happen that two parties think they mean the same thing with a particular word or expression, only to find out that they in fact mean quite distinct and different things.
On the other hand, different terms and expressions, and even different conceptual structures, can and at times do, refer to the same thing or point towards the same reference point. Recognizing when that happens is sometimes an important step in the sharing process. Also, sometimes, it can be that elements from this angle and that angle, as expressed by different terminology or concepts, can be the very things that help augment each other and move the development of a common map forward.
Reciprocity is by nature the most powerful dynamic of the universe.