Affirming the Supernatural (A Proof of God)
As a fun thing, not that this necessarily changes my views, I will attempt to show that the supernatural is.
NOTE: It is important to clarify why we use "God", "supernatural", and "Him" interchangeably when we refer to the transcendent in this article. For one, "Him" is a commonly recognized pronoun for "God", which in turn is a commonly recognized term. We however resort primarily to "supernatural" in referring to the transcendent because the term is less familiar and consequently, has undergone less "idolatry" and anthropomorphization. Remember also that these words are merely terms with which we can allude to the transcendent. So please do not analyze this article using preconcieved notions/definitions of the supernatural/God as that is self defeating.
------------------------------------
It is important to disclose why I choose to use the term 'supernatural being' in lieu of the better recognized 'God'. Firstly, the concept of God known to my immediate audience is most popularly recognized in the West. This concept has been the source and (the recieving end) of much heartache, theological debate, sectarianism, and whatever other leaning humans believe they have a right to.
First, we will have to describe God. Note, we have not said "define God" but rather describe God. I will admit both terms are equally self contradictory but again, for the purpose of not inciting partisan protest we will fairly limit ourselves to what seems to be a solid underlying view of God. Again, this view has been permeated (and perhaps marred) by Western philosophy, but the point is to avail the reader of any religious bias for certain 'attributes' of the supernatural being.
- God is transcendent
This is perhaps the simplest 'definition' of God we as humans can muster, but again sectarianism has germinated conflict and it is therefore necessary to elaborate.
transcendent
1 a : exceeding usual limits : SURPASSING b : extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience c in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge
2 : being beyond comprehension
3 : transcending the universe or material existence
As Kantianism is not directly related to our end goal, we shall put it aside and pay respect to the remaining definition of 'transcendent'. What does it mean when something is transcendent? Nothing. To know that something is transcendent is to deny that something of its transcendence. For what entity "beyond comprehension" and "beyond the limits of ordinary experience" can have any aspect of its being comprehended? This again, seems to be an impossible hurdle in searching for a defense of the supernatural.
When we look closer however, we discover that the clause stipulates the entity as "lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience" and again, "exceeding usual limits". So if we are to describe God as transcendent, we must differentiate between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It is poor practice, and ultimately self defeating, to indulge in this dualism when dealing with the supernatural. For this reason does St. Dionysius declare:
Going yet higher, we say that He is neither a soul, nor a mind, nor an object of knowledge; neither has He opinion, nor reason, nor intellect; neither is He reason, nor thought, nor is He utterable or knowable; neither is He number, order, greatness, littleness, equality, inequality, likeness, nor unlikeness; neither does He stand nor move, nor is He quiescent; neither has He power, nor is power, nor light; neither does He live, nor is life; neither is He being, nor everlastingness, nor time, nor is His touch knowable; neither is He knowledge, nor truth, nor kingship, nor wisdom, nor one, nor one-ness, nor divinity, nor goodness; neither is He Spirit, as we can understand it, nor Sonship, nor Fatherhood, nor any other thing known to us or to any other creature...; neither is He darkness, nor light; nor falsehood, nor truth; neither is there any entire affirmation or negation that may be made concerning Him. (Theologia Mystica, V)
Here again, we reach another impossible hurdle. If we are to use words to describe Him, then "we are committing the most subtle and insidious form of idol-worship (The Spectrum of Consciousness, 27). Coomaraswamy perhaps best addresses our conundrum:
For this reason, we have refrained from attempting to "pin" God to any Western philosophy or religion. We shall not attempt to describe God as the Trinity, for even referring to the supernatural as "Him" is a most tremendous sacrilege. In Exodus 20:4,
Why must we be apprehensive of using words to describe the supernatural? There can be no good without bad;if we say God is good, then where do we leave the bad? There can be no light without darkness;if we say God is light, then where do we leave the darkness? There can be no existence without non existence; if we say God exists, then where do we leave nonexistence? To say the latter traits are separate from Him is to contradict oneself for how can an absolute being be limited in any respect? To say that He is neither good nor bad, neither light nor darkness, neither existent nor nonexistent, does not fix the problem. For again, we ask, how can absolute being be limited in any respect? In this regard, we can say religion has failed. Any affirmation of reality will contradict itself.
How then are we to prove or to disprove God? We can't touch the untouchable for we now know God is "unknowable". All attempts to represent or define Him meet with utter failure and self contradiction. All that has been shown points to the fact that dualism and logic cannot, can never, point to God. But what of God? Is there an opposite to God? Can there be an opposite to the Absolute? No!
Now that we have established God is transcendent, we must ask, how did man recieve the idea of God? How can a limited being contain the tiniest inkling of God the transcendent? Some quip that man 'invented' Him but this is demonstrably false. Can a man claim to know something that he cannot know? To answer this, we retort to the skeptic, apart from the supernatural, what else has man 'fabricated' that he cannot know? The silence speaks volumes. To speak of fairies and unicorns and Santa Claus is hideously ignorant. Fairies and Santa Claus have the form of man, unicorns have the form of horses. Zeus and the gods of Mount Olympus perhaps? Ghosts, vampires, even spirits? No again. We must make this all important distinction when we sift through history's rubble. Zeus, witches, ghosts, vampires, unicorns, Harry Potter's arch-nemesis and what have you, these are invariably attempts to contain the supernatural by assigning human attributes. Witches wear clothes, Zeus hurls thunderbolts, vampires turn into bats to exsanguinate their victims. To attempt to associate any of these embodiments with man's knowledge of the supernatural is to reject our very description of the supernatural. Man may attribute "love", "free will", "determinism", "grace", "salvation", "wrath", "justice" to the supernatural because these things are familiar to him. But when he affirms the supernatural to be transcendent, this is not a thing we can call familiar. Everything we know is incorporated into our sphere of experience. But do we know anything transcendent? No! The very idea is absurd. One cannot know what one does not know. Hence, we dismiss these critics who claim "man invented the supernatural" as tending a gross contradiction in terms. We have now given one reason why man cannot have invented the supernatural; for apart from the supernatural, all of man's alledged fabrications are knowable.
We will now ask those who continue to claim the supernatural is an invention of man to try to come up with something unknowable. Let them imagine something transcendent. We ask these to atttempt to 'fabricate' something unknowable, as they persistently claim has been done. Whether it is a white void, or a blank blackness, these will continue to remain colors we can recognize. In short, they are NOT unknowable. There is no arguing the fact; man cannot think of something he does not know. Man can gaze into the heavens and marvel at the firmament, he can postulate that something or someone created them. He can have no idea "who" or "what", but this is NOT the same as coming up with something transcendent. As soon as man tries to "contain" the supernatural, he starts to call God "something" or "someone", an "intelligent creator". As soon as he does this, he is guilty of attempting to describe what he cannot, the transcendent. St. Paul angrily expresses his contempt for such idolaters.
The apostle's harangue mightily voices what we have been attempting to realize so far. Although we cannot agree with Paul's anthropomorphization of God as wrathful, we do agree with some of his other points.
- That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
We have already dismissed the rival idea that man creates the supernatural as self contradictory. A little more elaboration is however necessary on this point.
- And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
This is at all consistent with what we have discussed so far. By "incorruptible", Paul means to say "transcendent", for there is no corrupting the transcendent. In reading it as such, Paul's statement seems to agree with our findings.
As a sidenote, we will remind the reader that this topic is unsuitable for assessing Paul's 'proof of God in nature', nor his offensive remarks towards unbelievers. We will expound on these two points summarily before reaching our conclusion.
- Supernatural Revelation
If we are to admit that it is impossible of our own discernment to know the supernatural, then what can we make of the resident knowledge "manifest" in us? How has this knowledge been so persistent, even to modern times? Remember quickly that in modern times, atheism has risen primarily in response (or rather logical rejection) of the human renditions of God apparent in figures like Jesus, Jehovah, and Allah. Let us also note that this response is not applicable to the transcendent, no amount of logic can affirm or deny the transcendent. The obvious answer to our seemingly contradictory and impossible knowledge of the supernatural then rests rather in revelation. We are again in no position to describe the means of revelation, whether scriptural, biological, or natural, and that is beyond the scope of our discussion. Note: We do NOT avow the supernatural endowed man with knowledge of the supernatural, or that some heavenly trickster endowed man with knowledge of the supernatural. We merely affirm this: the supernatural is. Any further probing via logic defeats our purpose.
As a closing remark, let us remind the reader that we limited ourselves to one description of the 'supernatural', namely transcendence. We have thus abstained from endorsing any specific "version" of the supernatural, for as we have discovered, this is idolatry. We do not then, like St. Dionysius, endeavor to define the spiritual as elephant, or Spirit, or Triune, or Air, or Water, or Space, or Substance, or Power, or Glory, or Good, or Bad, or Light, or Darkness, or Alpha, or Omega, or Consciousness, or Unconsciousness, or Mind, or Soul. We may only say, God is. "God is the isness of isness." God just is. Any further attempt at rationalization confounds the mind and brings much trouble, as we have seen with religious wars and strife over orthodox doctrine. By commiting God to "isness" itself, we can never logically anthropomorphize the supernatural since the end result is always inconsistency, contradiction. We find our frustration modeled in Godel's famous "Incompleteness Theorem".
We now know that the supernatural cannot be defined or held to any system of logic. We cannot say that the supernatural exists or does not exist. We also now know that it is impossible for man to have concocted the transcendent. No, his very attempts at describing the supernatural have met with folorn disgrace and impious idolatry. We will thus be content to admit the sole truth: God is.
-------------------
Afterthoughts
- How does one affirm the supernatural personally?
Some have pointed to meditation, others to prayer, some to good works, others to faith, some to enlightenment, others to science. We have only affirmed "God just is", not through any rigid logical means or any word play. I find that attempting to "dial" the supernatural, the transcendent, is logically self defeating. Does the potter have power over the clay, or the clay over the potter? I however do not know that the supernatural 'respects' the rules of logic and therefore can only leave the reader to make his own path.
As a fun thing, not that this necessarily changes my views, I will attempt to show that the supernatural is.
NOTE: It is important to clarify why we use "God", "supernatural", and "Him" interchangeably when we refer to the transcendent in this article. For one, "Him" is a commonly recognized pronoun for "God", which in turn is a commonly recognized term. We however resort primarily to "supernatural" in referring to the transcendent because the term is less familiar and consequently, has undergone less "idolatry" and anthropomorphization. Remember also that these words are merely terms with which we can allude to the transcendent. So please do not analyze this article using preconcieved notions/definitions of the supernatural/God as that is self defeating.
------------------------------------
It is important to disclose why I choose to use the term 'supernatural being' in lieu of the better recognized 'God'. Firstly, the concept of God known to my immediate audience is most popularly recognized in the West. This concept has been the source and (the recieving end) of much heartache, theological debate, sectarianism, and whatever other leaning humans believe they have a right to.
First, we will have to describe God. Note, we have not said "define God" but rather describe God. I will admit both terms are equally self contradictory but again, for the purpose of not inciting partisan protest we will fairly limit ourselves to what seems to be a solid underlying view of God. Again, this view has been permeated (and perhaps marred) by Western philosophy, but the point is to avail the reader of any religious bias for certain 'attributes' of the supernatural being.
- God is transcendent
This is perhaps the simplest 'definition' of God we as humans can muster, but again sectarianism has germinated conflict and it is therefore necessary to elaborate.
transcendent
1 a : exceeding usual limits : SURPASSING b : extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience c in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge
2 : being beyond comprehension
3 : transcending the universe or material existence
As Kantianism is not directly related to our end goal, we shall put it aside and pay respect to the remaining definition of 'transcendent'. What does it mean when something is transcendent? Nothing. To know that something is transcendent is to deny that something of its transcendence. For what entity "beyond comprehension" and "beyond the limits of ordinary experience" can have any aspect of its being comprehended? This again, seems to be an impossible hurdle in searching for a defense of the supernatural.
When we look closer however, we discover that the clause stipulates the entity as "lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience" and again, "exceeding usual limits". So if we are to describe God as transcendent, we must differentiate between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It is poor practice, and ultimately self defeating, to indulge in this dualism when dealing with the supernatural. For this reason does St. Dionysius declare:
Going yet higher, we say that He is neither a soul, nor a mind, nor an object of knowledge; neither has He opinion, nor reason, nor intellect; neither is He reason, nor thought, nor is He utterable or knowable; neither is He number, order, greatness, littleness, equality, inequality, likeness, nor unlikeness; neither does He stand nor move, nor is He quiescent; neither has He power, nor is power, nor light; neither does He live, nor is life; neither is He being, nor everlastingness, nor time, nor is His touch knowable; neither is He knowledge, nor truth, nor kingship, nor wisdom, nor one, nor one-ness, nor divinity, nor goodness; neither is He Spirit, as we can understand it, nor Sonship, nor Fatherhood, nor any other thing known to us or to any other creature...; neither is He darkness, nor light; nor falsehood, nor truth; neither is there any entire affirmation or negation that may be made concerning Him. (Theologia Mystica, V)
Here again, we reach another impossible hurdle. If we are to use words to describe Him, then "we are committing the most subtle and insidious form of idol-worship (The Spectrum of Consciousness, 27). Coomaraswamy perhaps best addresses our conundrum:
Idolatry is the misuse of symbols, a definition needing no further qualifications. The traditional philosophy has nothing to say against the use of symbols and rites; though there is much that the orthodox can have to say against their misuse. It may be emphasized that the danger of treating verbal formulae as absolutes is generally greater than that of misusing plastic images.
For this reason, we have refrained from attempting to "pin" God to any Western philosophy or religion. We shall not attempt to describe God as the Trinity, for even referring to the supernatural as "Him" is a most tremendous sacrilege. In Exodus 20:4,
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Why must we be apprehensive of using words to describe the supernatural? There can be no good without bad;if we say God is good, then where do we leave the bad? There can be no light without darkness;if we say God is light, then where do we leave the darkness? There can be no existence without non existence; if we say God exists, then where do we leave nonexistence? To say the latter traits are separate from Him is to contradict oneself for how can an absolute being be limited in any respect? To say that He is neither good nor bad, neither light nor darkness, neither existent nor nonexistent, does not fix the problem. For again, we ask, how can absolute being be limited in any respect? In this regard, we can say religion has failed. Any affirmation of reality will contradict itself.
How then are we to prove or to disprove God? We can't touch the untouchable for we now know God is "unknowable". All attempts to represent or define Him meet with utter failure and self contradiction. All that has been shown points to the fact that dualism and logic cannot, can never, point to God. But what of God? Is there an opposite to God? Can there be an opposite to the Absolute? No!
This truth knows no hindrances anywhere.
It is like a vacuity of space which is not hindered by anything,
it refuses to take any predicates.
As it is beyond all forms of dualism, in it there are no contrasts,
no characterization is possible of it.
As there is in it no opposition,
it knows nothing that goes beyond it.
As there is in it no origination,
it leaves no traces behind it.
As there is in it no birth-and-death,
it is unborn.
As there are in it no pathways to mark its transformation,
it is pathless.
- Pranjnaparmita, Fo-mu Chinese version
Translated by D. T. Suzuki
Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, 1953, p. 267.
It is like a vacuity of space which is not hindered by anything,
it refuses to take any predicates.
As it is beyond all forms of dualism, in it there are no contrasts,
no characterization is possible of it.
As there is in it no opposition,
it knows nothing that goes beyond it.
As there is in it no origination,
it leaves no traces behind it.
As there is in it no birth-and-death,
it is unborn.
As there are in it no pathways to mark its transformation,
it is pathless.
- Pranjnaparmita, Fo-mu Chinese version
Translated by D. T. Suzuki
Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, 1953, p. 267.
Now that we have established God is transcendent, we must ask, how did man recieve the idea of God? How can a limited being contain the tiniest inkling of God the transcendent? Some quip that man 'invented' Him but this is demonstrably false. Can a man claim to know something that he cannot know? To answer this, we retort to the skeptic, apart from the supernatural, what else has man 'fabricated' that he cannot know? The silence speaks volumes. To speak of fairies and unicorns and Santa Claus is hideously ignorant. Fairies and Santa Claus have the form of man, unicorns have the form of horses. Zeus and the gods of Mount Olympus perhaps? Ghosts, vampires, even spirits? No again. We must make this all important distinction when we sift through history's rubble. Zeus, witches, ghosts, vampires, unicorns, Harry Potter's arch-nemesis and what have you, these are invariably attempts to contain the supernatural by assigning human attributes. Witches wear clothes, Zeus hurls thunderbolts, vampires turn into bats to exsanguinate their victims. To attempt to associate any of these embodiments with man's knowledge of the supernatural is to reject our very description of the supernatural. Man may attribute "love", "free will", "determinism", "grace", "salvation", "wrath", "justice" to the supernatural because these things are familiar to him. But when he affirms the supernatural to be transcendent, this is not a thing we can call familiar. Everything we know is incorporated into our sphere of experience. But do we know anything transcendent? No! The very idea is absurd. One cannot know what one does not know. Hence, we dismiss these critics who claim "man invented the supernatural" as tending a gross contradiction in terms. We have now given one reason why man cannot have invented the supernatural; for apart from the supernatural, all of man's alledged fabrications are knowable.
We will now ask those who continue to claim the supernatural is an invention of man to try to come up with something unknowable. Let them imagine something transcendent. We ask these to atttempt to 'fabricate' something unknowable, as they persistently claim has been done. Whether it is a white void, or a blank blackness, these will continue to remain colors we can recognize. In short, they are NOT unknowable. There is no arguing the fact; man cannot think of something he does not know. Man can gaze into the heavens and marvel at the firmament, he can postulate that something or someone created them. He can have no idea "who" or "what", but this is NOT the same as coming up with something transcendent. As soon as man tries to "contain" the supernatural, he starts to call God "something" or "someone", an "intelligent creator". As soon as he does this, he is guilty of attempting to describe what he cannot, the transcendent. St. Paul angrily expresses his contempt for such idolaters.
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Romans 1)
19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Romans 1)
The apostle's harangue mightily voices what we have been attempting to realize so far. Although we cannot agree with Paul's anthropomorphization of God as wrathful, we do agree with some of his other points.
- That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
We have already dismissed the rival idea that man creates the supernatural as self contradictory. A little more elaboration is however necessary on this point.
- And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
This is at all consistent with what we have discussed so far. By "incorruptible", Paul means to say "transcendent", for there is no corrupting the transcendent. In reading it as such, Paul's statement seems to agree with our findings.
As a sidenote, we will remind the reader that this topic is unsuitable for assessing Paul's 'proof of God in nature', nor his offensive remarks towards unbelievers. We will expound on these two points summarily before reaching our conclusion.
- Supernatural Revelation
If we are to admit that it is impossible of our own discernment to know the supernatural, then what can we make of the resident knowledge "manifest" in us? How has this knowledge been so persistent, even to modern times? Remember quickly that in modern times, atheism has risen primarily in response (or rather logical rejection) of the human renditions of God apparent in figures like Jesus, Jehovah, and Allah. Let us also note that this response is not applicable to the transcendent, no amount of logic can affirm or deny the transcendent. The obvious answer to our seemingly contradictory and impossible knowledge of the supernatural then rests rather in revelation. We are again in no position to describe the means of revelation, whether scriptural, biological, or natural, and that is beyond the scope of our discussion. Note: We do NOT avow the supernatural endowed man with knowledge of the supernatural, or that some heavenly trickster endowed man with knowledge of the supernatural. We merely affirm this: the supernatural is. Any further probing via logic defeats our purpose.
As a closing remark, let us remind the reader that we limited ourselves to one description of the 'supernatural', namely transcendence. We have thus abstained from endorsing any specific "version" of the supernatural, for as we have discovered, this is idolatry. We do not then, like St. Dionysius, endeavor to define the spiritual as elephant, or Spirit, or Triune, or Air, or Water, or Space, or Substance, or Power, or Glory, or Good, or Bad, or Light, or Darkness, or Alpha, or Omega, or Consciousness, or Unconsciousness, or Mind, or Soul. We may only say, God is. "God is the isness of isness." God just is. Any further attempt at rationalization confounds the mind and brings much trouble, as we have seen with religious wars and strife over orthodox doctrine. By commiting God to "isness" itself, we can never logically anthropomorphize the supernatural since the end result is always inconsistency, contradiction. We find our frustration modeled in Godel's famous "Incompleteness Theorem".
We now know that the supernatural cannot be defined or held to any system of logic. We cannot say that the supernatural exists or does not exist. We also now know that it is impossible for man to have concocted the transcendent. No, his very attempts at describing the supernatural have met with folorn disgrace and impious idolatry. We will thus be content to admit the sole truth: God is.
-------------------
Afterthoughts
- How does one affirm the supernatural personally?
Some have pointed to meditation, others to prayer, some to good works, others to faith, some to enlightenment, others to science. We have only affirmed "God just is", not through any rigid logical means or any word play. I find that attempting to "dial" the supernatural, the transcendent, is logically self defeating. Does the potter have power over the clay, or the clay over the potter? I however do not know that the supernatural 'respects' the rules of logic and therefore can only leave the reader to make his own path.
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