God is not the absolute

[razeontherock]

This statement is from the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev. He explains one of the main differences between the bloodless abstract God of philosophy and the living God of Christianity:

"God is not the Absolute

The concept of the Absolute is the extreme limit of objectivizing abstract thought. In the Absolute there are no signs of existence, no evidences of life. The Absolute belongs not so much to religious revelation as to religious philosophy and theology: it is the child of thought. The abstract Absolute shares the fate of abstract being which does not differ in any way from non-being. We cannot pray to the Absolute, cannot have dramatic meeting with him... The God of Revelation, the God of the Bible is not the Absolute: in Him there is dramatic movement and life, relationship to another, to man and the world. It was by applying Aristotelian philosophy that men transformed the God of the Bible into pure act, and deprived Him of all inner movement, all tragic elements. The Absolute cannot move out of itself and create another world; we cannot ascribe to him movement or change. The Gottheit of Eckhardt and the mystics is not the Absolute, as ultimate abstraction, but is the ultimate Mystery, and to this no categories are applicable. God is not an absolute monarch: He is a God who suffers with the world and with man; He is crucified Love, the Liberator. And the Liberator appeared, not as authority, but as crucifixion The Redeemer is the Liberator, not the accounting with God for crimes committed. God reveals Himself as Human-ness. Human-ness is the chief quality of God, not all omnipotence, omniscience, etc., but humanness, freedom, love , sacrifice. The concept of God must be freed from distorting, degrading, profane sociomorphism."

Thoughts?

 

[JoeyArnold]

If God isn't absolute then God doesn't have absolute authority.

 

[razeontherock]

He's using the term "the absolute" in a very specific way, not the general way you are.

 

[David Jerome]

What specific way is he using it?

 

[JoeyArnold]

Is Nicolai Berdyaev using absolute to mean perfection?

 

[DisingenuousChristian]

Very interesting passage. Not to sound uppity on my high horse, though I'm pretty sure few on this board really "get it."

I too don't believe in a scholasticized, abstract, "absolutely simple" God. Such a God is, indeed, bereft of any vital force. If what the Absolute is supposed to mean is something immutable, without personality, only the elegant and unsurpassed category of "being" than this is a sad and bare-bones way of looking at Divinity indeed.

I think the confusion of the term "absolute" stems from the way it is used, on the one hand, to refer to pure existence (which in scholastic parlance is usually synonymous with God) and the idea of an "absolute monarch" who is not in any way shape or form reproachable. I find that sort of odd, but I think what the writer is getting at is the idea of an imperious God which he wholeheartedly disavows as being on a par with an abstract, impersonal God who is also "absolute" in this final sort of way.

 

[JoeyArnold]

Why is Absolute not simple & personal?

 

[DisingenuousChristian]

Why is Absolute not simple & personal?

I go over that pretty in depth here:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7638000/

Feel free to disagree. Just know the thread is closed (unfortunately).

 

[Paradoxum]

This statement is from the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev. He explains one of the main differences between the bloodless abstract God of philosophy and the living God of Christianity:

"God is not the Absolute

The concept of the Absolute is the extreme limit of objectivizing abstract thought. In the Absolute there are no signs of existence, no evidences of life. The Absolute belongs not so much to religious revelation as to religious philosophy and theology: it is the child of thought. The abstract Absolute shares the fate of abstract being which does not differ in any way from non-being. We cannot pray to the Absolute, cannot have dramatic meeting with him... The God of Revelation, the God of the Bible is not the Absolute: in Him there is dramatic movement and life, relationship to another, to man and the world. It was by applying Aristotelian philosophy that men transformed the God of the Bible into pure act, and deprived Him of all inner movement, all tragic elements. The Absolute cannot move out of itself and create another world; we cannot ascribe to him movement or change. The Gottheit of Eckhardt and the mystics is not the Absolute, as ultimate abstraction, but is the ultimate Mystery, and to this no categories are applicable. God is not an absolute monarch: He is a God who suffers with the world and with man; He is crucified Love, the Liberator. And the Liberator appeared, not as authority, but as crucifixion The Redeemer is the Liberator, not the accounting with God for crimes committed. God reveals Himself as Human-ness. Human-ness is the chief quality of God, not all omnipotence, omniscience, etc., but humanness, freedom, love , sacrifice. The concept of God must be freed from distorting, degrading, profane sociomorphism."

Thoughts?

Well I can hardly disagree that the abstract God of philosophy is lifeless and loveless compared to the God of Jesus Christ. The personal God also has its problems too though. While the personal God is appealing to emotion, it can be found lacking in regards to reason. The point of the philosophers God is to try to ground the idea of God on pure reason, so that we can know the existence of God is even possible. The personal God, while inspiring love, may fall apart if picked at by reason.

The best thing to do would be try to reconcile the abstract and the personal. I used to believe in a rather abstract idea of God as the foundation of existence, and still believed Him to be my loving Father. If it can be shown to be rational for God to value humans then that could get us from the absolute to the personal.

He seems simply to be saying that he wants to believe in a God that has an emotional impact on his life. I can empathise with that, but it isn't really an argument.

 

[JoeyArnold]

The best thing to do would be to reconcile the Abstract God with the Personal God.

I believe God is both Absolutely Abstract & Personal. I believe God is logical & reasonable but not to us because we're cursed & stained & blinded & limited to cancer of sin.

I just want to know why people think God can't be both Absolutely Abstract & Personal at the same time.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

A stranger on a bus?

 

[Paradoxum]

I believe God is both Absolutely Abstract & Personal. I believe God is logical & reasonable but not to us because we're cursed & stained & blinded & limited to cancer of sin.

I just want to know why people think God can't be both Absolutely Abstract & Personal at the same time.

I guess because when you abstract God he tends to become more and more like a force than a person. The writer of the original quote appears to be against the unchangeableness of God. He wants a God that suffers, that feels, that loves, that cares. It is hard to get from the objective, changeless, timeless, rational aspects of the God of some philosophies, to morality? This goes to a more general question of how do you get from rationality to a loving, caring morality.

I would assume that is at least part of the problem.

 

[JoeyArnold]

I guess because when you abstract God he tends to become more and more like a force than a person. The writer of the original quote appears to be against the unchangeableness of God. He wants a God that suffers, that feels, that loves, that cares. It is hard to get from the objective, changeless, timeless, rational aspects of the God of some philosophies, to morality? This goes to a more general question of how do you get from rationality to a loving, caring morality.

Moses wrote in Genesis that God created us in His image. Meaning it is less us making God like us & more that God made us like Him. Yet, of course God is neither or beyond male or female gender but chose to identify Himself as a male as a way to relate to us.

I don't think God is rational or at least not our kind of rational. I believe God is a force of love if I'm allowed to say that. I believe that morality is eternally timeless & changeless & objectively true & that God is all of that & more. I believe that a Personal God can be Abstract & Absolute.

Logically thinking what I believe doesn't totally make sense. I am confessing that I believe in two kinds of Gods combined into One & that the two contradict each other but I still choose to believe that they somehow work each other out in the end somehow. I call that blind faith but that does sound pretty dumb, so you can call me crazy if you want but I think it's rather romantic.

 

[razeontherock]

A stranger on a bus?

I think somebody gets it

 

[JoeyArnold]

The Bible says God revealed Himself through becoming a human.

 

[razeontherock]

Ok the question came up, how is the author of the OP using the term absolute? I'm not really familiar, but hacking away at it:

The concept of the Absolute is the extreme limit of objectivizing abstract thought. In the Absolute there are no signs of existence, no evidences of life. The Absolute belongs not so much to religious revelation as to religious philosophy and theology: it is the child of thought. The abstract Absolute shares the fate of abstract being which does not differ in any way from non-being.

This seems to be his definition, which I am hard pressed to paraphrase. My question upon reading this, is that many of the atheists I've encountered on CF seem to have this sort of idea. Ok that doesn't sound like a question, but it's trying to be. I also wonder if the idea here isn't what Deists have in mind?

 

[JoeyArnold]

I want to google Absolute but am not sure how to.

 

[razeontherock]

Well if you do that, be sure to look it up in it's philosophical sense. (Not sure of it's history, being used as this guy does)

 

[iLogos]

Not sure if I'm on the same page as the rest of you because I am surely not as smart as every one here

But I seem to recall reading some interesting gnostic and metaphysical stuff a long time ago that claimed basically in the purest form, God is Nothing. At first it sounds ridiculous until you start to unravel the reasoning and logic to it. What ever we can attribute to God is abstract and would always fall short of the FULLNESS or TRUTH or First Principal which is unapproachable so they say.

I think Nietzsche also touched on this, but I could be wrong on that. It's been years since I've ventured in this direction.

 

[JoeyArnold]

Nikolai Berdyaev believe in existentialism?