What would a religious humanist theology look like? If we
assert that the divine is incomprehensible and ineffable, then how can we speak
of any sort of encounter or relationship with the divine? Since we offer a
humanist approach to religion, we might want to begin with human consciousness.
Let’s, therefore, start with a premise that the search for the divine in the
cosmos is, in effect, a desire to “ensoul” the cosmos, to discover a universal,
cosmic human consciousness. In his book,
The Essence of Christianity, written
in 1855, the German theologian Ludwig Feuerbach declares that God is nothing
more or less than our own self-consciousness projected onto the cosmos. This
projection, however, separates, alienates humanity from its true divine essence. Feuerbach
understood Christianity, the incarnation of the divine in Christ, as the reintegration
of an alienated divine/human consciousness.
Some 70 years later, in The
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, the renowned sociologist Emile
Durkheim insists that religion emerged as a projection of the social
organization of the primitive tribal, totemic society. “The god of the clan was
the clan itself” is the oft-quoted
Durkheimian tagline. The human encounter with the divine is a
projection, in the one case of the individual human mind—a psychological
process—in the other of the social group—a psycho-social process.
In a corollary to this notion of divinity as the projection
of human consciousness, the great 20th century German-Jewish
philosopher Martin Buber notes the ubiquitous human desire for relationship. We
seek relationship because we find our own selves in our relationship with other
selves. This is what Buber had in mind in his seminal work I and Thou. Buber led us to understand that there is, indeed, no “I”
without a “You.” I discover my own self in my encounter with other selves.
The notion that we might seek the source of divinity within
our own lives, our own souls, our own self-consciousness is not necessarily a
discovery of modern theologians and social scientists. Within the Hindu
tradition beginning with the Upanishads compiled during the 8th to
the 5th centuries BCE, there is recognition of an identity between the
life-force of the individual human and the life force of the cosmos. Atman is
Brahman is the key observation of this tradition. Atman, the soul of the
individual is identical with Brahman, the universal soul, universal Being.
“In the beginning all was Brahman, one and infinite… He is seen in the radiance of the sun in
the sky, in the brightness of fire on earth, and in the fire of life that burns
the food of life. Therefore it has been said: He who is in the sun, and in the
fire and in the heart of man is one. He who knows this is one with the one.” [From the Maitri Upanishads in The Upanishads, translations from the
Sanskrit with an Introduction by Juan MascarĂ³, Penguin Books, 1965, p. 101]
This observation is not unique to Hinduism within the
ancient tradition. The theology of ancient Israel as reflected in the Hebrew
Bible also acknowledges the identification of the human soul with the divine. In
the first chapter of Genesis, humanity is created in the divine image. In
chapter 2, a clump of earth is animated by the divine breath to become a living
human being. The Book of Proverbs declares, “God’s lamp is the soul of the
human” (Prov. 20:27). The human soul, the human life force is equated with the divine
breath, the divine soul, the divine light.
In fact, the way we name the monotheistic God of the three
Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—is a misnomer leading to a
tragic misunderstanding. In the Hebrew Bible, God has a name. God’s name is
YHWH, usually pronounced Yahweh. In the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew
Bible undertaken in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 3rd century BCE, the name of God
is translated kurios, meaning “lord.”
Jewish tradition translates this name as adonai,
also meaning “lord,” and this is how the name is translated into English.
However, the significance of this name is actually made
rather clear in Exodus 3:13-15. The name seems to express a 3rd
person form of the verb “to be,” perhaps to be translated, “He is.” I would
suggest that we translate Yahweh as “Being” itself. This is a far cry from the
notion of God as Lord. It actually would bring us closer to an understanding of
divinity expressed in the Upanishads.
The question I always have is "Why do we expect an encounter or personal relationship with the Divine?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting that "we" expect it. Some of us seek it, in the same way that we seek personal relationships with other humans and/or other creatures.
ReplyDelete