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On the Meaning of “God”: Transcendence without Mythology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Gordon D. Kaufman
Gordon D. Kaufman
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
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Extract

Many have observed that modern man, more than the man of any other age, lives in a world from which God is absent, a genuinely secular world. Our forefathers had a sense of God's continuous providential guidance of history as a whole and of their individual destinies in particular; they found their lives meaningful because they were lived within the context of God's purposes, each man having his own unique place and task. But such meaning as most men of our time find is the this-worldly humanly-created meaning emergent from ordinary social intercourse and/or cultural activity. For some this loss of a transcendent source and purpose has reduced human life to meaning-lessness and absurdity, a pointless and empty burden simply to be endured (Beckett); others react with bitterness and revulsion (Sartre); still others seem to find sufficient satisfaction in their daily round of activities, punctuated occasionally by aesthetic experience or unusual excitement, not to miss or lament the dimensions of depth and transcendence and mystery in which previous generations found their lives ensconced. But in any case the radical “eclipse of God” (Buber) or even the final irretrievable “death of God” (Nietzsche) appears to be the most momentous theological fact of our age. Given this cultural context, it is little wonder that linguistic analysts find it dubious whether the word “God” has any genuinely specifiable meaning, and theological writers, in a desperate attempt to rescue the Christian faith from what appears to be its certain demise, seek wholly “secular” interpretations which go so far as to dispense with the word and idea of “God” entirely.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 1966 , pp. 105 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966

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References

1 For a summary of the discussion see F. Ferré, Language, Logic and God (New York, Harper, 1961), and also W. T. Blackstone, The Problem of Religious Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs [N.J.], Prentice-Hall, 1963).

2 Cf., e.g., Paul Van Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (New York, Macmillan, 1963).

3 Karl Barth, who supposes himself not to be engaged in metaphysical or cosmological “speculations,” nevertheless makes a considerable point of the essential duality of the world in the Christian view. Cf. Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1936–1962), III/1, 17ff.; III/3, 369ff.; etc.

4 Kerygma and Myth, ed. H. W. Bartsch (London, S.P.C.K., 1953), 10, n. 2.

5 Auguste Comte more than a century ago, of course, already took this position, and he has proved to be the prophet of modern man in this respect.

6 It should be observed that the present paper is concerned with the question of the meaning rather than the truth of statements containing the word “God.” No attempt will be made here to prove either that God does or does not exist, that is, that the word “God” does or does not actually refer to a reality. Questions of that sort can be faced only if we already know what we mean when we use the word “God” — the issue to which this paper is directed. (It should be evident that — certain “neo-orthodox” theologians to the contrary notwithstanding — prior discussion of the meaning of “God” is just as important for “Christian faith” as for “philosophy of religion,” for it is meaningless to speak of “what God has done” or “what God has revealed” if it is doubtful whether the word “God” itself has any referential meaning.) It is my contention that the underlying assumption both of theists and a-theists is that “God-language” presupposes the validity of what I have above called the mythological-cosmological dualism between this world and another world, the holy and the secular, the eternal and the temporal, the absolute and the relative. Believers find themselves defending one or another of the several forms of this dualism; unbelievers (as well as many believers, if the truth be admitted) find the whole dualistic conception without sufficient warrant and possibly even a ludicrous vestige of earlier stages of culture. The question of the meaning and significance of speaking about God at all thus tends to get decided not in its own terms but on the basis of a prior attitude taken up toward the dualism of this world and the other. The purpose of the present paper is to show that the meaning of the word “God,” even in its reference to the “transcendent,” can be developed and understood entirely in terms of this-worldly (i.e., “secular”) experiences and conceptions — that is, in terms fully comprehensible and significant to the most “modern” of men — and that therefore the whole issue of a presupposed cosmological dualism, so problematic for modern man, can be bypassed. In English the word “God” is understood by some to designate a mere psychological projection of a father-image and by others to indicate the Father of Jesus Christ and the ultimate reality with which we have to do. Since we are here attempting to uncover the basis on which significant conversation between such diverse points of view may proceed, and are not trying to prejudice the case for one or the other of these alternatives, it is evident that our delineation of meaning will need to have great flexibility. Doubtless to believers the present analysis may seem to concede too much to psychological reductionism; to unbelievers, too much to outgrown superstition. However, my intention is to favor neither view — that would be to argue the question of truth not meaning — but to provide a framework of meaning within which each can take up his position and arguments without prejudice, and within which, therefore, genuinely significant conversation between them can once again proceed.

7 The emphases of biblical faith on salvation, deliverance, succor, abundant life, forgiveness, resurrection, atonement, eternal life, etc. all have this double reference, negatively to man's inadequacy and need, and positively to man's meaningful destiny and fulfillment.

8 In this respect modern man appears to be more heir of the skeptical than the metaphysical tradition in philosophy. One remembers, for example, the speech of Hume's Philo at the end of Part 8 of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: “All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn, while he carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the sceptic, who tells them that no system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects: for this plain reason that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard to any subject. A total suspense of judgment is here our only reasonable resource. And if every attack, as is commonly observed, and no defence among theologians is successful, how complete must be his victory who remains always, with all mankind, on the offensive, and has himself no fixed station or abiding city which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to defend?”

9 The highly complex character of this “experience” of finitude will be briefly analyzed below in Section IV.

10 It may be observed in passing that, despite all his strictures to the contrary, Jaspers also really allows his alleged “boundary situations” to be surpassable under certain circumstances in the experience of what he calls “transcendence” (see, e.g., Philosophie [Berlin, Springer Verlag, 1948, 2nd ed.], 44ff., 470, 675ff.). In the respect and degree to which this is the case his conception and analysis of finitude represents one more attempt to deny its real meaning, and my more drastic interpretation of the “boundary situation” should not be confused with his. (For similar criticism of Jaspers, see also Karl Barth's analysis in Church Dogmatics, III/2, 109–21.)

11 It goes without saying that my repeated use of such terms as “finite,” “limit,” etc. is meant simply to characterize man; the respects in which man's finitude might be either “good” or “evil” is not considered. The usage is intended as neutral description.

12 I do not think the notion of a mathematical limit, which is always approached asymptotically but never actually reached, can serve as a root conception for the notion of metaphysical limit with which we are here working. For the awareness of finitude is not purely conceptual or hypothetical; it is an awareness of my actual being as here (in this time and place) rather than there, as restricted in this particular concrete way by aptitudes, interests and training, as one which must and shall in fact die. It is the awareness of my being limited that we are here dealing with and thus in some sense an actual “encounter” with that which limits me. The notion of an asymptotic approach to a limit is simply not applicable, and we must revert to the physical experiences of limitation for models for our concept.

13 In view of this complex structure of the concept of limit — it being derived from the experience of relative limits which can be surpassed, and then extended to the notion of ultimate Limit which cannot — we should really not be surprised that men of all ages have supposed they actually knew something of that beyond the Limit, and that they expressed this in what I have above designated as mythological thinking. The duality of conscious finite being and Limit very easily, and almost naturally, goes over into the dualism of this world and the other world. These facts also throw light on the roots and meaning of Kant's first antinomy.

14 It will be observed that, though in many respects my position resembles Schleiermacher's, at this point I am setting myself against his contention that we have a specific and unique sense of absolute dependence as such (cf. The Christian Faith [Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1928], § 3–5).

15 It might be helpful to summarize here the various phases of the complex process through which, according to this analysis, the conception of an ultimate Limit is formulated: (1) there must be particular concrete experiences of limitation (of the several types described); (2) the self must be sufficiently mature and reflective to be able to move from consciousness of these particular experiences to a more general concept of limitation or finitude; (3) the awareness of the significance that it is I who am in this inescapable way hemmed in must arise, together with the powerful emotions which contribute to the “experience of finitude”; (4) this awareness of my own radical contingency may then give rise to the question about what it is which so confines and limits me; (5) the ultimate Limit may then be conceived in terms of one (or possibly some combination) of the four types of finite limiter. It should not be thought that the complexity of this process in any way prejudices the legitimacy of the question (4) or the possible truth of the answer (5). For it is certainly conceivable that we are limited ultimately by some (one) reality, and, if so, that only through some such complex process could we—all our knowledge being rooted in experiences of the finite — come to know it. As we shall see below, if the ultimate Limit were personal (as the notion of “God” suggests), we would expect him to be known through complex mediatorial processes in any case (as is a finite person), and there would seem to be no reason why these processes could not include the sort here suggested (cf. note 25, below). On the other hand, it must also be admitted that there seems to be no compelling necessity to move from step (3) in the above process through (4) and (5). One could claim (positivistically), if one chose to do so, that the only what which limits me are the four types of finite limiter as experienced in (1), and that there is no reason to suppose there is some one reality beyond and behind these which is the ultimate Limiter. The fact that the present analysis of the consciousness of finitude lends itself to such varied sorts of interpretation is no shortcoming: it means, rather, that significantly different perspectives — from positivism to a variety of types of metaphysics and Christian theology — can enter into common discourse with the aid of this framework, and this is precisely what we are seeking to make possible with this analysis (see note 6, above).

16 It is, of course, better that we be aware of these peculiar difficulties in the conception with which we are dealing here than, in ignorance, simply refuse to face the question at all. In this respect Kant, who saw that we could never resolve the antinomies and problems of metaphysics but who also saw that we could never cease struggling with these issues (see, e.g., The Critique of Pure Reason, A849/B877–A851/B879), was much wiser than many of his latter-day (positivistic, existentialistic, and fideistic) followers.

17 If in this paper I were seeking an argument for the truth of theism, instead of limiting myself to an analysis of the experiential bases for — and thus the root meaning of — the word “God,” it would be necessary and appropriate to expand and develop some of the implications of these sentences. (See also note 19, below.)

18 For a full discussion of this claim that genuine transcendence is intrinsically a personalistic notion and can be consistently developed only in connection with a personalistic conception of God, see my paper on “Two Models of Transcendence,” published in The Heritage of Christian Thought, Essays in Honor of Robert L. Calhoun, ed. R. E. Cushman and E. Grislis (New York, Harper and Row, 1965).

19 It might be noted here, however, that inasmuch as the personalistic model involves the notion of a self whose active center is beyond that which is directly experienced, the latter being conceived as the vehicle or medium of the self's action or revelation (see below), there is a certain flexibility and breadth in theism enabling it to deal with the considerable diversity of types of finite limiter somewhat more easily, perhaps, than can other kinds of metaphysics.

20 To avoid confusion in this already very complex analysis, I shall use the term “encounter” to designate the linguistic-experiential ground of our knowledge of other selves, reserving the more general term “experience” for the sensory-perceptual foundations of our knowledge of physical objects (including the bodies of persons qua their purely physical character).

21 For a more linguistically oriented treatment of these problems which comes to fundamentally similar conclusions on the basis of careful analysis of personalistic modes of speech, see Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action (New York, Viking Press, 1960).

22 In an early paper Paul Tillich seemed to be taking a position close to the analysis of this essay. “The non-symbolic element in all religious knowledge is the experience of the unconditioned as the boundary, ground, and abyss of everything conditioned. This experience is the boundary-experience of human reason and therefore expressible in negative-rational terms. But the unconditioned is not God. God is the affirmative concept pointing beyond the boundary of the negative-rational terms and therefore itself a positive-symbolic term” (“Symbol and Knowledge,” Journal of Liberal Religion [1940], II, 203). Tillich, however, failed to refine his analysis and develop his insight. Thus, the peculiar character of “boundary experiences” remains unanalyzed here, and the “boundary” can even be interpreted in terms of such positive images as the (almost hypostatized) “unconditioned” or “ground”; this blurs its radical character as the ultimate unsurpassable Limit. Again (similarly to my analysis), “God” is distinguished from “the unconditioned” as “a positive-symbolic term” pointing beyond the ultimate boundary, but Tillich fails to see (either here or anywhere else in his writings) that this is because of the peculiar character of the transcendence known only in interpersonal relations and is thus intrinsically connected with the personalistic overtones of the term “God.” In his later writings, where Tillich apparently gives up the view that the “non-symbolic element in all religious knowledge” is a special experience and holds instead that we can make at least one nonsymbolic statement about God (see, e.g., Systematic Theology [Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951], I, 238ff.), there remains little resemblance to the view I am trying to develop in the present essay.

23 For further discussion, see my paper cited in note 18.

24 Since, according to the present analysis, every positive doctrine of God must rest on revelation, it should be clear both a) why no real doctrine of God appears in this paper (no concrete revelation being expounded here), and b) that the present analysis of “limit” is not to be confused with the “negative way” to God.

25 It will be observed that, according to the analysis presented in this paper, the “encounter” with God actually rests on a double mediation, whereas our encounters with finite selves involve only the single mediation (of noises, visible gestures, etc.) discussed in the text: a) the ultimate Limit is not immediately experienced, but is known only through the mediation provided by reflection on and generalization of particular experiences of limitation (cf. note 15, above); b) the “selfhood” or “nature” of God is not immediately experienced or directly encountered, but is known through the mediation of the ultimate Limit. This does not mean, however, that an “encounter” with God is really the product of a rather long chain of somewhat dubious inferences and no encounter with a reality at all. Rather, as the encounter with other selves makes clear, such communication through media is the mode in which realities transcending the reach of our immediate experience are known to us. In such an encounter, of course, I do not attend directly to the mediating processes (the noises the other is making); rather, I am conscious of him, of the speaker. Insofar as I must attend to his words, consciously, in bewilderment about their meaning, making deliberate inferences, the process of communication is halting and ineffective. Only if I can and do “leap beyond” the media to the self who is mediated through these words is there significant encounter with the other. In most of our intercourse with others precisely this leap is made in the most natural fashion; this is why we say we know the other person, and not merely the noises he makes. In a similar way, God is never directly “experienced,” but is “encountered” (as is appropriate to his transcendence) only in and through media. (The double mediation involved in this case, in contrast with finite selves, is appropriate to the fact that this is God, and not merely some intramundane reality, of which we are here speaking.) If the media are the focus of attention here, of course the encounter with God will seem problematic and unreal; as with a finite self, only if and when a “leap beyond” the media (although through the media) occurs will the encounter with God be felt as genuine, i.e., only then could one properly speak of God being encountered. Theologically such moments are referred to as “revelation,” i.e., God's self-manifestation. It is only because men have believed these to have occurred to themselves, or others, that talk about “encounters” with God — and thus talk about “God” — has appeared and continues to be sustained in human discourse. Faith, we can now see, is that stance in which the “experience” of the ultimate Limit is apprehended as the medium of the encounter with God (see below, section VI); unfaith is that attitude which, unable to “leap beyond” the ultimate Limit, finds itself always attending instead to the mere Limit as such.

26 It might be argued that it is no accident that such impersonal philosophical notions as “infinite” or “unconditional” reality, “being itself,” the bare notion of “transcendence,” etc., appear always as demythologized or depersonalized versions of the more anthropomorphic god(s) of a religious tradition, and that in their impersonal (sometimes called “superpersonal”) form they are in fact denying the vital root on which their very life and meaning depend.

27 See note 25, above.

28 If we have correctly identified the experiential elements underlying the term “God,” the doctrine of God must always deal in some fashion with the notion of transcendent reality (even if only to refer it to some “depth” in everything that is) and with the way in which this transcendence is known to us (i.e., with “revelation”). However, such highly problematic negative notions as “infinite” and “unconditional” — probably rooted ultimately in “mystical” experience of the “supernatural” — would perhaps not need to be given the constitutive role in a doctrine of God which they have so often played in the past (though they might well have a certain secondary and interpretative role to play); and the meaning of the doctrine would not in that way be placed so completely out of reach of those whose direct experience seems to them limited to the finite and contingent.

29 It should perhaps be observed that my contention that such a doctrine of God would not be mythological rests on a distinction between “mythological” and “analogical.” A mythological doctrine of God begins in and presupposes what I have called the cosmological dualism of “this world” and “another world,” “this side” and “the other side.” For such a presupposition there seems little warrant. An analogical doctrine of God makes no such presupposition, but results when (the experience of) finitude is understood in personalistic terms. Thus, an analogical doctrine, being experientially rooted, can be carefully disciplined and controlled methodologically; with mythology the rootage is so vague and legendary that strict methodological control is almost impossible. For the position I am taking here, only if the Christian doctrine of God itself — worked out in strict accord with the foundations of theological knowledge as sketched in this paper — were to require the re-introduction of certain features of the otherwise discarded mythical world-view, would it be justifiable to reinstate them. But this is as it should be: Christian faith is first of all faith in God — and all else that must be said theologically should follow from this premise.