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Monday, January 31, 2011

The Case for God

I am just starting Karen Armstrong's book on disc, and I am so interested that I am going to buy a copy. In Part 1 there is a quote by someone whose name I missed ( I am listening on ear phones and could not re-wind at the time) that theological knowledge should aspire to music rather than language - a quote underscoring the vast difference between language and music, or between logos and music. ( I shall have the full text soon.)
Anyway, I somewhat agree, and this is the basis of my grudge against language and reason based on language: there is so much more to human intelligence than mere language; there is music, as we have said, and there is mathematics, and there is painting and sculpture... there is dance and basketball! And there are emotions.

Music is very important, but it is not the apex of intelligence, just like language is not the sole summit of intelligence. There are many other modes of intelligence.
Music cannot be reduced to Language, and it codes are very different and musical communication is very different from language communication. Music uses the voice, and may use instruments. Language uses the voice, but may use instruments: hand and arm gestures, for example, then there is written Language.
Similarly sculpture uses instruments and raw materials to create, but it is very different from music. Perhaps all the plastic arts - even extending to architecture - are a distinct form of intelligence dependent upon the material environment.
Things like Dance are structured bodily movement. Basketball has a basic choreography, but sports are more prone to chaos and chance in structure than is Dance. Yet both are structures of intelligent beings.

Then there is the Perception of the Holy.

It is my belief that perception of the Holy is a separate function of intelligence. Sure you can feel good, and go out into the meadow on a sunny day, and expostulate, "What a divine day! Truly God exists and made the day!"  But that is emotion and language... nothing more... nor less.
Our perception of the Holy is an independent function of intelligence which allows us to enter a realm that is as different from our everyday and its logic as a symphony is different from a basketball game... even more so. We have become so complacent with thinking that we know so much about God's being, that we think the Divine is pretty much a fill-in the blanks Bible game.
It is not.

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