And now I finally return to the commentary on the Long Obligatory Prayer. The third passage from the prayer is the shortest, a single sentence, though it may turn out to be the most important.
Exalted art Thou above the description of anyone save Thyself and the comprehension of aught except Thee.
To think something is to put boundaries around it. It is to say that it is this and not that, that it is this on condition of that. Thought is the delimitation that gives an object its reality on a plain of equals with other objects. Though the content of the thought of that object might be that it is superior, or transcendent above other objects, nonetheless, it is one idea among many. Transcendence is a curious idea in that it can be thought about, but it cannot itself be thought. So it it is with God. Just look at the movement of thought in the following effort to explain divine transcendence.
The relationship between the Creator and creation in Baha'i thought can compared to two sides of the same coin. Though there is a necessary connection between the two at all times, they can never be present to each other face to face. Instead they remain always other, always apart, always distinct, while at the same time they are always necessarily linked.
God is transcendent, even above the affirmation of his transcendence. Thought then is just a series of language games, serious games, but games nonetheless that do not produce a one to one correspondence between the word and what it claims to refer to.
This section of the prayer is performed with the body in prostration, as if one is bowing before a king, or one might say because one is bowing before a king. Between the words of the prayer and the posture of the body is a connection between the sovereignty of God and His transcendence above thought. Both affirmations rely on the idea that God is utterly unbound, unrestrained, undetermined, and unconditioned.
This brings us back to the unconditioned coming of the will of God, that what God wants of us can be wholly foreign to our desires, expectations, and ideas about him, and that His will may only become familiar to us once we try to put it into practice. Inasmuch as God transcends our understanding of Him, then by implication what He wants of us may itself transcend our understanding. The path forward is not just about mere implementation of what is already known. Rather it is an openness to that which we do not yet understand, the unforeseen whose existence we are not even aware of.
In this way, there is a consistant theme that runs through Baha'i teachings on the order of the cosmos and how we should approach prayer, discernment, and the life of service.
"God is transcendent, even above the affirmation of his transcendence. Thought then is just a series of language games, serious games, but games nonetheless that do not produce a one to one correspondence between the word and what it claims to refer to."
ReplyDeleteand yet He sees fit to reveal in human language, however limited it is, His will and means of drawing nearer to Him.
growing up and reciting creeds in church i was always rebelling against them, wondering "now, how does everyone here *know* that these are true and eternal statements about God? *is* there any way to know?"
the correspondence between ultimate meaning and language may not be one to one, but a trust in one's ability to approach this language and understand what it is inferring, asking, or revealing is a must, as is open-ness to the possibility that one isn't understanding things correctly at all.
Wow. You two just gave me an epiphany. I finally figured out why printed prayers do nothing for me. God transcends our language. I think God is felt more than known. I only feel comfortable talking to God in my head. Aloud feels inadequate, and when someone else is telling me how, it's just awkward. Maybe this is because doing it silently forces more of a channel between my soul and God.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to pray in the conventional way with words and sentences. I knew early on that God was not the big dude in the sky (BDS). So anytime I tried to pray, I would just think, God knows all of this stuff anyway. And God knows what I need way more than I do. With time though, I got used to the idea that prayer is for our benefit, not God's. And that helped alot to get into a regular prayer routine.
ReplyDeletemm. the "regular prayer routine" is still something i struggle with. but you're right- it's something for our benefit, in part. i'm reminded of something i heard about prayer- "God knows what we need, even as the parent knows what her child needs. but isn't the aprent so much happier when the child comes and asks, and thank you on his own?" i think this says is true- yes, God knows what we need, but for our own benefit we ask and keep praying, and in turn God is joyful that we have come to Him.
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