{"id":3344,"date":"2011-11-06T20:53:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T01:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=3344"},"modified":"2023-02-14T23:09:29","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T04:09:29","slug":"there-is-no-god-but-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=3344","title":{"rendered":"There is no God but God"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines<\/cite>, Rene Guenon<\/strong> includes a chapter on the relationship between theology and metaphysics. He writes:<\/p>\n

\nThe theological point of view is but a particularization of the metaphysical point of view \u2026 it is an application of it to contingent conditions, the mode of adaptation being determined by the nature of the conditions to which it must respond … From this it follows that every theological truth, by means of a transposition dissociating it form its specific form, may be conceived in terms of the metaphysical truth corresponding ot it, of which it is but a kind of translation.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since everything has a reason for its existence, so does theology. In particular, man as he is a contingent being, will respond and understand theological language, while finding metaphysical language abstract and unapproachable. The other more important factor, de-emphasized or ignored by Guenon, is that metaphysical doctrine itself is secondary and derivative. Specifically, in a book dedicated to the six orthodox schools of Hinduism, which claim to be based on the Vedas, there is no mention of the contents of the Vedas<\/a> themselves.<\/p>\n

The authority of the Vedas derives from their claim to be a revelation from a higher source to rishis<\/a> or seers in a state of higher consciousness. The Vedas consist of poems, prayers, descriptions of sacrificial rites and rituals, incantations, laws and so on, all things that Guenon might dismiss as “sentimental” when they are actually foundational.<\/p>\n

As an example we can consider the metaphysical doctrine “Being is<\/strong>” and its theological equivalent, “God exists<\/strong>“. This equivalence was certainly known in the Middle Ages as we see from Thomas Aquinas<\/a>. Since what is Not Being, isn\u2019t, the clear corollary is that there is only one God. Hence, a commitment to monotheism<\/a>, provided it is properly formulated and understood, is necessary to tradition.
\n
\nGuenon explicates the metaphysics of Being and nonbeing most fully in The Multiple States of the Being<\/cite>. Anyone with a logical mind and sufficient powers of concentration can follow his presentation; a fortiori, there is no requirement to be in a state of higher consciousness. For Guenon, Being is not the Infinite<\/a>, which contains all possibilities. Being consists of all possibilities that are manifested. Nonbeing, then, consists of non-manifested possibilities as well as possibilities of non-manifestation.<\/p>\n

Now Guenon is somewhat inconsistent in his various works. On the one hand in Hindu Doctrines, he makes the rather racist\u00a0 claim that “Westerners, including even those who were true metaphysicians up to a certain point, have never known metaphysic in its entirety<\/em>.” Yet, he also claims that the Middle Ages knew Tradition and had true initiates<\/a>. In particular, he writes that Western Neo-Platonism did indeed understand the Infinite. As Gornahoor has pointed out<\/a>, the intellect of the Middle Ages was formed by the Neo-Platonists Plotinus<\/strong>, Augustine<\/strong>, and Boethius<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If God is the principle of Being, then how can God also be Infinite? Augustine understood the issue at stake. For Augustine, the possibilities in the Infinite are precisely what Plato means by ideas. Then, Augustine places these ideas in the mind of God<\/a>. Plato, and even Guenon, assume the ideas subsist in a domain of their own. This solution poses a dual conundrum. First of all, their metaphysical status is unclear. For Guenon, unmanifested possibilities do not “exist”, otherwise they would be manifested possibilities. Hence, there is no way to “know” them, although he does claim to know them. Augustine recognizes this problem and solves it by putting the Ideas in the mind of God, so that they appear in consciousness but not in the world of manifestation. Hence, for Augustine God is beyond Being and is identical with the Infinite.<\/p>\n

The other conundrum is more subtle and cannot be resolved by doctrine alone. One of the objections to Plato\u2019s philosophy is the lack of an adequate explanation as to how the ideas become real or manifested. This is a question we discussed in our interpretation of Evola\u2019s The Individual and the Becoming of the World<\/a>. This requires the Will<\/strong>, a conclusion that Augustine also reached; the will is not amenable or reducible to any verbal or intellectual theory.<\/p>\n

A final point to be made is the status of the possibilities of non-manifestation. Once, again, we see a complete understanding in the West of these, under the concept of privation<\/strong><\/a>. Rather than the trivial examples given by Guenon, Augustine relates this to the concept of “evil”, which, he claims, cannot have a real existence, but is really a privation of the Good. As for Guenon\u2019s examples, the ideas of the Void<\/a> and of the Silence<\/a> are certainly known in the West.<\/p>\n

Next we will discuss how we can know Being or God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since everything has a reason for its existence, so does theology. In particular, man as he is a contingent being, will respond and understand theological language, while finding metaphysical language abstract and unapproachable. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1191,583,158,582],"class_list":["post-3344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metaphysics","tag-plato","tag-privation","tag-rene-guenon","tag-st-augustine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3344"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17098,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions\/17098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}