Sun, 28 Aug 1994 06:29:22 -0700 for Date: Sun, 28 Aug 94 09:02:31 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: THE FACES OF GOD--POETICALLY SPEAKING To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY It's a fine Sunday morning and, instead of a mini-lecture, I thought I would share with you some ideas about postmodern understandings of the god concept. There is a long and quite different paper available on the topic if any one wants it...give me a snailmail address and it's yours. This mini-sermon comes in three parts [Kermit sometimes freezes up on me]. The first part is poetry oriented to premodern understandings of the god concept..the second, modernists' understandings and the third part, pomo understandings of god and religion...hope it gives you pause to think: ****Premodern Faces of God Premodern understanding of God developed over 400k years ago; first there were spirits of nature--animals, trees, rivers and rain. Then there were ancestral gods who founded each people on earth for whom they serve as god. Then there were the earth gods--usually female embodying harvest and bounty. Around the time of Moses, earth goddesses were displaced by sky-gods which now serve as the face of god for most people in Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other 'universal' religions. Michelangelo caught the essence of the sky god, Jehovah, in his Sistine Chapel painting. The poem, below, by Alfred Noyes, catches pre-modern understanding of god concept: Creation [an excerpt] In the Beginning there was nought but heaven, one majesty of light beyond all speech, beyond all thought, beyond all depth, beyond all height, Consummate heaven, the first and the last, enfolding in its perfect prime, no future rushing to the past, but one rapt Now, that knew not space or time. Formless it was, being gold on gold and void--but with thta complete Life where music could no wings unfold till, Lo, God smote the strings of strife. Myself unto myself am throne, myself unto myself am thrall! I that am All am all alone, He said, Yea, I have nothing, having all. And, gathering round His mount of bliss the angel squadrons of His will, He said, "One battle yet ther is to win, one vision to fulfill." Given the god who creates humans to fill His life, the question becomes how humans can know the ways and will of God. There are many pathways to this knowledge...indeed, all science begins with the quest for perfect knowledge of the gods. Most pathways to knowledge required escape from the senses which were unreliable and too much of this world. The poem by Arthur Symonds catches the efforts to escape the body to find that truth: ...God, having ordained the course of star and sun, no creature hath constrained a meaner course to run, I, by his lesson taught, imaging His design have diligently wrought motion to be divine. I turn until my sense, dizzied with waves of air, spins to a point intense, and spires and centers there. There, motionless in speed, I drink that flaming peace, which in the heavens doth feed the stars with bright increase. Finally, there is the premodern understanding of what god will provide in his goodness and mercy...Christians call it the Lord's Prayer: Our Father, which art in Heaven, give us this day out daily bread. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil. Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death Thou are with me, They rod and Thy staff they comfort me, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Part II to follow. T.R.