Foiled Again

On Sunday night K. and I were roaming around Glasgow, to and fro, from the Tall Ship to the Necropolis did we go. On our way back, we ran into somebody who undoubtedly has read these. K., because she is far more kind and tolerant than I, accepted one of his pamphlets, entitled Frequently Asked Questions In the Glasgow City Centre, but then promptly put it in my jacket pocket upon walking away. I finally read it this afternoon while eating lunch:

(1) Who Made God?

Would you expect a dog to buy and read a daily newspaper? No! [Yes, the exclamation point was his.] That is not because a newspaper cannot be understood, but because it is beyond a dog's understanding.

In like manner, God is bigger than anything a mere human can grasp. If I could understand Him, He would not be God and I would not be a man!

God had no beginning and will never end. Everything we know begins and ends, but God is greater than that. He is everlasting. God's word to us, the Bible, teaches that God is absolutely holy, with no sin in Him at all. He is just, and loving. He has all power. He is everywhere. He knows everything, and never changes.

God is creator of all things. All design has a designer; behind everything made, there will be a maker; creation must have a creator. This is God. Because He is our maker; we are responsible to Him. He knows what is best for us.

Is it just me, or is this God, the one described here if nothing else, which 'no mere human can grasp', is really quite graspable after all, maybe even a little too much so? I understand the notion of the Bible as 'revelation', but nobody has yet adequately to explain to me how we, again as 'mere humans', can deal with the implications of or interpret said revelation. That is, if it, the revelation, is supposed to point toward something beyond our feeble, consciousness-laden mushy minds, can we really articulate what the revelation is said to reveal?

I was all prepared to inquire about this, in hopes that I might rehearse the section of my thesis on Fichte's notion of Anstoss -- i.e., the unlimited activity of the I's self-reflection via the not-I -- and Schelling's exploration of Freedom. Namely -- how does it happen that God pronounces the Word and thereby discloses himself, appears to himself? Which is to say, how does the In-Itself Freedom of God split from itself, in such a way to be able to identify itself as 'itself'; how does it acquire a distance toward itself and thus clear the space in which it can appear (to itself)?

So, yeah, I was all prepared to go on about this; but, as it was, K. was hungry. Silly woman.