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Transtheists: Does God Exist?
- Thread starter SalixIncendium
- Start date
God transcends existence and non-existence categories.
Sooo..... Kind of?
I suspect a transtheist would say if God or gods do exist, they are not relevant to one's own enlightenment.
My view is that the transtheist position is that whatever is the Absolute Reality, That transcends and hence cannot be described through any Physical, logical, linguistic or mathematical structure. In fact all these are partial projection of this Absolute. Hence all attempts to tell what that is through any of these means is entirely futile. It can only be directly grasped through direct perception as the self ie the consciousness shares identity with this Absolute.
Now this proposition can only be proved via negative. That is by showing that all attempts to explain reality through physical, logical, linguistic and mathematical means will show the description to be either inconsistent or incomplete. This was originally done for linguistic and logical categories by Nagarjuna and later Godel did it for math. It remains to be seen if physicalism also falls prey to this...as I suspect it will given how QM theories are looking like.
- real short
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So absolute reality can only be experienced Apophatically (via negation)?
Does it's opposite Cataphatic (positive terminology) play a part?
Edited: because I didn't end my train of thought lol
I thought you were a theist. When did you become a transtheist?Yes
Yes
I didn't know you were transtheist Kenny?
That is what this transtheist would say.
Absolute reality? Does not compute...if it can only be known relativistically, then it is not Absolute.
<edit to clarify>
Via negation can only define the bounds of ones own perception. If you have nothing left to negate, you have reached your bounds. Of course, this can also be looked at negating what one might call the Absolute, but you can't call it nihilism as it still leaves the door open to unknown aspects of reality.
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No. Advaita Vedanta holds that the Absolute can be directly and fully perceived or grasped by a sufficiently prepared mind. But the perception is a "concept-free" perception. One cannot linguistically or conceptually described in a way that fully communicates to the other what is That which was perceived, though partial (and necessarily error-ridden) hints that point to it can be given. And this inability is because this Absolute transcends all such conceptual categories. We cannot tame IT with our puny logic or math or causal physics. It is such that overflows all those boundaries....Brahman (literally that is what the word means).
God, as you refer to it here, is equivalent to Para Brahman?
I would prefer that there be other English words. But since there isn't my pedagogic strategy here is to overload a familiar English word with deeper meanings rather than importing a foreign word that may not be easily acceptable. I think it is in keeping with the Hindu ethos of uncovering the para-Brahman in everything that humans have found worthy of worship.
Others may choose to proceed differently.
I agree that English vocabulary is grossly insufficient for describing Hindu concepts. "God" has so many meanings to so many cultures and individuals, its use is easily misunderstood or misinterpreted as a result of that overload...to the point where I avoid using it altogether.
What is bound by perception is dependent upon one's perspective. What is it which is left after there is nothing left to negate? What is it that is doing the negating?
To some extent it is caused by our different background. India is the home of the 2nd largest English speaking population in the world, and like all things we have made its words and concepts to reflect the Indian cultural understanding of the world. God, in Indian English is a multi-valent word where the context explains how it is used (like Dharma.....for which no English cognate has been found yet).
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I would say that eternal beings must exist in the foundation of eternal reality. I don't like the term God as to me it implies power and authority over the living. All beings are but drops in the ocean of existence. The soul is but a droplet. The foundation is but the infinite possibility of intelligence. Intelligence needs intellect from the living so perhaps the source is living. I don't see living beings as being one with each other. Instead we all share a common environment; the foundation.
If you define it, then you are limiting it
Dogen's Kenjo Koan snippet:
To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.