The objective of this blog is to set out thoughts on the nature of being including intimation of God's being.
Below are the original notes about being which it is hoped to expand upon over the coming months:
God, as our cousins might say is "into being".
Meaning he creates being, he is attentive to being in all its possibilities. If he is pre-disposed by his nature to do this would it affect his free will and his omnipotence? ie he could not but create being and beings.
His first revelation to Moses is about being "I AN THAT I AM" and this too is his name. The Hebrews seem to have realised the importance of this pronouncement from the outset but were anxious about saying it out loud, but it was permissible to write it down.
We too have being but it is creaturely being so we can say "i am that i am" or perhaps "i am that i am" like poo bear, to ourselves in a very small voice! but it is a creaturely "i am".
How would such a God reach out to his creaturely beings? It must be through common aspects of being: could we sympathise with Being that was foreign to us? Tonight I saw two branches of a grapevine which had fallen from the trellis but they had re-established contact each with its fellow by winding a tendril around a tendril from the other's branch, like to like. At twilight when I looked up I saw a hundred tendrils reaching out against the blue of the evening sky. Could we learn new aspects of being? Could we have new aspects of being conferred on us? eg: Grace in the Christian tradition is the obvious one. Its a bit like having your programming re-configured through a download... "download complete - select the installation button and in no time you will be able to draw closer to God" - is this a limitation? Well its consistent with an omnipotent God of the Abrahamic tradition who may just decide your time is up for an upgrade. The traditional answer is to have faith and put up with the downgrades along with the upgrades.
If being is a major activity for God, or a major part of the Being of God, then we can get closer to God by being aware of being in all its forms, at least to the extent that we are capable. Would this only apply to good forms of being, how about evil forms?
On the other hand the greatest way to move away from God is to be full of envy which is a resentment of the being of others. Envy denies us awareness of being in others and so drives us from God who is interested in the being of these others. The old virtue of being able to celebrate the good fortune of others would be a key to this end. This is also present in its negative form in the Mosaic commandments "Thou shalt not covet...."
Love of others is attention to their being, the quality of that love being equal to the extent that we are able to discern the reality of their being. Perhaps we love our children best because we have seen them grow into being. Perhaps the quality of love is limited by our self love being projected, reflected from the object of our love, but an attempt at loving others is still worth while in itself and perhaps we will become able in the art with practice.
Does being have to be reflexive or reflective? If a creature is not aware of its actions and state can it be said to have being? Perhaps just being aware of something else is the start of being. A planarian aware of light though its little pigment spots perhaps? Or does the planarian have to think "I am aware of the light through my pigmented spots" or perhaps just "I am aware of light" before it can be said to have being?
God would create as many types of being as possible. This is a universe of possibility for us but we would not be able to perceive many or even most of the possible states of being that God creates because of our limitations of being and perception.
Are there some beings or conditions of being that God would not create? Perhaps very evil beings? Or would he still create them but limit their scope for evil action? But the ultimately evil being would be one that wished to destroy being, God might avoid creating such a being, at least in powerful form (remembering that we are capable of envy so he has already created some capacity for evil).
Why would God allow death if he is so keen on being? Perhaps because he is timelessly eternal. If He is timelessly eternal we are always present to him. We may not always be present to ourselves but we are always in the mind of God. Why do people worry about dieing yet never worry about the time before their birth when they were not...? Why do people worry about persistence in time yet, as far as I know, have no desire to be everywhere at once?
Talking of the timelessness of God I note that an early draft of this blog had been auto-saved in two minutes time (ie at 7:56 when it was still only 7:54) is this evidence of God's interest or the interest of another sort of timeless being he has created in this blog page or just a software error?
This is just a way of getting my thoughts out of my head on to another medium. Don't expect these notes to make much sense, I hope to be able to revise and refine them...Paul.
