Analogies for Understanding the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity

Faith & Science Conversation
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I just came across a couple of analogies which may shed light on the doctrine of the Trinity and I’d be interested in seeing what others think. In searching the forums I thought this thread would be a good place to start because I like the way @jpm introduces it, beginning with something @Merv had written in that regard near that time - provided they do not object.

Probably easier to just copy Phil’s blessedly succinct introduction from that thread:

Mervin on another thread made this statement:
“Nobody fully understands the trinity. Adding in Greek gods isn’t going to close that gap for you - sorry. I’m confident I understand just enough of what I need of that from Paul’s writings to get by - no Greek gods needed.” @Mervin_Bitikofer

Our pastor started a sermon series yesterday on doctrine, and started with trying to explain the trinity. I thought he did a good job with a difficult subject, but even then afterwards he said some came up to him and were more confused than when they started. I suspect it was because they had never thought about, and thinking about it gives you a headache.

Anyway, he discussed Modelism (which is a common way of describing the trinity, though heretical) and Arianism, but while somewhat easy to say what it is not, it is difficult to say what it is. What do you think?.

So I have two analogies I’d like feedback on. I suppose that makes them models, is it the general consensus that they are heretical then? More importantly do any of these analogies capture how anyone here understands the Trinity? As Phil asked, what do you think?

The first comes from Rumi and the second is attributed to a Franciscan monk and both are shared by Iain McGilchrist in this video produced for a group called the Essentia Foundation. I had posted this video in this thread presenting the interview with Iain McGilchrist conducted by Elizabeth Oldfield for the Theos, Christian think tank in the UK.

Here Iain starts by describing Rumi’s analogy regarding whatever is living and sacred, points out how fitting that is for the doctrine of the Trinity and then shares the way a Franciscan monk had explained the Trinity to him with an analogy comparing it to a book. The clip I took here is just at the beginning of the video’s conclusion. But if you go back to the 36 minute mark he shares a fascinating account of creation from a Kabbalah tradition of Judaism which leads up where the clip starts which is also wonderful.

At the risk of making this even longer perhaps I should say how I think the Rumi analogy fits the Trinity. I think it means that God, the father, is like the transcendent source of the water (and of life). Jesus, the son, is like the water actually flowing, the sacred incarnate. And the Holy Spirit would be represented by the water that is drunk by the thirsty person. You think?

Trying to think who else would be interested, maybe: @LM77 , @Rob_Brewer , @GJDS , @Kendel , @Christy . Please recommend to anyone else you think might be interested.

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As with all analogies, the Rumi one can’t be pursued past its (narrow) point of comparison; pushed into trying to be an actual explanation of the Trinity it becomes modalism. Making the Father the water at the source would work better; at least that way all three are water; and putting all three into the present tense would also help – the Father always the source, the Son always flowing, the Spirit always being imbibed.
One problem is that the scriptures tell us that the Spirit comes from the Father, “proceeds” being the specific manner, though is sent by the Son. The ancient Fathers were unanimous that the Father is the origin of both Son and Spirit, just in different ways. This illustration can be taken that way, though, so it’s not a big issue so long as it is explained that way, so it’s not too bad an analogy so long as it’s taken with respect to us since the Spirit does come to us through the Son since the latter sends the former.
A weakness is that in the scriptures the Holy Spirit is never about Himself, He’s always about the Son and the Father, and the Spirit as the water thirsty people receive could be taken as the primary way that God interacts with us (which lends itself to modalism).
When pressed, I don’t do analogies, I used this:

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I’ll admit that to get how each Person interacts with us would require another dimension, making a tetrahedron, but that’s where the Creed comes in.

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I think the deeper meaning might actually be captured better in the implicit way afforded by the allusion to water. As with anything to do with the sacred, very little can be captured explicitly and the effort to do so usually creates distortion of one kind or another. I’d never understood the appeal of the Trinity before but now I think I do. The visual you provided doesn’t convey what I took away from the Rumi analogy but it may well work for someone else.

What did you think of the book analogy shared with him by the Franciscan monk? I liked it but the Rumi spoke to me more vividly. But only the book analogy was actually presented specifically as a representation of the trinity. The Rumi water allusion comes from the Sufi branch of the Islam tradition. The one that comes from the Kabbalah tradition starting at the 36 minute mark felt even more rich with meaning to me but it and the one from the Sufi tradition only led up to talking about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

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I’ll probably have to wait until the weekend , like Sunday to watch the video. Though, I guess I probably won’t just because the subject is simply not one I’m interested in that much. I was almost not going to respond at all. But since not very many have I figured it won’t matter. I don’t believe in the trinity in the same way most here do. All analogies will fall short but this is how I think of it.

There is a wizard and this wizard is made of magic. He’s a bing made of magic, not merely a being who uses magic. You can’t separate this being from the magic. But he can cast spells and send magic out from him.

The wizard is God. Magic is the Holy Spirit. The wizard uses magic to create a physical manifestation of the magic and that’s Jesus.

For me, the truth is this. The supernatural is the absolute most boring thing in the planet to me unless it’s used as an element in a horror story. Discussions on things like where did God come from or did he always exist and so on, is just boring to me.

I think of God as more like a force. It would be like if the wind somehow had consciousness. I don’t think of God as an old man in the clouds at all. I think God is just as different from me as a spider only far more.

I also don’t think the Holy Spirit is a being. I think it’s the term we use for the power of god.

God is the empty space in a room. Jesus is the fan. The Holy Spirit is the wind. Without a fan in the room there is no wind. But without the wind and the fan, there is still that empty space we can’t see but is full of the gases we breathe, the potential energy and so on.

The word for spirit is often the same word for wind and breath. When we talk, our voices are not their own individual being. When we speak we push breath up through our throats and out our mouth and I think that’s part of why inspiration is actually “ god breathed “ and that God spoke things into creation. I view the Holy Spirit similar to how we view our voice or thoughts. I don’t think of Jesus as god, but as the son of God that God chose to make his equal.

I also have a hard time with the trinity because of things like the angel of the lord also sometimes being referred to as God. Then the whole issue of my faith that just like God accommodated ancient Jews through Judaism he also accommodated ancient Indians through Hinduism. I think Yahweh as we see in the Bible, is not truly God but a form of god tailored for ancient Mesopotamians and that this same God was also Vishnu for ancient Indians.

So maybe for me this cosmic being is the god. Yahweh is a man. Jesus is his dummy doll and the spirit is his voice and on another stage is another man, and this one has puppets on a string and at another stage is another man and this one is painting and so on.

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I never did either until I heard these ways of looking at it. I think the idea is that all three are aspects of the same thing just as the source of the water is at the source, in its embodiment in the river and as the its fulfillment for each one who partakes of it. Heretic that I am I don’t think it matters whether those are seen as water, a book or shattered vessels. Those are just global ways to take in the whole, made up of: the source from which all becomes, that which has become and all that would become. These aren’t really separate things. The source doesn’t dictate the course of the river and the river will carry all.

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Keeping in mind that the Holy Spirit in biblical terms is a Person, that’s a darned good analogy!

That’s one of the points that led second-Temple Jewish rabbis to hold to the “Two Powers” doctrine – a YHWH always in Heaven and a YHWH Who walked on earth in human form.

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Well, it is an analogy that everyone can understand, and I can’t help thinking that all attempts I see here to fit physical reality to an analogy will fail. An analogy is usually an alternative description of a phenomenon that is otherwise hard to understand, and this one is as good as it comes.

The dogmatic approach tends to stretch language and misappropriate images, which is why many people are flummoxed by the trinity.

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  • I was curious to see how close McGilchrist would get to the TzimTzum that I am slightly familiar with. Satisfied that Iain wasn’t using any hifalutin’ words that I wasn’t familiar with, the TzimTzum I read about over at www.chabad.org is a wild ride to Kabbalah land. Personally, I thought it was silly, but I’m biased so don’t take my word for it.
  • I’ll start with some pages that I’ve saved on my computer, but will only link to and quote here:
    • The Meaning of God
      • For Kabbalists, the visible world is only the superficial skin of Reality. Because of the way our minds are constructed to interact with the world, we imagine ourselves as separate selves, going about our business, trying to be happy. In fact, we, the stars, our friends and enemies, and everything around us —
        all of us are dreams in the mind of God. Nothing has any separate reality — it only looks like there are separate tables, chairs, computers, and people from a certain, limited perspective. Being in itself is actually nothing but God.
      • From God’s point of view, all of the distinctions we make — between ourselves and the world outside ourselves, among objects in the world, etc. — are completely illusory, because ultimately there is only the undifferentiated unity of the ein sof, the Infinite.
      • Of course, this is not how things look from our point of view. Why is this the case? And how do you know that everything is really one?
      • Let’s pause for a moment, before answering those questions, for a “reality check.” For most of us today, the concept of God is a problematic and controversial one. I’ve taught Kabbalah to adults, adolescents, Jews, non-Jews, and I’ve noticed that the large majority of my students, when they hear the word “God,” seem to say “hold on — you’ve lost me.” So, as soon as someone mentions “God,” we go off on a tangent.
      • For most Kabbalists, the situation was very different. The concept and reality of God were felt and known from their earliest memories. These were, by and large, rabbis soaked in the God of Judaism, which they experienced and related to all the time; traditional Jewish practice puts one in constant relationship with God. So, that important [hold on,] that question of how we intellectually know that God exists is itself a somewhat non-Kabbalistic question. The kind of knowledge we are looking for is experiential knowledge. Not knowledge on faith or dogma, but knowledge based on first-hand experience. This is called da’at — true knowledge. The kind lovers have. Union.
      • For this reason, the Kabbalah is more interested in how we relate to God via symbols, concepts, and emanations than how we can speculate about the undifferentiated Ein Sof. In particular, it asks how we know God through the concepts of the [sefirot], or how we unite with God through meditation, or how we can use our relationships with God for various purposes. The Kabbalah is also not a philosophical system. In fact, historically, much of the Kabbalah arose directly in response (and opposition) to rationalist philosophy. So we will not find systematic “proofs” of God’s existence in the Zohar or anywhere else. Really, if such proofs existed, wouldn’t you already know them by now anyway?
      • Since, for the Kabbalah, the Infinite — the ein sof — is utterly different from what most people call “God,” many contemporary teachers choose not to use the word “God” at all. This might be a good idea. After all, let’s look at two short texts from one of the most important Kabbalists, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, as translated by scholar Daniel Matt:
        • An impoverished person thinks that God is an old man with white hair, sitting on a wondrous throne of fire that glitters with countless sparks, as the Bible states: “The Ancient-of-Days sits, the hair on his
          head like clean fleece, his throne–flames of fire.” Imagining this and similar fantasies, the fool corporealizes God. He falls into one of the traps that destroy faith. His awe of God is limited by his imagination.But if you are enlightened, you know God’s oneness; you know that the divine is devoid of bodily categories — these can never be applied to God. Then you wonder, astonished: Who am I? I am a mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon, which itself is a mustard seed within the next sphere. So it is with that sphere and all it contains in relation to the next sphere. So it is with all the spheres — one inside the other — and all of them are a mustard seed within the further expanses. And all of these are a mustard seed within further expanses.
        • Your awe is invigorated, the love in your soul expands.
      • This is a remarkable teaching. Of course, Cordovero uses his scientific framework — the idea that the universe is comprised of concentric spheres — instead of ours. But the principle is the same. God is not some old man in the sky who makes sure that only good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad. The universe doesn’t work that way. In fact, the universe is inconceivably vast, and every subatomic particle of it is filled with God. Here’s another important Cordovero text about the God idea:
      • The essence of divinity is found in every single thing — nothing but it exists…. Do not attribute duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that Ein Sof emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on is outside of it, you have dualized. God forbid! Realize, rather, that Ein Sof exists in each existent. Do not say, “This is a stone and not God.” God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.
      • Think about it. “Ein Sof” means infinite — really infinite. If this computer screen is not the Ein Sof, we’ve made a mistake, because we’ve given the Ein Sof a sof — an end. Kabbalists take the idea of infinity very seriously. God is that which Is — YHVH, one of the main Hebrew terms for this Reality, might even be translated “Is.” God is not an old man; God is What Is. The Infinite is everything. It is the only thing.
      • “God” is an imprecise name for the only thing in the universe that actually exists.
    • Oneness and the Infinite
      • Prior to Creation, there was only the infinite revelation of G-d. [By Moshe Miller]

        • There is one infinite creator, the cause of causes and the maker of all. He is not one in a numerical sense — since He is not subject to change, definition or multiplicity. He is one in that the number one signifies an independent unit and is the basis of all numbers; the number one is also contained in all numbers. Similarly, the Creator is actually within everything, and everything is within Him. He is the beginning and cause of everything. The Creator does not change, and therefore one cannot add or subtract from Him.

        • Moreover, His existence is necessary existence (i.e. it is not contingent upon anything else), in the same way that the number one is a requisite for the existence of any other (whole) number. If the number one would cease to be, every other number would also cease to exist. However, if other numbers disappeared, one would continue to exist. There are properties of the number one; similar qualities apply to the Creator. Even if the act ceased to be, the One who acted remains. Because His being is not contingent upon the existence of anything else, were they to cease being, His existence would continue.
          The unbounded revelation of G d underwent a profound constriction

        • Prior to Creation, there was only the infinite revelation of G d which filled all existence. This is called the Ohr Ein Sof — the Infinite Light — which is not G d Himself, only His infinite revelation of Himself. Within this infinite revelation, limited beings could not possibly exist. Accordingly, there was a progressive lessening and constricting of the Or Ein Sof, making room for limited existence.

        • This progressive constriction, called tzimtzum, brought about various planes of reality — called, in Kabbala, the five worlds. Each “world” is a certain level of concealment of G dliness, of the Or Ein Sof. From the highest to lowest (i.e. from greater to lesser revelation) they are:

          1. the world of Adam Kadmon, which is the primordial world, or the first level of somewhat finite revelation
          2. the world of Atzilut
          3. the world of Beriya
          4. the world of Yetzira and
          5. the world of Asiya

        • The entire physical universe is the lowest aspect of the world of Asiya. In each of the worlds there is an increasingly dim revelation of the Infinite light as it descends further and further and becomes more and more concealed. It is important to note that these worlds do not occupy different geographical places. They are not geographical at all, but rather descending planes of reality.

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Well I don’t think this is an analogy for understanding the doctrine of the Trinity at all. It is an analogy explaining this person’s experience of the Trinity. It is describing three roles God has in His thinking about God, the Father as the source of life, the Son as one who brings it to us, and the Holy Spirit as one who pours that life into us.

It would of course be heretical if you identified the three with these roles instead of just saying they played such roles. And it kind of misses the point of the doctrine which is that these are three distinct persons while being only one God. Nothing should subtract from the fact that God is not like us, not limited to a singularity of personhood. For me it is simply enough to understand that God is beyond our limitations – indeed beyond all limitations. From my point of view, metaphors like this just seem to make a muddle of the basic idea.

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  • Exciting, eh?
    • The sense-world of manifold phenomena held in Vedanta to conceal the unity of absolute being is, broadly speaking: “Illusion”. And the Kabbala says the same thing, kinda. Except that the kabbalahists call the “absolute being” that Vedanta says is being concealed, Ein Sof and we modern-day Westerners call it God.
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In a world where multitasking is common place the Trinity becomes less remarkable. Oneperson can be a father a son and a car mechanic without spltting himself i to three. Each charachter is permanent and ot dependent on the others, but ard an aspect of the whole. Father, son and Holy Spirit? what’s the problem?

Richard

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Can you tell I was multi tasking and stopped reading too soon? You went on to raise a lot of interesting points.

I’ve always been phobic about “supernatural” because the line between nature and what is super was lost on me. But what gives rise to all else is pretty different than anything in our experience. For me it is more suspect to think this mystery is essentially “like a person”. What makes that seem so likely is that we experience that mystery as it is entwined with and filtered through us and we are persons. But the ground of all being is much more than that and yet includes that because we too are part of that becoming. God knows persons. God knows everything which becomes. Because I am not interested in thinking of God in any aspect as person-like, I’m ignoring the part about wizards.

This is the result of analysis. One habit of mind many of us share is the impulse to understand by breaking things down into what they are composed of or what gives rise to them. Having been brought up in the particular tradition you have that analysis is part of your inheritance. You are given all these pieces: angels, father, son, spirit and as parts of a whole they make sense. The point is to see how they go together. But it is much easier to take things apart than to put them back together. That is why I prefer to consider these wisdom stories and not break them down into facts and doctrines. I’ve heard some say to just read the gospels and let them work on you. I think they were right, being moved by a story is more important than the analysis.

I’m right there with you. It isn’t a matter of learning the right names or saying the right words but letting the naratives give you the sense of the sacred, of the eternal becoming. My words aren’t the right words either, they are just my response to what calls to me.

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My mobile phone can do more than three things. It has a camera, a diary, a sat nav, calculator, mp player, Internet browser etc, not to mention the phone and texting. Such things are now commonplace… 3 in 1 should be nothing special

Richard

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Of course an important difference is that the functions of a phone are there for our use. There is nothing instrumental about God. He doesn’t serve functions, certainly not those of our choosing. He isn’t our butler. He creates out of love by withdrawing enough for others to come into being with whom He can have relationships. But I definitely don’t think He fine tunes every being according to a plan. I think He just attends to the field of potential and let’s each one find their way.

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That sure is a lot of details to take in. If I were a Jew, I’d be a Kabbalist, if a Muslim I’d be a Sufi and if a Christian I’d gravitate to the mystics. Fortunately I don’t find such a choice compelling. I just want to understand reality and my existence so I don’t need to find fault with any tradition or align myself to any of them. Everything informs me but I don’t need to find a category in which to place myself.

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  • First point of this post: My impression of a McGilchrist-based thread is that a post in one McG thread could just as easily go into another McG thread. I think that’s one of the things about Biologos that I’ve liked the least: the lack of groupings and fences, so that posts can be added or found by their themes or “kinds”, … like the ones that they have over in www.religiousforums.com. Because McGilchrist-based posts “bleed” into each other so easily, I quit worrying about posting a huge chunk of ‘Kabbalah stuff’ into this thread, which technically–I suppose–is about [/flashing neon sign ON] The Trinity [/flashing neon sign OFF]. I suppose we should be grateful that this thread hasn’t been turned into a private thread and become “unlisted”.
  • Second point of this post: Here’s a chance for me to wave my “I like Tania Lombrozo” banner.
    • Speaking of which, maybe @CReyesTon or another Mod can get her to contribute a brilliant post in Biologos for folks to read.
    • Tania says “To illustrate, one strand of research in my laboratory has focused on the human drive to explain. Why are we so compelled to explain some aspects of our social and physical environment, but not others? How does the process of seeking explanations affect learning, and how does the quality of an explanation affect our judgments and decisions? Do these features of explanation help us achieve particular epistemic goals? Or do they sometimes lead us astray, leading to errors in our reasoning and decision-making? Other projects target different topics — including our intuitive beliefs about causation, moral responsibility, and the nature of knowledge — but involve a similar interplay between descriptive questions about human thought and behavior and normative and conceptual issues that arise within philosophy and psychological theory.”
  • My third point, [for @SkovandOfMitaze ]
  • So happens that I cannot imagine anyone who has read your tales of childhood abuse by YECs and being troubled by your disbelief in the supernatural or bored with it … unless there are monsters or a slasher or Freddy Krueger involved. I even get why you’re a cessationist and don’t believe in Original Sin. I used to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, even if you never have, and now I suspect neither of us do. I was raised in a loving, caring YEC home. I learned about abuse and monsters outside my home. So, what I’m saying is, you’ve told me where you’re coming from, and knowing the little bit that you’ve told me, I still don’t agree with you on most of the H.S. that you believe, but none of it is important enough to fuss over.
  • My fourth point of this post: Mark, I don’t know if you realize this, but the thing that saves you from being a real pain is the fact that you’re not an ex-Christian atheizer. I’ve got nephews and nieces who are ex-christians and atheists, but I can stand to be around them because they don’t feel the need to change me.
  • My fifth point of this post:
  • Seriously? You’re the one who flagged the 36 minute mark in Ian’s video for closer attention; I just posted a short reading from chabad.org about the stuff that Iain finds worthy of discussing.
    • And what, pray tell is that? Nothing less than that “reality” is (a) an illusion and (b) the Kaballists say that it’s an illusion of Ein Sof"s making, which was a big point made, by the way, in Heather Berlin’s video “Perception Deception”:
      • SCHILLER: The stories we tell ourselves, or what we consider our memory, is a construction. We create these representations. And they’re very dynamic, they constantly change. You’re kind of living a revision of the story of your life, constantly.
        SETH: The more often we recall things, the less objectively accurate our memories become.
        BERLIN: It turns out that every time you a recall a memory–your first kiss, graduating from college, the death of a loved one–the very act of recollection makes it vulnerable to change.
        SCHILLER: So when you experience a new event, it has to be stored in the brain. And then, we used to think that whenever you think about that event, you retrieve the same original memory. But what we got to realize in the last few decades is that whenever you retrieve a memory, it goes back to an unstable state.
        BERLIN: In 2000, memory scientist Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize for showing that each memory creates new synapses, connections that store the memory. But what happens when you recall it? Every time you remember it, you bring it up into your working memory and you perceive it, and you destroy the long-term memory. And you actually have to recast it into long-term memory when you re-remember it. So every single time you remember something, you actually add more noise to it, so that it’s more and more and more false throughout time.
        BERLIN: This mechanism, called reconsolidation, was first discovered in rodents, where neuroscientists witnessed what happens when a memory gets recollected: for the memory to return to long-term storage, the connections between neurons actually have to get rebuilt. Recent experiments have suggested this is likely a mechanism in human brains, as well, because certain drugs known to disrupt reconsolidation have been shown to alter human memories.
        48:44 FENTON: We’re stuck with the problem of, how do we know what is true? How do we know what’s real? And maybe part of the recognition is, some of those things don’t matter as much as we think they do.
        49:01 SCHILLER: If we think about the fact that maybe our memories are not as they originally happened, it could be a scary thought, because then, who are we? I think you need to think about it as something more liberating, because if you’re stuck with original representations, you’re kind of stuck in the past.
        BERLIN: Just like our perceptions, our sense of self is dynamic, built to serve us in the present.
        SETH: Our experience of, of self is a construction at all sorts of different levels.
        What the brain is doing, is interested in, is weaving together a kind of story.
        49:37 FENTON: The brain is a storytelling machine, right? It’s a machine that’s designed to make predictions.
        49:44 KASTHURI: The narratives that we tell ourselves are the biggest illusions that we ever participate in. Your sense of who you are is an illusion, as everything else-- you’re no exception.
        49:56 BERLIN: But if even our sense of self is an illusion, where does that leave us?
        MARTINEZ-CONDE (chuckles): Trust the illusion, that’s the only thing that we can be sure of,
        that what we perceive is not what’s there.
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  • So happens that I agree with you: that some of or most of the stories we tell are part of our inheritance. I have undergone involuntary and voluntary name changes in the course of my personal history. I’m fortunate, because I’m okay with the changes.
  • Regarding “our inheritance”, I note: McGilchrist likes to talk about the inheritance from other times, places, and cultures. All well and good, I say, but I think it’s kind of interesting to note [unless you correct me on this] that the stories Iain likes to tell are from literate cultures. Writing a story that we’ve inherited freezes it, unless it’s rewritten and replaced by another version or another story.
  • I cite First People’s stories and the oral traditions that brought them into the present … to be heard again and/or written.To wit,
  • From before there was a written text anywhere. the First people have been telling and singing and dancing stories of talking animals and walking spirits. And I ask: does Iain find any of those stories worth telling?
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I don’t mind at all that you did. At another point in time I might be interested in more of it but for now it is the gist of the story that interests me and only the details necessary to get a sense of that. When it comes to literature or archetypal psychology I deliberately avoid focusing on details as I am waiting for the story to light something up in me, let it “work one me” so to speak.

Again, glad that you do. I remember you posting something and I did take a look but I couldn’t immediately find what she had written in it. The page was rather busy. Any chance you can provide a link to a key portion or at least the starting place? I’m more than willing to be seduced by an engaging mind. I was quite taken by Elizabeth Oldfield who interviewed McGilchrist in that first video I shared recently. Quick on her feet, insightful, personable and a great knack for engaging a speaker in an interview.

EDITED to say - she is all yours. She is certainly clear but as often is the case with clarity it seems to require simpler questions.

I was reading this and thinking about and realizing what so many here have been through in being brought up in a repressive cult like denomination and what tough road they have traveled to proceed in faith but not that old faith. I’m more used to hearing from anti-theists who have also been through a lot but seem to lose all balance or regard for anything of personal value. It has occurred to me before that making people go out to proselytize(apologetics) is a little like making a new gang member commit a crime. It creates a stigma that I think makes leaving very difficult.

And again I am glad you did and even more glad that you listened to or read that and found it interesting enough to look deeper. All I was saying there is I’m still not looking for acomprehensive tradition to fold myself into. While the sacred/God has my interest now and is a very uplifting outlook, I’m not interested in any incentives which may be depend on membership in a group. I admit to some holy envy of those who feel contained by a wisdom tradition that goes back to an oral tradition but I am entirely satisfied with my current status.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify your thinking here.

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As a matter of fact there is an Iroquois myth he likes to tell and it is that which he returns to at the end of chapter 28, the one on the sacred. It involves two brothers as you’ll see here. But in chapter 20 he had much more to say about it. That will take a little longer to format so here is what he says to end the book:

As Flint prepared to cross once again the narrow channel that separated him from his brother, he was startled to see that He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands had already crossed the water and was coming towards him. Flint greeted him, saying, ‘I have come to meet you because I desire your aid in causing the human being to live’. He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands agreed and went to the place where the human being was. He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands took a portion of his own life and put it inside the human being. So also he took a portion of his own mind and enclosed it in the head of the human being. And so also a portion of his own blood and enclosed it inside the flesh of the human being. And so too did he take a portion of his own power to see and enclosed it in the head of the human being. So also he took a portion of his power to speak and enclosed it in the throat of the human being. Finally, he also placed his breath in the body of the human being. Just then the human being came to life, and he arose, and stood upon the earth present here. Turning to Flint, He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands spoke: ‘I now have aided you in this matter. And now, I see that this human being will become hostile to me. What will come to pass because of that?’ Flint quickly replied, ‘Since both you and I took part in completing this human being, let both you and I have control over it. In that way you will have something to say concerning these human beings who will dwell on this earth.’ He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands agreed to that, adding: ‘That human being whom I alone created, who is the first human being to become alive on this earth – we shall call him real human being. And this human being whom you and I have now created and is now alive on this earth, we shall call him the hatchet maker, the bringer of strife. In time, the moon is created, initially under the power of Flint and evil, but it eventually comes under the power of the good brother. The brothers depart the realm of this earth. But He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands, before he leaves, warns that there are two minds in human beings; and that if they pursue strife, rather than peace, they will end in the place where my brother dwells. And there you will see great suffering, and you will be famished, and you will be without liberty, and you will share the fate of my brother. I have confined him, and I have kindled a fire for him, and for this purpose I used his anger. This fire is hotter than any fire you have ever known; and this fire will burn eternally in that my brother even now desires to control all minds among human beings. ‘Whichever mind you choose, you must obey it’, he says. If mankind forgets, He Grasps the Sky With Both Hands will try to intervene twice on behalf of mankind, but

if a third time it comes to pass that you forget, then you will see what will come to pass. The things upon which you live will diminish so that finally nothing more will be able to grow … It will be my brother who will do all this, for he will be able to seduce the minds of all human beings and thus spoil all that I have completed. Now I leave the matter to you.

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20

Not at all sure it is needed but here is the longer first statement of the myth. Are you familiar with this? I wasn’t.

According to an ancient Iroquois legend, the gradual fading of eternal power and light in the cosmos made necessary the activity of a creator god whose task was, for the sake of the whole universe, to bring into being the earth and all its creatures. His name in the Onondaga language, De‘haĕnhiyawắ’khon’, means He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands (my emphasis); and in the legend, he represents the power to remember one’s higher identity in the midst of action in the world. He has, however, a twin brother who declares: ‘I am not thinking about the place from where I came … It is sufficient that my mind is satisfied in having arrived at this place … This place will become exceedingly delightful and amusing to the mind … I trust in the thing which my father gave me, a flint arrow, by which I have speech. This I will use perhaps to defend myself so that I will not think of that other place.’ His name is O’ha’a, which means He Who Is Crystal Ice, He Who Is Flint; subsequently he is referred to simply as Flint. He represents ‘evil in the form of forgetfulness, intentional forgetfulness of the higher identity’.4

He Grasps the Sky With Both Hands begins creating living creatures. Flint sees the animals that his brother creates and how good they are; and he is jealous. He gathers all his brother’s animals together and puts them in a cave. Troubled by this, He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands tries to cut himself off from his brother. Flint then tries on his own to imitate his brother. He creates his own birds, flowers and fruits. His brother is more troubled than before. But his realisation is that it is only when Flint is cut off from his brother that he does wrong. So He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands rescinds the act of separating himself off from the evil, and returns to his brother to see what he has done.

It turns out that Flint has created not birds, but flies and bats; not flowers, but thistles; not fruit, but thorns.

Seeing this, the good brother embraces his brother’s work, giving all that Flint has made their proper names (that is, assigning them their proper role in the scheme of things) and declaring, ‘All this shall assist me. The flies shall assist me. The thistle will be food for small animals, the thorn will be food for game animals …’ The mind of Flint was gratified. But Flint goes on attempting to imitate the works of creation, and He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands comes to understand that it is right that he maintain a small distance from his brother, while at the same time keeping his attention upon him, neither letting him drift too far from his awareness, nor letting him blend with him. The good brother understands full well that Flint will forever attempt to destroy his rule.

He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands consults an ‘Ancient One’ who confirms this: Flint will aim to destroy his benign superintendence of creation.
He Grasps the Sky With Both Hands goes back to the most primitive source of being. From it he brings the light of the sun into the world. He starts to create human beings, a man and a woman. Into each he sees it is good that he should give some of his own life, his breath, his mind and his power of speech.

But all is not well. Seeing what his brother has done, Flint decides that he too can make human beings. Flint’s experiments, however, result only in strange, anguished, misbegotten creatures that run from him and hide. So he turns to his brother for help.

As Flint prepared to cross again the narrow channel that separated him from his brother, he was startled to see that He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands had already crossed the water and was coming towards him. Flint greeted him, saying ‘I have come to meet you because I desire your aid in causing the human being to live’.

He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands agreed and went to the place where the human being was. He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands took a portion of his own life and put it inside the human being. So also he took a portion of his own mind and enclosed it in the head of the human being. And so also a portion of his own blood and enclosed it inside the flesh of the human being. And so too did he take a portion of the power to see and enclosed it in the head of the human being. So also he took a portion of his power to speak and enclosed it in the throat of the human being. Finally, he also placed his breath in the body of the human being. Just then the human being came to life, and he arose, and stood upon the earth here.

Turning to Flint, He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands spoke: ‘I now have aided you in this matter. And now, I see that this human being will become hostile to me. What will come to pass because of that?

Flint replied, ’Since both you and I took part in completing this human being, let both you and I have control over it. In that way you will have something to say concerning these human beings who will dwell on the earth.’ He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands agreed to that, adding: ‘That human being whom I alone created , who is the first human being to become alive on this earth - we shall call him real human being. And this human being whom you and I have now created and is now alive on this earth, we shall call him the hatchet maker, the bringer of strife.

In time the moon is created, initially under the power of Flint and evil, but it eventually comes under the power of the good brother. The brothers depart the realm of this earth. But He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands, before he leaves warns that there are two minds in human beings; and that if they pursue strife, rather than peace, they will end

In the place where my brother dwells. And there you will see great suffering, and you will be famished, and you will be without liberty, and you will share the fate of my brother. I have confined him, and I have kindled a fire for him, and for this purpose I used his anger. This fire is hotter than any fire you have ever known; and this fire will burn eternally in that my brother even now desires to control all minds among human beings.

‘Which ever mind you choose, you must obey it’, he says. If mankind forgets, He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands will try to intervene twice on behalf of mankind, but if a third time it comes to pass that you forget, then you will see what will come to pass. The things upon which you live will diminish so that finally nothing more will be able to grow … It will be my brother who will all this, for he will be able to seduce the minds of all human beings and thus spoil all that I have completed. Now I leave the matter to you.

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