I can’t answer that yet, Dale. I will have to read more. Someone else may be able to answer, though. Maybe @mitchellmckain or @Jay313 .
All I can say is that Kierkegaard was not a rationalist but a critic of rationalism. So it sounds like something he might say. I am pretty sure he would not say that Abraham’s decision to sacrifice his son Isaac was a rational decision.
But… maybe he would call it super-rational (or… transcendental) rather than irrational.
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Thanks, Mitchell!
Quick turn around on burying Kierkegaard after nearly a week’s inactivity in this thread. Maybe give a quote at least a day.
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Recent exchanges in a number of threads brought this poem from C.S. Lewis to mind, which @MarkD reminded me of the other day, and has been shared one place or another in the Forum, too:
Footnote to All Prayers
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
– C.S. Lewis
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An Orthodox priest I was listening to online quoted this in aid of explaining apophatic theology.
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I dislike the Lewis quote exactly because of that, that it effectively denies what Paul said, that we are to call him ‘Abba, Father’ (and no, I do not think Abba means ‘Daddy’), just as Jesus did in Gethsemane.
The two do not conflict: We call Him ‘Abba, Father!’ not because those words – especially as we have them in our minds – are utterly correct, but because they are better for this than any other words we might have.
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Hahaha… I catch myself wondering if Lewis really said “all prayers” in the original language…
(that’s kind of how ideology works, or how the unconscious mind can fool with you)
He might be able to except the Lord’s Prayer, one would hope.
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It’s a lament shared by other down the centuries and in modern terms falls under the heading “the problem of language”, that it is not possible for human words to describe the divine, not just by failing but by containing false concepts.
In Orthodox terms it’s the flip side of why we must do theology: on the one hand, theology, being in human language and using human contents, can at the very, very best only describe God dimly, while on the other hand if we do not make the attempt we shall never get out of ignorance.
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My grandma (and both my parents) were. Only my mom remains–but I sometimes wondered, especially when my grandma passed away, if she didn’t keep up her praying–and maybe even did it better, being in Heaven!
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What a profound observation, and recognition of the extreme humility always characterizing even our best and highest thoughts. If I’m not mistaken, he gets this almost straight from MacDonald, who uses much the same language (in one of his sermons, I believe) - regarding prayer.
Thanks for sharing that, Kendel.
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Do you think that it’s a hard one? Maybe that what God wants most is that his children come to Him–and that also, once we learn more about Him, we are asking for Him to teach us to pray as we ought?
Thanks.
Some would refer to it as the analogous use of language… one can still pray to our Father in heaven and exclaim what is revealed about him in the Bible without uttering a blasphemous word.
I once had a conversation (yes, a real live conversation on a podcast) about pseudo-Dionysius and the problem with the via negativa. There was a slight pushback against me and a reference was made to the Orthodox tradition… I have yet had a chance to follow up on that.
It’s false humility, when you question whether you can pray to your Father in heaven
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream
This strikes me as something someone would say who has spent more time thinking about prayer than actually praying.
Leonard Ravenhill was a man known to be a prayer and I like this quote from him:
Now I say very often—and people don’t like it—that God doesn’t answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer! Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling….” The more self-confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.
Then it’s a good thing nobody here (including the poet author of the words) has suggested anything remotely like that. In fact - the poem says exactly the opposite.
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Please explain, as it wouldn’t be the first time that I misread something… but given the history on this subject and the subsequent comments… I’m doubtful