Posted on 03/18/2003 2:10:03 PM PST by betty boop
Eric Voegelin
"What Is History?": An Excerpt
What Is History? and Other Late Unpublished Writings: The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 28. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1990.
* * * * * * *
Before we get into Voegelin's differentiation of immanence and transcendence which is the subject of the excerpt I'm about to post, we need to do a little "stage-setting": Voegelin had previously cited two classical "sophistic propositions." The two provide important background for the excerpt's main thesis.
The first is attributed to Protagoras, one of Socrates' more famous correspondents. Quoted in the present source, it goes:
1. It seems that no gods exist.The second is attributed to another of Socrates' famous interlocutors, Gorgias:
2. Even if they do exist, they do not care about men.
3. Even if they care, they can be propitiated by gifts.
1. Nothing exists.Note the paradox implicit in both propositions. (Somehow, to me these sound a lot like the contemporary model of French diplomacy. But I do digress....)
2. If anything exists, it is incomprehensible.
3. If it is incomprehensible, it is incommunicable.
Turning now to the excerpt:
* * * * * * *
The sophistic paradoxes have sprung from a chain reaction of theoretical mistakes. The initial mistake, setting off the other ones, was the treatment of immanent and transcendent being as if they were two objects given to an observer....* * * * * * *Immanence and transcendence are indices that accrue to being when the constitution of being is interpreted in the light of an experience of transcendence. Since, however, this statement will not carry much conviction unless one knows what an experience of transcendence is, and since in our time such knowledge cannot be taken for granted, the presentation of an example will be helpful.
The purpose will be served by the experience of transcendence described in the Apocalyse of Abraham, [Chaps.] 7-8:
More venerable indeed than all those things is fireI have selected this text because it demonstrates not only the via negativa [i.e., the method of getting to truthful propositions by successively identifying and substracting out all nonessential items] as the instrument for describing the experience but also the transition from the cosmos full of gods to the experience of transcendence that differentiates being and endows it with the indices immanent and transcendent. The mind of the heart is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hellenic psyche or the Augustinian anima animi. The mind of the heart in confusion will roam over the realms of being, each claiming its lower or higher divinity, in search of the true God, who is the origin and ground of all being. He reveals Himself, through His word to the heart, as the one who Is. He is the One beyond all realms of being, which through His revelation cease to be a cosmos full of gods and are transformed into a world whose being carries the index immanent in relation to the being of the divine source that carries the index transcendent. In this Essene document (probably from the first century B.C.) the realms of being are conceived as elemental or stellar, while in Hellenic philosophy they would be conceived rather as inorganic; vegetative, animal, and human (though this characterization needs serious qualificiations), but in either case the realms form a hierarchy leading the searching mind upward to the point of transcendence toward the origin of being, toward an arche, or first cause. Moreover, when the soul opens (to use the language of Bergson) in an act of transcendence, the beyond of the world is not experienced as an object beyond the world. The text makes admirably clear the tension of the search -- of God seeking man, and man seeking God -- the mutuality of seeking and finding one another. Not a space beyond space but the search is the site of the meeting between man and the beyond of his heart; and God is present even in the confusion of the heart that precedes the search through the realms of being. The divine Beyond thus is at the same time a divine Within the world. Subtly, the unknown author traces the movement from Within to Beyond as it passes from the confusion of the mind, to the search of the unknown that is present in the search as it was in the confusion, and further on to the call from beyond -- until what in the beginning was a disturbance in that part of being called the heart has dissociated into the "Here am I" and "I am He." The experience of transcendence, to summarize, is a movement of the soul, culminating in an act of transcendence in which the divine Within reveals itself as the divine Beyond.
for many things subject to no one will fall to it...
More venerable even is water,
for it overcomes fire...
Still I do not call it God,
for it is subject to earth...
Earth do I call more venerable,
for it overcomes the nature of water.
Still I do not call it God,
as it is dried up by the sun....
More venerable than the earth I call the sun;
the universe he makes light by his rays.
Even him I do not call God,
as his course is obsscured by night and the clouds.
Yet the moon and the stars I do not call God,
because they, in their time, dim their light by night.
Hear this, Terah, my father,
that I announce to you the God, the creator of all,
not those whom we deem gods!But where is He?
And what is He?
--who reddens the sky,
who goldens the sun,
and makes light the moon and the stars?
--who dries up the earth, in the midst of many waters,
who put yourself in the world?
--who sought me out in the confusion of my mind?May God reveal Himself through Himself!
When thus I spoke to Terah, my father,
in the court of my house,
The voice of a mighty-one fell from heaven
in a cloudburst of fire and called:
Abraham! Abraham!I said: Here am I!
And He said:
You seek the God of gods,
the Creator,
in the mind of your heart.
I am He!We can now resume the question of immanence and transcendence as indices that accrue to being when the constitution of being is interpreted in the light of an experience of transcendence. The Abraham Apocalypse confines itself strictly to the experience itself. Once such an experience has occurred, however, the question can be asked (though it will not necessarily be asked) whether the divine Within-Beyond experienced in the movement of the soul is not the general structure of being. The question has been asked in Hellenic philosophy and it induced the Platonic conception of the Idea that exists "separately" and at the same time is the form of things in the world. In order to express this general Within-Beyond, Plato has developed the symbol of methexis, of participation -- things have form insofar as they participate in the idea. This Platonic symbolism of methexis is the classical case of the constitution of being interpreted in the light of an experience of transcendence. Unfortunately, however, the symbolism is still so close to the objectifying language of the myth that today it will be easily misunderstood as an attempt to constitute transcendent form as an object -- an attempt of which Plato is certainly not guilty, as proven by the myth of the Within-Beyond of the idea in the Timaeus. If we express the same relationship in our non-mythical language of indices, we may say that the realms of being, as well as the objects within them, are never merely immanent; over their index of immanence there is always superimposed the index of embracing transcendence. If the Platonic symbolism is reformulated in this manner it reveals a crucial insight into the problem of objects and objectivity: Even when, in the climate of secularist epistemology, we believe ourselves to be safe from transcendence and to have immanent objects at hand, the humble object still is never god-forsaken but radiates transcendence in its immanent actus essendi.
Strangely, I also drew on the Apocalypse of Abraham - and the very same exchange - in the second part of my theory on origins, the part dealing with Patriarchs.
I used the exchange to illustrate grace through faith which is in the same ballpark as Voegelin's erudition (LOL!)
May God grant the president and his advisors grace, light, and strength. And may God bless America.
Amen! PRAISE GOD!!!
Why Man?
To praise God.
Why, God?
To raise Man.
It needs the comma after the second "why" to come out right theologically, but then, I'm not a poet.
Since it appears that there has to be war, let it be swift and decisive, and only as destructive as makes that happen.
Why, God?
To raise Man. Heb 2
:)
LOLOL! With the handle, Logos, you will never be obscure.
Why, God?
To raise Man.
Yes, logos -- we need that comma! The question -- "Why, God?" -- naturally arises in the "confusion of the heart" which itself indicates the presence of God "that precedes the search through the realms of being." I truly believe that man was made to ask that question, for man was made for a relationship with God. So much so that, in my humble opinion, the fullest expression of one's own humanity is only possible in the context of that relationship. To those who ask, God replies.
Thanks so much for writing, logos. Indeed, may the impending war be "swift and decisive, and only as destructive as makes that happen." Lord hear our prayer....
Was there an actual man named Plato. I am starting to think there was not. All that "son of a wealthy Athenian family" story may have been made up to add personality to a concept. The writings of Plato were most likely master's theses by acolytes of The Way, a tradition continued in the NT.
I was wondering if you'd come across the Apocalypse of Abraham before. It truly is marvelous. I suspect that Voegelin is saying something a lot stronger in these passages than a meditation on grace through faith. I'm pretty sure that's part of his meaning; but I think he's gone farther than that, speculating about the structure of human consciousness itself, of the "Within/Beyond" tension of man and God in their mutual participation -- a participation that can be refused by man, of course.
I gathered this on the strength of this remark: "Even when, in the climate of secularist epistemology, we believe ourselves to be safe from transcendence and to have immanent objects at hand, the humble object still is never god-forsaken but radiates transcendence in its immanent actus essendi."
It seems to me man is no mere "object," given his relation to God. Still, the man who turns away from God tends to "objectify" himself. Still, even then, he is "never god-forsaken," but does in fact radiate transcendence in the essential act of merely being what he is. And the reason for that is that God loves him. For some strange reason!!!
But I really found the quote above absolutely lovely for yet another reason -- the idea of objects not ever being "god-forsaken." If one has the eyes to see, one can see the signs of God everywhere in nature, in even the humblest crittur.
We no longer think according to the cosmological world view of the ancient world, the view that fills the world with many gods. But I do believe that we live in a world that is filled by the grace, the spirit of the One God -- the ground of our being and its Beyond; and this can be seen in the "objects" of creation. JMHO FWIW.
Thank you so much for writing, Alamo-Girl -- and for the outstanding essay on your theory of origins! Kudos!
Was there an actual man named Plato? I think his "historicity" is pretty well established. Certainly Socrates is an actual historical figure -- attested to by Aristophanes and Xenophon and, of course, Plato himself. If the writings that have been attributed to Plato were actually the work of "acolytes of The Way, a tradition continued in the NT," then those acolytes would have had to have been active around 400 B.C. -- the time of Socrates, Plato's main subject -- and that's a pretty long stretch of time before the incarnation of Christ, and an even longer distance from the actual Gospels.
But I can understand why one might think there's some kind of connection between certain writings attributed to Plato and the New Testament. In particular, I have often been struck, in reading the Gospel of St. John, by how some of the language there is eerily reminiscent of the language of methexis, of "participation." I've always thought it fascinating that, of all the Gospels, only John speaks of "certain Greeks" who arrived, begging admittance into Jesus' presence on one occasion when he was dining with his disciples. (We are not told whether these Greeks were actually invited in.)
I would be more inclined to believe that Plato was a kind of inadvertent intellectual precurser to Christ, in a manner similar to St. John the Baptists's being his true spiritual precurser, than that his works were composed by folks whose writings were only "fulfilled" more than four centuries later. But this is only a speculation of mine.... Thanks for writing, RightWhale, and for sharing your thoughts....
The NT tells us that not everyone has “ears to hear” and thus, I do not see all of mankind experiencing that incompleteness. IOW, not all mankind is Adamic, having the breath of life; some are, in my view, immanent. Therefore, I conclude that whereas God never forsakes even the lowliest animal, transcendence does not actualize absent the breath of life.
My two cents…
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