Notes from September, 2009
Soren Kierkegaard. Reading of Gretall’s Anthology, Pg. 231 (postscript) “God does not think, he creates. God does not exist. He is eternal.”
Existence and eternality are polar opposites. Creation can only occur from the eternal perspective. Potentiality, then, is integral to eternality itself. Also, eternality is that by which we can grasp existence in the first place, in the same way “darkness” is that condition by which there can be light. Unless we witness the created from an eternal perspective it is a constant source of confusion. The self-centered person has lost the eternal perspective. That IS the “fall” from “grace”. It is Materialism, the lot of the Narcissist, the Solipsist. It is to identify with the body instead of the spirit.
The despair is that we cannot know God. Such sorrow as would shame the abyss. We struggle out of this primordial matter to look on a creation the full purpose and meaning of which is ever just beyond our grasp. We close our fist on it only to open our hand to the revelation of….nothing. Completion is only found in the understanding one can never know (God). The transfiguration of sorrow and despair to faith is the infinite resignation to this reality. Only through inwardness do we arrive at this juncture. Not Art, not Science, nor History, especially not speculative Philosophy, and not dogmatic Religion. All of these “endeavors” of man, categories of being in the world, posit truth in an absolute other. And, I agree, Truth is vested in an absolute other, but not like man projects otherness. The absolute other is the repository for all that our understanding approaches but can never quite achieve. That is why the “leap” of faith is required to “realize” ultimate meaning and purpose.