Now, how can any person perceive the One in the multiple phenomena of such a panoramic world, like this space-age one in which we are living? I would like to see how can any monotheist maintain his or her monotheistic focus while all-that-Jazz is playing so loudly around--and there's a lot of it playing in nowadays.
Meaning:
How can one perceive God as such? That is: God as the Absolute, the Infinite, the Beyond being-becoming-existing-names-numbers-images-space-thought-time-etc. The Source of all and is the all in all at the same time.
How can one relate to this monotheos as Is, Is-not and beyond any Is-ing altogether?
Does the Jew or the Christian or the Muslim, in the "West" and elsewhere, relate to God simultaneously as being here (Immanent), there (Transcendent), and beyond both here and there?
Do they perceive God-with-in, with-out, and beyond?
Is God conceived in their minds as known, unknown and ultimately unknowable?
And what about Man (Adam, Anthropos) for them?
Do they revere the human race as God's steward in the Kingdom? The vice-Regent of God on Earth?
Do they see the "other" as a non-Jew, non-Christian, non-Muslim, first? Or do they see the "other" as a fellow brother and sister in Adam and Eve, first?
Yes? . . . No? ...
If 'Yes', then where is it? . . .
If 'No', then what are they busying themselves with? . . .
Busy doing the *Just-Us-Department* thing, where everybody else goes to hell except "Us" cause we're saved and they're not? . . .
~ Long story short,
The above is a must-do-exploration to counter the henotheistic tendencies within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; to counter the narcissism of certain groups within them who think that just by being a "card-carrying" member in the Abrahamic tradition, they are entitled to launch judgmental assaults on fellow human beings.
They forget the overriding insistence of the Revealed books that Monotheism is not doctrinal nor dogmatic in its nature as much as it is of a perceptual, preconceptual one--that is, not the static "belief in one God" aspect as it is usually defined in the dictionaries, it is the dynamic aspect of it that counts, as in to monotheosize, to monotheize, to at-one-ize.
This insistence on relation to One God the source of all and relation to all other fellow human beings in terms of One Adam is stronger, more ontological, more compelling a claim than any other human interpretation of human boundaries--be it secular, racial, national, tribal, class, etc.
* * *
And here is more from another source:
This monotheizing process arose out of Israel's need to survive, out of its desire for life, so that the prophets could sometimes speak of defeat as an occasion for blessing and blessing as an occasion for sin. The sages introduced global thinking based on people's experiences that had nothing to do with national epics but with the common humanity of all people."La ilaha illa Allah"
As this monotheizing process continued, it broadened under Greek, then Roman, hegemony to the point that Jesus admonished his followers to love their enemies ( Matthew 5:44). This can only be seen as the theological conclusion of the monotheizing process, but rather than pursuing this process, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have actually abandoned it in favor of their own particular versions of henotheism.
Theologians say Times Op-Ed was wrong: Monotheism is the only way.
By Paul E. Capetz and James A. Sanders
November 10, 2007
