Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Evolving Religions and the Via Negativa
Message-ID: <195@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 01:58:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.195
Posted: Sat Jun 15 01:58:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 02:49:41 EDT
References: <99@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1079@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 52

In article <1079@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey) writes:

>> In general, I find that the strongest conclusion I can draw from the
>> mystical experience is that there is some supernatural order which shows
>> some unification of the natural order.  The problem with trying to go
>> beyond
>> that is that the language appears to be stretched to the limit just to get
>> that far, making it very hard to generalize across the mystics. [Charley]

>Why does that sound like a conclusion you've already presumed in order to
>reach that conclusion?  You speak of the limits of language.  "Supernatural"
>is a word, a piece of language conceived and invoked by humans.  What does
>it mean?  From the structure of the word parts, and from the nature of the
>way the word is used, "beyond the natural" sounds like the intended meaning.
>How do we define natural?  What are the limits of what is natural?  Where are
>the boundaries between "natural" and "supernatural"?  Are they anything more
>than arbitrary demarcations that facilitate the conclusions we want to draw
>about the universe and about the nature of the supernatural?  Charley is not
>alone is not having answered these questions.

That's just the point.  They aren't answerable.  It should be clear that any
definition of "supernatural" is essentially negative in content; the
supernatural is that which exists, but not in the way nature does.  I would
take nature to be that which we know the quality of existence of: matter,
energy, ideas, emotions, music.  

Out of pure serendipity, I have the March issue of _The Review of
Metaphysics_, whic has a nice article about the way Moses Maimonides and
Aquinas looked at knoledge of god.  Consider the following statement:

      "(5) ... [N]o affirmative or *positive attributes of any kind*
           are predictable of God, that God is completely unknown and
           unknowable, that we can meaningfully say about God only *what he
           is not* (to speak of him in *negative attributes*)[.]

Adhering to this principle, then, to say that God is supernatural is to say
that he exists, in a manner totally unlike that of natural things; indeed,
this doctrine holds that to say that "God exists in a manner" is already
wrong.  I ascribe to this doctrine, and I think that the Bible is not in
conflict with it.  As I see it, the boundary between the supernatural and
nature is drawn quite precisely at the limits of knowability, which limits I
don't believe are themselves knowable.

Obviously I don't expect you to accept this sort of deity, Rich, because the
doctrine I cite say explicitly that you cannot analyze the attributes of God
in any positive way; i.e., you cannot verify their existence precisely
because you can't make even a subjective statement of what the attribute is
like in any positive terms.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

P.S. thanks to Isaac Franck, whose article is quoted from above.