1752. How Does One Speak in Secular Fashion of God?

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How Does One Speak in Secular Fashion of God?

". . . that ultimate unity of direction in the Universe, upon which all order depends and which gives its meaning to importance... "(Modes of Thought: 68).

". . . that final mode of unity in virtue of which there exists stability of aim amid the multiple forms of potentiality, and in virtue of which there exists importance beyond the finite importance for the finite actuality" (117).

". . . the totality of process.... an actuality in process of composition, an actuality not confined to the data of any special epoch in the historic field. Its actuality is founded on the infinitude of its conceptual appetition, and its form of process is derived from the fusion of this appetition with the data received from the world-process. Its function in the world is to sustain the aim at vivid experience. It is the reservoir of potentiality and the coordination of achievement. The form of its process is relevant to the data from which the process is initiated. The issue is the unified composition which assumes its function as a datum operative in the future historic world" (128).

". . . that factor in the universe whereby there is importance, value, and ideal beyond the actual. ...The unity of a transcendent universe, and the multiplicity of realized actualities, both enter into our experience by this sense of Deity. Apart from this sense of transcendent worth, the otherness of reality would not enter into our consciousness. There must be value beyond ourselves. Otherwise every thing experienced would be merely a barren detail in our solipsist mode of existence. We owe to the sense of Deity the obviousness of the many actualities of the world, and the obviousness of the unity of the world for the preservation of the values realized and for the transition to ideals beyond realized fact" (140).

"There are·experiences of ideals---of ideals entertained, of ideals arrived at, of ideals achieved, of ideals defaced. This is the experience of the Deity of the universe. The intertwining of success and failure in respect to this final experience is essential. We thereby experience a relationship to a universe other than ourselves. We are essentially measuring ourselves in respect to what we are not. A solipsist experience cannot succeed or fail, for it would be all that exists. There would be no standard of comparison. Human experience explicitly relates itself to an external [141/142] standard. The universe is thus understood as including a source of ideals.... The sense of historic importance is the intuition of the universe as everlasting process, unfading in its deistic unity of ideals" (141f.).

". . . that factor [163/164] disclosed in our sense of the value, for its own sake, of the totality of historic fact in respect to its essential unity. There is a unity in the universe, enjoying value and (by its immanence) sharing value. For example, take the subtle beauty of a flower in some isolated glade of a primeval forest. No animal has ever had the subtlety of experience to enjoy its full beauty. And yet this beauty is a grand fact in the universe. When we survey nature and think however flitting and superficial has been the animal enjoyment of its wonders, and when we realize how incapable the separate cells and pulsations of each flower are of enjoying the total effect-then our sense of the value of the details for the totality dawns upon our consciousness. This is the intuition of holiness, the intuition of the sacred, which is at the foundation of all religion" (163f.).

" . . .the secret springs of confident originality..."(Beyond Humanism: 49).

". . .the mind of nature ..." (316).

". . the world as preserving its identity through all these transformations [and therefore as] something infinitely protean and infinitely endowed with power to assimilate variety into unity..."(Man's Vision of God: 230). 

". . . the self-identical individuality of the world somewhat as a [woman or] man is the self-identical individuality of [her or] his ever-changing system of atoms" (230).

". . . the uniquely complete, and hence both necessary and accidental, being, ... the ever-changing and hence, as necessary aspect of this perpetual change, forever identical with itself" (241).

". . . the one substance or individual, which is necessary to reality, or which is constitutive of being as such, all other individuals being part-constitutive only of accidental aspects of being" (284).

". . . the self-identity of time and change as such" (344).

". . . the ethical ideal, or the ultimate cause which all endeavor is to promote, even though it be through the glorious failure of lesser causes" (344).

". . . the atmosphere of all existence and all striving" (347). " ... the self-changing whole which includes all other beings as its (more or less) self-changing parts" (349).

". . . the living universe in which all beings have their life" ("The Formal Validity and Real Significance of the Ontological Argument": 7).

". . . the necessary recipient of all accidents, the nonalternative medium of all open alternatives" ("Cause," in An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. V. Ferm: 134). *

". . . die selige Unbergreiflickhkeit des Lebens..." (= the blessed incomprehensibility of life) (Schriften zur Theologie, 7: 31).

 ". . . das schweigende Geheimnis des letzten Shines des Daseins, das allein den letzten Grund und Sinn gibt ..." (= the silent mystery of the ultimate meaning of existence, which alone gives the ultimate reason and meaning) (7: 97).

"...das geheimnisvoll Selbstverständliche und das selbverstiindliche Geheimnis, dem eigentlich doch aIle in ihrer eigenen Daseinserfahrung begegnen, wenn sie es auch nicht oder nicht genugend rein in eine reflexe Aussage erheben konnen" (= the mysterious self-evident and the self-evident mystery that all really encounter in the experience of their own existence even if they are not able to raise it to the level of a reflective assertion, or not with sufficient purity) (7: 99).

" ... das Gelzeimnis, das die absolute Liebe ist" (= the mystery that is absolute love) (7: 387).

" ... das unbegreifLiche Mysterium des Daseins... "(= the incomprehensible mystery of existence) (7: 513).

" ... das eine unausweichliche Geheimnis des Daseins..." (= the one inescapable mystery of existence) (7: 514).

" ... the source of the glory as well as of the being of all creatures" (Radical Monotheism and Western Culture: 14).

"... the One beyond the many, in whom the many are one" (16).

"... the center of value-and the cause of loyalty" (25).

" ... One beyond the many, whence all the many derive their being, and by participation in which they exist" (32).

"... the One to whom all being is related" (32)

"That by reference to which all things have their value ..." (33).

"... the object of trust and loyalty" (52). 

." . .. all existents as bound together by a loyalty that is not only resident inthem but transcends them" (33 f.).

"... the principle of being itself" (37).

" . .. the principle of being, the source of all things and the power by which they exist, [which as such is] good, as good for them and good to them" (38) 

" . .. the One beyond all the many as head and center of the realm of being, [whose] cause, the universe of being, elicits and requires fidelity" (38).

" . .. the ultimate unity ... disclosed as personal or faithful, so [that] the human response to such revelation is the development of integrated selfhood" (47).

" . .. one self-consistent intention in apparent evil as well as in apparent good" (47).

"[the One] in whom all things live and move and have their being" (52).

"The One beyond the many . . . in whose presence we acknowledge our world to be one, and commit ourselves in loyalty to being" (56).

". . . the universal power, whence come life and death, [which] is good" (95).

". . . the universal Sovereign" (95).

". . . the Transcendent Universal" (95).

". . . that Beginning and End of all" (97 f.).

". . . the Transcendent Source and End of all things" (99).

". . . that transcendent absolute for whom, or for which, whatever is, is good" (112).

". . . the transcendent One... " (113).

". . . the object of human faith in life's worthwhileness" (119)

" . . . the last shadowy and vague reality, the secret of existence by virtue of which things come into being, are what they are, and pass away" (122).

". . . the great abyss into which all things plunge and ... the great source whence they all come" (122). 

" . . . the one reality beyond all the many, which is the last power, the infinite source of all particular beings as well as their end" (122).

". . . this last power in which we live and move and have our being" (122).

". . . this last power, this nature of things, as itself the greatest of all causes the undefeatable cause" (123).

". . . this last being, this source of all things and this slayer of all" (123).

". . . the eternal reality, ... the last power... which is not exclusive but inclusive, ... this great X, [which] is the source of all things and the end of all" (123).

". . . this One who loves all and hates all, but whose love like whose hatred is without emotion, without favoritism" (123).

". . . that which will make all our lives and the lives of all things valuable even though it bring them to death" (124).

". . . that last power which brings to apparent nothingness the life of the most loyal man" (124).

". . . [the] all-inclusive whole---that circumambient reality which is the primal source whence we come and the ultimate end whither we go" ("How Does God Function in Human Life?": 34)

". . . the objective ground in reality itself of ... basic confidence in the worth of life.... Whatever it is about this experienced whole that calls forth and justifies our original and inalienable trust in life's worth" (35).

" . . . the objective basis in reality itself of [humankind's common faith in the worth of life]" (35).

". . . [what functions] to make the whole venture of human life worthwhile and to call forth in us, in each of us, our abiding confidence in life's worth.... [what] alone provides the ultimate justification for giving ourselves fully and freely to the tasks of human existence, to knowing and doing, feeling and loving, with all their terrors and all their joys.... [what] alone enables our life itself to make a difference-to contribute not only to the life of others which likewise makes no abiding difference if taken solely in itself, but also to [a] strictly universal and everlasting life, to which each life makes an imperishable difference, and in which, therefore, all lives find their ultimate justification" (37).

". . . [the boundless love that sets us free]---both free from ourselves and others as in any way ultimate conditions of a meaningful existence, and free for ourselves and others as the proper objects of the love whereby our returning love for [the boundless love] can alone be fully realized" (37).

". . . the great [liberator] of [hu]mankind-not only of Christians, but of every [human being]..." (39).