1 Dr. H. Rechnitzer PHI402 A. J. Heschel Introduction to Basic Elements of Heschel’s Thought © 2014 This presentation is an intellectual property

2 (1) The Problem Modern Man Is Blocked (a)Modern man (M.M.) assumes that human reason can explain ‘being’ (chap. 1 & 3) -read bottom of p.5 (b) For M.M. mystery is a transitory stage between ignorance and wisdom (c) M.M thinks he can conquer nature, solve human made problems (the political realm) (d) However at the break of ‘post-modernity’ the ‘truth about all truths’ - man is at his core a skeptical being. (e) M.M is blocked due to his way of life that creaes one dimensional being rooted in - money, security and power. (chap. 3) (f) “We have lost our faith in the meaning of faith” (p.36) and read “The awareness of…”

3 Heschel at the College (2014) After reading 36-37: (1) Challenge Hechel’s concept of teaching What is good or problematic ? (2) Give example that demonstrates your claims. -

4 ( 2) The way out - From his book the Prophets Phenomenology Is Not Enough : “What I have aimed at is an understanding of what it means to think, feel, respond, and act as a prophet… The procedure employed in an inquiry for gaining such insight was the method of pure reflection … such inquiry must suspend personal beliefs or even any intent inquire – e.g., whether the event happened in fact as it did to their minds. It is my claim that, regardless of whether or not their experience was of real, it is possible to analyze the form and content of that experience” AND

5 continue “While I still maintain the soundness of the methods describes above, … I have long since become wary of impartiality, which is itself a way of being partial. The prophet’s existence is either irrelevant or relevant. If irrelevant, I cannot truly be involved in it; if relevant, then my impartiality is but a pretense. Reflection might succeed insolating an object; reflection itself cannot be isolated. Reflection is part of the situation” (The Prophets, p. xvi)

6 (3) Opening Our Minds To The Divine (3a) What is the ‘religious situation’ in which reflection is part of? – Situational Thinking “The beginning of situational thinking is not doubt, detachment but amazement, awe, involvement” (p.5) Not tragedy, but wonder of life, should stir man’s mind. “Man becomes amazed at seeing anything at all” (Man is not Alone p. 12 & God in Search of Man P. 31 and 35 [craving for God])

7 Situational Thinking “Conceptual thinking is an act of reasoning, situational thinking involves an inner experience; in uttering judgment about issue, the person himself is under judgment. … [it is] necessary when we are engaged in an effort to understand issues on which we stake our very existence.” (God in Search of Man, p. 5)

8 Reality is far richer than any human representation can convey –If we “think” about the Divine then anything we might say about God is “understatement” Note that according to Heschel our perception of reality is revelatory. We can think about reality and what we think reveals at least part of “reality”, Human mind doesn’t ‘produce’ or ‘project’ onto reality that which does not exist “outside” in the world. We can know something other than ourselves

9 “ What the sense of ineffable perceive is something objective which cannot be conceive by the mind, nor capture by imagination or feeling. … What we are primarily aware of is not our self, our mood, but a transubjective situation. … Subjective is the manner, not the matter, of our perception. What we perceive is objective in the sense of being independent of and corresponding to our perception. Our radical amazement responds to the mystery, but does not produce it. You and I have not invented the grandeur of the sky nor endowed man with mystery of birth and death. We do not create the ineffable, we encounter it” (Man is not Alone, 20)

10 Here language can open the door : The religious language is descriptive and also evokes the feelings necessary for the religious situation. It has an emotive and indicative aspect that might ‘open our minds’ towards religious experience that starts from asking the ‘big questions of existence’ and listening to the answer of religion: Why does the world exist? For what purpose? (God in Search of Man, cap 3 p.37 “on the sublime in the bible”; chap. 11, p. 120; chap. 18, p ) optional - read p ~

11 The Ineffable The sense of awe and amazement is calling for us to express through language this encounter, but it is overpowering, too sacred, to be expressed exactly. It is inexpressible: therefore religious language can only be indicative. Religious language points to a realm of deeper meaning beyond mystery: (God in Search of Man, chap. 8) READ P. 84-5

12 What can we know? Please explain the sentence below: “That the sense of the ineffable is an awareness of meaning is indicated by the fact that the inner response it evokes is that of awe or reverence” ( Man is not Alone, p.23; God in Search of Man, pp )

13 And this… “ While we are unable either to define or to describe the ineffable, it is given to us to point to it. By means of indicative rather than descriptive terms, we are able to convey to others those features of our perception which are known to all man” (Man is not Alone, p. 21)

14 Questions: Our subjective minds are open to the divine: is it only a psychological, inner, subjective feeling? If we follow Heschel, can we clam that the Divine exist “outside our self?

15 (3b) Categorical imperative “That objection (Our question in the previous slide) is, of course, valid. Yet what we infer from is not actual feeling of awe but the intellectual certainty that in the face of nature’s grandeur and mystery we must respond with awe; what we infer from is not a psychological state but a fundamental norm of human consciousness, a categorical imperative” [THAT GOD IS] ( Between God and Man p.54; God in Search of Man, chap pp ) * Heschel presupposes our response with awe. Only mentally blind person will block himself – Is it so?!

16 “The Answer for God’s existence is already known” “Proofs for the existence of God may add to our belief; the do not generate it. Human existence implies the realness of God. There is certainty without knowledge in the depth of our being that accounts for our asking the ultimate question, a preconception certainty that leis beyond all formulation or verbalization” GM. 67

17 Panantheism – All is in God but God transcends the ‘all’. Existence is a part of God, but God is larger than existence. “God means: no one is ever alone; the essence of the temporal is the eternal; the moment is an image of eternity in infinite mosaic. God means: Togetherness of all beings in holy otherness” MA 109

18 The ‘forefathers’ The second reason that the answer is already known (see God in Search of Man chapters 2; 19 p. 188; 24 p. 222) We relay not just on our existential experience but primarily on our forefather's experience as recorded in the Bible (and later traditions) The Bible is a ‘story’ of mutual search – Man of God and God of Man. The Bible is “a witness” for the encounter with the divine, of His existence

19 The essence of Judaism lies in the collective memory of the Jewish people – From the Individual =existential towards the congregation past, present, future “The essence of Jewish religious thinking does not lie in entertaining a concept God but in the ability to articulate a memory of moments illumination by His presence. Israel is not a people of definers but a people of witnesses: “Ye are my witnesses” (Isaiah 43:10) God in Search of Man p.70

20 Mutual search God Man From God to man : “The way to God is a way of God”… “All of human history as describes in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man. Faith in God is a response to God’s question. Religion consists of God’s question and man’s answer” (Between God and Man, p. 68-9; God in Search of Man, chap. 13, pp )

21 + “The Biblical consciousness begins not with man’s but with God’s concern. The supreme fact in the eyes of the prophets is the presence of God’s concern for man and the absence of Man’s concern for God. It is God’s concern for man that cries out behind every word of their message. (God in search of Man, p. 127, last line – 128 four top lines)

22 “But how do we become aware of His concern?” From Man to God: “…Thinking of God … The problem of religious thinking is not only whether God is dead or alive, but also whether we are dead or alive to His realness. A search for God involves a search of our own measure, a test of our own spiritual potential. … In moments when we carry the load of radical amazement we know that to say that God is alive is an understatement” (p. 127)

23 The correlation between human wisdom and God’s activity – Heschel’s ‘Philosophical Realism’ what is the logical and theological problem in Heschel’s ‘move’? “Now if we assume God is not a passive object but being endowed with at least as much life and will as ourselves, understanding Him cannot be process that goes on regardless of His agreement. If God is alive, we must assume that He plays a part in our act of trying to understand Him; That our understanding of God depends not only on man’s readiness to approach but also on God’s willingness to be approached” (ibid, P. 128)