Thursday 3 November 2016

Lord

Nicholas van Rijn says:

"'...our picture of God comes in part from our kings. If you want to know how Oriental kings in ancient days was spoken to, look in your prayer book. Even now, we admit He is the Lord, and we is supposed to do His will...'" (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 323)

In part? If God is the Lord Whose will is sovereign, then He is exactly like an Oriental king. How would beings who never had kings regard:

the ultimate reality;
the transcendent;
the eternal;
the source of all things;
the ground of being;
the numinous;
the awesome;
the holy;
the supreme good;
the object of religious experience?

If It was not a powerful person, need It even have been a person?

Because of the immemorial custom of my ancestors, I spontaneously exclaim, "Lord!," in certain circumstances but:

I do not believe that the ultimate reality is a person;
I imagine the Lord Who is invoked not as the Hebrew deity but as Indra, the chief god of the Vedic pantheon that was known by Gautama.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But I do believe the Lord and Creator of the cosmos to be a BEING and Person. Setting aside the issue of divine revelation, I find the arguments of Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc., for the existence of a ultimate Unmoved Mover, or God, to be convincing.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
I will respond with another post.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Thanks!

Sean