Apparently:
"'...the Great Nature...' was as close as Inuit could come to 'God.'" (p. 181)
That is a good approximation, in my opinion. "Nature" means everything. "Great" emphasizes its immensity and transcendence. Thirdly, and finally, it is not anthropomorphic. "Nature" is impersonal, "it" or "that," not "he" or "she," except maybe metaphorically or mythologically. I once heard a Christian missionary explain on television that he tried to find some figure in a local, e.g., Chinese, mythology that could be identified with the Old Testament deity or God the Father. That will be harder to do if native ideas are impersonalist. If I were to spend some time among the Inuit, then I would be happy to accept their "Great Nature" while maybe also offering some scientific information about how water freezes, fire burns etc.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Educated Chinese would have understood that missionary if he had referred to God as "The Emperor Above." That was how God was referred to in Chinese.
Ad astra! Sean
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