That yet sounds like an anthropomorphism as if God reacts to us. I might fear the weather or a volcano, but the volcanos and winds have no anger. They don't react to me. I am molded by them and change my life to avoid danger. I live indoors but go outside when the weather suits me. Where the analogy fails is that weather and volcanos can be changed and do react, but God is unchanging to me. I'd go on but unfortunately the more a human describes God the more anthropological the description seems, because we paint every light.You sound wise enough to know that this presupposition concerning God forms something of a prism that tends to let in the spectrum of divine-revelation allowed by the shape of the prism?
If a person is able to remove their self-constructed epistemological prism, free themselves from that prison, they might come face-to-face with a God worthy not only of love and respect, but the highest form of fear and trembling.
Experience with many of my peers implies that the prism most people use to search for God is indistinguishable from the mirror on a woman's compact.
I did not grasp that last sentence.That's kind of like saying, as the kabbalists say, man is the measure of things. And I agree. As the Eastern mystics say, God can be seen in a grain of sand or a flower as easily as in a scroll.
To the latter I would personally add that the divine revelation on a scroll must guide the eye looking at the flower.
The assumption of a middle must be coming from an interpretation of the book Hebrews. There is another way to look at Hebrews. Christ mediates by changing us, not by changing God. Therefore technically speaking there is no middle like the connotation of 'mediator' implies. Similarly the Torah changes the Jews, not God. So the word mediator should not be taken as suggesting there is a middle.To the extent that there's a true dichotomy between two things, a shared middle of some sort is required for those two things to be unified. They can exist in opposition, even a healthy opposition which colors both poles. But that opposing opposition is not the same thing as being unified, through some form of mediation, in a shared middle.
For instance, though it's probably impossible to perceive, I have nothing but the greatest respect and reverence for all things Jewish. And yet since I believe Jewisn-ness is an absolute, a pole, if you will, and since I believe I have access to a shared-middle through a Jewish understanding of Christ, it doesn't surprise me that the very pole, Jewish-ness, that is part and parcel of my personal unification in a shared middle, can find me inexplicable, asinine, and or an enemy of everything they stand for since a shared middle appears to be in opposition to both of the things it has unified. To exist in a shared middle requires rebirth into a new set of circumstances impossible to perceive from the perspective of the very poles being unified.
The book Hebrews is not necessarily direct speech, either. Here is a heretical way of looking at it: In its opening it says "...but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe..." which to anyone familiar with the prophets can be seen as an allusion to Israel. What we may be reading in Hebrews is a stylistic discussion about a divine purpose the destruction of Jerusalem and temple, because that is a nuclear explosion in Judaism, very unlikely to be ignored by NT authors, yet they never directly mention it. It is a horror of horrors when Titus does this. To maintain Hebrews is only about Jesus would require ignoring the prophets and the feelings of every Jew who lives through the fall of Jerusalem. So the suggestion here in Hebrews chapter 1 could be similar to that of Matthew chapter 1 -- that Israel has completed its generations in the furnace of affliction. "...but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son..." and 'Son' referring to the perfected Israel. But this requires ignoring dogma.
This verse...no, not interpreting it; and I don't have scripture chapters and verses memorized. I remember many scriptures and look them up as needed, and it takes time.Are you interpreting Revelation 21:1? <s>
In my home church we never had parades of the cross. I saw one service where a Torah was paraded, and this was in a messianic church. After this I gave it thought and saw the similarity to the Roman procession. I know the term 'Liturgy' and have opinions about what it means, but I have not been a catholic priest and don't know what they think. I'm committed to believing eucharist is a treaty among mankind, and I see the liturgy as part of and subservient to that.Jewish monotheism might be said to consider what we can know of God to be a principle, the monotheistic principle. To which my argument would be that then, Judaism loves and reveres God through the Torah scroll (more than the monotheistic principle), which is passed around and kissed and adored in the synagogue, such that to unite the Jewish love of the scroll with the monotheistic principle would lend itself to understanding the Christian who loves the monotheistic principle by loving and adoring Jesus of Nazareth. In which case understanding the relationship between God and the Torah scroll, God and Jesus, might lend itself to manufacturing a shared middle of some import.