Lightkeeper
Well-Known Member
A Buddhist concept is that it is more important to practice spirituality than it is to try to understand God. What do you think about this? What is the importance of a statement like this?
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Lightkeeper said:A Buddhist concept is that it is more important to practice spirituality than it is to try to understand God. What do you think about this? What is the importance of a statement like this?
Lightkeeper said:Wouldn't focusing on trying to figure out what and who God is interfere with spirituality? If someone gave you a silver dollar and you melted it or tried to break it apart so you could figure out what it was made of and who made it would devalue the dollar and keep you from the true purpose of it.
I would think that practicing spirituality would indirectly lead to God, eventually leaving us with a better understanding. It's almost like the 'can't see the forst for the trees' type thing, where we get so caught up searching for God that we miss him when he's really all around us in the world.Lightkeeper said:A Buddhist concept is that it is more important to practice spirituality than it is to try to understand God. What do you think about this? What is the importance of a statement like this?
If God's nature is incomprehensible, how can we conform to him? If we practice spirituality and become our own true self, who we were made to be, then we would be whole. I think that's what the Buddhists mean. Trying to know something incomprehensible would lead you off of the spiritual path.No*s said:While I believe God's nature is fundamentally incomprehensible, I also believe that our purpose is to grow like Him and to know Him as far as our small minds can. In that respect, it is very important to know something about God, because if we are to conform to him, we need to start out with some knowledge and have a trustworthy guide along our path. So, if my goal is to be like God, I must have some knowledge of God to accomplish that. That knowledge is only possible with revelation.
Lightkeeper said:If God's nature is incomprehensible, how can we conform to him? If we practice spirituality and become our own true self, who we were made to be, then we would be whole. I think that's what the Buddhists mean. Trying to know something incomprehensible would lead you off of the spiritual path.
How do you know when God is revealing himself?No*s said:We conform to God, because God enables it. We can't do it on our own, but only by God's grace which divinizes us (this is all messy vocabulary I know). To put it another way, we believe that He incarnates Himself in His people quite literally. By God's coming and incarnating Himself in us, our spirit is also transformed (and the transformation aids the incarnation), and thus we are conformed to the image of God.
Other people are mostly incomprehensible. We cannot see the heart, nor can we know their thoughts really. All we have are their words and actions. This reveals some of their thoughts and character to us. If one believes in a God that acts and reveals Himself, then we have a means to know something of God right there, and it creates a history to conform us to. Further, there is God's grace which works in and through people to aid the process over time.
It would lead off the spiritual path if we had to reason up to the incomprehensible, but if God reveals Himself, then we have some workable knoweledge.
Lightkeeper said:How do you know when God is revealing himself?