God in Search of Man
I have started reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, and am really enjoying this book! It is one of those books that takes a fresh look at the subject matter (compared with the many other works of its kind), and it also has a way of drawing me closer to God, as I read and reflect on it. Here are just some samples from the first couple chapters:
Heschel is approaching the topic from the position of philosophy. He explains.
"There are dead thoughts and there are living thoughts. A dead thought has been compared to a stone which one may plant in the soil. Nothing will come out. A living thought is like a seed" p. 3
"Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right questions." p. 4"
There are two types of thinking; one that deals with concepts and one that deals with situations. ... Conceptual thinking is an act of reasoning; situational thinking involves an inner experience... Situational thinking is necessary when we are engaged in an effort to understand issues on which we stake our very existence. ... The attitude of the conceptual thinker is one of detachment; the subject facing an independent object; the attitude of the situational thinker is one of concern: the subject realizing that he is involved in a situation that is in need of understanding....The beginning of situational thinking is not doubt, detachment, but amazement, awe, involvement." p. 5
"And so, for example, the problem of religious philosophy is not how does man arrive at an understanding of God, but rather how can we arrive at an understanding of God." p. 5ff
"The theme of the present study is the act of believing. Its purpose is to explore the depth of faith, the substratum of of which belief arises, and its method may be called depth-theology." p. 7
"Ideas of faith must not be studied in total separation from the moments of faith." p. 8
"Religion is liable to distortion from without and to corruption from within. ... Hypocrisy rather than heresy is the cause of spiritual decay. 'Thou desirest truth in the inwardness' of man (Psalms 51:8)." p. 10ff
"Hebrew thinking operates within categories different from those of Plato or Aristotle, and the disagreemetns between their respective teachings are not merely a matter of different ways of expression but of different ways of thinking." p. 15
"The Bible does not intend to teach us principles of creation or redemption. It came to teach us that God is alive, that He is the Creator and Redeemer, Teacher and Lawgiver." p. 16
"To try to distill the Bible, which is bursting with life, drama, and tension, to a series of principles would be like trying to reduce a living person to a diagram." p. 20
"On the other hand, he who would try to reduce the Bible to a catalog of events, to a sacred history, will equally fail. The Lord is One, or Justice, justice shalt thou pursue, is an idea or a norm rather than an occurrence. A philosophy of Judaism, therefore, is a philosophy of both ideas and events." p. 21
"Two sources of religious thinking are given us: memory (tradition) and personal insight. We must rely on our memory and we must strive for fresh insight. We hear from tradition, we also understand through our own seeking. The prophets appeal to the spiritual power in man: 'Know, therefore, this day and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other' (Deuteronomy 4:39). The spalmist calls on us ' O taste and see that the Lord is good' (34:9). How does one know? How does one taste?" p. 27
"God is waiting for man to seek Him. 'The Lord looked forth from heaven upon the children of man, to see if there were any man of understanding that sought Him' (Psalms 14:2). p. 30
"There are three starting points of contemplation about God; three trails that lead to Him. The first is the way of sensing the presence of God in the world, in things; the second is the way of sensing His presence in the Bible; the third is the way of sensing His presence in sacred deeds. ... These three ways correspond in our tradition to the main aspects of religious existence: worship, learning, and action. The three are one, and we must go all three ways to reach the one destination." p. 31
When I have told people that I am reading a book by a Jew I get one of two responses. First, I encounter the skepticism that many Christians have that you can find anything useful in the Old Testament. Second, I encounter the skepticism about whether we can learn from the Jews. Both reactions, I suggest, are in error. Please do not get me wrong. I do not mean to imply bigotry here. I just am acknowledging that Christians often have a New Testament, only, perspective. For many the reaction would be the same about any non-Christian writer. My response is two-fold.
First, The OT is the foundation for what the NT teaches. The same God that inspired David to sing the Psalms is the same God that inspires someone like Misty Edwards or Chris Tomlin to sing, and should inspire us to sing praises, as well. You do not have to go too far in Heschel's book before you encounter scripture, and when you do, one will realize that there is more to the OT than fire, brimstone, and the law. We often overlook the wonder of God in the OT.
Secondly, the idea that the Jews do not have anything to teach us neglects the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ was himself a Jew -- the Messiah, if the Christian claim is true -- as were many of the NT writers. We should not be so quick to stereotype people, assuming every Jew is of the type that opposed the Apostle Paul. Even Paul, was once a Saul, before the revelation of God reached him, and it was Paul's knowledge of scripture that made him such a powerful apologist for Christ.
Personally, from my reading of scripture, I know the Jews were and stand are God's chosen people. My hope finds its roots in their hope.
The reason I am reading this book is because we Christians have accumulated some excess baggage about God over the years. Some of that baggage is from the same Hellenistic sources that Heschel writes of. It is important that we regain the Hebraic understanding of God.
Finally, as Heschel says, "The central thought of Judaism is the living God." It is this God that we all seek to encounter and know. In reading Heschel's writings, I can tell that he has some knowledge of which he speaks.