God of obedience or God of Recognition?

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

I have no agenda.


If you had some additional detail concerning specific issues before I respond to some of your previous comments, I'd be interested....


Actually you are way off base. I'm setting the stage for a hopefully broader view.



I have no pre-established discourse. I'm just going with the flow here, brother.



Me an apologist of for the Judeo-Christian point of view? I respect all religions and am an apologist for none.

Let's see. In the past couple of days I've discusssed Buddhism and existentialism, and I responded to something Seattlegal had said that pertains directly to the issues you raised about the Genesis account at the opening of the thread. I also threw in some Jungian ideas about attachment style. The conclusion of my last post alludes to Benedict De Spinoza's rather unorthodox rejection of free will.

At another discussion forum I tried to sort out some issues pertaining to Islam and I was assumed to be a Muslim. Another member of this forum thought I was a Hindu. If you check, you'll see almost all of my initial posts here as well as a number of recent posts deal with Buddhism..

Have you got me figured out yet?

Hi not this - but maybe that! You know my last post is one of those one regrets making - it was a tad grumpy. So I apologize for that.


On the other hand, so far you haven't engaged much with the substance of my post. You appear to be following your own parallel track. Which is fine, but kind of limits discussion. And when you come in trying to define terms you feel are being misapplied by other mortels, when you attempt to "sort things out", when you challenge others to "figure your out", well, that's the sort of pomposity that reminds me of....well, of me! So there you go -from my side at least, let's call this skirmish of pomposities a draw!


Cheers, Shanti, etc.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

According to the Genesis account, why did God create human beings? In my outsider reading I get the sense of two distinct motives:
1. That God created human beings to serve Him.
2. That He created human beings to recognize Him.

My initial reaction is that this is largely a theoretical distinction that is often not apparent within a religious lifestyle. Recognition of G-d invariably implies a desire to to serve Him.

A sense of duty to serve has been an aspect of G-d consciousness for literally thousands of years - in preHindu times. Do we have reason to believe it's different in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam?

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

On the other hand, so far you haven't engaged much with the substance of my post.

I know that and I appreciate your patience.

You appear to be following your own parallel track. Which is fine, but kind of limits discussion. And when you come in trying to define terms you feel are being misapplied by other mortals, when you attempt to "sort things out".....

Clarification of terms is often helpful. I'm thinking Seattlegal used the term attachment/aversion when maybe she meant conflict. That being the case, what she wrote -- which you described as an "interesting take" -- might mean something substantially different from what it did before. I suppose it would depends on how you interpreted her words. However, consider the possibility that you need to revise your reply to her given that intrapsyschic conflict is modulated by various tensions that are logically orthogonal to the moral properties of the choices one is faced with. For example, consider the effect of inertial tendencies on motivation.

I'm actually much more interested in the psychology of religion than some abstract doctrinal issues that are unlikely to be resolved in any final way. It is unclear whether that's irrelevant to the issues you were raising, but for some reason you feel like I have strayed too far and need to be redirected.

I don't think I'm interfering with anyone else responding to your opening post. But let me know if you feel my presence in this thread is unproductive.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Devadatta wrote, way back in the first post:
So here the point is not the superficial one of the necessity of free will, of choosing between good and evil, but the deeper necessity of the fall into duality as the precondition for the summum bonum of mutual recognition between human consciousness and ultimate reality.

Ah, words, words, words! These two quotes sum up our differing agendas. My aim is to look for a way of stating a fundamental human dilemma that’s inclusive of various narrative/ideological/constitutional strategies. (How well I succeed at this is of course open to dispute.) Your aim – and do correct me if I’m off-base – is to cast this same human dilemma into an exclusive discourse, drawing on a very distinctively Judeo-Christian point of view with all the machinery of sin, moral drama, free will, or lack of it, etc.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Wasn't your original post directly addressing the Judeo-Christian point of view?

Originally Posted by Devadatta

(The following really belongs in the Abrahamic garden, but thinking that some there might find it an unwelcome growth, I decided to plant it in a more unruly place.)

According to the Genesis account, why did God create human beings? In my outsider reading I get the sense of two distinct motives:
1. That God created human beings to serve Him.
2. That He created human beings to recognize Him.

Now, this is not an attack. Your discourse is in the language that makes sense to you, and I wouldn’t presume to propose for you any substitute. But I do want to point out the difference between identifying core commonalities among differing traditions on the one hand, and trolling different traditions for elements to support one’s pre-established discourse on the other hand. The one is an exercise in pluralism, the other in apologetics.

Methinks your original post would fall under the category of apologetics.

Of course, if you believe and are correct that in the end there is only one truth, then apologetics is a noble enterprise and my pluralism sadly misguided.


I hope you don’t take this the wrong way!


Shanti.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

According to the Genesis account, why did God create human beings? In my outsider reading I get the sense of two distinct motives:
1. That God created human beings to serve Him.
2. That He created human beings to recognize Him.

The first motive appears to bear some affinity with the Mesopotamian creation stories that are thought to predate the biblical accounts. In at least some of these stories the gods are said to create human beings as slaves. So you have a recapitulation on the cosmic scale of prevailing social conditions; like earthly rulers, the gods need legions of minions to build their temples and ziggurats, make their sacrifices, etc. And the central need of every ruler, earthly or celestial, is obvious: they need obedience.

You're right, Mesopotamian creation myth Enuma Elish, shows that mankind was supposed to serve the gods. However, there is no a priori reason to believe that the monotheistic G-d of the Bible is among these Mesopotamian mythic gods or, for that matter, patterned after the depiction we see in the Enuma Elish story.

Further, be aware that the notion of a central Creator was present in the patriarchal religion of the Canaanites:

Elohim (אֱלוֹהִים , אלהים ) is a Hebrew word which expresses concepts of divinity. It is apparently related to the Hebrew word ēl, though morphologically it consists of the Hebrew word Eloah (אלוה) with a plural suffix. Elohim is the third word in the Hebrew text of Genesis and occurs frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible......

The Wiki notes "the use of the word Elohim found in the late Bronze Age texts of Canaanite Ugarit, where Elohim ('lhm) denoted the entire Canaanite pantheon (the family of El אל, the patriarchal creator god)."

El is the Canaanite creator g-d, who was characterized -- not as a slave driver who demanded obedience -- but as beneficent and non-hostile "father of mankind' and "creator of creatures," "the Compassionate One."

For your interest, Talmudic term for G-d is Rachmana, which means "the Compassionate One." This apparent overlap in G-d concepts is not definitive by any means. But it does suggest that ancient Canaanite mythology depicting a kindly patriarchal creator god was a source for Hebrew divinity constructs.

God in Genesis needs obedience too, and provides a little drama of obedience in illustration.

I disagree. The G-d you have in mind would have been very naive to think that the serpent would not be successful in tempting Eve. The Tree of Knowledge scenario was G-d's idea of creating an opportunity for sin that would facilitate the process of discovering the capacity for free will. All went according to plan. I really don't think G-d expected things to turn out different.

I also disagree with the suggestion that G-d needs obedience. Obedience is an issue for souls who recognize their dependence on and duty to the Creator. More about this later.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

My initial reaction is that this is largely a theoretical distinction that is often not apparent within a religious lifestyle. Recognition of G-d invariably implies a desire to to serve Him.

A sense of duty to serve has been an aspect of G-d consciousness for literally thousands of years - in preHindu times. Do we have reason to believe it's different in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam?

Okay, let us indeed try to sort this out.

I’ll start by explaining my impression of your trail of posts, which led to my momentary grumpiness. First, you take issue with my characterisation of authority and obedience as being “negative”, when even a cursory reading of the post would show that I was hardly making so simple a claim. Instead, I was pointing to the problematic of authority/obedience in the Abrahamic tradition. Not only that, you cite specifically traditional theological rationales. Second, you jump all over the Buddhist analogy with a welter of references to the effect that attachment/aversion is a superficial affair and not intrinsic to the practice, as it most certainly is. Similar arguments dismissing Buddhist practice as necessarily falling short of Christian truth is familiar from the work of Catholic apologists. Thirdly, ignoring my response to these forays you launch into a theologically loaded analysis. Adding all this up, I had the distinct impression that you were very much defending a particular theological point of view, as opposed to responding to the general questions posed in the thread. Perhaps you were playing some other game, but in that case I’m sure you’ll understand and forgive my misapprehension.


But above, in this post, you finally come clean. You are not taking in the distinctions or points I’m making because they did not fit your theological views. I have no problem with that. God bless you. But I’m a plain speaker and would have preferred a more direct response from the getgo
Below, however, you retrogress:


Netti Netti speaks:
However, consider the possibility that you need to revise your reply to her given that intrapsyschic conflict is modulated by various tensions that are logically orthogonal to the moral properties of the choices one is faced with. For example, consider the effect of inertial tendencies on motivation.


Netti, Netti, my friend, you know this is angel dust, and far from the first you’ve thrown in your wake. I don’t claim to be familiar with every bit of psychological or philosophical jargon out there but I know when I’m being snowed. Besides, I’m a bit of a wordsmith myself, and you’re not going to baffle me with mere words.

Look, let’s part here as friends. We have different perspectives, and no need for debates that will lead us nowhere.

Cheers, Shanti, etc.

Oops! I see your further post below, which is of a different character. I'll go ahead with this (after all, honesty is best) but respond to your new post, as well, briefly, one last time?

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

You're right, Mesopotamian creation myth Enuma Elish, shows that mankind was supposed to serve the gods. However, there is no a priori reason to believe that the monotheistic G-d of the Bible is among these Mesopotamian mythic gods or, for that matter, patterned after the depiction we see in the Enuma Elish story.


Further, be aware that the notion of a central Creator was present in the patriarchal religion of the Canaanites:

Elohim (אֱלוֹהִים , אלהים ) is a Hebrew word which expresses concepts of divinity. It is apparently related to the Hebrew word ēl, though morphologically it consists of the Hebrew word Eloah (אלוה) with a plural suffix. Elohim is the third word in the Hebrew text of Genesis and occurs frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible......

The Wiki notes "the use of the word Elohim found in the late Bronze Age texts of Canaanite Ugarit, where Elohim ('lhm) denoted the entire Canaanite pantheon (the family of El אל, the patriarchal creator god)."

El is the Canaanite creator g-d, who was characterized -- not as a slave driver who demanded obedience -- but as beneficent and non-hostile "father of mankind' and "creator of creatures," "the Compassionate One."

For your interest, Talmudic term for G-d is Rachmana, which means "the Compassionate One." This apparent overlap in G-d concepts is not definitive by any means. But it does suggest that ancient Canaanite mythology depicting a kindly patriarchal creator god was a source for Hebrew divinity constructs.


I disagree. The G-d you have in mind would have been very naive to think that the serpent would not be successful in tempting Eve. The Tree of Knowledge scenario was G-d's idea of creating an opportunity for sin that would facilitate the process of discovering the capacity for free will. All went according to plan. I really don't think G-d expected things to turn out different.

I also disagree with the suggestion that G-d needs obedience. Obedience is an issue for souls who recognize their dependence on and duty to the Creator. More about this later.

-- As for as Elohim, etc., goes; I think that's interesting. In points to the fact that Abrahamic God is an improvement over the Mesopotamian, a point I would never deny. Again, I was at pains to point out the problematic in the tradition, that it's mixed, ambigious, that there are dichotomies, i.e., commasionate/authoritarian, etc. I would only differ with you I suppose in suggesting that the Abrahamic tradition, as the headlines indicate, has never quite resolved this contradiction or escaped its primtive origins.


-- And where did I say the biblical was naive? You're using a different to make the same point: that the fall was part of the plan.


-- On obedience, you're right, we would need more extended discussion on that. We'd have to more clearly understand what each of us is really saying on this subject.

Cheers.

[Devadatta]

Hi Netti Netti. I've repeated the above here because of all the sloppy typing. The editing function never seems to work for me on this site.

-- As for as Elohim, etc., goes; I think that's interesting. In points to the fact that the Abrahamic God is an improvement over the Mesopotamian, a point I would never deny. Again, I was at pains to point out the problematic in the tradition, that it's mixed, ambiguous, that there are dichotomies, i.e., compassionate/authoritarian, etc. I would only differ with you I suppose in suggesting that the Abrahamic tradition, as the headlines indicate, has never quite resolved this contradiction or escaped its primitive origins.

-- And where did I say the biblical God was naive? You're using a different narrative turn to make the same point: that in biblical terms the fall was part of the plan.

-- On obedience, you're right, we would need more extended discussion on that. We'd have to more clearly understand what each of us is really saying on this subject.
Cheers.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Wasn't your original post directly addressing the Judeo-Christian point of view?



Methinks your original post would fall under the category of apologetics.


I hope you don't take this the wrong way.

Oh, gee, Seattle, didn't I very early on say that for me these are metaphorical languages, didn't I mention the parallel narrative of the theory of evolution? I was pretty clear that I was outside the barn, which is why I placed the thread where I did.

Apologetics? That's just for my wife. Daily.


Cheers, Shanti, etc.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Hi Netti Netti. I've repeated the above here because of all the sloppy typing. The editing function never seems to work for me on this site.

I think the time limit for editing posts is 20 minutes, or there abouts. To get the editing feature to work, click the "Edit" button, then click the "Go Advanced" button on the next screen, make your edits, then click the "Save Changes" button.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Oh, gee, Seattle, didn't I very early on say that for me these are metaphorical languages, didn't I mention the parallel narrative of the theory of evolution? I was pretty clear that I was outside the barn, which is why I placed the thread where I did.

Apologetics? That's just for my wife. Daily.


Cheers, Shanti, etc.

It shows.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

You're right, Mesopotamian creation myth Enuma Elish, shows that mankind was supposed to serve the gods. However, there is no a priori reason to believe that the monotheistic G-d of the Bible is among these Mesopotamian mythic gods or, for that matter, patterned after the depiction we see in the Enuma Elish story.


Further, be aware that the notion of a central Creator was present in the patriarchal religion of the Canaanites:

Elohim (אֱלוֹהִים , אלהים ) is a Hebrew word which expresses concepts of divinity. It is apparently related to the Hebrew word ēl, though morphologically it consists of the Hebrew word Eloah (אלוה) with a plural suffix. Elohim is the third word in the Hebrew text of Genesis and occurs frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible......

The Wiki notes "the use of the word Elohim found in the late Bronze Age texts of Canaanite Ugarit, where Elohim ('lhm) denoted the entire Canaanite pantheon (the family of El אל, the patriarchal creator god)."

El is the Canaanite creator g-d, who was characterized -- not as a slave driver who demanded obedience -- but as beneficent and non-hostile "father of mankind' and "creator of creatures," "the Compassionate One."

For your interest, Talmudic term for G-d is Rachmana, which means "the Compassionate One." This apparent overlap in G-d concepts is not definitive by any means. But it does suggest that ancient Canaanite mythology depicting a kindly patriarchal creator god was a source for Hebrew divinity constructs.

I thought I dash off something quickly on this, as I did above; after all, it’s bedtime, and I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me anymore anyway. But then you took the trouble to look this up on Wiki! This is an extraordinarially complex question, which one can endlessly debate, which has no resolution – everyone will find what they’re looking for. The bottom line for me is that there is indeed a problematic with Abrahamic religion and questions of power and authority, of which the evidence is plentiful, and which is rooted in the most ancient sources. And merely to defend or affirm what monotheism should be or “really is” doesn’t address the question.

Anyway, below I’ve pasted part of another post (from the thread Tilting at windmills redux in the Judaism garden). In it I lay out a general take on this question. It’s not a scholarly treatise, only my 2 cents. (Of course, you many very well find it no more convincing than my original post in this thread.)


...with your indulgence, let me try a fair but very schematic comparison between these two broad traditions that inform what a vast majority of humankind think religion is or should be, based on fundamental texts.



For me the most straightforward comparison is that between the textual pole stars of each tradition: Torah/Tanakh for the Abrahamic tradition, and Sruti (“what was heard”), i.e., the collections of Vedic hymns and their attendant literatures, culminating with the Upanishads, for the orthodox Indian tradition. The elaboration of these two textual traditions are roughly contemporaneous, covering a similar span of time; both locate a major focus in the practice of sacrifice; both are divine revelations “heard” and transmitted by sages; both are considered divine root texts whose every word, syllable and sound is meticulously studied. And yet the substance of their concerns, the mental climate is profoundly different. Torah/Tanakh is vitally concerned with making distinctions, drawing dichotomies, establishing authority and with transcendent power as a guarantor of order; Sruti with making analogies, finding identities, explicating authority and with immanent power as the guarantor of order.


It’s worth looking – again, very schematically - at the impact of each tradition at the point of greatest difficulty, religious war on the one hand, and the caste system on the other. In both cases, criticism is usually over-broad, over-simplified or misdirected.



In the case of the Indian caste system, for example, all that existed during most of the Vedic period were the four varnas, a nearly universal human class division that splits society into rulers, priests, producers and workers – distinctions that largely hold to this day, under various names. The Vedic and Upanishadic sages weren’t obsessed with the fine detail of caste. The problem (I speculate of course) was not in taking social/power relationships too seriously, but in not taking them seriously enough. Why take such relationships seriously when they don’t ultimately matter in terms of spiritual understanding or human happiness? Barring the occasional necessity of fighting some great evil (as in the Mahabharata), which demands an incarnation to set things right, the tendency in the face of social conflict must be not to revolution but to accommodation. That means merely ratifying social distinctions/particularizations as they occur, preserving stability; for the more stability there is the more we can think/meditate on what really matters. Besides, beneath this surface diversification there is always identity. So one can imagine the accretion of jati (cast divisions) over the centuries as each new threat to order is given a sublet in the vast complex of the dharma. So we have the paradox of a mental culture not much interested in social/power arrangements contributing to the creation of one of the most hierarchically detailed societies ever to exist.



Of course, the perennial difficulty of the Abrahamic tradition is that it takes social/power relationships very seriously indeed. And unlike the case of India, where caste seems almost a by-product of the mental culture, an unintended consequence, religious war would here appear to be engraved in stone, beginning with the Decalogue and its injunctions to destroy all competing representations of God.



So I could say that here’s the smoking gun, the genetrix of absolutist ideology, the original singularity in the big bang of imperial religion. But then an outsider like myself has to consider not only the assertions of Torah but also what these assertions are directed against. Who are these idols, these false gods? The emphasis is usually on the fact they’re mere stone, wood or clay, etc., that they have no real power, and finally that they’re likely connected with some abomination or another. Above all, it’s their lack of power that everyone from the church fathers to Muhammad has ridiculed (this emphasis in itself is telling on the true preoccupations of these critics). But it seems to me (and I’m sure this is an old story) that among the intensely political/social/legal concerns of Torah the true concern, the true sin, was not that the idols were powerless, but that they served power, that they served empire, that they diverted what should have been means to approach God (concrete representations) into means to serve empire, through the collusion of priests and rulers, and to oppress God’s people.



So in this view the priests of empire, through their idols, created ideology avant la lettre, and ideology not just in the basic meaning of “rationalization of power” but in the sense some modern noodlers have dubbed “false consciousness”, where “idols” divert human aspiration from ultimate goods and ultimate reality and even from their own reality to serve mere earthly power, i.e., Babylon, empire.



So where the Upanishadic sages would have seen little point in linking ultimate reality with earthly politics, but were content rather to track it through the forests of its immanent manifestations, Torah brings ultimate reality, transcendence starkly into view, urgently, as the only remedy to empire and the idols who serve it. (There’s no way of exactly explaining the genius of either tradition, but the contrasting historical conditions are impossible not to notice. India never even experienced empire until near the end of the age of Struti; even then, its empire was homegrown, though no doubt influenced by Persian and Greek incursions. Similarly, when you look at ancient China, you find a predominance of homegrown empire. Like everywhere else, these cultures knew all about war, but internecine, civil war, not the wars of alien occupation. On the other hand, the Hebrew/Jewish peoples as we know have wrestled with/suffered/served/shaped/resisted a whole dreary and endless succession of glorious and mostly alien empires. The ideological cast of Abrahamic religion is no doubt unique for solid historical reasons.)



I mentioned the irony of Vedic religion, hierarchy and caste, but the ironies of the Abrahamic shapings of power far exceed anything imaginable by the grandmotherly wisdom of Indian sages – which for me is a clue to why the West is so mysterious. Power is pressed into so many concealments.



The foundational irony is that the anti-imperial text of Torah, written against the idols of empire, was captured (Harold Bloom’s apt word) by imperial religion - and what could go wrong with that?



Everything. Here’s the mind-boggling nightmare of history we’d all like to awake from, an endless rogue’s gallery of pretenders pretending to renounce power in the name of God while in fact renouncing one power in the name of another, a dirty laundry list of anti-imperial empires and their civilizing missions, a Pandora’s box of ironies, absurdities, inanities – among uncountable examples in the present, we have radical atheists denouncing the idols of consumer capitalism in the tones of prophesy, along side Christian conservatives who embrace the same market idols as signposts to the New Jerusalem.



And there’s the question of power itself. Is the renunciation of worldly power, the smashing of its idols, merely in favour of some greater power, a bigger king? That’s the view of imperial religion. But there’s the deeper view that the breaking of idols is the unravelling of power itself, which in the end is only a human construct and an impious one to apply to ultimate reality, which is beyond such clumsy notions and impulses. This other, deeper impulse is generally obscured under the weight and lip service of creeds, institutions, holy emperors, caliphates, but it has always operated. If it hadn’t Abrahamic religion would have collapsed and disintegrated long ago under the weight of its own ideologies. It’s the Leninists of the tradition, like Paul of Tarsus, who get the credit for holding it together with authoritarian creeds, bizarre theologies and evangelistic manipulations, but the real heart of what keeps it all going and gives it value isn’t found in dogma or shariah but in the sufferings of Job, the sufferings of that radical Jewish preacher, Yeshua, and his true followers, and in the historical sufferings of the Jewish people.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

I think the time limit for editing posts is 20 minutes, or there abouts. To get the editing feature to work, click the "Edit" button, then click the "Go Advanced" button on the next screen, make your edits, then click the "Save Changes" button.

Why, thank you!

[cyberpi]

Both the words 'obedience' and 'recognition' leap out at me as being focused on the brain of a dog. Obedience as a matter of control. Recognition as a matter of physical dependance or pride. The first word and concept has man as the dog. The second word and concept has god as the dog. Both concepts appear to me as a bit... misguided. I submit that faith is more than obedience, and love is more than recognition.

The fall of Adam/Eve looks to me more like a lesson of trust and trusting... or of faith and faithfulness. If the focus is on the knowledge or the tree in the story, then the mind is already lost to the lesson. God trusted Adam/Eve and communicated with Adam/Eve, disclosing that there was a tree that was in the middle of Eden and that it was evil to them. That disclosure is like the commandments. It is like telling a child today that a drug is addictive and physically harmful, so stay away from it. There are many things that the child could do instead of trying it... like ask more questions. Also, there are more things that Adam/Eve could have done. After betraying God's trust, Adam/Eve could have confessed and repented instead of trying to hide.

I think this verse ties in:

Mark 11:21-22 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which you cursed is withered away. And Jesus said to him, "Have faith in God."

There are a couple of ways of learning the knowledge of good and evil. The way that Adam/Eve chose was not good. But what if Adam/Eve had cursed the tree rather than trying to hide?

[Thomas]

Hi Devadatta —

Been away from this thread, but here are a few comments I'd like to make.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

According to the Genesis account, why did God create human beings? In my outsider reading I get the sense of two distinct motives:
1. That God created human beings to serve Him.
2. That He created human beings to recognize Him.

Both of these suggest a requirement in God, for service or recognition from His creation ... this is not how the Abrahamic Tradition understands God, nor is it what the Tradition teaches. I can fully appreciate how one might assume that from an uninformed reading Scripture, but then if one is going to understand a text, then one must seek to understand what the scribe intended, not one's own opinion on the matter. Without the guidance of traditional commentary, one is really in the dark.

It should be noted tht Scripture was never meant to stand alone, or be read uninstructed ... quite the reverse.

+++

As you say, Mesopotamian theologies do accentuate a requirement, even a dependency, of the gods upon man (the Epic of Gilgamesh illustrates this). The Hebrew Scriptures were a move away from this. One might argue that the move is incremental, but again it is implicit from the outset. Of course, Scripture will use such language because it addresses volative man, not the contemplative nor the gnostic ... but as stated, Scripture can only be properly understood in the light of traditional commentary.

+++

Originally Posted by Devadatta

And yet he demands obedience above all – or at least appears to.

Yes, that's my point. He appears to, but appearances can be deceptive. This assumption undermines your whole argument. You've set up a paradigmatic principle by which to test the text, but the principle itself is false.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Consider that while God demands obedience he makes disobedience impossible to avoid.

Such a God would be irrational. As God isn't, I'm afraid the logic of this statement is flawed. It might seem that way to you, but rest assured such is not the case.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

That’s the story of the apple, the snake, the knowledge of good and evil and the fall. On an extra-biblical level this seems obviously an etiological myth explaining the emergence of discursive reasoning, the cognitive abilities that make us human but which abstract us, separate us from the primal unity, the direct, experiential contact with reality.

You seem to assume that discursive reasoning and cognitive ability are conditions subsequent of the Fall. They are not, nor do they necessarily separate us from the Real. In fact a close reading of the text will show that Adam and Eve display both prior to the Fall. Aquinas (13th c), and recently Lonergan (20th c), have shown the correct function of the cognitive ability. St Maximus the Confessor (6th c) discussed man's discursive faculty under the heading of 'gnomic will'.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

So in the extra-biblical sense, the “fall” is simply another parable for the human dilemma, for the sense of separation or alienation.

I would rather call it Revealed data.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

But in the biblical narrative, in the biblical language, where obedience is both mandated and impossible ...

Again, a subjective response.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

In this context, one can see the necessity of the fall.

No, the Fall is not a necessity ...

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Before the fall, human beings are scarcely more than images.

I suggest an over-literal reading of image.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

When God walks in the garden in the cool of evening before the fall, he is unlikely to meet the other he desires, the other His creation was meant to deliver.

Again, this is not the God of the Abrahamic Tradition. Desire does not exist in God as you suggest it. 'God is simple' is a favourite of the Fathers, God cannot be added to or subtracted from, not augmented or diminished, not increased or decreased ... so God has no needs, wants, desires ...

Originally Posted by Devadatta

So here the point is not the superficial one of the necessity of free will, of choosing between good and evil, but the deeper necessity of the fall into duality as the precondition for the summum bonum of mutual recognition between human consciousness and ultimate reality.

Not at all. the summon bonum is not in the mutual recognition, the summun bonum is the 'end' to which creation is directed, and for man is met now in the coincidence of human will and the divine will, and in the end in the coming to fruition of the Kosmos in the fullness of time. I think this misses the point — free will is not an issue, free will is a given ... it's how we dispose ourselves according to that freedom ... do we seek the 'real good' in God, or the imaginary good of our own self-deception.

I think you're bringing too many alien presuppositions to the text. I suggest that your idea of Union, or Unity, is different from the Abrahamic — or at least the Christian — idea.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

For me, this God of Recognition is the universal side of the Abrahamic tradition, whose parallels are easily recognized in other major traditions, while the God of Obedience is culture-bound, restricted to a particular historical continuum and rooted in a particular geography, and whose preponderant emphasis on obedience above all else doesn’t fully translate into any other tradition.

The parallels are superficial, as are the cultural references — both are inevitable in man, but they don't define the content or message of Scripture.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

So Paul recognizes that the Law, which is the fulfillment in scripture of God’s original call to obedience, is impossible to observe, in a literal sense. But he doesn’t recognize the Law as process, as practice, as a means for achieving re-cognition of God, and thus overcoming sin. Why? Because for Paul obedience itself is central. He defines his faith as obedience (see Romans, first chapter).

I think you fail to appreciate faith in the context of the Christian Tradition. For Paul, faith is central ... as it is for John, and for Christ. You need to understand faith in the context of the theological virtues — not as something blind. Jesus' healing of the Centurion's son shows that for Him, obediance and faith are synonymous.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

But doesn’t he (St Paul) say “only believe, and do as you like”,

No.

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Sure, but this is your classic Pauline logical/emotional bind ...

By now you should realise this and the rest of your commentary is subjective and your own opinion ... but from a Christian point of view is fundamentally flawed by a radical failure to comprehend the meaning of Scripture.

Thomas