Your Humble Blogger is not good at time management. Have I mentioned that before? Well, anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I was checking to see if my local public library had the new James Morrow book yet, and they did, only somebody else got to it first, so I put my name on the list, and while I was thinking about James Morrow, I just thought I’d see whether Towing Jehovah was on the shelf. And it was, and I took it out and started rereading it, because I hadn’t read it in years, probably since shortly after it came out. I remember reading a review somewhere, and picking up Bible Stories for Adults, which was wonderful, and then getting Towing Jehovah after that, so it was probably 1996 or so, maybe 1997. Not later. I loved it at the time, but I didn’t purchase a copy, so I never went back to it.
Ten years later it’s a trifle disappointing. One of the things that I liked the first time around, the way in which different people reacted differently to the Corpse based on different perceptions of the Universe, bugged me this time because none of the responses was very deep. Even the ones who had thought the most about the Divine had only surface reactions—entertaining ones, but not anything that lasted with me.
Although something has been haunting me, and I’m afraid I returned the book so I can’t look up the exact quote, so I’ll have to paraphrase. Do y’all know the plot? At the opening of the book, angels have come to tell our main characters that the Divine Creator has died, and that we have to take care of the Corpse. When Our Hero is skeptical that the Divine has a corporeal body, the Angel quotes several passages from Scripture mentioning the Divine’s arm, fingers, eyes, face, buttocks, etc. Our Hero replies that surely those are metaphors. The Angel responds that everything is a metaphor.
To me, that’s a startling sort of idea. The Big Idea of the book of course is that just as the mortals in the book have to find a way to deal with the rotting corpse of the Divine, so too do we in the real world have to find a way to deal with the rotting corpse of organized religion. Since of course YHB doesn't see organized religion as dead, there is only so far I can go on that voyage. This ancillary idea, however, that our metaphors have real existence, is somewhat scary. Are we metaphors for the Divine? Are you?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
That’s a pretty good summation of my belief system, yeah. It would be swell, if we as a species were nicer, ’cause that would imply a nicer Divine. That’s worth working towards, though, I think.
peace
Matt
The Angel responds that everything is a metaphor. . . . This ancillary idea, however, that our metaphors have real existence, is somewhat scary. Are we metaphors for the Divine? Are you?
Without more context, it’s hard for me to see how the Angel’s statement could be meaningful, unless the Angel is implying that the physical universe offers us concrete representations of something like Platonic forms. One could say, of course, that if the physical universe originates in ideas in the Mind of the Divine, then, insofar as everything is an image of an idea, it is part of a metaphor. The concrete entities of the physical universe would be the vehicle of the metaphor, and the Divine Idea would be the tenor. It is also conceivable, however, that God thoughts _are_ physical reality, not metaphorically, but actually.
Thinking this through . . . Part of the problem I have is with the way in which the term “metaphor” is being used in the paraphrase of the angel’s statement. A metaphor is a figure of speech, in which one thing (the vehicle) is identified with another thing (the tenor) on the basis of a resemblance. Metaphors are made by the recognition or the creation of resemblance. We pattern-matching humans can discern many sorts of resemblances, so any one thing can be brought into (serious or fanciful) metaphoric relation to many other things. To say that a thing used as part of a metaphor IS a metaphor, however, would be, it seems to me, a misuse of the term. Not an unidiomatic use, certainly, but one that is insufficiently precise for the purposes of philosophy or theology.
As to human beings being metaphors for the Divine: various Bible texts support a reduced version of this idea. If, as Genesis chapter 1 has it, human beings are made in the “image and likeness” of God, then there is a resemblance, a similitude, between human beings and God. That is not the same degree of resemblance as is established in a metaphor. Also, unless human beings were created for the purpose of resembling God, then it would not, it seems to me, be true to say that human beings ARE part of a simile, only that one can legitimately make a simile that says “human beings are like God in some respects.”
One more note: writers of the Christian scriptures, at least, were insistent that although human beings were created in the image and likeness of God, one cannot therefore infer the appearance and the nature of God in any thorough or indeed accurate way by analogical comparisons to human beings. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is”: that’s how the matter is put in 1 John.
Well, and I guess one more note after that: The question of the extent to which the nature of God can be understood by observing his Creation or by observing human nature is a vexed question in theology and leads into debates about the existence and the knowability of natural law.
I hesitate, as always, to pick at your thoughts, Chris, but I feel that you have perhaps fallen into a specialists’ trap. That is, your familiarity with the specifics of metaphor and its uses makes it difficult for you to accept common idiomatic uses, which although not precise, are the way people use them. So while it is fair to suggest that the Angel’s response defines its terms insufficiently, it is a fair shorthand for … what? Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Within the context of the book, I’ll start with pointing out that Mr. Morrow has the Corpse of the Divine not only appear incarnate and deceased, floating belly-up in the Atlantic, but be an immense old white guy with a long beard. It’s not only our Idea of the Divine, but a joke of our Idea of the Divine—we don’t really think of the Divine that way, do we? Or do we? The book ends with a conversation about what aspect of the Divine we think is the most important, with Our Hero deciding that it’s the Father (as opposed to the Creator, the Judge, etc).
When the Angel says that everything is a metaphor, I think he’s referring to the way we grasp things (particularly the Divine) by their resemblance to things we know. That’s poorly said, isn’t it? I think he’s saying that the Scriptures refer to the Finger of the Divine, but we understand it not to be a reference to an actual Finger, and yet here is an actual Finger, a strong Hand, an outstretched Arm—so also do we understand that the universe is a conception of the Divine, but that it also exists. We grasp the Divine through its metaphor, that is, through the mountains and valleys, etc, etc. But then, we also are part of that metaphor (as Matt H. points out), which can be disconcerting. It’s not just a matter of discovering the Divine through the Creation, but of (in some sense) taking part in the Creation and in the Divine, through our function as the vehicle.
Of course, none of this is new, either in Christian or Jewish theology. And as you point out, we are looking through a glass, darkly. What struck me about the exchange, and I still find it disconcerting, is that Mr. Morrow tends to pull the rug out from under some of my assumptions, or rather, to point out that they are assumptions, and often silly ones, at that. It’s hard, after reading Towing Jehovah, for me to rely entirely on the Rambam’s dismissal of the talk of the Divine Nose or Breath as simply talking to men in the language of men. I mean, I do think that’s true, but perceptual traps lurk everywhere.
I really don’t think of the Divine as an old white man with a big grey beard. But there are a lot of things I do think that derive from assumptions that are on that level. The Angel’s response is that we can’t dismiss things just because they are metaphors is apt, as is the extension that we can’t accept things just because they are not metaphors.
Thanks,
-V.
Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, the notion of everything being a metaphor is now inextricably linked in my mind with the transparently stupid invocation thereof by the straw-academic portrayed in that book — not one of the author’s finer moments. Through that lens, then, and not having read Towing Jehovah, I find myself wondering whether Morrow is having a bit of a joke at the Angel’s expense, or the Angel having a joke at the expense of humanity.
Well, and Mr. Morrow does question the extent of the Angel’s knowledge, understanding and intelligence, true. The Angel doesn’t have any special insight into what’s going on, just a better seat for the action.
Thanks,
-V.
we can’t accept things just because they are not metaphors.
I know this made sense to me when I was writing it, but now I haven’t a clue what I think it meant. Ah, well.
Thanks,
-V.