best way to see religion is as humanity’s response to the puzzle of its own existence. Unlike the other
animals on earth, we have never felt entirely at home here. Our big brains prompt us not only to wonder
about our own existence but about the existence of existence itself. Is there a reality behind it that created
it, and can we relate to it in any way? Some of us think compulsively about these questions and come up
with a stream of never-very-certain answers. The instrument we use for wrestling with them is the human
mind. Our difficulty is that we can’t really be certain anything exists outside the mind, because the mind
is the main agent we have for examining the question. The Cambridge theologian Don Cupitt tells us there
is a German word that captures the difficulty, unhintergehbarkeit, ‘ungetbehindability’.19 Our knowledge
of the universe comes to us through the mind. And we can’t get out of it or off it to prove anything’sbehind it – or nothing’s behind it – except through the mind itself! We are stuck in and with our minds.
And even if we want to resist that claim, it is only our minds that can challenge it thereby proving the
point
animals on earth, we have never felt entirely at home here. Our big brains prompt us not only to wonder
about our own existence but about the existence of existence itself. Is there a reality behind it that created
it, and can we relate to it in any way? Some of us think compulsively about these questions and come up
with a stream of never-very-certain answers. The instrument we use for wrestling with them is the human
mind. Our difficulty is that we can’t really be certain anything exists outside the mind, because the mind
is the main agent we have for examining the question. The Cambridge theologian Don Cupitt tells us there
is a German word that captures the difficulty, unhintergehbarkeit, ‘ungetbehindability’.19 Our knowledge
of the universe comes to us through the mind. And we can’t get out of it or off it to prove anything’sbehind it – or nothing’s behind it – except through the mind itself! We are stuck in and with our minds.
And even if we want to resist that claim, it is only our minds that can challenge it thereby proving the
point
No comments:
Post a Comment