M.C Escher: Engravings (1898- 1972)

     The 

         Graphic 

                Work

      Anyone who applies himself, from his early youth, to the practice of graphic techniques may well reach a stage at which he begins to hold as his highest ideal the complete mastery of his craft. Excellence of craftsmanship takes up all his time and so completely absorbs his thoughts, that he will even make his choice of subject subordinate to his desire to explore some particular facet of technique. True enough, there is tremendous satisfaction to be derived from the acquisition of artistic skill and the achievement of a thorough understanding of the properties of the material to hand, and in learning with true purposefulness and control to use the tools which one has available - above all, one's own two hands! I myself passed many years in this state of self-delusion. But then there came a moment when it seemed as though scales fell from my eyes. I discovered that technical mastery was no longer my sole aim, for I became gripped by another desire, the existence of which I had never suspected, Ideas came into my mind quite unrelated to graphic art, notions which so fascinated me that I longed to communicate them to other people. This could not be achieved through words, for these thoughts were not literary ones, but mental images of a kind that can only be made comprehensible to others by presenting them as visual images. Suddenly the method by which the image was to be presented became less important than it used to be. However, one does not of course study graphic art for so many years to no avail; not only had the craft become second nature to me, it had also become essential to continue using some technique of reproduction that would enable me to communicate simultaneously to a large number of my fellow men that which I was aiming at.  If I compare the way in which a graphic sheet from my technique period came into being with that of a print expressing a particular train of thought, then I realize that they are almost poles apart. What often happened in the past was that I would pick out from a pile of sketches one which seemed to me suitable for reproduction by means of the same technique that was interesting me at that moment. But now it is from amongst those techniques which I have to some degree mastered, that I choose out the one which lends itself more than any other, to the expression of the particular idea that has taken hold of my mind.

Concentric rinds, 1954 wood engraving

Nowadays the growth of a graphic image can be divided into two sharply defined phases. The process begins with the search for a visual form that will interpret as clearly as possible one's train of thought. Usually a long time elapses before I decide that I have got it clear in my mind. Yet a mental image is something completely different from a visual image, and however much one exerts oneself, one can never manage to capture the fullness of that perfection which hovers in the mind and which one thinks of, quite falsely, as something that is "seen". After a long series of attempts, at last - when I am just about at the end of my resources - I manage to cast my lovely dream in the defective visual mould of a detailed conceptual sketch. After this, to my great relief, there dawns the second phase, that is the making of the graphic print; for mow the spirit can take its rest while the work is taken over by the hands. In 1922, when I left the school of Architecture and Ornamental Design in Haarlem, having learnt graphic techniques from S. Jessurun de Mesquita; I was very much under the influence of this teacher, whose strong personality certainly left its mark on the majority of his pupils. At that period the woodcut (that is to say the cutting with gouges in a side-grained block of wood, usually pear) was more in vogue with graphic artists than is the case today. I inherited from my teacher his predilection for side-grained wood, and one of the reasons for my everlasting gratitude to him stems from the fact that he taught me how to handle this material. During the first seven years of my time in Italy I used nothing else. It lends itself, better than the costly end-grained wood, to large-side figures. In my youthful recklessness I have gouged away at enormous pieces of pearwood, not far short of three feet in length and perhaps two feet wide. It was not until 1929 that I made my first lithograph, and then in 1931 I tried my hand for the first time at wood-engraving, that is to say engraving with burins on an end-grain block. Yet even today the woodcut remains for me an essential medium. Whenever one needs a greater degree of tinting or colouring in order to communicate one's ideas, and for this reason has to produce more than one block, the woodcut offers many advantages over wood-engraving, and there have been many prints I could not have produced had I not gained a thorough knowledge of the advantages of side-grained wood. In making a colour-print I have often combined both of these raised relief techniques, using end-grain for details in black, and side-grain for the colours. The period during which I devoted such enthusiasm to my research into the characteristics of graphic materials and during which I came to realize the limitations that one must impose on oneself when dealing with them, lasted from 1922 until about 1935. During that time a large number of prints came into being (about 70 woodcuts and engravings and some 40 lithographs). 

The greater number of these have little or no value now, because they were for the most part merely practice exercises; at least that is how they appear to me now. The fact that, from 1938 onwards, I concentrated more on the interpretation of personal ideas was primarily the result of my departure from Italy. In Switzerland, Belgium and Holland where I successively established myself, I found the outward appearance of landscape and architecture less striking than those which are particularly to be seen in the southern part of Italy. Thus I felt compelled to withdraw from the more or less direct and true to life illustrating of my surroundings. No doubt this circumstance was in a high degree responsible for bringing my inner visions into being. On one further occasion did my interest in the craft take the upper hand again. This was in 1946 when I first made the acquaintance of the old and highly respectable black art technique of the mezzotint, whose velvety dark gray and black shades so attracted me that I devoted a great deal of time to the mastery of this copper-plate intaglio, a process that has today fallen almost entirely into disuse. But before long it became clear that this was going to be too great a test of my patience. It claims far too much time and effort from anyone who, rightly or wrongly, feels he has no time to lose. Up to the present I have, in all, produced no more than seven mezzotints, the last one being in 1951.  I have never practiced any other type of intaglio. From the moment of my discovery, I have deliberately left etching and copper-plate engraving to one side. The reason for this can probably be traced to the fact that I find it preferable to delineate my figures by means of tone-contrast, rather than by linear contour. The thin black line on a white background, which is characteristic of etching and copper-engraving, would only be of use as a component part of a shaded area, but it is not adequate for this purpose. Moreover, with intaglio, one is much more tied to white as a starting point than is the case with raised relief and planography. The drawing of a narrow white line on a dark surface for which raised relief methods are eminently suitable, is practically impossible with intaglio, while on the other hand, a thin black line on a white background can be satisfactorily achieved, albeit as a rather painstaking operation, in woodcuts and wood-engravings. The ideas that are basic to them often bear witness to my amazement and wonder at the laws of nature which operate in the world around us. He who wonders discovers that this is in itself a wonder. By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training or knowledge in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.

       

                   On reading over what I wrote at the beginning of this introduction, about the particular representational character of my prints, I feel it may be rather illogical to devote so may words to it, not only here but also beside each separate reproduction as well. It is a fact, however, that most people find it easier to arrive at an understanding of an image by the round-about method of letter symbols than by the direct route. So it is with a view to meeting this need that I myself have written the text. I am well aware that I have done this very inadequately, but I could not leave it to anyone else, for - and here is yet another reason for my astonishment - no matter how objective or how impersonal the majority of my subjects appear to me, so far as I have been able to discover, few if any of my fellow-men seem to react in the same way to all that they see around them.

 

  

Dōgen Zenji (1200-1254) 道元禅師

Actualizing 

   The Fundamental 

           Point

As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings. As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

 Those who have great realization of delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion.When buddhas are truly buddhas they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. However, they are actualized buddhas, who go on actualizing buddhas. When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined the other side is dark. To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

                 When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. But dharma is already correctly transmitted; you are immediately your original self. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

                      Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death. This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

                  Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

                         Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long of short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky. When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.

                          For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only look circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.

            Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

         A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once.

                 Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. Practice, enlightenment, and people are like this. Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find you way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now.

                 Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it--doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"

            "Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."

   "What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

                      The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river. 

Translated by Robert Aitken 

and Kazuaki Tanahashi

From "Moon in a Dewdrop"

edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

(San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985).

Karl Jaspers: Way To Wisdom (1883- 1969)

  IV. THE IDEA 
                    OF GOD

Our western idea of God springs from two historical roots: the Bible and Greek philosophy. When Jeremiah saw the ruin of everything for which he had worked all his life, when his country and his people were lost, when in Egypt the last remnants of his people turned aside from their faith in Yahweh and offered sacrifices to Isis, and when his disciple Baruch despaired, "I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest," Jeremiah answered, "Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not. In such a  situation  these  words  mean:  It  is  enough  that  God  is.  Do  not  ask  whether  there  is immortality;  the  question  of  whether  God  forgives  is  no  longer  important.  Man  no  longer  matters,  his defiance as well as his concern for his own beatitude and eternity is extinguished. It is also impossible that the world should have a purpose susceptible of fulfilment, that it should endure in any form; for everything has been created out of nothing by God and is in His hand. When everything is lost, but one thing remains: God is. If a life in this world, even with faith in God's guidance, has failed, this overpowering reality still remains: God is. If man fully renounces himself and his aims, this reality can be manifested to him as the only reality. But it does not manifest itself in advance, it does not manifest itself abstractly, but descends into the existence of the world, and only here manifests itself at the limit. Jeremiah's words are hard words. They are no longer bound up with any will to historical efficacy in the world, though such a will has preceded them throughout a lifetime and ultimately, through total failure, made them  possible.  They  are  simple  words,  free  from imaginative flight, and they contain unfathomable truth, precisely because they are without finite content or any fixation in the world. The Greek philosophers expressed a similar thought in different terms. At about 500 B.C. Xenophanes proclaimed: There is only one God, resembling mortals neither in his aspect nor in his thoughts. Plato conceived of the godhead he called it the Good as the source of all knowledge. Not only is the knowable known in the light of the godhead; it also derives its being from the godhead which excels being both in rank and power.

           The Greek philosophers understood that the many gods were decreed merely by custom, whereas in nature there was only one God; that God is not seen with our eyes, that he resembles no one and can be recognized in no image. God is conceived as cosmic reason or cosmic law, or as fate and providence, or as demiurge. But this God of the Greek thinkers is a God originating in thought, not the living God of Jeremiah. In essence  the  two  coincide.  From  this  twofold  root  Western  theology  and  philosophy  have,  in  infinite modulations, reflected that God is and pondered on what He is. The philosophers of our day seem to evade the question of whether God exists. They do not say that He exists nor do they deny His existence. But anyone engaging in philosophical thought must answer for his opinions. If a philosopher doubts, he must say why, else he cannot progress beyond the sceptical philosophy which asserts nothing at all, which affirms nothing and denies nothing. Or, limiting himself to determinate object knowledge, that is to scientific cognition, he ceases to philosophize, saying: It is best not to talk of what we do not know. The question of God is discussed on the basis of conflicting propositions which we shall examine. The theological proposition is: We can know of God only because He revealed Himself to certain men from the prophets to Jesus. Without revelation God can have no reality for man. God is accessible not through thought but through faith and obedience. But long before and far outside the world of biblical revelation there was certainty as to the reality of the godhead. And within the world of the Christian West many men have derived certainty of God without the guarantee of revelation. 

         There is an old philosophical proposition opposed to this theological doctrine: We know of God because His existence can be proved. The proofs for the existence of God form an impressive document. But if the proofs for the existence of God are construed as scientifically compelling proofs such as we find in mathematics or the empirical sciences, they are false. In this light Kant radically confuted them. Then came the reverse proposition: Since all proofs of the existence of God can be refuted, there is no God. This inference is false. For the nonexistence of God can be proved no more than his existence. The proofs and their confutations show us only that a proved God would be no God but merely a thing in the world. The truth, as against all supposed proofs and refutations of the existence of God, seems to be this: The so-called proofs of the existence of God are fundamentally no proofs at all, but methods of achieving certainty through thought. All the proofs of the existence of God and their variants that have been devised through the centuries differ essentially from scientific proofs. They are attempts to express the experience of man's ascent to God in terms of thought. There are roads of thought by which we come to limits at which the consciousness of God suddenly becomes a natural presence. Let us consider a few examples: The oldest of proofs is the cosmological proof. From the existence of the cosmos (the Greek name for universe) we infer that God exists; from the world process, in which everything is effect, we infer a last cause; from motion the source of all motion; from the accident of the particular the necessity of the whole. If by this syllogism we mean to infer the existence of one thing from the existence of another thing, as we do for example in inferring from the existence of the side of the moon which faces us the existence of the other side which we never see, it is inapplicable. In this manner we can only infer the existence of things in the world from the existence of other things. 

           The world as a whole is not an object, because we are always in it and we never confront the world as a whole. Hence we cannot, from the existence of the world as a whole, infer the existence of something other than the world. But  this  notion  takes  on  a  new  meaning  when  it  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  proof.  Then metaphorically, in the form of an inference, it expresses awareness of the mystery inherent in the existence of the the  world  and  of ourselves  in  it.  If  we venture  the  thought  that  there  might  be  nothing,  and  ask  with Schelling: Why is there something and not nothing? we find that our certainty of existence is such that though we cannot determine the reason for it we are led by it to the Comprehensive, which by this very essence is and cannot not be, and through which everything else is. True, men have looked on the world as eternal and said that it existed out of itself and hence was identical with God. But this is not possible: Everything  in  the  world  which  is  beautiful,  appropriate,  ordered,  and  embodies  a  certain perfection, the vast abundance of things that fill us with emotion in our immediate contemplation of nature, all this cannot be apprehended through any fully knowable worldly thing, through matter, for example. The design  of organic life, the beauty of nature in all its forms, the order of the universe in general become increasingly mysterious as our knowledge advances. But if from all this we infer that God, the benevolent creator, exists, we must call to mind all that is ugly, disordered, base in the world. And this gives rise to fundamental attitudes for which the world is alien, frightening, terrible, and it seems as plausible to infer the existence of the devil as of God. The mystery of transcendence is not thereby solved but merely grows deeper. 

        But what clinches the matter is the imperfectibility of the world. The world is not finished, but in continuous change; our knowledge of the world cannot be completed, the world cannot be apprehended through itself. Far from proving the existence of God, these so-called proofs mislead us into placing God within the

real world, or second cosmos, which is as it were ascertained at the limits of the cosmos. Thus they obscure the idea of God.  But  they  move  us  deeply  when,  leading  through  the  concrete  phenomena  of  the  cosmos,  they confront Nothingness and imperfectibility. For then they seem to admonish us not to content ourselves with the world as the sole meaning of our life in the world. Again and again it is brought home to us that God is not an object of knowledge, of compelling evidence. He cannot be experienced by the senses. He is invisible, He cannot be seen but only believed in. But whence comes this faith? Its source is not in the limits of worldly experience but in the freedom of man. The man who attains true awareness of his freedom gains certainty of God. Freedom and God are inseparable. Why? This I know: in my freedom I am not through myself, but am given to myself, for I can fail myself and I cannot force my freedom. Where I am authentically myself, I am certain that I am not through myself. The highest  freedom  is  experienced  in  freedom  from  the  world,  and  this  freedom  is  a  profound  bond  with transcendence. We also call man's freedom his existence. My certainty of God has the force of my existence. I can have certainty of Him not as a content of science but as presence for existence. If  certainty  of  freedom  encompasses  certainty  of  God's  existence,  there  must  be  a  connection between the negation of freedom and the negation of God. If I do not experience the miracle of selfhood, I need no relation to God, I am content with the empirical existence of nature, many gods, demons.

               There is, on the other hand, a connection between the belief that there can be freedom without God and the deification of man. This is an illusory, arbitrary freedom, in which man's will is taken to be absolute and independent. I rely in the force of my will and in a defiant acceptance of death. But this delusion that I am

through myself alone turns freedom into perplexity and emptiness. A savage drive for self-assertion turns to a despair, in which Kierkegaard's ''desperate will to be oneself" and "desperate will not to be oneself" become one. God exists for me in the degree to which I in freedom authentically become myself.  But the illumination of our existence as freedom does not prove the existence of God; it merely points, one might say, to the area in which certainty of his existence is possible.  The  thought  that  strives  for  compelling  certainty  cannot  realize  its  aim  in  any  proof  of  God's existence. But the failure of thought does not result in nothingness. It points to that which resolves into an inexhaustible, forever-questioning, Comprehensive consciousness of God.  God never becomes a tangible object in the world and this means that man must not abandon his freedom to the tangibilities, authorities, powers of the world; that he bears responsibility for himself, and must not evade this responsibility by renouncing freedom ostensibly for the sake of freedom. He must owe his  decision  and  the  road  he  chooses  to  himself.  

           Kant  has  said  that  God's  unfathomable  wisdom  is  as admirable in what it gives us as in what it denies us. For if God's wisdom in its majesty were always before our eyes, if it were an absolute authority, speaking unequivocally in the world, we should be puppets of its will. But God in his wisdom wanted us to be free.  Instead  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  which  is  unattainable,  we  gain  through  philosophy  a Comprehensive consciousness of God.  "God is." The essential in this proposition is the reality to which it points. We do not encompass this reality  in  thinking  the  proposition;  merely  to  think  it  leaves  us  empty.  For  it  means  nothing  to  the understanding  and  to  sensory  experience.  We  apprehend  its  meaning  only  as  we  transcend,  as  we  pass beyond the world of objects and through it discover authentic reality. Hence the climax and goal of our life is
the point at which we ascertain authentic reality, that is, God.  This reality is accessible to existence through the orientation toward God that lies at its source.
Hence faith in God, springing as it does from the source, resists any mediation. This faith is not laid down in any definite articles of faith applicable to all men or in any historical reality which mediates between man and God and is the same for all men. The individual, always in his own historicity, stands rather in an immediate, independent relation to God that requires no intermediary. 

         This historicity, which can be communicated and described, is in this form not absolute truth for all, and yet in its source it is absolutely true. God is reality, absolute, and cannot be encompassed by any of the historical manifestations through which He speaks to men. If He is, man as an individual must be able to apprehend Him directly. The reality of God and the immediacy of our historical relation to God exclude any universally compelling knowledge of God; therefore what matters is not our knowledge of God but our attitude towards God. From time immemorial God has been conceived in empirical forms, including a personification after the image of man. And yet every such conception is at the same time in the nature of a veil. God is not what we may see with our eyes.  Our true attitude toward God has found its profoundest expression in a few biblical injunctions: 

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness. This meant, to begin with, that because God is invisible man must not worship Him in statues, idols, effigies. Gaining in depth, this tangible prohibition developed into the idea that God is not only invisible but also inconceivable, unthinkable. No symbol or metaphor can describe Him and none may take His place. All metaphorical representations of God without exception are myths, meaningful as such when understood to be mere hints and parallels, but they become superstitions when mistaken for the reality of God Himself.  Since every image conceals as much as it discloses, we come closest to God in the negation of images. But even in the Bible this Old Testament commandment was not fulfilled: the image of God's personality remained, His wrath and His love, His justice and His mercy. It is a commandment that cannot be fulfilled. Parmenides  and  Plato,  with  their  speculative  doctrines  of  being,  the  Indian  Brahman  philosophers,  the Chinese  Taoists  attempted  to  apprehend  without  images  the  Suprapersonal,  pure,  intangible  reality  of God but in this they did not succeed. Human thought and human vision cannot dispense with the image. And though in philosophical thinking sensation and object almost vanished, perhaps ultimately some wisp of God's presence remains, with power to engender life. Then, even after philosophy has rationally elucidated the deification of nature, the purely demonic, the aesthetic and superstitious, the specifically numinous, the deepest mystery is still not expelled. Perhaps we can give some paraphrase of this presence of God at the end of philosophical endeavour. It is the silence in the face of being. Speech ceases in the presence of that which is lost to us when it becomes object. This ultimate can be attained only in the transcending of all thought. It cannot itself be transcended. Before it lies contentment with one's lot and the extinction of all desire. Here is a haven and yet no fixed home. Here is a repose that can sustain us amid the inevitable unrest of our wanderings in the world. Here  thought  must  dissolve  into  radiance.  Where  there  is  no  further  question,  there  is  also  no answer. In the philosophical transcending of question and answer we arrive at the limit, at the stillness of being. Another biblical injunction runs: 

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. At first this commandment implied a rejection of alien gods. Gaining in depth, it became a simple and unfathomable idea: there is only one God. The life of the man who believes in the one and only God rests on a foundation entirely different from that of a life with many gods. Concentration on the One gives to the decision of existence its real foundation. Infinite wealth implies diffusion; God's glory is not absolute unless it is grounded in the One. The quest for the One as the foundation of his life is an  enduring problem for man, as actual as it was thousands of years ago.

          A third biblical saying:  Thy will be done. This fundamental attitude toward God means: Bow down before that which defies understanding, confident that it is situated above and not below the understandable. "Thy thoughts are not our thoughts, thy ways are not our ways." Trust in this basic attitude makes possible an all-encompassing sense of thankfulness, a wordless, impersonal love. Man stands  before the  godhead  as  the hidden  God  and  can  accept  what  is  most  terrible  as  His decision, fully aware that in whatever finite form he expresses this God it is spoken in human terms and hence false. 

           To sum up: Our attitude toward the godhead is defined by the commandments "No image and no likeness," "No other god," and by the attitude of acceptance expressed in the words ''Thy will be done." Reflection on God clarifies our faith. But to believe is not to see. God remains in the distance and remains question.   To live by God does not mean to base oneself on calculable knowledge but to live as though we staked our existence on the assumption that God is. To believe in God means to live by something which is not in the world, except in the polyvalent language of phenomena, which we call the hieroglyphs or symbols of transcendence. The God of faith is the distant God, the hidden God, the indemonstrable God. Hence I must recognize not only that I do not know  God but even that I do not know whether I believe. Faith is no possession. It confers no secure knowledge, but it gives certainty in the practice of life. Thus the believer lives in the enduring ambiguity of the objective, in enduring willingness to hear. He listens patiently and yet he is unswerving in his resolve. In the cloak of weakness he is strong, he is open, though in his real life he is resolute.

             Reflection  on  God  is  typical  of  all  significant  philosophical  thought:  it  does  not  bring  secure knowledge, but to authentic self-hood it gives a free area for decision; the whole emphasis is on love in the world, on the reading of the symbols of transcendence, on the depth and breadth of that which is illumined by reason.  That is why all philosophical discourse is so incomplete. It calls for completion out of the being of him who hears it.  Philosophy does not give, it can only awaken. it can remind, and help to secure and preserve.  In it each of us understands what he actually knew before.

Translated by D.W. Ross