Sacrifice As the Essence of Transcendental God
What is it that draws people like Chomsky, Martin Luther King, Gandhi,
Jesus, and Muhammad to serve people without any demand for a reward? Ethical egoism argues that everybody
selfishly enjoys what they do. Hitler
and Mother Theresa in this sense are equal. But this view is like air that can
go in any hole but doesn’t open any door.
It confounds the subject and object of desire. An egoist’s subject and object of desire are
the same, but for an altruist the object of desire is different from the
subject. Let’s put side this Ayn
Rand-ish superficiality. What urges us
to devote our lives to the good and people?
To sacrifice our lives for others?
Chomsky would answer that morality is innate and wired into our
linguistic and cognitive capacities and is registered in our genes. To this extent, biological and psychological
evolutionary theories would agree with Chomsky.
Simply, the altruistic and devotional actions of the individual are for the
survival of the species. The problem with this kind of interpretation is that it
is focused on the survival of species. So, to the extend that the survival of
species is served - massacre, rape, and egotism are also justified. From the point of view of functionality and
utility, this interpretation doesn’t even serve the survival of species,
because I can’t raise my children to become altruistic with this kind of
interpretations.
My supposition is that human devotion and sacrifice are rooted in something
else. This is the transcendental and unconditional love of God, which God blew
into the human soul and which at the same time determined our evolutionary
direction: self-sacrificing action and understanding the logic of sacrifice, is
the understanding-experience of God.
How? God doesn’t lose anything in sacrifice. I have been occupied with the thought of how
the love of an eternal and self-sufficient God is possible.
I assume that the soul [image] that the transcendental God - far from
worldly and human attributes, -has blown into human soul is this transcendental
and pure love. It is that divine love that gives and never receives
anything. I assume that our evolutionary
direction is to live and understand this divine love. And what sacrifice is higher than giving and
forgiving without receiving or having any need to receive? From this point of view the devout receives
in his or her worship and the worshipped gives in the act of being worshipped.
This outlook will resolve the problem of transcendental and immanent God
and how God as the complete Other enters into the world of attributes. Not only does God not need the
devotion and worship of humans despite taking on attributes, but the
transcendental Other and God’s pure love is the foundation of the human soul
and the cosmos. In another word, the
transcendence of God is not only to the world but is already at work in the
world, grounding it and is closer to human beings that their jugular vein.
Even the 99 names of God are grounded in the 100th one, which is
the transcendental love of God. Is it
not the case that the names “al-ghafar=the oft forgiving”, and “al-ghafur”=(intensified)
the most forgiving”, “al-tawwab=the magnanimous”, “al-afuw=the pardoner”, “al-wadud=the
affectionate”, and “al-latif=subtle kindness”, “al-guddus=the holiest”, and “al-jami’=the
gatherer”, “al-rahman= the beneficent”, “al-rahim=the merciful”, … even “al-gabar=the
enforcer” and “al-qahhar= the subduer” are rooted in this needless, pure, and
purifying transcendental love of God? There is no wall between the God without attributes (transcendental) and
the God with attributes (immanent).
We need the sun’s light and air and food from the biosphere but the sun
doesn’t need us. Bringing this
transcendence (seeming from afar) into the pulse and center of human soul and
the world (the nearest) is like Copernicus’ Revolution, which placed the sun as
the center of solar system instead of the earth. In this way, Copernicus explained so many
complex issues in a simple way and later it came out that his postulate was
true. Kant wanted to do the same with human
cognition and ethics. But he got the
issues completely reversed: instead of setting Being at the center of cognition
and the transcendental love of God as the center of ethical action, he posited
categories of understanding as the ground of the cognition of the world and
reverence for the a priori law of reason for the foundation of ethical
behavior. And so, no wonder that, as it is carved on his grave stone, he stayed
in wonder of the ethical law within human chest.
We can’t just reason about this love but should write poetry and dance to
understand it. So, in a poetic attempt I
would say:
How can I worship you unconditionally?
How difficult it is,
And even seems impossible,
But from whom did I learn unconditional love?
--Except from You?
Where is the beloved who is sheer giving?
And doesn’t receive anything?
That my veneration is the overflowing of my yearning,
And the tears of my gratitude,
Is for an exit from this crooked and blind dead-end:
Exit from everyday bargaining,
Exit from human conditional attributes,
For you have guided me to a love,
That is beyond space and time.
Although I am powerless,
You have shown me the path,
Through thousand years
Of the narrations of sacrifice to You,
Until I opened up to Your secret,
In sacrificing my ego,
And what did I gain?
The experience of a soul
That You blew in me
From the time immemorial
And asked me to take the arduous route:
From concentric circles
From myself and my family
I ought to exit
To the needy and wayfarer
To give in the hope of return,
I pass into giving up everything
Even my life.
And I shivered in Your secret,
That sacrifice is the steep path towards You,
--who is the essence of Sacrifice,
And You blew from your Soul in me,
Thus, in concentric circles,
I arrived at You from me,
And arrived at me from You.
My wild imagination is keeping on and on
And it knows that it can exit
Like a butterfly who arrives at the sun’s station,
That this beloved transcends all dualities…
