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Philosophy and Theology
By George F. Thomas

ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL was concerned to show the relevance of his religious tradition to those who stood outside it as well as to those who were committed. to it. In this respect he was like Paul Tillich, his contemporary at Union Theological Seminary, and like him an exile from Hitler's Germany. In many of his books, such as Man Is Not Alone (1951), and especially in God in Search of Man (1955), Heschel spoke primarily as a philosopher rather than as a theologian.

Recognizing that there bad been what Buber called an "eclipse" of God among modern men, he refused to "blame secular science and philosophy" for it. Religion declined in its influence, he thought, not because it was refuted but because men had "become oblivious to ultimate questions" (God in Search of Man, p. 3). The first task of the philosopher of religion, therefore, is to "recover" the questions to which religion offers an answer. But he can do this only if he is not a detached but a concerned thinker, one who is personally involved in the questions he considers. Moreover, he must not confine himself to the analysis of religious concepts; he must also interpret those "moments" of experience in which the self has communion with reality and the "insights" that spring from them. Only so will he be able to understand religion "in terms of its own spirit," from within (p. 8). For this reason, he must start with a phenomenological description of the religious consciousness and the intuitions that arise from it, rather than derive conclusions from discursive reasoning.

But the philosopher must go beyond description and "clarification" to the "critical reassessment" of religion, since be must seek to determine the validity of its claims (p. 10). Religion must not be judged exclusively from the standpoint of reason, because it is beyond the capacity of reason to comprehend the meaning behind the mystery of reality. Hence, philosophy cannot answer the ulti-

George F. Thomas is Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He founded the Department of Religion in 1940 and has been widely regarded as one of the leading figures in the development of similar departments in colleges and universities throughout the country. He is the author of a number of books, including the well-known survey, Religious Philosophies of the West (1965). in 1970, the Princeton University Press published a Festschrift volume in his honor, edited by Paul Ramsey and John F. Wilson, The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities.

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mate questions it raises. The answers must come from divine revelation as interpreted by prophetic minds. But though the role of reason is more modest than rationalists think, it is an important one. For the insights of faith must be conceptualized by reason if they are to be "communicated to the mind, integrated and brought to consistency" with each other and "applied to the concrete issues of living (p. 20). "Without reason," says Heschel, "faith becomes blind" (p. 20).

From this it is clear that Heschel's purpose is not to prove by rational argument the existence of God, or even to formulate the answers of revelation in terms of a philosophical ontology or theory of being, as Tillich attempted to do. Rather, his primary concern is to show modern men, in a time when God is absent from the lives of so many, bow they can find God. "Is there," he asks, "a way of developing sensitivity to God and attachment to his presence?" (p. 26). He answers that there are "two sources of religious insight" available to us: (a) our own personal insight, and (b) tradition from the past retained in memory. We can sense the presence of God here and now in the world and in doing so gain insight for ourselves, and we can sense his presence in the biblical revelation in the past. Both of these sources of insight are necessary. The memory of great events that happened in the days of Moses is not enough; we must also strive for fresh insight, seeking God in our own experience. As we shall see later, there is also a third way of sensing his presence, namely, doing his will in our deeds.

I

The first way, personal insight, is awareness here and now of the grandeur of the world around us which points beyond itself to God. We sense grandeur or sublimity in natural beauty and acts of goodness, and through them we are aware of a meaning that is greater than themselves. The spontaneous response to them is wonder, "perpetual surprise," unless we have become indifferent to their grandeur by taking them for granted. Both the common things of nature and man's own being which is "fearfully and marvelously made" (Ps. 139:14) evoke wonder. As Kant said, the mind is filled with "admiration and awe" at "the starry heavens above and the moral law within." Moreover, as we stand before the mystery of the universe, awe is awakened in us (p. 55). However well we may think we know things as they appear to our senses, they remain unknown to us in their essence. Although God is not the mystery but the meaning beyond the mystery, awe before it is an awareness of something transcendent to the world and yet present in it. Awe and reverence, therefore, are "the root of faith" (p. 77). The whole earth is full of God's glory, which is his presence, but we are blind to it because our lives are dominated by routine and our hearts have

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become callous (p. 85). Hence, a recovery of awe and reverence is a necessary condition of the renewal of faith.

But this is only the beginning. For religion is not wonder at the grandeur and awe before the mystery of the world, it is "the result of what man does" with his wonder and awe. We have the awareness that a question is addressed to us from our experience: "What is the meaning of the mystery of the world?" (p. 110). Faith arises as a response to this question. It is "an act of freedom" which goes beyond our limited faculties of reason and perception and does not depend upon speculation and proof. It is an answer to the question addressed to us by the grandeur and mystery of the universe and arises in "moments of insight." However, these moments are "rare events" in our experience and the immediate certainty we attain from them "does not retain its intensity" after they are gone (p. 132). It is remembrance of these moments of insight and loyalty to our response in them that sustains our faith. "In this sense, faith is faithfulness" (p. 132).

In following this way to God through personal insight and faith man must take the initiative but God's aid is necessary. "Without God's aid," says Heschel, "man cannot find him. Without man's seeking, his aid is not granted" (p. 146). "God concludes but we must commence" (p. 147). Similarly, while we have the ability to obey God's commandments, we can count on God's help and his compassion for our moral failures. This is Heschel's answer to the problem of human freedom and divine grace. "God is not indifferent to man's quest for him," so man's search for God is met by God's search for man.

II

The second way to the presence of God is the revelation recorded in the Bible and preserved in tradition. While "moments of insight" awaken faith in a transcendent meaning beyond the mystery of the world, says Heschel, they do not give us knowledge that it is the "living God" or "tell us bow to live in a way that is compatible with the grandeur, the mystery, and the glory" (p. 163). Man is in need of a definite "creed" and "way of living" (p. 163). Therefore, we must look for guidance to the prophets through whom Cod has expressed his will to us (p. 164). Heschel is well aware of the resistance of modern men to the belief in a revelation from God. They find it difficult because they hold two opposed views of man. On the one hand, they regard man as self-sufficient, "too great to be in need of divine guidance," confident that technology can solve all problems and social reform can eliminate all evils (p. 169). Or they view him as "insignificantly small in relation to the universe" and cannot believe that "the infinite spirit should come down to commune with the feeble, finite mind of man" (p. 170).

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Heschel points out that man, who possesses both the ability to create and the power to destroy, is important enough to God to receive spiritual light from God to guide him (p. 171). Moreover, those who have experienced moments of insight into a transcendent meaning themselves, he says, "will not feel alien to the [prophetic] minds that received not a spark [of illumination] but a flame" (p. 174). However, Heschel realizes that behind this resistance to belief in revelation is the modem naturalistic world view which regards history no less than nature as an impersonal and uniform process of causes and effects which is subject to no intervention from beyond itself. To this world view he opposes the biblical belief that God is the source of the whole system of natural laws, transcends it by his freedom, and through his revelation of himself introduces a "new creative moment into the course of history" (p. 211). Thus, the Bible is a record of the revelation of God through unique and unrepeatable events of history. Here, as in his view of man as a spiritual being capable of devoting himself to universal ends, Heschel shows himself to be an uncompromising critic of modern naturalism.

III

What is the view of God and his relation to the world which results from the two ways to God we have been describing? First, while God is present everywhere in the world, he cannot be identified with it as its principle of unity and order, as in pantheism. Rather, be must be distinguished from it, since he transcends it as its creator upon whom it depends. This view of God's relation to the world differs from the pagan worship of nature and from the nature mysticism of the romantic movement and of our recent counter-culture. Despite the beauty and sublimity of nature and our dependence upon her bounty, she is not worthy of our worship as a Divine Mother, and mystical union with her may for a time bring inner peace to the individual but can give us no moral guidance. The modern utilitarian attitude toward nature which leads men to master her secrets by science in order to exploit her resources and satisfy his desires is equally false. The proper attitude is that of the Bible. Since the order of nature is dependent upon God's wisdom and her beauty is an expression of his grandeur, nature is the handiwork of God and should unite with man in praising God.

Again, the transcendence of God implies his uniqueness. He is one in the sense that he is not one being among others but the ultimate reality on whom all beings depend. Hence, be is ineffable and our finite reason cannot comprehend him. This means that we cannot have knowledge of him in his essence, as he is in himself, it also means that the attempt of theology to formulate in clear and

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precise dogmas God's revelation of himself in the Bible is doomed to failure. But although we cannot know the essence of God, we can know him in his relationship with us. Indeed, the central theme of Heschel's books is God and man in their relation to one another.

Unfortunately, the biblical view of God has been distorted in both Jewish and Christian theology by separating him from man and the world and interpreting him in the categories of Greek philosophy. God is not primarily the Perfect Being, who lacks nothing, is self-sufficient, and needs nothing beyond himself. To describe him in these Greek terms tends to equate him with the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle upon whom the world depends but who contemplates himself, in complete unconcern for the world. Or it is to picture him, like Thomas Aquinas in certain passages, as one who is utterly transcendent, completely independent of his creatures, and unaffected by what happens to them. Against this Greek and scholastic emphasis on the separation and aloofness of God from his world, Heschel vigorously protests. Like Charles Hartshorne, and other process philosophers, he affirms that God's perfection is not that of a timeless being who is independent of the world and who undergoes no change in himself in response to the joys and sorrows of men. He is a living God, a personal being with spiritual and moral qualities analogous to our own, and he is intimately related to us as objects of his concern. Indeed Heschel suggests that it is God's concern rather than his perfection or his power that is at the heart of the biblical view of God. Moreover, it is precisely because of his concern for us that he makes demands upon us. In our conscience we are aware of his demands and aware that we are accountable "to someone who transcends us and is concerned with our life" (p. 159).

Why does God have a concern for man, make demands upon him, and hold him accountable? It is not a sufficient answer to say that God is concerned for man because man needs God to deliver him from evil and to aid him in his desire for fullness of life. The more fundamental reason for Gods concern is that God needs man. "God is in need of man for the attainment of his ends," writes Heschel. "He freely made him a partner in his enterprise, a partner in the work of creation." Hence, "Man's relationship to God is not one of passive reliance upon his Omnipotence but one of active assistance." Moreover, man has a "need to be needed by God," since he is made in the image of God and needs to transcend his ego by devoting himself to God's wider purposes. This conception of man's active partnership with God helps to explain Heschels view of the primacy of deeds rather than dogmas in Judaism and his belief that deeds in obedience to Gods commandments, especially when they are done from love, are a third way to his presence.

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Finally, God's concern for man is shown in his love and compassion for him. He reacts to men's achievements, their joys and sorrows, with feeling, pathos. He feels wrath at their faithlessness to him and their wickedness toward their neighbors. He rejoices when they repent and return to him and his way. Above all, he feels deeply the injustice of his people to each other, for injustice is contrary to love.

Obviously Heschel's social activism during the last years of his life, his participation in the civil rights movement and in the protest against the Vietnam war, was inspired by his own prophetic sympathy with God's indignation against injustice and war and his compassion for those who suffered from them. In those years he must often have felt how bitterly God weeps over man's inhumanity to man.

IV

What was Rabbi Heschel's distinctive contribution to American religious life and thought? My own answer to this question would be that during our post-war "time of troubles" he spoke effectively in behalf of religious faith and moral responsibility, and acted courageously in behalf of social justice. In a dreary time of the absence of God, he helped many to find him by showing them ways to his presence in their own experience and in the prophetic revelation of his concern and compassion for men. In a time when moral individualism and social injustice were undermining the foundations of our national life, his prophetic voice and example reminded us that what the Lord requires of us is "to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly" with our God. Perhaps the best way to put it is to say simply, "He was a man of God who devoted all his talents and energies to God's work with and for men." Such men are very rare. When one of them passes, a light goes out of the world, but not before it has kindled a light in others.