Dual “Divine” Options in Atheism

Skip this paragraph unless you need me to defend my use of the word “divine”

As I’ve established a few times in this blog, I’m not so much an atheist as I am someone who finds the word “God” super-problematic, mostly because it function grammatically as a Proper Name, leading people to speak about the divine as if it was some kind of being. This is why I really prefer the phrase “the divine,” because it’s easier to use to speak about a property of (our experience of) reality-- “the divine” being a way to point towards the mystery, the transcendent, the surplus, and occasionally the blessing we encounter in reality. “We encounter the divine” sounds like it’s describing a quality of a special experience; “We encounter God” sounds like it’s describing a meeting of beings, one of which is a God.

Dual Identities: Negative Theology and Humanism

This post is inspired by a talk given at Shabbat services yesterday by Rabbi Ari Saks, in which he invited the congregation to consider different ways to handle bowing during the Torah processional before the Torah reading. Should the person holding the Torah:

• Bow (along with the rest of the congregation) towards the empty ark?
• Bow towards the congregation as the congregation bows towards them?
• Stand straight up while everyone else bows towards the Torah?

The idea behind this fantastic question was to illuminate how choreography expresses different theological positions/preferences. Given my position (see links in first paragraph), I felt torn between the first and second options, and this called attention to my split priorities when it comes to the divine. As a negative theologian, I like how the first option locates divinity in the empty space. As a humanist, I like how the second option locates divinity as something that resides/appears within/among the congregation.

I want to explore briefly how these two locations of divinity play out and interact.

The Abyss as the Divine (or demonic)

This is a position promoted by Lurianic Kabbalah and Rubenstein’s post-Holocaust theology, reflecting the fecundity of space, the absoluteness of the abyss, the sacred in the silence.

At the same time, the abyss is very often not a blessing, especially given that it ultimately will swallow us all, leaving no trace.

Between-ness as the Divine (or demonic)

This is a position promoted by Buber, Levinas, and Raphael’s post-Holocaust theology, and certainly accessible through Reconstructionism and Humanism, all of which call attention to the ‘divine’ power of human love, care, attention, labor, etc.

And at the same time, so much of what occurs between us humans is not divine, but rather mean, messy, and/or misled.

Relation and Tension between the Abyss and the Between-ness

I’ve already gone over this once-- the abyss appears to be the source/place of all that goes on between us, but it’s also the destroyer of all of that too. To focus on humanity is, most often, to forget/ignore the abyss. To focus on the abyss-- you get the idea.

But! I believe both are very important! And both have clearly captured my imagination in terms of what seems special about existence, despite the lack of a more classical God. So, is there some way to honor both together, to represent and relate to both together?

At the very least, it seems like I’m working myself into some kind of dualistic theology-- one faced (the human face, face of the other, etc) and the other faceless. I wonder, then, if the next step is to look into the ways that Dualistic theologies (even though mine is an atheology) function.

So, here’s where I’ve arrived for the moment: a Dualistic Atheology, which aims to identify the understandings and best practices towards engaging with the abyss, and with between-ness.