Searching for God # 26

 Absolutes, specialities, and specialists,….they are everywhere, and seemingly always…..and yet, there are not absolutes. And they never claimed to be absolutes. Those writing prescriptions, and those, even with the scalpel, are often shaking as they ‘do’ whatever it is they are ‘performing.’ Even the virtuoso pianists, those who never even ‘tick’ a note on the keyboard, while they have attained a degree of  something approaching perfection, after hours and years of study, practice, study and practice…and even more of both….and they have come to a place where they almost find that they can now embody the meaning, intent, mood, and themes of the music they are playing…and there is, for them, always still more.

The subject of what is “more” than can be observed with the eye, heard with the ear, and more that can be understood by more than the intellect, or even the intuition, has occupied men and women for centuries, including those whose personal pilgrimage took them in search of God.

Plato’s Theory of Forms, for example, has been foundational for those whose thought followed the path of ‘beyond’ perception, beyond empiricism, beyond the cognitive and the literal.

From Britannica.com, in a piece entitled, Forms as Perfect Exemplars, The Theory of Forms, by Constance C. Meinwald, last updated, September 29, 2025, we read:

According to a view that some scholars have attributed to Plato’s middle dialogues, participation is imitation or resemblance. Each form is approximated by the sensible particulars that display the property in question. Thus, Achilles and Helen are imperfect imitations of the Beautiful, which itself is maximally beautiful. On this interpretation, the ‘pure being’ of the forms consists of their being perfect exemplars of themselves and not exemplars of anything else. Unlike Helen, the form of the Beautiful cannot be said to be both beautiful and not beautiful—similarly for Justice, Equality, and all the other forms…..In Plato’s theory, forms play the functional role of universals, and most universals, such as greenness, generosity, and largeness are not exemplars of themselves.

Imitation is, whether we are  conscious  of it or not, central to many of our attitudes, perceptions, actions and even words and the accents or intonations of their utterance. These imitations arise at the personal level, for example, when, without ever even realizing it I was absorbing many of the attributes of a grade twelve English instructor. Idiosyncrasies of a rumpled brief case, and even more rumpled grey tweed suits and his wide smile and spontaneous breaking into a class discussion about the Shakespearean tragedy, MacBeth, exclaiming, “Gee, look at those birds sitting on the windowsill: aren’t they beautiful, and have you ever listened to their song?’ together in an imperceptible gestalt somehow seeped into  the crevices of my imagination. Only decades later when I read about John Keats’ line, ‘if a sparrow comes before my window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel so that in a little time I am annihilated’ did I return to that scene in that classroom and recognize its resonance for me.

Viktor Frankl, in is Mans Search for Meaning, posits the notion that, whatever it is we wish or strive for, implicitly we also wish it for others. That is not intended as a quote but rather a general summary of his existential thinking, illustrating another example of the power of our example.

As beginning artists, students will learn about the masters’ work, their perspective, their materials, their use of light and shadow, the subjects they prefer and, will start by imitating, while their instructors gently encourage their own improvisation to add to the canvas….

The Toronto Blue Jay journeyman outfielder/infielder, David Schneider, is reputed to have so critically and so perceptively examined the hitting stances, postures, arm flexes of as many of the best hitters in the leagues as possible as a way to ‘find’ what works best for him. As a 28^th round pick (fairly low) he has had to prove himself at each of the minor league levels, prior to being called up to the major league.

James Hillman’s archetypal psychology posits the view that, in our extremis moments, we are unconsciously imitating (his word is ‘being taken over’ ) by a Greek god or goddess, or some myth, as his opening lens to a beginning appreciation and understanding of what precisely is ‘going on’ in our psyche. Not to ignore or avoid any implications of hurtful or immoral aspects of the situation, but rather to offer a pathway into a more comprehensive, and ‘normalizing’ of the extreme moment. His criticism of the clinical psychological school’s ‘abnormal’ diagnosis and ensuing pharmaceutical prescriptive treatment underlies and undergirds his metaphoric, imaginative lens.

His rejection of the literal, empirical, scientific perception and definition of the psyche is, not to be replaced by, but rather supplemented by an imaginative, metaphoric lens that in his words, attempts to ‘care for the soul’…that psychic attribute that seeks and explores the darkness of our psychic world, as compared to his interpretation of the human ‘spirit’ which seeks the light and looks ‘heaven-ward’.

The Latin phrase, ‘imitatio dei’ is often closely associated with another Latin phrase, ‘imago dei’….the latter indicating the notion that we are created  in the image of God’, the former indicating the biblical injunction to ‘imitate God’. Wrapping ourselves, as Christians in the image and the imitation of God, as might be expected, has generated many interpretations of these words, as well as multiple tensions for individuals.

At the heart of the tension lies the fuzzy image of God as perfection, and the psychological association for humans to imagine that we have been created as ‘perfect’ in the image of God, and then tutored to imitate God’s perfection, both of which lie outside the boundaries of our experience, our knowledge, and even our aspiration. And the divide between those ultimately unreachable bars and our human existence is both a whirlpool and a clashing rock one or both of which will impale most if not all of us.

Although there is a risk that, in deploying Tolstoy as a mentor for what it means to imitate God, I might invoke the criticisms of many within the ecclesial establishment, (given the many obtuse and acidic explanations of why his work, The Kingdom of God is Within You, is politically incorrect, socialist, communist, or even anarchist, nevertheless I choose his mentorship voluntarily and enthusiastically.

First, let’s recount some of the arguments his cites for the rejection of Christ’s  teaching..

There are many reasons why Christ’s teaching is not understood. One reason is that people suppose that have understood I when they have decided, as the Churchmen do, that it was revealed by supernatural means, or when they have studied , as the scientific men do, the external forms in which it has been manifested. Another reason is the mistaken notion that it is impracticable, and ought to be replaced by the doctrine of love for humanity. But the principal reason, which is the source of all the other mistaken ideas about it, is the notion that Christianity is a doctrine which can be accepted or rejected without any change of life. (Tolstoy, op. cit. pps. 109-110)…

And a little later:

The patriarchal religions exalted the family, the tribe, the nation. State religions deified emperors and states. Even now most ignorant people—like our peasants, who call the Tzar an earthly god—obey state laws, not through any rational recognition of their necessity, nor because they have any conception of the meaning of state, but through a religious sentiment…..Men have outlived the social, family, and state conceptions of life. Now they must go forward and assimilate the next higher conception of life, which Is not taking place. This change is brought about in two ways: consciously through spiritual causes and unconsciously through material causes. (Ibid, p. 113-114)…

Men of ancient and medieval times believed, firmly believed, that men are not equal, that the only true men are Persians, or Greeks, or Romans, or Franks. But we cannot believe that now. And people who sacrifice themselves for the principles of aristocracy and of patriotism to-day, don’t believe and can’t believe what they assert. (Ibid, p. 115)…

(W)e all know how our laws are made. We have all been behind the scenes, we know that they are the produce of covetousness, trickery and party struggles; that there is not and cannot be any real justice in them. And so modern men cannot believe that obedience to civic of political laws can satisfy the demands of the reason or of human nature….(Ibid, 121-122)…

We see no necessity for wars and armies, but we must bear terrible heavy burdens in support of troops and war expenses. But this contradiction is nothing in comparison with the contradiction which confronts us when we trn to international questions, and which demands a solution under pain of the loss of the sanity and even the existence of the human race.. That is the contradiction between the Christian conscience and war. (Ibid, p. 122)

‘We are ruining ourselves,’ says Frederick Passy in a letter read before the last Congress of Universal Peace (in 1890) in London,’ we are ruining ourselves in order to be able to take part in the senseless ways of the future to pay the interest on debts we have incurred by the senseless and criminal wars of the past. We are dying of hunger so as to secure the means of killing each other.’ (Ibid p. 126)

And more….

‘I am surprised at the way religion is carried on in this country (England),’ said Sir Wilfred Lawson at the same congress. ‘You send a boy to Sunday School, and you tell him: ‘Dear boy, you must love your enemies. If another boy strikes you, you mustn’t hit him back, but try to reform him by loving him.’ Well. The boy stays in the Sunday school till he is fourteen or fifteen, and then is friends send him into the army. What has he to do in the army? He certainly won’t love his enemy; quite the contrary, if he can only get at him, he will run him through with his bayonet. That is the nature of all religious teaching in this country. I do not think that this is a very good way of carrying out the precepts of religion. I think if it is a good thing for a boy to love his enemy, it is a good thing for a grown-up man.’ (Ibid, p. 126-7)

And in his own words, Tolstoy sums up:

(T)he most striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the same time a Christian and a gladiator.(Ibid, p. 153

Recognizing the trauma of the inconsistency, the contradictions between what Tolstoy calls the inherent conscience and proclivity to and for brotherhood, fraternity, and equality, (not as the result of any state or governmental law), but as what this scribe might call a Christian spiritual DNA, and the state, tribe and national laws under which we are all living, might be a first and inescapable step in beginning to consider how to imitate those holy words in the Sermon on the Mount.