In the May 1958 issue of COMMENTARY, Jakob J. Petuchowski makes a provocative analysis of the thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel. One of his conclusions, which it is my present purpose to challenge, ranks Heschel with those Existential theologians who disparage human reason and deny that objective knowledge of God is possible. He draws this conclusion from three facts: first, in common with the Existentialists, Heschel does reject the rationalistic religious philosophy of time-honored Jewish and Christian tradition; second, he bases his thought, not upon the “god of the philosophers,” but upon the God of the prophets; and third, as a source of religious knowledge, he subordinates philosophic speculation to the “leap of action.” I hope to show that Petuchowski’s interpretation of these facts is premature, and that the Biblical philosophy which Heschel develops is intellectually more satisfactory than the conventional theology which Petuchowski defends.
1. Rejection of traditional rationalism. Existential philosophers, true to their romantic origins, spurn traditional philosophy for its reliance upon reason. Existential theologians add the further charge that such reliance is positively sinful. Trust in God, they argue, obliges a man to distrust everything else. Confidence in human reason, or even the attempt to prove one’s views, appears to them as a kind of intellectual apostasy, a betrayal of “divine revelation” for the mere “wisdom of men.” “Divine revelation,” they hold, majestically overrides every rule of logic. The mark of faith is therefore to put every rational complaint to silence. A truly Biblical theology, according to them, necessarily issues in contradictions and paradoxes.
Since Heschel, too, regards traditional theology as un-Biblical, he might seem to agree with the Existentialists. Their concurrence, however, is apparent only. For Heschel’s understanding of the Bible is at many points directly opposed to theirs. For them, Biblical theology, by definition, contradicts human reason. For Heschel, on the contrary, an irrational theology could not possibly be Biblical.
He arrives at this position by a highly original application of the prophetic concept of idolatry. The prophets declared that any human enterprise not grounded in the will of God was destined ultimately to perish. As applied by Heschel to intellectual endeavor, this principle affirms that any system of thought which denies the Creator-God is likewise doomed to fail; that is, it must inevitably issue in logical absurdities. Where Existentialists imagine that loyalty to the Bible obliges them to transgress the laws of logic, Heschel maintains the opposite. For him, the Biblical conception of God offers the only hope for a truly rational theology.
When he charges traditional religious thought with being un-Biblical, therefore, he by no means disparages its respect for human reason. On the contrary, he declares (in God in Search of Man): “Without reason, faith becomes blind. Without reason, we would not know how to apply the insights of faith. . . . The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.”
Heschel charges that traditional theology, precisely because it is not sufficiently Biblical, proves upon analysis to be far less rational than its claims. On this point, his true kinship lies rather with the school of philosophy known as “logical analysis.” At the hands of this school, traditional “rationalism” has begun to fly apart at the seams. Its vaunted theological systems, however sincere their authors, owe their apparent coherence to verbal ambiguities and meaningless concepts. Logical analysis has shown that if illogic is what the Existentialist wants, he may be well content with his philosophic heritage. Heschel therefore breaks with tradition, not in the name of irrationalism, but in search of the intellectual integrity to which earlier thinkers aspired in vain.
2. The God of the prophets. According to Heschel’s diagnosis, the illogic which bedevils traditional theology is due to its un-Biblical conception of God. Instead of the Creator-God of the Bible, it has adopted the “god of the philosophers,” known variously as the “ground of being,” the “unmoved mover,” the “unconditioned,” and by other, similar names. Heschel rejects this god, not because he scorns philosophy, but because it has thwarted the philosophic enterprise. His rather daring proposal is that since the philosophers’ god has failed to vindicate itself at the bar of reason, the God of the prophets be given a chance.
The principal difference between these two gods is illustrated by one of Petuchowski’s criticisms. He objects strongly to the idea that God could have cares, concerns, or even purposes, since He would then be subject, at least in principle, to disappointment and frustration. His is the same reasoning which led the early Christian Church to declare “patripassionism” a heresy, and to insist instead on “divine impassibility.” The prophets, on the contrary, speak of the heartache suffered by God (not of necessity, of course, but voluntarily) at the hands of disloyal men. Hosea boldly attributes to God the feelings of a devoted husband toward a faithless wife. Heschel’s term for God’s willingness to risk disappointment, which he has repeatedly and eloquently emphasized, is “divine pathos.”
Is there any ground for regarding “divine impassibility” as rationally superior to “divine pathos”? Traditionally, the impassibility of God has been deduced as a necessary consequence of his unity, as follows: if God were not impassible, if He had feelings, these feelings would have to be directed toward some object other than Himself. According to the traditional definition of God’s unity, however, nothing could exist outside Him. For reasons inherited from the philosophers, to appear below, the term “unity” referred only to that which is all-inclusive, universal, limitless. If, therefore, anything did exist outside God, He would not be all-inclusive, and would therefore lack unity. God can therefore have no feelings, for there is nothing beside Him to be the object of His concern. Hence the confident conclusion of traditional theology that if God is one, He must be impassible.
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As it stands, the argument is impressive—so impressive that the rare dissident has felt obliged to campaign under the banner of irrationalism. However, he need not have put himself under such a handicap, for the argument rests upon an unexamined premise. It assumes that the word “unity,” on which the entire case depends, can have no other meaning. When the Bible speaks of the unity of God, however, it means something entirely different. When the prophet declares, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God,” he does not mean the all-inclusive unity of philosophic speculation. His intent is to contrast the unity of God’s personality, the integrity of His character, with the gods of pagan mythology, who changed character with the ease of a repertory actor.
There was Apollo-the-wolf-slayer, a sun-Apollo, and a swan-Apollo; an Artemis of Ephesus, an Artemis of Macedon, and indeed one for every locality that wanted its own Artemis. One god, Serapis, was deliberately compounded of two older deities. Every poet or village priest was free to embellish a god’s reputation from his own imagination, until a vast accumulation of chaotic and conflicting characteristics were lumped together under a single proper name. Nor were these protean propensities a source of embarrassment. Rather, they illustrated both the god’s elusive, unlimited nature and the consequent impossibility of pinning “him” down to a determinate character. The two heads of Janus symbolize perfectly the ambiguity and inscrutability which the pagan regarded as a mark of divinity.
The prophetic concept of God’s unity is a flat contradiction of this notion. Where the deities of paganism are fluid, fickle, schizophrenic, Yahweh is steadfast, constant of purpose, a definite, determinate personality. It has been said that of all the graphic portraits in the Bible, the most vivid and concrete is that of God himself.
Intellectually, of course, the heathen gods were impotent. The inconsistencies surrounding them were exposed to ridicule by the ancient philosophers, until they became an abomination even to civilized pagans. The field was thus narrowed down to two rivals, each with his own kind of unity: on the one hand, the “god of the philosophers,” the “one beyond all duality,” an all-pervasive “something” which permeates the multiplicity of things in space and time; on the other hand, the God of the prophets, whose unity, in contrast to the fabrications of mythology, consists in continuity of personal identity, but who, unlike the philosopher’s god, can create a world outside himself.
The issue between divine impassibility and divine pathos thus boils down to a contest between these two gods. If “God” is all-inclusive, universal, limitless, then “He” is impersonal and without feelings. If, on the other hand, the unity of God means that He has a unified, integrated personality, then He can also, without inconsistency, be a God who cares.
Oddly, these two rivals have never met in a pitched battle on the theological front. The explanation lies in an accident of history which gave the philosophers’ god a virtual monopoly over the Western mind. When ancient philosophers criticized polytheism, they attributed its manifest confusion, not merely to the kaleidoscopic pagan pantheon, but to the very concept of a personal God. This gratuitous mental association between divine personality and logical inconsistency became so firmly established that the God of the prophets was lumped together with Zeus and Jupiter under the heading of “crude anthropomorphism.” Down to the present day, it has been an axiom of Western thought that no god with a proper name can be intellectually respectable. Paul Tillich, for example, confidently assumes that the Biblical conception of God “leads into a fog of absurd imaginations” (Love, Power, and Justice), without adducing a single piece of evidence.
Apart from occasional skirmishes and rear-guard action, the “god of the philosophers” has thus succeeded in captivating Jewish as well as Christian theologians. In the present day, however, its rational pretensions have finally been exploded, thanks chiefly to logical analysis. By an inner necessity, to be analyzed below, its votaries are driven inexorably into paradox and self-contradiction.
With the demise of the philosophers’ god, the case for divine impassibility collapses, and the way is open for the Biblical God to receive a hearing. This God does not condemn the philosopher’s ancient passion for consistent thinking. But He warns that this ambition has been thwarted by intellectual idols, whether by the splintered divinities of polytheism, or, more subtly, by the philosophers’ own “unity of unities.” A consistent philosophy, like a successful life, would have to derive its unity from the God-who-cares. To refuse to try such a philosophy is to prejudge the case. To the timid, Heschel says, in effect, “If this be anthropomorphism, make the most of it.”
3. The leap of action. Petuchowski is particularly disturbed by Heschel’s answer to the question: how is knowledge of God possible? Rejecting the traditional answer, Heschel develops a Biblical alternative, which he calls the “leap of action.” Petuchowski sees no important difference between this concept and the Existentialist “leap of faith,” with its frank appeal to irrational impulse. He cites as evidence Heschel’s poetic style and his frequent reference to an “intuition of the ineffable.” Once again, however, Heschel breaks with tradition, not in defiance of reason, but in search of a more rational alternative.
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The conventional avenue to the knowledge of God acquires an appearance of rationality because it does take seriously the laws of logic. In fact, it conceives God himself in the image of these laws. In every act of thinking, the argument runs, there is a tacit assumption that the processes of thought correspond in some way to reality itself. Otherwise, all reasoning would be in vain. Hence the conclusion, to borrow Hegel’s words: “The real is the rational, and the rational is the real.” The royal road to the knowledge of God must therefore consist in philosophic contemplation of the structures and principles of thought. The hierarchy of rational concepts becomes the ladder of ascent to God.
Within this hierarchy, the more universal concept enjoys priority over the less universal: the genus over the species, and the species over its individual members. Seeking the clue to reality in this scale of logical precedence, traditional philosophy concluded that the logically prior is also “more real.” Nor is this conclusion without a measure of plausibility: when an individual dies, the species still exists; if a whole species becomes extinct, the genus endures. Accordingly, the most permanent entity, and hence the “most real,” corresponds to the most universal and inclusive of all concepts, commonly known as “being,” the “absolute,” the “unconditioned,” and already encountered above as the philosophers’ god. Just as all the logical consequences of a first premise are contained implicitly within it, so this deified abstraction is said to contain within itself the essence of all that exists in space and time.
Based as it is upon the laws of thought, this method of religious knowledge appears eminently rational. Its practitioners, however, have overlooked a crucial distinction. It is one thing to grant, as Heschel does, that logic is normative for human thinking. It is quite another, however, to translate logical priority into precedence in the scale of reality. To do this is in itself neither rational nor irrational. It merely amounts to the proposal: “Let us inquire whether such a conception of reality will provide the foundation for a consistent system of thought, or whether, on the contrary, it will issue in a bundle of contradictions.”
Heschel is ready with the prophetic reply: to erect a philosophy upon a false conception of God is intellectual idolatry. He therefore confidently predicts that this philosophers’ god, though created in the image of logic, will drive its devotees into illogic. To prove the point, one need only carry the foregoing chain of reasoning a step further:
If God is all-inclusive, then “He” must embrace not only truth, but falsehood as well. Philosophers with the tenacity to stick to this god therefore have no alternative but to deny, in the last analysis, the distinction between true and false. From ancient times to the present, they have taught an ultimate “coincidence of opposites,” a primordial unity which somehow resolves all contradictions (including their own). Having begun in the service of logic, they emerge with a plenary indulgence for every inconsistency. When, therefore, an Existentialist like Heidegger declares (in Existence and Being) that “untruth must derive from the essence of truth,” he is merely echoing the conclusion of traditional rationalists. The only difference is that he is less embarrassed by it than they.
An appropriate illustration may be drawn from Petuchowski’s article itself. On the one hand, he emphasizes the irreconcilable difference between the impassible “god of the philosophers” and the Biblical God-who-cares. On the other hand, however, he demands that these mutually exclusive conceptions be reconciled in a “higher unity of rational thought and mystical insight.” In the name of “traditional rationalism,” Petuchowski resorts to the very tactics with which he charges Heschel: the appeal to mystical intuition in defiance of the laws of logic.
When Heschel speaks of intuitive insight, he by no means seeks to override logic. He draws a careful distinction between the source of an idea and its truth. No idea can be either verified or refuted by an appeal to its source alone. In mathematics or physics, for example, hypotheses are often born in a flash of intuition. Some turn out to be true, and others false. Religious intuitions, too, are a possible source of knowledge. As in other disciplines, however, they must be validated by established criteria of truth. Heschel (God in Search of Man) is quite clear on this point: “There are false as there are true prophets; there are false as there are true religious doctrines. If a religion claims to be true, it is under obligation to offer a criterion for its validity either in terms of ideas or in terms of events.” The role of intuition in Heschel’s theology is carefully restricted. It is a source of ideas to be tested, never a self-authenticating substitute for truth.
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The same is true of his poetic gifts. Because poetry does appeal to the emotions, some philosophers, fallowing Aristotle, have resolutely eliminated every trace of graciousness from their writing. Lest reason be swayed by poetic charm, they employ a style which only with charity can be called prosaic. Heschel, however, following the pre-Socratics and Plato, takes a different view. Just as philosophy deals with life as a whole, so their style is directed to the whole man, emotions as well as reason. Not that aesthetic charm is any guarantee of truth. No amount of eloquence can rectify a falsehood. For purposes of testing its truth-claim, any poetic statement can and should be analyzed into cut-and-dried, logical propositions. Heschel attributes to his reader the maturity to do this. The logician alone, however, is not only half a man; he is, according to Heschel, half a philosopher as well. For the truth which the philosopher seeks is better served by beauty and reason together, than by reason alone.
As for Heschel’s frequent references to “the ineffable,” it, too, is limited to a non-cognitive role in his thought. There is, after all, something ineffable about most human experience, a residue that eludes every attempt at description. If this is so, then a philosophy which takes account of the fact will be truer than one which pretends that in principle all human experience can be reduced without loss to explicit formulation. Heschel’s emphasis on “the ineffable” is a reminder that we live in a universe full of mystery, not a glorified machine whose secrets can all be unlocked by science. But he never uses “the ineffable” to escape criticism or to clinch an argument.
Because “ineffable” is a favorite word in the writings of mysticism, Petuchowski concludes that Heschel must be a mystic. The main point of God in Search of Man, however, is the contrast between Biblical and mystical conceptions of God. For the mystic, the personal “God” is finally transcended by the impersonal, impassible, ineffable, unknowable abyss of “being.” For the Bible, on the contrary, the mysteries of life testify to the majesty of their Creator. Behind them all stands, not “Mystery” with a capital “M,” but the concrete person of Yahweh: “The clear, unambiguous will of God is not lower but higher than the mystery.”
If God were the “fathomless abyss” of mystical intuition, then “He” might be approached through philosophic contemplation. For at the top of the ladder of rationalistic abstraction, the philosopher discovers the same all-inclusive, undifferentiated unity which the mystic worships. Petuchowski, while rejecting such a god, continues to endorse this method of religious knowledge. Heschel rejects the method along with its discredited god, and develops a method more suitable to the God of the prophets.
If, as the Bible maintains, God is a Person, then He can be known analogously to the way in which other persons are known. Such knowledge does not consist entirely of descriptive data about observable facts; it is an understanding of another’s will, his character, the orientation of his heart. It is the kind of knowledge which a star witness brings to the courtroom, or which a famous man’s secretary puts in his memoirs. They know something which the rest of us do not. Or rather, what they know is the consequence of whom they know. This direct acquaintance with another person, which gives their testimony its special significance, is also the kind of knowledge men may have of God.
The prerequisite of such knowledge is a volitional encounter. The will of each party must impinge upon the will of the other. If the encounter is hostile, then their knowledge of each other remains minimal. It is no accident, therefore, that villains are notoriously inscrutable. And conversely, the more two wills and purposes overlap, the greater the degree of mutual knowledge. In an athletic event, to take a common example, the opposing players become better acquainted when competition is sporting than when it is cutthroat. Inter-personal knowledge is the by-product of good will.
The prerequisite of religious knowledge, accordingly, is to realign one’s will with God’s. This is what Heschel calls the “leap of action.” Outwardly (halachah), one performs the will of God as inferred from the Torah. Inwardly (kavanah), one performs specific acts (mitzvot) as though they really are well pleasing to God. By so doing, one steps into a dimension of knowledge which otherwise remains closed: And hereby do we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (I John 2:3, 4).
Inter-personal knowledge, like science, is experimental. It is obtained and tested “en route,” by doing. Instead of a means to decision, it is the consequence of decision. The reputation of a famous surgeon, for example, though universally credited, can be confirmed only by those who have chosen to be his patients. And conversely, if a doctor’s skill has been maligned, he can be vindicated only by those who choose nevertheless to trust him.
God’s reputation is mixed. The prophets have declared his promise of healing to the nations, and of salvation to the individual. But they are outnumbered by his detractors. The issue can be settled only by a “leap of action.” He who ventures to walk in the ways of the Lord discovers something which the uncommitted observer can never know: whether God really is the sort of person to whom the prophets bear witness.
Because the “leap of action” requires a man to take sides, to commit his allegiance, Petuchowski suspects that it violates scientific neutrality. The scientist is “neutral,” however, only in the sense that he refuses to prejudge a case. In order to achieve this kind of neutrality, he must take sides. He must ally himself for truth and against error. Until he does so, he remains in willful ignorance. There is thus a scientific, as well as a theological, “leap of action.”
Because religious knowledge depends upon private experience, Petuchowski doubts that it can be objective. Objectivity, however, is not the product of some other kind of experience. There is no other kind. Objective knowledge, as distinct from mere subjective feeling, requires that the personal experience be communicable. Only then can its validity be tested. The researcher emerges from his laboratory, not to deliver Olympian pronouncements, but to invite his colleagues to come and see for themselves.
Existential theologians deny that religious experience can be communicated. Their “leap of faith” is frankly subjective. In the terminology of Martin Buber, “I-Thou” experience cannot be translated into the language of “I-it.” Biblical religion, however, does not fit Buber’s definition. Heschel accordingly deplores the Existentialist’s “tabu on the idea of objective validity.” Knowledge of the Biblical God is not esoteric, but can be communicated in the same way as knowledge of another person. For Buber, prophetic utterance is simply a symbolic gesture toward “the ineffable.” For Heschel, on the contrary, it contains literal propositions about God. The prophet, like the researcher, invites all men to perform an experiment: O taste and see, that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him (Ps. 34:8).
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There may be passages in Heschel’s writings that do support Petuchowski’s interpretation. Most philosophers slip occasionally into phraseology which contradicts their own premises. The aim of constructive discussion, however, is not to convict a writer of occasional missteps, but to evaluate his central thesis.
Before Heschel’s philosophy can be tested, it must first be recognized for what it is: a claimant to the rational title which traditional religious thought, under the scrutiny of modern criticism, has been obliged to relinquish. Theologians can scarcely be expected to adjust immediately to the collapse of conventional theology. Some still cling to it as the only alternative to chaos. Others have reacted with a desperate irrationalism. A few, however, have joined Heschel in the search for a third alternative, one which, in Heschel’s words, has required them to “un-think many thoughts.” By comparison with traditional theology, they rely on a different way of knowing, a different subject matter—in fact, a different God.
Heschel has developed the philosophy of the Bible out of the prophetic faith that only this God can deliver men from intellectual, as well as practical, frustration. He asks no quarter from the logician. He stakes his reputation on the proposition that a truly rational theology must be based, not upon the “unmoved mover,” but upon the God of the prophets.
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