Tag: language

“For the First Time . . .Thoughts . . .Plans”

January 2, 2025

I had been told how early human beings first started making marks that represented this or that – the beginnings of language.

“And this helped them to think about those things?”

For the first time, thought can be detached from objects.  Plans can become abstract, long-term, not just emergent possibilities inherent in situations, as they are for animals.  The response to other creatures can be evaluative, normative.  It becomes possible to notice that a particular action falls short of the best or right action, that a particular human being falls short of the ideal human being. 

Experience God: An Autobiography

“Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today?”

October 19, 2022

How God Comes To Different People:

I had been told that culture is a factor in divine revelations.

“Lord, why is culture so important?”

That’s like saying, why language?  If I am going to communicate with people, they need a language.  For the same reason, they need a culture.

“They need a culture, but why such a variety of cultures?”

There are many ways of realizing (actualizing) the human story.  Culture enables lives of different (types of) significance (meaning).

“But why, in terms of Your story?”

I need to come to people in all their particularity, not to mankind-as-such.  The Chinese is one way of being.  The primitive is one way of being.  I come to each in its own terms.  Each enables Me to show a different side of Myself.

Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today? to you?

Learn more about how God comes to different people.