[Allen Tice]

Roger, it's not a question of whether I approve of such an attitude. Or him. He, or you, may be right.

[Julie Steiner]

If by "not a particularly useful god" you mean a god that is not a wish-granting genie, that view seems to mesh pretty well with the theology of many of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. See Wikipedia's description of Deism, and in particular the section on Deism in the United States.

[Roger Slater]

I understand more than not granting wishes, Julie. My own view, which I know is not widely shared and which I don't even know if Stevens agrees with, is that God is of no use at all distinct from the uses of literature and poetry and myth, i.e., stories we tell each other that give us insight, comfort or understanding. And what I'm hearing in this Stevens poem is the idea that too much focus on the idea of God can disturb a more direct relationship we have with the observable and actual universe we find ourselves in, that the metaphor can impinge on the reality, and that there's something about the direct and observable reality, unadorned by theological invention, that is worth experiencing and appreciating without having to pin everything on some sort of divine entity that gives it meaning. I relate it to the portion of Esthetique du Mal that I posted above, that the worst tragedy is not to be physical in the physical world, etc.

[Allen Tice]

Dear COJ, this two- or three- or more way badminton rally is averting our more-or-less adoring eyes from Wallace Stevens, so I will say that "that" wasn't microscopically what I meant, and swivel back to the thread. Please return unopened any umbrage that might have accidentally fallen into your shopping cart. Umbrage is rare and valuable like perfumer's musk, and, though a renewable resource like outrage, it is too precious to waste on my maunderings.

Roger, oddly I read you loud and clear. For the most part, much of the time.

[Julie Steiner]

Sorry, Allen. I didn't mean to cause offense, and it honestly hadn't occurred to me to take any.

I mentioned deism only because it seemed relevant to the poem Rogerbob posted, and (I thought) to your comment about a god's (or a belief system's) usefulness. I'm not a deist myself, but deism was definitely significant in New England, and Stevens came from an old New England family.

In retrospect, I realize that my flippant "wish-granting genie" remark sounds more sarcastic than neutral. [Longer-than-necessary explanation deleted. Better to just briefly apologize than to make excuses.]

Anyway, I sincerely apologize. Back to Wallace Stevens's theology.

[William A. Baurle]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Such a god would indeed be pointless, but that's the kind of god that Stevens is asking for in the poem. He would just as soon there not be a god at all, but if there must be one, he's hoping it will stay on the sidelines and not bother us too much. He has no use for a god, and that's an attitude you might not approve of but one that I find appealing.

Roger, just out of curiosity, are you familiar with Spinoza? I'm sure you've heard that when Einstein was asked if he believed in God, his famous response was, "I believe in the God of Spinoza."

Naturally, much has been made of that quote, and Einstein himself explained himself, but there's no need to go into that (unless you'd like to, in which case I'm game), since I'm more interested in Spinoza than Einstein at the moment.

Lots of people still insist Spinoza was a closet atheist, and there's much good reason for people to think that, being as the man's life was in danger all the time, once his beliefs were made public, and especially after his excommunication from the Jewish community in Amsterdam.

My reason for believing that he was not an atheist lies more in my reading of his letters than in any of his other writings, save for his extraordinarily unique and perceptive interpretations from the Bible, both old and new testaments. He actually got quite impatient with a few people who flatly misunderstood his ideas, especially those who accused him of atheism.

You'd have to read all through the Ethics at the very least, and a good deal of his other writings, particularly the Theologico-Political Treatise, to really get a grip of him.

Spinoza's God isn't one that creates the world and then retreats, without interest, like the Deistic God, or the Aristotelian Prime Mover. He's an ever-active, ever-creative entity; He's in all things, in all places, in all times.

In my travels I've encountered too many people who are turned off from reading Spinoza due to over-exposure to overly-simplified summations of his thought. As I say this, I should also say I won't be the least surprised to hear that you know far more about Spinoza than I do. I have found, so many times, that it's never a good idea to be presumptuous.

Back to Stevens: I don't think WS is necessarily saying he "has no use for a god." I am more in agreement with Julie, if I understand her right.

We shall see.

Michael F, it looks—to steal something John Whitworth said of his recent thread—as if you've created the thread that "will not lie down". How jolly!

[Allen Tice]

Julie, the problem with communicating in text is that 90% of the tone of the message is suppressed, and we have to infer too much. I wondered if you were annoyed with me, and you guessed that I was annoyed with you. I am definitely not. Long story short, not everything Stevens wrote interests me. Wherever he gets preachy, I get worried. The occasions when he is very slick and preachy too are when I distrust him most.

[Michael F]

Rogerbob, your post #63 brought to mind another piece of Walt that is glued to my brain:

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and
about death.)


And then follows this, which Bill might also like:

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least

[Allen Tice]

Sounds like Khalil Gibran. Wow. Preachy, like Whitman on a windy weekend.

[William A. Baurle]

This is not much of a puzzler.


Negation

Hi! The creator too is blind,
Struggling toward his harmonious whole,
Rejecting intermediate parts,
Horrors and falsities and wrongs;
Incapable master of all force,
Too vague idealist, overwhelmed
By an afflatus that persists.
For this, then, we endure brief lives,
The evanescent symmetries
From that meticulous potter's thumb.

**

Edited: I don't entirely agree with the author of the Wikipedia article about this poem. Leastways not this:

The poem's image of God as bungling potter recalls Zarathustra's dialogue with the last pope, in which God is similarly characterized. [emphasis mine]

I don't see a 'bungling' potter in the poem. I see a meticulous one. "Incapable" doesn't necessarily mean 'bungling." There's also "harmonious."