Sunday, September 10, 2023

Metaphysics


"I have also seen some very strange things in the words of some contemporary kabbalists who explain things deeply. They say that all of existence is only an illusion and appearance, and does not truly exist. This is to say that the ein sof didn't change at all in itself and its necessary true existence and it is now still exactly the same as it was before creation, and there is no space empty of Him, as is known (see Nefesh Ha-Chaim Shaar 3). Therefore they said that in truth there is no reality to existence at all, and all the worlds are only an illusion and appearance, just as it says in the verse "in the hands of the prophets I will appear" (Hoshea 12: 11). They said that the world and humanity have no real existence, and their entire reality is only an appearance. We perceive ourselves as if we are in a world, and we perceive ourselves with our senses, and we perceive the world with our senses. It turns out [according to this opinion] that all of existence of humanity and the world is only a perception and not in true reality, for it is impossible for anything to exist in true reality, since He fills all the worlds. ...

How strange and bitter is it to say such a thing. Woe to us from such an opinion. They don’t think and they don't see that with such opinions they are destroying the truth of the entire Torah."


This is comparable to someone walking down in the deep darkness of night. He was afraid of thorns and wells, of wild beasts and bandits; not knowing where he was walking on. Finding a burning torch, he got rid of thorns and pits, but he still feared wild beasts and bandits... not knowing where he was on. At dawn, he was saved from the wild beasts and bandits, but he still did not know where he was on. When he came to a crossroads, he was saved from all of them.... What is this crossroads? Rav Chisda says: "It is the Talmid chacham and the day of death" (TalmudSotah 21a)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partzufim

Kabbalah describes the angels at length. Angels are described in Kabbalah literature as forces that send information, and sensations, between mankind and the Tetragrammaton. They are analogized to atoms, wavelengths or channels that help God in his creation, and it is therefore, reasoned that they should not be worshipped, prayed to, nor invoked. They are not physical in nature but spiritual beings, like spiritual atoms. Therefore, the Kabbalah reasons, when they appear in the Hebrew Bible their description is from the viewpoint of the person that received the vision or prophesy or occurrence, which will be anthropomorphic. However, they are not material beings but are likened to a single emotion, feeling, or material, controlled by God for his purpose of creation.[25]
just interesting


Panentheism


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism


Baruch Spinoza later claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived."[5] "Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner."[6] Though Spinoza has been called the "prophet"[7] and "prince"[8] of pantheism, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza states that: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken".[9] For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world.


There are some Christian panentheists but they seem sketchy

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