Spirit is a bone October 25, 2007
Posted by Ian in Ethics, Hegel, Myth, Open Theology, Religion and Faith.trackback
This (hopefully) will be short, a hard little nub.
It’s simple really, but if we are to speak of spirit, of the sacred, as something serious, something real, we need to remember that just as Hegel reminded us that mind is a bone, so is spirit.
It’s a real thing. It’s a distinct thing, too, not an amorphous daydream.
To those who would respond, that it is not dead, is not inert ‘like a bone,’ I can only suggest that you consider what you mean by those terms. In their most literal application, no, it is not like a bone. It is a different thing. But in their extended sense, those terms don’t even apply to bones.
That’s also a warning against fantasy, against the false comforts we grant ourselves by abandoning the things and retreating into our ideas of things. Ideas are different things, and confusing the idea for the thing to which it lays claim is the road to illusion.
Spirit, like all things, wears our ideas lightly. Just as our own ideas and words, too, remain in the silent kingdom of things, so does spirit. So do we. Let us curb our imagination accordingly. Let us not dwell in false riches.
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