Seeing and not Seeing the Face of God: Overcoming the Law of Contradiction in Biblical Theology

This paper attempts to illuminate and interpret the contradictory portrait of God as both seen and unseen in the Torah. Thus Moses is commanded not to look on the face of God yet also praised for having spoken to God “face to face". We seek ways to reconcile the contradictory portraits of God t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal for philosophy of religion
Main Author: Kepnes, Steven 1952- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham [2020]
In: European journal for philosophy of religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Old Testament / Moses / God / Face / Invisibility / Gelman, Yehudah 1940-
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
HB Old Testament
NBC Doctrine of God
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:This paper attempts to illuminate and interpret the contradictory portrait of God as both seen and unseen in the Torah. Thus Moses is commanded not to look on the face of God yet also praised for having spoken to God “face to face". We seek ways to reconcile the contradictory portraits of God through the use of the term “doubled-mindedness” in the theology of Jerome Gellman, in the logic of  “thirdness” in C.S. Peirce’s semiotics, and in the use of both particle and wave models in Einstein’s physics of light. The paper concludes by disusing the practical consequences of theological double-mindedness for the religious life and the philosophical meaning of redemption as the time when the contradiction of the unseen and seen God is resolved.
Contains:Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3312