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© Sanford L. Drob, Ph.D. 2003, 2005
“Just as the Supernal Wisdom is a starting point of
the whole, so is the lower world also a manifestation of Wisdom, and a starting
point of the whole.” (Zohar 1:153a)[1]
“(Looking) upwards from
below, as it appears to eyes of flesh, the tangible world seems to be Yesh and a thing, while spirituality, which is above, is an
aspect of Ayin (nothingness). (But looking) downwards from above the world
is an aspect of Ayin, and everything which is linked
downwards and descends lower and lower is more and more Ayin
and is considered as naught truly as nothing and null” (Schneur Zalman Likutei Torah, Devarim, fol. 83a ).[2]
“For the principal point of divine
completeness is that…in every thing is its opposite, and…that all its power
truly comes from the opposing power” (Rabbi Dov Baer,
Ner Mitzvah ve-Torah).[3]
“the revelation of anything
is actually through its opposite…all created things in the world are hidden
within His essence, be He blessed, in one potential, in coincidentia oppositorum...”(Rabbi Aron
Ha-Levi)[4]
“Every actual thing
involves a coexistence of opposed elements. Consequently to know, or, in other words, to
comprehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as a concrete unity
of opposed determinations.” (Hegel’s
Logic, Par. 48, Zusatz 1).[5]
The
doctrine of coincidentia oppositorum,
the interpenetration, interdependence and unification of opposites has long
been one of the defining characteristics of mystical
(as opposed to philosophical) thought. Whereas mystics have often held that
their experience can only be described in terms that violate the “principle of
non-contradiction,” western philosophers have generally maintained that this
fundamental logical principle is inviolable.[6]
Nevertheless, certain philosophers, including Nicholas of Cusa,
Meister Eckhardt and G.W.F. Hegel have held that
presumed polarities in thought do not exclude one another but are actually
necessary conditions for the assertion of their opposites. In the 20th
century the physicist Neils Bohr commented that
superficial truths are those whose opposites are false, but that “deep truths”
are such that their opposites or apparent contradictories are true as well.[7]
The psychologist Carl Jung concluded that the “Self” is a coincidentia oppositorum, and that each individual must strive to
integrate opposing tendencies (anima and animus, persona and shadow) within his
or her own psyche.[8] More recently, postmodern thinkers such as
Derrida have made negative use of the coincidentia
oppositorum idea, as a means of overcoming the privileging of particular
poles of the classic binary oppositions in western thought, and thereby
deconstructing the foundational ideas of western metaphysics. [9]
In this paper I explore the use of coincidentia oppositorum in Jewish mysticism, and its singular
significance for the theology of one prominent Jewish mystical school, Chabad
(or Lubavitch) Chasidism. It is the achievement of Elior[10]
and other modern scholars of Jewish mysticism to have brought the philosophical
use of the coincidentia doctrine by
the Chabad Chasidim to our attention. In this paper I introduce two models
through which we can begin to understand the Kabbalistic and Chasidic
conception of the coincidence of opposites in rational philosophical and
theological terms. These models each
rest upon, and develop, the Kabbalistic/Chasidic view that language (or
representation in general) sunders a primordial divine unity and is thus the
origin of finitude and difference. The first, cartographic model, draws upon the idea that seemingly
contradictory but actually complementary cartographic representations are
necessary in order to provide an accurate two-dimensional representation (or
map) of a spherical world. The second, linguistic model, draws upon Kabbalistic
and postmodern views on the relationship between language and the world, and in
particular the necessity of regarding the linguistic sign as both identical to and distinct from the
thing (signified) it is said to represent.
In the course of my discussion, I hope to provide some insights into the
relevance of coincidentia oppositorum
to contemporary philosophical, psychological, and especially, theological
concerns.
Rational Mysticism
Throughout this paper I engage in what the modern Neoplatonic philosopher, J. N. Findlay, has termed
“rational mysticism.” [11]
Rational mysticism is a method of thought and inquiry that not only articulates
mystical doctrines in rational terms, but utilizes reason to arrive at insights
and conclusions that are typically only arrived at through meditative and other
experiential/mystical techniques. The
“rational mystic,” as I am using this term, endeavors to achieve a unified
conception of the world by rationally
overcoming the distinctions, oppositions and antinomies that have torn it
asunder and given rise to the polarities (e.g. between words and things, mind
and reality, subject and object, humanity and God, good and evil, etc.) that
characterize the world for ordinary, pre-mystical consciousness and discourse.
The key to rational mysticism in the Kabbalah is the
notion of ha-achdut
hashvaah, the “coincidence of opposites,” an idea
that not only “deconstructs” the poles of the various oppositions through which
the world is ordinarily understood, but which also suggests that each term of
an opposition (e.g. God/man, word/thing, freedom/necessity, good/evil, etc.) is
completely (and logically) dependent upon its opposite, i.e. dependent upon the
very ideas and things that the term was meant to oppose or exclude. It is the rational articulation of these
reciprocal dependencies, as opposed to a purely experiential comprehension of
them that distinguishes the rational from the ordinary mystic.[12]
Jewish Mysticism, especially as it is embodied in the Lurianic Kabbalah and its Chabad Hasidic interpretation,
provides a unique framework for overcoming the antinomies of ordinary thought,
and for climbing the ladder of mystical ascent. This ladder leads to a form of
thought in which all oppositions and
antinomies, indeed all things whatsoever (whether they be natural, cultural,
axiological or conceptual) are understood to be critical moments in a
developing, meaningful and divine whole (what the Kabbalists
refer to as Ein-sof, the Infinite,
literally: “Without End”).
Coincidentia Oppositorum in the
Early Kabbalah
The Kabbalists use the term, achdut hashvaah, to denote
that Ein-sof, the Infinite God, is a
“unity of opposites,”[13]
one that reconciles within itself even those aspects of the cosmos that are
opposed to or contradict one another.[14] Sefer Yetzirah, an early (3rd to 6th
century) work which was of singular
significance for the later development of Jewish mysticism, had said of the Sefirot (the ten archetypal values
through which divinity is said to constitute the world) “their end is imbedded
in their beginning and their beginning in their end.”[15]
According to Yetzirah,
the Sefirot are comprised of five
pairs of opposites: “A depth of beginning, a depth of end. A depth of good, a
depth of evil. A depth of above, a depth of below, A depth of east, a depth of
west. A depth of north, a depth of south.[16]
The 13th
century Kabbalist Azriel of
Gerona was perhaps the first Kabbalist to clearly
articulate the doctrine of coincidentia
oppositorum. For Azriel
“Ein Sof …is absolutely undifferentiated in a complete and
changeless unity…He is the essence of all that is concealed and revealed.”[17] According to Azriel,
Ein-sof unifies within itself being
and nothingness, “for the Being is in the Nought
after the manner of the Nought, and the Nought is in the Being after the manner [according to the
modality] of the Being… the Nought is the Being and
Being is the Nought.[18] For Azriel, Ein-sof is also “the principle in which
everything hidden and visible meet, and as such it is the common root of both faith and unbelief.”[19]
Azriel further held that the very essence of the Sefirot, the value archetypes through
with Ein-sof is manifest in a finite
world, involves the union of opposites, and that this unity provides the energy
for the cosmos.[20]
The nature of sefirah
is the synthesis of every thing and its opposite. For if they did not possess
the power of synthesis, there would be no energy in anything. For that which is light is not dark and that
which is darkness is not-light.
Further, the coincidence of opposites is also a
property of the human psyche; “we should liken their (the Sefirot) nature to the will of the soul, for it is the synthesis of
all the desires and thoughts stemming from it.
Even though they may be multifarious, their source is one, either in
thesis or antithesis.”[21]
Azriel was not the only Kabbalist to put forth a principle of coincidentia oppositorum.
The early Kabbalistic Source of
Wisdom describes how God’s name and being is comprised of thirteen pairs of
opposites (derived from the 13 traits of God enumerated in Chronicles), and
speaks of a Primordial Ether (Avir Kadmon), as the medium within which such oppositions
are formed and ultimately united.[22]
Coincidenta Oppositorum in the Lurianic
Kabbalah
The
concept of achdut
hashvaah
figures prominently in the Lurianic Kabbalah, which
became the dominant theosophical and theological force in later Jewish
mysticism. Chayyim Vital (1543-60), the chief
expositor of Isaac Luria (1534-72), records:
Know that before the emanation of the emanated and the
creation of all that was created, the simple Upper Light filled all of
reality…but everything was one simple light, equal in one hashvaah, which is called the
Light of the Infinite.[23]
While Vital’s account
suggests a unity of opposites in the godhead only prior to creation, a close examination of the Lurianic
Kabbalah reveals a series of symbols that are applicable to God, the world and
humanity, and which overcome the polar oppositions of ordinary (and traditional
metaphysical) thought. Indeed, each of the major Lurianic
symbols expresses a coincidence of opposites between ideas that in ordinary
thought and discourse are thought to contradict one another. For example, Luria held that the divine principle of the cosmos is both Ein-sof (without end) and Ayin (absolute
nothingness), that creation is both a hitpashut (emanation) and a Tzimtzum (contraction), that Ein-sof
is both the creator of the world and is itself created and completed through Tikkun ha-Olam,
the spiritual, ethical and “world
restoring” acts of humanity, and, finally, that the Sefirot are both the original elements of the cosmos and only
themselves realized when the cosmos is displaced and shattered (Shevirat ha-Kelim) and
reconstructed by humanity (Tikkun).
A closer
examination of two key elements in the Lurianic
system, Tzimtzum (concealment/contraction)
and Shevirat ha-kelim (the
Breaking of the Vessels) can provides further insights into the Lurianic conception of the coincidence of opposites.
In the
symbol of Tzimtzum (the withdrawal,
concealment and contraction of the infinite that gives rise to the world) there
is a coincidence of opposites between the positive acts of creation and
revelation and the negative acts of concealment, contraction and
withdrawal. For Luria,
God does not create the world through a forging or emanation of a new, finite,
substance, but rather through a contraction or concealment of the one infinite
substance, which prior to such contraction is both “Nothing” and “All.” Like a photographic
slide, which reveals the details of its subject by selectively filtering and
thus concealing aspects of the projector’s pure white light (which is both
“nothing” and “everything”), Ein-sof
reveals the detailed structure of the finite world through a selective
concealment of its own infinite luminescence. By concealing its absolute unity Ein-sof gives rise to a finite and
highly differentiated world. Thus in the symbol of Tzimtzum there is a coincidence of opposites between addition and
subtraction, creation and negation, concealment and revelation. In order to
comprehend the notion of Tzimtzum,
one must simultaneously think two thoughts, for example, one thought pertaining
to divine concealment and a second pertaining to (this concealment as) creation
and revelation.
For Luria, the further realization of Ein-sof is dependent upon a second coincidence of opposites;
between creation and destruction, symbolized in the Shevirat ha-Kelim, the “Breaking of the Vessels.”
Ein-sof is only fully actualized as
itself, when the ten value archetypes which constitute the Sefirot are shattered and
are subsequently restored by humankind (Tikkun
ha-Olam).
While Ein-sof is the source
and “creator”[24] of all,
Ein-sof paradoxically only becomes
itself, through a rupture which results in a broken and alienated world in need
of humanity’s “restoration” and repair (Tikkun).
For Luria, Ein-sof
is propelled along its path from
“nothing” (Ayin)
to “something” (Yesh),
through the creative and restorative acts of humankind; for it is only humanity
acting in a broken and displaced world, that can undertake the mitzvoth, the creative, intellectual,
spiritual and ethical acts that fully actualize the values and traits that
exist in potentia
within God. Indeed, the Sefirot,
which are both the “traits” (middot) of God and the elements of creation, only become
themselves after they are broken and then repaired by humankind. As the
contemporary Kabbalist and sage, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has put it, “We
live in a world that is the worst of all possible worlds in which there is yet
hope, and that, is the best of all possible worlds.” The reason for this is
that it is only in such a world on the brink, that the divine values (the Sefirot) can be fully actualized.
It is
because humankind actualizes the traits and values that are mere abstract
potentialities in Ein-sof that the Zohar proclaims ”He who ‘keeps’ the
precepts of the Law and ‘walks’ in God’s ways…‘makes’ Him who is above.”[25]
Thus, just as humanity is dependent for its existence upon Ein-sof, Ein-sof is
dependent for its actual being upon humanity. The symbols of Ein-sof, Shevirah (rupture) and Tikkun (Repair) thus express a
coincidence of opposites between the presumably opposing views that God is the
creator and foundation of humanity and humanity is the creator and foundation
of God.
Several
other Lurianic symbols overcome distinctions between
what are generally thought to be opposing terms and ideas. For example, in the symbol of the ten Sefirot, the Kabbalists
articulate a coincidentia between
unity (of the Absolute) and the multiplicity of both God and the world. In the
symbol of Adam Kadmon
(the Primordial Man, which becomes the divine agent of creation) we have
another example of a coincidentia between
God and man., and in the symbol of the Kellipot, the evil husks that envelop the fallen sparks of
divine light after the breaking of the Vessels, there is an explicit coincidentia between good and evil (for
its only the capture of divine light by the forces of evil that creates the
potential for actual good). Finally, in the symbol of Tikkun Ha-Olam (the
Restoration of the World), we again
see a coincidentia oppositorum between theism (God created
man) and atheism (man created God), for by restoring the world through acts of
wisdom, kindness, compassion, etc. humanity not only becomes a partner with God
in creation, but, as we have seen, is said to actually create God himself!
Each of
the Kabbalistic symbols can be understood as a higher order synthesis of an opposition,
antinomy or contradiction that inevitably arises when one thinks deeply about
God, humanity and the world, and each, as I have argued in Symbols of the Kabbalah,[26]
resolves a tension between apparently contradictory philosophical ideas.
Further, the whole Lurianic conception of Ein-sof is that of a dialectically
evolving deity who is understood as logically passing through and embodying a
variety of phases and aspects, each of which opposes, but also embodies, an
earlier phase in the overall scheme. As such, the Kabbalistic deity is both
nothing (Ayin)
and everything (Ein-sof), perfectly
simple and infinitely complex, hidden (Tzimtzum)
and revealed (Sefirot) , reality and
illusion, broken (Shevirat ha-Kelim) and
restored (Tikkun ha-Olam)
creator of humanity and created by humanity, etc. As Ein-Sof
evolves it is revealed to be both the totality of its own evolving dialectic,
as well as each of the points along the way.
For the Kabbalists, this means that Ein-Sof must be constantly redefined, as
by its very nature, it is in a continual process of self-creation which
involves a unification of opposing principles, values, and ideas.
As Stace has pointed out,
mysticisms of many, if not all, cultures develop a paradox in which the
“absolute,” “universal self,” or “truth”
of the world is understood as both vacuum and plenum, as both absolutely
nothing, and the totality of all things.[27]
In addition, several other paradoxes are characteristic of mystical thought;
for example, the validity of both a ‘truth’ and its negation, the reality and
unreality of space and time, and the substantiality and illusory character of
the self. Such paradoxes are present in the mysticisms of Hinduism, Buddhism,
Christianity and Islam as well as in the Kabbalah, where, for example, the
infinite godhead is regarded simultaneously as both nothingness (Ayin) and the infinite (Ein-sof).[28]
However, the mystical paradoxes, which are a pervasive if not dominant theme in
the Kabbalah, achieves their supreme expression in the philosophy of the Chabad
Hasidim, where they become the governing principle for both God and the
world.
For Chabad, all things, both
infinite and finite, involve a unity or coincidence of opposites. These
Chasidim held that the very purpose of creation was the revelation of these
opposites, precisely in order that they should be articulated and then
overcome. One of the early Chabad
thinkers, R. Aaron Ha-Levi Horowitz of Staroselye
(1766-1828), a pupil of the first Chabad- Lubavitcher rabbi, Schneur Zalman
(1745-1813) held that “the revelation of anything is actually through its
opposite,”[29] and
that “all created things in the world are hidden within His essence, be He
blessed, in one potential, in coincidentia
oppositorum...”[30]
Schneur Zalman ‘s son, Rabbi Dov Baer, wrote “within
everything is its opposite and also it is truly revealed as its opposite.”[31] According to Dov
Baer, the unity of worldly opposites brings about the completeness (shelemut) of God
on high: “For the principal point of divine completeness is that…in every thing
is its opposite, and…that all its power truly comes from the opposing power.”[32]
Within the godhead, earthly opposites are united in a single subject. According to R. Aaron Ha-Levi: “He is the
perfection of all, for the essence of perfection is that even those opposites
which are opposed to one another be made one.”[33]
Chabad philosophy which
developed contemporaneously with German idealism, bears a striking resemblance
to the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling
and Hegel. It is interesting to compare Dov Baer’s or
Rabbi Aaron’s pronouncements to Hegel’s claim that:
every actual thing involves a coexistence of opposed
elements. Consequently to know, or, in
other words, to comprehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as
a concrete unity of opposed determinations.[34]
The coincidence of opposites
that characterizes God, humanity and the world can be approximately understood
by the simultaneous adoption of two points of view. As put by the founder of
the Chabad movement, Schneur Zalman of Lyadi
(1745-1813):
(Looking) upwards from
below, as it appears to eyes of flesh, the tangible world seems to be Yesh and a thing,
while spirituality, which is above, is an aspect of Ayin (nothingness). (But looking) downwards from above the world
is an aspect of Ayin,
and everything which is linked downwards and descends lower and lower is more
and more Ayin
and is considered as naught, truly as nothing and null.[35]
Indeed, Chabad understands the
world in each of these two ways simultaneously: as both an illusory
manifestation of a concealed divine essence and as the one true actualized
existence. For Chabad, it is
simultaneously true that God is the one reality that creates an illusory world,
and that the world, in particular humankind, is the one reality that gives
actuality to an otherwise empty, if not illusory, God.[36] This dual understanding reflects the
activities of the Tzimtzum, through
which God creates a world by concealing an aspect of Himself, and the Shevirah and Tikkun, in which humankind actualizes
the values that were only potentialities within the Godhead.
While the Chabad Hasidim
generally speak as if the divine perspective upon the world is its “inner truth,”
it becomes clear that on their view this truth is itself completely dependent
upon its opposite, the perspective from which humanity and the material world
are fundamentally existent and real. In
this they were in accord with the early Chasidic leader, the Maggid of Mezrich (1704-1772),
who held that while God is the foundation of all ideas, the very significance
of divine thought is contingent upon its making its appearance in the mind of
man. For the Maggid, God is the source of thought but actual thinking can only occur within
the framework of the human mind.[37]
Chabad takes seriously, and
attempts to spell out the full implications of the Zohar’s
dictim: “Just as the Supernal Wisdom is a starting
point of the whole, so is the lower world also a manifestation of Wisdom, and a
starting point of the whole.”[38]
For Chabad, the highest wisdom, and the fullest conception of the divine is one
in which both perspectives (one beginning with God and the other with humanity)
are included. For Chabad, Ein-sof is
truly a coincidence and unity of opposites, and the fullest understanding and
realization of the divine is one that includes each pole of the Zohar’s “dialectical inversion.” It is only by thinking in both directions
simultaneously that one can grasp the original mystical insight that the
divine is present in all things. One implication of the Chabad view is that a
God who simply creates man (direction one) is far less complete than a God who
is both creator of, and created by,
humankind (directions one and two), and it is only the latter bi-directional
thinking that captures what the Kabbalists designate
as “infinite” (Ein-sof).
According to Elior:
Hasidic thought is strained to the ultimate stage in a
dialectical way; just as there is no separate reality and no discriminative
essence in the world without God, so also God has no revealed and discriminate
existence without the world, that is, just as one cannot speak of the existence
of the world without God, so too one cannot speak of the existence of God
without the world.[39]
For Chabad, all things, both infinite and finite,
involve a unity or coincidence of opposites. According to these Chasidim, the
very purpose of creation is the revelation of these opposites, precisely in
order that they should be articulated and then overcome. However within the godhead, earthly opposites
are united in a single subject. As we
have seen, according to R. Aaron: “He is the perfection of all, for the essence
of perfection is that even those opposites which are opposed to one another be
made one.”[40]
Dialectical
Process in Chabad Thought
For Chabad, “divinity is
conceived as a dialectical process comprising an entity and its opposite
simultaneously,”[41] as Ein-sof embodies the opposites of being”
(yesh) and
“nothingness” (ayin),
emanation (shefa ve-atsilut)
and contraction (Tzimtzum), ascent (ratso) and
descent (vashov),
revelation and concealment, annihilation and embodiment, unity and plurality,
structure and chaos, spirit and matter. [42]
In addition, these Hasidim held that Ein-sof
unifies divine and human perspectives on the world, and that the coincidence of
opposites applies not only to God but to the world and humankind. Finally, each pole of these various
oppositions is thought to be both necessary and determinative for its opposite.
As Elior puts it: “The principle emerging from these
concepts states that divinity possesses two opposing aspects that condition one
another.”[43]
For Schneur Zalman, the truth of
the opposite perspectives is necessary in order for both God and the world to
actualize their unified essence. Schneur Zalman holds that the very meaning of
the cosmos involves a dialectical movement from non-being to being and back to
nothingness. He writes: “the purpose of the creation of the worlds from nothingness
to being was so that there should be a Yesh (Creation), and that the Yesh should be Ayin (Nothing)[44]
For Chabad, in order for Ein-sof to fulfill its essence as the infinite
God, it must differentiate itself and actualize all possibilities in existence (Yesh)
only to have them each return to itself in nothingness (Ayin). According to Rabbi Aaron
Ha Levi it is the basic divine purpose that the world should be differentiated
and revealed in each of its finite particulars and yet united in a single infinite
source.[45] Rabbi Aaron states:
...the essence of His intention is that his coincidentia be manifested in concrete
reality, that is, that all realities and their levels be revealed in actuality,
each detail in itself, and that they nevertheless be unified and joined in
their value, that is, that they be revealed as separated essences, and that
they nevertheless be unified and joined in their value.[46]
We can interpret the process that Schneur Zalman and
Rabbi Aaron describe in the following way. Ein-sof, which is
initially actually nothing but potentially all things, differentiates
and actualizes itself into each of the innumerable manifestations of a finite
world. It does so precisely in order that these finite entities can actualize
the sefirotic values (e.g. wisdom, understanding, kindness, beauty,
compassion, etc.) which are only divine abstractions prior to the world’s
creation. By instantiating these intellectual, spiritual, ethical and aesthetic
values, the entities of the finite world (i.e. human beings) negate their
individual desire and will, and “return” to Ein-sof
(Ayin or
“nothing”). From another perspective, humanity actually constitutes the source of all value, Ein-sof, and in this
way achieves unity with the divine. For
this reason, a world that is alienated from and then reunited with God is
superior to one that had never been alienated or divided at all.
There is thus a practical,
spiritual and ethical dimension to the “coincidence of opposites” that finds
its expression in the Chabad system of belief. Schneur Zalman implores his
followers both to nullify (bittul) the self and matter in favor of the Godhead and to bring about the infusion of the
divine will into the material world through religious worship and the
performance of divine mitzvoth (commandments). According to Schneur
Zalman:
there are two aspects in the service of the Lord. One seeks to leave its sheath of bodily
material. The second is the… aspect of
the drawing down of the divinity from above precisely in the various vessels in
Torah and the commandments.[47]
Further, “Just as one annihilates oneself from Yesh (Existence) to Ayin (Nothingness), so too it is
drawn down from above from Ayin to Yesh, so that the light of the infinite may emanate
truly below as it does above.”[48]
Again, there is a coincidence of opposites on the level of spiritual and moral
action. One must annihilate one’s finite separate existence in favor of the
infinite God, and in the process one is paradoxically able to draw down the
divine essence into the vessels of the finite world. For Chabad, there is thus
an “upper unification” (Yichud ha-elyon) in
which the world and self are annihilated in favor of their re-inclusion within
the godhead, and a “lower unification” (Yichud ha-tachton) in which there is an influx of divinity into
the world. What’s more, each of these
“unifications” is fully dependent upon the other. It is thus through a doctrine of the
coincidence of opposites that Chabad is able to combine the opposing principles
of mystical quietism and an active concern with the material world.[49]
Incidentally, I believe that
through their doctrine of achdut hashvaah, the
coincidence of the dual aspects of infinite and finite existence, the Chabad
Hasidim are able to avoid the pantheistic implications that might otherwise
attach to the view that there is nothing outside of God. Although Schneur
Zalman and others in the Chabad tradition make such acosmic
declarations as: “Everything is as absolutely nothing and nought in relation to His (God’s) being and essence,”[50]“For
in truth there is no place devoid of Him…and there is nothing truly beside Him,[51]
and ”although the worlds seem like an entity to us, that is an utter lie,”[52]
such pronouncements are only from one of two equally valid points of view, the supernal
one. In Chabad the traditional Jewish
distinction between God and creation, is not discarded but is dynamically
transformed into two “starting points” or “points of view,” which though
dialectically interdependent, must at the same time remain distinct in order to
fulfill the purpose of both God and the universe. Chabad is actually typically Jewish in its
view that God’s presence and glory fills the whole earth, but that humanity
must be distinguished from God and granted a measure of freedom, in order that
it may return to Him through worship and mitzvoth. Metaphysically speaking, Chabad again bids us
to think two opposite thoughts simultaneously; the thoughts (1) that God is all
and there is nothing beside Him, and (2) that God and humanity are separate and
distinct and humanity is implored to return to, and in effect constitute
God, through divine worship and the performance of the mitzvoth.
It
is, I believe, the double movement of Chabad thought, its insistence on a
coincidence between two opposing perspectives on the reality of God and
humanity that differentiates it from most other forms of mysticism, and
underscores its significance for philosophy and theology. While according to Elior,
“The great intellectual effort invested in Chabad writings is meant to bring
one as close as possible to the divine point of view, according to which every
creature is considered as nothing and nought with
respect to the active power within it, ”[53]
a close reading of Chabad formulations as they are found even Elior’s
own writings suggests a much more subtle theology. The goal of Chabad thought, it seems to me,
is to bring us as close as possible to simultaneously realizing both the worldly and divine
points of view, thinking them simultaneously, and recognizing their complete
interdependence; thereby providing us with an intimation of the fullness of
divinity as it is manifest in the world and humankind.
As we proceed we will come
to understand that the paradoxes of Jewish mysticism, e.g. that God creates humanity
and humanity creates the divine, that the world is both an illusion and
reality, that Ein-sof is and is not identical with the world,
that creation is at the same time a negation, that values must be destroyed in
order to be actualized, etc. are the best means of expressing within language,
truths about a whole that is sundered by the very operation of language itself.
While each of these paradoxes will not necessarily require the same type of
analysis, in general we will see that within the necessary but false (or
partial) consciousness of language and concepts, mystical truths can only be
expressed as a series of contradictions, which, because of the complete
interdependence of their opposing terms, dissipate once things are viewed from
a “rational mystical” point of view.[54]
It will be my task in the
following pages to come as close to articulating the mystical point of view as
is possible, given the fact that language itself is predicated upon distinctions
(e.g. between subject and object, and, more fundamentally, between words and their objects) that prevent the mystical
point of view from being completely expressed. But I am here getting ahead of
myself; much groundwork in modern and, especially, postmodern, philosophy, must
be laid before we can fully enter this field.
In Eastern
Thought
Paradox
and contradiction are more readily accepted
in Eastern philosophical traditions than in west. As Graham Priest has
pointed out the logicians of ancient India standardly
held that propositions could be (1) true only, (2) false only, (3) both true
and false, or (4) both true and false (to which the Buddhist added “none of
these”).[55] The Jains went so far as to hold that a proposition could be
both true only and both true and false.[56] Contradictory propositions abound in Taoism,
and it is clear that in the Japanese school of Buddhism, Chan or Zen, which
fused the teachings of the Buddha and the Tao, contradictions (in the forms of Koans) play a significant role in propelling the adherent
towards enlightenment.[57]
Amongst
Buddhist thinkers, Nagarjuna (c. 150-220 CE), who
founded the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of
Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, is well-known for advocating such apparently
contradictory ideas as “space is not an entity [and] it is not a non-entity”
and “the assertion that effect and cause
are similar is not acceptable (and) the assertion that they are not similar is
also not acceptable.” Nagarjuna held that nirvana is
equivalent to samsara (i.e. the “depths” of things
are equivalent to their “surface”) and (in Mark Siderits’
paraphrase) “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”.[58]
While it is arguable that at least some of these contradictions are only
apparent (i.e. they can be “corrected” by placing them in their polemical
contexts or showing that a single term is used in more than one sense), there
is little doubt that Nagarjuna (and Buddhism) in
general holds that certain “deep truths” can only be expressed using
paradoxical language and that Nagarjuna held their to
be a coincidence (or identity) between at least some opposing terms and ideas.
Gnosticism
The
coincidence of opposites is an important doctrine in the Gnostic religion,
which flourished in both Christian and Jewish circles during late Hellenistic
times. The Gnostics, for example, held that to know one’s arche (beginning) is to know
one’s telos
or end,[59]
that one can become the knowledge that is known (via a reunion with one’s
divine self), that both God and reality are androgynous (both “Mother” and “Father”). The Gnostics
further held there to be a radical coincidentia oppositorum between God and
man, affirming, for example:
God created men, and men created God. So is it also
in the world, since men created gods and worship them as their creations it
would be fitting that gods should worship men.[60]
The Gnostics typically held that the coincidence of opposites occurs between a perfect divine and a
corrupt worldly reality, and, in contrast to the Kabbalists
who saw it as an expression of divine perfection, the Gnostics held that coincidentia oppositorum provides
insight into the corruption of the perfect One. Nevertheless, in the Gnostic (Nag
Hammadi) text, Thunder,
The Perfect Mind, we find an expression of the nature of Sophia (Wisdom)
and the human soul in purely dialectical terms:[61]
“I am the first and the last…the honored and the scorned…the whore and the holy
one...the bride and the bridegroom… the mother of my father…the sister of my
husband and he is my offspring...knowledge and ignorance…the one whom they call
Life, and you have called Death…a mute who does not speak, and great is my
multitude of words.[62]
Plotinus
The Neoplatonists elaborated a philosophical perspective that
provided the basis for much subsequent mystical speculation, both Christian and
Jewish. The idea that God and the world exist in coincidentia oppositorum
finds a prominent place in Plotinus’ Enneads,
where we learn that the “All” is necessarily “made up of contraries,”[63]
that “to deny Evil…is necessarily to do away with the Good as well.”[64] Plotinus further
held that “in the Intellectual-Principle Itself there is a complete identity of
knower and known.”[65]
For Plotinus, “the Supreme must be an entity in which
the two (knower and known) are one.”[66] Indeed, according to Scholem,
the notion of God as a coincidentia
oppositorum may have entered the Kabbalah via the Christian Neoplatonist, Scotus Erigena, who possibly served as a model for such Kabbalists as Azriel of Gerona.[67]
Nicholas of Cusa
The idea
of God as a coincidence of opposites is expressed in the philosophy of the
Christian theologian, Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), and
Cusanus, as he is called, will serve to provide us
with a carefully developed example of the a non-Jewish, pre-Kantian
understanding of opposition and paradox in western thought.
Cusanus argued that rational investigation can only
approximate knowledge of the infinite God, which can never be understood in
terms of the “relations and comparisons” of the philosopher. However, according
to Cusanus, there is a similar, if less radical,
limitation of knowledge with regard to all other things; for while “truth” is
an absolute, knowledge is always an approximation by degree. Cusanus uses the image of a polygon with an increasing
number of sides that is inscribed in a circle to illustrate how knowledge only
approximates its object. Cusanus held that each
perspective we take upon truth is only partial and relative. However, not even the sum of all perspectives
yields truth in an absolute sense.
More to
the point of our current concerns, Nicholas of Cusa
argued that the principle of non-contradiction invoked by philosophers
was simply evidence of the weakness in the human intellect. He criticized the idea that contradictory
assertions cannot both simultaneously be true with regard to a given object;
for Cusanus contradictory assertions can both be true
regarding both the world and, in particular, God. Cusanus
held that there is a faculty superior to reason, what he termed the faculty of
“knowing” or “intellect,” which can transcend the principle of
non-contradiction to comprehend the unity or interdependence of opposites
operating in the world and in God.
According
to Cusanus, it is in God that all oppositions are
reconciled. For example, it is possible
to say of the deity that He is both the absolute maximum and the
absolute minimum. Cusanus uses mathematical examples
to demonstrate how opposites can coincide; for example, he asks his readers to
imagine a circle of infinite circumference whose curvature becomes equal to
that of an infinitely straight line, yielding a coincidence of opposites
between line and circle, straight and curved.
For
Nicholas of Cusa, God both transcends the
world and is imminent within it; like a face reflected in a mirror. Echoing a Neoplatonic theme,[68] Cusanus held that each creature, indeed all things, are
mirrored and hence, paradoxically present, in every other, creating a coincidentia
between unity and difference.
Interestingly,
Cusanus seems to have anticipated the Kabbalistic
doctrine of Tzimtzum, in his view that all specific forms and all
individual things are contractions of the most universal form, the Soul of the
World. According to Cusanus,
the universe itself is a contraction of the infinite God. In light of his
affinities to the Kabbalah, it is also worth noting that in his work, On the Peace of Faith, Cusanus made use of the principle of coincidentia oppositorum
in an effort to reconcile differences amongst the world’s religions; such
reconciliation, he believed, would lead to a universal faith and peace.
Like
nearly all mystics and philosophers who have considered the question (as we
will see, Hegel is the notable exception) Nicholas of Cusa
held that the principle of coincidentia oppositorum ultimately
transcends rational comprehension. In God, both essence and existence, maximum
and minimum, and all other opposites fully coincide, but we cannot attain a
rational understanding of the synthesis of these oppositions
The Coincidence of Opposites in Modern Philosophy,
Psychology and Science
We will now turn our attention to the tradition in
European philosophy, beginning with Kant, which concerned itself with the
variety of oppositions, antinomies or apparent contradictions that the mind
runs up against whenever it deeply ponders the ultimate nature of the
world. While it will not here be
possible to survey this tradition in great detail, it would be hardly be
possible to offer a rational interpretation of the coincidence of opposites
without at least considering it. In the
following pages I provide a brief survey of this broad tradition, focusing on
several of its representatives, Kant, Schelling,
Hegel and Jacques Derrida, each of whom, in their own way were concerned with
overcoming the polar oppositions of traditional metaphysical thought. In
addition, I will provide a description of the views two recent philosophers,
Morris Lazerowitz and Graham Priest, who reflected
upon the role of contradiction in philosophy and logic respectively. Finally, I
will briefly discuss the views of the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, and the
Danish physicist, Neils Bohr, who in the twentieth
century imported the notion of the coincidence of opposites into scientific
discourse.
Kant’s Dual-World Solution
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) regarded certain
contradictions or antinomies generated by common reason to be both the major
problems of philosophy and the major impetus to his “transcendental
philosophy.” Kant argued, for example,
that since human reason inevitably regards itself to be both determined
by nature and infinitely free, any philosophy that failed to do justice to
each of these, apparently contradictory claims would at best be hopelessly
incomplete. Kant held that the postulate of universal causality (determinism)
was absolutely necessary for science, while the postulate of human freedom was
equally necessary in the realms of morality and the law. Kant’s solution to
this paradox was to, in effect, assert that both poles of the antinomy are
true, but he endeavored to avoid running afoul of the logical principle of
non-contradiction, by postulating that each is true of separate realm.
Kant thus felt compelled to postulate his now famous distinction between the phenomenal
and noumenal realms, the former considered by
him to be the arena of knowledge and empirical investigation, while the latter
was considered an inherently unknowable but necessary postulate for practical
action, moral and legal judgments.
Kant’s solution to the antinomies inherent in
philosophy and common sense was to posit two-worlds, each of which was, in
effect, completely independent of the other, and only one of which could be the
proper object of scientific and philosophical knowledge. In his later work, Kant suggested that the
unknowable noumenal realm, was indeed the realm of
religious faith and God, and he thus came close to adopting the mystical point
of view that there is a realm, unknowable to science and reason, which is
nonetheless accessible to a certain ethical or religious intuition.
Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason had held that the impenetrable barrier to knowledge of the n