In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.Right at the outset, we have a major point of disagreement. In the Christian worldview, their are definitive beginnings and endings. From the Taoist perspective, life is about cycles. Beginnings and endings are human inventions; certainly not divine ones.
~ King James version ~
Tao is.
~ possible Taoist alternative ~
The other major distinction is that in the Judeo-Christian world, "God" is a specific entity. A he (though rarely a she) or an it. Tao, on the other hand, is not confined by such parameters. The Way or the Grand Mystery cannot be delimited. Tao has no personality. Tao can't "talk" to us and Tao doesn't intercede on our behalf. Tao is impartial.
Even further, it wouldn't make grammatical sense to say that Tao created anything because it would be tantamount to writing, "Creation created creation." That makes about as much sense as me stating that blue is blue because it is blue.
If you're interesting reading more from this experimental series, go to the Tao Bible Index page.
I like when you are concise - those 3 paragraphs were as much fun as 3 from Alan Watts :)
ReplyDeleteSome mileage in this new series concept i think.
What would taoism say about the Big Bang? According to you, Big Bang would not be a definitive beginning, but an invented beginning? So, taoism would agree more with a cyclical universe, isn't it? Wonder how much influence from other eastern conceptions and how much pure taoism is there.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I'd be careful to identify Tao with creation. You'd be the crudest pantheist there (so you'd need to answer the classic question, why do you need another name for something which already has one?).
It's clear taoism considers Tao without origin. But for creation taoist texts write "ten thousand beings", and I'd like to remind about verse 42 from Tao Te Ching, which I think is the best parallel with genesis-1...
The Eternal Tao should be The Ethernal Tao
ReplyDeleteOut of ether or like in nothingness
No thing yet everything
Anyway its nice to combine all ancient texts from all around the world, finally we are all connected with our social media to build up a new babylon tower
XD