V. Differing views of YHWH
Even though YHWH is less than infinity, He is still, if not totally beyond, just beyond, our comprehension. This leads to differing views of even YHWH, and the inevitable disagreements about who is right and who is wrong. Each person is entitled to their own religious view: Christian religious experience justifies Christian beliefs, Jewish religious experience justifies Jewish beliefs, Islamic religious experience justifies Muslim beliefs, Hindu religious experience justifies Hindu beliefs and so on. This raises a paradox of different, and at many points, incompatible, systems of belief all claiming to be justified in the same way (through religious experience). Could they all be false? Each person believes their experience is true. How can the ultimate divine Reality be both a personal Adonai, and the Holy Trinity, and Allah, and Visnu, and also the non-personal Brahman and Tao, and Dharmakaya? How can it be that so many different people are right in believing that their God is the only God? This even applies to the divided form of God (YHWH and Ein Sof) discussed above because humans have different views of the immenent god.
An answer regarding the disagreement of even the nature of YHWH is similar to our views of dark energy. Science has observed that our universe has been expanding at an accelerating rate[1], rather than at a decelerating rate as would be expected under the influence of gravity. This observation has been explained by the existence of an entity that science has termed “dark energy” since dark energy has never been detected[2]. It has been over a decade since dark energy has been envisioned, yet to date there has been no credible evidence proposed or found for its existence other than the accelerating expansion of our universe. In their joint article, Timothy Clifton and Pedro G. Ferreira “Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?” (Scientific American Magazine in April 2009), speculate that the observation that the universe (our universe) is expanding at an accelerating rate is based on the existence of various regions of space which contain differing densities of matter, and that an entity such as dark energy is not required to explain this phenomenon. If the galaxies which include our galaxy are located in a region of space which contains more matter than other regions of space, then the galaxies in our region of space may actually accelerate apart; whereas other galaxies which inhabit regions of space that contain less matter will accelerate apart at descending rates as the gravity associated with the galaxies will tend to slow the separation. If our galaxy is located in a region of space that is void of matter with respect to other regions, the expansion that we detect will be fastest at the center of the void and will diminish toward the edge of the void where the higher density begins to make itself felt. At any given time, different parts of space will expand at different rates[3]. Furthermore, space is not entirely uniform. While it is amazingly uniform in our universe, there are still certain regions that could be defined as “lumpy”[4] and hence different from the adjacent areas.
Because humans have such a limited view of events and do not see the overall picture, which the Clifton-Ferreira argument hypothesizes, we have a tendency to define events which we cannot see according to the events that we do experience. Everyone’s imagination is based on their personal memories and understandings. An individual will witness an event and will process that event according to his own experience and background – this is skewed. This skewing will be especially marked if there is no effective means of communicating the event to others who may have a larger view and could correct any errors in conclusions that may be reached by an individual who is right in the heart of the event and is looking at it from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Such understanding may, and probably will, differ from that of a witness who is able to see everything[5]. This theory seems to agree with Einstein’s cosmological principle in that if the universe is examined on the largest of scales, it will appear to be uniform; however, on a microscopic scale, there will be much inhomogeneity, with some particles here, some empty space adjacent to those particles, then other particles surrounded by further empty space and so forth.
Now, applying this skewing tendency of human beings to the concept of God, it might be understood why, even though there is only one God, which has been termed YHWH, associated with our universe, one group of people would view this God one way while another group would view Him a different way[6].
Perhaps this is a possible explanation for the commandments prohibiting the building of idols and the first, and hence most important, commandment prohibiting having any other god other than YHWH. These prohibitions will tend to keep people focused on one god. Idols are one step toward adding gods and, of course, having another god before YHWH, by definition, blurs this focus. If people all focus on one single god, different religions are not likely to occur. As time goes on, there will be no need for someone to believe differently from another and the faiths of the people will all be similar and doubts will be directed to similar issues. There will be no reason to believe that another person is wrong or is anti-God, as all will be focused on a single god.
However, this was not to be. Since
we cannot fully understand this single god, or even have any approach to Him,
no one will ever be able to confidently show someone else where they are wrong.
It can only be via faith and imagination that a vague and dim view of even YHWH
can be approached. Whenever imagination and faith are involved, there will always
be different views. Thus, we will always have different views of God, different
views of events, different definitions of what constitutes a “miracle” hence,
different religions even if it assumed that there is but one single god.
[1] But as discussed elsewhere, the difference in expansion rates is a natural result of distance from a reference point. That is, if the test system is expanding at one inch per second, the areas nearest the reference point will expand at one inch per second, but locations ten inches from the reference point will expand a ten times that rate.
[2] However, some scientists have begun to doubt the entire theory of an expanding universe altogether. There are many holes in the theory and testing the inflationary theory of the universe is one of the most active and successful areas of scientific investigation. If dark energy is ever conclusively detected, it could require development of new theories of physics. Currently, several detected phenomena can be said to indicate the existence of dark energy: (1) supernova explosions have a spectral redshift that reveals that galaxies billions of years ago were moving slower than a simple extrapolation from the current rate of expansion would imply thereby implying that the expansion rate must have increased over time which is the hallmark of dark energy; (2) images of cosmic microwave background radiation contain spots whose apparent size exceeds the amount of matter, so a missing component must make up the difference, and it is dark energy that has been identified as this missing component; and (3) galaxy are not located in a configuration which would be expected and this inconsistency has been explained using a theory of dark energy.
[3] See above and also, A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence M Krauss (Atria Paperback (New York, 2012), page128 discussing Andrei Linde’s theory of “chaotic inflation” in which the universe may appear to be expanding or deflating depending on the observer’s location in space.
[4] See Alan Guth’s concept of accelerating exapansion and inflation with regard to space.
[5] This view seems to be confirmed by Wayne Dosick in his book The Real Name of God, published by Inner Traditions of Rochester, NY in 2012, where Dosick likens the differing views of God to differing views of a beach ball depending on what portion of the ball one is observing.
[6] It should be noted that the concept of two Gods, Ein Sof and YHWH, with YHWH being subservient and a representative of Ein Sof, allows for the extension of this “chain of command” to get even closer to humans. That is, YHWH, Himself, can have a representative who is even closer to humans. Thus, YHWH can have a representative directly on each planet or element of the universe over which YHWH is in control. Thus, YHWH can have a representative directly on earth who is a connection between humans and YHWH. This representative could be Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Budda, or the like. There is room for all in this concept. People just have to realize that these are representatives of YHWH who, Himself, is a representative of Ein Sof, and understand that none is more “powerful” or “right” than another and that all are part of one universe which is part of one universe of universes, and thus we are all part of one system. We are all in this together.