In his most deeply personal work, religious scholar and philosopher Needleman cuts a clear path through today's clamorous debates over the existence of God, illuminating an entirely new way of approaching the question of how to understand a higher power.
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In his most deeply personal work, religious scholar and philosopher Needleman cuts a clear path through today's clamorous debates over the existence of God, illuminating an entirely new way of approaching the question of how to understand a higher power.
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People frequently are led to the books they need. I recently read a book by United States Congressman Tim Ryan A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit about the practice of mindfulness meditation. Ryan's book reminded me of a book about the nature, spiritual character, and potential of American democracy, with all its flaws, that I had read some time ago by the philosopher Jacob Needleman.The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders I wanted to read Needleman again and found this book, "What is God?" (2009). The book gave me a broader understanding of Needleman, a Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and a prolific writer. More importantly, the book helped me understand philosophy and the religious search.
Needleman's book is largely a memoir about his development as a philosopher and about the formulation of his own religious convictions. In the process of telling his own story, Needleman has a great deal to say about questions philosophers in common with other people ask about religion. The book does not purport to be a philosophical study of religion as such, but rather is intimate in tone and personal.
I became absorbed in the book because I could identify with much of Needleman's life. Like Needleman, I was a non-practicing Jew fascinated with religious questions and doubts who majored in philosophy in college. Although Needleman wants his readers to focus on the heart, this work is steeped in books and in philosophy. Here as well, I remember sharing the author's passion for Kant, Hume, Plato, Nietzsche, Eckhart, Jewish mysticism, Buddhism, and William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience". Conversely, a good deal of what influenced Needleman, particularly the teachings of Gurdjieff and his circle, is unknown to me. And Needleman makes no mention of a thinker important to me and to contemporary thought, religious and secular: the excommunicated Jewish philosopher Benedict de Spinoza. Spinoza and Enlightenment influence my own religious thinking in a way that seems to be less important for Needleman. Kant appears to play a somewhat similar role for him.
The book focuses on Needleman's lifelong quest for understanding "what is God?" The story is told chronologically in part but skips and moves around to show steps in how the philosopher came to his religious position. A large part of the story is that what comes out at the end or in the process of growth is implicit in the beginning. Needleman states at the outset: "To think about God is to the human soul what breathing is to the human body." Needleman discusses his early years with early experiences of the vastness of the sky and the death of a loved one seemingly contrasted with the religious formalism of his parents. Needleman seems to have been drawn into philosophy as a career by his reading of Kant as a Harvard sophomore. A meeting as a young graduate student with Zen master D.T. Suzuki troubled Needleman in its studied ambiguity but led him to put a purely empirical, scientific philosophy behind him. As a young academic, Needleman received the opportunity to teach a course in Western religious thought which led the way to his personal and professional approaches to religion. He did not return to Judaism but learned immeasurably from Jewish writers and Jewish mystics. Needleman also learned a great deal about Christianity and Christian theology.
The book has a tone of speaking closely to the reader. The book's language is rich, with long, descriptive, passionate sentences that one does not always associate with philosophy. The subject is indeed, as Needleman says, the "discipline of the heart". I learned from the passages of self-revelation as well as from Needleman's philosophical discussions of many of the books he has read. Although Gurdjieff receives the largest amount of attention, the book that interested me most was "The Crisis of the Modern World" by Rene Guenon. According to Needleman, Guenon offers a "merciless critique of modernity", a "critique based on Guenon's vision of an ancient primorial tradition from which all civilizations and great religions, including Christianity, had arisen." I need to read Guenon's book.
I also was moved by Needleman's portrayal of his philosophy classrooms and his interactions with two students, the first an elderly woman who professed herself an atheist and the second a young man who professed Christian fundamentalism. Needleman seemed particularly drawn to this latter intelligent, dogmatic individual, with his similarities and differences from Needleman himself.
Among other things, Needleman made me think again of my own possible alternative life and career path if I had pursued my work in philosophy.
The book moves towards Needleman's growing interest in Gurdjieff. His teachings encouraged Needleman to experience God and self in an apparently paradoxical manner. The final part of Needleman's book is devoted to a brief exposition of Gurdjieff's thought together with its practice of Attention. From my initial reading, Gurdjieff's practice of Attention appeared similar to Buddhist mindfulness. Needleman sees a substantial difference, and I am not in a position to disagree. The point of the book, however, is not to make the reader a follower of Gurdjieff. Rather, the presentation is open-ended and is intended to bring the reader to focus on what is valuable and important in the religious search. Needleman engages in what he describes as a method of "indirect communication" he attributes to Kierkegaard. This is a form of writing which was "intentionally designed to point me toward finding the answer not only for myself, but in myself and not on the printed page or in the abstract words of an author."
I learned a great deal from revisiting the philosophical life and the search for religion with Jacob Needleman.
Robin Friedman
Tyrone M
Oct 6, 2012
What is God
Great insightful book that gives readers new insight about God without being preachy, legalistic or maudlinly sentimental
