the same reasons. There is no universal human language.
Beggar: Why is this?
Prosecution: Again for the complexity of what we wish to say. No sooner is a word created, then vacant holes are seen on each side of it of what it doesn't describe. So new words are made; old ones forgotten.
Beggar: But surely the world is not so changing, so complicated as this. How many words are needed to survive?
Prosecution: Ah, but there is more in a man's world than food and drink. There is law and theology and philosophy and government. Such things devour words and language for their very service and multiply. These are not places for mere barks and grunts. Here are needed words exact and delicate for the fit of lofty thoughts and ideas.
Beggar: Not to be tedious, but again, could we not say the language of man stems or lies within his abstract thinking.
Prosecution: Yes, again, I suppose we could. It, in fact, stems from the need to express his abstract thinking to others.
Beggar: Does he not need the language to communicate with himself within his own abstract thinking?
Prosecution: I would prefer to argue that he uses pictures, images in his mind to construct his thinking. These must be then converted to language to be explained to others outside his mind.
Beggar: But do not men go through a continuous flow of conversion and re-conversion between language and image in their abstract thinking?
Prosecution: I'm not sure what you mean?
Beggar: Say a man was to think of Eternity, he draws up in him mind pictures, images of who and what might be there. He then draws upon the words of others to see how well they match his images. If they don't he may construct new words or phrases or he may construct new images to fit the language taken in. The critical stage he is in now is that he uses both image and language in his abstract mind to communicate within himself about Eternity. If he formulates a concept, he can attempt to communicate this to other men by language or by the construction of images through language or through art. Would not abstract thinking then be both the fountain and the receiving vessel of language and image?
Prosecution: Yes, I must agree there is a process of building within the abstract mind which is as you say.
Beggar: How would you define creation?
Prosecution: In its purest form it is to bring forth something out of nothing.
Beggar: Spontaneously?
Prosecution: What do you mean?
Beggar: That is to say something spontaneously of no accord from any influence or desire simply emerges from nothing. Is that what you mean?
Prosecution: No, not exactly, though I would not discount that happening. No I was thinking of it as an act of conscience of some being which results in creation.
Beggar: If a man took the door off a house, would he have created a new house?
Prosecution: No, he would have simply taken away from the old one.
Beggar: If a man added a room to the old house, would he have created a new house?
Prosecution: No, he would have simply added to the new one.
Beggar: If a man tore out all the insides and built new ones, is this creation?
Prosecution: No, it is merely alteration.
Beggar: What if the man completely disassembled the old house; every board; every nail. Then with all that, he constructed a different house is that creation?
Prosecution: Since in reality he took something and changed it to something else, he did not create but rather reformed. It is in fact an act of transformation.
Beggar: If the man stood in the old house and imagined a house in detail and construct completely different from the other house, surely this would be creation?
Prosecution: No, I am afraid not, the clue lies in the old house. The man took the language, the images of the old house and reformed them to a different house. Again this is transformation albeit of an abstract, mental type. He did not 'create' from thin air but used old thoughts.
Beggar: It would appear, sir, that we have reached the pinnacle of our arguments and find man lies short of creation. I wonder have we erred?
Prosecution: Please explain.
Beggar: Let us being again at the door; since it is always the closing and opening of doors that leads men astray. We said the man merely took away from the old house when he removed the door. But I wonder did he not create something? A phenomena we did not see as we focussed on the house. Did he not create a hole, an opening, a void, a nothingness at the doorway?
Prosecution: But that would be to call creation changing something to nothing.
Beggar: Has not the man ceased the existence of the door and brought in the existence of the doorway of nothing?
Prosecution: Yes, but again I say that is not creation as we are left with nothing instead of something.
Beggar: Could we call it anti-creation as it is deemed the reverse of creation?
Prosecution: Yes, I suppose we could.
Beggar: Then are we not forced to conclude that man by conscious thought is only capable of anti-creation not creation? That he himself is only the Destroyer of all that some other beings have built?
Prosecution: No! No! I will not hold to that cruel verdict! For the door was not destroyed but removed to elsewhere.
Beggar: But to move elsewhere is to transform?
Prosecution: Yes, that is so.
Beggar: Then the anti-creation of something to nothing is a transformation of the something. If the nature of transformation is to go forward or backward, that is, to oscillate from a being of one type to a being of another, then all things transformed can be re-transformed to the original. The man who tore down the house to rebuild a new one, can he not tear down the new one and rebuild the old one?
Prosecution: Yes, he can but the old has become the new and the new the old. It is the same process. A continuation.
Beggar: Then anti-creation is creation! And both are transformations, for we declared anti-creation a transformation in building nothing from something. As a transformation I then continue and reverse nothing into something. But this is said to be a continuum not a reversal. That is to say a new nothing does not become an old something but a new something. Each transformation sees the creation of nothings and something as if the two halves of a coin. Anti-creation and creation are simply the transformations of each other. Do we not agree that man can create, recreate, uncreate within this new definition of creation as transformation, because nothing and something are now known to be only the opening and shutting of doors?
Prosecution: I might be inclined to agree if I could understand why opening a door creates more than all this terrible breeze.
Beggar: I beg your pardon, sir, my mind was leaping at a threshold and stumbled. Let me explain in another way. If a dog were to look out upon a field it would see something. All men and dogs would see something similar. But an artist, a painter, looks upon the scene and takes out of it a certain frame, a window, a door. This is his painting of the scene but also his open door to the abstractness of his own mind in what he feels, sees, understands in the scene. All of that is nothing to the dog, it sees only physical reality. But the artist has swung upon a door. The painting to us is a physical scene and if done well an open door to the artist's abstracts which according to reality are nothing as in not there.
As we stand before the painting, we see the oscillations between something and nothing between reality and void, between physical and spiritual as created and anti-created by the artist.
This door is taken out of the scene creating a hole for the artist to see into his void, the door is placed before us and if we are capable, we swing it open and return through the original hole in the scene to view the artist. Melancholy music or agony of a poem touches us by seeing the torture of the composer through this hole.
To simplify would you not agree that men only truly envision, truly touch other men through their creations?
Prosecution: Yes I have to agree with that. Though the creations can be of many forms
than a painting, it would seem that there is an essential web that exists among men.
Beggar: Why is that do you think?
Prosecution: Because we do think. In the abstract form, I mean. Below that all becomes a dog sniffing a dog. But in the abstract, language, creation, arts, emotions this is where the true man exists. Here is where men will communicate as men and there recognize each other.
Beggar: Do you mean to say that what makes a man is a man?
Prosecution: Please explain.
Beggar: We have stated that language, creation, emotions, are a part of abstract thinking. In fact they are the components of abstract thinking. It is this abstract thinking and its acts that elevates man above all animals. In fact all this abstract thinking is in itself, a creation. At the instant of his creating, the man becomes more than animal; becomes man. Man by thinking creating creates man. Can we call this: "Creation creates the creator?"
Prosecution: I understand your reasoning but the common sense of it doesn't exist. Men do not 'pop' out of thin air just because they decided to create themselves. What you should say is: 'Creativity reinforces the creation'.
Beggar: Did you not say that below the thinking is something less than the totality of man?
Prosecution: Yes that is true. What does not think in the abstract form is not a man.
Beggar: Do men constantly think, constantly create?
Prosecution: No, in fact, the reverse holds truer in that men seldom it seems think or create.
Beggar: When a man doesn't think is he still a man or returned to a brute?
Prosecution: I cannot argue that he is no longer a man but a brute in his state of unthinking.
Beggar: Yet if he beings again to think he creates a man. A new man for the process of thinking and unthinking is the same as that for creation and anti-creation. Something (a man) becomes nothing (non-man), than becomes Something (a new man). In this flow of transformation such as the house, the Creator (the man) continually recreates new men as new creators. The spaces between filled with non-men. Each time Creation creates the creator because there is no continuum of the original man. He was 'uncreated' the minute he ceased to think. Do you now agree that for man" Creation creates the creator or do you see any folly in my logic?
Prosecution: I can accept it as it stands with one exception. As I said the spontaneous beginning is a little awkward. That is the first thought would need a mind with a capacity to think the thought. The thought itself could not create this mind. How do we create the first creation when there is no creator to create it?
Beggar: Can we return to this very important question after we divert on some other paths?
Prosecution: Yes, but don't imagine I'll forget this thorn at your side that needs wiggling, young man.
Beggar: Such is the good art of the prosecution, sir. To wait for pins to swell to spears before the thrust. I leave the memory of this unfinished duel in your capable hands. Let us now turn to the gods. Can you describe their qualities?
Prosecution: Ah! There are as many qualities as there are gods.You'll have to specify which gods.
Beggar: But just as there were millions of men but general qualities that make them men, so to are there not generalities of gods?
Prosecution: I suppose there are. Omni powerful for one, at least, in comparison to man. Eternal in existence that is no death, they do not cease to exist. They are obviously capable of creation. And from creation it can be inferred that they think. Also all-knowing of all things. Yielding absolute truth.
Beggar: And what do you think a god would think?
Beggar: Good point, sir and a wise caution. But what (with a laugh) I meant was again in generalities. For example do you think they communicate with each other? Do they think of concepts like justice or truth?
Prosecution: As to concepts one could argue whether they think them or simply absolutely know them. As to communicating I suppose they must though I am sure in a much more advanced level than verbal language.
Beggar: What of guilt or hate or love or passion??
Prosecution: I can see no god being of guilt but definitely love or hate.
Beggar: Why hate?
Prosecution: There are many evil gods.
Beggar: You said gods could create and that therefore they could think. Is the reverse true, in that gods must think to create?
Prosecution: Yes I suppose so.
Beggar: Then if the god does not create is it not then a god? It no longer exists?
Prosecution: No, can there not be gods who do not create?
Beggar: Did we not specify the qualities of a god to be omni powerful, eternal and capable of creation by abstract thinking?
Prosecution: Yes but there are various forms say angels or semi-gods or demons, etc. who are eternal and omni powerful yet cannot create.
Beggar: Can something be omni-powerful and incapable of doing something?
Prosecution: No you are right there.
Beggar: Then these other spirits that you speak of much less than gods and therefore not gods?
Prosecution: Yes
Beggar: So if a god becomes incapable of creation it becomes something less and therefore ceases to exist. Yet can gods cease to exist?
Prosecution: No by definition they are eternal and therefore cannot cease. Which to answers your next obvious question means they cannot cease to create.
Beggar: What do you suppose a god would do with this ceaseless, perpetual compel to create?
Prosecution: Well within their own abstract thinking they could create.
Beggar: But are they not all knowing. What could a god create in thought when he knows all?
Prosecution: Very well then, the god must continually create something in reality. Worlds, things, beings, people, animals, all things of this reality.
Beggar: Are all these things of reality eternal?
Prosecution: No of course not, everything dies or decays away even stars fall from the sky.
Beggar: This death is it the opposite of creation?
Prosecution: Who can say of life and death which is creation; which is not?
Beggar: Good point, sir. In our previous discussion we explained creation as transformation. That is creation of #1 must flow through anti-creation of #1 to flow to creation of #2. Do you agree?
Prosecution: I do.
Beggar: Then in the process of anti-creation does not the god die?
Prosecution: No, because we defined anti-creation and creation as the same: an act of creation. The god remains a god because he creates when he uncreates.
Beggar: Yet for a man we said he is not a man when he uncreates. What is the difference?
Prosecutor: No as I recall we said the man was not a man because he stopped thinking between creations.
Beggar: Yes you are right. Could we say that the man would always remain a man provided he did not stop thinking as in creating.
Prosecutor: Yes, we could.
Beggar: Would that man be then eternal?
Prosecutor: No, he would think as a man until he died and then became no-man.
Beggar: But for the gods we allowed death in reality to be a transformation; a continuum. Why must we assume death means the end of a thinking man?
Prosecutor: What we mean is that death dissolves away the reality of human existence: the physical. As to the thinking part we don't know.
Beggar: Which is of the essence of man: the thinking or the physical?
Prosecutor: The thinking as we have discussed before.
Beggar: So the removal of the thinking is a certain end of true man. Can we say for certain this is the case for physical death?
Prosecutor: No. We cannot. Some form of thinking man may or may not continue.
Beggar: If the gods must perpetually create, re-create, uncreate then does that mean their creations are in a constant state of transformation?
Prosecution: Yes, I suppose it does. For a god to end anything is to end himself, by the fact that once ende
d it is beyond the grip of transformation and therefore cannot be recreated. This done the god is powerless to something and thereby less than a god.
Beggar: Then if the thinking man was a creation is he not then eternal?
Prosecutor: Yes, but the variations of transformation are limitless.
Beggar: Are they now? Can a god transform a man and not have ended a man? Will not the end of man bring the end of the god? Uncreation uncreates the Creator!?
Prosecution: No! We are using the word creation in one sense for gods and in a totally different sense for man.
Beggar: Quite right, forgive me. Creation, anti-creation are perpetual for a god and under no circumstances can it end them without ending itself. Is this correct?
Prosecution: Yes that's better.
Beggar: Please define if you will, omni-powerful.
Prosecution: The ability or power to do anything you wish.
Beggar: Then is not a god less than omni-powerful as it cannot end creation itself?
Prosecution: No. Should it choose to end itself by ending creation it has the power to do so.
Beggar: Can it end creation without ending itself?
Prosecution: Yes that is true. And to answer your next question, yes I admit this is a limitation on omni-powerful.
Beggar: What do we do then? Declare there are no gods or drop the demand of omni-powerful?
Prosecution: As for myself I will stick to the existence of gods but renounce their title of omni-powerful.
Beggar: What have we found in all this about man and God, sir?
Prosecution: You must forgive me but I might ask you to refresh my memory. I doubt my mind can recreate every marvel of transformation!
Beggar: I will try then. As to gods, they are less than omni-powerful, eternal, must think and create to exist. They have language and emotions within a wide horizon of all knowing. As to man, they are much less than omni-powerful, eternal (albeit as transformations), must think and create to exist. They have language and emotions within a very narrow horizon of knowing very little. Are they alike sir?
Prosecution: Though as you say the proportions greatly differ I must surrender to your logic and say yes.
Beggar: Perhaps let the logic enlighten you sire but do not bow to it. You may not find your god in any man's likeness. Remember our view of the three men with the three values. Put three men before a mirror; one may see two gods and a devil; one sees two mules and a horse; one sees a melon, a pig and a god. Like them, the viewer brings his value to search for the likeness. He creates what he likes and through his creation, we see the truth of his values. Whether the likeness to a god is clear or faint it will be there; but the viewer's values can rub it away or paint in fresh.
We cannot judge his judgement unless we are assured of similar values. Again this is not to say everyone is without err in judgement, but rather to caution those who stand away from mirrors and condemn the judges. Come forward and tremble your likeness!
But another question of interest, sir, before we go on: If gods are like men and men are like gods, who created who?
Prosecution: That cavern of logic I cannot leap, sir. Likeness does not follow creation. A chicken and a hawk do not breed.
Beggar: But do we not here speak of the spirit of things, the essence of things. That the gods created man, but man by thinking
The Seven Days of Wander Page 19