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Kazantzakis' dipolar theism

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References

  1. Kimon Friar, “Introduction”, toThe Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 20, also pp. 37–38. The title to Kazantzakis' original edition of 1927 wasSalvatores Dei, and the subtitleAsketike. The revised edition of 1945 reversed this order. Although Friar's translation relies on the 1945 edition, he prefers the original ordering of title and subtitle. Numbers in parentheses in this article refer to paragraph numbers in Friar's transation. The Greek edition I have used is the one published by Sympan, with an introduction by Octave Merlier.

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  2. Morton Levitt,The Cretan Glance (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980), pp. 12, 13. Also see Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, “Introduction”, to a collection of Kazantzakis' letters,The Suffering God (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Caratzas Brothers, 1979), p. 17. However, Rooke notices that Kazantzakis' treatment of God's essence has “all sorts of opposite and contrary elements”. These are the elements I will try to reconcile in this article.

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  3. I will concentrate on two of Hartshorne's many works:Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), hereafter: PSG; andInsights and Oversights of Great Thinkers (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983). Whitehead's dipolar theism can be found at the end of his classic work,Process and Reality. Also, I apologize for describing God in male terms throughout this article, especially because classical theism's mistakes are somewhat due to an overemphasis of supposedly male, military virtues, as Hartshorne often notices. Kazantzakis says (“The Relationship Between God and Man,” 28) that God is both man and woman (antras kai gynaika).

  4. “The Relationship Between God and Man”, (28): “Ho theosmou den einai pantodynamos.” Also see Hartshorne'sOmnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984).

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  5. Ibid. “The Relationship Between God and Man”, (31). “Ho theos mas den einai panagathos”.

  6. Ibid. “The Relationship Between God and Man”, (33). “Ho theos mou den einai pansophos”.

  7. “The Preparation”, (10–14).

  8. The Greekousia.

  9. The Greekaorate.

  10. “The Ego”, (17). “He megalytere hamartia einai he eucharostese”

  11. “Mankind”, (19)

  12. Ibid., “Mankind”, (35)

  13. “The Earth”, (19). The Greekkapoion allon.

  14. Ibid., “The Earth”, (21). The Greekpnoe. Also see Friar, p. 142.

  15. Ibid., “The Earth”, (23). The Greekainioteta

  16. “The Vision”, (13). God's whole being:holos sta phyta. His power to escape:te dyname na xephyge.

  17. Ibid., “The Vision”. “Oxo apo to kathe prama!”

  18. Ibid., “The Vision”, (33, 39).

  19. Ibid., “The Vision”, (34). “He ousia tou theou mou einai ho agonas”

  20. Ibid., “The Vision”, (38–39). The GreekMegale Pnoe

  21. Ibid., “The Vision”, (38). The Greekchrono, topo ki aitioteta

  22. Ibid., “The Vision”, (53, 55). The Greekho megas Ekstatikos

  23. “The Relationship Between God and Man”, (4, 7, 14). The GreekAthanato

  24. “The Relationship Between Man and Man”, (4). The Greekpanta ho idios.

  25. Ibid., “The Relationship Between Man and Man”, (34).

  26. Ibid., “The Relationship Between Man and Man”, (54). “He ousia tou theou mas einai skoteine”.

  27. Ibid., “The Relationship Between Man and Man”, The Greekphyse.

  28. “The Relationship Between Man and Nature”, (36). Also see “The Silence”, (20, no. 2). Indestructible unity:akatalyte henoteta. InThe Suffering God, op. cit., Kazantzakis offers further evidence for his belief in a dipolar God. Examples of terms on the right side of my diagram abound. Examples of terms on the left include the following: God as the InvisibleOne; a God who partially escapes time and place; God as “Someone Else”; the “Great Ecstatic”; as “indestructible”; human beings asreflections of God; human beings polluting God, but God is nonetheless beyond our “ephemeral worldly essence”.

  29. Leonard Eslick, “Plato as Dipolar Theist,”Process Studies 12 (1982): 243–251. Also see his “The Dyadic Character of Being.”Modern Schoolman 21 (1953–1954): 11–18.

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  30. Notice the importance of power (dynamis) for both Plato and Kazantzakis; see above, notes 4 and 16.

  31. Eslick, “Plato as Dipolar Theist”, p. 244.

  32. In a addition to Eslick, see the fine study of P. E. Moore,The Religion of Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921).

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  33. Psyche andnous.

  34. Kazantzakis' God has what the ancient Greeks would calleros, notagape. See. for example, “The Relationship Between Man and Man”, (13, 16.)

  35. “The Vision”, (14), etc.

  36. See, for example, “The Earth”, and “The Vision”, (30).

  37. Metaphysics A.

  38. See my “Eating and Spiritual Exercises: Food for Thought from Saint Ignatius and Nikos Kazantzakis”,Christianity and Literature XXXIV (Summer, 1983): 25–32. Also see my “Wordsworth's Panentheism”, forthcoming.

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  1. Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

    Daniel A. Dombrowski

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Dombrowski, D.A. Kazantzakis' dipolar theism. SOPH 24, 4–17 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02789821

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