If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?
Interpretation
Understanding God through the world around us is challenging, leading us to ponder the complexity of God's thoughts that bring creation to life.
This quote reflects on the difficulty of grasping the nature of God through the visible manifestations of His creation, suggesting that if we struggle to understand Him in His observable works, it becomes even more daunting to fathom His thoughts, which are beyond human comprehension. Edgar Allan Poe raises profound questions about the relationship between the divine and the natural world, inviting us to contemplate the limitations of human perception in understanding the true essence of God.
In practice
In a lecture about the philosophy of religion, this quote can illustrate the challenges of understanding divine nature.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
All big things are made up of trifles. My entire life has been built on trifles.
May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as will keep me friendly with myself.
Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.
Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truthβthat is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea.
It hurts when God has to PRY things out of our hand!
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