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.
Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes.
The Church is designed to nourish the imperfect, the struggling, and the exhausted.
He who made thee is made in thee. He is made in thee through whom you were made.... Give milk, O mother, to him who is our food; give milk to the bread that comes down from heaven.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.
Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
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