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There is no way from us to God — not even via negativa not even a via dialectica nor paradoxa. The god who stood at the end of some human way — even of this way — would not be God.

 

Karl Barth

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And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes.
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all.
I still believed in my dreams.

 

Bob Seger

 

As an astronomer in the true sense of the term, Sir John Herschel stood before all his contemporaries. Nay, he stood almost alone.

 

John Herschel

 

As an astronomer in the true sense of the term, Sir John Herschel stood before all his contemporaries. Nay, he stood almost alone.

 

Richard Anthony Proctor

 

I am suggesting that, for Kazantzakis, it is God who is "Immortal." What this means is that Kazantzakis is searching neither for heaven nor Nirvana nor ataraxia. Kazantzakis believes in matter, or better, in the transformation of matter into spirit and in the attachment of an embodied human being to spirit as if fastened by a nail. The (nonanthropocentric) "God" of Kazantzakis is a name given to a dark force at work in the world that in many ways is more like an agitated Yahweh or God the Father than like an anesthetic or passive receiver of human woes. In any event, Kazantzakis's theism is Buddhist if what you mean by Buddhism includes a consideration of the aforementioned Unborn or Undying, and it is in the Abrahamic tradition if what one means by Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is an an embracing of mysticism… Bien puts Kazantzakis's mysticism into focus when he says that human knowing (gnosis) — "You and I are one, Lord" — is necessarily followed by unknowing (agnosis) — "Even this one does not exist." The former element is reminiscent of the kataphatic tradition of Christian mysticism, otherwise known as the via positiva. But the latter element does not necessarily lead to nihilism, as some scholars allege, in that it is part of traditional apophatic theology or the via negativa. This negativity is not absolute, but rather indicative of the psychic renewal consistent with Buddhism and Christianity (including Greek Orthodoxy). It is a "rest in the life force's evolution toward ever-increasing value."

 

Nikos Kazantzakis

 

The sheer magnificence and vastness of the coastal environment — an epitome of the true wilderness of the world — stood as a reminder that all human life is a mere flicker within something unimaginably greater. Jeffer's western wilderness was a key to perceiving the essential wildness of the universe as a whole, in which human personality is only something like a lichen on a rock. No tall heroics for Jeffers.

 

Robinson Jeffers