Page 79 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
Judaism’s blindness and tyranny of custom entombs Jesus, K yearns for Jesus the immanent man. He gazes at Christ’s entombment perhaps a foreshadow of his own death, perhaps he feels a melancholy for his resurrection or immanence so that whatever his sins are, they may be redeemed in a Church that never came to pass, and he may begin anew, acquitted forever. Perhaps this is why he crosses himself. Or perhaps he yearns for Plato’s God or Christianity’s Platonized God, as Kafka did,456 both a “symphony of order, unity, perfection and proportion,”457 the everlasting abode of the lesser in the grand, and the grand in the lesser, of the particular dancing in the universal, and the universal dancing in the particular, where beings mirror the cosmos and cosmos beings. Perhaps he felt no longer a vagabond man. Perhaps this is why he crosses himself. The religious images, symbolisms are there, endless hermeneutics, too, but also their fragments, the missing and lost vowels. But we can only conjecture.
In The Trial, Jesus the man returns man to an immanent Kingdom, and Christ justified, returns man to immanent innocence. Josef K’s world begins to fold like Christ’s458 as the curtains lower near the cathedral, announcing doom and cruxigram,
456 Brod defends this posture many times. Kafka and Brod read some of Plato’s works. He concludes that for Kafka, Plato’s World of Ideas (176) and the Absolute exist, but that it “is so incommensurable with the life of man” (174), that “for this reason the divine world becomes for us transcendental territory” (175), and in a true sense, “strange and uncanny.” Because for Kafka, the transcendental felt strange, I argue in this paper that Josef K seeks the immanent paradise and innocence that Jesus the immanent man proclaimed, that the Kingdom of God dwells in men’s hearts. He had absolute faith, says Brod, in Truth (49). Truth to Kafka was visible everywhere “through the mesh of what we call ‘reality.’” “This explains Kafka’s deep interest in every detail, every wrinkle of this reality” (49). Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (Chapter I to VII) and by Richard Winston (Chapter VIII). New York, Schocken Books, 1937. 49, 173, 174-76
457 It is a symphony of “unity” because it unifies the four absolute elements made of triangles, two from the macrocosm (fire and air) and two from the microcosm (earth and water), into a harmonious, perfect whole. It is a symphony of “proportion” because the Craftsman arranges the four elements proportionally and geometrically. It is a symphony of “perfection” because it is modeled after the Forms; hence it has being, intelligence, and soul. Because it is complete, not lacking parts, it is one and perfect, and it does not admit opposites. Moreover, the one’s centre, equidistant and self-sufficient, is moved by understanding and intelligence spinning on its oneness. In the Book of Job, Yahweh lays the foundations and boundaries of the physical and animal world in perfect measure (38:4-39:30), including those of the beasts Behemoth (40:15-24) and Leviathan (40:26-41:34). Yahweh says that Leviathan is of “comely proportion” (41:12), and affirms that, not only is Yahweh the supreme, infinitely powerful creator of all things beneath the heavens (41:11), but his omniscience perceives the nature of fauna and of all things (38:18-24, 39:1-30); his omnipotence controls all heavenly and natural phenomena (38:25-35); and his being sustains and provides for all things (38:36-41, 39:1-30). Moreover, because Yahweh is the source of wisdom and understanding, he places these qualities in the heart of his creatures (38:36), but can equally deprive them from these qualities (39:17). Though there are similarities in that an orderly cosmos, governed by intelligence and wisdom, is created in both cosmogonies out of measure, perfection, and proportion, Plato’s conception of the Craftsman of the universe is a philosophical, not a religious speculation (though this does not necessarily imply an absolute rupture between both conceptions). His Craftsman is neither a Historical nor Supreme Personal Being, as Yahweh is one. He is solely the Maker of the cosmos who is all knowing, all good, most perfect, and most excellent and, unlike Yahweh, free from jealousy (Ex. 34:14 shows Yahweh to be jealous by nature). Motivated by excellence and supremacy, Plato’s Craftsman creates in his image from the eternal, true model of the Forms, an intelligent, living, most excellent, everlasting universe endowed with soul. Because the Craftsman is intelligent, he creates an intelligent universe given than intelligence is better than non-intelligence. Because only the soul possesses intelligence, the universe, thus, is a World Soul. Because the Craftsman is omniscient, he knows how to mix the many into the one, and dissolve the one into the many. Because he is omni-benevolent, he creates only what is good. Because the Good shares in the attributes of Perfection, Justice, and the Beautiful, it can neither accept its opposite, nor be the source of evil (defined as “that which impedes”), nor of chaos in the form of Leviathan in the Judaic tradition. Thus, for Plato, evil results from ignorance, never from divine authority as shown in Job’s afflictions (1:6-12 and 2:1-7). Genesis has been excluded from this study. Plato. Plato Complete Works. Timaeus. 32c ff. Ed. By John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson. Indiana, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997. Please see also Trans. By Donald J. Zeil. USA: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000. 17ff.
By contrast, the etymology of Yahweh is complex, varying from “O He, O that One,” to “the One Who Is” (absolute and unchangeable), to “He who acts passionately” (Arabic causative HWY), to “He who Speaks” (Ugaritic HWT or HWY), to “He Who Is the Sustainer, Maintainer, and Establisher of the Cosmos” (causative participle YHWH from Phoenician inscription), to “He is one who causes to be what comes to pass,” echoing ancient Egyptian liturgical formulas, to “I am who I am” (YHWH, Ex. 3:14) interpreted either as making himself present as he wills (Ex.33:19), or as “causing things to become into existence.” Eventually, many “El-” names were compounded with Yahweh, and he becomes, in the Schechem Covenant Tradition, “El Elohe-Israel:” the God of Israel. In time, he is given many other appellations such as the rock of Israel; father, brother, and kinsman; King, Judge, and Shepherd. In brief, Yahweh, unlike Plato’s craftsman, is active, dynamic and his lordship, commanding power over nature, is manifested throughout creation and history. He is the living and Savior God who, having revealed himself, empowers, and directs his people towards the Promised Land, and also saves them (Deut. 30:20). Unlike Plato’s God, Yahweh is jealous, omnipotent and destructive, creator of both, good and evil. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia. “OT View of God.” Written by B.W. Anderson. Ed. Arthur Buttrick and Emory Stevens Bucke. Volume II. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962. 421-30
458 The most important parallels between Josef K and Jesus are their conflict with tradition and authority, their denouncement of corruption, and their unjust capital punishments. In this sense, both are sacrificed and become scapegoats: the sins of their communities are visited on the innocent. Jesus also teaches not to resist an evildoer, that is, if one is forced to go one mile, one must go the second mile. Indeed, Josef K chooses to go the second mile. He could have easily, as his uncle suggested, chosen to escape his native city, just as Socrates, too, could have made that choice as offered by Crito and his friends, but he chose not to flee away. Perhaps this is what the prison Chaplain implies when he tells K, “can’t you see two steps ahead of you (T214)?” That is, he cannot discern he will fall by
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