The Word beyond Words: Tao Te Ching 1

Photo: A view from our hike in the Colorado Rockies.

1.

The Tao set forth as dogma 

is not the everlasting Tao.

Words cannot contain 

the infinite Word.

The nameless reality is the source 

of the heavens and the earth. 

The cosmos we can name 

gives birth to every living thing.

Now, if you release resentment 

and longing, 

you can breathe deep, 

resting in the sublime.  

Yet, through desire, 

the material world arises 

and begins to dance.

Though the sublime and the dance 

have different names, 

they share a common source. 

Grasping this mystery of mysteries 

opens the door to deep understanding. 

Reflection

Before we get going with our regular reflections on the TTC, we should reiterate that we aren’t trying to dabble in religious syncretism. Rather, we are working to bring the powerful insights of Lao Tzu to an audience that generally grew up in a Judeo-Christian milieu. Just as Plato and Aristotle have been helpful for medieval thinkers in the West, we think the Tao Te Ching can help us think through our lives, spirituality, and even Christian theology. [For more info about how we use terms, see this essay. For the nature of our version and suggestions for scholarly translations you can get now see this essay.]

There have been many Christian thinkers who found Lao Tzu incredibly resonant with the teachings of Jesus. For instance, an Eastern Orthodox writer, Hieromonk Damascene, wrote Christ the Eternal Tao. He packed a lot into that volume, but two highlights help kick off our series of comments on each chapter of the Tao Te Ching. First, he shares a translation of a Cantonese edition of John 1, published in 1911, which calls Jesus the Tao (which means the Way, but also corresponds to the old Greek concept of Logos, which is precisely what John called Jesus).

In the beginning was the Tao,

And the Tao was with God,

And the Tao was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him;

And without Him was not anything made that was made. 

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

… the Tao became flesh

And dwelt among us,

And we beheld his glory…

Then, Damascene rhapsodizes on our focus for this week, chapter 1, with the following lines:

We call Him Being,

For before all else was, He Is.

Yet He is above being,

Above all existing things,

Even above existence itself…

To conceive or be conceived is proper to the nature of things

Secondary to the Primal Essence.

Thus the essence that can be conceived of as essence

is not the Primal Essence. (pp. 55-6)

We quote this to point out something important as it relates to Christianity. Christians often read the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching and, hearing that the ultimate reality cannot be named, respond: But “Jesus” is a name. And isn’t Yahweh also the proper name for God?

This is an astute question and one that shows us the value of both the concept of Jesus’ incarnation and the philosophical clarity of Lao Tzu’s teaching. According to Christianity, if we want to perceive God directly (what Martin Luther called the deus nudus or naked God), we reach what is incomprehensible. What’s worse, they explain, God sometimes appears monstrous apart from the merciful manifestation Jesus. This is why the ancients in Mesopotamia believed in a cosmic father deity but didn’t usually have warm fuzzy feelings about him. Instead we find that people were afraid of God, sacrificed to him, and sometimes even sacrificed their own children to Molech. This is why it was so powerful for Jesus to speak of God as “Abba,” an affectionate term for “Father”. 

In Jesus, the gracious character of God is revealed, what Luther called a theology of the cross, as opposed to a burdensome and terrifying theology of glory. Now, there were ways to get to this in the Hebrew Scriptures too. God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not just some concept. Moreover, the Jewish reticence to say the name “Yahweh” for fear of taking the Lord’s name in vain in fact touches on the same point made here in Lao Tzu’s first chapter about the unnamable the Tao: handle THE NAME with care.

The problem of theological language was also discussed throughout Christian history. For instance, St. Augustine once said in a sermon: “If you understood him, it would not be God” (Sermo 52, 6, 16: PL 38, 360). While some later mystics emphasized the “apophatic tradition” or the “via negativa,” which spoke only of what God was not, fearing that any words used to comprehend the ineffable God would be idolatrous, Thomas Aquinas and others suggested that theological language could work by using analogies (this is called the “via analogia”). 

Everyone who’s paying attention seemed to recognize the distance between words and the infinite reality they dance around. Thus, in the sixteenth century, Lutheran theologians described written or dogmatic theology as theologia viatorum, that is: pilgrim theology or theology on the way. The point is: the best theologians realized that you shouldn’t trust a theologian who thinks he’s arrived. 

Another thing that the Tao Te Ching and biblical theology have in common is the idea that true spirituality isn’t merely otherworldly and it’s not merely about the here and now. It’s the wonderful realization that the infinite is in, with, and under the finite. It’s an awareness that, while we can’t comprehend the totality of God, we can experience God, know God, and follow God as revealed in the physical world. Unlike some ascetic forms of Buddhist, Hindu and Christian traditions, true spirituality is a best approached as a spirituality of embodiment. (Remember, Julian of Norwich recognized infinity while holding a mere hazelnut.)

We mention all these Christian connections and considerations because that is our background and also the faith of many of our listeners. Nevertheless, whatever your current spiritual, political, ethical, or philosophical perspective happens to be, we think you’ll get a lot out of the Tao Te Ching. It’s contemplative but it’s also practical. It helps us to chill out in our anxious world. It helps us see our connections to others and thus motivates us to compassion. So long as you’re interested in wisdom, peace, love and harmony, we trust that you’ll be glad you came along on this adventure with us. Now, watch your head. Enjoy the ride. This is going to be a blast. Here we go, friends.