Emerson's Spirit: Man As God

[ajl]

An interesting tidbit I picked up from Emerson's "The American Scholar" involved what I think is part of Emerson's philosophy, and could be attributed to the greater movement of transcedentalism.

Emerson has an interesting approach to God and religion, and what I gleaned from his essay was that he believed all of society together became the "web of God", and that while he advocates finding one's individual self, he does believe in the coming together:

"that there is One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man."

It seemed to me that for him, God was not just a deity, God is rather a universal spirit that manifests itself partially in every person in the world, and that when one reaches the state of "Man Thinking", they reach a type of nirvana that could be associated with becoming part of God.

Emerson also incorporates Eastern philosophy in his work, as he believes that retrospect is important- while he also talks about how it's important for one to shed off the old and create the new, he doesn't completely dismiss the past:

"The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past"

"him the past instructs; him the future invites. "

I think that after reading through all of Emerson's apparently contradictory themes, Emerson is not advocating a specific, drastic change, but rather looking to balance both sides to yield a self-renewal. He talks about learning from the past to apply to the future, and finding oneself to understand others.

[danl02]

In my opinion, Emerson believed that when you tapped into yourself, you were not becoming a part of God but seeing yourself for what you really are: a manifestation or a minor incarnation of God. And because you share some of God's power, when you see yourself you also see nature and society in its truest forms, and are able to understand and respect it.

And yes, it is quite similar to the Budhist concept that when one reaches enlightenment, one will be able to achieve great ecstacy simply by living and feeling this "God-like" power. Concepts like Zen and "hurting others will only hurt yourself" also come from Budhism.

[jonathanb02]

I too noticed the part about God in American Scholar and I thought it elaborated on the ideas presented in the Introduction to Nature. To further ajl's point, Emerson believes that every person's soul makes up the oversoul. It is not that people have a part of the oversoul (or God as a took it) inside of them, but rather the sum of the parts equals the whole idea. I dont know if Communism can be considered Eastern philosophy or if it is relevant to the discussion of Transcendentalism at all (considering it is a later thought), but there are definate parallels between Emerson's views and the ideas of Communism.
Not to go off on a tangent irrelevant to this discussion, but i found it so interesting how Emerson has a balance of God and Nature, two Driving Forces that often conflict each other. He says taht "the universe is composed of Nature and the soul," but also taht "we must trust the perfection of the creation so far." In a conflict of Creationism vs. Evolution (or the whole idea of Nature's power), Emerson seeks a balance between the two. According to Emerson, science is always trying to find a theory in nature, while Nature is just chaos at its finest. This never-ending conflict between sensiblity and natural power leads Emerson to write on the subjects of Nature and God

[devinc07]

I think Emerson's mention of God in The American Scholar is directly related to the sensation he describes in Nature when he says, "I am part or particle of God." I agree with Alli that in saying this, he meant that God acts as a universal spirit (or soul) within us all. However, I also think that he meant our awareness of ourselves is indicative of the complete awareness of God to everything. His talk of communing with nature to understand ourselves is similar to the idea that man is made in God's image, in the sense that theoretically, God must understand us to understand himself as we must understand nature to understand ourselves.