God, Education, and Modern Metaphysics : The Logic of "Know Thyself"

This volume draws on what is educational in religion to create a vision of freedom and justice grounded in learning, and explores a modern philosophical conception of God within religion and education. It conceptualizes the idea of modern metaphysics as a rational yet non-foundational way of conceiving truth, and ultimately begs the question: how is God to be known in and by the modern mind?

The Western tradition has long held the view that while it is possible to know that God exists, it nevertheless remains impossible to know what God is. The ineffability of the monotheistic God extends to each of the Abrahamic faiths. In this volume, Tubbs considers Aristotle’s logic of mastery and questions the assumptions upon which God’s ineffability rests. Part I explores the tensions between the philosophical definition of the One as "thought thinking itself" (the Aristotelian concept of noesis noeseos) and the educational vocation of the individual as "know thyself" (gnothi seuton). Identifying vulnerabilities in the logic of mastery, Tubbs puts forth an original logic of education, which he calls modern metaphysics, or a logic of learning and education. Part II explores this new educational logic of the divine as a "logic of tears," as a "dreadful religious teacher," and as a way to cohere the three Abrahamic faiths in an educational concept of monotheism.