relation exists… first starting
with human to human.
Human to human relations is likely the most obvious
relation considering it occurs every day. In our lecture on Tuesday we
discussed how treating others in reciprocity means we see them as subjective
beings; therefore, they exist as a “You” and not an “It.” This is so because we
are not defining or limiting who they are; rather we are engaging ourselves
into their life and investing consciousness in our conversation with them. We
are “[treating] others the way we would like to be treated” (The Bible- Luke6:31) and that can be
shown by how we are not treating them as a third person but first person thus
acknowledging their existence of being ‘there.’
God to human relation is a little different in the sense
that it may not be as common as human to human relation depending on the
person. In this instance I think of the Phenomenology
of Prayer and how Benson (2005) mentions the encounter with Samuel and the
Lord. I think because God is not visibly present we, more times than not, tend
to view him more as an objective deity than subjective. I think that is why it
takes Samuel three times to hear God’s voice until he finally realizes it is
actually God calling to him. Buber (1929) mentions that “Man lives in the
spirit when he is able to respond to his You” and I think that is the problem
so many of us deal with and what Samuel was dealing with. We, and he, are yet
to live in the spirit of God because we have not yet responded to our “you.”
Once we are able to do so we then see God’s interaction with us as a more
direct, first person, kind of presence and not a distanced third person
presence in which the relation is utterly “It” and not “You.”
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