The Marvel in Paradoxical Phenomena
God and the suffering He seems to allow is the paradoxical question posed since the start of religion. Philosophy and literature alike have long struggled with the issue, and poet Countee Cullen takes yet another crack at it in the poem “Yet Do I Marvel”. Cullen uses rhyme, classical allusion, and Shakespearean sonnet form in “Yet Do I Marvel” to exhibit God’s paradoxical nature and purpose the true marvel is in the miracles of life.
Cullen opens the piece suggesting paradoxes which question the nature of God. Cullen’s title, “Yet Do I Marvel,” itself seems to be a question. The “Yet” makes it seem that in spite of there being this wonder, something isn’t quite right. The title refers to an image of awe
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The term “flesh that mirrors Him” (ll. 4) is a symbol for the entire human race. Inspired from the biblical suggestion that people were formed in the image of God Himself, it demonstrates that people have a part of God in them. Yet they still die. Humans are not immortal like their maker, instead they must ponder what becomes of them in death. Even in the sweet release of death one could be the “tortured Tantalus” (ll.5)--punished to never eat or drink for all eternity. Tantalus forever “baited by the fickle fruit” (ll. 6) as though he is a fish that can be manipulated into its own torture. The allusion to Tantalus creates the feeling of desperation and suffering even after death. The speaker then uses end rhyme to connect the myth of Tantalus with the allusion to the “doom[ed] Sisyphus” (ll. 7). He must “struggle up a never-ending stair” (ll. 8); illuminating not only an allusion to Sisyphus’ punishment but also a staircase to heaven. For in original mythology Sisyphus struggles up a hill not a staircase. Making this change creates an allusion to a seemingly hopeless battle up the stair, which inspires the
Escher’s Moebius Ring With Ants and the Greek Myth of Sisyphus both share the same theme: the meaning of life or the “futility and greatness of human existence“. In Camus’ tale, Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of rolling a rock uphill just for the weight of the rock to pull it back down. This redundant task was symbolic to Sisyphus’ many attempts to return back to earth. No matter how many times Sisyphus was forced back to the underworld, he relentlessly came up with a plan to escape again. Sisyphus’ “images of earth [clung] too tightly to memory” and caused him to be oblivious to his surroundings. Not in the sense that Sisyphus was unaware of where he was but in the sense that his “objective perspective” became more important and apparent
A Divine Image gives human characteristics to the feelings of cruelty, jealousy, terror, and secrecy. The poem begins, "Cruelty has a human heart...
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
.... In my opinion it is clear that we do not understand God, but despite that fact, it has not prevented us from trying on his crown through our own magical, mystical and political ways. When these questions are answered in full, in a equnamious and engaged in the nature of a commonality, our need for theology and philosophy will disappear as we will no longer need man to define the undefinable, or to shed the light of God on our minds, as the answers will be clear to all, and our human spirits will commune. Can we say now in retrospect that through singing the praises of 'God' on the battlefields, in the majestic cities built by mankind, or by those who have claimed enlightenment – that any of this bumbling in the night has brought us closer to God? Have we detected the root of our origins through our bids at piety, or have gotten too close and our wings melted away?
Dismayed by his poor fortune, Boethius’s question regarding how a just God could allow evil into His world generates the idea of a simultaneous yet omnipresent God. Boethius relates his experience with injustice with the actions of God saying, “It is nothing short of monstrous that god should look on while every criminal is allowed to achieve his purpose against the innocent. If this is so, it was hardly without reason that one of your household asked where evil comes from if there is a god, and where good comes from if there isn’t.”(Book 1, Prose 4)
Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, ...and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice. (42)
...e. But rather we are shown as small and mortal specks on a minor planet, in an ordinary solar system, located no place in particular, in infinite space, and subject to all sorts of dark irrational forces, over which we have little control. We must live and must die with the fear and anxiety, the meaninglessness, frustration and futility that people today know. One must live in the present moment and attempt to find out the actual, bare, given facts of human existence; to find them out, to face them and to live with them. Camus does this; no more and no less. He becomes, as it were, a saint without a God. One could do worse than recall the epigraph which Camus uses at the beginning of The Myth of Sisyphus. He quotes from the Greek poet, Pindar, writing in the 5th century B.C.; "O my soul, do not aspire to immortal live, but exhaust the limits of the possible".
Taylor is careful to identify exactly which features of Sisyphus predicament account for the lack of meaning. He argues that the facts that Sisyphus task is both difficult and endless are irrelevant to its meaninglessness. What explains the meaninglessness of Sisyphus’s life is that all of his work amounts to nothing. One way that Sisyphus’s life could have meaning, Taylor proposes, is if something was produced of his struggles. For example, if the stone that he rolls were used to create something that would last forever then Sisyphus would have a meaningful life. Another separate way in which meaning might be made present is if Sisyphus had a strong compulsion for rolling the stone up the hill. Taylor points out, though, that even given this last option, Sisyphus’s life has not acquired an objectives meaning of life; there is still nothing gained besides the fact he just ...
This theme of death giving meaning to life is prevalent throughout the Odyssey. Hell is death, heaven is now, in life, in the field of time and action.
In the first instance, death is portrayed as a “bear” (2) that reaches out seasonally. This is then followed by a man whom “ comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse / / to buy me…” This ever-changing persona that encapsulates death brings forth a curiosity about death and its presence in the living world. In the second stanza, “measles-pox” (6) is an illness used to portray death’s existence in a distinctive embodiment. This uncertainty creates the illusion of warmth and welcomenesss and is further demonstrated through the reproduction of death as an eminent figure. Further inspection allows the reader to understand death as a swift encounter. The quick imagery brought forth by words such as “snaps” and “shut” provoke a sense of startle in which the audience may dispel any idea of expectedness in death’s coming. This essential idea of apparent arrival transitions to a slower, foreseeable fate where one can imagine the enduring pain experienced “an iceberg between shoulder blades” (line 8). This shift characterizes the constant adaptation in appearance that death acquires. Moreover, the idea of warmth radiating from death’s presence reemerges with the introduction to a “cottage of darkness” (line 10), which to some may bring about a feeling of pleasantry and comfort. It is important to note that line 10 was the sole occurrence of a rhetorical question that the speaker
Edward Taylor’s Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold are similar in their approach with the illustration of how beautiful and magnificent God’s creations are to humankind. However, each poem presents tragic misfortune, such as the death of his own children in Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and the cold, enigmatic nature of human soul in Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. Taylor’s poems create an element of how cruel reality can be, as well as manifest an errant correlation between earthly life and spiritual salvation, which is how you react to the problems you face on earth determines the salvation that God has in store for you.
God performs his divine acts in many ways. Jesus could perform miracles of healing and create food from nothing. These are the more conventional ways we see divine intervention at work. Almighty God, however, does not prefer these standard methods. Instead, he prefers to act in ways we humans can only begin to understand. This is very much true for the short story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Within the story, a winged man falls from the sky with no meaning or purpose. The man is shrouded in mystery. Nameless and unable to communicate with the native villagers, he lives among them. His intentions are never truly known to either the reader or to the villagers. However, the biblical parallels throughout the story help us unravel the mysteries behind this strange old man. By analyzing the significance of these allegories, we can better understand the old man’s purpose while, at the same time, learning more about hidden moral teachings and criticisms in the story.
Here, Taylor envisions a different kind of God, not one who waved his hand, uttered some magic words, and pulled the universe from his Godly top hat (p.151). Taylor’s God is a working God surrounded by wood and iron, soot
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
Conclusively, the story of Job demonstrates that human anguish can arise for reasons beyond our understanding. The age old question, is why do good people suffer while bad people prosper? But we cannot always perceive why unless God chooses to reveal his motive. However, it can be said that God is just testing that his servants will love, trust and have faith in Him no matter what. Since, it is not always the case that trials and tribulations transpire due to a specific sin. Therefore, as a result of Job’s undying commitment and unconditional love towards God, God restored all that was taken away from Job.