[Avodah] More Philosophy, If Anyone's Up to It

[Ira Tick]

Wow  That's a lot to digest.  I feel I've been genuinely out-theologized.
However, I have to say that despite the clear conflict within a person in
the form of different experiences, different drives, etc, I'm not focusing
exclusively on that kind of "unity" in the sense of unidirectional
experience.  What I meant by unity of the soul was whether scientifically,
so to speak, the speculative and investigative person would describe his
immaterial self as "one" entity, despite the distinct dimensions of
experience.  Why or why not would we be able to describe ourselves as one?
What definition or conept of unity would we require?  What definition are we
looking for when we talk about ourselves as entities distinct and separate
from the divisible, particulate world of the physical?  How about when we
say that G-d is one?  The problem is thus more epistemological and
analytical than psychospiritual.  For example, I just heard R Akiva Tatz
quote the Ramchal as using the human notion of unity of the self to describe
the unity of G-d.  I also refer you to the medieval philosophers' discussion
of the unity of the soul and of G-d, as in writings of Rambam, Ralbag, R
Saadia Gaon.  Though I tend to avoid getting tied up in medieval Jewish
philosophy, which is more metaphysical than psychospiritual (like Maharal
and the Gra who were Renaissance & forgive the term "Enlightenment"
thinkers), but here their focus on the phenomonological is helpful for what
I'm asking.  It's hard to begin to ascribe transcendant qualities to the One
True G-d if you don't know what it means that He is One.  If however,
someone were to focus only on a subjective spiritual view of religion, then
actual phenomenological or mathematical unity is irrelevant, which is how
unity of the soul ties in to my original post of whether holiness is an
objective mode of existence or merely an emotional state.
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