The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

7. Kaplan's Theology: Beyond Supernaturalism

132 The eternal is an infinite becoming, and not an actual being. That is why we should conceive of God as process and not as entity—for God is a term to designate all those phases of the new direction that life takes on in man which are indicative of life’s infinite possibilities of growth. —Mordecai Kaplan, October 1940 Theologically speaking, we might say that Mordecai Kaplan was caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he could not easily give up the traditional God of his ancestors. On the other hand, he could not subscribe to the notion of a supernatural, providential deity. His embraceofanaturalistictheologynecessitatedarebellionagainstthefather whomhelovedandesteemed.Butwhileheoftenexpressedappreciation for his father and the religious culture in which he was raised, once he worked through his new theology, Kaplan never looked back.1 * * * ThoughKaplandismissedthesupernaturalconceptofGodandthemagic and miracle so intimately associated with traditional theology, he nonetheless maintained a deep appreciation for the tradition. We must remember that he was brought up in an Orthodox household and that he had a profound appreciation for the very positive ways in which the tradition functioned. Let no one say that Kaplan did not cherish Jewish tradition. Indeed, he believed that, without it, the Jewish people would be lost. In his words, The great value which the religious tradition had for mankind lay not so much in the specific beliefs and practices that it prescribed as in the general K APLAN’S THEOLOGY: BEYOND SUPERNATUR ALISM S E V E N Kaplan’s Theology 133 orientation that it provided. As a result of such orientation human beings felt at home in the world. Men struggled and suffered, but they had, so to speak, a roof over their heads. Nowadays, they no longer have that feeling of being at home in the world. The sense of homelessness, of forlornness dampens all our joys and adds torment to our sorrows.2 Throughout the modern period, the traditional believer has faced enormous challenges to his faith in God. Some in our own time find no difficultieswiththeanthropomorphicaspectsoftime -honoredJudaism,yet for many these images do not work anymore. Abraham Joshua Heschel speaksverypassionatelyoftheGodwhoisinsearchofthehumanbeing, of the concept of the “divine pathos” where God feels what we feel and is alive to our suffering. Though Kaplan appreciated such ideas for their metaphoric power, for Heschel and his followers these are not merely metaphors but shade off into reality. Heschel’s God, as a result, is not simplycongruentwiththebeliefsoftheliberalhumanist.Thenaturalists among us must find some other way to bring God back into our lives. Mordecai Kaplan, the most famous naturalist the Jewish people has everproduced,thoughtaboutGodandthebeliefinGodalmosteveryday of his life. Because his thinking was essentially sociological, he would emphasize function even when it came to theological issues. He wanted to know how the belief in God functions and why it is so widespread. For Kaplan, the answer was obvious: the belief in God gives us comfort when we are afflicted and helps us achieve the best that is in us. As we have shown above, Kaplan thought that everyone, even dedicated humanists , believed in the divine, though they might not be aware of it. Kaplan believed that anyone who has faith in a better world and who works to bring that world into being must assume that the universe is set up in such a way as to support his or her belief and efforts. Such was Kaplan’s assumption, and for him to assume the world was such a place was to believe in the divine. Tradition was vital to Kaplan; his most important task, therefore, was how to translate—or reconstruct—the traditional Jewish concept of God into a God that felt authentic to a naturalist. Naturalism, as Kaplan and religious naturalists used the term, rejects the belief solely in the physical and the empirical and the scientific, to the exclusion of all else. For us and for Kaplan, the realm of the natural is meant as distinct 134 The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan from the supernatural, the miraculous, and the magical (or theurgic). All these categories, so ingrained in Judaism for so long, needed to be reinterpretedandreconstructedsotheycouldhavemeaningforthenonsupernaturalist . The religious naturalist would be ready to believe in a spirit or a force or a power that we might experience but at the same time would reject any supersensual realm. It is of transcendent importance to understand that, when we refer to a force or a spirit...