Can There Be Only One?
A Paradox, by Frances MacDonald, 1905 Literalism prevents mystery by narrowing the multiple ambiguity of meanings into one definition. Literalism is the natural concomitant of monotheistic consciousness–whether in theology or in science–which demands singleness of meaning. Precisely, this monotheism of meaning prevents mystery (James Hillman, Revisioning Psychology, p. 149). In Western consciousness, we tend to demand an either/or. Perhaps it is our ideal of rugged individualism, that “all or nothing” attitude that we seem to have ingrained in us from…