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Rather than going far away,Thomas feels a stronger urgency to dig into the depth ofhis inner world,which confirms his highly spiritual character(Buuren 116).Among thosewho have influenced Thomas,Paul Tillich deserves special attention.Thomas gleaned fromTillich the idea of God as“Ground-of-Being.”Thomas said:“

I do like Tillich’s idea of the Ground of Being,that God is not a being.I rather suspect thatso many Christians.I mean we have been brought up on the Bible to believe that God is aBeing,whereas the slightly more impersonal approach of Hindu thought,and Buddhisticthought for that matter,does give me a feeling that this is more what I am after.If there isany contact with an eternal reality I don’t want to limit that reality to personality....It seemedto me a type of majestic intellect.(qtd.in Perry 192)

Therefore,Thomas realizes the misguided interpretation of the Bible to treat God as a Beingand turns to other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism for impersonal approach to theeternal reality.Instead of limiting God as a personal being,Thomas would rather have animpersonal,transcendental,and intellectual God as the“Ground-of-Being.”Through infinite self-transcendence could man feel his belonging to Being-itself or Ground-of-Being because“Being-itself manifests itself to finite being in the infinite drive of the finite beyond itself”(Systematic Theology 191).Tillich’s views of God and man’s infinite self-transcendenceprompt Thomas’s determination to turn to himself and also bolster Thomas’s confidence toreceive God’s revelation.Congenial with Tillich’s idea,John Robinson,the Anglican Bishopof Woolwich,draws God back to here by arguing against a God“up there”or“out there”asaccepted by believers of the New Testament in his book Honest to God(1963).

1.2 A Voice Whispers to Us:Stay Here and Now

Thomas’s pilgrimage is not going far away into the outer space or hurrying to adistant future,but a turning to his own self.Thomas’s appealing to stay here and now mightbe influenced by both Tillich and John Robinson with whom Thomas is congenial.FromTillich to Thomas,they are all aware that God should not be limited under conditions of space and time as a being,and that God’s image should be transformed.9 Thomas’s appealingcan be understood from two points:one is that he considers God as the Ground-of-Being,second is that he believes in human’s self-transcendence.The Ground-of-Being orBeing-itself is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds,which makes man’s discovering God’s grace in himself possible.John Robinson uses“in here”as a spatial metaphor to displace“up there”or“out there”in his famous work Honest to God,which is indebted from Tillich as well(15).Thomas urges readers to stay here and exploretheir inner world rather than reaching far out even to the moon but only finding that there is“no edifying/Information”(CP 243).

To clarify his idea of here and now,Thomas revises the story of Adam in many poems,for example,in“Travellers”and“Adam Tempted.”In“Travellers,”many travelers get lost onthe continent of th本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。