Traditions and universals regarding Burke and Strauss

Abstractions and formulas are secondary to the real thing or the real object, which they should be describing. If God is merely an abstraction or beyond the natural or material world this tends to place abstractions on the top of the hierarchy in religion and in philosophy, where truth or absolute truth, free of material ground, also often stand-in for God.

With that in mind, human traditions are usually based in human objects, not non-physical abstractions, or universals, which suggests that Burke's philosophical respect for tradition takes precedence over the Strauss non-material universals. But then Burke goes on to define God as beyond the material world, which brings in universals beyond living traditional objects.  This God is defined as essentially the Inward God of the great mystics, and often the absolute truth of philosophers. Burke's Christian God has a Gnostic/Judaic quality which fits in better with the Strauss universals and with the so-called non-material Father-Within of the great religious masters.

If the Godhood of religion, as well as the absolute truth of philosophers, is an actual supremely evolved materiel-supermaterial object and not the mere denotation of a non-object, or a mere sacred Word or a supreme abstraction, then both Burke and Strauss worship spiritual abstractions and universals as God, and as truth, even though Burke has more room for actual human traditions in defining truths.

Universals, abstractions and traditions are hollow and don't really exist without the actual material or higher-evolved supermaterial objects that they should be seen as secondarily defining, including Godhood. Human traditions follow this material-supermaterial  non-abstract trajectory in the evolution to Godhood.