Dear Sam,
In reply to your 14/5 11:24 +0100 posting:
What exactly is the subject of the book you are going to write? Do I
understand you rightly that squabbling about the question whether Anglicans
or others were the first to have a good (or bad) idea is 'almost the MOST
worthwhile type of dispute'???
The question whether Reason should be considered a separate moral authority
seems much more worthwhile. You may be right 'that Anglicanism ... is the
only branch of Christianity that makes Reason into an authority' (as you
wrote 6/4 10:03 +0100). I checked with my father (a protestant theologian)
and he didn't know other branches of Christianity that do.
I think Reason should NOT be considered a separate moral authority. Reason
can be defined as the power of thinking, of conscious manipulation of
symbols to draw conclusions about the truth and/or value in general of what
these symbols stand for.
You wrote 9/7/01 7:40 +0100:
'Myers-Briggs personality profiling ... puts people into various categories
(based on Jung, based in turn on astrological lore, but don't say that too
loudly ;) )
... you get classed on where you fall on four binary divisions:
Introvert or Extrovert (I or E)
Intuitive or Sensation (N or S)
Feeling or Thinking (F or T)
Judging or Perceiving (J or P).'
I didn't know Myers-Briggs personality profiling before you wrote about it,
but I do know quite a bit about astrological lore (why not talk about that
too loudly?!) and a little bit about its connections with the ideas of Jung.
Jung distinguished 4 different aspects of consciousness: sensation, thought,
emotion and intuition. In an almost classical SOM-way he (or one of his
followers, June Singer, my source, Liz Greene, is not clear about that)
wrote:
'[A thing] is perceived as something that exists (sensation), it is being
recognized as such and distinguished (thought), it is being evaluated as
pleasant or unpleasant (emotion) and finally intuition tells us where it
came from and is heading for'.
If Jung would have endorsed a MoQ, he would have put emotion first,
sensation second, thought third and intuition (still) last.
I tend to present these aspects of consciousness in a different way:
- sensation and intuition are alternative ways of perceiving reality (=
quality),
- thought and emotion are alternative ways of judging reality (producing
secondary judgements, to be distinguished from the primary judgements that
are inherent in experiencing reality/quality!),
- sensation and thought are conscious processes leading to conscious
conclusions (perceptions resp. secondary judgements) and
- intuition and emotion are unconscious processes leading to conscious
conclusions (perceptions resp. secondary judgements).
This seems to fit with the binary divisions of Myers-Briggs (or mr/mrs Myers
& mr/mrs Briggs?) except that -from their parallels with astrological
typology- I would say that (predominance of) sensation and emotion are
always connected with introversion and (predominance of) thought and
intuition with extraversion.
In neither of these presentations is 'thought' (and therefore Reason) the
source of conscious processes. Sensation is the only source (SOM Jung),
emotion is the only source (MoQ Jung) or sensation and intuition are
alternative sources (me), but thought is always secondary, manipulating the
results of other conscious processes. If we forget about SOM (in which
'moral authorities' cannot exist anyway, because morality is subjective and
ways of arriving at moral conclusions are always arbitrary and never
authoritative) either emotion or sensation and intuition are the essential
sources of morality (experience of quality). Reason is necessary for
analyzing morality, for categorizing it, for applying it, for inducing it
from practice or alternatively for making it up out of thin air (!), but
never for founding it. QED
You wrote 14/5 11:24 +0100 (about the question whether prophetical criticism
of the status quo is religion's raison d'être):
'The language of 'religion' is ...suspect ... the center of a faithful life
is worship and communion with God - all else flows from that. ...if your
heart is turned towards the love of God then that itself *enables* you to
see the world aright, which gives rise to the prophetic critique. To make
the prophetic critique the raison d'etre is to elevate a part into the
whole.'
The distinction between religious language and religious practice and the
latter's primacy is another issue (on which I agree with you). I understand
'prophetical criticism of the status quo' primarily as religious practice,
as a faithful and therefore radically different life. The ability to
radically change your life (in the face of a status quo that at least
differs from and often is hostile to what faith demands of you) is for me
the raison d'être of worshipping, communing with and loving God. What else
constitutes religious practice (the whole) besides prophetic practice (a
part?) according to you if not preserving a type of society which the
prophets denounced? Maybe preserving the radically different society
resulting from faithful life, but I see no other parts of the whole (of
religious practice) that could be neglected by calling prophetic religious
practice the raison d'être of religion.
I won't substitute Christianity for religion (even if I don't object to you
doing so and even if I do call myself a Christian too). Speaking with
William Penn (1693) as quoted before:
'The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls are everywhere of
one religion; and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one
another, though the divers liveries they wear here makes them strangers.'
You will agree that Christianity has no monopoly in creating 'humble, meek,
merciful, just, pious and devout souls'. If you say 'everyone comes to be
thus through Christianity, it's just that they might not call it by that
name' (parallel to your treatment of Jesus' reported claim to exclusivity),
'Christianity' becomes effectively synonymous to 'religion' (in its
root/radical meaning of 'religare'/reconnecting human and divine). What's
the point of your proposed substitution then...?!? And if you believe
everyone comes to God through Jesus even if they call him Gandhi, Mohammed
or 'the inward Light' what's the point of the focus on Jesus in
Christianity? The target group susceptible to a message emphasizing the
'eternal Christ' showing himself again and again in different people
(supported with suitable stories about contemporary 'sons and daughters of
God', billboards showing a traditional picture of Jesus/Gandhi/Mohammed
undertitled with 'this could be you...' etc.) might be much larger than that
susceptible to a traditional 'Christian' message...
I see a close parallel between 'progressively incarnating the Kingdom of God
in the world, thereby bringing humanity to salvation' and helping DQ
precipitate in sq and helping static patterns of values migrate towards DQ.
These are not only tasks of 'the institutional church' but of everyone! It
may even be The Meaning of Life...
I agree that 'a static aspect [of religion] might be radically dynamic to
someone who hasn't gone as far along the Way.' But ... these static aspects
(from the perspective of some) are still only relevant then, because they
are still dynamic from the perspective of others. They lose relevance to the
extent that they are not helping people move on towards a (radically) new
way of life any more. Their relevance still derives from being dynamic for
some.
You disagree with my:
'The static aspects of religion refer to its self-preservation (if it has no
task in preserving society any more), its Dynamic aspects refer to the
Dynamic of its own development and (to the extent that it is still relevant
in modern society) to its role in social progress.'
because
'it is too society focussed; there are static aspects of religion that are
not germane to the question of societal development or otherwise.
Christianity is dynamic in so far as it brings people closer to God'.
I agree that religion is not only an intellectual pattern of values having a
role in social progress (aiding the migration of social patterns of values
towards DQ) and in intellectual progress (its own development towards DQ),
but also an attempt to go beyond the intellectual level, to attempt to jump
to a next level by grasping Meaning beyond truth. Is that what you meant?
You 'disagree with the equation between dynamic and prophetic'.
In accordance with what I wrote above, I think 'prophecy' may indeed
(partly) consist of static forms, but to the extent that these static forms
cease to be dynamic from the perspective of anyone, they cease to be
relevant.
I agree that 'it is quality that we seek, not simply dynamic quality' and
'there is quality in both the static and dynamic aspects' of religion. I was
arguing however, that the static aspects of religion are becoming less
relevant to social progress. Safeguarding (latching) the results of social
progress can be safely left to science. To the extent that religion is
relevant to intellectual progress and to progress beyond intellect however,
I agree that its static aspects are also relevant.
Regarding 'the Dynamic aspects of priesthood' you mention: I'd say that
being 'taught the faith' and being 'given' (if you say it that way) 'the
eucharist' (and other sacraments) won't 'facilitate a dynamic breakthrough
in a participant' by repetition but only (if ever) one of the first times,
when they are still new. You don't need a priest who keeps repeating these
things for such a dynamic breakthrough. A missionary, with a prophetic role
in the environment where he/she has a mission, should do. After having been
introduced to the faith and the sacraments (to the availability of the
Dynamic to everyone...) the missionary/priest becomes superfluous and even a
hindrance to the understanding that the Dynamic/faith/sacred is directly
available to everyone and doesn't need the mediation of priests, texts or
any'thing'.
No, I don't even teach my children of 8 and 10 that Quakers 'have found a
path that leads beyond right/wrong'. I hope I show them that path. I may
consider myself lucky when they have some conscious respect for what I
choose to call 'right' and 'wrong' and that they recognize that I leave them
free to choose 'right' and 'wrong' for themselves by the time they leave my
home at say 18. I don't expect them to be able to consciously experience and
formulate something like a personal vocation in life that goes beyond
right/wrong before they are in their twenties. The path that leads to
transpersonal Meaning, to something of a static latch beyond right/wrong,
probably won't become visible to them before the end of their thirties, if
ever. My branch of Quakerism tends to believe that Quakerism can't be
taught. God will teach people to become Quaker (even if they may never get
to calling themselves by that name).
I sympathize with your wish to include the word 'love' in what William Penn
said about what makes a man a true Christian. You may wish to reread my 9/4
20:10 +0200 posting addressed to Angus, which addressed that subject. You
can just substitute 'promptings of love and truth' for 'will of God' as far
as I'm concerned.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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