From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Fri Oct 22 2004 - 07:04:04 BST
Dear Sam,
I'm afraid I don't understand your/Evagrius' equation of prayer and theology
(18 Oct 2004 12:34:37 +0100).
Do you agree that in general '-ologies' reflect rather than partake of
practice? E.g. politicology/politics and philosophology/philosophy.
As you use this equation of prayer and theology as answer to my question how
theology partakes of religious practice, you apparently more or less equate
prayer and religious practice also. Unless you enlarge the meaning of
'prayer' to make it unredocognizable for most people, I don't think that is
correct either.
Separation of theory from practice may be a modern (SOMish?) invenstion, it
is also present in the MoQ as separation of 4th level (symbolic) patterns of
values and that which is symbolised (the other levels and the 4th level
itself) ánd as separation between writing a metaphysics (the menu) and
mysticism/Quality (the food).
Even if theology (theory) is aimed at better practice, that doesn't imply
that it partakes. And it may fail... According to Quakers it does,
especially when it is mistaken for practice.
You asked:
'How would you describe the interaction between what you think and what you
experience'
Thinking is a type of experience. We usually understand it as reflecting
other experience, but that is not necessarily the case. Theory is thought,
but not all thought is theory. And not all reflection of other experience is
thought. Feeling, intuïtion and sensation are also aspects of experience and
all can (but not always do) reflect other experience.
You asked:
'How far do you accept the notion that our understandings "interpret" our
experiences? (ie that what we see cannot be discerned without presuming a
prior basis of language, culture etc)'
Understandings are experiences themselves. Some reflect other experiences,
some don't. "Interpreting" presuming something prior, implies a cause and
effect relation: prior basis + experience makes understanding. I would
rather say that one of the ways in which experience is understood/abstracted
is by recognizing and distinguishing language, culture etc.. Experience (and
understanding as part of it) come first and language, culture etc. (as part
of understanding) come later.
So I don't accept the notion that understandings necessarily "interpret"
experiences. Nor that there is something prior to experience.
You wrote:
'I once read a description of the creed as being "mystical theology defined
dogmatically"'.
I would say: 'creeds try to define mystical religion
dogmatically/theologically and in doing so kill it'. Mystical religion
doesn't squaare with theology, creeds and dogma's, just like it doesn't
square with writnig a metaphysics.
You asked:
'This thing about the divine guidance you experience yourself. Is it the
Quaker view (is it your view) that the individual judgement is sovereign
from the very start? (In other words, that there are no areas in which a
wider society establishes a determinate truth)'
I hesitate about identifying 'experiencing divine guidance' with 'individual
judgement' or with 'collective judgement'. The whole point about
experiencing divine guidance is, that the distinction between 'individual'
and 'collective' becomes meaningless. IF it is true divine guidance, of
course. And yes, sharing experience of supposed divine guidance with others
and subjecting it to their judgement is part of our traditional way of
discerning whether a particular experience is true divine guidance. And this
tradition is being eroded by individualism... Quakers often speak too
loosely about 'having a concern' (the traditional term for a task laid upon
someone by God) without having gone through any proper testing (neither by
subjecting it to collective judgement, nor by comparing it with traditional
Christian & Quaker views as expressed in bible and Quaker literature, nor by
taking their time to consider and reconsider it).
You asked:
'what it is that is being taught, the finger or the moon'?
Neither. Again: Quakers in my tradition definitely don't teach their
religion. Their religious practices just co-develop.
You wrote:
'I sometimes have the impression that you think spiritual seekers are
already "qualified drivers", or, more precisely, that you think the whole
notion of being "qualified" is an expression of hierarchical dominance
rather than service.'
Spiritual seekers are ... qualified seekers. The seeking, the openness for
change, is not something to be attained. Whatever is found is not DQ/God.
And "qualified" should indeed be used in a very loose sense or the authority
conflict that is inherent in my character sticks up it ugly head.
You wrote:
'You'll need to expand on [my argument that 4th level patterns of value
restrict people's ability to follow DQ]'
But that's what I did in the next paragraphs!
You wrote:
'I think you're absolutising the hierarchy, ironically enough, and insisting
that DQ is only present at the summit.'
No, it is not present at the summit either. It is only present in the
process of following/seeking.
I'm fine with '"coercion" as the overall descriptor'. Or "force" for that
matter, as in Horse's assertion "my point all along has been that scientists
have not resorted to violence in order to promote science and when there are
differences they are resolved by argument and not force."
Your (reformulated) point would then be that science can just as well lead
to coercion as religion. My point would then be that science just as
religion IS coercion, by mistaking 'fingers' for 'moons' and even by
mistaking any 'moon' for 'DQ' (where 'DQ' is the constant redirecting of
fingers rather than anything pointed at).
Finally you wrote:
'I would like to push you on the nature of DQ, ie whether something can be
simultaneously experienced as DQ by one person and SQ as another.'
When something is understood as 'being', it cannot be DQ, but only SQ. It is
only 'changing' that can be understood as DQ. (And not all 'changing' is DQ.
Some is degenerative.) Change is always relative to (so dependent on) what
already 'is'. SQ is different for everyone, but not so different that we
cannot recognize patterns. The nature of DQ cannot be found by comparing
these patterns, however. A recognized change (a 'direction' in that change)
is always a new pattern, new SQ. The change that is DQ eludes such
definition of its nature by being change relative to what's unique in
everyone's SQ.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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