From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2004 - 07:46:58 GMT
Dear Sam,
You wrote 12 Nov 2004 16:17:07 -0000:
'I think this [the "reflective" being implied in "-ology", and "-osophy"
referring to wisdom where "-ology" refers to knowledge] is too neat. "Logos"
has just as much a sense of wisdom associated with it. The post-SOM
identification of logic/reason/thinking about stuff with an emotional
distancing is precisely what is at issue here in how to understand theology.
Theology is thinking about God, and my point is that this cannot be
separated from prayer and practice, or, to put it differently, that love and
knowledge are coinherent and cannot be separated. To accept the standard
language here is, I think, to import SOM by the back door.'
Even if the ancient Greek didn't distinguish neatly between the root words,
we do distinguish '-ologies' and '-osophies' in this way, don't we?
You're quite right that standard language presumes subject/object
distinctions, but the thinking/practice distinction implied in 'theology' is
not exactly the same distinction as the subject/object distinction and a
subject/object distinction doesn't necessarily imply emotional distancing.
It does in sciences, but in theology?? I'm not a theologian. I should ask my
father, who is. To complicate things even more: he was taught during his
theology studies to identify the Holy Spirit (the third person of the
divine) with Wisdom and he himself seems to identify common sensical
thinking with the Holy Spirit that according to the Pentecost story
descended on everyone.
My problem with theology is more that it distinguishes between some subjects
studying religious practice of other subjects and deemed fit to instruct
them how to practice better, than that it distinguishes between
study/instruction and practice. By the way: to the extent that theology
implies instruction for rather than study of religious practice, emotional
distancing does not seem to be implied to me.
You asked me what I made of Chuck's comment (which I didn't read in the
original):
'A experiencing X is different to B experiencing X, so the two experiences
are, in an important sense, not "recognizably the same" - even if the
language that we use places them together?'
To me the key is 'identification'. To the extent that A identifies with B
(e.g. both being human), these experiences ARE (supposed to be) the same and
differences in expression of these experiences are argued away.
I'm glad that you agree that 'The only justification for religious
institutions is that they are springboards or trampolines to start upward
from. The more flexible, the better.' and that it is the movement upwards
that is Dynamic Quality and not the (higher or lower) levels themselves.
As for your discovery that that one of your church wardens is a former
Quaker: Have you already asked him why he left Quakerism for Anglicanism?
Maybe you should explain to him the MoQ concept of degeneracy and check if
he recognizes himself? It is difficult for people to recognize that some
rungs of the ladder are really beyond their reach, but some do attain this
feat. (-;
You can be sure that there are more Quakers who are former Anglicans than
the other way around. Probably there are even more Quakers who are also
members of the Anglican church than Anglicans who left Quakerism...
For me a helix is still a metaphor for steady upward movement in which every
denomination is at a specific higher or lower level. The difference with the
ladder metaphor is that the possibility of 'jumping' to the same position on
the next higher near-circle short-cutting the road up or combining positions
on different levels that are (vertically) close but (horizontally) a full
round apart on the road up. It doesn't change anything to my experience that
Quakerism is best for me and to the notion that there IS an absolute sense
that one denomination is better (higher) than another. There are more routes
up, but 'up' stays 'up' and there is no mistaking the general direction we
should take...
Don't be afraid: in the last analysis I do stick to the notion expressed in
the quote from William Penn I gave before in this thread:
"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."
(1693)
You wrote:
'I'm not so sure [that symbols not being able to harm what they symbolize]
is obvious. The iconoclasts in the sixteenth/seventeenth century achieved
quite a lot through the destruction of symbols.'
It is the persons straddling nearby positions on the 3rd and 4th levels of
the helix symbolizing Dynamic Quality that destruct both symbols (on the 4th
level) and things symbolized (on the 3rd level) in moving forward
(horizontally) along the helix, not the symbols themselves.
You finished with:
'Do you think that it is ... coercion to insist that a child is taught the
alphabet before they are given the opportunity to choose a different
language to study or speak? People have to start somewhere. In other words,
people need to develop some sort of competency or "fluency" at the third
level before the fourth level can do any good. So it seems to me.'
Religions are less equivalent than languages. It can be useful to give a
child the opportunity to become bi-lingual before learning the alphabet of
one language. Less clearly so, but becoming acquanted with more religions
before having to choose which one to practise in what social context can be
useful too.
Becoming competent at the third level (having social status among fellow
practitioners) is not required to participate at the fourth level. Just
participating at the third level is enough.
Yes, it is coercive, but static quality understood as coercion is
unavoidable.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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