Re: MD Philosophy and Theology

From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 18:30:15 GMT

  • Next message: David Buchanan: "RE: MD Pirsig the postmodernist?"

    Hey Sam,

    > That's precisely right (as a description of how I see it). So what did you
    > get taught at Cornell? I would have thought we need to distinguish
    theology,
    > comparative religion and philosophy of religion, and I would say that
    > theology is what the religious community says about itself, comparative
    > religion compares and contrasts theologies, and philosophy of religion
    > abstracts concepts from theology in order to analyse them. They're all on
    > the intellectual level.
    >
    > How does that sound?

    RICK
        As I had understood it, theology (objectification for study) and
    comparative are both kinds of Philosophy of Religion. That "theory" which
    the religious community claimed for itself was the "doctrine", "text",
    "canon", etc. I looked around at some definitions on various websites and
    there seems (naturally) to be a very wide varied use of all these terms. If
    there's any "preferred" use of the terms, I don't think anyone seems to
    care.
        I think Pirsig would consider your 'theology' as an aspect of the social
    level pattern of 'church' and that when he says 'theology' is an
    intellectual pattern he's talking about the objectification of religious
    doctrine for study (like sociology, psychology, archeology, entomology).
    Here's my evidence...

    PIRSIG (LILA ch30 p431)
    The Metaphysics of Quality associates religious mysticism with Dynamic
    Quality, but it would certainly be a mistake to think that the Metaphysics
    of Quality endorses the static beliefs of any particular religious sect.
    Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a static *SOCIAL* fallout from
    Dynamic Quality and that while some sects had fallen less than others, none
    of them told the whole truth (emphasis added).

    RICK
    Can you point to anything in LILA that might support the notion that Pirsig
    is using the terms as you do?

    take care
    rick

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