From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Oct 31 2004 - 15:59:30 GMT
Daer Sam,
You wrote 26 Oct 2004 07:18:46 +0100:
'I think the split of "ologies" from practice is SOM related, and not to be
trusted in non-scientific fields. ... I reject the standard interpretation
of the MoQ on [separation of 4th level (symbolic) patterns of values and
that which is symbolised (the other levels and the 4th level itself) ánd ...
writing a metaphysics (the menu) and mysticism/Quality (the food).] ... I
think [theology] fails [to improve practice] when it tries to be "scientia"
and not "sapientia".'
Doesn't '-ology' derive from the Greek and mean 'words about'? (I never
studied Greek or Latin. Maybe you can correct me here.) Wherever you use it,
the 'reflective' seems to me to be implied in the word, if '-ology' is part
of it.
'Theosophy' (referring more to giving Meaning to the divine, to religious
experience) would be more attractive to me than 'theology' (implying the
possibility of 'knowledge' about the divine), but '-osophies' seem to me
just as reflective as '- ologies' and don't participate either in their
subject matter.
Yes, religion can be understood as relating to theology as object to subject
AND as lower level to higher level static quality, if you accept Pirsig's
association of objective with lower levels and subjective with higher
levels. Quaker criticism of theology is however that it restrains one from
going beyond words and beyond those 4 levels. For Quakers 'religion' (after
doing away with rituals and outward sacraments) does not refer to that which
is reflected in words, but to that which reaches beyond words. 'Religion'
then is even more 'subjective', even more Dynamic than the highest level
static patterns of value.
You continued:
'Is there anything that you would say is *not* experience? ... In what way
do you distinguish experience and reflection on it?'
A definition of 'experience' is 'direct observation of or participation in
events as a basis of knowledge'. No, there is nothing else. Only what's
directly observed or participated in exists. The rest is illusion.
Of course we also experience illusion, however... (-:
We can pretent to know indirectly, to know without participating. That
'knowledge' is without value, however. It doesn't really exist.
(I know to some extent how people live in Amerika, where I have never been,
I do value that knowledge and so I could be accused of valuing indirect
knowledge, but I prefer to understand that as direct knowledge too, as I do
participate in patterns that include Amerika. It's like being part of a
puzzle even if you're only one of its pieces and touch only a few other
pieces. You know it is a puzzle from your direct surroundings.)
Reflection is experience that is felt to refer to other experience. It is
the experience of referring to other experience. All reflection is
experience. Not all experience is reflection. Both are direct and
participatory.
You continued:
'Whilst I would leave open the possibility of "unmediated experience" I'm
(i) not convinced that it is necessarily religiously fruitful and
(ii) I think it represents a very meagre spiritual diet.
There is so much Quality in the accumulated static latches of the different
religious traditions, which I think represents the possibility of DQ to
those not familiar with it, that a concentration on the unmediated (ie what
does not come via the medium of culture, language, tradition and so on) can
be actively harmful IMHO.'
I agree that there is a lot of (static) value in 'mediated' religious
experience as there is in mediated non-religious experience (e.g. science).
The point is, that for me mediated religious experience is not superior to
mediated non-religious experience (and often inferior, e.g. creation dogma's
compared to evolution theories), whereas unmediated religious experience IS
superior to unmediated non-religious experience (for me; for others art or
even science may be THE ways to reach beyond static quality).
I don't intend to argue about the relative value of various sorts and
sources of static quality. We did agree before about the 'ladder' model,
with lower rungs still being necessary to serve those still on their way up.
The point is that I need religion to reach for Dynamic Quality and that that
is to be found in unmediated and not in mediated religious experience.
I do NOT 'agree that what for some people is SQ, is DQ for others'. If it is
recognizably the same, it is not DQ. Newly starting participation in a
static pattern of value in which others are already participating, may be of
high value to others, but it is still static quality.
It may be the movement up the ladder that is DQ, e.g. from Anglicanism to
Quakerism (-:, not the lower rungs themselves for those who move up to them.
The only justification for religious institutions is that they are
springboards or trampolines to start upward from. The more flexible, the
better.
You asked:
'how do you understand the Christian mystical tradition (Dionysus, Eckhart,
Tolle, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, etc etc) - their work is
saturated with what you claim "kills" mysticism.'
I know very little about Christian mysticism. I presume that the 'theology'
that is shown in their work can be distinguished from that which I would
recognize as 'mysticism'.
No, Quakers in my tradition do not teach their religion. There are no
boundaries for our religious practice that I know of either. Quaker
religious practice just co-develops, as I wrote. It diverges sometimes and
it converges at other times. In history Quaker groups 'disowned' other
groups and individuals diverging too much, but such 'disowning' stopped
somewhere in the last century. For some groups earlier, for others later. In
Western Europe quite early. 'Quaker Faith and Practice' and other books
question Quakers whether their religious practice is really according to
divine guidance as they experience it and to some extent describe that
co-developing practice, but they don't prescribe.
You wrote:
'Probably a temperamental difference between us there'
Or being on different rungs of the ladder? (-;
You asked:
'What did you think of my point about science being incapable of physical
violence as there is no physical link between levels 3 and 4, but as being
just as capable of forming an ideology which
justifies physical violence (as with communism).'
Well, a symbol cannot harm what it symbolizes, obviously. But what's the
point, if what matters is coercion or force which IS present on all levels
and if all 4th level static patterns of value are coercive simply by virtue
(!) of embodying static quality and resisting change? We could then discuss
which type of 4th level pattern of value if more coercive than others, but I
doubt whether 'science' as a whole is a good category to compare with
others. Some science is more rigidly resisting paradigm change than other
science, just as some religion is more resistant to let its practitioners
dance for themselves than other religion... And making practitioners first
take in 'the accumulated static latches of [their] different religious
traditions' before they are allowed to change those traditions, doesn't seem
to me to be a recipe for lessening coercion.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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