From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 13 2005 - 22:26:01 GMT
Sam:
The impression I get from this quote is that Lash is a Catholic and he is
disputing Protestantism. It seems to me that if you want to compare that
kind of rivalry to the much broader conflict between theism and
philosophical mysticism or between East and West, I'm gonna need you to show
how Lash's ideas can be expanded enough to do that. I mean, the issue in
dispute is not the tension between institutions and personal religions. It
is between entirely different concepts of self and God. In terms of that
tension, I see no important difference between the various demoninations of
Christianity. I don't think the differences between Martin Luther and the
Pope are relevant to the assertions I've been making about mysticism, but
feel free to try to show how they are. There is more below, but for those
who are interested, here's the quote from Lash...
"Although it is James' account of the personal, of what it is that
constitutes _personal_ experience, which I want to keep centrally in view,
it is more important to bear in mind that that account was not offered as a
merely theoretical proposal (or he himself would have fallen into the very
intellectualism against which he was struggling). In his view, it is not
merely a matter of saying that institutions and ideas form no part of the
essence of "personal religion pure and simple" but, more practically and
more urgently, of arguing that they distort and threaten such religion.....
"The contrast between the 'personal' and 'institutional' aspects of religion
is first spelled out in the lecture, to which we keep returning, on
"Circumscription of the topic": "At the outset", he says, " we are struck by
one great partition which divides the religious field. On the one side of it
lies institutional, on the other personal religion." The essence of the
"institutional branch" of religion is said to consist in "worship and
sacrifice," which are construed as "procedures for working on the
disposition of the deity." In contrast, the "center of interest" of " the
more personal branch of religion" is said to lie in "the inner dispositions
of man himself." The energies of institutional religion are directed toward
manipulating the deity whereas, in personal religion - which is concerned
with the relation that "goes direct from heart to heart... between man and
his maker" - the structural element, "the ecclesiastical organisation, with
its priests and sacraments and other go-betweens, sinks to an altogether
secondary place." Thus, personal religion issues in "personal" acts, whereas
institutional religion finds expression in "ritual" acts.
"There is nothing that is original in this picture. Any student of
post-Enlightenment religious thought is familiar with the contrast between
priestcraft and prophecy, between "religions of authority" and "the religion
of the spirit", between materialistic religion with its structures of
mediation obtruding between finite and infinite spirit, and religions in
which the human individual enjoys a relationship of pure immediacy with
whatever is taken to be the divine. And if, to many nineteenth-century
thinkers, the elements for this contrast seemed to be simply supplied by the
data, objectively _given_ in the history of religions (and especially in the
history of Judaism and Christianity), the twentieth-century reader of
nineteenth century texts is better placed to notice the influence of more
subjective factors. Not to put too fine a point on it, the contrast between
material and spiritual, or "external" and "internal" religion, as that
contrast was persistently drawn in the dominant narrative of both Liberal
Protestantism and its secularized successors, expressed deep-rooted
anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic prejudice."
Sam said:
To me, there are all sorts of echoes here in what Lash is describing from
what Pirsig describes and what Northrop describes (again, suggesting a
common inheritance from James) and the sort of argument that you come out
with. What I find difficult to get across is how partial a view this is. In
other words, the perspective that, it seems to me, you all hold in common,
is one that bears no relation to how the Christian faith was understood
prior to around 1800 (the father of Liberal Protestantism is Schleiermacher,
by the way). Maybe I am unfairly maligning Northrop, but a statement like
"The divine object in the West is an unseen God the Father" just reminded me
of Pirsig's comment in ZMM when he starts to read Aristotle: "That just left
Phaedrus aghast. Stopped. He'd been prepared to decode messages of great
subtlety, systems of great complexity in order to understand the deeper
inner meaning of Aristotle, claimed by many to be the greatest philosopher
of all time. And then to get hit, right off, straight in the face, with an
asshole statement like that! It really shook him."
dmb says:
I can see how a guy might hear an echo in what Lash is saying, but again,
I'm struck by the distinct impression that Lash is not talking about
philosophical mysticism or Buddhism. He's fighting in a much smaller context
and I think that if we explored the assertions that seem to echo in your
ears you'd discover that Lash is not even on the same topic. Feel free to
try to show me otherwise. And please remember that my complaint is not
against institutions or rituals as such, but rather that these institutions
and rituals are not aimed at enlightenment, that they are not functioning
properly as spiritual institutions. In other words, I can complain about
broken windows and still be in favor of transparency. If I complain about
broken cars it doesn't mean I'm opposed to transportation. I would complain
precisly because that broken car isn't doing the job of transporting.
Sam continued:
Which is how I reacted to that quotation from Northrop. As I said, taken as
a simple sentence, it is straightforwardly false - it's "an asshole
statement". In other words: it is NOT the case that "The divine object in
the West is an unseen God the Father". Maybe there's some interrogation to
be done about what counts as "West" here, but given the language of 'Father'
I imagine that Christianity is at least part of it. And Christianity claims
that God is visible in human flesh, part of the Trinity. God is tangible.
Therefore, for Christianity, the divine object (in so far as that language
makes any sense at all) is a visible God the Son, and an experienceable
Spirit, both in relationship with an unseen God the Father. So Northrop
either has to unpack and qualify that statement or be convicted of a basic
mistake (ie claiming that 'the West' denies the Incarnation).
dmb says:
You've misread the Northrop quote. He doesn't claim that the West denies the
incarnation. He says the very opposite. He's saying that the concept of God
as "an unseen God the Father" is what produces the need for the incarnation
as a link between two distinct entities, between God and man. In the East
God is not otherworldly and is not separate from us. Northrup says this
difference "explains why the Far Eastern religions do not need a religious
prophet if the divine is to be revealed to man, and why the Western
religions must have one." See he's not claiming that the West is denying the
incarnation, he's saying the West MUST have it. Maybe that correction will
make him seem like less of an asshole. In fact, your description of the
trinity here only supports the logic of what he's said.
Sam said:
Thing is, these doubts of mine aren't just the result of my own
peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. I'm not a great academic expert in the
area. I just see that there is a severe tension between what I have
discovered or been taught and what Pirsig is putting across. It's quite
possible that everything that I've been taught is wrong, but I'm not going
to be persuaded of that if I don't feel the basic points I'm trying to make
have been understood or acknowledged.
dmb says:
Right. There is a severe tension between what you have been taught and what
Pirsig is saying. And its only natural that your objections would have to be
addressed and overcome before you could change your mind. That's just how it
works. That's how I'd want to be persuaded too. But in this case I just
don't see how your point is relevant. In terms of mysticism, I just don't
see how the MOQ has anything in common with Liberal Protestantism and I
certainly don't see Pirsig taking sides with it against the Catholics and
Jews. That's simply not the kind of dispute I'm taking about and, as far as
I know, Pirsig makes no mention of such things. He simply says that some
sects are worse than others without naming any names. However he is pretty
unequivocal about theism. He's against it. I think its safe to say that all
mainstream christian demoninations are theistic and that given a choice
between any two sects, he'd choose neither. And since this rejection is
based on the adoption of a philosophically defensible and contrary view, I
hardly think its fair to ascribe this stance to "prejudice". I mean, its not
that I hate christians or theists, I just think they're wrong. Only crooked
toothed, tea drinking, fish and chips eater like you could suggest that
bigotry has anything to do with it. (I'm actually having trouble coming up
with English sterotypes for this joke, but you get the idea. )
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Mar 13 2005 - 22:32:05 GMT