Posted by johnboy on August 22, 19100 at 15:26:11:
In Reply to: Re: prayer and consciousness posted by Philip St. Romain on August 21, 19100 at 09:24:59:
Phil wrote: "Well, give me awhile to ponder all this and I'll put something up." and "But. . . just what, exactly . . . Oh, never mind!"
Wait a minute old buddy; I know EXACTLY what you were going to ask. The following will clarify:One thing that occurs to me that you may appreciate with respect to
seemingly contradictory truth-beauty-goodness-love claims that occur in Old
and New Testament Scriptures is that some statements are
metaphorical/kataphatic, others anagogical/apophatic, others unitive (but
not in the synthesizing sense of dialectics). When one person/authority
makes several statements about X, where X = God, or mercy, or the Kingdom,
or some other Christocentric concept, the statements, even if in apparent
contradiction can all be true such that:
God is X is true, metaphorically;
God is not X is true, anagogically;
God is neither X nor "not X" is true unitively.
The metaphorical statement honors Revelation and kataphatic modalities; the
anagogical statement honors the horizon of Mystery, of occultation and
apophatic modalities; the neither/nor statement is true, not from the
dissolution of the kataphatic/apophatic but from the holding in creative
tension, paradoxically, the "both/and" which honors my Roman Catholicism.
The Kingdom IS now and the Kingdom IS to come.
Incidently, the above dynamic drives people nuts because they end up
talking past each other without calling "timeout" to ask the whole litany
of epistemological, hermeneutical, etc ad infinitum questions. This is one
reason secular humanists sometimes ridicule believers and wrongly so.
If as St. Augustine said: "Creation was made *with* time not *in* time" we
can honor the Eternal God as atemporal, aspatial, immaterial using
conjunctive awareness and logical causes; we can honor Her on His own
terms, too, by capitalizing truth, beauty, goodness and love, but we can't
proceed to God with disjunctive awareness and efficient causes by
anthropomorphically projecting our best attributes in infinite measure
because we affirm an ontological discontinuity in Its transcendence; but
then, there is Immanence ... I'll quit here ...
RE: God is X is true, metaphorically;
God is not X is true, anagogically;
God is neither X nor "not X" is true unitively.
BTW, the above-dynamism is what kept no few Roman Catholic mystics from
being burned at the stake for heresy many centuries ago. They had craftily
learned trio-theo-speak.
Some, however, who had skipped out of study hall instead of studying their
neoplatonic pseudo-Dionysiusian triads, fell through the cracks. Boy oh
girl, to have been a fly on the wall during THOSE particular inquisitions:
Mystic: "Faith of our fathers, holy faith
We will be true to you 'til death ..."
Inquisitor:
"So bet it. Guard, Take her away!"
Guard:
"She won't burn!"
Inquisitor:
"Cheeee....rist! Can't you do anything right?"
you finish the story ...
To conclude my bimodal consciousness ruminations, let me now unload from
the trojan horse of this consideration the view of where I was headed: If
major epistemological shifts can happen in individuals (recall "bias"
shifts) as grounded in evolutionary biology, as nurtured by metaphysical
ascesis, etc etc etc then major shifts can happen in groups of individuals,
in fact cultures (eg. Christianity giving rise to Western Civilization). If
major shifts can happen in cultures, then shifts can happen globally.
The two primary modes of bimodal consciousness yield models of reality that
are foundationally important for epistemology and hence for metaphysics. In
these modes and submodalities of consciousness, evolution has gifted us
with a swiss army knife epistemology and if we use it to our utmost
advantage we can carve out a swiss army knife meta-ethic. This does NOT
involve turning the knife blade of Buddhism into the corkscrew of Taoism,
the plastic toothpick of Christianity into the Hindu nail file, the little
scissors of Judaism into a Muslim switchblade.
Before we put our epistemological tools to the global ethic task, it is
VITALLY IMPORTANT that we ask the questions who, what, when , where, how
and why of truth, beauty, goodness and love. Now, depending on which tool
we use, our encounters with these eternal values will yield up different
answers, answers which may appear or actually be sometimes contradictory,
oftentimes paradoxical, at other times in agreement, etc but which will
always be complementary.
The manifold and multiform answers have concrete expressions in reality for
individuals and cultures: doctrines which articulate the truth encounter,
rituals which celebrate the encounter with beauty, laws which preserve the
goodness experienced and social entities where interpersonal dynamics gift
us with love (and hate, but let's not go there).
It is therefore no small wonder that primary encounters with reality result
in so many creeds, codes, cults and community structures:
Once considering Who is asking the question will effect the answer because
of subjective interpretation mechanisms;
Taking into account When in history (however it is defined) the answer was
posed;
Knowing that Where the question was asked has profound implications due to
culture, geography and socialization/enculturation processes;
Aware as we are that How the question is posed, linguistically with one of
6,500 languages, conjunctively/disjunctively, apophatically/kataphatically,
intuitively/rationally, holitically/causally, in ineffable madness or with
crazed linguistics, unitively/dualistically, of momentum or of position, of
wave or of particle, of inertia or of gravity, of Schroedinger's Cat or of
Heisenberg's Dog, RADICALLY effects the answer, yields diverse answers
which are sometimes resolved dialectically, more often not (I personally
use my own brand of nouveau-Dionysius neoplatonic triads);
Presuming that Why we ask these questions in the first place is to obtain
answers which will direct the commitment of our resources to action.
WHAT comes out of this consideration is not a deconstruction of the great
traditions and ideologies but the deabsolutizing of secondary expressions
that result from our primary encounters with (ultimate) reality.
It is this deabsolutizing that will take our intuition of unity in
diversity to a level never before enjoyed on our planet. Once cultivating
such an intuition, the natural human tendency to share truth, beauty,
goodness and love will manifest itself in Deep Dialogue: "You show me your
theophany and I'll show you mine!" and thus, perhaps paradoxically, we will
awaken to our solidarity through our glorious differences!
I've always believed that our major task is waking up to our solidarity.
Solidarity is not a goal to achieve but a reality to see, to recognize. It
involves an opening of one's eyes. The ethical task will then be de facto
accomplished because it is in our very genes to nurture, sustain and affirm
our own in this world.
The dynamism of this VERY MAJOR paradigm shift is: "Awaken to Solidarity
that Compassion may Ensue!" And this is the apophatic complement to: "If
you want peace, work for justice". One approach is trophotropic and the
other ergotropic. At their extremes they could be considered quietism and
pelagianism. And you know what? Extremes are useful, indeed good, but they
aren't THE picture. Why are they good? It is when there are NO extremes
that one might get worried: it means you have no middle.
Shalomplace definitely has a middle for here I am on the edge. Thanks for letting me muddle.
johnboy