Science Constrains Theology?

Aurobindo and other evolutionary/emergentist accounts

The below is in response to a question generated by the same essay. I wanted to share it here in this context.

People like Teilhard, Polanyi and Aurobindo have, in my view, thought deeply and in the right direction, but otherwise "prove too much" with their metaphysics. This is still far better than those who "prove too much" with their science and metaphysics in what seems to me to be the wrong direction!

That Fr. Bede and Merton and other spiritual technologists engaged the East seriously and recognized gifts for all of humankind in the Eastern traditions is important. It makes me want to pay attention, to take them seriously but not necessarily literally (speaking of such as Aurobindo's evolutionary ideas). In other words, however much their spiritual practices are integrally related to their ontologies and doctrines, it is curious that we can borrow their practices (again, for example, Aurobindo's accounts of Yoga) and have them work very well for us even if we do not buy into their ontologies and doctrines.

Personally, I see all major traditions, not just Christianity, in search of a metaphysic. I think those (all) ontologies represent rather fallible and awkward attempts to articulate what humankind had ALREADY discovered to be the truth phenomenologically, which is to say that we know THAT such realities present themselves and THAT such practices work even as we do not always know HOW and WHY. This is to suggest that folks like Aurobindo were paying incredible and excellent attention to reality, especially human reality (like the Sufi mystics and the Enneagram, for example). The same is true for kundalini, just for another example. That we experience this reality, phenomenally, is not in dispute for those of us who have experienced such energies. The WHAT and HOW is of less importance. That we submit all to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the counsel and discernment of community is what we are called to do.

If we dug into these seemingly disparate doctrines and ontologies (East vs West) and their attendant language games and cultural embeddedness, then we just might find, at least, some minimalistic grounds for a syncretistic approach that is not heterodox after all; a true mystical core shared by the great traditions. My suspicion is that those grounds would be pneumatological, which is to suggest the involvement of the Holy Spirit. Interreligious dialogue could proceed with our [Christology] in brackets and the Spirit out front and center.

Hans Kung --- fundamental trust

I wonder if our perspectives diverge at the point where we either search or do not search for, and if we search, whether we find or do not find, what some refer to as foundations and justifications? Or, perhaps, following Hans Kung, whether or not we even care to explain such a "fundamental trust in uncertain reality" as it seems we must all share, in some degree, in order to have these discussions in the first place?

Kung talks about a "justified" fundamental trust in uncertain reality, which is to say that some folks do bother to tell others why they trust uncertain reality. He also talks about a "nowhere anchored and paradoxical" trust in uncertain reality. However, might we not further distinguish between the process of dropping anchor and the actual realization of anchoring, which is to ask: How would we know we are not, rather, merely dragging anchor? More plainly, however much cognitive comfort and emotional satisfaction our justification attempts may provide us, still, how do we know they are correct? (Justification, here, involves explaining why we believe this or that.)

I think it was Whitehead who suggested that all metaphysics are fatally flawed. Considering the source and knowing the value he invested in that very pursuit, perhaps he'd suggest that we can cash out some value in our metaphysical anchoring attempts and that this value would be denominated in terms of realizing the least morbid system, the one least infected with paradox (and there are different types I won't define here--- veridical, falsidical, antinomial, conditional, but are likely in wikipedia or google-able), or the system that is most consistent while least incomplete (Godel). At any rate, perhaps dragging an anchor is better than being blown haphazardly and willy nilly about?

Still, we can build systems (the great traditions and ideologies). Or, we can remain a respectful silence re: systems (phenomenology and some Buddhist approaches). Or, still, we can merely gainsay and critique systems and need no system of our own in order to efficaciously do so (radically deconstructive postmodernism and practical nihilism). None of these approaches requires Ontology (which one might think of as a robust system, or even a root metaphor, that seeks a unifying view of reality using carefully defined concepts), this notwithstanding the fact that many adherents of these above-listed stances have attempted such metaphysical articulations. Most of us get along with our daily religious practice without bothering with philosophy, in genral, or metaphysics, in particular. (And it can be left with the theo-policy wonks without much worry, is my view.) I believe it was also Whitehead who said that Christianity was a religion in search of a metaphysic; and he was exactly right; just look at the many different types of thomism, for example, including aristotelian, analytical, existential, transcendental and more.

What I am suggesting is that, at some level, given where humankind is on its journey, that all of the above stances, which might be variously categorized re: their stance toward system building: system building affirmation/ontology, meta-system phenomenology, system agnosticism, and nonsystematic gainsaying and critique ... that all of these stances are still what William James might call live options. And I suppose the best way to adjudicate between them, to cash out their value, is in terms of modeling power of reality and with such a "power" oriented toward human value realizations and the bolstering of authentic human aspirations.

Somehow, true dialogue might require us to at least be able to stand in one another's existential moccasins and to get in touch with how and why our otherwise widely disparate hermeneutics might truly remain live options. (For example, can we so readily dismiss theodicy problems and solve theodicy questions re: why God allows suffering? Might we not thereby fail at compassion by unjustifiably trivializing the depth of human suffering and the enormity of human pain that drives many modern folks into different forms of disbelief?)

Only after taking a trip in one another's moccasins can we then get on with the project of doing ethics, of seeking a more universally compelling morality and the articulation of a truly global ethic. And we had better not wait for an ontological consensus. We don't have time. We must come to the dialogue table with our ontologies bracketed and build on the common ground we already share vis a vis general precepts of human dignity, common good, personalism, universal declarations of human rights and so on and so forth. And we must place a premium on THAT we share such precepts and issue a discount regarding WHY we share them (vis a vis our disparate justification attempts). This is not to suggest that, at the same time, we should not otherwise still be seeking the most nearly perfect articulation of truth, beauty, goodness and unity attainable (and then urging it on others only with a great deal of circumspection and good sense of propriety).

At some point, JB, a sense of logic needs to be applied against all the possible rationales that can be dreamed up so as to remove the unwarranted confusion that inevitably follows from the mass tides of confusion, distrust and anarchy produced by them. "Truth" does have relevance, NECESSARILY and practically. When truth is trashed trust is trashed, when trust is trashed faith is trashed, and when faith is trashed hope is trashed.

Chaos, meaninglessness, disatisfaction, depression, political anarchy, armageddon find excuse and refuge in the anything-allowed rationales that swirl in postmodern consciousness. Sanity of body/spirit can't tolerate the libertarian meaninglessness that panics and consumes us and nature (ecology!). We badly need new enlightenment that opens to the reconciliation of science and religion, of humankind with the rest of life on Earth, of self with self.

In a different forum, another respondent raised the same issue, Sylvester, and I want to share it here in affirmation of your own caveat. We cannot have authentic dialogue if people arrive at the table and "jettison" some of their core positions. The [bracketing] of certain positions is a dialogical tool which challenges us to rearticulate our truth in a more universally compelling way that is more transparent to human reason. Concretely, then, we cannot urge others in a pluralistic political forum to join our side on the basis that the Bible or Koran "tells me so," even if, at bottom, that may be what formed our moral position. We must dig deeper and come to grips with WHY the "Bible told me so" and then offer that explanation with the logic you rightly advocate. And this logic must be tested against reality, too, because with out this inductive, positivistic or scientific grounding, logic can take us further from the truth, and more quickly, too.

The human epistemic activities of claiming foundations and employing justifications do have some epistemic virtue, if one subscribes to foundationalism (or foundherentism or such) presuppositionally. [By foundations and justifications, we basically mean having "at bottom" reasons for what we believe; is it self-evident? is it a presupposition one could not dispense with without slipping into absurdity, e.g. the belief in other minds, or common sense understandings of cause and effect, and such.]

Such an epistemic move --- of claiming foundations and employing justifications --- is necessary. In theory, though, we all know that busting that epistemic move is not sufficient. If it was, why would we have so many otherwise disparate meta-ethical accounts that place most of humankind in great peril, one people against another, one religion against another, one ideology against another?

Obviously, claiming foundations and employing justifications is necessary but not sufficient in attaining epistemic virtue. [Think of epistemic virtue as simply "good thinking."] That is why, from a practical perspective, when it comes to inter-religious, inter-ideological, politically pluralistic and globally diverse dialogues, it would seem most efficacious, in my view, to have everyone place their ontologies in baskets by the door to be retrieved on the way out. This [bracketing], as I said before, is not the same as jettisoning.

The reason I recommend this strategy is very much related to my embrace of political realism, which takes into account what can reasonably be expected to be accomplished in an arena requiring compromise and recognizing that not all people and peoples are at the same stages of cognitive, affective, moral and socio-cultural development. Some approaches, then, are just not developmentally appropriate. [For example, forcing democratization on tribalistic cultures.] All one has to do to recognize this truth is to take an inventory of the manifold and multiform foundations and justifications that humankind claims and employs when prescribing cures for what ails humankind in this situation or that. And sometimes we DO agree on what should be done even as the reasons we give seem almost diametrically opposed.

This might all then beg the question of how such diverse peoples ever came together to construct such instruments as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the US Declaration of Independence, or the Geneva Conventions, or why there is any consensus at all regarding human dignity and the common good. It is not because they ostensibly shared the same foundations. That is self-evident.

My thesis is that, at some level, much of humankind is unconsciously competent in their ethical machinations and moral justifications, and even with respect to common sense notions of causality and first principles, this notwithstanding their inability to coherently articulate this competence and their inability to systematize their epistemic, aesthetical and ethical sensibilities in a more universally compelling manner. [For example, I have struggles articulating my own thoughts as I move back and forth between different forums, some specialized and technical, some more general and requiring different vocabulary and more effort at clarity. And, in some sense, maybe even most human beings are in touch with very profound truths but find it difficult to put them into words.]

All that said, the systematization of such evaluative sensibilities might then better begin with an inventory of those normative outlooks we share and not with why we share them. [In other words, how come we all come out believing some of the same stuff about basic human rights even as our views of humanity's origins radically differ, e.g. special creation, evolution, sociobiology, etc] Normative science is transparent to human reason. [Normative science means stuff like logic, ethics and aesthetics --- theories of beauty.] So, it is my hope that at least a minimalist deontology, a sketchy natural law, can be devised and then be more robustly fleshed out through time. [De-ontology means what comes out of one's ontology, what moral positions might one hold if one also holds this versus that view of the essential nature of reality/ontology.] For gosh sakes, the legacy of the 20th Century and the early New Millennium reveal how deep the interideological incommensurabilities are, and how wide the metaphysical chasms are, that must be navigated before attaining a Global Ethic.

I do not know what this or that metaphysic will bring to humankind's table or why we would imagine it could be so very universally compelling and common sensically self-evident. At some level, we are in agreement about how common sensically self-evident a minimalist deontology and sketchy natural law might be. It already appears to be in operation, to a large extent, and I want to tap into that as a meta-ethical resource. But not all of us are in agreement on where to start (and maybe our positions are not mutually exclusive? We can all move full speed ahead.) It is just positively uncanny, though, at how widely divergent and even totally incommensurate the apologetics can be when it comes to describing the foundations and articulating the justification of our meta-ethical approaches. [We hold the very same moral positions for very different reasons! at least, on the surface of things.] Such faulty ontologies need to be subverted from within because we know that such paradigm shifts, anthropologically, are not that easy to come by; at least we know this if we have any historical consciousness whatsoever.

There is something that some philosophers call the naturalistic fallacy, which suggests that we cannot reason our way to that which ought to be from the mere fact of what or how things happen to be. It is stated variously as not being able to get to an ought from an is; not being able to reason from the given to the normative. As Catholics, we reject any such notion out of hand. We can reason our way, we claim, from how things are and what things are to how things should be or ought to be.

Perhaps, one day, I will explain how, once deciding that one can get from an is to an ought, I came to believe that one could also get from an ought to an is, which is to say that I reject any a priori notion that such a meta-ethical journey necessarily takes place on a one-way street. In my heuristic, when it comes to value realization strategies, we can and often do begin in media res. [And this is to say that we can start anywhere, even in the middle, or at the beginning, or at the end, and eventually reason our way to why we should hold this belief or take this action.]

Moral truth and TRUTH is NECESSARY, as Sylvester asserts, even if it's attainment is sometimes problematical, as I assert. In summary, I suppose that what I am suggesting is not even that the truth is that slippery or hard to come by as much as articulating it is difficult --- saying it in a way we can all assent to across cultural divides and hermeneutical divisions, sometimes at an 8th grade level, sometimes to policy wonks, sometimes to tribal cultures and sometimes to 200 year old democracies.

Much of what I have written here seems very relevant to what Colkoch posted today re: mysticism. Colkoch wrote: "In order to work well with each other we had to find a common language which gave us a frame work in which to share phenomenological experiences."

Amen, Sylvester. Amen, Colkoch. And Amen, Frannie, who will note that my bracketed remarks are my attempt to raise my bupkus index to a more charitable level ;-)

Thanks for the engagement and patience, too. If I cannot translate my philosophical approach to a general audience, then I fear I will have wasted a lot of time, mine and others', and will also have squandered a lot of charity, yours.

Great comment JB. I have two quick observations. I can't recount how many times I've been on Shamanic journeys and listened to one or more of us state: "I was overwhelmed with what happened, but I can't begin to English it, it came too fast. I know I get it, but I can't explain it." The other comment you made regarding working from an ought to an is, also operates on this level. Very often we will get the ought and then have to work backwards to the is. It's kind of like finding yourself on top the mountain and then having to figure out how you could have gotten there in order to get back down. It's all very mind blowing. Or it's the left brain hemisphere desparately trying to understand in a sequential manner what the right hemisphere already knows in one complete gestalt, but is unable to put into language.

The language barrier is one reason some of us think praying by visual symbology is better than praying in words. Words, especially poorly conceived ones, can be very counterproductive in prayer. We need to pray for things as if we expect them to be answered. It appears that praying or playing in the Father's Kingdom is directly dependant on focus and strength of belief. I suspect that's why the prayers of children are so potent, they don't know much about failure and don't think of themselves as unworthy---at least they don't until we adults teach them those concepts.

When asked what he would do first, Confucius said,"I would see to it that things are called by their right names." In 8th grade English, what are: emergentist account, biosemiotic categories, religion, panentheistic perspective? One at a time in context. Thank you.

Panentheistic can be interpreted two ways. Some speak of a panen-theism, where creation and God are conceived in such a relationship that creation is part of God but where God is the Whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is not my take. My take is pan-entheism, where God and creation are in a very intimate relationship, God indwelling in creation, implicately ordering it and gently coaxing it forward.

Religion comes from root concepts that I interpret to mean "to tie life's experiences back together" so as to heal us that we may survive and grow us that we may thrive. It is about the actualization of the values to which we would aspire.

Biosemiotic Categories of Religion (largely excerpted from my essay)

Below, I venture a naturalistic account from an evolutionary perspective on the philosophical categories of most religious traditions. The four categories of religious practice that I will attempt to describe are Cult, Community, Creed and Code. Others might think of these in other terms such as Ritual or Liturgy, Fellowship or Church, Dogma or Doctrine, and Law or Rubrics.

Bio-semiotic refers to life (bio) and significance or signs & symbols (semiotic). In humans, some biosemiotic capacities (the way we use information one might say) are
language-dependent and public (shared between people) and some are ineffable and private experiences (and language-independent). They might be thought of as propositional (dealing with propositions like the logical categories of deduction and induction and inference), in the first case, and phenomenal, in the latter (feelings and dispositions).

The first category refers to capacities that are innate (hardwired into our brains) but which are very open-ended and flexible (some say plastic). These I call heuristics because a heuristic just provides general guidelines and leaves the thinker or experiencer with wide latitude in proposing solutions and drawing conclusions. The second category is also innate but is fixed, inflexible and so I call it algorithmic because there is no latitude as it drives human responses to "conclusions" and solutions quite directly (think of the immune system reacting to "information" automatically). One might also think in terms of fuzzy logic and formal logic for these categories. What is most important is that one understand that all animals are bio-semiotic, all life, in fact, but that only humans use such biosemiotic heuristics as would involve language.

Emergentist Account:

In the great chain of being there are levels stretching from the quantum to the sociological. There are levels of being within levels of being. There are theories that govern interactions within levels and sometimes between levels, sharing concepts. The concepts concern 1) parts and wholes; 2) properties and 3) natural laws.

There are three ways to look at the possible relationships between these levels. If a lower level completely explains a higher level, then we have reductionism and the strongest relation possible. When speaking in terms of parts & wholes, properties & laws, it is possible that reductionism will not explain a higher level, but we can still maintain supervenience, which is to say that any differences in parts, wholes, properties and laws at a higher level must have corresponding differences at the lower level (covariance without reduction). If a theory explaining higher level properties & laws is, in principle, unpredictable from a theory at a more fundamental level, then we have emergence, which is to say, novelty.

Thank you, JB. While this is not a direct response to this posting, it goes to the original posting and at least indirectly to this one.

The question does “Science constrain Theology?” might be phrased, “Does Theology suppose Philosophy?” The relatedness of these two questions rests on the relatedness of science to philosophy. Their relationship is identity in that science, qua science, whether as cumulative knowledge or as the “method of science” which proves (tests) knowledge belongs to the field of philosophy. Knowledge acquired by the scientific method is no less “science” than knowledge acquired otherwise.

I juxtapose on John Courtney Murray who juxtaposed on the theological dictum “grace supposes nature”. Murray says “faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature”. My juxtaposing is this: “theology supposes philosophy as religion supposes science as faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature”. If this juxtaposition is true then so is the proposition that “science constrains theology”, for theology has to be held suspect if it contradicts philosophy, science, reason, and nature.

The testy attitude between science and religion (at least from Renaissance-Enlightenment times) replies with a firm “no” to the questions. Quantum “mechanics” ala Newton and Enlightenment eschewed metaphysics (the psychic/spiritual dimension of nature) and promoted the notion still very much in view that evolution is clock-like mechanical. The mechanical/metaphysical schism between science and religion has effectively disabled philosophy from its natural and normal custom of communicating with and informing religion. By disowning science, religion effectively disowns philosophy other than Scholasticism that knows nothing of quantum relativity, and it removes itself from the need of “updating”.

The mechanical/spiritual animus (and the reconciliation of science/religion, philosophy/theology) hinges on what the word “science” means and how the two sides speak to each other. Religion says that spiritual matters are outside the purview of science, a different and disconnected (?) realm. Take the question, “Can the existence of God be proven?” No. There is no material test subject to the scientific method that can be made to find evidence of God’s existence.

For meaningful discussion between science and religion, both have to use the term “science” in the same way. In their stand-off, religion and science use the word “science” to mean the “scientific method”, that is, the procedure and discipline for testing a hypotheses and marshalling evidence on either side of the proposition. This narrowed meaning is the crux of the problem between them. Who defines the terms controls the conversation and outcome, and both seem contented to use the same exclusionary definition.

“Science” has another meaning that seems very much more to the point, and that meaning goes to the etymological root, “scientia”, the Latin word for knowledge. Framing the discussions in the context of this meaning puts the issues between the parties in very different light and opens to possibilities of convergence, reconciliation.

Spiritual issues of consciousness are matters of reasoning, of personal/cultural intelligence, understanding, and knowledge. There is a well-known philosophical/theological dictum first illuminated by St. Anselm: “fides quaerens intellectum”, “faith seeking understanding”. From this understanding, faith is a certitude-outcome of reason’s proving (testing). Science, cumulative knowledge (certitude), is the product of “fides quaerens” (faith searching, testing). Faith is the imprinted web of consciousness spun over time by the proving and testing of reason, vis-à-vis communication. In this sense science “proves” faith. Religion supposes faith as faith supposes reason as reason supposes science. Science, in the sense that it is the knowledge-basis of faith, does indeed “constrain, control” theology, religion.

Back to the matter of science being able or not being able to prove the existence of God. There are branches of science understood to be true science that deal with “spiritual” matters, that is, matters of culture and belief; for example, the work that Father Andrew Greeley and his colleagues do, the social “sciences”.

Surveys have been made as to the ratio of people who believe in the existence of God compared to people who do not believe. The ratio runs something like 9 to 1 in favor of those who believe. The intuitional wisdom of public consensus is surely a statistic of real significance as to truth and certitude. Statistical method testing is a true function of the scientific method as it is productive of factual and purposeful information. When a statistical consensus of 90% in favor of an issue exists, it hardly seems rational to deny the fact of the science. Ninety percent is an extraordinarily high degree of confidence.

The personal/social value of science, as a method, is that it sheds light on the certitude of knowledge (science) and spirituality (religion). The mutuality of faith and reason reveals the mutuality of science and religion, the fact-basis that makes their reconciliation possible. It is a phenomenon of intelligence that science “constrains” theology even as it opens theology up to a new and expansive worldview.

HOLY COW! Sylvester

NCRCafe is going to have to upgrade its rating system to include a 5, for that is the rating I would have assigned this post.

You wrote: I juxtapose on John Courtney Murray who juxtaposed on the theological dictum “grace supposes nature”. Murray says “faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature”. My juxtaposing is this: “theology supposes philosophy as religion supposes science as faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature”. If this juxtaposition is true then so is the proposition that “science constrains theology”, for theology has to be held suspect if it contradicts philosophy, science, reason, and nature.

What you have written --- theology supposes philosophy as religion supposes science as faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature --- is all I was really TRYING to say in 10,000 words or less.

You would not be surprised to learn that the only theologians that I have been able to find, who are also deeply immersed in the thought of Charles Sanders Peirce vis a vis metaphysics and theology, belong to a circle of friends/scholars who call themselves: The John Courtney Murray Group. They do professionally, what I do as an earnest avocation and I would be lost in a sea of individualistic idiosyncrasy without the benefit of reading their work. As it is, I am still in peril of thus drowning, but am reaching for the hermeneutical buoy they've tossed and may yet be pulled to safety.

All that said, do any of us really know much about "quantum relativity"? Gravity and quantum mechanics haven't been unified yet. Our hypotheses are on the extreme end of fallibility, here, and do not lend themselves to such facile syntheses on which many are staking some rather spectacular claims vis a vis consciousness or even theology.

Gravity and quantum mechanics will be unified when two more concepts are added: interdemensional matter and interdemensional force. This will most likely come from the macro side rather than the micro side, but one never knows. Just a thought.

I couldn't do it. Even going back and forth to the dictionary, I was lost. Giving that I understand bupkas about what you are describing, I kept imagining fractals.

re: I kept imagining fractals.

Frannie, at some level, then, you really did GET it ;-)

It is all VERY fractal-like, holonic, integral.

Deep peace to you this day!
jb

Certainly, not all of that speaks to a general forum such as this but I did want to make the link available to those who might happen by and have such a special interest.

That said, even then, maybe a few could at least relate to this part, excerpted below?

The philosophic describes our ethical, aesthetical and epistemic sensibilities and includes the concepts that we might symbolically abstract from our primary level encounters with reality via our cognitive-affective juxtapositions (learning associated with feelings). An inward personal response to 1) a deeply felt ethical sensibility might be that of reverence; 2) an aesthetical sensibility might be that of awe; and 3) an epistemic sensibility might be that of assent.

To be philosophic is not the same as to do philosophy. Not all need to bother with "doing" philosophy.

Philosophy tries to change our deeply felt sensibilities into standards and employs the language of norms (like best practices). If the philosophic describes our evaluative sensibilities, then philosophy describes standards (norms) to help us realize their corresponding values.

The philosophic answers the question: "What's it to ya?" and philosophy answers the question: "Where can I get some of that?"

The philosophic is thus evaluative, while philosophy is normative. The philosophic is spiritual and thus deals with the prioritizing of values, describing not only what it is we value but what it is we value most and the order in which we place our often-competing values (ordinacy).

I associate the normative with the Jungian category of Thinking, located in the left frontal cortex of the human brain, because our ethical, aesthetical and ethical sensibilities, here, give impetus to our rational attempts at normative justification. These rational attempts are meta-level processes that consciously reflect on the answers to the question "Where can I get some of that?" and then attempt to answer this question:

"Why should I trust your, my or anyone else's answer to that question?"

or, to use Kantian interrogatories, they attempt to navigate us, regulatively, to the answers to: What can I know? What can I hope for? What must I do?

The positivistic describes our scientific endeavors and answers the question: "Is that a fact?" and is thus descriptive (associated with the Jungian category of Sensing, located in the left posterior convexity of the human brain). It aspires to successful reference through heuristics and explanatory adequacy through theory. Classically, it answers: “What can I know?”.

The prudential describes our practical and moral judgments, hence informing our outward communal responses, answering the question: "What must I do?" and is thus prescriptive, aspiring to harmony between people (associated with the Jungian category of Feeling, located in the right posterior convexity of the human brain). Pragmatically, the question is: “Is it useful?” Morally: “Is it good?”

The paradigmatic describes our overall orientations, including our positivistic understandings of nature, our philosophic and spiritual evaluations arising from the sensibilities that ensue from our primary level encounters of reality, and our pragmatic and moral responses to one another as radically social animals, as a symbolic species. The paradigmatic is interpretive, aspiring to harmony between ideas (associated with the Jungian category of Intuiting, located in the right frontal cortex of the human brain). It is an attempt to answer the question: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” or put in more anagogical terms: “What can I hope for?”.

How new is any of this? In some sense, I internalized these distinctions from patristic and medieval mystics, like Origen, pseudo-Dionysius and Duns Scotus. Origen‘s senses of scripture 1) moral 2) allegorical/spiritual 3) anagogical and 4) literal/historical, correspond to moral, spiritual, interpretive and positivistic understandings set forth above.

References to brain quadrants are over-simplified but the functional categories of temperament type are meaningful.

Daniel Helminiak, building on Lonergan, describes four progressively expanding horizons of human concern, the determinations of each successive horizon constraining those of the previous horizons. He describes the 1) positivistic 2) philosophic 3) theistic and 4) theotic. These correspond to my genericized categories of the 1) positivistic 2) philosophic 3) paradigmatic and 4) prudential. As Phil St. Romain interprets Helminiak: "Spirituality, as a uniquely human phenomenon, is grounded in the philosophic level" and grounded in authenticity. Helminiak describes it thus: "For Lonergan, authenticity implies on-going personal commitment to openness, questioning, honesty, and good will across the board. In this sense, commitment to authenticity is exactly what characterizes the philosophic viewpoint."

Now, the most immediately obvious practical upshot of this heuristic is that, while one is entitled to one's own overall interpretive orientation, or paradigm, one is NOT entitled to one's own positivistic determinations, which is to say that science DOES constrain theology. I think it was Senator Moynihan who admonished: "One is entitled to one's own opinion, but one is NOT entitled to one's own facts."

Thanks for any engagement. I hope this part is not too dense.

Nice CreDON'T but where's your CreDO?

Indeed, faith in God and belief in Jesus do not primarily derive from empirical evidence for the resurrection, do not so much derive from eyewitness accounts and empty tombs, and do not mostly derive from Gospel miracle stories. And that's exactly why the quest for the historical Jesus is misplaced.

The resurrection event is less empirical and historical, moreso eschatological and experiential. The Church's convictions, our central claims, derive from our personal experiences of transforming power, transcendent energy, life communicated by the Holy Spirit. The pneumatological is thus more basic than the Christological.

It is the Holy Spirit that gave utterance to the early communities that Jesus is Lord. And this same Holy Breath helps us, too. It is this pneumatological experience that will ultimately bring the world's religions together, too, even if we begin our dialogue by bracketing our [Christology].

It does take fewer words to state what one does NOT believe in. More to provide a Credo with apologetic. Still, in this post-postmodern age, it does seem that we must go to uncommon lengths, sometimes, to defend common sense :-) Thanks for your comments.

Et cum Spiritu Tuo,
jb

JB, your call for "CREdos" is well taken. The Mosaic Law includes some CREdon'ts that safeguard social order. The "signs of the time" show failures of social order and abuses of Mosaic Law. When the "signs" speak to us of violations of social order we need seriously to ask ourselves what CREdos are needed to remedy failures.

Recently Pope Benedict was asked about the CREdo that is needed to educate moral consciences (of the young), to which he replied, "I would propose a combination between a secular way and a religious way, THE WAY OF FAITH". (Emphasis added) He then specifically cited the moral concerns surrounding "ecology" as matters that lead to the "true voice of conscience". [Stephen Kent, "Climate Change", The WITNESS, "Signs of the Times", 8/12/07, pg 5]

As to specific CREdos, I propose 10 mandates of conscience toward remedying social abuses (modern "signs") against Mosaic Law:

TEN TRUST COMMITMENTS For Accountable/Sustainable Living:

I SHALL:
1. Prove my words with work;
2. Provision for life before I procreate new life;
3. Live by the civil virtues of faith, hope and love;
4. Safeguard the civil virtues in all forums of personal/social behavior;
5. Subject my commerce to the constraints of authentic wellbeing and public reverence;
6. Enjoy the fruits of life but not at the expense of others and web-life;
7. Use accruals of wealth for local/global wellbeing;
8. Exemplify and teach the graces of heart: altruism, reverence and service to sustain the necessities of life;
9. Engage in learning for my lifetime and use it for personal and public edification; and
10. Worship God and serve others by the selflessness of my living.

RE: We need to be able to transfer our religious thinking on one issue, for example, abortion, to other religious issues, for example, homosexuality. If we don't, we are not being true to our contention that faith and reason are compatible.

There are a lot of different values at stake in the questions you raise, Shirley. And it because you care so deeply and want to actualize them all that you anguish over them.

Let's first prayerfully focus on that anguish for it can be a "way to own and claim love as your identity," and I am paraphrasing Gerald May liberally here and here: If you are willing to feel affection for your anguish and longing, to value your yearning, to treasure your wanting, to embrace your incompleteness, to be overwhelmed by the beauty of your need, then you might very well have fallen in love with love itself.

It is because we are radically finite and incomplete that we will necessarily fall short in actualizing all of the values to which we aspire. And there we locate our true felix culpa, for these stumbling blocks can become our stepping stones to God, Who is the realization of all value.

The values at stake include such as:
1) human life
2) human generative functions, biological & physicalistic
3) procreative, broadly conceived
4) unitive, broadly conceived
5) co-creative, including stewardship & limited dominion 6) deontological, where a "no dominion" moral aspect often derives
7) pastoral sensitivity & compassion
8) formative spirituality, including aretaic or virtue ethical approaches
9) teleological & consequentialistic aspects of a moral object
10) parvity of matter, or assigning weight to competing values
11) practical concerns, insofar as our essentialistic ideals cannot always be existentially realized
12) political realism & federalism, such as guidelines for when a moral law, much less an ecclesial, should become a civil law in a plualistic society & at which level of government
13) positivistic insights, which impact metaphysical conceptualizations & natural law interpretations
14) human dignity, which not only includes the entire seamless garment of life issues but also includes respect for human remains, human tissue, human stem cells (embryonic or other)
15) human solidarity & the common good, including subsidiarity
16) obsequim fidei, assent to essentials of faith
17) obsequium religiosum, deference to our Magisterium (broadly conceived)
18) probabilism and the "duty" of loyal dissent, as well as the "right"
19) primacy of conscience, including the duty to seek an informed, upright and mature conscience
20) prayerful discernment, word & worship & sacrament and serenity, courage & wisdom

I have already addressed the issue of homosexuality here at http://ncrcafe.org/node/1043#comment-15060 and I find good reasoning in Daniel Helminiak's book, _What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality_: http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/bookWBRS.htm
and also in some of what Matthew Fox has to say:
http://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/htmlpage6/

RE: the issue of abortion, I just listed 20, sometimes competing, values off the top of my head. Each of these values, as well as others I did not list, deserve prayerful and serious deliberation, if one is to be true to faith and reason.

My gift to you, Shirley, is to present you with more questions, more angles, or, in other words, with a more robust deliberative PROCESS. That is a far better gift, in my view, than providing you with the PRODUCT of my own engagement of that process of analyzing that particular moral object. This is not to say I won't do that step by step, one day, if someone starts such a thread. It is also to say that I am time-constrained because I promised to take my 12 year old to see Pirates of the Carribean :)

Deep peace, this day and always
johnboy

Shirley, thanks again for another interesting & provocative posting. The idea of homosexuality being a genetic determination is interesting yet, I believe, such a "discovery" actually would obscure the more important questions embedded in the current debate about the morality of homosexual unions. Those questions would, from my point of view; focus on an examination of the freely chosen love expressed in the sexual intimacy of one person toward another WITHOUT the (false) notion of love being in any way a product of biological determination.

We live in an age where both psychological determination and biological determination provide the default explanations for most human behavior. When applied to the sacred gift of our capacity to love we are misled. This, to me, is very unfortunate both from a pastoral point of view and, more fundamentally, from a Christian point of view. The capacity to love is the capacity to choose. For Christians, choice is the ground of all authentic relationship. By the grace of God we are gifted with choice from the very beginning of our covenantal "history" as a people and in our individual existential histories as unique children of God. Choice, freely exercised, grounds the relationship with our Creator that was initiated by Her, sustained by Her in the Incarnation of the Son, and glorified by Her in the abiding presence of the Spirit. That historical dynamic provides each of us with the means to "learn" a graced life in the conduct of our choices.

How can we abjure holy choice in one of the most central parts of our lived experience, sexual intimacy?

Perhaps science can provide us with a better understanding of the parameters within which the choice of a sexual partner is made. No doubt our own incarnated lives are bounded and limited. But is it not of paramount importance that we focus our ethical and moral attention on the dual bases of mutual respect and promise-keeping that exemplifies true covenant? These are the characteristics that our Creator God shows us; that the Psalms sing of; that the prophets explain; that Jesus-the-Christ guarantees in His invitation to us to participate in the Salvation wrought in His redemptive life, death and resurrection. MUTUAL RESPECT and PROMISE-KEEPING can never be "discovered" as a genetic 'truth' but only in the action of covenant - the most sacred part of all life.

Let's choose to NOT have the vexed question of inclusion/judgment "solved" by a scientific search for genetic predisposition, because this would, in fact, solve nothing at all. I would only let us off the hook of genuine self-examination. The fear and loathing that has so far characterized the question of homosexuality is so pointed, I believe, because of the very intimacy that sexuality points to. Such profound intimacy is also a profound spirituality and, as such, the site of a genuine conversion possibility.

Let's, as Christians, always insist on choice grounded in faith. Such choice ALWAYS struggles; always goes-beyond; always reaches for the fullness of God here among us.

I, too, would like to "transfer our religious thinking", as you so wisely counsel, from the essential practice of Covenant-choice, with all its attendant struggle and effort, to ALL parts of our personal, communal and societal lives, including sex. And then, as you say, "being true to our contention that faith and reason are compatible" will also become the sort of open conversion that, I believe, Jesus speaks of when he teaches us the lesson of Living Water.

The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy

"All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear..." (Romans 8:14-15)

Ken Wilber is wRawNg

re: I don't believe the relationship between science and theology is so much one of necessary mutual limitation as it is one of a sympathetic potential: the modes of discovery are as possible as the reach of human imagination.

I don't offer my observations (below) in an over against fashion, since Rev. Dr. McCoy did not dichotomize sympathetic potential vs mutual limitation but, instead, only emphasized the former over the latter. At least, that was my reading. I do want to tease out the nuances of this ongoing discussion and to reempahsize the constraints that operate on these various moments in the act of knowing. I'll then list some of the hermeneutical maladies that ordinarly ensue from the confusion that attends to the autonomy of these moments, on one hand, and their problematical entanglement, on the other.

There are a lot of ways to define the different "modes" of discovery. I am sometimes tempted to suggest that there is only one mode of discovery. And I am tempted to then call what we most often consider to be modes, instead, something else. In fact I have called them aspects, or better yet, "moments" in the singular and integral act of knowing (or "the" mode of discovery). In this sense, philosophically, I would be saying that epistemology is epistemology is epistemology. And these "moments" in the singular and integral act of knowing, then, precisely gain their sympathetic potential from the fact that each moment actually presupposes the other moments, none getting the job of discovery done alone, all getting the job of discovery done together. These moments are autonomous only in the sense that they are asking distinctly different questions of reality and cannot, therefore, conflict with one another, in principle. And this is why they are, necessarily, in some sense, mutually limiting. These moments are otherwise, in a word, entangled (hierarchically-related perhaps being too strong a concept to defend).

In the heuristic I have under consideration, we might think of these moments in terms of the interpretive, descriptive, prescriptive, normative and evaluative. Or, we might think in terms of the paradigmatic, positivistic, prudential and philosophic (all defined elsewhere in this thread). So, too, we might think in more classical terms like apophatic and kataphatic, like cognitive and affective. The history of philosophy is littered with systems that wrenched some of these moments from their context in the whole of the integral act of knowing, or from their place in the singular mode of discovery, and then let them swell to madness in their isolation (to borrow phraseology from CS Lewis re: Scriptural exegesis).

Without the mutual limitation of one moment versus another, and without the entanglement of these otherwise autonomous probes of reality, various so-called modes of discovery, powered by all too vivid human imaginations, get, improperly and variously, overemphasized and/or underemphasized.

To wit:

An overemphasis of the kataphatic and cognitive = rationalism.

An overemphasis of the kataphatic and the affective = pietism.

An overemphasis of the apophatic and the cognitive = encratism.

An overemphasis of the apophatic and affective = quietism.

Various overemphases of the positivistic, descriptive and/or of science = positivism, empiricism and scientism.

Various overemphases of the paradigmatic, interpretive and/or of theology (or even atheology) = fideism, on one hand, Enlightenment fundamentalism, on the other, or dogmatism.

An overemphasis of the prescriptive and normative, or on the law and code = legalism.

An overemphasis on the evaluative = moral relativism and an embrace of the so-called fact-value dichotomy. And when combined with the rubrics of religion = ritualism.

For a modern example, Ken Wilber claims an integral approach and an affirmation of the transrational. His approach is NOT integral just by the mere fact that he claims to holistically embrace objective, subjective, interobjective and intersubjective "modes" of knowledge (and these roughly correspond to my positivistic, philosophic, paradigmatic and prudential spheres of concern). It is not the affirmation of all such "moments" that makes one's approach integral; rather, it is the proper inter-relating of such moments that gifts them with their integral nature; it is their holonic inseparability that makes them holistic. What happens here? Ken allows unfettered reign (no mutual limitation) to the intersubjective and transrational moment of what should otherwise properly be considered but one moment, presupposing all the other moments, in an integrally related mode of discovery. Mysticism, then, goes wherever it wants, probes reality, comes back with reports that are unassailable. What we end up with is an unmitigated 1) arational 2) gnostic 3) radical apophaticism.

The remedy, again: the philosophic mediates between the positivistic and the paradigmatic to effect the prudential. Or, put another way: the normative and evaluative mediate between the descriptive (science) and the paradigmatic (theology) to effect the prudential (moral and practical judgment). Each moment presupposes the others. Each moment has its moment, whether implicitly or explicitly, in the integral act of knowing, the singular mode of discovery. This is reinforced by Charles Sanders Peirce's observation that the three forms of inference all presuppose the others; induction (reasoning from the specific to the general), deduction (reasoning from the general to the specific) and abduction (the act of spontaneously hypothesizing or quickly coming up with an If-Then statement) all presuppose the others, none even making sense without the others.

I've enjoyed this thread immensely, and like Frannie, have also found it confounding in that I am not familiar with some of the philisophical terminology. I am muddling through it though.

JB, the following quote sparked my interest:

"Mysticism, then, goes wherever it wants, probes reality, comes back with reports that are unassailable. What we end up with is an unmitigated 1) arational 2) gnostic 3) radical apophaticism."

This is true when one is a solo isolated operator in the mystical realm.
I work with a couple dozen psychics/mystics/spiritual practitioners from all kinds of spiritual traditions. In order to work well with each other we had to find a common language which gave us a frame work in which to share phenomenological experiences. That common framework has been quantum physics, neurobiology and qualitative statistics.

None of us think it's an accident that in our metaphysical travels we have all been told the same thing: Get outside your dogma, study quantum phsysics on both the macro and micro levels, and learn how your brain actually operates as a function of chemistry and electro magnetics.

It's been an interesting study and forced us to understand that it might just be true that our various spiritual traditions have served to give us a symbolic framework in which our brains can translate the unknown and unseen into a semi usable known and seen. On the other hand as individual observers (in the quantum sense) our traditions have also given us the capacity to focus in a symbolic visual sense and allowed us to manifest from the quantum matrix. Or to put this more concretely, my Native friends may need to frame their focused prayers in context of an animal totem, where I will use a traditional Catholic symbol. In either case we are both sending an holistic or gestalt request for the same end result, usually a healing, and that result will be the same no matter how the gestalt request was framed or who led the healing ceremony.

Knowing what we do, it's inconceivable that any of us would knock someone else's spiritual symbol system or understanding of Divinity. What's been happening is the reverse. Elements from everyone's system are being incorporated into our own individual belief structures. We see these elements not as "truth's", but as tools to use to operate within the greater Truth.

This has been a heck of a ride for all of us, but the further we go with it, the more peace, love and joy we find as individuals, and the better we function as a group. Ask one of us if what we do is miraculous and you're likely to hear that it's a manifestation from the unlimited quantum reality expressed in the Newtonian reality of time, space and matter. It goes with out saying we all concieve of the Divine essence as being expressed through quantum reality, and if that's true, then all things are connected at that level.

I think Jesus knew a whole lot about how our time, space, matter reality works and how we need to be as individuals to work in the quantum reality (His Father's kingdom). Traditional Christianity has really messed this message up. The Kingdom truly is within and we can do exactly as He did. That was His message. That was the good news, and it's not limited to some priestly cast. It's within all of us.

That is fantastic, Colkoch. My sense of science/mysticism had already convinced me intuitively that what you said is true, BUT TO READ IT, THAT'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT AND DEEPLY AFFECTING SENSE. Thanks. And that is precisely why I feel so strongly about the need to "reconcile science and religion", namely, so all religions might converge to their common unifying sense.

What a sorry situation that we Catholics cannot even reconcile Vatican I & II. What kind of credibility is that? How can we ever get beyond self-enthrallment?

Thanks Sylvester, I thought you might like a concrete example of what you have so diligently been advocating. I'd also like to thank you for your additions to this forum because I have used quotes from your writings in explaining my positions on mysticism and quantum physics to some of my more conservative Catholic friends.

You ask how can we ever get beyond self-enthrallment. I can only answer for myself. I got beyond it when I actually experienced the spiritual power of other traditions, and found that my own 'muses' were just as operative in the rituals of other traditions as they were in my practice of Catholicism. What was even stranger is that I have been rewarded for opening up my rather provincial and self aggrandizing spirituality to the thoughts and experiences of others. I am more humble--less inclined to intellectual arrogance--and according to my daughter, much wiser. There is no higher praise for a parent! I guess you could say that I have sought and I have found, and most of the time not where I expected I would find anything of value. So much for unfounded and unexamined expectations.

This is kind of an aside, but I read this morning in Time magazine an extensive arcticle on Mother Theresa. Apparently she spent the vast majority of her adult life in a spiritual vacuum or dark night when she felt nothing of God. The arcticle profoundly saddened me. I kept wondering if she wasn't being called to search outside Catholicism to find Jesus not just in the poor of Calcutta, but also in their spirituality. If we can't find the power of the love epitomized by Jesus in the beliefs of others then I think we have made Him provincially small---as in reduced Him to our own image. No one religion or belief system will ever be allowed to corner the market on the transcendant. It doesn't appear to be God's will.

Thank you, Colkoch. I have been giving a lot of thought about women's "ordination". Your comment on Mother Theresa made me get on this. A point of view I've come to is that John Paul II (perhaps inadvertently and unintendedly) confessed to the defect of male isolationist ordination as practiced in the Church and its lack of authority (competence) to ordain women. It's because it is a male institution based on cultural sexism that males and their organization lack competence in "ordering" women. When Pope Benedict commented that "women will find their way (in Church)", he was speaking to the same male incompetence. It is not for males to tell females what their way should be with respect to their "ordination" and role in life; with respect to priesthood; with respect to anything. It's for women to determine the forms their "ordination" and priesthood should take, and they need, on their own initiative, to begin defining these roles independent of male interference. They can do better than contort their intuitional good sense and make it conform to unenlightened, male exclusionary models.

I REALLY EXPECT AND HOPE TO SEE IN MY LIFETIME women moving forward on their own toward their own self-determination as to the priestly role they need to assume within the Church and not be frightened off by the cultured wizardry of males. Only by doing this will their voice acquire an equal standing and bring healing to the Church — to civilizations. Church continues to be inauthentic because it continues to frustrate female authenticity and her essential self-expression within the human family. With you, I am pained by the prolonged dying Mother Theresa suffered from Church insensitivity; and that the People of God are suffering from sexist-exclusionism.

The present experience of Church, of the steep decline of males choosing priesthood in Church as a way of life, is causing a great need for women to fill in the vacuum. It would not surprise me to see our local community in the not too distant future requesting for a female priest to come to our rescue.