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Blog
entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and
reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer
have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent
essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them
with all who are interested.
Post
#127 is a essay, originally written for three friends, about what I think is
one of the most important books in our time dealing with the convergence of
science and religion.
===
Dear M,
D & M,
This is
my review of Belonging to the Universe, Explorations on the Frontiers of
Science & Spirituality, by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast and Thomas Matus. (HarperSF,
1991).
The book simply
may have appeared a few years too soon. It is a highly edited record of
conversations between the physicist, Frithof Capra and two monks, Br. David and
another, Thomas Matus, whose name was not previously familiar.
Their
main idea is that there are strong parallels between the paradigm shifts
occurring in science and religion. It provides a compendium, I called it a
"catechism," of basic religious insights that fit well into the new
story of the world unfolding from the post-Newtonian scientific perspectives.
I like to
call the paradigm shift the Immense Transition. But by whatever name, it
involves a new understanding of the physical universe, of humanity's place in
it, and of the creative source.
This
"essay" (review) is an attempt to bring together and summarize in an
easily readable form the main ideas suggested in the book.
===
There are
five major components to the paradigm shift in science. The first two concern
nature: a shift from focusing on parts to seeing the whole picture, and seeing the
whole not in terms of structures but as a vast net of relationships.
The other
three components have to do with a change in human understanding precisely of human understanding. It includes
explicit consciousness that our understanding and expression of reality is at
best an approximation, always tentative and never exhausting. As Thomas Aquinas
says, "In the end, all things fade into mystery."
The shift
in science from parts to whole is described well in Mary Conrow Coelho's book
in the section called "We have found no primal dust." The parallel
shift in religion is from dogmas (truths and beliefs) to seeing all reality as
revelation. It is stated clearly by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme as the first
principle of the new cosmology: "the world itself is the primary
revelation."
It is
important to note that "the world" here includes not just the natural
world but also human history and especially personal experience. The emphasis
in both science and religion is on process, and a major aspect is the shift in
human awareness away from the only-rational or logical way of knowing to
include other forms of consciousness.
While the
participants in these conversations do not mention the Jungian understanding of
the four-fold functioning of consciousness, that Jungian perspective is
extremely helpful in dealing with these issues.
===
What
follows are some main points about the five major components of the paradigm
shift.
1. In
terms of purposes,
science is described as systematic knowledge, whereas religion is more
concerned with praxis and inner experience. A major problem is that
historically, both science and western religion quickly became patriarchal and
institutionalized (religion long before science); a primary component of the
paradigm shift is movement out of that hierarchical-institutional mentality.
All the
participants agree, with regard to organizations, that anything new and/or
inter-disciplinary is squelched; science does it via without holding
grant-money, religion by withholding authorization to function as teacher or
preacher. Any form of difference or diversity is a threat to the patriarchal
mindset.
David
emphasizes that religion is like language in that it only exists in specific forms; he says
that whatever form it has, it comes originally from the encounter with mystery
and meaning.
He
describes religion as essentially the sense of belonging to the whole of
reality, and seeing reality as participatory. I.e., the basis of religion is
precisely our experience of mystery: the meaningfulness of our belonging to the
whole of the universe. Thus the basic context of religion is, therefore, the
scientific worldview.
===
2. In
terms of methods,
science means collecting information and looking for patterns. The participants
agree that the method of theology is less clear, and they move almost
immediately into a discussion of faith which they agree has to do with intuition. (Right
at the start, the limitations of discussing the paradigm shift without
reference to the four-fold way consciousness operates becomes apparent.)
Religious
faith is described as trust rather than intellectual assent to conceptual
propositions. Frithof emphasizes that science also involves trust, specifically
in the validity of non-rational perception. David emphasizes that religious
faith is trust that "we have a future."
I think
it would be correct to say that faith, in both cases, is trust that the
intuitive and sensation functions of consciousness "work," that they
have validity. My wording for religious faith is something like: trust in the
cosmos as manifestation of the Mystery; trust, specifically, that in fashioning
and guiding cosmos
and anthropos,
Divine Wisdom does not give up, that creation is not a failure. Religious faith
is more "whole person" oriented than scientific faith.
The
participants agrees that both religion and science use models to describe the patterns
discerned, and that those models must be internally consistent and recognized
as approximations. This gets them into a discussion of revelation. David emphasizes that because belonging is the basic common experiential
ground of all religions, the Ultimate must then in some sense be personal and
that our existence and essence is, then, gift. I.e., that the world, cosmos and anthropos, is the self-revelation of the
Ultimate.
Important
to recognize is that this understanding of revelation does not mean that the
Ultimate intervenes from outside the world, but that what changes is our
awareness. This is what anamnesis is about: remembering what really is the case:
consciousness coming to a better or fuller understanding of how things work,
that the Ultimate unveils itself in the luminosity of the world.
As I've
put it: revelation is awareness of our creation via kenosis. We need a name for
awareness of our fashioning as participants in the divine kenosis. This is what
Sergius Bulgakov and Pavel Florensky were so good about: the understanding of
cultural evolution as itself revelation, specifically resulting from, as well
as caused by, the synergy of the divine human inter-activity. This is good
stuff, and needs far more exploration that is offered here.
===
3. With
regard to theological paradigm shifts, Thomas emphasizes that Christian theology had for the
first 1000 years a Gnosis-Wisdom orientation, focused on mystical (peak or
transformational) experience, and that this is still the case in Eastern
Christianity. But in the West, after roughly 1200 AD Aristotelian-Thomistic
scholasticism took over (1200-1500), followed by total fragmentation with Counter-Reformation
emphasis on "proof texts theology" centered on polemics and
apologetics.
David
sees today a rebirth of focus on inner experience, and stresses that much that
is new is in fact a recovery of the older gnosis-wisdom perspective: a
whole-person centered focus on transformative experience.
Both
Thomas and David have very good things to say about Cipriano Vagaggini's work
in promoting the paradigm shift: "A key person in our theology, who
influenced hundreds, even thousands, of students."
In terms
of 20th century European theologians and contemporary experience, the new
synthesis of thought and experience, the personal-anthropological component
began around the mid-1800s; an outstanding (and surprising, for me) example is
John Henry Newman.
Thomas
also pays tribute to the Belgian monk, Lambert Baudoin, OSB, who "almost
single-handedly founded the RC liturgical movement and the ecumenical movement
between RC, Protestants and Orthodox. He was imprisoned and silenced by the
church authorities. His focus was ecumenical and mystery-focused liturgy,
theology and pastoral practice."
Thomas
also makes an important point about the slowness of the paradigm shift; he says
that even though large numbers were turned off by the old forms, they clung to
them because they saw no alternatives other than total secularism.
Today, of
course, there are plenty of alternatives. An updated theology simply isn't a big issue anymore
for large numbers, but people still need authentic mystery-focused liturgy,
which, alas, remains unavailable. It is the global emergence of the New
Cosmology which makes clear the need for a new paradigm in Western religion.
===
4. With
regard to the Christian paradigm. David makes the important point that there is nothing
specifically Christian about religious experience, as it emerges within the
global religious context. What is specific to Christianity is the person of Jesus (and of
course the Jewish context out of which he comes) and the tradition or community
of persons influenced by him in such as way as to consider themselves his
followers. Note that in our day many non-Christian religious persons also
consider Jesus to be of significance.
David
says "It is a relationship to Jesus that defines a person as
Christian." He calls it "decisive" but says there are many
degrees of it. So Frithof asks, "Well, then, what makes Christianity
Christian?
David
says: It is the religious experience of Jesus. I.e., Jesus' own religious
experience, not
his follower's experience with Jesus as the focus.
Jesus
comes across as a person with a particularly intimate and extraordinary (even
"new," says David) relationship with ultimate reality. And that
closeness to the divine is what others pick up and enter into.
This
means that contemporary persons who would claim to be Christian are persons who
seek the kind of religious experience Jesus exemplified: intimate relationship
with the Ultimate.
Note that
this unitive, non-dual experience is not that of union with an external and
only-transcendent God but of a union simultaneously with "all my
relations." It is an intimate relationship with the Ultimate and All.
That's a
pretty good definition of "Christian," I think, in that it does in
fact focus on Jesus as model or exemplifier, and thus savior in that sense.
The
Kingdom of God is
a central term in the New Testament. It is Jesus' term for the social
implications of non-duality, the saving power of God present in human history
and available to all, not just to the Jews of Jesus' tradition.
David
says: Today, a good way to say what Jesus meant by "the kingdom of God is
here" would be something like: the Ultimate's power and presence is
manifest in our inner (deepest, peak) experience of belonging to the universe.
It is a "saving" experience precisely because it saves us from
alienation from the universe. Salvation means to not be alienated from "all my
relations" and the material cosmos.
What
about Christian love? David says, "Love is saying yes to belonging." To love
someone or something is to affirm it/him/her. To be in love is to joyfully
affirm who and what is loved.
Frithof
asks if there is a difference between feeling connected to the cosmos and
having a sense of belonging to it, "whether we call it peak experience,
mystical experience, or religious experience." David calls these
experiences of unitive non-duality "Kingdom moments."
On
analogy with the animal kingdom and plant kingdom, the Kingdom of God is an
"anthropos-cosmos-theos kingdom. David says there is a difference: "it is living
accordingly."
And this is what conversion (metanoia) means. He also adds that this moral thrust, of
living accordingly, of not only giving our fiat to our non-duality but also of
acting on it, is stronger in (and is perhaps a distinguishing mark of)
Christianity than it is in most other religions.
While the
three don't spell it out, I think that this understanding of "living
according"-- work (task, opus, liturgia) of acting on the fact of our
belonging to the universe and being related to all things-- presents an important
alternative to patriarchal understanding of manhood.
Patriarchal
manhood is one of exploitation and suppression of "others," based on
fear of all that is "not-I." I.e., the essence of patriarchy is
alienation from others-- the world, persons and God-- and responding to that
alienation in terms of control.
What's
the alternative? If not fear: not being afraid. If not control, suppression and exploitation: living in
accordance with all things as "my relations." (I remember David once
saying, the real question is "How big is my family?")
This
perspective is the very opposite of, and alternative to, patriarchal masculine;
it is a much needed post-patriarchal gnosis-wisdom, and is central to the New
Cosmology.
Patriarchy
"suppresses the image of the person," as Bruno Barnhart expresses.
David emphasizes that while Jesus and Buddha are historically very different,
at the deepest level both were faced with the same formalization and
institutionalization of religion.
He says
that a new thing in Christianity is the building up of a person's inner
authority, whereas external institutional religion (Jewish or Christian) puts
it down. David emphasizes that this new understanding of authority goes back to
Jesus; he calls it the very starting point of Christianity. It is the religion of Jesus, in contrast to what comes
later, a Christianity about Jesus.
The very
essence of Christian religious experience is of the presence and power of
belonging to the All, to the whole cosmos of "all my relations."
Note that
it is not an external worldview but an inner experience. And not an experience
of the Thinking function alone, but of the Intuitive, Feeling and Sensation
functions together. (Not just of head, but of eye, hand and heart, together.)
This
seems to me a really key understanding in the immense transition: the shift
from hierarchical-institutional suppression of persons to recognition that
"person" is central to the cosmic process. The implication is a shift
from external authority to internal: being responsible for oneself. It is the
opposite of fear of world and of dependence, therefore, on a only-transcendent
divinity to save us from the world.
The new
understanding of person and salvation go together: salvation is from alienation
(fear, anger, hatred of world and of self and others within it). The gospel
says, "Fear not. " And this is only possible if one accepts one's
inner authority. This is the great new thing of Christianity, says David.
Thomas
adds immediately, that that the main thing to keep in mind about theological
statements about Jesus is that they must also be understood as being statements
about us. Whatever we say about Jesus must also be said about you and me. He
asks, "Even that Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity?" And responds, "Definitely!"
That's what Athanasius and the Council of Nicea were all about: "The
Divinity becomes human so that humanity may be divine."
Frithof
asks, What about resurrection? From our perspective, all we can say is that Jesus' death
is not the last word. And this inner experience is not just that of his
disciples but of all of us who have been exposed to and influenced by and thus
experience within ourselves the presence and power felt in earliest times and
is encapsulated in the acclamation "Christ is risen!"
The whole
point is that his and our non-duality persists. One of the participants makes
that point that just as with the Nicene statements about the divinity of Jesus,
so resurrection is ours too, no less than that of Jesus. Otherwise, it makes no
sense, as St Paul says. Just as we are non-dual as was Jesus, so all that
resurrection means can be said of us as well.
This is
precisely what the presence and power of God means. This is what salvation
means: the persistence of our non-duality with all, even and especially beyond
death and all that threatens.
David
points out what is often overlooked: that for this "there is no
evidence." Christ is hidden in God. "Our life is hidden with Christ
in God." It's not a scientifically collectable fact. But it is an experience.
We need to accept our own inner authority for it.
===
5. The
place of person
in the paradigm shift. The book contains a small but significant section on
this critically important idea of the movement away from the mechanistic
viewpoint of earlier science to one which takes into account human
self-awareness; its focus is not just nature but also personal consciousness
and human culture which results from it.
One of
the most significant developments in contemporary science is that of Systems
Theory, the foundations of which started in the 1940s with the beginnings of
cybernetics and which emerged in to contemporary consciousness with the coming
of the computer revolution in the 1980s.
Systems
Theory emphasizes the place of the human person in the scientific perspective
and indicates values quite different from those of the patriarchal mindset;
these values include relationships, cooperation and creativity.
When
Systems Theory first emerged, based on the systems philosophy of Ludwig von
Bertalanffy, two schools resulted: a mechanistic school coming from the
mathematician and inventor of the computer, John von Nuemann; and another,
dealing with understanding of living things as self-organized systems, from
Norbert Weiner.
The
mechanistic school was dominant in the 40s and 50s; the self-organization
school emerged at the beginning of the 60s. There, the emphasis is on autonomy
(subjectivity or autopoiesis) as the hallmark of living things. It has been
explored at various levels from the cell to the family and whole societies,
with the largest self-organizing system seen to be the Earth itself, the
well-known Gaia Hypothesis.
The new
awareness and new values associated with this paradigm shift is a movement from
self-assertion to integration. The shift is human consciousness moving from an
only-rational focus: from analysis (compartmentalizing, distinguishing,
categorizing) to synthesis; from reductionism and linear thinking to wholeness
and non-linear (intuitive) awareness.
In the
discussion, Br. David objects to describing the contrast as "rational vs.
intuitive." He doesn't want to say intuition is ir-rational. They suggest
"conceptual vs. non-conceptual," but David emphasizes the
"intuition" means "looking deeply into" something so as to
see its inner coherence; they eventually settle for "discursive" in
contrast to intuitive.
The
emphasis here on finding the right words to talk about this change is
consciousness is indicative of the on-going struggle anyone concerned with
these things has in being able to express well an awareness of the paradigm
shift. Again: the key is our awareness of the shift in our awareness about
human awareness. Complicated, indeed!
The
accompanying shift in values is from self-assertion (competition, expansion,
quantity and domination) to integration (conservation, quality and
partnership). These are opposite and seemingly contradictory values.
Thomas
notes that in the Middle Ages, society lacked the self-assertive tendency; the
coming of the Renaissance and experimental science brought an over-emphasis on
individuality. The contemporary task is to arrive at a dynamic balance.
For the
record, I note that Frithof wants to call the assertive values masculine or
patriarchal; he does not distinguish between a patriarchal masculine and a more
rooted, alternative form of the masculine. I think that distinction, as I noted
in the section on "living accordingly" (above), is a crucial aspect
of the Immense Transition.
David
also makes the point that, in the paradigm shift from the discursive to the
intuitive in theology, movement is away from stating polemical or apologetic
propositions and to an emphasis on story telling; originally, he says,
"all theological insights were stories."
A story
is a synthetic whole, greater than the sum of any of its propositional parts.
We can also say the shift is away from abstract statements to poetry, metaphor
and experience. Frithof mentions that a key figure in systems theory, Gregory
Bateson, had story telling as his "preferred mode."
This section
ends with an emphasis by David on the fact that much of what's new in the new
paradigm "is really recovery of very old intuitions."
===
6.
Tidbits from the discussion of the five major aspects of the paradigm shift.
1) With
regard to the shift from emphasis on the parts to the whole. Frithof notes that the new
paradigm holds through all the physical and social sciences. While the old
paradigm puts humans outside and above nature, since the 1970's the emphasis in
"deep" ecology has been on humans as an intrinsic part of nature.
David
makes the point that the idea that humans are made in the image of God doesn't mean we have an immortal
soul (separate from our physical being); he notes that that is a Greek idea
which he calls "cultural baggage." A new (and really, very old) way
to say what image of God means is that "All things live by the breath of
God." The divine spiritus (air, pneuma, chi, the very breath of God) fills the
whole universe.
Frithof
asks for a reformulation of the place of humans in nature from a Christian
perspective. David offers the one from Isaiah: "The lion shall lie down
with the kid." He says the human project within nature is play, delight
and curiosity.
He offers
the "gardener metaphor" for our role in the natural world. The
gardener is not separate from the garden but an integral part of it and
responsible to and for it. We nurture it, and we are to enjoy it. We are to
hear its call and respond to it. Responsibility and responsiveness go together.
"We damage the garden if we treat it as a machine."
The
conventional idea of freedom as elbow room is Newtonian. The
"systemic" understanding is of freedom is not pushing others aside
but mutual enhancement. David adds an important related idea: that the
diminishment of others also diminishes each of us. We are capable of not just
manipulating nature but of living in harmony with it: we are capable "not
only of science but also of wisdom."
---
2) With
regard to the shift from structure to process. The old scientific view saw reality
as a whole made up of parts, and the new view sees that the parts as patterns
in the whole web of relations. Similarly, the old view saw structures acted on
by forces which result in processes, while the new view sees process as
revealed by structures.
It sounds
confusing, but an excellent example is offered: a tree, as a structure in
connection between sky and earth, is shaped in a certain way to get sun via
leaves, and nutrients via roots; the tree is an epiphany of the life-process.
David
offers an important example from religion. In contrast to the old opposition
between matter and spirit, we can now see that spirit or mind is revealed by
matter. David emphasizes again that there is "no such thing as pure mind
or disembodied soul." He mentions 20th century theological heavyweights,
Raymundo Panikkar and Karl Rahner, in support of this radically new (but,
again, really very old) understanding.
---
3) With
regard to the shift from objective to 'epistemic' science. With regard to how we know
anything, Frithof notes that while there is no consensus yet, thinkers are
moving in direction of seeing the world as being created or brought forth by
our consciousness.
He notes
that this does not mean that we materialize matter and energy, but that what we
call objects are patterns that we see by omitting the rest of what's there.
I.e., we "order" our experience of reality. He refers several times
to Chilean thinkers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, whose efforts have
been toward an understanding of knowing from a biological point of view.
David
makes the point that "rational animal" is not a good translation of
the Greek definition of human (zoon logikon) and that a better translation
would be "pattern-reading animal." He says logos has the meaning of the
"pattern that makes cosmos out of chaos."
---
4) With
regard to the shift from building to network as metaphor of knowing. Frithof notes that buildings,
foundations, bricks and construction blocks are persistence images in science.
But in a web or net of relationships there is no up or down, no hierarchal
structures. The participants agree that the same is true in the shift in
religion: "basic beliefs" are much less important than awareness of
our interconnectedness.
This
brings up the question of God as divine architect. In the old paradigm (in both
Newtonian-mechanistic science and theology), God got things started. Even
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant scientists of our day, uses it,
Thomas notes.
"God
is on every page of Hawking's Brief History of Time," says Thomas, "but his
theology is at the level of a grade school catechism."
Still
today in religious fundamentalism, God is the architect of the building, and
science is the discovery of God's building blocks. Thomas notes that the new
paradigm talks of God as "horizon" of our understanding, by which he
means "mystery" in the sense that things reveal ultimate reality.
They "speak to us" and "tell us something," but it is in no
way exhaustive.
David
emphasizes that "It's like a dialogue." We are active partners in
creation. Frithof mentions the Hindu idea of lila (divine play) and Thomas says say
the same understanding is found in Proverbs 8, where the Wisdom of God is
described as at play and delighting to be with human persons. He also
distinguishes play and work: "we work to achieve a purpose, we play to
arrive at meaning."
Frithof
says old time science was about domination and control of mechanical nature,
whereas the new scientific paradigm is about dialogue with a living reality.
"With the deepest source of everything," David adds.
Frithof
also mentions, with regard to tolerance and pluralism, what the scientist Geoffrey Chew
calls "bootstrap physics." I.e., being able to view different models
without prejudice. This is a major aspect of the new paradigm in science, says
Frithof.
David
observes that intolerance of pluralism in RCism is "doctrine made
subservient to power, a tool of power." He offers as an example, the
exclusivist understanding of the eucharist: "When it is seen as
celebration of belonging, it has to be inclusive; everybody has to be welcomed at
the table."
He
emphasizes that the very meaning of the eucharist "explodes the Christian tradition to include all traditions." And again
emphasizes that such thinking in theology is a return to "very old,
original thinking about the Christian mysteries."
---
5) With
regard to the shift from absolute truth to approximations. Frithof says that in science it
is now recognized that we simply can not take into account all the interconnections.
Much has to be left out. That is, in fact, the scientific method; it is what
experiments are all about.
David
talks about religious dogma in this context. He says that dogma is a response
to issues, where a great deal of effort has been expended. The term
"dogma" comes from dokein: "that's the way it seems to us."
The
problem is that religious dogma is always expressed in language of the time. A
serious task of theologians is to figure out (in contemporary language) what
the old dogmas were trying to say.
Dogmas
use philosophical language. They were not expressed in literary forms, but are
in fact based on poetic forms. Thomas adds that the even the Nicene Creed
contains "poetry." "God of God, light of light." David says
It's like a story or a play. The whole play or story expresses the meaning, the
pattern of relationships.
David
stresses once again that all this goes back to awareness of belonging, of being
in relationship, as the essence of religious experience.
Thomas
spells out this important idea very well: science and religion converge in the
realization that the "objective viewpoint" is illusory. There can be
no "detached observer." You're part of it all and what's being told
is your story.
The
paradigm shift from part to whole is realization that I (this part) belong to
the whole universe, that this part (this "I") is a vital participant
in a living cosmos. And this realization is both the context and the condition
of God's self-disclosure.
---
7. The
final section of the book deals with social implications of new-paradigm
thinking. The central idea is personal freedom.
Thomas
notes that liberation is the main theme of Christian revelation. David adds
that what set it all in motion was the Exodus. All the biblical books, even Genesis, were written after and in
light of the
exodus experience.
Liberation
is the key of Old Testament: God's judgment always means God's helping people
to be liberated from oppression. Liberation is also the key to New Testament.
It is Jesus' main point. His was essentially a revolutionary message, and it
caused an authority crisis.
David
says Jesus does not stand on his own authority nor on God's authority behind
him, but the divine authority people experience in their own hearts, the common
sense we share with all humans, animals and plants and the whole cosmos
operating from its divine ground. "What's more liberating than common
sense?"
His point
is that people are intimidated by public pressure and external authority, and
Jesus is all about empowerment against that authority which puts down the inner
authority of common sense.
Even the
Gospel of John, which contains most highly developed teachings about Jesus,
makes it clear that every one should be able to say with Jesus, "I and the
Father are one."
Authority
originally means "having a firm basis for knowing and acting."
David
says that the purpose of external authority is to use its power to empower
others. To empower means to give others inner authority, to give them personal
responsibility.
Frithof
adds that the main issue is parenting. "All over the world," he says,
"people learn about power, authority and responsibility via the parenting
process." David says, And this is what Jesus did. He empowered his
hearers; he authorized them to trust their own innermost awareness. Of all the
aspects of the paradigm shift, this is probably the most important: giving full
weight to our personal experience of the divine.
And how
nicely this ties in with Mary Conrow Coelho's work! She is the only writer I
know pointing out the crucial role of parenting for the acceptance of one's
personal inner authority, a perspective absolutely central for the New
Cosmology to catch on and flourish.
+++
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