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An offlist discussion prompted this musing. I am putting it under Spirituality, because, while it is somewhat philosophical in thrust, it has profound practical implications for the Life of Prayer and Spiritual Growth, especially vis a vis what is entailed in theosis. We maintain that all successful descriptions of God, if literal, are necessarily apophatic, which is to say that we thus gain descriptive accuracy through negation, while we gain positive descriptive accuracy of God, kataphatically speaking, necessarily, only through analogy. Many people look at this grammar of description and see a paradox. They suggest that if God is literally no-thing in sensible reality as could be successfully described other than through negation or analogy, then why does this seeming radical discontinuity not, therefore, entail a complete causal disjunction between Creator and creature? This is to say that they feel like there is a causal joint question still begging, somehow. How can this Creator, if wholly distinct ontologically from creation, thereby exert any effects, whatsoever, on the created order? There is another grammar, however, which is the grammar of reference. And this grammar suggests that we can, in principle, successfully reference realities we are otherwise unable to successfully describe. And we have always routinely employed these distinctions (between description and reference) as we've advanced in our knowledge of science and metaphysics, retreating into rather vague heuristic references while awaiting more robust theoretic descriptions for unknown causes proper to known effects. Meta-metaphysically, then, God is the answer to our limit questions, primally asking: Who, What, When, Where, How and Why? And while we may indeed claim that we successfully refer to this ineluctably unobtrusive Reality as the Answer to these ultimate questions, at the same time, we are by no means suggesting that this Reality is not also utterly efficacious causally. Analogically, we may think of Haught's discussion of Polanyi's tacit dimension, of Arraj's discussion of nonlocality and superluminality, or of formal and final causation ---even as minimalistically conceived--- in Peirce's triadic semiotic science. In her paper, A God Adequate for Primate Culture, Nancy R. Howell of the Saint Paul School of Theology writes about John Haught's evolution-informed approach, http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2001/2001-4.html : There is a tension, then, between our conceptions of some type of causal continuity or interactivity and an ontological discontinuity between Creator and created. This should not surprise us, however, for analogously, we encounter discontinuities even within the created order between otherwise distinct levels of emergent reality even without the violation of known causal closure dynamics. As science advances and our metaphysical tautologies gain ever more taut grasps of reality, our kataphatic God-analogues will become more robustly descriptive and so will our apophatic negations (as we add to our positivist inventory of not-God-realities). Our references to God can become ever more successful, too, especially once considering that our God-encounters engage all of our intentional fields (Haught, Lonergan), our entire person integrally and unfathomably, in a relationship of love, precisely through such divine kenosis as we have explicated above. The efficacy of this relationship derives from our being God-like and necessarily precludes, in principle, our being, essentially, God. Thomas Merton speaks of the confessional aspects of the Psalms, one which was: "It wasn't me! It was Him, Who did this!" This kenosis, this divine self-emptying, condescends through the Incarnation (and all the attendant Mysteries that we celebrate) to gift us with a correspondence --- not an identity --- with God. This correspondence fosters communication (think Logos, think semeiotic even) most unitively! Raw awareness of this correspondence is ineffable, nondiscursive, immanent, impersonal, existential and apophatic. Reflective experience is liturgical, discursive, transcendent, personal, theological and kataphatic. They can nurture each other in a virtuous cycle. Neither the awareness nor the experience yields ontological descriptions, but the reflective experience refers to the Wholly Other and is, in that sense, vaguely ontological, in maintaining the discontinuity. pax! jb | |||
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JB, some of this resonates with a little summary of theology and metaphysics from Jim Arraj. - http://www.innerexplorations.c...mortext/philtheo.htm BTW, we have an extensive discussion on duality and nonduality going on the thread about Eckhart Tolle, which I have just referenced to this thread. - see http://shalomplace.com/cgi-bin...t_topic;f=1;t=000306 | ||||
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When we say that we can describe nothing of God literally, except in denying what God is not, and that all of our positive descriptions are merely analogical ... But that we can still successfully refer to God ... What are the implications for the relationship between Creator and created? What bridges the ontological discontinuity in this relationship? What gets us past mere analogy? I seem to recall a discussion by Arraj of deep and dynamic formal fields. And this is from a Thomistic perspective. There is also the panentheistic, neo-Whiteheadian perspective of Fr. Joe Bracken, who speaks of the Divine Matrix. It is beyond my competence to reconcile these approaches with one another, much less with my own semiotic approach. And since my own grasp is rather inchoate it makes it difficult to translate my intuitions into an accessible form. But I'm going to try anyway. I do not see anything wrong with viewing creation and creatures as quasi-autonomous realities that exist in God with both the Creator and the created order operating in and through a Divine matrix of interrelated causes and effects. This could only be accommodated by a Thomistic view that reconceives its ontological categories more dynamically and not in static, essentialistic identities, for example, seeing the Whiteheadian concept of creativity in the Thomistic act of being. This all seems to resonate with Phil Hefner's description of human beings as created co-creators. Reconceiving this relationship between God and creatures has implications for how we view original sin and for theodicy and such. I won't go there for now. The bottomline is that we experience enough autonomy to be in an authentic (in radical freedom) love relationship with God and others and enough causal interconnectedness to know that we will subsist, forever, through, with and in this Divine Matrix. It may be that a natural mysticism corresponds to a raw awareness of this ineluctably unobtrusive tacit dimension or matrix. It is with the benefit of special revelation that our contemplation experiences it as Divine. Our contemplation reflects on our autonomy. Enlightenment qualifies it as quasi. | ||||
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re: Our contemplation reflects on our autonomy. Enlightenment qualifies it as quasi. Just to be clear, those aspects of contemplation and enlightenment, of course, do not exhaust those rich human realities. re: I do not see anything wrong with viewing creation and creatures as quasi-autonomous realities that exist in God with both the Creator and the created order operating in and through a Divine matrix of interrelated causes and effects. To amplify a bit, I have recently been contemplating this panentheist approach with an aim toward reconciling it with that of Gregory Palamas and the hesychasts. It does not seem to me to be a major stumbling block for Christian unity, no more than the filioque? | ||||
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About Hesychasm
So, the emphasis here is on experience of God, a knowledge that goes beyond the propositional. There is an emphasis on freedom here, on increasing freedom, and thereby love. This is very Buddhist in some ways but differs in being very relational and personal and not, rather, empty. Now, read here about the distinction between God's essence and energies, and our experience of God's uncreated energies. Just some food for thought. This reminds me a tad of a thread from years ago: Kundalini and the Holy Spirit | ||||
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I've been getting into the hesychasts myself recently, though more from the practical point of view than the philosophical. Quite by chance, this morning I came across a passage from Diadochos of Photiki. He talks about how stillness of mind is related to insight: I'm intrigued by the question as to whether the hesychastic tradition reflects any lingering Indian influence in the Near East. | ||||
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This may not be a very dialogical consideration, but it is a project I was working on earlier this summer and I'll blog it here. It may yield some touchstones for passers-by now or in the future. My spiritual sensibilities have grown increasingly Franciscan, beyond my fascination with Francis and nature, to include a few thoughts that are more philosophical like those of folks like Duns Scotus vis a vis the Incarnation and also his scholastic realism, which influenced Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce called Scotus and Ockham "the greatest speculative minds of the middle ages, as well as two of the profoundest metaphysicians that ever lived." (Writings of Charles S. Peirce, Vol. 2, W2, p. 311.) In fact, I discovered Peirce when someone pointed out to me that some of my writings resembled his, although I in turn pointed out that I had never heard of Peirce and my writings in question were influenced, rather, by Scotus and, before that, pseudo-Dionysius and some of the neo-platonic mystics of very early Christianity. At any rate, using Shalomplace as a cyberworkshop of sorts has paid dividends over the years as its Googleability has introduced me to some neat acquaintances over the years, who then introduced me to ideas of those like Peirce, who made the Scotistic realism stronger than it was in its inchoate form (which the Thomists were right to criticize). Anyway ... Consider the following mostly in the poetic vein. Take away from it what grows in your own heart. I devised the following rubrics from meditating on Peirce: The normative sciences mediate between phenomenology and metaphysics to effect the pragmatic. The normative mediates between the descriptive and interpretive to effect the evaluative. The philosophic mediates between the positivist and theistic to effect the theotic. (using Helminiak's foci of concern) The axiological mediates between the epistemological and ontological to effect the teleological. Instrumental causes mediate between formal causes and efficient causes to effect final causes. (Thomistic categories and tacit dimensionality) The probable (necessary) mediates between the possible and the actual to effect the valuable. (modal ontology) Delimitations mediate between visualizations and actualizations to effect realizations (value-realizations). Objective delimitations mediate between subjective visualizations and interobjective actualizations to effect intersubjective value realizations. (relating this all to Wilber) Peirce, in his epistemology, placed a great deal of emphasis on the community of inquiry, which I have reemphasized as the community of value-realization. Everything in my tetradalectical fugues above is ultimately oriented, then, to value-realizations that are, in the end, radically intersubjective. Now, let me point out that, while this certainly has normative impetus, this has primarily been a descriptive enterprise. When it comes to epistemology, in other words, how we realize what we realize, everything is inherently normative. And this is why goodness mediates between beauty and truth to effect unity. And why code (law) mediates between cult (liturgy) and creed to effect community. Our love of God for sake of God mediates between our love of self for sake of self and love of God for sake of self to effect our love of self for sake of God. (St. Bernard) Agape mediates between eros and storge' to effect philia. (C.S. Lewis & You are my friends if you do what I command you.) Our love of God mediates between our love of self and our love of nature to effect our love of others. (Merton) And why our formative spirituality is ordered toward unitive strivings and communion. In the context, then, of our manifold and multiform nondual realizations, those realizations are philosophic, epistemic, aesthetical, moral, linguistic, semiotic, ascetical, psychological, spiritual, mystical, ecstatic, metaphysical, ontological, social and religious and so on and so forth: The practical upshot of our nondual realizations from a theological perspective as we gaze through this Peircean prism, as amplified in the fugues above, is that all value-realizations are radically intersubjective. The nondual lens, then, yields a partial truth, is but an epistemic finger pointing to another reality, the moon, which but reflects the Light of the Sun. Note: The reason that we do not conceive of good and evil dualistically is because they are not equal members in comparison, good triumphing over evil. | ||||
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64 Reasons Not To be Dualistic Or, 64 Ways to Deny a Flip-flop (self-contradiction) 1) I'm a politician. 2) I'm a mystic. 3) You missed the kataphatic predication. 4) You missed the apophatic predication. 5) You missed the unitive predication. 6) You missed the dionysian logic. 7) You missed the neoplatonic logic. 8) You missed the semiotic grammar. 9) You missed the deliberate parsing. 10) You missed the high nuance. 11) You missed the careful disambiguation. 12) You missed the rigorous definition. 13) You missed the antinomial paradox. 14) You missed the conditional paradox. 15) You missed the veridical paradox. 16) You missed the falsidical paradox. 17) You missed the literal and historical sense. 18) You missed the tropological and moral sense. 19) You missed the anagogical sense. 20) You missed the allegorical sense. 21) You missed the mystagogical sense. 22) You missed the univocal predication. 23) You missed the equivocal predication. 24) You missed the analogical and metaphorical predication. 25) You missed the temporal nature of the reality. 26) You missed the eternal nature of the reality. 27) You missed the eschatological nature of the reality. 28) You missed the proleptical nature of the reality. 29) You missed the implicit epistemic, ontological and semantical vagueness. 30) You missed the false dichotomy. 31) You missed the ecstatic nature of the utterance. 32) You missed the subject-object cleavage. 33) You missed the nondiscursive nature of the utterance. 34) You missed the preconceptual nature of the utterance. 35) You missed the transconceptual nature of the utterance. 36) You missed the deconstructive strategy being employed. 37) You missed the tautological structure being inhabited. 38) You missed the binary logic yielding to monadic and triadic reality. 39) You missed the evaluative nature of the utterance. 40) You missed the distinction between the descriptive and interpretive. 41) You missed the distinction between the descriptive and the prescriptive. 42) You missed the distinction between the given and the normative. 43) You missed the distinction between the phenomenal and phenomenological. 44) You missed the distinction between the epistemic and the ontological. 45) You missed the distinction between exegesis and eisegesis. 46) You missed the conflation of the metaphysical and theological. 47) You missed the distinction between the primary and secondary. 48) You missed the distinction between the essential and the accidental. 49) You missed the distinction between the propositional and the experiential. 50) You missed the distinction between the existential and the neurotic. 51) You missed the distinction between the altered state of consciousness and psychosis. 52) You missed the distinction between engagement and obsession. 53) You missed the distinction between being driven and being inspired. 54) You missed the distinction between being spontaneous and being compulsive. 55) You missed the conflation of the empirical, rational, practical and relational. 56) You missed the distinction between the practical and theoretical or speculative. 57) You missed the distinctions between primacy, autonomy and integrality. 58) You missed the distinction between the necessary and sufficient. 59) You missed the distinction between epistemic methodological constraints and ontological occulting. 60) You missed the distinction between the dogmatic, heuristic and theoretic. 61) You missed the creative ambiguity and creative tension. 62) You missed the distinction between phenomenal states, developmental stages and psychic structures. 63) You missed the distinction between visualization, actualization, delimitation and realization. 64) You missed the distinction between pattern & paradox, chance & necessity, order & chaos, symmetry & asymmetry, random & systematic. | ||||
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Thank you for this Johnboy.....May I add 65? "I miss the point" | ||||
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65) You missed the point. Good one! Oh, and number 66: 66) You missed the distinction between what Jekyll said versus Hyde. We can apply what Fr. Rohr says here about "The Secret" to any of our "limited perspectives" and "partial truths" which fog up our perceptual lenses through which we gaze at reality, the densest fog often coming from our either-or thinking, failing to see other ways of looking at and even conceptualizing reality in our always fallible search for the truth. First, there is a tree; then, there is no tree; and then there is. Or, substitute | jb | for | tree | or |mountain |. | ||||
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Christianity is recovering its mystical core via a neoplatonic-influenced dionysian logic. The classical emphasis has been on the dialectic between the apophatic and kataphatic, the former referring literally to what God is not, the latter an affirmation of what God is like, analogically. This has reduced all God-talk to metaphor and leaves a question begging as to how there can be any causal efficacy between Creator and creatures with such a causal disjunction as is necessarily implied by such a weak analogy. The classical logic looks like this: 1) God is | x | is true analogically and kataphatically. 2) God is | not x | is true literally and apophatically. Dionysian logic breaks out of this dualistic dyad, going beyond it but not without it: 3) God is neither | x | nor | not x | is true unitively. This triadic perspective resolves the tension between the classical neoplatonic henosis, which refers to the dance between intersubjectivity and identity with ultimate reality, and dinonysian theosis, which refers to the growth in intimacy with ultimate reality, by affirming both an interobjective identity between creature and Creator, in a panentheistic divine matrix of interrelated causes and effects, as well as an intersubjective intimacy between creature and Creator, the creature thus being quasiautonomous. (auto = self) Metaphysically, this is best expressed in the neoclassical theism of Charles Hartshorne and the panentheist divine matrix of Joe Bracken. This references distinctions #2 thru #7, from the list above. Other examples will follow, slowly. [reminder: This may not be a very dialogical consideration, but it is a project I was working on earlier this summer and I'll blog it here. If that's okay.] | ||||
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re: other examples Although I'm preoccupied on another project, in case anyone comes across this and is interested, the examples I am trying to gather or harvest re: my list of nondualia above are those that would take the form of poetry, haiku, jokes, koans, riddles, short stories, cartoons and such. And these examples and this list pertain to nonduality broadly conceived, the Big Tent approach, such as might be described at wikipedia or the Nonduality Salon. I'm not really collecting examples of the more narrowly conceived, but most commonly considered, "theological" interpretations of nonduality as it differs between, for example, the Hindu Advaitic type, the Buddhist type: all is empty of self or neoplatonic henosis, or, in other words, those conceptions that are often the subject of East vs West odium theologicum. So, this is to say that I'm collecting nondualia that involve practice not doctrine, methods or processes and not systems (not to deny that sometimes these can seem inextricably intertwined, only to emphasize that quite often they are not). So, if anyone has some such examples to share, I'd be much obliged. Thanks! | ||||
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You know "nondual thinking" is really IN when Richard Rohr is using these buzzwords to promote his Enneagram workshops. - http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/laugh/ But whatever does this term mean to Rohr? | ||||
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For Rohr, I'd say the nondual refers mostly to an epistemic process, such as in Zen's dethroning of the conceptualizing ego in order to otherwise relate to some seeming contradictions, instead, as paradoxes, which might perdure as mystery, resolve dialectically, dissolve from a stepping out of an inadequate framework of logic or any other dispositions (or lack thereof) known to this paradox or another (see my inventory of nondualia above). [This maps fairly well with the broad conceptions of nonduality such as at Nonduality Salon and Wikipedia.] Predominantly, though, Rohr affirms nondual thinking in an over against fashion as related to either-or thinking, i.e. false dichotomies, and as related to a failure to self-critique one's own systems and logical frameworks, as a failure, too, to affirm the rays of truth in other perspectives and traditions. It is a failure to move beyond the Law thru the Prophets to the Wisdom tradition, not to do away with them but to properly fulfill them. From Rohr's heavy reliance on Merton, to the extent the nondual refers to metaphysical realities, again, looking to Zen, then I'd say Rohr would affirm its metaphysical intuition of the ground of being. [Of course, this doesn't map perfectly well over certain Hindu and Buddhist ontological interpretations, which, vis a vis creature and creator, impute complete identity rather then a causal nexus or matrix, relating them wholly by nature rather than grace.] My interpretation of Rohr is that he is pretty much grounded, as would be expected, in Franciscan sensibilities, which includes a Scotist philosophy (Scholastic) and the theology of St. Bonaventure, who was influenced by Dionysius, among others of neoplatonic leanings, and who was also influenced by Richard of St. Victor. Interestingly, though, in his prayer life, Rohr chose Thomas Merton as his model, which explains, I'd suppose, why he works with Jim Finley. In my view, these influences come together to provide the leit motif of Rohr's teachings and the rosetta stone to interpretation of Rohr. Richard of St. Victor thus informs the Franciscan tradition thru Bonaventure about the occulus carnis (eye of the senses), the occulus rationis (eye of reason), and the occulus fidei (eye of faith). This "eye of faith" is what Rohr would refer to as the "third eye" and, consistent with Merton, it integrally takes us beyond our senses and reason but not without them. [In my view, this maps fairly well, but not completely, over such as Jewish and Tibetan concepts of Third Eye seeing, for example.] Zen, for Merton, gifts us with a process for going beyond both concepts as well as conceptual frameworks. For some, per Merton, as a form of natural contemplation, Zen leads also to metaphysical insight or intuition of being. (And this reveals Merton's reliance on Maritain. He employs other Thomist formulations, too. I can only imagine that Rohr simply misspoke or was misdictated or there was a typo or something in his Radical Grace article.) Merton could affirm Zen's metaphysical intuition of the ground of being as compatible with Christianity but certainly distinct from infused contemplation. Rohr often refers to knowledge through connaturality, which, per Maritain is knowledge through union or inclination, connaturality or congeniality, the intellect is at play not alone, but together with affective inclinations and the dispositions of the will, and is guided and directed by them. It is not rational knowledge, knowledge through the conceptual, logical and discursive exercise of Reason. But it is really and genuinely knowledge, though obscure and perhaps incapable of giving account of itself, or of being translated into words. Rohr writes: As for a Zen Catholicism, Arraj writes: Here's a great quote from Pseudo-Dionysius: Rohr goes beyond these Mertonesque Zen-like formulations though:
Simplicity revised from 1991, Crossroad Publishing 2003 | ||||
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Before answering that Rohr question re: the nondual, I was coming here to share these great quotes: Cynthia Krkoska Nielsen, in �The God Beyond Being in Dionysius and Jean-Luc Marion,� writes:  I felt some resonance with that quote and the distinction theologians draw between primary and secondary objects of our beatific vision (vis a vis my own interpretation of Thomas Keating's nonduality article in Radical Grace). Cynthia closes that paper with a quote from Jean-Luc Marion: Be sure to check out Cynthia's Blog if you're a fan of John Duns Scotus. At this link, she quotes Mary Beth Ingham, who works with Richard Rohr, also, most recently in a conference on Paradox. | ||||
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Richard of St. Victor | ||||
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Excerpt taken from Thomas Merton's autobiography "The Seven Storey Mountain" pgs.284-5
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w.c. --- I cannot say for sure but Rohr may, in fact, see no urgency in that question. It may very well be that, from a theological perspective, Rohr might, once again, if following Merton, view the distinction between acquired and infused contemplation as irrelevant, see the argument as defunct with no real differences in principle in play with respect to the kinds of experience to which they refer, those experiences differing only in degree. Merton, of course, was a big fan of acquired contemplation and would have, therefore, I suppose, heartily endorsed modern contemplative prayer in most of its forms or structures, which dispose pray-ers to ever more full realizations of God working in us. Rohr provides general counsel to people to "find that spiritual exercise that helps them return to the source," however simple, whether discursive or nondiscursive, to whatever extent facultative. As folks climb the classical (and apparently dynamic) prayer ladder (with rungs added for emergent prayer forms), when they move into the contemplative forms, such general counsel, of course, must yield to more specific spiritual direction because those distinctions we draw regarding the fullness of experiences in prayer are certainly significant from a practical perspective. Now, to the extent that this transcendental thomist take on divine action is taken seriously, this might seem to introduce a problem in discernment of what exactly is coming from the world, the self, levels of consciousness, the devil or God with regard to various human impulses, feelings, insights and images. That problem is not new, however. The same question has arisen with respect to the inspiration and exegesis of Scripture and with all manner of so-called private revelation, too, along with miracles, apparitions, possessions, oppressions and so on and so forth, and we have time-honored rubrics for dealing with it all. My favorite is called the hermeneutic of suspicion.  | ||||
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JB, I'm amazed at how much Richard Rohr sounds like you in the analyses of his writings you provide. We'll just have to see what he writes in his new book; what I've heard of him on a DVD lately isn't promising, however. Indeed, one must inquire about his and others' use of the term, "nonduality," as that's not one used in our tradition with reference to mystical experiences. The term we've commonly used, instead, is "union," which at least implicitly recognizes the reality of "two" in "relationship." "Nonduality" does no such thing, and I have strong "suspicions" of the sort you mentioned whenever I hear people facilely tossing this term around along with "seer and seen," "true self," and so forth. Re. Merton and acquired contemplation, I think your comments need more nuancing. He did not, for example, view zazen and contemplation as the same thing. In Zen and the Birds of Appetite, for example, he distinguishes the two and in his exchanges with D. T. Suzuki (some recorded in that book) he seems to view zen as a kind of metaphysical mysticism. So what you would mean, here, by "acquired contemplation" would not be zen, and as he didn't really teach any particular contemplative method, it's difficult to situate him in that tradition which was so implicated in the Quietist controversies. Nothing wrong with sitting in silence and waiting on God, of course, and if contemplative graces are given, then that's wonderful. He suggests this all the time, but I don't think that translates to "acquired contemplation." | ||||
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Did you miss this, below, from my prior post? Or do you not see it as precisely the same naunce as you provide?  Zen, for Merton, gifts us with a process for going beyond both concepts as well as conceptual frameworks. For some, per Merton, as a form of natural contemplation, Zen leads also to metaphysical insight or intuition of being. (And this reveals Merton's reliance on Maritain. He employs other Thomist formulations, too. I can only imagine that Rohr simply misspoke or was misdictated or there was a typo or something in his Radical Grace article.) Merton could affirm Zen's metaphysical intuition of the ground of being as compatible with Christianity but certainly distinct from infused contemplation. | ||||
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My discussion of Merton's teachings regarding Zen, in the earlier post, was not (at least, directly) related to my discussion, in a later post, regarding Merton's recommendations to those (mostly the monastic religious) in spiritual direction vis a vis acquired contemplation. Still, as I noted, Merton certainly valued acquired contemplation. As for quietism per se, for all practical purposes, Merton didn't think that was a problem for modern folks. | ||||
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Yes, I saw that, JB. Well-said. I was thinking more about "acquired contemplation" and how Merton obviously doesn't equate that with Zen, which is significant. And since that is so -- which is significant given the number of Catholic writers who talk about Zen practice as "contemplation" -- then one wonders what kind of practice Merton had in mind for "acquired contemplation." I can only imagine that Rohr simply misspoke or was misdictated or there was a typo or something in his Radical Grace article. Rohr didn't have an article on nonduality in "Radical Grace," to my knowledge. Maybe you're thinking about this article, a link to which is on his home page. The terminology is mangled beyond hope, although one can get a sense of the distinctions he's trying to make. Still, it's a muddle: E.g., "For Tolle, Being, Consciousness, God, Reality are all the same thing, which is not all bad when you come to think of it."  "Of course, his very point is that you cannot think of it at all, you can only realize it." (point #4).You've gone more than the extra mile trying to help situate Rohr's comments in a classical framework, JB -- even assuming that he has deep knowledge of Franciscan mystical and theological masters! -- bit I prefer to hold him accountable for what he writes. If he "misspeaks" or is "misdicated" (you're really reaching, here, btw ), then it's still his responsibility to correct what's on his website, especially after the errors are pointed out to him (I've sent him and the editor two emails on this -- no response).The topic you raise is much broader than Rohr's work, however, and as we have a thread on his book in the Book Reviews forum, I'll use that to further comment on his writings after I read his book (which I'm not at all looking forward to doing). | ||||
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With all due respect to Rohr and Merton, my audio, video and book libraries of their work is extensive. This lessens the chance, I hope, that I am tendering eisegesis and not exegesis. One doesn't need access to my library to discover how Rohr uses the word nondual. Google works well enough. It's results are consistent with what I have gathered from all of my primary sources. And I have already described that usage. I don't expect any surprises from Third Eye. He isn't talking ontologically or metaphysically. He isn't denying relationality and neither is Keating. He's talking about transcending our analytical and logical and empirical and practical and evaluative mindsets by engaging, also, for example, our simple awareness, our nonrational aspects of knowing, our nonpropositional faculties that are precisely involved in our grammar of relationship, etc. Nondualism is the proper metaphysical term. The other forms - nondual and nonduality - just aren't dictionary words (not even BIG dictionaries). Duality, on the other hand, is an M-W word that corresponds to dichotomy. It is fair enough, then, to say that nonduality is another way of saying no dichotomy. And that is the best definition, in fact, for Rohr's habitual usage: no false dichotomies. He amplifies this in his teaching on paradox, which, as I mentioned previously, he represents as a way to transcend those contradictions that are seeming. It is not really a bad word choice to explicate our c/Catholic both/and approach in relationship to an either/or approach. I am a great advocate of disambiguating terms, parsing phrases, high nuancing, rigorous definition and self-critique of one's presuppositions. And I have been searching for a better way of saying what it is I advocate and what I hear Rohr saying, too. I think a better term, for what I know we all advocate, might be whole brain approach. Clearly, though, Rohr advocates nonduality and not nondualism. The latter is a metaphysical proposition; the former is an epistemic method. In philosophy, we have recognized that methods can be successfully extricated from systems. In our East-West dialogue, we have recognized that some practices can be successfully extricated from their doctrinal contexts. Nonduality is a practice, a method, that can be successfully extricated from nondualism (as system or doctrine). In fact, it has a philosophical meaning vis a vis the false dichotomy fallacy that is quite independent of any Eastern traditions. That's the meaning employed by Rohr. Because of the plethora of misunderstandings coming out of the East-West dialogue, I recognize that suspicions are warranted when certain terms that have become cultural buzzwords are being used, whether facilely or properly. And I think I'll use whole-brain approach more often because of this inasmuch as ambiguous buzzwords can often do more to obfuscate than to clarify. I also hope I have laid any suspicions to rest regarding Rohr because I earnestly believe that I have interpreted his true position, even if others think his expression of same has been rather inartful. (I empathize due to my own habit of inartful expression.) Finally, as regard various practices, certainly, some require cautionary notes --- just like medical prescriptions require contraindications and side-effects. Most cautionary notes deserve the status of footnotes and fine print: if lasting longer than 4 hours ... | ||||
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Zen practice is a natural contemplation. Merton is not describing this when speaking of acquired contemplation (and he uses the words active and masked, too, apparently interchangeably). So, Merton recognizes a distinction (in degree) between classical Eastern contemplation, classical Christian contemplation and this third way, all the same gift from God. Words that come to mind are simple, nondiscursive, affective, loving, gaze. Zen complements these other forms. from p. 95 of Merton's What is Contemplation from p. 41 of Merton's Spiritual Direction & Meditation from The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm: A question persists for me insofar as I recognize a distinction between this thematic grace of transcendental thomism (Rahner, Lonergan et al) and grace as transmuted experience (Gelpi). To the extent that I find good reasons to reject some aspects of that Rahnerian account of grace, I am trying to wrap my mind around such distinctions as we've drawn between different contemplative prayer forms vis a vis grace as transmuted experience. See Donald L. Gelpi: Two Spiritual Paths: Thematic Grace vs. Transmuting Grace (Part II). Initially, I am thinking that, in either model of grace, still, we are considering degrees and not kinds of God-experience. Again, this is all consonant with Rohr's approach (see below). Also, we draw a distinction between Rohr's philosophical treatment or method of nonduality or nondual consciousness and the practice of contemplative prayer forms. The former is at the service of the latter, to be sure, but it is also at the service of all other epistemic value-realizations, as one should expect from a whole brain approach. (This is why I wrote an essay: Contemplation as Epistemic Virtue.)
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