chapter 19 religion from ways of knowing through the realms of meaning by william allan kritsonis,...

Copyright © 2011 by William Allan Kritsonis/All Rights Re-served

19

RELIGION

INSIGHTS

1. In religion the common element uniting all the realms is ultimacy.

2. The content of religious meanings may be anything at all, provided it is regarded from an ul-timate perspective.

3. The methods of gaining religious understand-ing are many and varied, including prayer, medita-tion, active commitment, and ritual practices.

4. Faith is the illumination that comes in going to the limits.

5. Faith is the light that shines from the Whole.6. The realm of ultimacy is frequently desig-

nated as the “supernatural,” which is another way of speaking of infinitude.

7. The supernatural is what is beyond the limits of the finite or natural.

8. The ultimate word is the link binding together finite and infinite, time and eternity.

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422 PART TWO: FUNDAMENTAL PATTERNS OF MEANING

9. When the symbols of faith are understood in their ordinary language sense, the religious mean-ing is missed and religious utterances are re-garded as meaningless.

10. In addition to ordinary language used ex-traordinarily, religious symbols include many other nondiscursive forms.

11. Silence is a mode of expression that symbol-izes the boundary situation from which faith springs.

12. In the silence one bears witness to the infini-tude that cannot be contained in any finite act or utterance.

13. The “Truth” in the religious sense means the one Source and Ground of all partial truths and the Light that shines within every particular illumina-tion of intelligence.

14. This Source, Ground, Light, Being, Reality, First Cause, is named by many names, and all are names of the divine or of God, the term most com-monly applied to the ultimate Truth.

15. The God of faith is actual fact and not a fic-tion of the imagination.

16. Theology is regarded as the supreme science, providing systematic generalizations and theories about the ultimate Reality.

17. The man of faith believes the God of the cre-ative word and of ultimate truth is also the Source of all beauty.

18. God is sometimes symbolized by the figure of the Master Craftsman.

19. Much of the greatest music, painting, and ar-chitecture has been inspired by religious faith and has served to inspire others to a similar devotion.

20. Ultimacy in the realm of personal knowledge is expressed in the conviction that God is personal.

21. God is the eternal Thou and He is known in every I-Thou encounter.

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22. God is affirmed to be Love, and He is known wherever love is found.

23. The traditional term for the person regarded from an ultimate perspective is the “soul,” by which is meant the real core of a person’s being.

24. The soul is the mysterious depth in persons, in which are hidden the inexhaustible possibilities of being.

25. In the inwardness of the soul reside the springs of freedom, whereby the person shares with the divine in creative activity.

26. Above all, God, the ultimate Being, is be-lieved to be disclosed in the innermost life of the soul.

27. God is known in the Love made manifest in the inwardly accepted gift of personal existence.

28. The divine is further known to the faithful as the Holy One.

29. Sin is wrongdoing from the standpoint of rela-tion to the divine.

30. The goal of the religious life is salvation, which consists in final deliverance from sin and from the ultimate evil, death, and in the realization of union with God Himself in an eternity of love.

31. It is regarded as the duty of the faithful to affirm the love and the power of God in spite of the mystery of evil.

32. Religious meanings incorporate all the realms of meaning in a comprehensive orientation.

33. No major historical religion has been exclu-sively of one type; each contains a mixture of ele-ments.

34. At the very least, faith refers to an ideal and a hope for maximum completeness, depth, and in-tegrity of vision.

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Like history, religion as a synoptic field integrates all the realms of meaning. Integration in history is achieved by the consideration of events in time. The reenactment of these events requires meanings from all the realms. In religion the common element uniting all the realms is ultimacy. The term “ultimacy” is a gen-eral designation for such ideas as infinitude, absolute-ness, the unlimited, transcendence, perfection, com-pleteness, all-inclusiveness, the supreme, and many others. It stands in contrast to concepts of finitude, the relative, limitation, partiality, and the like.

THE CONTENT OF RELIGIOUS MEANINGS

The content of religious meanings may be any-thing at all, provided it is regarded from an ultimate perspective. Or it might better be said that religious meanings comprehend or include all things, and that a religious attitude with respect to any given thing is to consider it in the light of all that is, i.e., from the stand-point of the Whole.

THE METHODS OF GAINING RELIGIOUS UNDERSTANDING

The methods of gaining religious understanding are many and varied, including prayer, meditation, ac-tive commitment, and ritual practices. One element is essential in all methods of pursuing religious meanings, and this may be described as “going to the limits.” This means proceeding to the point where ordinary finite ex-perience is exhausted and where the significance of proximate and limited meanings is called into question.

DISAGREEMENT ABOUT “GOING TO THE LIMITS”Not everyone agrees this “going to the limits” is a

meaningful process. Those who do not agree think that finite experience is all that people can have and that concepts of ultimacy are therefore empty and their ob-jects illusory. Generally they hold that no question ever need arise beyond the pursuit of finite meanings. They

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believe that human life consists simply in the sum total of particular happenings, and that while various coordi-nations and interrelations can be established, the con-cept of understanding anything in the light of the Whole is meaningless.

AFFIRMATION IN “GOING TO THE LIMITS”Those who affirm the meaningfulness of religion

believe that in “going to the limits” in prayer and other religious practices a new and essential perspective is gained on everything particular. They believe essential perspective is gained on everything particular. They be-lieve that in some sense this new perspective is an illu-mination from the Whole, constituting what is generally referred to as revelation. Moreover, people who accept the religious view usually hold that those who deny any ultimacy implicitly affirm it in the vigor of their denial and that their clinging to finitude is an effort to escape the overwhelmingness of an ultimate that can neither be encompassed nor controlled.

FAITH

The idea of “the limits” may be somewhat mis-leading, since in the approach to ultimacy there is no question of reaching a dividing line between two do-mains of experience. The “limits of the finite” symbol-izes the way to the infinite, but the infinite is not simply another kind of finitude on the other side of the limits. That is why in the religious sphere the basis of under-standing is said to be faith and not the forms of under-standing that characterize the finite realms. Faith is the illumination that comes in going to the limits. Faith is the light that shines from the Whole, where the Whole is not simply the sum of everything within the finite realms, but the Comprehensive that comprehends or holds together all things in a transcendent unity, and it itself not comprehensible within any finite entity.


Humans, whatever theirreligious denomination love and

praise their God with music, literature,craftsmanship, and any other means

available. People build places of beauty

open to whomever wants to come andworship. Much has been debated aboutreligion in schools. How many religiousactivists would object to the use of all

religions in school? Would it be accept-able

to include the Bible, the Torah, the Ko-ran,

and the doctrine of every religion, in order

to have God present?

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Picture

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THE SUPERNATURAL

The realm of ultimacy is frequently designated as the “supernatural,” which is another way of speaking of infinitude. The supernatural is what is beyond the limits of the finite or natural. This mode of speech is likely to be misleading too, for the supernatural, the Kingdom of God, Heaven, and other such terms are not meant to be interpreted geographically, as separate realms. Religion means nothing apart from a relation of natural and su-pernatural, finite and infinite. The relation is that of creature to Creator, of beings to Being-Itself, and of the temporal to the Eternal. The disclosure of this relation is revelation, and its mode of apprehension is faith.

MANY DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS SYMBOLIC FORMS ARE USED AS VEHICLES OF FAITH (SYMBOLICS)

Each of the realms of meaning hitherto described is necessary to the Comprehensive that is apprehended by faith. From the symbolic realm religious symbols are required. In ultimate perspective, language is seen as the primordial creative Word, that was in the beginning, and from which all things were made. The ultimate word is the link binding together finite and infinite, time and eternity. It is the ordering principle in all things, the bond of community among disparate entities.

Many different symbolic forms are used as the ve-hicles of faith. Some of these are based on ordinary lan-guage, including common words like love, anger, and power. In these cases the meanings are generally to be understood figuratively and not literally, experiences from finite existence being used to point to faith ana-logues. When the symbols of faith are understood in their ordinary language sense, the religious meaning is missed and religious utterances are regarded as mean-ingless or at most as anthropomorphic projections. Ac-tually, a degree of anthropomorphism I inherent in sym-bolic usage and is the basis on which the infinite be-comes intelligible within finite existence.


NONDISCURSIVE SYMBOLIC FORMS AND

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS: RITUALS AND SILENCE

RitualsIn addition to ordinary language used extraordi-

narily, religious symbols include many other nondiscur-sive forms. Especially important are rituals, by which re-lations to the ultimate are regulated. for these purposes the religious community may designate special times and places (holy days, shrines, temples) and special persons (priests) and may consecrate certain objects as sacramental. Even more important in ritual are the symbolic acts, including postures, gestures, and other bodily movements regarded as symbolizing the ap-proach to the divine. The various symbolic patterns em-ployed belong to the language of religion.

SilenceOne more especially significant aspect of religious

expression is the use of silence. Silence is a mode of expression that symbolizes the boundary situation from which faith springs. In the silence one bears witness to the infinitude that cannot be contained in any finite act or utterance. Silence is the expression of the ineffability of the ultimate, that religious mystics have always ac-knowledged. From the standpoint of faith the atheist is in a sense correct: the divine is literally nothing, that is, not a thing which can be set alongside other things, put into categories, and named. The Comprehensive cannot be comprehended; it is nameless. For these reasons the symbolism of silence is an essential one in religion.

IN SCIENTIFIC MEANINGS THE ULTIMATE

APPEARS AS THE TRUTH (EMPIRICS)In the realm of scientific meanings, the ultimate

appears as the Truth. The “Truth” in the religious sense does not mean simply the sum of all the true proposi-tions known and yet to be known. It means the one Source and Ground of all partial truths and the Light

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that shines within every particular illumination of intelli-gence. These capitalized terms are symbols of ultimacy in relation to the enterprise of empirical inquiry.

Laws and TheoriesThe religious consciousness seeks to affirm a Real-

ity from which the phenomenal world is derived, a Be-ing whose intelligence is revealed in the laws and theo-ries of empirical science. The man of faith affirms an explanation in which all particular explanations are comprehended, and a First Cause (not in order of time, but of being) in which all proximate causes are grounded.

First CauseThis Source, Ground, Light, Being, Reality, First

Cause, is named by many names, and all are names of the divine or of God, the term most commonly applied to the ultimate Truth. By faith this God is held to be the primal Fact, whose being and nature are expressed in theological propositions and creedal formulas. These statements of faith are not regarded as empirical propositions in the same class as other such proposi-tions referring to the finite realm. Yet they are stated in empirical form to express the conviction that the God of faith is actual fact and not a fiction of the imagination. Theology is regarded as the supreme science, providing systematic generalizations and theories about the ulti-mate Reality.

THE MAN OF FAITH BELIEVES GOD IS THE

SOURCE OF ALL BEAUTY (ESTHETICS)With respect to the esthetic realm, the man of

faith believes the God of the creative word and of ulti-mate truth is also the Source of all beauty. Whatever excellence a work of art has he believes to be due to its participation in the divine excellence. he regards every finite perfection as a reflection of the infinite perfection of God. In the perception of a work of art, or of any


other object esthetically regarded, the eye of faith also perceives pure, unalloyed Beauty. This is not a sense perception, but a faith perception that is believed ink though not actualized in experience. Through this per-ception the finite instances of beauty serve as symbols of the divine.

The Activity of the ArtistFrom an ultimate perspective, the activity of the

artist may be regarded as an analogue of the divine creative activity. God is sometimes symbolized by the figure of the Master Craftsman. In his dialogue Timaeus Plat represents the creation of the world as the work of the divine Demiurge shaping formless substance ac-cording to the pattern of the ideal forms. Similarly, the God of one of the versions of the creation in the Book of Genesis is portrayed as a plastic artist. Dorothy Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker1 beautifully develops the anal-ogy between the work of the creative writer and the di-vine life, using as her basis the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. She sees the Father as the creative Idea, the Son as the material Incarnation of the idea, and the Holy Ghost as the communicative Power of the incar-nate idea, and she shows how the doctrine of the Trinity and the knowledge of good literary craftsmanship mu-tually reinforce one another.

Religious SignificanceThe religious significance of the esthetic realm is

especially evident in the abundant use made of all the arts in providing religious symbols. Much of the great-est music, painting, and architecture has been inspired by religious faith and has served to inspire others to a similar devotion. From the earliest times the dance has been intimately connected with sacred rites, and as Francis Fergusson shows,2 the classic drama, that had its roots in the festivals connected with the mys-1 Meridian Books, Inc., New York, 1956.

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tery religions, came to its most complete fulfillment in the cosmic vision of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

GOD IS PERSONAL (SYNNOETICS)Ultimacy in the realm of personal knowledge is ex-

pressed in the conviction that God is personal. The cre-ative Word, the supreme Truth, and the divine Harmony are understood by faith as not only objective abstrac-tions, not merely impersonal cosmic principles and powers, but as One with Whom each person may be in direct personal relation. As Buber says, God is the eter-nal Thou and He is known in every I-Thou encounter. Wherever a person meets another in awareness, accep-tance, and acknowledgment of his unique being, the eternal Thou is present. God is affirmed to be Love, and He is known wherever love is found. Every act of devo-tion in the finite realm is regarded by the faithful as a partial manifestation of that primal divine love shown forth in the creation of all things and in God’s abiding solicitude for their redemption and fulfillment.

The SoulThe personal God is believed to be the source and

ground of created persons. The traditional term for the person regarded from an ultimate perspective is the “soul,” by which is meant the real core of a person’s be-ing, as contrasted with the empirical self whose charac-teristics can be described in the categories of finitude. The soul is the mysterious depth in persons, in which are hidden the inexhaustible possibilities of being. In the inwardness of the soul reside the springs of free-dom, whereby the person shares with the divine in cre-ative activity. There reside the powers of limitless self-transcendence, the ground for self-awareness, imagina-tion, self-determination, and participation real time, in-cluding the ability to remember and to anticipate. In the light of faith these latter capacities betoken the union in 2 The Idea of a Theater, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1949.


the soul of the temporal and the eternal, and from this joining spring intimations, hopes, and expectations of a destiny of the soul beyond the mortal span, as symbol-ized in doctrines of preexistence, reincarnation, immor-tality, and resurrection—the various beliefs differing in the matter of the relation between the body and the soul in the person.

God, the Ultimate BeingAbove all, God, the ultimate Being, is believed to

be disclosed in the innermost life of the soul. He is not a Person to be sought in the far reaches of the cosmos. This is, again, why the faithful agree with the atheist, that God who is merely an object of empirical inquiry—does not exist. He is known in the Love made manifest in the inwardly accepted gift of personal existence.

The Holy OneThe divine is further known to the faithful as the

Holy One. He is supremely righteous, the ultimate source of all good. He is the Judge of all, and in Him the final justification of moral principles resides. These con-cepts are, however, to be understood metaphorically. God as the righteous judge is not to be conceived as an objective supernatural sovereign issuing commands and rendering judgments. The images used are in-tended to point to the ultimate Rightness in which all fi-nite principles and achievements of right participate. The divine Goodness, likewise, is a symbol for the ulti-mate perfection discerned by faith in every particular good.

THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD (ETHICS)From a religious standpoint the right and the good

are not conceived as impersonal principles and quali-ties, but as rooted in the personal divine Ground. Right and good have no moral quality apart from personal freedom, which entails the power to act according to the right or contrary to it. Because of freedom persons

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may choose evil instead of good and thus may become guilty of sin. Sin is wrongdoing from the standpoint of relation to the divine.

The Demonic CategoryBut since not all evil can reasonably be traced to

deliberate disobedience to the moral law, the category of the demonic plays a role in religious thought. Various symbols of the anti-sacred have been developed, in-cluding devils as personifications of evil powers, and hells as destinations for unredeemed souls and for the demonic agencies.

The goal of the religious life is salvation, which consists in final deliverance from sin and from the ulti-mate evil, death, and in the realization of union with God Himself in an eternity of love.


Humans notonly build palaces

to their God for the enjoymentof all members of the church, he is

evangelical. Humans believe that God is

good, that God is meant for everyone, that

people who do not love God have notexperienced god. Humans, in their

benevolence, want all people to love and

enjoy their Almighty Father, and ac-tively

spreads His word. What frustrations must

be encountered by the deeply religiousteacher who must pay special atten-

tionnot to introduce a doctrine that maynot be agreed upon by all students,

and more importantly,all parents?

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Picture

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The Problem of EvilThe problem of evil is perhaps the greatest of all

difficulties to religious faith. No satisfactory rational so-lution to the apparent contradiction between the reality of a loving creator and the actuality of evil (whether as sin or otherwise) has been offered. It is regarded as the duty of the faithful to affirm the love and the power of God in spite of the mystery of evil, and to make good their faith by taking an active part in the conquest of evil.

RELIGIOUS REALMS INCORPORATE ALL THE

REALMS OF MEANING

Religious meanings incorporate all the realms of meaning in a comprehensive orientation. Religious un-derstanding presupposes a common ground of all meanings. The Word, the Truth, Perfection, Love and the Holy—all refer to one and the same Being. They are the faces of God, in Whom the faithful see things united. Within the finite sphere things are separate and distinct. From the perspective of the infinite all things spring from a single source. In faith realms that are dif-ferent and distinct are seen as aspects of one whole

THE PURSUIT OF ULTIMACY IN RELIGION

The foregoing treatment of meanings in the field of religion has necessarily been general and has done little justice to the great variety of actual religious forms in the traditions of humankind. The pursuit of ulti-macy may occur through many different symbols, be-liefs, rites, codes and institutions. Some groups empha-size the sacred word, and have a religion of the Book. Some groups seek the divine primarily through ritual practices. Other religions are intellectual, centering in creeds and theologies, or esthetic, offering fulfillment in the heavenly vision, while still others stress the way of love and devotion, expressed in the life of prayer and worship. Finally, some show their concern mainly through the deed, believing that salvation comes


through obedience to the absolute moral command and through working for the creation of a community con-ceived in righteousness. No major historical religion has been exclusively of one type; each contains a mixture of elements.

DIVERSITY OF RELIGIOUS FORMS

Despite this multiplicity, certain common concerns can be discerned within the religious life of man, and these have been indicated in the foregoing analysis of the fundamental religious ideas. To those who reject re-ligion as an illusion, the diversity of religious forms ap-pears as evidence of the relativity and subjectivity of religion and of the objective meaninglessness of reli-gious symbols. On the other hand, the proponents of re-ligion may claim the plurality of forms is a consequence of the insufficiency of any finite formulation to do jus-tice to the infinite and the literal inadequacy of religious symbols, which leads to the search for better ones and hence to multiplicity, is not a defect in relation to the ultimate, but a necessary virtue.

RELIGIOUS INQUIRY IS DIRECTED TOWARD ULTIMACY

Whether or not the claim of the religious believer is affirmed, the type of meaning intended by the faithful should be clear. Regardless of the results of the search, religious inquiry is directed toward ultimacy, in the sense of the most comprehensive, most profound, most unified meanings obtainable. At the very least, faith refers to an ideal and a hope for maximum complete-ness, depth, and integrity of vision. On these minimal terms, in which no transcendent realities are posited, everyone should be able to acknowledge some religious meanings. Others do not find that such modest mean-ings do justice to their most compelling insights, and they bear witness to a faith, mediated by any of a great variety of symbols, in a divine reality they believe is at once the ground of their own being, the law of their life,

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the foundation of their hopes, and the creative source of all things.


WAYS OF KNOWING

1. In religion the term “ultimacy” is a general desig-nation that means what?

2. What is the content of religious meanings?3. What are the methods of gaining religious under-

standing?4. What element is essential in all methods of pursu-

ing religious meanings?5. In pursuing religious meanings, what is meant by

“going to the limits”? Do all people agree or dis-agree with this description?

6. Why is it said that in the religious sphere the basis of understanding is said to be faith?

7. What does it mean to have faith?8. What is the “supernatural”?9. Why are religious symbols required in religion?10. What are some nondiscursive symbolic forms of

religion?11. What is the purpose of silence from the religious

perspective?12. What does the “Truth” mean in the religious

sense?13. What is meant by “First Cause”?14. Why is theology regarded as the supreme science?15. Why does the person of faith believe God is the ul-

timate truth and the source of all beauty?16. Why is the religious significance of the esthetic

realm important?17. How is God personal?18. Why is the “soul” of a person meant to be the real

core of a person’s being?19. What resides in the mysterious depth of the

“soul”?20. In what respect do the faithful agree with the athe-

ist?21. How does God make himself known?22. How is God as the righteous judge expected to be

conceived as an objective supernatural sovereign?23. What is divine goodness?

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24. From the religious standpoint, how are the right and the good conceived? What is sin?

25. How does the category of the demonic play in the role of religious thought?

26. What is the goal of religious life?27. How does religious meaning incorporate all the

realms of meaning?28. How does one become actively engaged in the

pursuit of ultimacy?29. Why is there a diversity of religious forms?30. Religious inquiry is directed toward what?

chapter 19 religion from ways of knowing through the realms of meaning by william allan kritsonis,...

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