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Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Posted October 19th, 2009 by Balder in Integral Spirituality

The following post is in response to Father Greg Mayer's letter to me ("For Bruce") in his recent blog, Jesus Is Not Your Usual Lord.  I am posting it as new blog entry because I would like to invite comments and participation from others as well.

 

 

 

Hi, Greg,

I am enjoying and benefitting from our exchanges as well.  I'm grateful for this opportunity, particularly since a number of my thoughts on these issues are still in a formative stage.

In this entry, I'll include bits from our recent exchange so it will be easier to follow.

I asked:  The immediate question that arises for me is, in such a vision, what pins everything exclusively to Jesus in paradoxical identity, rather than to, say, Muhammad, or Adi Da (others who have claimed to be the 'ultimate' or 'final' revelation of God), not to mention to anything else (the Indra's net image)? ….. In other words, why is this uniquely the case,if you are describing the 'deep structure' of reality, as you say, and nothing 'causal'?
 
You replied:  “Exclusively” is the wrong word. “Inclusively” is the right one. Maybe Adi Da is the unique 7th Stage Avatar, the final Self-Revelation of Reality Itself. How would I know? But he is that in, with and through Jesus, and he doesn’t have to know it, much less proclaim it. Why? Because God is Love. Love is God. And Jesus is the perfect manifestation of that.... The problem I have is with the descriptive label “triumphalism.” It is not one I would use or have used. (If I have used the word or its synonyms, I take them back)...

In my earlier discussion with Cameron, I raised the question of inclusivism and asked whether it was a viable approach for a tradition which aspires to be integral or (post-)postmodern.  As I'm sure you're aware, in the history of interfaith dialogue, the modernist inclusivist strategy was criticized by postmodernists for its subtle (if not overt) triumphalism.  As I mentioned to Cameron, I understood why he was not comfortable with the way Christianity had been 'included' in the more Eastern-leaning Integral model to date.  If Christ is 'accommodated' in this model as a 'nondual realizer from Nazareth' (rather than as the Messiah or the Only Begotten Son of God), that 'inclusivism' understandably comes across to the Christian as subtly if not overtly triumphalist:  Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism is privileged, and Christianity is 'included' within that framework as a second-player, with Jesus cast as a Jr. Buddha or a Jewish yogi.  Many Christians understandably balk at that.  Why should the Eastern worldview with its presuppositions about divinity and reality be taken as ultimate?  That's a good question. But moving in the opposite direction is no better, in my opinion.  Trying to put the Judeo-Christian narrative at the center of human history instead is just as triumphalist in its inclusivism, because it privileges an historical set of presuppositions about reality -- about divinity, about human nature, potential, and values -- and assumes that they are representative for all human beings at all times.  In other words, it subscribes here to the 'myth of the given,' to the extent that it takes its vision of reality as non-enacted, trans-historical, 'given.'

So, if inclusivism has problems, but postmodern relativism or pluralism is also found wanting, what comes next?  What is the 'integral' solution?  I'm still exploring this question, myself, so I can only offer some speculations at this point.  But I feel fairly clear that this approach won't simply be a return to modernist inclusivism (although it may 'reflect' it in some ways, just as it may reflect pluralism in others).  I'll offer a few of my thoughts on this below.

You wrote:  I think the words I’ve used have been: completeness, fullness, and such. There is a big difference. Let me explain by way of analogy. Barnes and Nobles has a wonderful section for recently printed classics. I can buy the Shakespeare’s Comedies, Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and finally the Complete Works of Shakespeare. The Complete Works of Shakespeare doesn’t take anything away from the editions of his comedies, tragedies and sonnets. It is just a more complete edition of his artistry.  In the same way, I think you find the fullness of reality in, with and through Jesus. I see it as neither exclusive nor triumphant, just complete. What Buddha showed is absolutely remarkable, the highest human achievement. And Jesus is the fullness or completeness of that in a way that Buddha never claimed to be.

I don't think the difference is that big, as I explained above.  The fulfillment doctrine, as it has commonly been articulated, is still inclusivist and triumphalist.  In your analogy, the collections of sonnets and the full collected works were both authored (arguably) by the same person.  But what if you have two very different bodies of writing, say, the Old Testament and the Mahabharata?  Which one is the "most complete"?  Will you include one in the other?  On what basis?

You wrote:  Thank you for understanding my love life. Is this a subjective reality? Yes. Is it an objective reality? Yes. When we are talking of the “deep structures of reality” we are talking on different planes other than objective and subjective. That dichotomy dissolves into objectively subjective, or subjectively objective. It is analogous to quantum physics: subject and object can’t be separated. It is definitely not one or the other. This is where the rational level consciousness goes berserk. It can’t see the paradoxes and because it can’t see them, it denies them, or what is much worse, reduces them to what it can see. And I have no debate with you over your beliefs. A quote I recently heard on NPR is applicable here: It’s all going to work out in the end; it’s just not the end yet. I’m not trying to convince you, I’m secretly praying to convert you. (No put down intended - take it as my way of hoping for the very best for you).

Yes, I understand what you are saying here about the inseparability of subject and object.  But when you assert the primacy of a particular worldview over all others, such that the only relationship that others can have to it is to be 'included' within it, you are not acknowledging the enactivity of the play of subject and object; you are privileging a particular historical enactment, divorcing it from or ignoring its enactive context and asserting it as a 'given' for all. 

I wrote:  Do you still maintain that this self-described 'offensive'statement does not contain propositional truth claims or assertions?  How is it not a propositional statement?  What is the relationship between this sort of assertion and the more direct, intuitive form of knowing you say is necessary to grasp what Mumon is saying, or what you are saying about paradoxical identity with Christ?
 
You replied:  That’s the damn thing about Christianity, it is just like relationships, as soon as you pin it down, you’ve lost it. It is like nailing down mercury. I have an image of you and me moving into a new apartment. You are insisting that this particular piece of furniture belongs in that particular corner, and I am insisting that it is way too big for that corner. You’re pushing on one end, and I on the opposite. We are destined to wear each other out on this particular issue. Show me how to prove a negative and I’ll prove it is not a propositional statement.

I follow what you are saying, and agree that it's rather pointless to ask you to prove a negative.  But the reason I copied my original question up above is because I didn't only ask you to prove a negative.  I asked several other questions, and it seems to me you're being a bit evasive or slippery here.

Here is my concern:  Christian scripture makes certain propositional statements about the nature and status of Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe I understand what you mean when you say that these claims constitute an announcement (kerygma) rather than theoretical or propositional statements.  But an announcement only makes sense within a given shared context, and as soon as you take it outside of that context -- as soon as you try 'announcing' it to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well, you've got a very different animal on your hands, in my opinion.  That's why I'm saying you've got to come to terms with the 'propositional' nature of these statements as well.  You can ignore their propositional content when you simply 'announce' them within a community with shared pressupositions, but you can't really do so outside of that community because now you're doing more than making an announcement; now you're asserting the primacy of a particular worldview, set of values, and narrative of history.  So, my concern is that the 'propositional' elements of the announcement are simply presupposed, and they also 'piggyback' on certain mystical experiences (as the presupposed context of said experiences) but are treated as if they are actually 'given' by those experiences.  And that, in my view, is a further example of the myth of the given in operation.

You wrote:  To really know Christianity you must know it with yourself, by means of yourself, blessed by grace. Mumon is not using intuition. He actually sees what he says in his verse. He sees clearly, but at a plane very few see. So does Paul. And Clement of Alexandria …and the Cappadocian Fathers, etc.

This is a subtle issue, because a lot of people claim to 'know Christianity from within themselves,' but many still have a hard time agreeing just what it is.  But that aside, if you are suggesting that Mumon simply sees a subtle plane of reality, without any interpretation and outside of all contexts, that would be yet another example of the myth of the given, in my opinion.  I believe he sees what he says, but that is different from saying he simply sees 'what is.'

Your interest may not be to find an 'integral postmetaphysical' articulation or expression of Christianity.  That may be one reason we're talking past each other a bit.  But if you are interested in Wilber's integral postmetaphysical project, then I offer the following thoughts:

While Wilber's model is not the same as Ferrer's pluralist 'participatory spirituality,' the postmetaphysical, tetra-enactive emphasis in Wilber-5 does entail a view that is at least somewhat similar, in my opinion, to the participatory (enactive) vision Ferrer proposes, or to Fr. Panikkar's integral pluralist (trinitarian) vision of radical relativity.  In each case, the naive assumption of a single shared 'world' or 'history' or 'reality' is replaced with a relational, dynamically enactive perspective, which holds that we participate in the (historical/evolutionary) enaction of different (in some ways, incommensurate) worldspaces and horizons of meaning.  Worldspaces are not wholly invented from personal or cultural cloth, of course (that's the point of tetra-enaction), but neither can we decisively separate out the constructed aspects from the non-constructed ones (that's would be a fallacy of division). 

To the extent that the inclusivist or fulfillment approach presupposes a pre-given history and universal (non-enacted, non-evolutionary) worldspace -- saying that everyone participates in this 'ultimate history' or 'ultimate narrative' whether they're aware of it or not -- I would argue that that approach is still metaphysical, e.g., non-enactive and subject to the myth of the given.  It allows the speaker to pretend that they are simply reporting on 'the structure of reality' itself, instead of being an involved participant in the perichoretic enactment of an intersubjective/interobjective worldspace. 

I think it's quite appropriate to engage in interfaith debate and inquiry and to explore possible homeomorphic equivalencies 'across' worldspaces or topologies, as Panikkar suggests (which, once established, could then also be comparatively evaluated and 'weighed').  But to simply presuppose one worldview as the 'ultimately real' background of all others is a regressive move (and a hegemonic, triumphalist one), in my opinion, if we are aiming at articulating a genuinely postmetaphysical, integral, enactive spirituality.

Does this mean that, in a postmetaphysical world, a member of a given religion would therefore be wholly barred from speaking in terms of fulfillment or inclusion?  No, I don't think so.  I just think you need to switch from the language of presupposition to the language of promise.  You can't presuppose a pre-existing shared history or worldspace, but you can invite others to the co-creation or the enactment of a new one -- into the enactment of the Kingdom-come vision, you might say.  In line with the marriage metaphor I offered earlier, if I were proselytizing for Christianity in a postmetaphysical world, I would do it as an offered betrothal, an invitation to a transformative love relationship.  What happens in that relationship, how that fulfillment looks, is not yet written.  The other's history therefore is not erased or subsumed, but rather invited into the relationship as part of the creative love-play.  You aren't absorbed into the old; you are invited to give yourself to the upwelling of the new.

With warm wishes for you, Father Mayer,

Bruce

 

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Re: Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Greg Mayers

 

Dear Bruce:
 
Thanks so much. I, too, am enjoying myself and you very much, and learning as we go along together in this exchange. This is a hell of a way to communicate, stripped of all non-verbal cues, but it is the best we can do.
 
Am I the only one to spot the flaw, the only privileged position is the unprivileged one or the unarticulated Integral one? What privileges the unprivileged perspective? Why should the unprivileged perspective triumph over and/or include other privileged ones? Because Derrida says so? (I could get cynical here and ask: did he died on the cross for our sins?)
 
You are going to insist on locating Christianity in the world of propositional truths. By doing so you are actually dislocating it. You can, of course, insist on locating it there, but you will not be dealing with Christianity. You will be dealing with your idea (or an idea) of Christianity, and Christianity is not a good “idea.” It is not Hegelian philosophy writ large (or small).
 
You remind me of Nassrudin who was found on his hands a knees searching at night under a lamp post. When asked what he was doing, he said he was searching for his key. Where did you lose your key? He was asked. Over there in the dark. Why are looking for it here? He was asked. Because there is more light here. Yes, there is more light in the world of propositional truths, but that isn’t where the key is. In the early church, you had to be introduced to the mystery of Christianity, before you were allowed to participate. Well, as we all know all the “mysteries” of the Great Traditions are out in the open now, but unfortunately they don’t fit well into the world of the rational, the world of propositional truths.
 
In your analogy, the collections of sonnets and the full collected works were both authored (arguably) by the same person.  But what if you have two very different bodies of writing, say, the Old Testament and the Mahabharata?  Which one is the "most complete"?  Will you include one in the other?  On what basis?
 
What you have shown is that all metaphors limp, and then have taken the part of my metaphor, the written word, that doesn’t apply to the point I was making to destroy the inclusive analogy I was making. Now who is evading? The part of the metaphor that does apply is the artistry of Shakespeare found recorded throughout the various editions, and recorded fully in the complete works edition.
 
I know the inclusive thing is offensive. It wasn’t invented by 20th century evangelicals. It was there from the beginning. It was called catholicos, catholic, universal. It is not a universal proposition. It is a universal reality, like the universe is a universal reality. If that’s a pre-given, so be it. What’s the alternative? Of course the universe is a universal reality. And the sun rises every morning, and it sets every evening.
 
But an announcement only makes sense within a given shared context, and as soon as you take it outside of that context -- as soon as you try 'announcing' it to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well, you've got a very different animal on your hands, in my opinion.
 
Oh? Paul of Tarsus would be very surprised at your opinion. That is exactly what he did, “...announced the good news to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well...” According to your principle Christianity should have died out a long, long time ago with Paul’s failure. Theory is fine, evidence is better. I’m starting a study of Sinic Christianity which begins around 600 CE. How strange that this alien announcement should begin to take hold in Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian China, which doesn’t look Jewish. Nor, as a matter of fact, does India. The Syro-Malabarian Christians there claim that St Thomas the Apostle, the brother of Jesus, brought the faith to them, from Jerusalem no less. How could that culturally alien religion take hold in India, in the 1st century? As a matter of fact, how do you explain Buddhism spreading beyond India, into China, Tibet, and Indonesia? According to you, it doesn’t make sense. That’s the problem with “ideas,” propositional truths, they just don’t always hold up to reality.
 
...if you are suggesting that Mumon simply sees a subtle plane of reality, without any interpretation and outside of all contexts, that would be yet another example of the myth of the given, in my opinion.  I believe he sees what he says, but that is different from saying he simply sees 'what is.'
 
You are wrong about Mumon. He is reporting exactly was he sees, non-dual reality as it is, not the “idea” of a pre-given. Mumon is not Hegelian either. Buddha teaches exactly what he sees, and so do the Patriarchs, etc. The stunning thing about this culturally speaking, is that kensho is exactly the same for everyone down through the millennia, without disturbing the variables of time, culture and personality. Otherwise there could be no transmission of the Buddha’s realization and Bodhidharma couldn’t have brought Buddhism from the West to China.
 
I would do it as an offered betrothal, an invitation to a transformative love relationship.  What happens in that relationship, how that fulfillment looks, is not yet written.
 
Wrong again. We do know what its fulfillment looks like and it is already done. That is what Christianity is about. It isn’t something we do. It isn’t something we can do. It had to be done to us, for us, then we can by grace and our choice participate in it. That participation is the part that hasn’t been written yet. Christianity is already done and not yet completed. It is analogous to cosmology. There are a lot of unknowns, but the end is clear – the universe is destined to be a burnt out cinder. (I don’t believe it, but that is the best science can do at this moment in time).
 
The other ideas you bring up about Ferrer and Panikkar, I am unfamiliar with. Nobody seems to be asking the hard questions. It seems pretty obvious to me that a world centered on ideas, Hegelian, is dead. It proclaimed the death of God, then expired unexpectedly. Why are we bothering with this corpse? The only way to “know” the truth is through the instrumentality of the self. The rational can only play an auxiliary role, post factum, to that. Shuffling around concepts from one great tradition and inserting them into another is just a mind game about as significant as a twit (as in tweeter).
 
I wish I was Jewish or Muslim. I wouldn’t get mugged so much on this site. (I know… I’m going to get it for that remark).

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance

Well I had been planning on doing 3-2-1 shadow process a lot more with perspectives I find on the internet and post them here, and while I was reading this here, it dawned on me I will just start doing 3-2-1 process about people's posts on this site.  So here follows my process aimed at 3 identities: Bruce, Greg and Cam, and the Greg and Cam haters....

Bruce:

3rd person- I sympathize with what Bruce is doing here and I agree almost entirely with him theoretically.  But I am a bit annoyed that he is insisting on still arguing with Greg especially and Cam as well.  Doesn't he notice that they aren't listening to his point at all?  I mean, he has made it perfeclt well and clear and they still don't agree.  Why doesn't he just give it a rest?  In my opinion, it may just be acting as a block to provide these guys with something to argue with.  As long as they have some other to argue with, I think they can project the discrepancies in their own worldview onto Bruce.  I feel both slightly annoyed and kind of bad for the guy.  I mean, he puts in all this effort and nothing seems to come from it.  I am confused as to why someone so intelligent might be doing this.

2nd person-Me: Hey Bruce, I have to admit, I don't really get why you are doing this.  Why are you insisting on engaging Greg and Cam like you are?

Bruce: Well I feel like I have some challenging and constructive arguments to what they are saying.  I also see this engagement as an opportunity to explore some of the areas that are not resolved for me as well.  I agree in many ways with Cam and Greg that Christianity is not being treated rightly by Integral theory.

Me: Yeah I get that and I also agree in many ways.  But I think the way in which you think Christianity is not being treated properly is very different from Cam and Greg's perspectives.  I think they are coming at this from within the tradition, wanting to defend it from Integral supercession and you are defending it more in the light that all traditions have claims that a post-metaphysical theory needs to look at much more closely if there really is a way to integrate them.  I don't get why you don't see this.

Bruce: No, I do get what you are saying.  But I also think that is part of how an integral theory needs to work.  It needs to genuinely engage all of the perspectives and not simply in a "lets find common ground and then quit" kind of way.  I think staying engaged along these difficult faultlines is mostly beneficial to all parties.

Me: Yes I see what you are saying.  But I think maybe you are providing Cam and Greg with a wall by holding the perspective that you do.  I think maybe being left alone to really think things out is sometimes the best way for someone to review their own stances.  Sometimes I get the feel that these discussions are ironically empowering their perspectives, similar to backing someone into a corner.  I think sometimes you are talking in a way that is threatening to Greg and Cam's beliefs and this is bringing out a defensive response that is very proud and secure with its position.  I just am frustrated because I think you might be locking them into place at times.  This frustrates me because I have expectations of how exchanges should occur on this website.

Bruce: I know what you are saying but I still want to stay engaged.  I hope I am being flexible enough to not only be locking perspectives into place like you say. 

1st Person: I have a need to stay engaged.  Staying engaged is valuable to potential growth.  Non-engagement seems to me to be a waste of time.  I want to be present with people and engage with their perspectives even where we don't agree.  I don't want to give up on things so easily, especially when I still feel a big sense of possibility located.  I know that if I stay engaged, I will learn something, even if it isn't necessarily helpful to whomever I am in exchange with.  I am engaged, engaged, engaged.

Greg and Cam

3rd Person: Greg and Cam really frustrate me and get on my nerves.  They seem so sure of themselves, but blindly so.  They seem very certain of a lot of things that I think it is hard to be so certain about.  The thing that annoys me most is not that they hold the perspective that they do about Christianity but they seem so sure that they have the right perspective on Christianity.  I understand that at some point you have to have confidence in your own perspective, but I think some of this confidence needs to be complimented with a respect for perspectives different from your own.  They don't seem to value any Christian perspective that does happen to find similarities with the Eastern traditions.  I don't find them so much offensive or scandalous as I do obnoxious.  The thing that really annoys me is that I think they know I am annoyed and they somehow twist this into evidence that they are being scandalous.  I guess the other thing that really bugs me is that I don't sense an attitude that is really open to other possibilities.  I feel like they come into the argument already 100% decided and so maybe the conversation is of benefit to everyone else, but for them it seems to me that it is doing nothing more than perhaps an exercize in vocabulary skills.  That is another thing that annoys me.  The word kergyma.  I don't really know what it means.  I feel like they have been using it as if it is some special word that somehow makes them not have to really explain what they mean.  And that is what I find most annoying is that they both seem to ignore the direction of what people are really asking them.  I don't see why this is necessary.  If they are so confident in where they stand, then why can't they face those things?  I understand that at some point rationality is not enough, but I feel like they have been using that as a cop out of actually answering legitimate questions they are being posed.

2nd Person: Me: Hi Greg/Cam, you guys really annoy me with the way you present your persepctives.  You act as if it is not a perspective but simply a given truth.  Why do you do that?

Greg/Cam: Well I am just secure in my perspective.  I am confident that Christianity is inclusive of everything.  There is nothing greater than the Lord Jesus.

Me: Well I understand you believe that, but why are you not listening to why that can't necessarily be supported as a truth for other perspectives?  Why are you so sure thatyour perspective and your tradition is the greatest and highest perspective?

Greg/Cam: Well I don't think my particular perspective is the greatest or highest, but it is Christianity that can do this. 

Me: Well how do you think Christianity could ever be seperated from the perspectives on it?  I mean, I don't care how far back you go, or what great realized Saint you quote, I just don't see where there is a way that a truth could be presented free of filters.  I am not suggesting that there is no such truth or that any such truth can not be realized in full by an individual, but once an individual comes back into the world, how could they possibly communicate it in a way that is not limited?  How can you really express infinity free of a perspective?

Greg/Cam: Well Jesus solved this for us whether or not you believe in it.  In fact, you don't have to believe in it.  I didn't ask it to be this way or anything, it is just how it is.

Me: That brings up something else that you do that annoys me.  Why do you avoid the entirety of the question that people are asking you.  You really drive me crazy when you do this.

Greg/Cam: I am not really avoiding it persay.  But do you think I should give the time to all these distracting modes of thought that are just going to get us farther from what Christianity is really saying?

Me: I didn't say anything like that.  I don't see why answering a question, even briefly would detract from the overall goal.  Most of these are questions that if you answered would most likely open up the listener to actually hearing what you are saying.  But you don't really seem interested in that.

Greg/Cam: I think you are really misunderstanding me.  I am not doing this just to change everyone's beliefs.  But I am trying to make it clear what the Christian truth is.  I am not looking to compromise or make any modification of what Christianity tells us because it is already complete. 

Me: But how are you so sure of that?  Because of state experiences you have had of experiencing God talking to you?  Well how are you so sure you aren't just interpreting those through the structure of the stage you are at?  I mean I have had mystical experiences involving Jesus as well and those in no way made me want to convert to Christianity or see it as the greatest, most inclusive truth.

Greg/Cam: As I said before, this isn't based just on my experience, but on the entire Christian wisdom tradition.

Me: But who in the Christian tradition aside from Jesus is held to be free of perspective?  And as many people have pointed out, Jesus himself isn't too clear on what he came and meant to do.  There are a variety of perspectives on that.  I am not saying yours is wrong, but you are denying the possibility that yours is wrong.  Well actually, you are basically denying that yours is a perspective even.  Which I find ridiculous by the way.

Greg/Cam: I am not here to please you.  But this is the funny thing about Christianity.  It just won't go away.

Me: Kind of like an annoying little brother that just won't shut up.  But that doesn't make Christianity the greatest perspective.  And just because you say it can't be included in a greater model doesn't make that any more true either.  It certainly seems to work for many people who call themselves Christian.  I am curious what you think is so wrong with them and their interpretations?

Greg/Cam: I never said it was wrong.  But it is just not complete.  If they really understood Christianity, they would see it this way. 

1st Person: I am very confident in my position.  This is a confidence that can not be shaken.  This confidence stands up to the test of time.  I attribute this confidence and strength to what I know to be true.  What I can hold to be true, I can find solid ground on which to build my strength.  I am very strong and confident.  I don't need to cater to everyone who wants to question this solidity due to my certainty.  I don't have much doubt as to the truth that I have found.  I know I can come across as arrogant, but this is not my intention.  In fact, if someone could really show me a better answer than this, I would be willing to hear it and let go.  But I have not found that.  I do not think it is possible actually.  I think I have found a truth that is timeless and unshakeable.  I am not ashamed of this.

Greg and Cam Haters

3rd person: The Greg and Cam Haters really annoy me because they think they are actually doing something constructive when clearly they are just making this a more decisive argument.  They are casting Greg and Cam as an outside minority which actually acts to strengthen their argument, even if it is baseless.  They empower Greg and Cam by reacting so heatedly and aggressively.  This attack gives Greg and Cam the chance to feel even more confident in their perspective because it fulfills their prophecy that Christianity is offensive and scandalous.  By not keeping their cool, the Greg and Cam haters are actually making some of Greg and Cam's perspective seem true.  The frustrating thing to me is that if this dynamic was different, we could have made a lot more progress in this arena.  Why can't they live up to the philosophy they claim to be defending by finding some partial truth in what Greg and Cam are saying?  I mean, I understand they are frustrated because Greg and Cam refuse to admit they are partial, but the old saying two wrongs don't make a right feels appropriate to me.  I wish they would just take a little more time before they would respond like they do.

2nd person: Me: Hi, why do you insist on acting so angrily and aggressively towards what Greg and Cam are saying?  How does this help?

Greg/Cam hater:  I didn't realize I was really being that aggressive.  Actually, I don't think I am that angry.  I am just noticing some fallacies and gaps in their arguments and pointing them out.

Me: Well it feels angry to me.  But besides, even if you aren't angry, what do you think this is going to actually do?  Do you think you are going to change their minds?  Don't you know no one changes overnight?

Greg/Cam hater:  Well I really don't feel that angry.  Maybe it is you who feels angry.  But if I do feel angry it is because I am upset at how Greg and Cam present themselves as absolute truth and seem totally rigid and unable to change.  And I know no one changes overnight, but does that mean I shouldn't point out things from my own perspective?  I mean, there is always the chance that what I say might ring a chord.  And cumulative effort has to at least put some amount of question into Greg and Cam's head about the certainty of their perspective.

Me: Well I get what you mean, but I think it is more likely that you are just setting up an opposite that pushes them into a corner and enables and empowers them to hold onto the perspective they are at.  So in many ways, I actually share your motives, just not your methodology I suppose.  I think letting Greg and Cam just have time with themselves might be more beneficial.

Greg/Cam hater:  You really think that is going to help?  I am they have come to hold this perspective and maybe because it has never been appropriately challenged.  AndI certainly don't intend to empower them.  I intend to challenge them.

1st person: I am angry when someone can't admit to being partial.  I have the need and desire to challenge the absolutity (?) of that position.  I feel like I should be able to present the perspective I hold without having to worry about whether I am backing someone else into a corner or not.  I am making an effort to provide the opportunity for change.  I am just arguing from the perspective that I hold.  I am okay with this too because at least I hold that it is a perspective.

Summary/Review/Final Words

Well I think I have found that there is a fairly clear pattern in myself as I relate to this blog.  I feel like this exercize has helped me get to a place where I can read all of the responses slightly more "objectively."

I want to make it totally clear that I don't pretend like I really know what is going on in any of your heads.  The second person step is recognized as being my projection onto you.  I hope nothing I said is too offensive.  I hope this is useful to someone else.

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And to Unique Self...

Posted October 19th, 2009 by Robb Smith

Bruce, I am impressed by the clarity of your articulation of this complex territory.  We encountered a similar issue this year as we really dove into the terrain of Unique Self.  I and a few others kept noting that some of what was coming out of U/S dialogue was articulated in language that was overly metaphorical to the point of sounding mythical.  It has been a healthy process to explore how we make the exact move you spell out below:

"Does this mean that, in a postmetaphysical world, a member of a given religion would therefore be wholly barred from speaking in terms of fulfillment or inclusion?  No, I don't think so.  I just think you need to switch from the language of presupposition to the language of promise.  You can't presuppose a pre-existing shared history or worldspace, but you can invite others to the co-creation or the enactment of a new one -- into the enactment of the Kingdom-come vision, you might say.  ... The other's history therefore is not erased or subsumed, but rather invited into the relationship as part of the creative love-play.  You aren't absorbed into the old; you are invited to give yourself to the upwelling of the new."

Something like this is where ended up with U/S, recognizing it as a process, a living koan, over and against a reified concept that might weigh down its creative potential.  Said differently, we knew the territory was both important and basically characterizable, that if True Self is a realized state of identity with the mystery in every moment than when we add in your own unique perspective (subject, obviously, to the unique evolutionary history of the 4 quadrants of your life and being) than we end up with a Unique Self realization.  (And further, this expression is understandably different in 1p, 2p and 3p.)  But we wanted to be careful not to drag this possibility for being alive to one's Unique Self expression back through the mythical constructs of yesteryear (always a real risk because the spiritual traditions inherit their lineage constructs and hermeneutics from a mythical heritage).

Moreover, we wrestled whether to emphasize the transcend or the include in the "Integral Spiritual Experience:" how do we find room for metaphysical expressions in an event of this kind (i.e., include) or do we try to exclude them in a move to pure post-metaphysical design (i.e., transcend: pure integral expressions of spiritual experience)?  And how to do so?  In any case, we are trying for a healthy combination of both: include but situate, include but coach, include but aspire.  I love the distinction you make here about language of presupposition versus the language of promise.  Many will not understand how this will be the front line of humanity's spiritual struggle in a few short years and I am nourished by the few who see the territory and can articulate healthy solutions through it.  One provocative articulation that comes to mind: it's not "Come follow Jesus." 

It's "come follow me..."

Robb Smith

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enactment and emergence perichoretically dancing with givens

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

Hi Bruce - this fine, passionate, courageous and respectful dialogue over some time between you and Greg is stimulating, and maybe helpful to me and us. I have had a number of thoughts and questions stimulated and I'd like to write them. However I need to rush off now. So I tried to scribble some notes as a reminder and as a nudge for me to write later. I fear that I may not get back to this for awhile so I'm going to paste my quick notes here, hoping that they will be a little intelligible. Maybe I can come back and make complete sentences and thoughts about them later. Sorry if they sound like gobbledygook in this form.

 

"'Myth of given' emphasis, distinct from an enactive process - tricky part has to do with our almost given human propensity to make our last mental construction persist. It has to do with images holding together in the mind. So does that have to be  addressed too - in a conversation where we go back and forth, as though we are not trying to persuade (or pray for conversion), and the need for continuance and cohesion is there for conversation over time to persist (which is maybe prototype of 'given'). it seems to me a perichoretic dance of given and enactment, of permanence and temporariness. then do we continue with attachment to this new apparently more inclusive construction/enactment.

Perichoresis is another metaphor - a good one to help visualize and thereby maybe allow into oneself a new way of accomodating seemingly undigestible views.

I had to look it up http://arstheologica.blogspot.com/2005/12/perichoresis.html It understandably resorts here to a kinetic metaphor, maybe not quite as subtle as say 'alchemy' metaphor. A dance, in its original usage of three. It reminds me of one of my daughter's marriages where they made their marriage rings of a weaving of the three stands, of different metals.

Metaphors are difficult.

The marriage metaphor helps and maybe limits.

The doesn't 'subsume' is tricky because many of the metaphors used to help us understand AQAL are kinetic, material, even mechanistic, and thereby easily visualizeable, in a form that embeds them a bit as almost givens in memory for future use - like 'conveyor belt', like 'tipping point'. holarchy is less subsuming as hierarchy, but with an asserted vertical dimension emphasized in AQAL, the 'sub' metaphor almost inevitably is conveyed.

We are trying to find understanding of transcend (which often translates within us as ascend because of the given vertical dimension) and include and integrate/being integral, so we use metaphors (which are intrinsically fundamental to language whose basis is largely association). marriage, perichoretic intertwining, promise - metaphors.

Enaction and emergence intertwining with givens."

ambo

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universal nonduality

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Dee Black

hi bruce

nonduality isn't considered an eastern approach is it?

my understanding is that christian monks are very familiar with nonduality .. am i mistaken in that regard ?

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transcendent jesus

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Dee Black

today's jesus has emerged from the bible .. has transformed into a post post modern being .. and includes all his great sayings .. do unto others as u would have others do unto u

 

 

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a passion for the impossible...

Posted October 21st, 2009 by camfree

Thanks Bruce, Robb and others for another stimulating and thought provoking thread

 

There may be another way of looking at this that hasn’t been properly set out just yet. I see a distinct tendency in the Christian message to take the “myth of the given” – the basic presuppositions of any cultural world-space (Jewish, Greco-Roman, Christendom, Modern-Secular, etc) – and turn it inside out and upside down with what Bruce and Robb call the language of a promise – what I call a poetics of the impossible. At its best the Gospel does this by holding up Christ – the invitation to love that is freely offered in God made flesh, who remains an enigma... an unanswerable question, a dangerous perhaps, an irreducible singularity, or the un-objectifiable centre of a radically empty horizon...
 
That is, the Gospel announcement/keryga/proclamation does not secure itself with a metaphysical anchor – a new myth of the given... The Gospel does not privilege a set of presuppositions about reality (divinity, human nature, potential and values) it completely shatters and overturns the co-ordinates of whatever is taken to be the “myth of the given”, the default world of conventional wisdom... and holds us in the creative tension of a passion for the impossible. That's precisely what Jesus of Nazareth was doing throughout his public ministry and particularly in the Easter events...
 
For example, take the Hindu/Buddhist notion of Karma – we all know what it means: what goes around comes around, you get what you give, or one is rewarded in life according to their merits.... Many New Agers believe this, but the Gospel of sheer Grace utterly explodes this set of assumptions, breaks open this pre-given horizon of meaning... Our good works are filthy rags: we cannot merit our own awakening, we can only accept the free gift of God’s own self in Christ... But again this does not provide one with a new “non-enacted or trans-historical given” but an invitation to enact faith, hope, justice and love in the world...  and this can take many different forms.
 
There is a problem here, but it maybe only an apparent one. If Christ calls us to receive reality as a gift – how do we do this without invoking the “myth of the given”?
 
As a related point, there are some really good questions you (Bruce) raise about whether or not the Christian kerygma involves propositional language – which I take to mean objective statements about a state of affairs in the world. I would say no, not completely... Christianity is not about “what is” – but a promise, a passion for the impossible, a hope against hope... and that takes faith not empirically verifiable facts. We can establish some central historical facts (Jesus was crucified, the empty tomb, etc) but this only sets up the conditions of possibility for the movements of faith... But the event itself cannot be reduced to what post-modern philosopher Alain Badiou calls the order of Being (metaphysics) without remainder.
 
So I tend to agree with you when you say that the 'propositional' elements of the announcement are simply presupposed... treated as if they are actually 'given' by those experiences.  But in response, I would say that the scandalous pronouncement that founded the early Church (the Incarnation) can find a home within a variety of different contexts and world-spaces... Traditionally Christian theology has developed precisely this way - by taking the core message of the Gospel (God became a man) and appling it to a variety of changing historical circumstances – different cultural contexts, often finding new and unexpected meanings and enactments... That’s how liberation theology came about, as well as the Reformation, etc... Now this process may indeed expose previously held “givens” as historically contingent constructions – and I applaud this – We can re-configure such so called “givens” (sacrificial atonement, second coming in violence and glory) in a way that is more authentic and transparent to both the original meaning of the Christ-event and present day realities... but at the centre of all this remains the Mystery, a passion for the impossible, the un-objectifiable enigma of Christ, the inscrutable and unsearchable love of God in the person of Jesus.
All of this will be set out much better in a couple of book that are being published in the next year or so... I hope that you all buy a copy so that I can make a profit out of the crucifixion...
 
Cheers,
 
Cameron

 

--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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Integral triumphs with power

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Tom Clearwater

Hi Bruce, thanks as always for your insightful post.  I wanted to reply by saying something like, yah, those tradition-specific inclusivist approaches look to me to be but another form of projecting me onto you, a kind of tradition-based ethnocentrism that sees its own particularity as the centre of the world, no, the universe, and thus closely analogous to what is often branded egoism.

Then it occurred to me that an integral 'solution,' if you will, does the same thing, is in its own way inclusivist and triumphalist and all that.

But I prefer an integral approach, so what's the difference?

The difference, to me, is an integralist approach is more powerful, more explanatory, and more inclusivist.  If these characteristics mark holonic development, an integral approach is more developed.  It seems to me that tradition-specific inclusivism misses or uncomfortably dismisses or overlooks an implication from history.  That implication for me arises within this experiential sequence:

  1. I Christian think my Christian view rocks, is IT, is The Way;
  2. but lo, you-over-there Muslim think the very same about your Muslim view;
  3. and look, I can reasonably conjecture that had I been born and raised as you-Muslim were born and raised, I would hold not my Christian-The-Way view, but your Muslim-The-Way view.
  4. Implication: my view is conditioned and conditional.

Tradition-specific inclusivism disregards, or otherwise interprets, the above-named implication.

In comes an integral inclusivist who says, hey, you're all wrong, err, actually, you're all right, but only so far as my interpretation allows, but on the other hand you're all wrong in thinking you're the centre: my way is the new centre, or reference point perhaps.  Whatever the shape of the positive outlines of an integral view, such as it may become and evolve, integral-negative seems well-formed in certain sectors: the old triumphalism is too small.  But now comes the real work of defining integral-positive, which I find nicely articulated, in at least framework form, here:

In each case, the naive assumption of a single shared 'world' or 'history' or 'reality' is replaced with a relational, dynamically enactive perspective, which holds that we participate in the (historical/evolutionary) enaction of different (in some ways, incommensurate) worldspaces and horizons of meaning.  Worldspaces are not wholly invented from personal or cultural cloth, of course (that's the point of tetra-enaction), but neither can we decisively separate out the constructed aspects from the non-constructed ones (that's would be a fallacy of division).

Enactivity takes up where my above-posited implication leaves off: history and context must be generalized across.  This generalizing of course negates any tradition-specific claim to generality.  Any such claim becomes but a particular data point in the new integral-positive generalization.  Homeomorphism is but one type of such negating generalizing.

We thus seem to be left the task of massaging older generalizations---in the new integral seen as restrictive and development-retarding---into particularities that, while not negated out of existence---these particularities will be the base for the new generalization, the new transcend-and-include---are yet reduced to but lines of inquiry, or some such, bearing some real (ie, homeomorphic or other) equivalence to other lines, any remaining particularities notwithstanding.

Thus does the more powerful integral perspective triumph with a markedly diminished disposition to evangelize.  Christian and other evangelism is old hat, a horse run its course and ready to retire to a more carefree life in the pasture, hey Cam?

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Just a note

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Hokai

Thanks, Bruce. Good work!

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Very nice!

Posted October 24th, 2009 by David Marshall

 

Bruce, very nice blog and comments. I think you articulated those ideas very nicely.
 
There is one thing I would like to add with regard to your discussion with Dee, which I gather is in reference to the bias some perceive in AQAL toward the Eastern traditions.
 
It seems to me that at least with Meister Eckhart we have nondual teachings like those in Advaita and Buddhism. There is a discussion about that here. At one point in the discussion Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying, to give just one example, "In truest reality there is no duality."
 
Also, even when the idea wasn't articulated quite so thoroughly and neatly as in the case of  Meister Eckhart, even when Jesus, for example, in the Gospel of Thomas said:
 
When you make the two into one,
And when you make the inner like the outer,
And the outer like the inner,
And the upper like the lower,
And when you make male and female into a single one,
So that the male will not be male nor the female be female,
Then you shall enter the kingdom,
 
aren't they basically referring to the same idea? Isn't that also "not-two-ness," as you say? It may not be "not-one, not-two-ness," but isn't "one without a second" saying the same thing, even though it may sound to some a little more dualistic?
 
They weren't all monists, Angelus Silesius, for example, who said,
 
God is a pure no-thing,
 concealed in now and here:
the less you reach for him,
 the more he will appear.
 
Some nondualists, like Adi Da and Shibayama (the Zen master Wilber speaks of in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality), use the phrase "absolute subjectivity" to describe nonduality. Doesn't this amount to the same idea that at least some of the Christian mystics speak of, which is beyond description in any case?
 
Best,
 
David

 

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wailing & gnashing of teeth

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Dee Black

for one thing .. people have to let go of the bible as the final and only word .. like we once did with the old testament .. it is said love thy neighbor but it's easy to love yours .. the depth comes in how u love those that offend u

there are so few gems as these left in the bible which has become too primitive

too much hellfire and brimstone and wailing and gnashing of teeth for this day

but jesus remains .. he has emerged with us and he's not speaking about who will be cast to the torturers .. he is saying this global community rocks ! more of us to love ! women and blacks and gays and people of every country and even geeks !

and now we have more conscious awareness of the soil of the planet to love and to extend our care and partnership to