Hard Question for Bruce and Integral Theory

Hi, Greg,

No problem about the delay; I'm quite busy too and understand how it is to have many pots cooking at once.  (I changed my avatar to try to make this blog exchange at least a little more personal, even though we are still missing the cues that would be available in a face-to-face discussion.)

I actually would not feel comfortable saying Christianity 'fits' without remainder into Integral Theory, for a couple reasons.  First, because, to the extent that "Integral Theory" is defined, largely, by Wilber's writings, and to the extent that Wilber has made certain choices in the creation of his integrative framework (meaning, Integral will necessarily be 'partial' in some ways), I think it is inevitable that certain ideas and perspectives from various traditions will not have received equal, or sometimes even adequate, representation in Integral writings to date.  And second, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that because I don't think AQAL or Integral Theory is simply a static representative map.  I see it more as an integrative or enactive operator, inviting the enactment of a certain View, rather than simply being a chest of (labeled) drawers for sorting pre-given items.  Meaning, as a 'live' operator, it can provide a potentially fruitful way for Christians or Buddhists or Jews or others to look at themselves and the world in a fuller way, rather than being a 'complete' or 'final' map which is intended to have already represented everything under the sun.

So, while I'm not sure that Integral writings 'account' for everything in the Christian tradition -- I already said, several blogs ago, that I recognize the representation of Jesus as a 'nondual realizer' will not seem accurate from the POV of many Christians -- I do think that the 'basic' elements of the map (the quadrants, levels, lines, states, types) can provide a helpful means of engaging in an integrative way with many of the elements of the vast historical Christian tradition.

Concerning the foundational teachings you mention (Incarnation, Resurrection, Trinity, Salvation), I don't think "mythic" and "metaphorical" are the only interpretive options available within the Integral framework.  In my opinion, Christian tradition does contain a number of examples of both mythical-literal and metaphorical-allegorical interpretations of its symbols, because those interpretations are appropriate to (at least) two common developmental stages of human cognition.  But Integral Theory suggests that we should expect a whole spectrum of interpretations (or meshwork of interpetations), and I think that's what we find. 

Hokai, another member of Integral Life, wrote a nice piece on myth in Buddhism which I think is relevant here.  He treats 'myth' more like a line than a stage and traces a number of interpretive strategies for relating to the 'symbols' of a tradition, from mythic-literal to allegorical to what he calls "nondual sacramental," the latter corresponding to the deities and yidams and mantras of Mantrayana.  Herbert Guenther similarly describes a 'gnosemic' understanding, where symbols (in this case, Tantric seed syllables, or 'gnosemes') don't merely (rationally) represent various religious concepts, but function instead as "graphic particles or hologlyphs of gnostic emptiness."

These Buddhist mystical or 'gnostic' interpretations won't correspond in any exact way to Christian ones, I don't expect, but I mention them as types of interpretations or understandings available beyond the mythic-literal or rational-allegorical options.  One might also interpret symbols neither literally nor representationally, but dynamically and enactively, as 'strange attractors' which call forth or choreograph the unique perichoretic unfolding of self-and-other, self-and-world (e.g., the enactment of a particular worldspace, which in my previous blog I framed in terms of the Kingdom).  And other options are of course available.  I'm not trying to give an exhaustive list of interpretations or approaches to understanding a tradition's foundational teachings or symbols, by any means, but only indicate that I don't think the 'options' within an Integral framework are as limited as you suggested.

Best wishes,

Bruce