Philosophy is Not Palatable to the Fundamentalist

Philosophy is how we understand or our ability to know what we know. Some think that one aspect of understanding is "all there is". But, there are many aspects of understanding and knowing about the world.
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Knowledge is understood as reason's ability to grasp or understand the real world in investigation and analysis. This is where the Academy excels and explores. But, reason is not the only avenue of understanding or analyzing the world.

Experience is the common person's understanding of life. Experience give wisdom to those that are open to grasp and grapple with life. But, wisdom is not an absolutist position, but a tenuable one, because experience helps to temper and tame the most ardent ideologues. But, experience without knowledge is blind in some ways and cannot speak in terms that are more palatable to larger audiences.

Religion understands itself through texts, and tradition. These help to form the culture of a society. But religion's knowledge can be damaging to others without understanding experience's wisdom and the Academy's knowledge. Religion creates the environment of society's social norms and values. Without religion then, there is little or no ability to appeal to a "higher authority" to gain a 'ear" or exert a moral influence in society in maintaining social control.

Philosophy is understanding that knowledge itself is created or formed within certain frames of reference, vision, passion, and concern. These ways of reference and vision should never be seen as absolute, otherwise, we create an environment shorn of the diversity that enlarges the world and its complexity. And whenever we limit the world and human beings in this way, we cultivate a climate that dismisses the humane for the "ideal" in "two-dimensional" universe.

I Would Do It the Same Way Again..

Time is curious, as it seems to have no consitency in our perception. Sometimes time seems to fly and other times, time stands still. But, nevertheless, time moves one whether we percieve it to or not. Time makes many of us wiser and this is the topic of discussion today.

Wisdom comes with age, they say, because life has a way of teaching you about "life". Many of us learn and grow as we are stretched or enlarged by our formal or informal educational opprotunities. But, when I look back over my life, I cannot regret. Why?

If I went back, I would be the person I was, not the person I am, now. And because I would've been that same person, I would've responded in the same way I did back then. We can never go back. But, we can learn to grow through our mistakes and learn from them. This is wisdom.

So, today, grace is about forgiving oneself, even more so, because we must be understanding of the other as well. Otherwise, we become hardened and narrow and bent on correcting another's wrong, without understanding that we ahve make mistakes, too.

The "Forever" Pursuit of Finding a Universal

People like to understand universals, because only in the universal, can all things be understood. The "universal" holds the "common thread" to understand human beings and and the "world". Universals, though, will never be found apart for specificities, because we are bound within frames of references of personal and cultural histories and we "put our worlds" together differently, depending not only on these universals of personal and cultural history, but also the individual and thier value system.

Our contextuality has been understood and accepted in postmodernity. The individual is the 'universal". But, scientists, who like to explain the "world" more thoroughly, are investigating different aspects of the individual. The individual could be viewed in physical ways, metaphysical ways and social ways. Somewhere in the midst of the physical and social is the answer. The metaphysical can only be understood thorough the understanding of the "mind", as the metaphysical is about the individual's "construct" of "mind".

Universal ideology is a dangerous way to approach individual situations and contexts, as these are not understood "out there" but "in here", by the individual and within his framing of mind. Biblical scholars all understand that it is impossible to know for certain what was in the "mind" of the Prophets, the disciples, or Paul, for instance. This is the modern paradigm of understanding context, socially, historically, and contextually. But, these understandings are limited as we do not know the whole story around the "stories" contained in the biblical text. We can only surmise and think as far as probabilities. So, to extract universals from the biblical text is dangerous and misguided.

Not only is it problematic to make the Biblical text universal, but also theology has its limitations. Any theologian also, knows that there are as many theologies as there are contexts and "themes" and ways of approaching and understanding "god". This is why some think that theology is contextually bound. But, God is not a 'universal. God cannot be a universal, because of the lack of understanding to a "universal metaphysics".

I think that the Church is seeking a way to explain without explaining away, but this is almost impossible when modernity undercuts the universal in the text and the contextual undercuts the universal in theology. The only universal left is the "human", but what makes the human, "human", or a "universal". That is the biggest question facing anyone of any faith, whether of a traditional kind or an atheistic one.

The Quadralateral and Faith

I have often used the Quadralateral in understanding or categorizing my thinking. Today, I was reflecting on my journey of faith and how it differed from my husband's, which led me to think abuot faith in general.

My husband came to Christian faith through understanding reason's limitation in religion and experiencing Christian commitment and character. I, on the other hand, came to faith through personal encounter with Christian character, and began to understand Christian understanding as a limited view through reason. We came to faith differently and now, understand faith differently (although, I may still be behind to my husband'ss development of faith).

I, then, started thinking that faith is understood differently depending on how we have been raised, understood and experienced our faith. Maybe this seems self-evident to most people, but to me it is a fascinating thought, that each person's faith is so uniquely defined. Of course, that does not negate certain universals of, say, a specified religious understanding, but nevertheless, faith is truely a unique and personal understanding.

Faith in these terms certainly will look different, depending on how one has understood what faith means. Personal faith comes to fruition in our lives through commitments, values and desires.

I think faith is a fascinating topic for understanding people.