[Seminole]

Nathan wrote:

Tom,

Two of my favorite thinkers, Kant and Kierkegaard, struggled with this issue too; they chose to focus their struggle on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Kierkegaard said Abraham displayed an admirable leap of faith in his willingness to do so. He went so far as to refer to Abraham as “knight of faith”.

Kant, on the other hand, a faithful and believing Christian, wrote: “If God should really speak to man, man could still never know that it was God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite by his senses, distinguish it from sensible beings, and recognize it as such. But in some cases man can be sure the voice he hears is not God’s. For if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion.” He believed that Kant had a duty to disobey the command.

The two stories have been used to help patients/students identify which of Fowler’s stages best describe their current stage of faith.

Sorry, I don’t have any definitive answers here. I will say it’s a shame more don’t share your dissatisfaction, or what the Reverend Martin Luther King referred to as “divine dissatisfaction”.

Peace be with you, my brother.

Nathan

I really like this dichotomy, but I wonder how these different perspectives can inform your stages of faith. It seems that in Stage 5 you engage with the myth and try to learn something from it, regardless of whether it is true or not. I suppose the difficulty I see is that these two particular myths (Nephi and Abraham) are difficult to engage. I choose to engage with this myth by recognizing that by the very fact that the story of Abraham (and Nephi) are in the biblical record, I face straightway the proposition between loyalty (to your perception of God in a particular instance) and morality (to your perception of God’s ethics). While Kant falls down on the side of morality, Kierkegaard falls on the side of loyalty. I fall on the side of Kant, but I don’t think that is a sign of stage 4. I think it is an effective way to engage the myth and learn something about God, even if you don’t accept the future veneration of Abraham’s actions. On the other hand, I can also see how someone in Stage 5 could engage the myth and come away with the impression that one should follow God’s directives wherever they lead, despite our deeper moral sensibilities. I find that position difficult, but I don’t think that puts me in stage 4.

Indeed, we need to think a bit more critically about what it means to engage others when we try to move ourselves into stage 5. I almost feel that people perceive of stage 5 as accepting others to believe whatever they want. For the most part this is true; however, others’ exegesis of biblical texts, I feel, must be done with a spirit of charity. To those who have not charity in their interpretations (or compassion as Karen Armstrong labels it), I feel no obligation to accept that their interpretation is valid, even for themselves. For instance, just because I am in stage 5 does not mean that I accept an interpretation of the Koran that would lead to Jihad against innocents. I don’t feel obliged to accept an interpretation of scripture that would be uncharitable towards those with same sex attraction either. In this sense, I think we need to be a bit wary, and even critical, of very literal interpretations of Abraham, Elijah, and Nephi. This, of course, goes to the very issues of the limits of tolerance. Is it appropriate in stage 5 to tolerate others intolerant actions or interpretations?

It is important is that we recognize that stage 5 still deals with reason. It is not as if stage 4 is the realm of reason and stage 5 the realm of spirit or emotion. (in fact, I think it is practically very difficult to separate reason from emotion and spirit, especially given our current understandings in cognitive science). Stage 5 simply isn’t as concerned with the Truth (capital T) and is more concerned with usefulness–in stage 5 we must find some use for the myths. It is difficult for me to understand how in stage 5 one can accept that one abandons reasons to immerse in the myth by “doing” rather than “thinking”. This, I find very difficult in this instance, because this clearly is not a case of “doing” but rather a case of “understanding.” (Of course this understanding may effect our doing on different actions, but not with respect to murder.) I think few would accept it as worthwhile to try out what Abraham did, just to see what you can learn from it.

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