The cart before the horse
Reading a wide variety of devotional materials makes for an interesting experience. Due to the class I am taking I have read everything from Augustine to Wesley, from Pascal to Kierkegaard. I am noticing some consistant themes in all of this material, and I feel that maybe I should get these thoughts out.
First of all, the notion of spirituality. Is it all about experience? Within Christianity there seems to be a divided camp. One side sees experience as overly subjective and prone to massive human error. Within the confines of doctrine, they say, we can find security. The other side scoffs at this assertion, saying that doctrine is a finite limitation of an incomprehensible God. Of course both sides seem to agree that the center is Christ, and that God's revelation is only understandable to us in the form of the incarnation. But what are the implications?
Eastern Christianity and even Catholicism seem to focus on the mystical aspect. True experience of God comes only from practicing the art of contemplation. This is a very foreign idea to a Westerner. We want to understand things from a rational perspective. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well, I think it works differently for different people.
Not that I am trying to endorse an undue amount of subjectivity. I think that neo-orthodoxy had a lot of good points - relying entirely on doctrine tends to put the cart before the horse. But after all, faith needs an object. It is in this sense that I find Pascal especially helpful. He does not deconstruct reason to the point of rendering it useless, but he does not elevate it above all. The strengths and the limitations of reason lead to a reliance upon grace, but this is far from blind faith.
I realize that I may be mixing two separate arguments here, as these questions apply both to things such as worship styles on one hand, and a personal devotional life on the other. But one of the things that seems most glaring to me is that neither doctrine nor experience exist in a vacuum. Exodus 14:31 sums it up for me: the Israelites believed because they feared(respected) God. But they feared God because God acted. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the experience of God is the end of wisdom. This can be seen most clearly in Job and Ecclesiastes, and in the ultimate deconstructionist:Christ.
So perhaps I will conclude that we cannot throw out either Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but we need each one to balance out the other, lest we put the proverbial cart before the horse! Hopefully I can come up with some concrete manifestations of this idea as time goes on.
First of all, the notion of spirituality. Is it all about experience? Within Christianity there seems to be a divided camp. One side sees experience as overly subjective and prone to massive human error. Within the confines of doctrine, they say, we can find security. The other side scoffs at this assertion, saying that doctrine is a finite limitation of an incomprehensible God. Of course both sides seem to agree that the center is Christ, and that God's revelation is only understandable to us in the form of the incarnation. But what are the implications?
Eastern Christianity and even Catholicism seem to focus on the mystical aspect. True experience of God comes only from practicing the art of contemplation. This is a very foreign idea to a Westerner. We want to understand things from a rational perspective. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well, I think it works differently for different people.
Not that I am trying to endorse an undue amount of subjectivity. I think that neo-orthodoxy had a lot of good points - relying entirely on doctrine tends to put the cart before the horse. But after all, faith needs an object. It is in this sense that I find Pascal especially helpful. He does not deconstruct reason to the point of rendering it useless, but he does not elevate it above all. The strengths and the limitations of reason lead to a reliance upon grace, but this is far from blind faith.
I realize that I may be mixing two separate arguments here, as these questions apply both to things such as worship styles on one hand, and a personal devotional life on the other. But one of the things that seems most glaring to me is that neither doctrine nor experience exist in a vacuum. Exodus 14:31 sums it up for me: the Israelites believed because they feared(respected) God. But they feared God because God acted. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the experience of God is the end of wisdom. This can be seen most clearly in Job and Ecclesiastes, and in the ultimate deconstructionist:Christ.
So perhaps I will conclude that we cannot throw out either Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but we need each one to balance out the other, lest we put the proverbial cart before the horse! Hopefully I can come up with some concrete manifestations of this idea as time goes on.