What I write is intended as a thought exercise, as an opportunity to wrestle with a few thoughts that have emerged into consciousness. These brief notes are not intended as a critique or as a guide for reform in the Christian churches. They are meant as a freely roving experiment to move towards truth, towards God beyond all that we are and know.
I use the word “religion” here advisedly, or tentatively. It is not a word I often use, because it is not clarifiable. The word “religion” is a term in popular usage, but because it is not really clarifiable, it is too vague for more strict philosophical analysis. “Religion” was a symbol coined by the Roman thinker, Cicero, and can be applied to all sorts of phenomena, beliefs, actions. The term may be useful as an approximation, however, and gives some initial understanding of what I seek to explore in these brief notes: some qualities of “religious” phenomena—of some structures that emerged over time out of the gospel movement that initiated the Christian faith.
It is possible, perhaps likely, that I found such a phrase as appears in the title to this essay (“static and dynamic religion”) either somewhere in Whitehead’s writings, or more likely, in Bergson’s famous Two Sources of Morality and Religion, a book which I have not read, but skimmed over years ago. Hence, I claim no originality in the theme itself, although the way I develop it will come from my present thinking. These thoughts are incomplete and tentative.
1 A static view of reality and of matters of faith:
The Case of the Catholic Church
It seems to me that the so-called “Catholic religion,” as it has emerged since the early Middle Ages, and as it developed most of its present structures during the Medieval period of European history, is largely a product of static thinking. By static thinking I mean an overwhelming preoccupation with the supposed eternal and unchanging at the expense of the experienced realm of a reality in constant flux. Static thinking is grounded on a predominantly dualistic conception of reality, in which the realm of being is essentially separated from what becomes, or changes; the “heavenly realm” is understood as fixed and eternal, the “sublunar” world, and concretely our Earth, is understood as a realm of change. The attempt within emerging Christianity was to found a degree of heaven on earth, by establishing unchanging institutions. The Church was understood to be the Kingdom of God on earth, against which “the gates of hell could not prevail.” The Catholic structures embody desires for fixity and emotional security in social forms, in institutions, in dogmas, in the Sacraments, in modes of worship, even in its places of worship. The spirit at work in Medieval and modern Catholicism is, for the most part, a force favoring and protecting stability, or as little social-political-noetic-spiritual change as possible. These Catholic structures aim to preserve and to protect the status quo in the Church, and in the lives of the believers. They are intended to be rocks in the swirling stream of human existence “in this passing world.” The primary or at least overwhelming goal of this Catholic spirit, this static movement, is not so much holiness or growth in the Spirit, or a developing union with God, but the maintaining of what the Spirit helped to form in times past. The Catholic spirit in effect freezes the Spirit’s past movements and achievements into a kind of eternal, non-changing present.
According to this conception of the Catholic religion as giving a high priority to the static, the stable, the rigid, one can consider briefly its major institutions and teachings. First, consider the predominant conception of God as the “Almighty,” or “All-powerful Father.” There is in reality no empirical basis for assuming that God or the gods are “all-powerful.” The conception of the “Almighty” is not a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, but a conceptual leap of understanding, a leap out of the truth as experienced into a truth imagined and desired. “All-powerful,” and “unchanging,” God as the Beginning of all things, as the End conceived as a final state—these are all static conceptions of the Divine, abstracted and removed from concrete human experience. No one has experienced God as “all-powerful,” or “unchanging,” and yet Catholic dogma would encourage the believers to entertain such conceptions. The “afterlife” is generally depicted as a “heaven,” as some kind of life without change in any form, with fixed perfection;
again, there is no concrete experience on which such an imagined state of perfection can be truly grounded. As God is understood to be “perfect,” so “perfection” of the human being is imagined to be attainable in God beyond death.
Furthermore, the social structure of the Church is static and given to fixity, resisting any real or substantial change to the greatest extent possible. There are three estates in the Medieval Church, and one is not free to move from one to another. Medieval society had fixed estates, and so does the Medieval Church. Although a lay person may marry, the marriage is conceived as “indissoluble,” as a one-time event. (This contrasts with the apostolic tradition in the Orthodox churches, which allow for several marriages serially in time, before one is not permitted to marry again, and still share in the Sacramental life of the community). A lay person may become a religious in the church, or a member of the clergy (deacon, priest, bishop), but once the lay state has been abandoned for religious or clerical life, there is no turning back: one is fixed in place within religious life or clergy, or both. This notion of vows being rigidly fixed is not, of course, the only possible way of life. For example, a Buddhist monk takes numerous vows while living in community, but is free at any time to renounce the vows, to leave the monastery he or she made, and return to the lay state at any time. In the medieval Catholic conception, to the contrary, once a man or woman has taken vows, such vows are fixed, and unbreakable in law. Once again, free actions in time are treated as if eternal (as with priestly vows), or at least as permanent and binding until death (marriage and religious vows). Similarly, an ordained clergyman is not free to return to the lay state when he wishes, or when he should be released. Rather, the Catholic priest is statically fixed as a member of the clergy, even if he should no longer believe in God, or wish to be a disciple of Christ—or lives a deeply immoral and scandalous life, damaging to others. A priest is deemed to be a priest even when he acts in ways seriously contrary to the life of Christ. His status has been as rigidly fixed as the stars of the heavens were thought to be before Galileo and Kepler taught humanity that the heavens are themselves ever changing.
The medieval conception of the Catholic Sacraments also embodies a highly static conception of divine action. Baptism is understood as imparting a “character” which persists forever, into eternity. (Whatever this “character” is, I truly do not know, but leave it to theologians to explain, as they conceived it). During the “holy sacrifice of the Mass,” the priest-presumed to have been given a special “power” at ordination—is believed to “confect the Sacrament.” Then the “transubstantiated” elements may not be used for secular purposes afterwards (i.e., for bodily nourishment), but must either be poured into the earth (extra consecrated wine, the “Blood of Christ”), or, as the “consecrated host,” reserved in the Tabernacle for later distribution as Communion. The Communion elements and holy oils are understood to be statically fixed in their being after the religious service is completed. Their “transformed existence,” if we can use that expression, parallels the treatment of men as clergy, and women and men as religious in the Church: once vowed to God, always vowed to God.
Finally, consider briefly the issue of “Sacred Scriptures,” no doubt a conception early Christianity received from its first spiritual mother, Judaism. Once again, a highly static conception of truth and revelation shows up. Judaism had developed the conception of “sacred scriptures” as a fixed canon in response to existence in a culture bombarded by competing truths; it preserved Hebrew and Jewish experiences, even as it limited response and openness to a fuller truth. Similarly, Christian faithful and later Church authorities decided which writings were exclusively “canonical” (in the Sacred Book), and which were not accepted. Hence, the issue of a Sacred Book was presumably decided once and for all, closing off treating other texts as sacred that may come to light later, or be appreciated in the course of time. The notion of a sacred text also dulled the spiritual sense of ever-present attentiveness to the living Word, which is greater than formulated texts. Fixed truth takes precedence over the possibilities of emerging truths in time.
Succinctly we can say that the static God has static ministers, who confect static Sacraments, and instruct the faithful with a static Bible; what is required from the faithful is a static belief in the working of statically conceived “grace,” moving human beings towards the static perfection of an unchanging, static heaven. This is what I mean here by “static religion.”
One could press this theme further by showing ways in which Catholic Church teachings promoted a static view of the universe, with the earth, a body fixed in space, at the center. Or even more fundamentally, the way that God’s creative power is fixed as a past event, complete in a short span of time, as if God is not at work creating from moment to moment. For some fundamentalists in the Church, the “Second Coming” is fixed as a future event, as are the “four last things.” Rather than interpreted as activities always present, as part of an unfolding reality, events such as the last judgment, and heaven and hell, are fixed in a mythic, quasi-temporal, statically conceived future. Present reality is ignored to the extent that minds get absorbed in a static conception of the past, and an equally static and rigid conception of the future. The reality in which human beings actually live is overlooked for mythical objectifications.
2 Towards a more dynamic view of reality and of God
Suppose one were to seek to understand matters of faith based on a more adequate view of reality, grounded not in fixed conceptions, but in reality as actually experienced? Suppose one were to approach matters of “faith and morals,” the stuff of “religion,” with a more dynamic conception of the Whole in which we participate with bodies and mental processes? In this section I attempt such a thought-experiment. Admittedly, my present offerings are elementary, perhaps facile; but one must begin somewhere if one is seeking to view reality by means of concepts and symbols more adequate to the task of exploration, and of right living. After all, we are not just chattering about indifferent matters, but seeking to understand reality, the divine Presence, and our place in the Whole. And we seek not only understanding, but living well and being at peace with what truly is, and with ourselves. In a phrase, we seek right understanding and right action in order to become more truly happy.
“Everything flows.” This familiar saying is one of the basic insights of Heracleitos of Ephesus, who flourished around 500 years before Christ. “Everything changes.” The philosopher, and indeed every human being, is conscious of himself as living in a dynamic, constantly changing world, in a reality with no fixed points, no certainties. “Everything” here means everything—all “being things,” using Heracleitos’ compact symbol. To the extent that one can speak intelligibly of reality, of the Whole, of “Everything” (Panta, or to pan in Greek), one is aware that each particular “being,” or “thing,” or “being-thing,” is from moment to moment undergoing all sorts of changes. What something is in one moment, it was not a moment ago, and will not be identically the next moment. All is ever changing. Indeed, one’s consciousness, one’s mind or soul, is not something given once and for all, not fixed, certain, or known. There is nothing absolute about consciousness, or about “oneself,” about the “I.” One does not know oneself with certainty, but discovers oneself gradually in the context of an ever-changing world, and as a living and changing part of what seems to be an ever-unfolding mystery. In knowing, one knows that far more is unknown than known, and what is known, is ever-changing, rendering partially obsolete the knowledge one gained even in the recent past. If one is truthful with oneself, nothing is known with certainty, and no thing is at once or forever what it is, or appears to be. There is no part of reality as experienced that is not changing itself and changing other things from moment to moment. One experiences processes, activities, changes, and not static persons, beings, things. Persons, beings, and things are approximations, relatively crude guesses of what is ever coming to be and passing away.
Nothing, no one, is experienced complete in itself, all at once, and known fully. Again in the words of Heracleitos, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” Or as Plato developed this thought, “You cannot step into the same river once,” for in the very act of stepping, one is changing, and so is what one calls “the river.” The Whole, including all that one can experience or know in any way, is in constant flux. Every moment comes to be and passes away even before one can stop his flow of consciousness and think about the moment. It is now past, apparently never to return, for each moment is ever new. Again in Heracleitos’ symbolic language, “The sun is new every day.” Everything is ever new, fresh, alive.
A more dynamic faith would not aim at a “perfect God” who is “all powerful,” or “all-knowing,” or even “all good,” but be open to allow God to be whatever God is, and perhaps to become whatever God will become. Does God change? As a young man I asked the greatest philosopher I ever met, “Does God change?” His answer: “The best theologians do not know.” To claim that one knows that God does not change would assume that one knows all that there is to know about God—quite a claim for a limited being such as we find ourselves being. Borrowing from one such theologian, we can say that God is not God, or not a god, or a “divine being” in any intelligible way. What we call “God” refers to an experienced Presence at work in one’s consciousness, and apparently in everything and everyone experienced. What we call “God” is the source and end of reality, of goodness, of truth, albeit not the source in a statically-conceived past. God is not a being, but the present cause of being, the Agent working “above all, and in all, and through all,” to borrow a phrase from the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. The divine is reality—or a “part” of reality—realizing itself in space-time. Such is one way to express the experience in basic (perhaps simplistic) words.
Faith must live and change, as the Divine is experienced as living and dynamic. One must grow with one’s changing faith: becoming more like the God who is good, loving, wise, creative. Faith is itself not static or given once and for all, and it is surely not a belief in words, teachings, creeds, or institutions. Religious faith, spiritual faith, is a loving and dimly knowing participation in the mystery we call “God.” Hence, faith is forever a going-out from what one has been or known, a venturing forth into the divine mystery. By faith one opens up to the Divine Presence, and trusts the One at work in all that is coming-to-be. The lack of faith leaves a person anxious, fearful, close-minded, untrusting, a play to darker forces such as hatred, ill-will, illusion, lust, greed. By faith one allows the goodness and truth of God to become actual here and now in this particular being. Faith is a conscious participation in the divine processes of creating, incarnating, judging, saving. Faith responds joyfully to the presence of God in the conscious, self-surrendering particular being (or “creature”). Through faith the divine incarnates itself here and now.
Here I seek to write from the perspective of faith, from a conscious participation in the Mind coming to be in a limited being. By “creating” we mean the divine Presence bringing greater order, creating beauty, greater truth. Creation is God realizing himself in space-time, or incarnating himself in finite matter and limited mind. In every “person” one meets God incarnating himself here and now; or in other words, one calls a “person” that in which one experiences the divine coming-to-be-present. Every living being, it seems, is to some extent experienceable as an incarnation of what we call “God.” Perhaps every atom, every molecule, is a partial realization of the divine creativity; I do not know, but raise the possibility. Is not all of reality as experienced charged with the creative goodness and beauty we call God? What is God doing with reality? Ordering it, “perfecting” it, making it more hospitable to goodness and truth. And God is at the same time allowing what exists in any way to share in eternity, to an extent; so reality is being eternalized or immortalized from within. (Is this true? It needs further exploring). Such a process of eternalizing the creature is called “sanctification,” “transfiguration,” or even “salvation.” The terms are many; the process is one.
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If these thoughts are reasonably true, do they throw any light on what the Christian faith is or could be?
As God is dynamic and ever-creating, is there a need for a fixed body of “sacred text” to the exclusion of other writings? Are not all writings sacred to the extent that they are good and true, and move one to think about the Divine Presence, and to be more open to it, to embody God more truly in the world? Rather than have only “the Bible,” why not read many and various texts in order to grow in holiness and in wisdom? Why not consider “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” as worthy of one’s attention and respect? No one who has immersed himself in the Platonic dialogues, for example, could ever in good conscience deny that there is much in these writings that is philosophically and spiritually superior to much that one finds in the Bible. The same could be said of many Buddhist texts, or of various mystical writings generated in history. Reducing “God’s word” to one collection, to the bible, betrays both a misunderstanding of the nature of “God’s word,” and a blindness to the sheer wealth of spiritually enriching texts brought forth by the Spirit in human history. Or in other words: It is foolish to limit God’s ever-present revealing to a given text. Static religion borders on idolatry, or at least readily lends readily itself to it.
Then again, rather than seek to substitute a more “dynamic” approach to “religion” to the faith of the Churches as they emerged over centuries, why not suggest ways in which various embodiments can exist together? What good would be achieved by replacing the Judaeo-Christian Bible with some other collection of sacred books? Does it not make more sense to leave what has developed as it is, and by its side present other possibilities for due consideration? For example, a Christian could study books of the bible to gain insight into God and to live well and happily, but one could also be encouraged to study the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, the writings of Heracleitos, the Platonic dialogues, and so on. Rather than replace static, fixed institutions with other would-be fixtures, it seems more reasonable to add, and not to replace. Above all, what is needed is to enter into a genuine faith-inspired openness to God, so that the living Word of God takes flesh in the mind of the hearer, in the human being responded to the God moving him or her to respond. In genuine faith, one is always listening for, and hearing, echoes of the divine Word.
Again, consider the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as a case in point. The hierarchy as an institution developed slowly over nearly two-thousand years, and has become highly fixed and rigid in recent centuries. Some consider the hierarchy to be moribund. It does no good, I suggest, to try to change the ordering of Bishop-priest-deacon, or to insist that the institution be more inclusive, such as by ordaining married men or women. One could simply step back and let the hierarchy be what it has become. Perhaps it will continue to change, or again be open to change, but it does not make sense to spend one’s time and effort trying to change a fixed institution. It will happen when it happens; it will change when it changes. Or given the propensity of the Catholic hierarchy to resist changing itself, change will come only when the Pope in concert with a sufficient number of bishops should will such change. Without genuine change coming from the higher authorities, however, it would seem likely that the institutional Church as a whole will continue to wither, as it is unable and unwilling to adjust well to emerging reality.
Overall, however, we must keep this in mind: Our present task, the spiritual task for human beings, is not to seek to change an institution, but to open up to the freedom and joy of the Holy Spirit, of God’s life-giving Presence in our lives. So in addition to leaving the Churches alone with their sacred texts, priesthoods, clergies, ways of worship, rituals, sacraments, and so on, we explore another way: the way of fides quaerens intellectum, “faith seeking understanding,” the mystical search for God.
What kinds of worship befits the living and true God, who is ever fresh, alive, creative, loving? There is a time for quiet meditation, or study, or contemplation in the ways practiced by Christian faithful, by mystics, Buddhists, and so on. There is a time for sharing gifts of the Holy Spirit in praying and singing together, for “hearing God’s word,” for examining one’s conscience and repenting, for looking after the needs of others. There is a time for a few men and women to gather to study and to discuss questions presented to us by present realities, and consider together the teachings of lovers of wisdom through the ages to help find reasonable solutions for our age. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
For my part, as I see it presently, the time is ripe for using one’s gifts, and for raising questions, exploring reality with the mind open to the Spirit. Now is an apt time for fides quaerens intellectum, for the Anselmian activity of “faith seeking understanding.” Now is the time to “wake from sleep,” to explore the “wonderful works of God” with true openness and a desire to serve God and creature in the modest way of right living. Now is the time to raise questions which have been neglected or forgotten. “Why is there something, why not nothing? And why is the world the way it is, and not some other way?” What is the meaning and purpose of human life? Why am I alive? What is the good at which I ought to aim? How can I, in some modest and quiet way, let the Creator work in me and through me? “Lord, what would you have me do?” How can I best serve the human beings in my life, here and now.
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For the present, there is little I can add. Static structures, such as the hierarchy and the bible, the Sacraments and the liturgy, are a given, a part of reality as we find it. Attempting to change these structures that have emerged over time would seem to produce little good, and perhaps do damage to those who are highly attached to them. Many people have vested interests in these structures—power, prestige, jobs, money, emotional attachments. Even if these static structures are largely outdated, or overly limited in their abilities to assist human beings in their actual needs in our time, seeking to change them is largely a futile exercise. Let them be.
On the other hand, human beings need and deserve an ongoing sense of communion with the living, ever-creating, ever-renewing God. Rather than dabble with institutional reform, it seems to me, one needs to spend his or her efforts seeking to be response to the Presence of God stirring in one’s soul, and find effective ways to communicate to others the life of divine-human partnership. A dynamic religion may inhabit fixed and static institutions, leave them in place, and seek to engage people here and now with the God beyond all understanding. This God seems to be saying, as Jesus said of old, “Launch out into the deep, and lower your nets for a catch.” Jesus wasted no time trying to reform the static, fixed, even stultifying institutions of his contemporary Judaism. What Jesus did is a highly suggestive and fitting model: he embodied in his words and actions the truth and love of the real God, and presented this One to any and to all who would open their minds and hearts to His ever-flowing Presence.
