I’m often at a loss when speaking to Muslims on theology, it’s not that I disagree, it’s that I simply cannot understand how they are thinking about a thing.
This is because the way one lives, the community in which one is uncultured in, has a specific grammar to how they think about God, with its own way of interpreting scripture, shaped by its particular practices. The “rules” of how we think about a thing are very different.
There's a reason why all practicing Calvinists ( or Catholics or atheists) will each interpret scripture in the same particular way. If you wish to know how a Calvinist understand what faith in God is, you must live like one.
Stanley Hauerwas remarks :
“Of course, for this faith to make sense, it must be connected with the practices that make it intelligible: prayer, the sacraments, and the virtues.
Dr. D’Costa suggests that,
The question centers on whether we will know foolishly or wisely, and whether or not we will bring a life trued to God’s instruction to the rituals of the church.”
So, whether I’m speaking to Muslims, or modern systematic theologians, I can’t find their way of thinking intelligible since it’s outside my tradition, the grammar of my thought is different.
John Behr asks,
“what happens when one takes these supposed core theological elements (Trinity and Incar nation) out of the context in which they were composed—the particular practice of reading Scripture and the celebration of liturgy within which they had meaning, both leading to a praxis of piety, practices of identity formation shaping the believer in the image of Christ, to be his body—and places them in another context…?”
We receive revelation from God and yet one needs to "learn" to receive it as such, we need “training" through the community of practice that is the body of Christ” and our reception of this as revelation is dependent upon our inculcation in the community of social practice that is the church.
Stanley Hauerwas remarks :
“Of course, for this faith to make sense, it must be connected with the practices that make it intelligible: prayer, the sacraments, and the virtues.
Dr. D’Costa suggests that,
“prayer is the necessary condition to secure the objectivity of theology, because theology cannot be done with intellectual rigor outside the context of a love affair with God and God’s community.
The formal object of theology is God, and, like other disciplines that require practices and virtues constitutive for knowing the object of their investigation, theology requires prayer.”
Thus, logical proofs are of little use if their truth is not CONNECTED to our lives, one must love one’s way into knowing God, within some particular historical community.
Religion, for the ancients at least, was as a certain virtue, a certain habitus of the mind, a certain willingness to be open to the divine, to what it shows itself in nature.
Thus, logical proofs are of little use if their truth is not CONNECTED to our lives, one must love one’s way into knowing God, within some particular historical community.
Religion, for the ancients at least, was as a certain virtue, a certain habitus of the mind, a certain willingness to be open to the divine, to what it shows itself in nature.
Liturgy and lifestyle shape this mental orientation.
After all, Christ did not come to bring us doctrines, but His body, the Church, which enfolds us into its economy of life, shapes how we receive, and think of, the world , scripture, and God.
The rhythms of the liturgy attune us to the music of the spheres, it trains us to listen.
Doctrines are, in a sense, derivative from practice.
Religion is not a set of propositions that one believes but rather a (communal) way of life.
After all, Christ did not come to bring us doctrines, but His body, the Church, which enfolds us into its economy of life, shapes how we receive, and think of, the world , scripture, and God.
The rhythms of the liturgy attune us to the music of the spheres, it trains us to listen.
Doctrines are, in a sense, derivative from practice.
Religion is not a set of propositions that one believes but rather a (communal) way of life.
Religion is a matter more of initiation than of information, a matter of know-how before it ever becomes a matter of know-that.
In most religions, you're sharing a meal with God, in sacrifice, forming a relationship to Him, even becoming one with Him, a mingling of His life with ours, an embodied dialogue takes place within a framework of specific rules.
In short, a religion is essentially bound up with the communal form of its practices : the material practices precede and shape the subjectivity of adherents, making it possible to experience and construe the world in certain ways.
One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly "articulated."
In short, a religion is essentially bound up with the communal form of its practices : the material practices precede and shape the subjectivity of adherents, making it possible to experience and construe the world in certain ways.
One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly "articulated."
"Religion" helps us "feel" the world in a certain way, orient ourselves toward it.
A religion works like a language in this respect: "It comprises a vocabulary of discursive and nondiscursive symbols together with a distinctive logic or grammar in terms of which this vocabulary can he meaningfully deployed" - Lindbeck
Our doings precede our thinkings. Practice is primary.
It's is not primarily a set of propositions to be believed, but is rather the medium in which one moves, a set of skills that one employs in living one’s life.
Thus while a religion’s truth claims are often of the utmost importance, it is, nevertheless, the conceptual vocabulary and the syntax or inner logic which determine how we think about a thing.
Ritual worship forms the grammar of our thought.
Doctrine make explicit the norms that were already embedded in the community’s practiceIn other words, doctrines make explicit the know-how that was already implicit in our practice. To confess that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”is to articulate what was already implicit in our prayers, a worshipful way of life nourished by the Scriptures.
Reminds me of Larry Hurtado's insight, the first Christian's sang God, it's only when we try and speak of Him, utilizing not our hearts and desire, but our intellect, that the trouble begins.
But it’s always been like that - narrative coherence has always ultimately governed tradition and its development.
For example, that Arian controversies showed that each dissident party could quote sources of theology quite evenly, and thus as a singular issue either one could have been vindicated. But it was the narrative compatibility (faith that was already practiced, sung, and understood for centuries) with dogmatic theses that resolved the matter in favour of the Nicene party.
The evaluation of whether to affirm the Nicene homoousios or the semi-Arian homoiousios is not a matter that can be settled by "formal" logic.
That "first order" of prayer and proclamation is on the plane of know-how; doctrines as formulated in the Nicene Creed are the fruit of the community of Christian practice "making explicit" the norms that were previously unsaid. Doctrines say what, up to that point, we previously did, in a sense.
Theology and doctrine make explicit the commitments implicit in—and entailed by—our proclamation, praise, and prayer.
Rituals do not express belief, they shape how we know. It is impossible to understand religion without FIRST being formed in worship, HERE Peter Leithart remarks :
"....we do not find Israelites in the Hebrew Bible described as thinkers who then act. Rather, the prophets’ expect Israel to practicea nexus of ethically-induced rituals aimed at intellectual formation.
Israel’s rituals—are meant to form knowers and not merely express what is already believed or known..
False worship blinds Israel so that she can no longer discern YHWH’s actions from her false gods’ actions we will come to understand our world through our ethical behavior and our rituals. Whether they are prescribed by our culture or the prophets.
A religion works like a language in this respect: "It comprises a vocabulary of discursive and nondiscursive symbols together with a distinctive logic or grammar in terms of which this vocabulary can he meaningfully deployed" - Lindbeck
Our doings precede our thinkings. Practice is primary.
It's is not primarily a set of propositions to be believed, but is rather the medium in which one moves, a set of skills that one employs in living one’s life.
Thus while a religion’s truth claims are often of the utmost importance, it is, nevertheless, the conceptual vocabulary and the syntax or inner logic which determine how we think about a thing.
Ritual worship forms the grammar of our thought.
Doctrine make explicit the norms that were already embedded in the community’s practiceIn other words, doctrines make explicit the know-how that was already implicit in our practice. To confess that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”is to articulate what was already implicit in our prayers, a worshipful way of life nourished by the Scriptures.
Reminds me of Larry Hurtado's insight, the first Christian's sang God, it's only when we try and speak of Him, utilizing not our hearts and desire, but our intellect, that the trouble begins.
But it’s always been like that - narrative coherence has always ultimately governed tradition and its development.
For example, that Arian controversies showed that each dissident party could quote sources of theology quite evenly, and thus as a singular issue either one could have been vindicated. But it was the narrative compatibility (faith that was already practiced, sung, and understood for centuries) with dogmatic theses that resolved the matter in favour of the Nicene party.
The evaluation of whether to affirm the Nicene homoousios or the semi-Arian homoiousios is not a matter that can be settled by "formal" logic.
That "first order" of prayer and proclamation is on the plane of know-how; doctrines as formulated in the Nicene Creed are the fruit of the community of Christian practice "making explicit" the norms that were previously unsaid. Doctrines say what, up to that point, we previously did, in a sense.
Theology and doctrine make explicit the commitments implicit in—and entailed by—our proclamation, praise, and prayer.
Rituals do not express belief, they shape how we know. It is impossible to understand religion without FIRST being formed in worship, HERE Peter Leithart remarks :
"....we do not find Israelites in the Hebrew Bible described as thinkers who then act. Rather, the prophets’ expect Israel to practicea nexus of ethically-induced rituals aimed at intellectual formation.
Israel’s rituals—are meant to form knowers and not merely express what is already believed or known..
False worship blinds Israel so that she can no longer discern YHWH’s actions from her false gods’ actions we will come to understand our world through our ethical behavior and our rituals. Whether they are prescribed by our culture or the prophets.
The question centers on whether we will know foolishly or wisely, and whether or not we will bring a life trued to God’s instruction to the rituals of the church.”
So, whether I’m speaking to Muslims, or modern systematic theologians, I can’t find their way of thinking intelligible since it’s outside my tradition, the grammar of my thought is different.
John Behr asks,
“what happens when one takes these supposed core theological elements (Trinity and Incar nation) out of the context in which they were composed—the particular practice of reading Scripture and the celebration of liturgy within which they had meaning, both leading to a praxis of piety, practices of identity formation shaping the believer in the image of Christ, to be his body—and places them in another context…?”
We receive revelation from God and yet one needs to "learn" to receive it as such, we need “training" through the community of practice that is the body of Christ” and our reception of this as revelation is dependent upon our inculcation in the community of social practice that is the church.
I've written about this more HERE
Excellent post. I too have used the idea of religious praxis as a "grammar of thought." Being raised Episcopalian, prayer just doesn't seem appropriate or adequate unless it has something of the rhythm and cadence of the King James' English--I do not think it is mere aesthetic snobbery, but something about the physical and mental flow of the language as poetry that seems necessary.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I can speak as a convert. Having practiced Buddhism now for a while, I can say that it took a long time--far longer than one might suppose--to begin to "translate" between the two "grammars," to the extent that I can. It is only very recently that I have begun to feel as though my heart is speaking with a single tongue again. The original spiritual grammar of my heart remains, however, and I know there is a clarity and richness in the religious language of Christianity that will never be lost on me.
Without being able to *truly* translate spiritual concepts on the kind of level you describe, ecumenism remains a rather simplistic swapping and color-coding of hollow concepts. Unfortunately, to be conversant in multiple spiritual "languages" (if such a thing is truly possible) requires always either an outstanding genius (such as, I believe, Thomas Merton), or a long sojourn in the "foreign land" (figurative) of another faith, which I would not recommend if it can be avoided. So much of this is grounded in practice, and we have little enough time to learn how to pray the simplest prayer faithfully.