Another way to use our minds, Richard Rohr on Unknowing and Christianity

[Kendel]

@MarkD

argumentative mind.

This term carries a lot of weight for me.
I am greatly inclined to live in that space most the time, which isn’t always helpful.

It distracts from actual practice of faith, which includes interaction with God as well as allowing practice to be guided by God.

It also allows us to feel like we know a lot more about God than we really do. When we make claims about what is or must be true about God we are often just hiding our blind spots, answering the “right” questions with the prepared answers we already own.

This argumentative mind is important, though. Christians don’t embrace just anything that is said about God. Christians understand that there are boundaries to what can be true of God. There is not universal agreement among various faith traditions regarding these boundaries.

While Rohr embraces the aphopatic tradition, aphopatic statements about God are still claims about what God is or is like. In spite of the linguistic use of the negative, they are positive statements of belief.

Humility about what we can and cannot know about God is yet different from stating what God is not or is not like.

@MarkD

[Richard Rohr:]

I see no evidence that Jesus ever systematically taught what we would now call non-dual thinking. But he embodied it, which is even better. When he says, “I and the Father are one,” he expresses unitive consciousness without apology—and he is criticised for it.

[Quote from Mark’s post altered slightly for clarity.]

I find this kind of maneuver by Rohr alienating -he is pushing outside the bounds of Christianity.
Jesus was not criticized for non-dual thinking. The religious leaders sought to kill him and eventually demanded his crucifixion on the basis of blasphemy - claiming to be one with God was claiming to BE God. They understood this, and so did he.
Rohr minimizes Jesus’ claim about himself and his identity by talking about Jesus’ claim as a mindset and in a way that makes it accessible to the rest of us.

Yes, I understand I am arguing a theological issue here. But this is a foundational matter for the worship of Jesus. If Jesus is merely demonstrating a particular form of thinking, he is not worthy of my worship. Rohr, as a Christian, understands this. I find it destressing that he would even take this approach in the way he talks about Jesus’ claims to divinity.

@Apistos

And so, to paraphrase the eudaimonistic Greeks, how then are we to live?

Didn’t originate with Francis Schaeffer?
And the idea of the Good Life did not originate with beer commercials in the '80s.
The Greeks worked pretty hard on this question. They wrote a lot about it.
What have you gleaned?

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Kendel

@MarkD

argumentative mind.

This term carries a lot of weight for me.
I am greatly inclined to live in that space most the time, which isn’t always helpful.

My inclination is to recognize that my grasp on the relevant facts is always limited and I’d rather contemplate questions longer than to get busy seeing how far my limited grasp will take me. I think we do have a ‘bigger mind’ we can channel as Rohr suggests. It is wiser but it isn’t a mind to command.

@Kendel

It distracts from actual practice of faith, which includes interaction with God as well as allowing practice to be guided by God.

It also allows us to feel like we know a lot more about God than we really do. When we make claims about what is or must be true about God we are often just hiding our blind spots, answering the “right” questions with the prepared answers we already own.

Interaction with God is like interaction with reality - highly mediated by our culture and the limitations of language. While it is possible to know if your approach adheres to a settled practice, it isn’t possibly to know that practice is always best.

@Kendel

This argumentative mind is important, though. Christians don’t embrace just anything that is said about God. Christians understand that there are boundaries to what can be true of God. There is not universal agreement among various faith traditions regarding these boundaries.

I hear this as saying Christians will happily persist in the practices and beliefs they have inherited and dismiss out of hand whatever conflicts. Not really a bragging point IMO.

@Kendel

While Rohr embraces the aphopatic tradition, aphopatic statements about God are still claims about what God is or is like. In spite of the linguistic use of the negative, they are positive statements of belief.

I don’t think so. It is only about paying attention to one’s limited epistemic position. There is no apophatic doctrine regarding practice that should lead one to proceed with the confidence you have. That way is not expeditious. Whether any realization about God one comes to on that path is right or not is on the shaky ground of resonances.

@Kendel

Humility about what we can and cannot know about God is yet different from stating what God is not or is not like.

@MarkD

[Richard Rohr:]

I see no evidence that Jesus ever systematically taught what we would now call non-dual thinking. But he embodied it, which is even better. When he says, “I and the Father are one,” he expresses unitive consciousness without apology—and he is criticised for it.

[Quote from Mark’s post altered slightly for clarity.]

I find this kind of maneuver by Rohr alienating -he is pushing outside the bounds of Christianity.
Jesus was not criticized for non-dual thinking. The religious leaders sought to kill him and eventually demanded his crucifixion on the basis of blasphemy - claiming to be one with God was claiming to BE God. They understood this, and so did he.
Rohr minimizes Jesus’ claim about himself and his identity by talking about Jesus’ claim as a mindset and in a way that makes it accessible to the rest of us.

I don’t think he is minimizing any claim of Jesus. I hear him as questioning whether people have correctly understood Jesus’ words - while remembering how slippery words can be.

@Kendel

Yes, I understand I am arguing a theological issue here. But this is a foundational matter for the worship of Jesus. If Jesus is merely demonstrating a particular form of thinking, he is not worthy of my worship. Rohr, as a Christian, understands this. I find it destressing that he would even take this approach in the way he talks about Jesus’ claims to divinity.

Rohr is questioning whether Jesus actually wanted to be worshipped. He was a rabbi and a teacher so I think he was seeking to be instructive to lead people into a better relationship with God.

But Rohr also says the church was reshaped by the Romans to aid in their imperial aspirations. For their uses it was expeditious for beliefs to be spelled out and adhered to. Trusting oneself was not ideal if one needed to control people. That is why faith has come to mean stubborn adherence to doctrine rather than what one recognizes while in that open stance toward God. That was my take.

[Kendel]

@MarkD

@Kendel

This argumentative mind is important, though. Christians don’t embrace just anything that is said about God. Christians understand that there are boundaries to what can be true of God. There is not universal agreement among various faith traditions regarding these boundaries.

I hear this as saying Christians will happily persist in the practices and beliefs they have inherited and dismiss out of hand whatever conflicts. Not really a bragging point IMO.

I was speaking definitionally rather than making a judgement about truth or the rightness of a particular kind of belief. There is such a thing as Christianity, and it can be described. The descriptions can vary but there is overlap regarding what is the core or foundation of the thing we call Christianity. Likewise, adherants to the thing we call Christianity, adhere to it for a variety of reasons, often finding it to be true.

However Christians persist, or don’t, in their practices and beliefs, those are rooted in this describable thing known as Christianity.

Individuals’ disposition toward whatever conflicts with Christianity varies widely. This could include dismissing something out of hand, or deciding what to do with it after careful consideration. The world of Christianity is pretty wide.

@MarkD

It is only about paying attention to one’s limited epistemic position. There is no apophatic doctrine regarding practice that should lead one to proceed with the confidence you have.

And yet when I read quotes by Rohr and others who claim to embrace that tradition, I see confident assertions about what God is/must be like or the nature of reality. Doctrine or not, there is a kind of certitude that goes beyond basic epistemic humility.

@MarkD

@Kendel

Rohr minimizes Jesus’ claim about himself and his identity by talking about Jesus’ claim as a mindset and in a way that makes it accessible to the rest of us.

I don’t think he is minimizing any claim of Jesus. I hear him as questioning whether people have correctly understood Jesus’ words - while remembering how slippery words can be.

@MarkD

Rohr is questioning whether Jesus actually wanted to be worshipped. He was a rabbi and a teacher so I think he was seeking to be instructive to lead people into a better relationship with God.

If so, he is claiming to have a better grasp of Jesus’s self-concept, goals and teaching than the Apostles and disciples who wrote the New Testament, and the earliest Christians, whom the Romans pursued relentlessly. Jesus’ claims to divinity and the early church’s worship of him as God are not a mystery.

The changes you mention that were related to Rome came later.

This statement of Rohr’s

@MarkD

I see no evidence that Jesus ever systematically taught what we would now call non-dual thinking. But he embodied it, which is even better. When he says, “I and the Father are one,” he expresses unitive consciousness without apology—and he is criticised for it.

is in direct conflict with the early church’s understanding of Jesus and what he meant, when he claimed “I and the Father are one.”

Rohr is welcome to see Jesus as another rabbi, or confuse him with Siddhartha Gautama. But in doing so, he is in conflict with the core of Christianity.

This, again, is a definitional question.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

I don’t wish to challenge your definitions or regard for the traditions of the church. But as an outsider I just find his understanding of God and the trinity resonates more deeply with me.

Usually I would keep a safe distance from any conspiracy theory and his idea that the church had been corrupted to serve as a tool for imperial Rome certainly sounds like one. But, again as an outsider, I have very little sympathy for the tradition of the book and the legalism it engenders. The idea of exchanging the Christian mythos for the propositional treasure chest of God’s one-time transmission seems like a bad one to me. But as I’ve said before I also think faith is important so if it works for you, more power to you.

[knor (Kai)]

@MarkD

Usually I would keep a safe distance from any conspiracy theory and his idea that the church had been corrupted to serve as a tool for imperial Rome certainly sounds like one.

There is nothing surprising in the observation that a change from a small persecuted group to the dominant religion in the empire changed much within the church. It may be a matter of disagreement how much the practices or even doctrines of the church changed but there is little doubt that at least some practices changed.
Part of the change happened simply because of a large flux of new ‘wannabes’ that wanted to join the religion favoured by the emperor. A later change was that most citizens had to join. The new converts brought with them their ‘pagan’ beliefs and thinking. Initially, there was not enough of time and teachers to teach the basic apostolic teachings to the converts before they were baptized and became members, at least not everywhere. In addition, it may be that the beliefs and culture of the new members affected the way how the future church leaders interpreted the scriptures - the interpretations did not necessarily stay the same, even if the faithfulness to the tradition and scriptures stayed. In my opinion, what Augustine concluded is one sign of the change.

For the emperor, the key goal in the relationship with Christians was stability and peace in the empire. Christians needed to be faithful members of the empire, which necessarily affected the teachings about joining the army, becoming administrators in the empire or other matters that the empire wished. The emperor was as the sovereign ruler of the empire even the ruler of the church and the heads of the church needed to act accordingly.

What it meant can be seen in the history of the Latin (west) and Greek (east) churches. When the western Rome collapsed, the eastern Rome survived for another millennium. In the east Rome, the church continued under the rule of the emperor and left therefore a different model and heritage for the future generations than what happened in the west.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Terry_Sampson

So no law in the universe is always true?

I think they all are though not necessarily as they are known to us. Our knowledge of reality and God is mediated by what we are able to notice and think - which are always works in progress.