From Wisdom to Mystery Through Love: Philosophy As Spiritual Itinerary to the Absolute (Studies in Spirituality Supplements, 35) 9789042943599, 9789042943605, 9042943599

Citation preview

STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY SUPPLEMENT 35

Titus Brandsma Institute

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE Philosophy as Spiritual Itinerary to the Absolute

By Macario OFILADA MINA

PEETERS

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY SUPPLEMENTS Edited by Inigo Bocken – Marc De Kesel – Thomas Quartier Titus Brandsma Institute – Nijmegen – The Netherlands

TITUS BRANDSMA INSTITUTE STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY Supplement 35

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE Philosophy as Spiritual Itinerary to the Absolute By Macario Ofilada Mina

PEETERS LEUVEN - PARIS - BRISTOL, CT 2021

© 2021, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3 Leuven ISBN 978-90-429-4359-9 eISBN 978-90-429-4360-5 D/2021/0602/12 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Prelude Philein and Sophia: The Task of Philosophy

1

Introduction Mystes and Logos: Essaying Metaphysics

9

PART ONE – BASIC COORDINATES Chapter 1. The Way of Philosophy Chapter 2. The Way to the Absolute: Itinerarium Mentis in Deo Chapter 3. Philosophy and Holiness: A Metaphysical Essay on Communion Chapter 4. The Essentials of Contemplation Chapter 5. The Metaphysical Vocation of Philosophy PART TWO – THE MYSTAGOGICAL REALIZATION Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

OF

17 29 41 55 73

PHILOSOPHY

6. Language, Message and Spirit 7. Mysticism and Possible Worlds 8. Comparative Spirituality and Literary Theory and Criticism 9. Mystagogy and Philosophy 10. Spirituality and Mysticism 11. The Textuality of Mystical Experiences: Mysticism as Literature and Theories of Literary Criticism

87 103 121 137 161 181

Coda Human Hope: Utopia in a Postmodern World. A Preliminary Inquiry

205

Final Projection Art, Philosophy, and Mystagogy

221

‘Consider further the rites of sacrifice and the whole area with which the art of divination is concerned, that is, the interaction (koinonia) between men and gods… Divination, therefore, is the practice that producies loving affection (koinonia) between gods and men’. (Plato, Symposium 188, c. [The Loeb Classical Library]) ‘The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing (koinonia) in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing (koinonia) in the body of Christ?’ (1 Corinthians 10:16) ‘Il faut répondre, je crois, que métaphysiquement parlant, la seule espérance authentique est celle qui va à ce qui ne dépend pas de nous, celle don’t le ressort est l’humilité, non l’orgeuil’. (Gabriel Marcel, Position et approches concrètes du Mystère Ontologique)

PRELUDE PHILEIN AND SOPHIA The Task of Philosophy ‘Je ne dis pas un mot: je regarde toujours La chair de leurs cous blancs brodés de mèches folles: Je suis, sous le crsage et les frêles atours, Le dos divin après la courbe des épaules’. (A. Ribaud, A la musique)

This work is programmatic and, therefore, introductory. Because it is introductory, it is also exploratory. It enters into a mainly unexplored territory, guided by maps that have been written from a distance and at a strategic standpoint. It is not that it enters into the heart of the territory – which is like being lost in the middle of the jungle or wilderness or being trapped in the eye of the stormbut that it seeks to enter the thickets at least initially and from there to chart a course for future adventures or for more meaningful travels in order not to see the conglomeration of trees or object (Gegenstand), but to experience the forest as a surrounding world (in der Welt). The coordinates are tentative but have been fixed with an aim not for precision, but for certitude amidst the dark night that would engulf this blessed adventure, wherein the light of our usual and natural way of thinking just cannot cope. Thus, we need to see things from a new light, that surpasses our own darkness-which is our own incapability of seeing not because of the absence of light, but because of its plenitude. This work is not even a thesis. It is only a hypothesis. Because it is a hypothesis it will definitely need further exploration, justification and clarification at the risk of being caught up in the whirlwind of dialectics and falsification, until the synthesis or the already falsified product can stand as a legitimate or valid thesis for a time, until it has to be reduced once again to a hypothesis. But such is the adventure of those who seek. Those who limit themselves to fixed thesis have only heard of the mountains or the sea, without ever having set out to see them, to visit them, to explore them. Such an act demands courage. And courage is what many of us, unfortunately, lack. To be courageous necessarily means to be ready to criticize. Likewise it must be willingness or openness to be critiqued. One must be able to take even more than the amount that one dishes out. This is the price of philosophizing, the

2

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

very love of wisdom, especially when we explore the very heart of its ‘partner’, ‘rival’ or ‘mistress or master’: theology. This is the price of truly philosophizing and theologizing, by standing in the middle of the Agora or on top of the Areopagus. We will not enter into the diverse elements, branches and development of theology, but its very essence: that of the very communication of the Absolute, whom we call as God. This communication is experiential. It is the act by which the Absolute allows Himself (or itself) to be experienced not as an object by man, but to be the very experience in itself or the very mediation of its transcendence into the immanence of man, thus creating what we call a narrative or history of relationships. This history is founded on this being accessible, mediated, experientiable of the transcendental Absolute within the immanent area of man’s reality. This accessibility, mediation, experientiability translate into presence. This same presence is qualified as that of the mystery: the presence of the transcendental in the immanence, wherein the presence in itself is experientiability, mediation and accessibility. Given all these, the mystery is presence of the transcendence in our immanence. It is a presence that opens up as a history, as an experiential narrative. As stated, the very root of theology, previous to all considerations of the positive aspects of revelation, the response of man in the church or in a particular confession (or institution) and the authority to interpret such a revelation (magisterium), consists in the act wherein the Absolute allows Himself to be experienced. This too is the very act of mysticsm, in which the very act of selfcommunication, self-disclosure of the Absolute opens up or manifests (phenomenology) its very core, i.e., its very mystery in its very presence, which is also its manifestation (phenomenology) from which we can understand, interpret and comprehend it (hermeneutics). This does not mean, however, that the manifestation exhausts the very essence, the very presence, the very mystery. The manifestation (as phenomenology) simply opens up the accesibility, the mediation, the experientiability, especially for the rational human act of understanding and comprehending through interpreting (hermeneutics). This we intend to do under the premise that Jesus Christ is the definitive and summit of the Absolute’s act of accessibility, mediation, and experienciability; that Jesus Christ is the center of the act of self-communication, self-disclosure, better yet, self-giving to experience even to the point of emptying oneself out (kénosis). In this act of kénosis, the act enters into its paschal feast, into its dramatic center and conclusion in the historical acts of the passion, death, and resurrection. In this light, especially in this dramatic center of the development of immanent history vis-à-vis transcendence, Jesus Christ is criteria for manifestation and description (phenomenology) and comprehension, understanding and interpretation (hermeneutics). Jesus Christ, the person (God and Man), is the event, the central point of history that opens up a new historiography, that

PRELUDE

3

sheds light on the mediation of experience: the very accessiblity and experienciability of the Transcendent Absolute to man and of immanent man to the Absolute (taken as God: the Personal Absolute, the Absolute in Person). At the same time, we approach this theme as a friend or lover of wisdom, even to the point of questioning the very essence, the very summit, the very underlying principle of philosophy in itself, which is metaphysics. Instead of trying to define it (ontologically and even ethically) as the First Philosophy and Natural Theology (as the history of philosophy as shown us), we will emphasize its transcendental aspiration which necessarily takes place within this historical area of the experiential mediation wherein the real (substantive) becomes reality (quality) and reality (substantive) becomes real (quality). Truly, experience, in this light, is a meeting point, an intersection, a crossing, a coincidentia oppositorum as the great philosopher, theologian and mystic of the renaissance Nicholas of Cusa would put it. It is inevitable that we contextualize our reflections within spirituality, especially in an age wherein people seem to be tired of religion, at least in its institutional sense. Spirituality is the matrix of mysticism (from myos = or to close one’s eyes or mouth in the act of initation with the finality of seeing or perceiving the mys or mystery), which complements the transcendental direction of metaphysics given that it is rootedness in the mystery (mysterion). The mystery, as already mentioned, is presence that is rooted in immanence. This early we can state that metaphysics (as the summit of philosophy) is aspiration within experience towards transcendence and that mysticism (within the matrix of spirituality) is entering into the depths of the presence. This point of encounter is necessarily a history, a history of salvation so to speak! The challenge that is confronted by this book can be expressed in the following way: back to basics. We must go back to the original, primeval, primordial which we must re-encounter at the end of the road. Only then can we fully understand the philosophical and theological task (especially for practitioners) and comprehend what Spirituality and Mysticism, from a Christian standpoint, can offer for us men and women of this new century, which has to be mystical as both André Malraux and Karl Rahner say. On my part, I have always maintained that Christianity, since its beginnings, has been spiritual and mystical. The essence of Christianity can be found in its spiritual and mystical traditions and forms which point out to the one and same universal fountainhead: experience. Not just an experience of the Absolute (which reduces the Absolute to the status of a mere object). Experience is that (mediation) which makes possible. It is that which establishes. Its direction is from transcendence to immanence and the journey. Men and women have not been conscious of this for quite a long time and have emphasized other dimensions which may

4

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

be negative (as the power, structural or institutional dimension since the time of Emperor Constantine) or positive (as the prophetic dimension when great men such as Francisco de Vitoria, Bartolomé de las Casas denounced the abuses of the conquistadores or when men and women in Latin America gave birth to what we all call, following Gustavo Gutiérrez’s lead, ‘Liberation Theology’). As we embark on our rediscovery and re-encounter of the original as the ‘originary’ (the origin that is dynamic and creates and that accompanies us along the journey until we meet it again in its plenitude and enriched by the adventure at the finish line), let us at the same time, with intellectual integrity and zeal and intense socio-political commitment to the questions of our times, build new foundations founded on the profound (rooted in the immanence) aiming high (aspiration towards transcendence) for our world, our comprehension and experience of it. Let it be a more Christian, humane, just, compassionate, tolerant, and dialogical comprehension and experience of this shared world of life (Lebenswelt), conquered and carved out from the almost limitless universe just lying there waiting to be discovered, for all of us, with no exception. At the same time, it is imperative that we rid ourselves as much as possible of ultra-clerical sacred cows and stagnant cobwebs of prejudices. The Absolute, and our search for it (which we commonly call ‘religion’) has been a divisive block, especially in its hierarchical pretensions (towards clericalism and clerical power and intolerance of other schools of thought). So much so that for the love of God men have hated each other to the point of killing each other. Truly an unfortunate twist in the theological movement wherein the Absolute allows Himself to be experienced as a Loving God, who is Lord and Savior, who cares for us as our Father (and Mother), who is in solidarity with us as a Brother and Friend, who comforts and accompanies us as a Advocate, Helper, and Paraclete, and who loves us as a Lover and Spouse. The benevolent reader will find collected in this volume, some of the principal essays that I have published in Manila (Philippiniana Sacra), San Juan (Life Today) and in Louvain-Nijmegen (Studies in Spirituality) over the past ten years. I have opted not to include my studies published in Spain and Italy, as they, in themselves, constitute another area or dimension of my philosophical career. The following pages are not simple reprints of my essays. In some cases, I have restored their original version and in others, have recreated them from the perspective of someone who is about to begin again, for we are all beginners in philosophy. Beginnings are promises. Promises open up avenues for hope. Hope is more than waiting. It is keeping watch through the night as it opens up in the dawn. Hope is already reaching the dawn which reaches out to the one who keeps vigil at the beginning of the watch, as the first stars appear. The essays are various attempts to hit the ever elusive thematic bullseye. Hence, the repetitions. Yet to repeat is to be faithful to the vigil. It is keeping

PRELUDE

5

watch, seeing the same stars, admiring the same constellations whose shapes and figures are refigured as the night becomes more intense bringing to a closer fulfillment the promise of the night in its fulfillment in the dawn. These attempts are continued attempts to go deeper into the thematic, into revealing its intricacies. Each essay or chapter is like a serpent curling around more and more its prey or branch of a tree, to intensify its grip, to go through the same moment, stronger, more intense, more experienced. Progress in a life thought is not linear, but circular. It entails going around the same circles, revolving around the same sun of light, tracing circular paths to find the way out of the proverbial cave of shadows. The cave is not only a place to get our of but a place to read our present situation in search of greater light, greater possibilities of reading. Serpents symbolize wisdom, healing and temptation, depending on the tree. In Paradise, where trees are abundant, wisdom brought forth temptation, opposed to the very gift of life which was the very gift of love. In the aridity of the desert, in search of the Promised Land after the long night of exile, the serpent brought forth healing, comfort from the bites and stings of the long journey, sustaining the wandering Israelites who seemed to not know the way to their land of origin. It is hope that the repetitions in this book, our serpentine selves have a fuller grasp of the tree of life and not just of knowledge in order to truly live out the lifestyle of wisdom, give therapy to our existence by giving it meaning and thus making it truly a tree of life, and not just of knowledge of good and evil. By being reiterative, we create itineraries, through love, toward the very source, the Mystery, the Absolute made present who reaches out for us to defy the borders of conventional wisdom through hope, fuelled by the determination to be faithful to the philosophical vocation made concrete in love. In this light, I shall not, as it is customary, indicate the original bibliographical references of the sources of these chapters, which are paths along the same itinerary. For those essays, simply belong to another positivistic stage in my personal journey, while this gamut of a new essaying commences another at the same time inviting me to continuously recreate myself and my work. I have always believed that great works commence as essays and end as essays. This does not mean that this collection is great, but we do aspire to greatness. The fact that I have collected these pieces under one volume, does not mean that this publication is the end product or a system. It becomes just another fragment, a testament to fidelity within the itinerary, a signal to move on. With this opus, I wish to mark and end a stage in my intellectual career, with a focus as philosopher and literary critic and theorist, centered on religious, specifically, spiritual and mystical texts. However, the stages are only pathways in the same pathway, which is Experience, the central point of interest in all my reflections.

6

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Early in my philosophical career, of which these pages are representative, I have learned the terms phenomenology and hermeneutics in my studies of Western Philosophy. I was given the chance to apply all these in studying some great Mystics, specifically Zhuang Zi, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross. As can be seen, specifically within the Christian tradition, my life and thought have been enriched by the Augustinian, Dominican and Carmelite Schools and Traditions of Living the Spiritual Life (which we loosely call Spiritualites). Early on, instead of the conventional studies on the history of philosophy, focusing on names that form part of the canon of the history of philosophy, specifically from a rationalist or even occidental standpoint, I focused on writers whom one professor of mine in Salamanca labeled as ‘irrational or intuitive or transrational’ thinkers. The chair of my doctoral panel in Salamanca wrote, in his prologue to the published form of my dissertation, that my work was like ‘riding on horseback on the terrains of philosophy and theology, overcoming and redefining borders, along the difficult and harsh path of thought and mystical experience’. I have never been comfortable with imposed and, therefore, conventional borders. I have always been fascinated with the forbidden or what has been labeled as ‘off limits’, especially with the onslaught of physical maladies, each of which requires a different medical specialist. Many times, I was asked how to best describe my work. I hesitatingly replied that I was interested in the borderline questions, mainly of Philosophy, Theology and Spirituality within principal areas of culture like art, literature, music, history and recently, given my stint as a professor of foreign language, linguistics and linguistic pedagogy. I have not yet succeeded in defining borders, as a fulfillment of certain epistemological requirements. What I do know is that I have been working on frontiers, expanding them, opening new horizons. Admittedly I started with defending the legimitacy of my approach, given the fact that some have questioned my competence in the various fields that I have handled. However, as time passed I became less concerned with this somewhat trivial matter, knowing that I have undertaken the necessary studies. I have opted, in other words, to move on. I have survived many trials by just moving on and leaving them to entangle themselves all the more in the irrational webs they have spun, all in the name of power and fame. Nevertheless, the question of legitimation has always been present. Many times, as a Socratic gadfly. This is manifest in the essays collected here, previously published in three Philippine and European journals: Philippiniana Sacra, Life Today and Studies in Spirituality. I bring together, aside from the fact, that they are diverse sages of the same ascent or different crossroads along the path, I am cognizant that as a searcher I have been historically enriched by traveling on the unsure path. Only within a restless search for certidue can one find words

PRELUDE

7

to validate his enterprise notwithstanding the many repetitive twists and turns that apparently lead to nowhere. My studies of the traditions of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, grounded on the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition, have made me subscribe to Ricœur’s dictum that ‘phenomenology is the place where hermeneutics originates; phenomenology is also the place it has left behind’ (‘Preface’ to From Text to Action). The experience, spoken of in the spiritual and mystical texts, take place in facticity (Heidegger), in the concreteness of the relationship to the world (MerleauPonty), developing in terms of what Marcel would call ‘Creative Fidelity’. In a previous work, Reality, Beauty, Experience,1 I briefly spoke of ‘experienciology’. In the present book, I have articulated and undertaken, though not in an systematically and orderly manner, the execution of this experienciology, which remains a project just as life itself is a project, a projection going forward toward the beginning rediscovered as the goal, no longer as origin but as the originary. All of these essays are concrete exercises, better yet, spiritual exercises that have moved on from discernment to the determination of faithfulness to the philosophical vocation. It is my hope that readers, after reflecting with me (and even against me), wouldengage in spiritual exercises going to the most significant of all religious texts: the spiritual and mystical writings of the great religious traditions. Three texts, namely Chapters 7, 8 and 9, which form the heart of this book, are works in engagement, within the Christian tradition. In these chapters I engage experienciology by means of laying foundations for literary theory and criticism in as much as mystical texts are discourses of experiential mediation. They are attempts to determine the coordinates of experience in the texts in the realm of history and action. My engagement is that ofan enamored person with the great ensembles of signs and symbols, convinced of their sacramental nature and value, going beyond sheer literary mimetics and poetics, but into the existential, experiential and spiritual ascesis, within the global view of union or communion.Nevertheless, my engagement has been an attempt at a paradigmatic function, a task for the formulation of a model not ‘of ’ nor ‘for’ but within. The task of reading is ultimately communitarian. We read within communion to create communion. My aspiration is that upon engaging the reader’s imagination, we start to live out the experience. The Dark Night is not just a literary device, but a real and historical experience that is a cave with its shadows and provides us an opportunity to read or re-read in order to make our lives a reading that is living. Thus, my reflections call for a broader field of application, beyond all dichotomies and overcoming all dialectics. My works seek to be a dialogue in history, bridging 1

Manila: University of Santo Tomás Press, 2003.

8

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

contexts, destroying the polarities between theoria and praxis, by proposing ‘Contemplation in Action’ rooted in the task of sharing what is contemplated to others or ‘Contemplata aliis tradere’ by being available to the Absolute which allows itself to be experienced or ‘Vacare Deo’. Many of these chapters originated in notes before I was orphaned and have only seen the light within the continuing Dark Night of being an orphan. Orphanhood modified my viewpoints. It made me view everything as relatively insignificant to something beyond superficial perception. It has made me obsessed with the end, with the eschatological, which is only somehow evoked in these pages. Eschatology is more radical than any Nietzschean genealogy or Foucaultian archeology for it seeks to find the new, the end in the origin but not as starting point but as goal, as the originary and not as the original. Philosophy, in this light, is learning to reencounter oneself, in the context of the origin, at the end. Philosophy is eschatology. The origin found at the end and as the goal is the originary. Mystagogy is indeed the originary of all my efforts. I placed my reflections on mystagogy or philosophy as a mystagogical task in the second part, that is, towards the end. Thus, we can begin to be not only readers, but doers, creators like the great mystics, whose works have form part of the canonsof great literatures, overcoming boundaries, creeds and codes. Along this road, I have wonderful memories, especially of working with wonderful people in Philippiniana Sacra, Life Today and Studies in Spirituality: Javier González, Guillermo Tejón, Kees Waaiijman, Hein Blommestijn, Ineke Wackers, Wendy Litjens. And throughout the journey, I have been sustained by the friendship, broad knowledge and bibliographical expertise of Manuel Diego Sánchez. In closing, I wish to dedicate these pages to all my students who remind me that we are all students all our lives. Parañaque City, December 14, 2019

INTRODUCTION MYSTES AND LOGOS Essaying Metaphysics ‘Arribo, ahora, al inefable centro de mi relato; empieza, aquí, mi desesperación de escritor. Todo lenguaje es un alfabeto de símbolos cuyo ejercicio presupone un pasado que los interlocutores comparten; ¿cómo trasmitir a los otros el infinito Aleph, que mi temerosa memoria apenas abarca? Los místicos, en análogo trance, prodigan los emblemas: para significar la divinidad, un persa habla de un pájaro que de algún modo es todos los pájaros; Alanus de Insulis, de una esfera cuyo centro está en todas partes y la circunferencia en ninguna; Ezequiel, de un ángel de cuatro caras que a un tiempo se dirige al Oriente y al Occidente, al Norte y al Sur. (No en vano rememoro esas inconcebibles analogías; alguna relación tienen con el Aleph). Quizá los dioses no me negarían el hallazgo de una imagen equivalente, pero este informe quedaría contaminado de literatura, de falsedad. Por lo demás, el problema central es irresoluble: la enumeración, siquiera parcial, de un conjunto infinito. En ese instante gigantesco, he visto millones de actos deleitables o atroces; ninguno me asombró como el hecho de que todos ocuparan el mismo punto, sin superposicieon y sin trasparencia. Lo que vieron mis ojos fue simultáneo: lo que transcribiré, sucesivo, porque el lenguaje lo es. Algo, sin embargo, recogeré’. (Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph)

Metaphysics primarily concerns itself with the notion of the world. First of all, there is the surrounding cosmos made into an object and interpreted in totality and called universe. Then, from this posited totality, we derive the liveable and already lived portion which we call world. Or worlds, since we are in a universe where polysemy reigns, where there are countless subjectivities claiming an exclusive portion all for themselves. This exclusive portion must be redefined in terms of limitations, if we are not to fall in the universal solipsisim inspired by the most idealist tendencies in Husserlian philosophy. Each limitation, thus, becomes a perspective or the determination of the horizon, in terms of searching, in its limitless noetic vastness, but is ultimately narrowed down in gnoseological terms.1 This is the point of departure for an expansion of knowledge, wherein 1

Cf. B. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Philosophical Library, 1970). The notion of Paschal that the search is somehow dependent on the certainty of being

10

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

man develops an experiential matrix made up of gnoseological limitations, feeded by limitless noetic action from reality in its cosmological vastness. The notion of perspective transforms this cosmological vastness (or universe) into a world of knowledge, a world of experience, a world wherein the real becomes reality in experience and wherein reality becomes real in experience by means of the mediation of experience. This experiential mediation unveils this world as a matrix of possibility, with its diversity, with its polysemic exclusiveness that does not seek to exclude but only to set borders of difference and differentiation, calling for deference and difference in appreciation. It is commonly held that art pieces are born within such a matrix. Each art piece, and therefore each exclusive portion, is a case of polysemy. Such a declaration comes from the outside, in the act of coinciding, in the act of constructing shared worlds crystallized in communities, ruled by ethicity (Sittlichkeit), and finding in the state its supreme manifestation of growth, maturity and realization. Art pieces (or works of art, as we commonly say) become points of encounter, experiential intersections, reasons for shared worlds wherein the determination of the intention is the first part of the aesthetic game. This is where divergence, différence and différance converge. Three quarters of the same aesthetic game wherein the search for the elusive intention becomes an act of making present what may have been absent. In such a search, the question of protagonist and descriptions are predominant given that the question of the protagonist automatically gives the right to describe. The primordial protagonist is the author himself and his primordial description is his intention. All aesthetes have the pretension of being legitimate participants in this description game. All aesthetes, in effect, wish to be co-authors as well. The game is the search for intentionality. The inevitable result: polysemy, countless readings, the creation of different and divergent axes of meanings even to the point of deferring the definitive reading. The artwork alone holds them together like glue, as if they were multicolored pieces of a single mosaic. In classical art, the game was easier given the predominance of the figurative. The figurative was the key to all intentionalities. It established aesthetics as the game of tracing the roots of the metaphor: the starting point of the transcending transfer within the lived world of the author to the point of formulating, integrating, and even defining levels of significance that are lost in classifications, overlayings, interceptions, trespassings, overlappings that have taken place as histories, as events that are preserved and transmitted. They are also presented as diverse itineraries, multiple narratives, diaries of happenings, accounts of events. found plays an important role in my thought, cfr. B. Pascal, Pensées, number 919, in: Oeuvres (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1976).

INTRODUCTION

11

As such, aesthetics has blended in with mutliplicity, with division, with divergence. It points out to the necessarily multiple reality of language, even manifesting its inherent richness and yet concealing the true richness of language by reducing it to its instrumental and functional property. Language is beyond such functionality and instrumentality. Language has its aleph (as the text of Borges indicates). The aleph is not an alpha. The latter is figurativeness even to the point of nudity wherein space and time are clothed with figures, thus reducing these primordial experiential coordinates of the cosmos into aestethic categories. The aleph forbids all figurativeness and thrusts us all back to the primordial (better said, originary) nudity of space and time taken as venue for the universal narrative which is history. Said primordial unity allows us to discover experience, as the narrative behind space and time in its cosmological arrangements and processes that are moments of the mediation of experience, i.e., the mediation of the real (substantive) to be reality (adjective or quality) and of reality (substantive) to be real (adjective or quality). The search for the aleph is the search for the invisible icon that makes all imaging, configurations and structuring possible, whereas the search for the alpha is the vain quest for the immediately visible idol that attracts all attention as image, figure and structures which are already ‘there’ and simply ‘there’. The inquest for the aleph is the search for the beginning of history that sprung from eternity by a free and creative act, while on the contrary the pursuit for the alpha risks being a collision course with the trap of eternal recurrence of processes that deny creativity and that simply affirm emergence from eternity. The denial of creation consequently affirms the eternity of the universe and the world. This brings about a linguistic and communicative maze, wherein the alpha allures us to language that is always effable, because eternal processes lead to non-stop utterances. On the other hand, the aleph brings us back to the ineffable, the silence of eternity heard in time at the moment of creation. ‘All language is an alphabet of symbols whose exercise presupposes a past that the intellectuals commonly held. How can we transmit to others the infinite Aleph…’.2 It is true that the alpha has left a proud monument, devastated by age, to virginity but still standing in its essence: the parthenon. However, this temple to Athena, goddess of the city, speaks of disappeared glories relegated to attractive and romantic myths, as commonly understood today, with non-existent heroes and villains. On the other hand traces of the aleph can be seen in a western wall, of an already destroyed temple-whose essence no longer remains but has been replaced by assemblies of the word (synagogues). The aleph also points out to a holy of holies already far removed, because of the material disappearance of 2

J.L. Borges, ‘The Aleph’, in: Idem, Obras Completas. Vol. 1 (Barcelona: Emecé Editores S.A., 1989, 624. I follow the pagination of this edition. All translations are mine.

12

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

the ark of the covenant from its spatial and temporal base in order to be brought for all over in spirit through the diaspora that shattered the limitations of presence in the still continuing narrative called genesis towards apocalypsis, wherein the mythological is appreciated as the primordial narrative written for the present or for those who were not present at the beginnings and, therefore, have forgotten. There has never been creation with the alpha, simply eternal recurrences. Thus, it can only promise myths as fantastic stories. Its temple, the Parthenon, stands proudly resisting the inevitable call of time to be ruins on the hill that stands vigil over the city of the goddess of wisdom. Inside the Parthenon, echoes of long-disappeared legends still moan in its hollow interior. It is nothing more than an empty tabernacle that still stands proudly on glory that proceeds from eternity in the manner of a recurrence. The alpha has given rise to the cult of a race, of a particular culture claiming to be the exclusive love of wisdom. The aleph is the silent, ineffable witness to creation, the break of time with eternity by a free act, and thus it promises myths as primordial narratives. Its temple is no longer existent, except its Western Wall. The spot once occupied by its holy of holies is now a sacred spot for another tradition. With the disappearance of the ark and the destruction of the holy of holies of the Temple in Jerusalem, other traditions enter. The temporality and spatiality of the ark no longer mattered. What mattered was the continuous narrative of the history of salvation, now shared by two other faiths. These humble ruins, unlike the still standing empty tabernacle in Athens, acknowledge that no walls could hold the Mystery; that eventually proud walls would fall down for nothing could keep the Mystery prisoner. The aleph has been victim of the rise of the cult of the race of exclusivity. Its wails can still be heard in the collective silence of the holocaust as the aleph, in its timeliness, has confronted the eternal question or dilemma as to which is more sublime: coming to be from eternity in time or leaving time for eternity. The dramatism is especially heightened given the violence that characterizes such as passage or which gave rise to such a dilemma. The alpha proudly remains incarnated as a majestic ruins on top of the hill. The aleph has had no qualms entering into the concentration camps and gas chambers, where many bodies perished and where spirits have been set free. Metaphysics is the eschatological journey into the Omega parting from the Alpha, desiring to reencounter the Alpha in the Omega. It is an inquiry, an essaying of the Alpha into the Omega in order to rediscover itself in an enriching process. Philosophy is the response to the Alpha project, culminating in the Omega, as Alpha. Philosophy is the metaphysical vocation. Because metaphysics is the very inquiry into the absolute, its very essence (whatness in itself) and nature (whatness in terms of operation) expresses the

INTRODUCTION

13

very essence and nature of the philosophical enterprise itself. In this sense, metaphysics is not only the ‘summary’ of philosophy in its entirety, but is the very goal of philosophy. Philosophy has the vocation to be metaphysics. Or, philosophy has a metaphysical vocation. In the same vein, metaphysics is the very point of departure of phihlosophy, given that it is an inquiry. It develops as an itinerary, a journey, a path, an adventure towards the absolute. In this light, we can affirm that metaphysics is the very soul of philosophy, the very life of philosophy. At the same time, metaphysics is the very spirit of philosophy: its very elan vital, its very driving force, its very energy, its very orientation of satisfying oneself in the desert of life with communion, participation, union with the Absolute. Life is, in effect, the very starting point, the very breath of the pursuit, of the very inquiry. Spirit is the very orientation, the very direction, the terminus, the achievement of metaphysics qua metaphysics in its development, maturity, and realization as an inquiry, an inquiry that becomes concrete as an itinerary. Spirit is the very identification of self in life with the goal of the Absolute in terms of communion (sharing), participation (taking part of the whole by being somewhat the whole without exhausting it), and union (in the sense of the state of togetherness, oneness, solidarity). Life and Spirit are united in intelligence or rationality. Without rationality, there could only be life, without spirit, without the immortality of thought as experienced within the ambit of its transcendental project, goying beyond the limitations of the given, the phenomenon, the empirical towards the Absolute in itself. This is the very constitutionality of Metaphysics as a project. The Absolute as the goal signifies the indispensability of metaphysics not only in its transcendent direction but in its radicality within human experience, within the mediation of the real (substantive) as reality (quality) and of reality (substantive) as real (quality), especially in its Supreme instance (as the Absolute). This radicality is necessarily a grounding in finitude and culpability within and towards the horizon of transcendence. The consciousness derived from this projection and radicality is wisdom, the very same wisdom sought by the philosophy. Metaphysics is a project. It is an essay, an attempt. One does not do metaphysics, as if it were easily accomplished. One attempts it. One essays it. It is working within the framework of the Mystery (Mystes) through the power of the Word (Logos). Language breaks itself in this attempt. Metaphysics is sustained by belief in the power of the Word to mediate itself as experience. This sustaining is grounding oneself in transcendence, being rooted in transcendence in one’s historical context. Metaphysics is the most sublime, most important, most fundamental of all philosophical projects, if it is to realize its destiny, its vocation, its essence of

14

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

being the love of or friendship with wisdom. As such, metaphysics is ‘thrown’ towards a distance of ideals in order to be the goal, the summit, the terminal. The projected one maintains a distance. To make this distance disappear the project must be made concrete. Metaphysics as a philosophical project is made concrete by inquiry. The following reflections are an exposition of the basic elements that would pave the way for the inquiry to happen, to occur, to transpire as a narrative that unfolds as an itinerary, a journey, a path.

PART ONE BASIC COORDINATES ‘Aber der Zuspruch des Feldweges spricht nur so lange, als Menschen sind, die, in seiner Luft geboren, ihn hören konnen. Sie sind Hörige ihrer Herkunft, aber nicht Knechte von Machenschaften. Der Mensch versucht vergeblich, durch sein Planen den Erdball in eine Ordnung zu bringen, wenn er nicht dem Zuspruch des Feldweges eingeordnet ist. Die Gefahr droht, daß die Heutigen schwerhörig für seine Sprache bleiben, Ihnen fällt nur noch der Lärm der Apparte, die sie fast für die Stimme Gottes halten, ins Ohr. So wird der Mensch zerstreut und weglos. Den Zerstreuten erscheint das Einfache einförmig. Das Einförmige macht überdrüssig Die Verdrießlichen finden nur noch das Einerlei. Das einfache ist entflohen. Seine stille Kraft ist versiegt. Wohl verringert sich rasch die Zahl derer, die noch das Einfache als ihr erworbenes Eigentum kennen. Aber die Wernigen werden üb erall die Bleibenden sein. Sie vermögen einst aus der sanften Gewalt des Feldweges die Riesenkräfte der Atomenergie zu übewrdauern, die sich das menschliche Rechnen erkünstelt und zur Fessel des eigenen Tuns gemacht has’. (M. Heidegger, Der Feldweg)

CHAPTER ONE THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY ‘La filosofía es un enorme apetito de transparencia y una resuelta voluntad de mediodía. Su propósito radical es traer a la superficie, declarar, descubrir lo oculto o velado – en Grecia la filosofía comenzó por llamarse alétheia, que significa desocultación, revelación o desvelación; en suma, manifestación. Y manifestar no es sino hablar, lógos. Si el misticismo es callar, filosofar es decir, descubrir en la gran desnudez y transparencia de la palabra el ser de las cosas, decir el ser: ontología. Frente al misticismo, la filosofía quisiera ser el secreto a voces’. (J. Ortega y Gasset,  ?Qué es filosofía?) ‘Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good’. (Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy)

Preliminaries and Situationer To essay to answer the question: What is philosophy? in the simplest of terms is undoubtedly the greatest challenge and the most important task of a philosopher or at least of any student of philosophy such as myself. I am all too aware of the technical cobwebs, together with prejudices founded only on ignorance, in which philosophy is entangled. Personally, this opportunity is an opportunity to make my confession as a student of philosophy and the pages that follow constitute my first attempts at making such a confession public. They are necessarily not definitive and are open to conjectures and refutations – as eminent philosopher of science Karl Popper would put it. The words of Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset have always presented me with a challenge: ‘Clarity is the courtesy of the philosopher’. I hope that the kind reader would find this essay courteous to his sensibilities and exigencies. Let me begin by citing an immortal character in Philippine literature. Hardly anyone who has read Filipino patriot José Rizal’s Noli me tangere will forget

18

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

that enigmatic personage, Tasio el Filósofo, object of both ridicule and admiration. Rizal’s pen, in a sense, has captured how people commonly hold somebody who is considered a philosopher: as somebody wise and yet eccentric. Wise, because a philosopher, offers a way of thinking which is consequently a way of living. Eccentric, not only because of external and conventional considerations, but because these philosophers are somewhat isolated from the rest of society though they live in a particular community and mileu; or as they commonly say, philosophers dwell in a secluded ivory tower and thus, tend to produce too abstract or alienated works from everyday practicality and application. In common parlance, a person is called filósofo (or pilosopo in Filipino) whether he is capable of dishing out profound and catchy aphorisms or word or advice or that he has a rigid working lifestyle or life-ethic and tends to take everything literally or follows a certain code to the letter. More often than not, in the light of all this, common parlance attaches ridicule and even conventional rejection to the term pilosopo. The great Socrates was even sentenced to die for being a philosopher! Speaking on another level, in more important and well-equipped universities, philosophy is offered as a four year undergraduate course mostly for seminarians planning to pursue theological studies later on or for prospective law students given the presumption that philosophy provides them with logical acumen in order for them to effectively pen their pleadings, cases and even decisions if ever they would warm the judicial bench. Others just take philosophy for the love of it even ending up with a doctorate. This last breed is quickly vanishing mainly due to the fact that a career in philosophy does not promise high economical renumeration. In other words, people pursue an academic degree in philosophy as: a) a means to an end; and b) as an end in itself. It is most probable that the first option, which is pragmatical in nature, wins out. Any well-read layman, upon hearing the term philosophy, would immediately associate it with names such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Pascal, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Ortega, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, etc. Of course, the list may vary. These (and others unmentioned) are names consigned to history who have charted the geography of our present day philosophical activities. A standard university course on philosophy would touch on the contributions of these great men. My intention in these pages is of more modest proportions. Though I have a strong academic background in philosophy, I wish to bring philosophy outside the rigid and formalistic walls of academe and make it accessible it to the presumably uninitiated reader. This essay does not aim at initiating him into the dynamics of philosophy. Inevitably, in this work, certain academic terminologies will surface. However, it is not my intention to lure the reader, bereft of academic philosophical training, to the academic

THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY

19

study of philosophy. Satisfaction is mine if this folio would be helpful, at the same time pleasure-giving, to the reader, whether initiated or not, in seeing the role and place of philosophy in everyday life. The primary task of philosophy is to offer valid and legitimate models of comprehension of reality. Philosophy, given that it is love of wisdom, does not gather facts, but rather sees these facts as data for knowledge. Philosophical activity does not end in the realm of knowledge or of the accumulation and assimilation of knowledge from the facts. Rather, it seeks the ‘wisdom’ that underlies said knowledge, said accumulation and assimilation of facts that form a coherent body of knowledge. This wisdom is not the foundation of said body of knowledge, but is the foundation of the human appreciation, necessarily finite and culpable, of the same. The end-result of such an activity is the model of comprehension. Reality, in its myriad forms, is the object of study of the sciences. The variety of scientific disciplines is the adequate response to the diversity of beings. Said diversity brought about the exigency of specialization. Given man’s limitations, specialization is more often than not a question of choice or a limitation of circumstance that becomes the stimulus for a more detailed investigation, which brought forth, through the centuries the autonomy of the diverse branches of study or the sciences. Philosophy and Life The amount of possible and acceptable definitions of philosophy corresponds to the number of men and women who philosophized through the course of history. Instead of proposing a ‘definite definition’ of philosophy, I prefer to proceed in an exploratory, illustrative and tentative manner. After all, in philosophy, we are students all our lives exploring, learning, unlearning and even relearning always tentatively till, paraphrasing St. Augustine, our ‘restless hearts’ encounter the truth we are seeking for. It is the truth that gives meaning to our existence transforming it into life. To exist is just to be there (placement/factuality), to live is to be there with a purpose, for something and especially someone (presence/availability). While acknowledging the differences in conceptualizing philosophy in each philosopher, I believe that there is an element common in all of them. This we can see from the etymological roots of the word ‘philosophy’. In ancient Greece, the ‘oldest’ philosophers, including the poets, visionaries, mystics, artists and healers were first called ‘sophoi’ or wise men. Tradition (as propounded by Heraclides, Cicero and Diogenes) holds that the mathematician Pythagoras (of Pythagorean Theorem fame) was the one who invented the term ‘philosopher’

20

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

or lover or friend of wisdom by saying that ‘no man is wise, only God’. Thus, man is only a lover of wisdom. He is not wise. He is not God. Plato echoes the same idea in his dialogue Phaedo. Scholars nowaday more or less concede that the oldest fragment with the word philosophy is that of Heraclitus when he says that ‘All lovers of wisdom should know many things’. The word ‘philosophy’ is derived from two greek words: philein meaning love or friendship and sophia or wisdom (in Filipino, diwa). What is it to love or to befriend-given that friendship (philia or agape) is sublime, uninterested, selfsacrificing and yet intense love? To love is to tend towards something because that something (the beloved) gives joy, fulfillment or perfection to the lover. Once more, I find St. Augustine (who by the way was the first philosopher I ever read) helpful here when he says: ‘My love is my weight, and whenever I am borne, my love carries me there...When oil is poured under water it rises to the surface; if the water is poured upon oil, it sinks to the bottom. They are driven by their own weights, they seek their proper places. Things which are out of their proper place are restless; put them in order again, and they are at rest’. Thus, ‘weight’ does not pull anything ‘downward’, though it is a gravitational force. Rather it brings something or makes it gravitate to where it belongs, to where it could rest. In the same vein, we could also say that something that has ‘weight’ is of great value, of great importance. Aristotle wrote at the beginning of his great work, the Metaphysics: ‘All men by nature desire to know’. Man, because he is rational (or gifted with reason without the necessity of any institutional or revelatory aid) desires, tends to know. But to tend towards wisdom is not just mere knowing. Knowledge is knowing WHAT and/or WHO. Wisdom is more than this. It is also knowing WHEN, HOW and above all, WHY. Wisdom is knowing with mind and heart. That is why it must be loved, it must be sought. To love wisdom is to tend towards it knowing that it is something that we all possess, but not fully. Thus, a philosopher is a man lacking in the fullness of wisdom and, therefore, is a student of wisdom. It presupposes the acknowledgement of the fact that we are not totally ignorant (although in the initial stages we are), but that we are somewhat lacking in knowledge and in wisdom which comes with age and experience. Thus, in philosophy, we are truly students, lovers, tenders towards wisdom all our lives. Philosophers do not seek to be gods or to be truly wise, but at least participate in the wisdom of the gods. St. Augustine wrote addressing Himself to God: ‘You have made me for yourself, for you alone my God and restless is my heart till it rests in you’. Many times, during my studies in Spain, I was asked whether Our Lord Jesus Christ was a philosopher like the Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed, etc. I replied: ‘Well His teachings do parallel the philosophies of these great men. But because He is both God and both man, Christ is not a philosopher, but is Wisdom Incarnate!’

THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY

21

Of course, knowing WHEN, HOW, WHY does not automatically mean it is wisdom. It may be tantamount mere gossip, old wives’s tales or trivial information. Philosophical language is different from everyday parlance. It is not necessarily more technical (although often it is so), but it is necessarily more profound, more meaningful and more reflective. It is reflective in the sense that it requires one to go out of oneself to meet the outside world and go back to oneself, to one’s interiority, to one’s profound dimension, to one’s depth and height in order to assimilate and attempt to give a plausible, meaningful and meaning-giving response. What matters is the sincere intent, the attempt and not the response in itself since as humans we are not always bound to succeed or give what is appropriate or due for the occasion. What then is philosophy? Tentatively, we can say that it is a tending (and therefore, an activity – as Ludwig Wittgenstein would insist – much more than fixed doctrines) towards wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom is knowing how to live well and why we must live well cognizant of the mysteries and challenges we face, notwithstanding our worldly successes and failures and knowing that we are all headed towards that final frontier, the mystery of mysteries of our lives: death. Socrates called this ‘The Examined Life’. Others, like St. Augustine again, called this ‘The Happy Life’. In the Orient, for instance in India it is a life of darsana (or intuition or direct vision of the truth). In the Daoist tradition of China, it is wei-wu-wei (or passive flowing along the processes of nature). We could label it a ‘meaningful life’, not because we can or have exhausted all the meanings and solved all of life’s riddles. Mysteries are a part of life and will forever hound us. Paraphrasing Gabriel Marcel, a mystery is a question that involves our whole lives, our whole being. To have a meaningful life is precisely to tend (or to love) towards where we are wanted and needed, to our proper place in the face of all of life’s mysteries. This is also true of friendship between persons. In other words, wisdom involves a life with a direction, a direction towards the truth for the truth is wisdom that is aimed at, formulated and made criteria or guiding principle in life. Above all life! St. Thomas Aquinas, in order to illustrate how philosophical reflection must serve life, repeated the scholastic axiom: Primum vivere deinde philosophare! First live, later on philosophize! The love of wisdom is at the service of life, a more meaningful life, a life of truth. Once more in the words of St. Augustine: ‘True love consists in adhering to the truth so that we may live justly’. Various philosophies have presented the truth as something aimed at and formulated explicitly for others to follow or at least to take note of. In order to be effective, these philosophies, often found in tomes, present models or paradigms of, first of all comprehending, reality. We will get back to this later on. But for

22

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

the moment, it is appropriate to say that these tomes and these ‘professional’ or academic philosophers do not have the monopoly of wisdom. Wisdom is generously scattered like good seed and life giving rain in the lyrics of many songs (for example Fra Lipo Lippi’s Light and Shade), in the stanzas of certain poems (such as Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and the Desiderata), in classics old and new such as Cervantes’s Don Quixote or Gibran’s The Prophet and even in books ‘for children’ like Saint Exupery’s Little Prince, Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the works of Dr. Zeus, Schultz’s Peanuts series, etc. German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in the second phase of his philosophical career, frequently wrote philosophical commentaries to poets such as Hölderlin, Georg and Rilke. In these works, as well as works of philosophy strictly speaking, the authors have already given us the words. It is up to us, the readers, to read and breathe the philosophy in these words. Wisdom is abundant in everyday life and experience; it only has to be deduced, found and formulated explicitly. Wisdom is at the beck and call, at the same time the sublime vocation, of every man. In fact, everyman is called to be a philosopher in the wide sense of the term. Writes Karl Popper: ‘All men are philosophers, because in one way or another we take up an attitude towards life and death’. Our day to day philosophies necessarily draw on our experiences and quoting American philosopher John Dewey: ‘The nature of experience is determined by the essential conditions of life’. In the light of all this, partly following Basque philosopher Xabier Zubiri, philosophy is: a) a form of knowing (of man’s rational mind) or is knowing-with wisdom as its end since it desires to know about life and its realities; b) a kind of function in life (given that it is a form of knowing); and c) a mode of activity or a mode of being or lifestyle of the philosopher or of the one engaged in philosophy. But before going on to the next section, a word of caution from Karl Popper again: ‘We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism’. Origins, Distinctions, Steps and Branches In Ancient Greece, philosophy was said to have started when man freed his mind from religion especially in the form of myths and cults. In the Orient, philosophical thought is intertwined with religious beliefs. Following the Greek model, the emancipation from religion is said to be the moment of man’s full assertion of his rationality, of his intelligence, of his capability to go to the depths of the issues. This is the root of the present day distinction between

THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY

23

Theology and Philosophy (popularized in the Scholastic Middle Ages). The former moves along the realm of faith or assisted rationality by revelation and within a particular worshiping community, whereas the later does not operate within this realm and is not aided by revelation, which is a supernatural aid. It is rational, that is, natural in its mode of acquiring knowledge. To know by revelation is not acquiring, but receiving from the gratuitousness of God who generously reveals Himself to man with a salvific purpose, that is, eternal bliss in union with God. This does not mean, however, there was no philosophy before the Greeks. Philosophy is as old as civilization itself. It is as old as man’s primeval consciousness of himself, surrounded by others and the facts of life shared by others. As Ortega y Gasset exclaimed: ‘I am I and my circumstance!’ Victor Cousin writes that when man started to reflect that was the start of philosophy. To reflect is to go out of oneself and return to oneself, just like a reflection in the mirror or on a clear pond, and the return is always enriching, probing and deep. To drive home our point, all we need to do is to remember the other civilizations before the Greeks like the Indians, Chinese, Egyptians, etc. They too had their own brand of wisdom with their own texts, most likely sacred texts such as the Vedas, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Zanda Vesta, etc. But it was with the Greeks that philosophy became a scientific discipline that is certain, organized, articulated, systematized, differentiated from myths and thus, autonomous, with its own aims, methods and principles, though interrelated with other disciplines. It is also with the Greeks that philosophy became established as a science (episteme or certain knowledge) with certain foundations, principles and aims. It was no longer merely opinative (doxa), but certain and demonstrable. In the course of the centuries, philosophy has also been appreciated as an art. This, however, is not due to the fact that philosophy somehow deals with external forms or formalities or it teaches us to appreciate what is beautiful, but due to the fact that it is in itself a creative process that calls for a life of commitment, discipline, devotion, intensity, passion and personal elegance on the part of the philosopher himself and the community he addresses. In other words, it is love in the fullest sense of the word! Love is at its fullest in friendship: desinterested, sincere, intense with no binding forces such as blood, marriage, desires, contracts or obligations but just freedom! But as a science, philosophy goes deeper. It does not only seek the WHATS or the acquisition of more knowledge to denote scientific progress. It goes deeper, to the WHYS, to the very foundations of reality in itself and not to its ramifications into erudite or informative knowledge, which mark scientific progress. Progress in philosophy is progress in terms of depth, sincerity, as Miguel de Unamuno states through ‘a unitary and total conception of the world oriented towards action and life’. It is not progress determined by acquisition and growth

24

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

of tidbits of knowledge though, this kind of progress may be helpful to the progress of philosophy. Ortega y Gasset, in comparing science with philosophy, once said that the former is exact but insufficient, whereas the latter is sufficient but inexact. Sufficiency here is with regards to life itself. Exactness is with relation to demonstration or formulation of proofs. As said earlier, philosophy provides us with a model for comprehending, living and experiencing reality. To my mind, in order to accomplish this sublime goal, philosophy takes an upward path. First it starts as a way of knowing reality (epistemology). Given this knowledge, it proposes a way of living this known reality (ethics) onwards to the fullness of experiencing this reality as it is (metaphysics). In the academic world, philosophy is seen as a way of studying reality, in the words of Aristotle, ‘in its ultimate causes and principles’. Thus the vast reality is subdivided into various areas which correspond to the so called academic branches of philosophy. These divisions had their origins in the scholastic era (age of the schools) during the troubled Middle Ages. Normally, in a standard undergraduate course in philosophy (there may be variations), the following branches are offered: a) Philosophy of Reality or Being (Metaphysics or Ontology), b) Philosophy of Morals (Ethics), c) Philosophy of Knowledge (Epistemology, Gnoseology, Criteriology, Noetics, Apologetics), d) Philosophy of God (Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Theodicy), e) Philosophy of Science, f) Philosophy of Inanimate Nature (Cosmology), g) Philosophy of Man (Philosophy of Human Nature, Philosophy of Animate Nature, Rational or Philosophical Psychology), h) Philosophy of Beauty (Philosophy of Art, Aesthetics), i) Philosophy of Society (Socio-Political Philosophy), j) Philosophical Methodology (Logic, Dialectics), k) Philosophy of Literature (Philosophical Criticism, Literary Theory). Plus, of course, the standard History of Philosophy courses divided normally into four periods: a) Ancient (The Ancient Greeks), b) Medieval (The Middle Ages to the Renaissance), c) Modern (Post-Renaissance to the Nineteenth Century Age of Enlightenment and d) Contemporary (Twentieth Century). Nowadays, philosophy’s field of application has expanded. Aside from Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Art, there are trends such as Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Psychology, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Culture, Philosophy of Music, Philosophy of History, Philosophy of Mysticism and even Philosophy of Sports! Reality unfolds itself and philosophy has been quite helpful in this process. In most universities, the philosophical menu includes the Oriental systems (mainly Indian and Chinese) which most likely is limited to the ancient period since these systems hardly had any significant developments after the ancient period although in the contemporary era prominent names have appeared. In the Philippines, some have started studying Philippine philosophy based on the aphorisms and sayings which we have inherited from the indigenous

THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY

25

residents of our archipelago before contact with the West. Philippine philosophy is still at its stages and is still in the cultural or anthropological phase of explicitation. But what really matters is not one’s nationality or the native elements in Philippine philosophy. The challenge is to be a Filipino and to philosophize at the same time! Notwithstanding the pragmatic purposes of the students enrolled in college philosophy courses, philosophy, with its broad based divisions, is a preparation for life itself. It is a challenge to make life meaningful, to make it truly lived! Systems and Traditions The various philosophical systems and traditions, the most important of which will be enumerated below, are intents to present man with a comprehensible model of reality in order to make life more meaningful. They propose attitudes for men to take in living their lives and wrestling with reality’s problems and issues. In the Ancient East, in India for example there are six orthodox schools Samkhya (Evolutionary Cosmological School), Yoga (School of Personal Discipline), Nyaya (School of Knowledge and Logic), Vaishesika (School of Atomistic Pluralism), Mimamsa (School of the Vedas or truths-particulary the earlier portion called Karmakanda) and Vedanta (School of the Vedas or truths-particulary the end of the Vedas called Upanishads). There are three heterodox schools: Buddhism (the School of the Middle Way), Charvaka (Materialist School) and Jainism (School of Relativistic Pluralism). In the Middle Ages, India had a great sage of the Vedanta School named Shankara. In the twentieth century, it boasted of names such as Sri Aurobindo, Radhakrishna Sarvepalli and of course, Mohandas K. Gandhi. In China, there are also various ancient schools: Ru Jia (Ethical school of the literary men among them Confucius), Fa Jia (School of the Law), Dao De Jia (School of the Way and Virtue), Ming Jia (School of Names), Yin Yang Jia (Cosmological School) and Mo Jia (School of Religious Utilitarianism). Subsequently, China had its own version of Buddhism (especially Chan Buddhism), in the modern period there was a revival of Confucianism (Zhu Xi, Lu Chiu-yuan) and the subsequent political thinkers such as Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zi Dong and even philosophical materialism with Feng You-Lan. In the West, however, we find those formidable systems which in time have become our way of defining our attitudes towards life and reality. First and foremost among them are the Ethical systems such as Stoicism (or indifference and tranquility of the mind), Hedonism (pleasure is the ultimate goal), Virtue Realism (or an ethics based on virtues or man’s capacity to do good such as that of Aristotle), Intuitionism (or morals is innate and universally intuited such as the one propounded by Kant) and Utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest

26

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

number). From these ethical systems, came the socio-political models: Aristocracy (the rule of a few), Monarchy (the rule of one), Tyranny (wherein the one has absolute power), Social Contract (wherein men, given the state of nature, surrender their rights), Democracy (the rule of the people), Globalism (or a world state in Eternal Peace as expounded by Kant), Communism (need we define this?) and recently, Popper’s Open Society (a pedagogical revival of democracy strongly opposed to Marxist Communism). All these socio-political systems have one aim: justice for all, justice as ‘fairness’ as John Rawls puts it. Then there are also systems relating to God, foremost among them: Theism (affirmation there is a God), Agnosticism (doubt as to whether there is a God) and Atheism (denial of the reality of God). With regards to reality in itself, the following are the most known philosophical schools: Dualism (reality is made up of two conflicting principles), Monism (that there is only one reality), Pluralism (the existence of various possible worlds), Empiricism (to be real is to be perceived), Idealism (what is rational is real), Voluntarism (reality as that which is willed), Objectivism (insistence on the objects outside the mind), Perspectivism (our comprehension of reality depends on our point of view) and so forth. The twentieth century has been philosophically fruitful with various schools of thought: Pragmatism (the philosophy of practical consequences), Dialectical Materialism (the philosophy behind communism which affirms that reality is dialectical in nature or a conflict among the classes of man), Logical Positivism (that reality and its enunciation depends on sense observation and verification), Neothomism (a revival of St. Thomas Aquinas affirming the primacy of existence over essence), Neorealism (that objects of knowledge are real inasmuch as they are independent of the mind), Personalism (emphasis on the importance of the person), Vitalism (emphasis on life, its evolution and process), Phenomenology (descriptive science of the essence of things), Existentialism (existence precedes essence and search for meaning in life), Analytic Philosophy (the study of language and its enunciations regarding reality), Hermeneutics (the study of interpretation primarily of texts and works of art), Structuralism (the study of structures on which reality is built upon especially in the human sciences such as anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, etc.), Critical Theory (or the criticism of society especially those in the first-world setting such as the School of Frankfurt) and so forth. I am conscious of the fact that my survey may be simplistic. I no longer mentioned the philosophers who belonged to these schools mostly because they themselves denied pertaining to such schools and a sufficient explanation needs another article to be fully articulated. My purpose here is to show the kind reader the varieties of attitudes to choose from and perhaps to invite him to creatively propose his own.

THE WAY OF PHILOSOPHY

27

Ripples of Hope We have been blessed or even cursed by a variety of philosophical schools and stands. They give us options or choices. But the challenge lies, I believe, in making our own stand. Our stands spring from our beliefs. Ortega y Gasset distinguished between ideas and beliefs. Ideas are what comes to our minds by mere occurence, whereas beliefs are the very ground we stand on. If we lose our beliefs, it is like having the rug of our existence, of our lives pulled under our own feet. We should always know where to stand even in the wake of strong institutional pressure or unpopularity. We should always know what we believe in and how to articulate it when the time comes. This is wisdom in action. A man can be deemed wise not by how much he knows, but how he acts in a given, especially tense, situation. A wise man in action is a creative man. The circumstance does not make him or does not make him fall under pressure. Rather he creates a situation out of the circumstance wherein he emerges as an ‘I’ unmarred by the intemperie or storms of the circumstance able to affirm over and over again: ‘I am I and my circumstance!’ In this light, the various schools of philosophy, or even philosophy itself in its essence and previous to its ramification in schools or branches, is a call for us to use our intelligence. ‘Dare to use your intelligence!’ was the battlecry of the enlightenment and at the same time its caveat, its warning echoed recently by Karl Popper. Within this context, allow me to present the late María Callas, the great soprano, as an example. As we all know, her life was a tragedy. She died heartbroken, out of intense love for a man who did not marry her (Aristotle Onassis who married Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy instead). But this is not the issue. Maria Callas’s voice range was very broad. However, her powerful voice was not that beautiful in the classical sense, like that of her great rival, Renata Tibaldi. And yet perhaps no prima donna could sing operatic roles like her. Her voice could shriek, shout, caress depending on the role. Her voice reflected happiness, sadness, fury, pathos and even tragedy with the way she used it and projected it. It is really just heavenly to listen to her recordings. This is the secret of her legendary success. She knew how to use her voice cognizant of its possibilities and limitations. She was intelligent to use her resources to attain an effect and the world has reciprocated her efforts with the recognition she now enjoys even years after her untimely demise. Before she died, this great soprano held Master Classes in the Julliard School of Music teaching young people the operatic arias which made her famous. Callas, in explaining each aria, rarely said: ‘Do this’ but almost always told the students: ‘Do this because…’. This, for me, is wisdom at work. This is an application of philosophy in one’s chosen career. Wisdom starts with a radical recognition of one’s limitations, of one’s circumstantiability. Socrates exemplified this by saying ‘I know that I do not know’.

28

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

To be wise is to acknowledge one’s finitude and from here to proceed discovering creatively one’s possibilities in life and work. This is philosophy in action. Eventhough one will not formulate his own system or school of thought, the mere act of taking a firm stand with one’s beliefs and living it through thick and thin can qualify one as a true blooded philosopher though the annals of philosophy will miss in recording his or her name. In this world of injustice and ineptitude, there are many occasions for us all to be true philosophers! Personal ideosyncracies, like the ones commonly attributed to philosophers, are not the main issue here. They are only incidental. Chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi writes: ‘...genius makes contact with reality on an exceptionally wide range: seeing problems and reaching out to hidden conceptions. Moreover, by deploying such powers in an exceptional measure...the work of a genius offers us a massive demonstration of a creativity which can neither be explained in other terms, nor taken unquestioningly for granted’. To Popper’s cry of ‘Dare to be intelligent!’, I add ‘Dare to be creative!’ There is no need to be a genius. To be creative is to be original, that is, to be oneself, true to oneself and one’s beliefs. That is originality! And to apply all these in any given situation. To be creative is not to know and know many things and even assimilate them. Of course, many philosophers were gifted and such talents truly enhance the philosophical enterprise. But wisdom, as correlated with creativity and even genius, traverses beyond than these frontiers. Wisdom is cognizant of its own limits even acknowledging that one must go beyond reason on certain matters. This is when faith comes in when it comes to God and the Mysteries of Salvation. But this is an entirely different story. We know by our intellectual faculties as supported by the perception of the senses. But we cannot just hope to monopolize everything by knowing them intellectually. Perhaps the final frontier of philosophy is expressed by these seemingly innocent and sentimental words told by the fox to to the Little Prince in which I find so much wisdom: ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye’. What then is philosophy? It is all this and much, much more. On my part, I still have to study, research and reflect on what I was not able to expound in these pages. As I rest my pen and end this part of our essay, there is a biting call for me to reexamine what I have scribbled here and elsewhere on this subject matter. After all, in philosophy we are all students all our lives.

CHAPTER TWO THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE Itinerarium Mentis in Deo ‘…Venirme a deshora un sentimiento de presencia de Dios… Esto no era manera de visión; creo lo llaman mística teología’. (St. Teresa of Jesus, Libro de la Vida, 10, 1)

Introduction – God as a Question for Man’s Rationality ‘God (…) is the most heavy-laden of all human words. None has become so soiled, so mutilated. Just for this reason I may not abandon it’. Thus writes Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. I entitle this folio, smarting from the sting of Buber’s words deep within, borrowing the title of one of St. Bonaventure’s great works Itinerarium Mentis in Deo (The Journey of the Mind towards God). ‘Mind’, here, is to be taken as man as a rational, intelligent and reasoning being. Is the mind capable of coming to know God by its own merits without the aid of faith? In answering this urgent query one must go over the testimony of history wherein the human mind, in all its glory as the only reasoning power on earth, has craftfully formulated formidable stands with regards to the biting question of God. Among them are: a) Theism or the general stand that there is a Personal and Provident God. The philosophical discipline called Theodicy is precisely the justification of the reality of this Personal and Provident God in the wake of evil and suffering. John Hick ably captures the gist of the theodiceal debate with the title of his famous book: Evil and the God of Love; b) Deism is the belief in a God, whether Personal or not, but not in His providence or goodness or governance of the universe; c) Atheism is sheer negation of God; d) Agnosticism, aside from doubting the reality of God, claims that God is unknowable; e) Monotheism is the affirmation of only one God; f) Polytheism is the belief in many gods; g) Pantheism is the identification of God and the universe or of created reality; h) Rationalism is the doctrine that affirms that what is beyond human comprehension or observation cannot be known and therefore, to be denied and ignored. God, given that He is beyond observation and comprehension, is a mystery and thus, to be denied and ignored. A variant of this stand is Positivism; i) Traditionalism maintains that what we know of God comes from tradition or what we

30

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

have learned from our ancestors. This is a ‘cultural’ (inasmuch as culture is what man cultivates) stand with regards to God; j) Fideism or the doctrine that makes faith absolute even to the point of irrationality by rejecting the aid or function of reason with regards to knowing God; and k) Ontologism which affirms that God is an idea, the fundamental and supreme idea from which all others come from. Thus, God is confined to the limits of the human mind. In this light, this early we can say that indeed the human mind is capable of knowing God on its own since it can make stands regarding God. María Zambrano, Spain’s foremost woman philosopher, once exclaimed in an interview: ‘God is the most rational idea of all!’ When we speak of ‘God’ we are referring to a Personal Supreme Being or an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Good or Provident and Transcendent Reality. We are not referring to merely a principle (as Aristotle would put it) or a mere force or energy or just a WorldSoul; we are speaking of a Personal Reality and Supreme at that! This is the bone of contention of the contemporary debate on God, characterized in great part by what Buber called ‘mutilation’ and ‘soiling’, into which we will not enter. To be a person, echoing medieval philosopher Severinus Boethius, is to be a rational (intelligent) substance (or individual reality). Applied to God, intelligence (or rationality) is predicated in the supreme degree. To be rational is to be alive! And God certainly is alive aside from being the source of life, of all existence here in the universe! Thus, this God is automatically taken to be the creator (to create=to make out of nothing) of all reality. Those who affirm certain scientific theories denying creation, such as the Big Bang and Evolutionary Theory, effectively deny the reality of God. It is imperative to contextualize the question of God in experience. For the moment, let us take experience as the all-encompasing context of reality inasmuch as it affects us human beings. Within experience, man ‘encounters’ God in (any of or all of) the following levels: a) as an idea or God as a content of human thought in order to condense reality in the mind and that God pertains to the logical order of the flow of man’s ideas and intellectual processes; b) as a feeling or God inasmuch as He (or It) belongs to the irrational or non-intellectual side of man: passions, profundity, dreams, interior life, etc.; c) as a cultural event or fact or God inasmuch as He is part of man’s objective institutions among them religion, politics, the arts and sciences, etc.; d) in nature or God as a part of the world not made by human hands (as opposed to culture) or inasmuch as God belongs to or created the realm of man’s basic necessities (like food, shelter, the earth to live in and to toil); and e) in action especially in the ethico-moral sense wherein we appeal to God as a criterion for our rational acts (or acts for which we take responsibility). This realm guards similarity with the cultural realm (c), because it is in action wherein man is creative. In creativity, we may either take God as the source of creativity in which we participate in or God as the product of our human creativity.

THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE

31

All these levels, realms or events move either in two coordinates (or both): a) the natural or the philosophical coordinate wherein man’s nature as expressed in his rationality is the guiding principle and b) supernatural coordinate wherein man’s rationality does not rely on its own merits but in the gratuitousness of God’s revelation, a supernatural act wherein the assent is also a supernatural act called faith and is an act of grace. Thus, there are two levels or forces: nature (or acquisitive) operation proceeding from the essence or whatness of man, the highest expression of which is his rationality) and grace (or non-acquisitive) state which does not proceed from the essence or whatness of man but that which is freely (and lovingly) bestowed without invalidating or destroying human rationality, but ‘elevating’ it to a level which nature, on its own, cannot reach. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that grace presupposes nature. But this is another story in itself. In the reflections that follow, we will only focus on nature, on philosophy. We can also say that, methodologically, coordinate b) is vertical since it receives from ‘above’ whereas a), is not absolutely solitary, but is horizontal since rationality necessarily involves a social context for its development and exercise. Says another Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas: ‘Philosophy is thought that directs itself to all humans’; to all humans, whether believers in God or not. To all humans, because all men (supposedly) are rational inspite of certain irrational acts commited frequently. G. W. F. Hegel wrote that the Owl of Minerva (philosophy) flies at night. ‘Night’ signifies that reality has already been created; the dawn is the moment of creation or emergence. Night is the time for the most profound reflection on reality given that it is already there (whether it has been created or not). We, as philosophers, have to soar at dusk and tear the night sky with our reflections-when everything has already been made and is now ‘offered’ to us for our reflections. ‘Night’ may be understood as the initial stages of ignorance, vagaries and uncertainties which beset the skies of the human mind to be clarified by philosophy’s penetrating flight. As philosophers, since all men are capable of profound reflections on issues affecting our lives, let us soar the night skies of the question of God. As Buber entitles a seminal work of his, there is an ‘eclipse of God’. For believers, the night should signify unceasing hope for a new dawn. To believe, paraphrasing Ortega y Gasset, is to stand on a firm ground of reality. Those who believe in God firmly and rationally stand on a schema of reality which not only includes God, but which is above all grounded in God. The Present Situation – Voices, Questions and Preliminary Responses We men and women of the twenty first century live in a ‘night time’ with regards to the question of God which we have inherited from the twentieth century. Friedrich Nietzsche, as the nineteenth century came to an end, sounded the wake up call with ‘God is dead! Man has killed him’. The famous Spanish

32

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

movie director Luis Buñel used to say: ‘Thank God, I’m an atheist’. We live at an age called ‘After God’ (Don Cupitt) wherein what remains of God are only faint ‘rumors of angels’ (Peter Berger). As to God’s reality there is a void, a chasm, a deafening silence. Spanish poet Torcuato Luca de Tena cries out: ‘Oh how long Lord are you in your silence!’ This silence is tantamount to God’s transcendence or beyondness from everyday life which in turn is translated by contemporary human experience as ‘experiential irrelevance’. It was Immanuel Kant, a believer, who first said that it is not possible to speak of God because he is outside the world of experience. Ludwig Wittgenstein, another believer, said that God does not reveal himself in the world therefore we can only be silent about things that do not respond to facts in the world, like God. This ‘transcendence’ made Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Albert Camus say through the mouth of Rieux in his novel the Plague upon being asked by a priest if he believed in God: ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t concern me. What I know is that men suffer and it is urgent to cure them’. (This is the urgent wake up call of the theodiceal debate). Wittgenstein’s statements have inspired a new positivistic group called the Vienna Circle who deny the reality of God since of God (a non-empirical reality) human language cannot speak. Positivistic scientists like Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry François Jacob, a non-believer, opines that ‘for the scientist enganged in science the question of the existence of God does not rise’. Karl Marx affirmed that religion is the opium of the masses, while Sigmund Freud said that religion is the result of an illusion that leads to infantilism. In the name of humanism (or the doctrine which insists on the centrality of man), Ludwig Feuerbach says that God is only a mere human projection of man’s gargantuan cravings, ambitions and imagination. Jean Paul Sartre, French philosopher and Nobel Prize Laureat for Literature, interpreted humanism in the light of freedom with this dictum: ‘If God exists, human beings are not free’. Nietzsche shares this train of thought when he said that God had to be killed because this God was the great witness who saw the ugliness (guilt, defects) of man. God is dead so that the Superman (the new man freed from theocentric ethical dictums) may live! These are voices first heard in the twentieth century. They still resound with discordant tunes and yet harmonize in affirming one thing: it doesn’t matter whether God exists or not, the fact is God does not matter! This situation has been called by experts as secularization. It is a complex phenomenon in whose weblike intricacies we will not delve. Suffice it to say that we live in a secularized era. This postmodern day and age has affirmed the failure of reason for a variety of reasons. Given this, reason can no longer guarantee transcendent realities such as God. Or God is beyond the reach of the mind and thus unknowable (agnosticism), unreal (atheism) or simply put, does not matter. Man does not need God, to explain the meaning of life, the mysteries of the origins and destiny of

THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE

33

the universe. Man and man alone is what matters. He is a solitary explorer seeking meaning on his own terms, merits and value systems. His mind can only grasp the concerns of the here and now. It must be emancipated from enslaving ideologies (for instance, religion). Many great philosophers used convincing arguments to deny God’s reality. That is one way of using the mind. With all the reason in the world, many ordinary men and women executed their intellectual convictions by willing that life could be lived without God. But there is an alternative, likewise rational. To use the mind to affirm God’s reality! And to be convinced of it. Pilar, one of the personages of Nobel laureate Ernest Hemmingway’s classic, For Whom the Bell Tolls, surmised: ‘There probably still is God after all, although we have abolished Him’. Albert Einstein, probably the greatest genius of the twentieth century, once said: ‘My religion consists in a humble admiration of the superior being without limits, who reveals himself in the smallest details that we can see with our weak and feeble spirits. This profound conviction of the presence of a powerful and superior reason which reveals itself in the incomprehensible universe is my idea of God’. Einstein’s position summarizes the stand of the movement called ‘Princeton Gnosis’. Scientists and intellectuals from Princeton University, using their minds, admit the order in the universe and could not attribute this order and harmony to anything but to a superior intelligence. Whether we like it or not there is a supreme intelligence that governs the universe and its noncontradicting laws. Indeed the mind is capable of affirming God’s reality on its own merits, by means of reason alone-just as it could deny His reality and provide valid proofs or evidence for it. Reason is a potent tool to reach God, but let us first distinguish it from Faith. Discord or Harmony? Faith and Reason Reason is the arm of philosophy, whereas faith is the arm or basis of theology. Both disciplines could study God, but under different guiding lights: faith for theology and reason for philosophy. In the case of the latter, it has a discipline dedicated to the study of God called Natural Theology, which should not be, I insist, confused with Theodicy which is the justification of a good or provident God amidst the stark realities of evil and suffering. Unfortunately, the distinction between the two disciplines has not yet been fully accepted and established by philosophers. This folio is an essay on Natural Theology. A good theodicy presupposes a sound natural theology. Philosophy moves along the plane of pure reason. This does not mean that theology is not a rational activity. On the contrary, it is as we will see in a few

34

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

moments. Blaise Pascal, famous French mathematician and thinker, affirmed that knowledge is only possible in the heart and not in the mind. Thus, he rejected the God of the philosophers (intelligence or mind) and only accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus Christ (heart) in a fideist and sentimentalist tone. Famed German philosopher Martin Heidegger is of the other extreme saying that philosophy could only be silent about theology and about God. The God of religion (or of faith of which philosophy must be silent about) is the God before man falls down in worship or before whom man dances or plays instruments. Basque philosopher Xabier Zubiri rejects this sharp distinction. He affirms that the God of the believers (or of religions) is the same God of philosophy, inasmuch as the philosopher does not delve too much in greek notions, but tends towards that reality which is absolutely absolute. The God of philosophy is the God of religions inasmuch as He is God (reality absolutely absolute). The philosopher, who operates within the realm of reason, approaches the question of God with his mind. He thinks of God. The theologian, who labors within the horizon of faith, presupposes the approach of God to man through revelation. He does not think of God or of what man has thought of God, but of what God has revealed Himself to be. Theology, as St. Thomas writes, is what God knows of Himself and what He reveals of Himself. The theologian, who is necessarily a believer in God, makes use of reason to understand and to convey to others what God has disclosed of Himself in religion primarily using logic, the principal tool of reason. Thus, theology is a rational game, albeit it is necessarily confessional while philosophy is not and a philosopher can be a non-believer. It could also be said that the God of philosophy is a silent God for He is the God to be studied, to be analyzed. The God of theology, on the other hand, is the ‘noisy’ God who always discloses Himself in grand or otherwise fashion (called theophanies) and ‘demands’ (not by imposition, but by ‘friendly persuasion’ respecting man’s autonomy and freedom) from man a commitment, a responsible response to this self-disclosure, self-opening (Offenbarung in German) in history called revelation (Revelatio in Latin). Because of the aid of reason or philosophy to the aims of theology, many have affirmed the superiority of theology or faith over philosophy or reason. This question does have many sides and angles which is beyond the scope of this essay. Faith, because it is the rational act of a believer, brings with it a salvific experience something in which reason does not enter. This salvific experience is shared by a community, a believing community with a peculiar creed, code or cult (the three elements of religion or theocentric way of life). Thus, faith has institutional reverberations; reason somehow lacks this- if it does not, then reason is ‘degraded’ into sheer ideology or fanaticism. However, reason necessarily has a social context

THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE

35

given that man is necessarily a social being and his reasoning power develops in a social mileu. The insitutional reverberation of faith necessarily implies a commitment, a confessional and existential commitment which reason does not require. Reason only demands that man make the existential commitment to be himself in the fullest sense of the word by means of his intellectual faculties. Both theologians and philosophers, because of their rationality, stand or should stand on firm grounds of reality; both have or should have their convictions. Faith is never irrational. The so called fideist leap of faith advocated by the likes of Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno is not faith, but a leap to the absurd. In the case of the theologian and his realm of faith, the conviction becomes a confession, whereas in the realm of reason of the philosopher, the conviction is an invitation to a critique, to a tending towards a goal, be it intellectual or existential, by means of reasoning. The philosopher’s critique is effectively exercised in explicitating what faith alone (or other disciplines for that matter) could not effectively affirm, clarify or address explicitly. Truly philosophy makes explicit what would otherwise be confined to sheer implicity or even doubtful or vacillating silence. In the case of faith, philosophy’s explicitating function not only explains nor clarifies, but is also a constant criteria for the existential requirements that faith, as response to God’s revelation, makes demands. Faith must be lived rationally and responsibility; reason, given its explicitating discourse, may help insure that faith does not degrade itself into sheer fanaticism. Reason’s explicitating discourse does not reduce faith to sheer intellectualism, but rather it provides the solid ground wherein faith is an act of the total person. This solid ground is the constant reminder of the rationality of the total person, i.e., that rationality does not only involve the intellectual faculty or ‘mind’ in sensu stricto, but the total person. To believe, to stand on the ground of reality involves the whole person! Both reason and faith are in search of the truth. In the case of the former, the truth is that which has to be found or it is man who approaches it. But for a man of faith, the truth searches for him and produces the encounter. This is how revelation works. Since the bone of contention is a Personal God, in this light, the theologian’s confession opens itself up to a Personal Relationship with God-and in the case of the Christian, this Personal God is necessarily trinitarian: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The philosopher’s critique does not ‘reach’ this personal level, although he can reach the notion of a Personal God. Reason on its merits alone does not guarantee a personal relationship much more with a God who reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The trinitarian God produces the encounter, takes the initiative in meeting man through self-disclosure or revelation. The critique of reason, on the other hand, takes the initiative to journey towards God, the silent God.

36

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Faith and Reason could and should have a harmonious and not antagonistic relationship. In the same vein, they are two different and independent areas or attitudes. The Journey towards God in Experience As stated earlier, to be rational is to be alive! And I add: to be rational is not just to be alive (like the plants and animals), but to be capable of experiencing. And what is real is experientiable (not just effectively experienced, but experientiable within the realm of experience by man, a rational and experiencing being). Experience is necessarily a finite realm, but a rational privelege peculiar only to man. We all experience things, animals, plants, events and even persons. That is why they are real. I, personally, have not experienced submarine life by means of scuba diving, but that doesn’t mean that the corals underneath the sea with all the plankton are not real. They are experientiable (or a possibility), however, for me. That’s why they are real. Let’s say (and I’m positive there is) there is a galaxy somewhere over there not yet discovered. This does not mean that it is not real. It has not yet been ‘effectively experienced’ by man through science and technology-but it is undeniably real, it is experientiable. Only persons experience. Experience is a mark of human finitude. Things don’t just happen to us; we record them, think of them, assimilate them… we experience them. Things or events only happen to other living things (animals and plants) and even non-living things-although these things can make man experience. Only man is capable of knowing and appreciating realities, for he alone, given his rational finitude, experiences. Experience is a mediating process wherein reality (or realities) become real; and wherein what is real are reality (or realities). (Pardon the play of words.) Only man is the reality of reality. The other realities are not capable of reality, though they are real; they are real because they are experientiable. Experiencing involves the mind; but it is more than just the openness of reality to the mind (objective dimension) nor is it just the expressive response of the mind to a world of realities (subjective dimension). Just as I have said, experience is mediation. Zubiri wrote: ‘man is an experiential mode of being God’. To be experiential is to be finite and rational. Zubiri’s statement should not only be taken in the sense that man is made in the image and likeness of God or that man is a ‘little god’ as Leibniz would say. To me, Zubiri’s poignant statement means that in man and his mode and world of experiencing God gives Himself, makes Himself available as an experience. Not just an object of experiencing, but an experience that somehow experiences-given that God is a Person. It is not that God is finite, but He is

THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE

37

present, active in our world of experience. Theologians would call this presence ‘condescension’ or ‘kenosis’ (self-emptying, especially in Christ and his cross). God’s experientiability is that of a Person; a Person who meets all men in person. Christian theology would affirm that Christ is God in person for us persons revealing that there are three persons in God. But philosophy, on its own merits, cannot go that far; but still it can affirm God’s personality, that is, His independence, autonomy at the same time that He is rational: intelligent, willing, loving, powerful, knowing in the supreme degree. Given all this, it is in man and in his experiential realm that God gives Himself; man has this ‘innate’ capacity to search for God in experience which opens itself up or makes itself concrete in the levels already mentioned (idea, feeling, culture, etc.). It is on these levels that the journey of the mind takes place and becomes concrete. Man must construct his own way on these levels; the way he edifies is necessarily experiential. God is a totally transcendent reality. Is He experientiable? The Logical Positivists denied God’s reality (and effectively His experientiability) for He is beyond this empirical world of experiences. It is true that God transcends this empirical world of experience (experience, by the way comes from the greek empereia from which the term empirical was derived from), but this does not mean that He is not experientiable in this same world, that He does not disclose Himself or reveal Himself in this world of empirical realities. God has a different mode of experientiability. God’s experientiability should always be understood in terms of His transcendence, His total separateness from the world; but it is not a separateness that is distant, aloof, provident-to the point that God, though transcendent is somewhat present in created reality (to avoid pantheism) respecting their and His own autonomy, but maintaining them so that they continue to become real. All things because they are real and are realities participate in God, who is real in Himself and who is the Supreme Reality; man’s real participation as a reality is experiential-given that he is a person and comes closest, compared to that of the other realities, because he is a person for God is a person, the most experiential in himself. God’s experientiability cannot be pointed at following the empirical-positivistic yardstick. Zubiri even affirms, with tones of pantheism, that all things are in God. I would rather prefer to say that all things, given that they are realities, participate in God’s being real. But only man participates or takes part ‘fully’ because he experiences; full participation is the essence of experience. Because of this participation, it would be superflous to point to God in this empirical setup; to point out is to determine the coordinates in space and time. God is beyond these coordinates, but He is most intimately present at the same time totally transcendent. His presence opens up in experience which in turn opens up in the various levels earlier enumerated.

38

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

In this light, it would be worth the while to invite the reader to read the great mystics. Mystics are not people who enter into trances and who levitate, have visions or locutions. A mystic, a genuine mystic is someone who has had a genuine, personal and intense experience of God regardless of the so called mystical states of locutions, visions, ecstacies, etc. now commonly subject to ridicule and suspicion of being drug induced. Mystics are ordinary rational beings just like ourselves who have lived through the impact of God in their lives. Their teachings or writings are coherent testimonies of the experiential reality of God and how we on our own, in the levels of experience mentioned, can make our own journey towards God. The religious traditions to which the mystics are not that important. Mysticism is not an irrational thing altogether, but it is a rational assimilation and consciousness of the intensity and genuineness of the presence of a Transcendent, Personal and yet Experientiable God in life. Natural Theology has developed as a science of producing proofs for the reality of God. These proofs are all together useless. For a while they have served their purpose which do not go beyond the scholastic ambiance and thus, have no bearing in experience, in everyday life. For the atheist can and has produced counterproofs which are likewise logically valid. I believe much has already been written about these proofs and I don’t think I can add anything of novelty to them. But as an alternative to these, we can look at the testimony of the mystics as experiential testimonies which are altogether coherent and expressive of being firmly rooted or grounded in a schema of reality wherein God is real, God is experientially real, wherein God is the basis of said reality. And the mystics almost always speak of a Personal, Loving God. I am cognizant that coherence is not the only criterion of truth. With regards to the positivistic criterion of correspondence, we cannot really say that what we experience is objectively God by pointing Him out according to the empiricalpositivistic measure. Beyond this, we can point out to the totalizing realm of reality inasmuch as it is experienced. And for me, the most sublime experience is that of beauty: not only of contemplating the beautiful, but feeling beautiful. These experience of the beautiful has led man to be creative, not out of nothing but to appropriate for himself all that natural beauty and recreate it from within. This has led noted literary critic Goerge Steiner to affirm that there is a real presence of God in works of art. But I would not focus on the finished product in itself, but rather in the creative process. Man cannot create out of nothing. He always creates out of something. He only participates by appropriating for himself the given reality and to recreate it and to give a new realm of experience for his fellow men to enjoy. This participation brings with it that ‘feeling’ of being like God; this is participation in its most sublime level. This participation brings with it notions

THE WAY TO THE ABSOLUTE

39

of respect, providence and above all love. It is the most sublime way of journeying towards God. But it should not be limited to producing works of art alone in the strict sense of the word or according to aesthetic standards. To be creative is to do, to be able to function, to be able to glorify one’s humanity, to be able to give others new and recreated realms of experience. This is participation. This is creativity in the broad sense of the world. It is in this way, in the various levels mentioned, that man makes the journey towards God, the God in whom he participates not only as ‘creator’ but as reality. God is the reality that is real in Himself. We as realities participate in this being real, especially in our creativity. And in our creativity, we participate and at the same time, fully participate, fully experience what it is to be real and thus, we journey towards God in view of full participation in Him. It is also in an intense and genuine experience could we avoid mutilating the word ‘God’. Because in experience, He is not just any reality, but the reality that uncovers Himself as Personal, Provident and above all Loving even inviting, respecting the autonomy of the human person, to a total commitment of faith involving the totality of the human person. God, because He alone is omnipotent and omniscient, is the most respectful being of man’s freedom. This verse of that great Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross reminds us that in the beauty of experientiable reality, we find the vestiges of God: Mil gracias derramando pasó por estos sotos con presura, y yéndolos mirando, con sola su figura, vestidos los dejó de su hermosura [Overflowing with a thousand graces, He passed by these groves in a hurry, and, looking at them with just his image, he left them clothed with beauty]

Discovering the vestiges of God by creativity, by participation, by experiencing is the only way to undertake the journey of the mind towards God. By the way it was St. John of the Cross who rightfully could man Dios por participación, God by participation. Participation then is the key to finding God in whom we all participate as realities. I am all too aware that much more can be written and that many of my affirmations here may need further explanation. I will reserve all these for another occasion. I do not wish to abuse of the benevelonce of my readers with my long and rambling reflections. I would be quite pleased if my readers have

40

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

found pleasure in their perusal of this part of our essay. And I would like to conclude this chapter, urging them not to make God a mere rational puzzle-as traditional Natural Theology has done and therefore has failed to rebut the atheist’s counter proofs, but to discover God rationally in experience with these words from Kahlil Gibran’s classic The Prophet: And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

CHAPTER THREE PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS A Metaphysical Essay on Communion ‘No el mucho saber harta y satisface al ánima, mas el sentir y gustar de las cosas internamente’. (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Ejercicios Espirituales, 2)

Philosophy and Holiness1 or how does the immament, in its finitude and culpablity, participate in the transcendental? This is the main point of reflection, inevitably agonic, of the present essay, which could be deemed as programatic, for any philosophy is set out above all as a program, which becomes incarnate in a voice, a specific and contextualized tone that replies to a calling. Philosophy is, first and foremost, a free and intelligent response (and inevitably, limited given man’s finitude and culpability) to the calling of the transcendental. Philosophy is undertaken within the immanence of time and space, within the limits of the objective world. As it is being undertaken, always as an ‘agon’, a struggle ‘for life’,2 as Unamuno would put it, philosophy recreates the objective and shared world, within the finite and culpable coordinates of time and space. Inevitably the result is the lived world or a world hypothesized to be lived in. This lived world is derived from the objective or shared world. Philosophy, by means, of ‘inverting the habitual direction of the work of thought’,3 recreates this lived world into a home for man by providing a way of understanding this lived world. Philosophy, which is realized by inverting, is creative. It is not accepting a status quo, but transforms it, converts it. Inversion commences by questioning but does not end there. Questioning is the opening up of the path of inversion of a work of thought, to bring it to perfection in the love of 1

2 3

I pen this chapter with thanks and even, perhaps, apologies to: H. Urs Von Balthasar, ‘Theologie und Spiritualität’, in: Gregorianum 50 (1969), 571-587; J.P. Torrell, ‘Théologie et Saintité’, in: Revue Thomiste 71 (1971), 205-221; S. Guerra, ‘Teología y Santidad’, in: Several Authors, La recepción de los místicos: Teresa de Jesús y Juan de la Cruz (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad Pontificia, 1997), 635-666. Cfr. M. de Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1994). H. Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics (Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett, 1999), 54.

42

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

that which transcends man’s finitude and culpability and embraces him at the same time. This is wisdom. Love of wisdom is the perfectionality of thought. Thought is not the overcoming of the love of wisdom. Universe, World, Home – From Existence to Life A philosophy is in its effectivity a discourse on this lived (in actuality) or liveable (in potentiality) world. World is the liveable or lived part of the universe, which is the great totality of all that there is. Philosophy seeks to transform this world into what is effectively liveable or home. Philosophy in its effectivity as discourse is what is deemed as a model of reality: an episteme,4 a paradigm,5 a model for understanding (of what is methodologically to be taken as a ‘text’),6 comprehending it, for it is the product of a primarily hermeneutical venture7 whose end-product is what we call an interpretation, which in turn presupposes a description. This commences as a letting be, letting itself manifest or an act of laissez faire, which philosophy, takes by the horns. This taking of the bull’s horns is the hermeneutical task. Taking the bull by its horns or wrestling with the transencental stranger, whose name we ask for and whose blessing we demand until it is time to release Him or till the break of dawn, when release is letting the transcendental be transcendental or letting the Absolute be the Absolute in its own terms, after our struggle with Him like Israel. The philosopher’s task is to merit this name: ‘Israel’, for struggling with the Absolute just before the break of dawn in order 4

5

6

7

Cfr. M. Foucault, L’archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969); Idem, Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966). Cfr. T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); H. Kung & D. Tracy (Eds.), Paradigm Change in Theology: A Symposiu for the Future (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989); H. Küng, Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View (New York: Doubleday, 1988). For a fundamental notion of text, see: P. Ricœur, ‘What is a Text? Explanation and Understanding’, in: Idem, From Text to Action (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 105-124. Also, on models of comprehension of texts from the viewpoint of experience, which is crucial in the present essay: E. Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God (New York: Crossroad, 1991); Idem, Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1980); M. Alvarez, Experiencia y Sistema: Introducción al pensamiento de Hegel (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1978); M. Ofilada, S. Juan de la Cruz: El sentido experiencial del conocimiento de Dios (Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo, 2002). Cfr. K. Hartmann, ‘Phenomenology, Ontology and Metaphysics’, in: The Review of Metaphysics 22 (1968), 85-112; D. Ihde, Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricœur (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971).

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

43

to release Him to be the Absolute on His own terms. This release is what the Northern mystics would label as ‘Gelassenheit’.8 The Spanish mystical tradition would call it ‘pasividad’, even to great extremes like ‘alumbradismo’ or ‘quietismo’.9 Dawn is when Minerva’s owl does not take flight, for it is at rest. Dawn is when the dove of truth is released, after the release of the transcendental in its own terms and presupposing the struggle with Him in the darkest of the night (just before dawn), to search for habitable land from the dark ark of the caccophony of mankind amidst the floods of time and space, which besiege him for man’s being consists in vulnerability to the ontological constitution of the universe that surrounds him. He is exposed to the ontological elements which constitutes his existence. His existential challenge consists in transforming his ‘being there’ (existence) into ‘being there for someone and for something’ (life). Philosophy is the very process of transforming existence into life.

The Holy, Holiness and The Sacred – Status Quaestionis The Absolute, in its transcendence, is the Real of Reality, the Reality of the Real in the Supreme Instance. It is Generosity in its Infinite Instance. Generosity is wherein the self becomes more than itself.10 In the case of the Absolute, it is the overflowing of the self in self-emptiness or kenosis. It offers itself or it mediates itself as Love. Love is the very core of the Absolute.11 It is Love that is opened, that invites, that mediates, allowing itself to be experience. As such it calls. It is offered kenotically or in emptiness. Its discourse is what is called agape, sharing. In its self-sharing the Absolute mediates and opens history, at the same time constituting history, which is the venue of promise in terms of faith. On the 8

9

10 11

Cfr. L. Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno-flamands (Paris: DDB, 1968); Giovanna della Croce, I mistici del Nord (Rome: Studium, 1981). Cfr. P. Saínz Rodríuguez, Introducción a la historia de la literatura mística en España. 2nd ed. (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1984); A. Huerga, Historia de los alumbrados, 4 vols (Madrid: FUE, 1978-1988); Several Authors, Historia de la Inquisición en España y América (Madrid: BAC, 1984); J.A. Llorente, Historia crítica de la Inquisición Española, 4 vols. (Madrid: Hiperion, 1980); Several Authors, Inquisición española y mentalidad inquisitorial (Barcelona: Ariel, 1984). Cfr. L. Dupré, Transcendent Selfhood (New York: Seabury Press, 1976). Interestingly, J.L. Marion in his insistence in the overcoming of ontotheolgy insists that the first name of God is Love. Being, or ontological categories, risk transforming God as an idol. Cfr. J. L. Marion, Théologiques: Dieu sans l’être (Paris: Cerf, 1982); Idem, L’idole et la distance: Cinq êtudes (Paris: Cerf, 1977). Also, see: G. Lafont, Dieu, le temps et l’être (Paris: Cerf, 1986).

44

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

part of the Absolute this faith is fidelity, an it opens up a path of responding to its which is Hope, the journeying of and within history towards this Absolute, in fidelity, made concrete in history, by man, in his finitude and culpability, who is called to be generous. Generosity is the basic trait of existence12 that calls for the overflowing of the self basically by transforming existence (being there) to life (being there for someone or something). Generosity makes the primordial Love of the Absolute attractive. Generosity is the Beauty of this Love. It has, primarily, an aesthetical function, for it makes the transcendental love not only perceptible or liveable, within finitude and culpability, but also ontological, i.e., knowledgeable. Beauty is the primary transcendental category in order for man to symbollically, i.e., ontologically grasp the Absolute as the Reality of the Real and the Real of the Reality.13 From here, the Real in its Reality and the Reality as Real behind its symbolization (which is its ‘being’ or the symbolical mediation of Reality as the Real and the Real as Reality) unfolds into the very qualities and properties of being which are being One, True, Good, Other and Thing. Being is unified (One), in conformity, correspondence and coherence (True) with the Absolute, open and self-giving or diffusive of itself (Good), distinct (Other) and historical or concrete (Thing). However, Beauty (Kalos, Pulchrum) conceptually integrates all these transcendentals in being, which is the ontological attraction of the metaphysical. In other words, Beauty constitutes the call of the Real inasmuch as it is real and Reality inasmuch as it is reality. This call can only be ‘heard’ as Being by man, who knows only in ontological categories and by means of the transcendental properties of Being. These transcendental properties constitute the Real and Reality inasmuch as it is knowable and as known, i.e., Being which is the Symbol of the Real inasmuch as it is Reality and Reality inasmuch as it is Real, which is the foundational basis of Being. Being (the ontological) is symbol of the Real inasmuch as it is Reality and of Reality inasmuch as it is Real (the metaphysical). ‘Reality is not a type of being. This is the ancient idea of being real, esse reale. I would say that what is real in being exists, realitas in essendo. Being is only a moment of reality’.14 It is the symbolical moment. Ontology is the symbolization of Metaphysics. The Absolute is the Supreme instance of the Metaphysical. It is the Metaphysical in itself. Its call is Beauty. Its call is heard as ontology. Its call is 12 13

14

J. Maritain, Existence and the Existent (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957), 90. For further reflection on this theme, see my essay: ‘From Aesthetics to Art: From Ontology to the Holiness of the Real with the Sacred and the Beautiful as Experiential Coordinates’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 36 (2001), 289-312. Also: D. Orsuto, Holiness (London/ New York: Continuum, 2006). X. Zubiri, Naturaleza, Historia, Dios (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 16.

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

45

Theological, for the call of the Absolute is heard inasmuch as the Absolute is heard as God. Thus the call is in itself theological. Theology is God-Talks and not just God-Talk. It is the Absolute who calls, who is heard as God. This is the original sense of theology. Theology, as a rational task, is God-Talk or talking about God in all its technical sophistication15 or methods and insights.16 Theology, understood in this positivistic human level, is only possible as an analogical17 response, within specific historical and cultural contexts,18 to GodTalks which is a call to holiness, an invitation to participate in God-Talk, always within the context of pluralism,19 and within the view of making God relevant to present-day experiential discourse.20 Theology, as a human enterprise, is precisely a participation in the act wherein the Absolute allows Itself to be experienced, and thus reveals Himself, as God: talking about Himself or God-Talks. Philosophy, as the response to this vocation which is theological and heard in the ontological level, is love or friendship (philein) of wisdom (sophia). Sophia is the state of participation of holiness. Participation is marked by friendship, which, as Aristolte writes, ‘is the most necessary in life’.21 Friendship is uninterested or selfless love. It is ascensional on the part of man, involving his own act of self-emptiness (kenosis) in ascending and intense response (eros) to the Kenosis of the Absolute in experience. In its ascent to the transcendental Absolute, by and in the state of loving wisdom (philosophia or amor sapientiae), philosophy is eros. Eros is force, intense directionality towards that which is beyond, that which is transcendental. Eros gives philosophy, as the response to the Absolute, its dramatization, which is the very force of the experiential narrative or history. Drama is history as it takes place as the mediational narrative. The Absolute, in its transcendence, is The Holy. Holiness is his very quality, which by his generosity is mediational, i.e., experiential. The Absolute is the source of holiness. It has been described by phenomenologists of religion as the

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Cfr. J. Macquarrie, God-Talk: Examination of the Language and Logic of Theology (London: SCM Press, 1967); Idem, Principles of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press, 1971). Cfr. B. Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder & Herder 1972); Idem, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957). Cfr. D. Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 2000). Cfr. S. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology. Revised and expanded edition (Manila: Logos, 2003). Cfr. D. Tracy & J. Cobb, Jr., Talking about God: Doing Theology in the Context of Modern Pluralism (New York: Seabury Press, 1983). Cfr. S. Guerra, ‘El reto del discurso cristiano: Decir hoy ‘Dios’ signficativamente’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 53 (1994), 304-307. Aristotle, Nichomacean Ethics, 1155, a,4.

46

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

basic category of religious experience.22 It is the trait of the Absolute which calls for communion, for participation. This call is heard within an experiential ambiance, which is derived from the shared and lived world, and is labeled as the Sacred. Holiness is the relationality of the Absolute with itself, or in the intimate level and which is lived out as Unity and Trinity, i.e., beyond the solitude of being the One, overcoming the duality of two and perfected in the community of Three Persons. Holiness, too, is the relationality of the Absolute outside itself or in the immanently economical (oikonome in soteriological terms) towards man, in his finitude and culpability. The Sacred or the experiential ambiance of the Holy in its Holiness is configurated in ontological terms, i.e., in the symbolical level wherein frontiers and horizons are established in cognitive terms, made concrete empirically (experience as empereia or sense data). Sense data are the concrete moments of experience as the mediation of the Real in order to be reality and of Reality in order to be real, in its transcendence, within the immanent realm of man’s finitude and culpability. The Sacred becomes, in effect, inasmuch as it is differentiated from the Profane or that part of the shared world which does not facilitate the response to the Holy, but without which the response is not possible. The response, involving the integral man in all his dimensions (psychological, physical, moral, social and religious) commences in the free and intelligent passage of man from the profane to the Sacred. This act is called religion, for it relinks (religare), it is a rereading of man’s existential situation (relegere) and due diligence (relegere as diligere) to the same situation, without necessarily being confessional or institutional, in relation to the Absolute. Philosophy, Mystagogy and Ascesis – In View of Communion and Holiness Philosophy is initiation into the Sacred, which is the venue of transcendence toward the Absolute, by ontological means and overcoming the ontological realm of being, by the mediation of experience, and entering the Metaphysical Realm of the Real and Reality, ultimately in taking part, sharing, communion with the Absolute, which is the very essence of Holiness. Because of this philosophy is mystagogical. It is mystagogy, by means of experience, into the dynamic way towards the Absolute. The attainment of the absolute is called ‘communion’ and the living out of this attainment is ‘holiness’, which is a way or a path. Holiness 22

Cfr. R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford/ London/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1958). Cfr. Ph. Almond, Rudolf Otto: An Introduction to His Philosophical Theology (Chapel Hill/ London: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

47

is lived out, in turn, as participation, on the part of man. On the part of the Absolute, it is the Absolute being itself, united to itself: One and Triune. Holiness is a metaphysical exigency. It radically (from the very roots of the Real and Reality inasmuch as it mediates itself as experience and as sacramental presence) demands leaving behind that which is an obstacle or that which does not favor this path of communion. It is a path of exercise (ascesis), of opting to remember (anamnesis) what favors the path of communion and forgetfulness (lethe) with regards to the obstacles. It is uncovering oneself (aletheia), to be open to the Truth of the Absolute which allows itself to be experienced or mediated because of its and in its Holiness, creating the realm of the Sacred from the shared world, deriving from it the lived world (or ‘erlebnis’ in Diltheyan terms). Holiness is participating in the Holy in itself within the Sacred in the course of history. Holiness makes history geared towards the Absolute. Holiness is the mode by which history is relational to the Absolute, which becomes concrete in the encounter with the Absolute in Faith, Hope and Love. This presupposes cooperation in the manifestation of the Will of the Holy in itself in its call to transcendence or as a vocation to transcendence. The Absolute is fullness in transcendence. Paraphrasing Zubiri, the Absolute (or God inasmuch as the Absolute makes a discourse about Himself as God or theology) is blessed (feliz) because He posseses the fullness of life, which is based on the transparent fullness of being, in the fullness of Truth. Men are far from this joy, we are full of ‘philia’. Thus, we are ‘philosophers’, lovers of the knowledge of the most real of reality, of a knowledge that allows us to be the realest of ourselves.23 Love, then, for the philosopher is the very weight of himself, as Augustine would put it: ‘Amor meus pondus meum’.24 As philosophers we are called to radiate the very life of the Absolute, which is Holiness in itself, like the glow of burnt offering,25 the puja of our very existence being burned and transformed into life. The Dawn of Philosophy – The Mediational Path towards Transcendence Philosophy does not commence when Minerva’s owl takes flight at dusk, but at dawn, after waiting for it, especially through the darkest part of the night, which is precisely before dawn. Philosophy does not report or just speculates on a dark world or in its completion, but awaits and keeps vigil and sets out to look for 23 24 25

Zubiri, Naturaleza, Historia, Dios, 21. St. Augustine, Confessiones, 13, 9. E. Levinas, De Dieu qui vient à l’idée (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1982), 119.

48

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

the olive branch, creating paths, which direct the itineraries of others. The search for the olive branch transforms the cacophony of the flood waters into a symphony of hope, of continuity after the dead-end of the deluge and exile from the land, which is home to man. This symphony we call, history: the experiential narrative of man, an experiential construct, model and paradigm for man’s immanent reality in its immanence, in its finitude and culpability and his struggle or reaching out for transcendence. Philosophy, as an immanent (or human: finite and culpable) response to a transcendental calling (that of the Absolute) bridges both transcendence and immanence. This bridging is in effect the construction of a path, a way. It is the way to holiness: the way to union or participation of the immanent, in its free and intelligent finitude and culpability, with the Absolute in its transcendence. Communion could only be in intimate terms with the Mystery, with the very sacramental presence.26 It is mystical.27 Philosophy commences not at sunset. Philosophy prepares for its flight, by means of ‘agon’, at the darkest part of night. It announces the dawn and takes place at the aurora as a flight towards the transcendence. Dusk is the hour of the scribe or what we vulgarly label as ‘historian’ – which should not be the case, for the historian is not just a scribe or imitator (mimesis) but a creator by testimony and teaching (martyr), but not an inventor of truths (poiesis). Philosophy is martyrion or testimony and teaching. It is also virginity (parthenos) because it is the exercise of continence, discipline and purity.28 Philosophy, in its discursivity and textually finished form, is a parthenon and a martyrion. 26

27

28

Among many treatises on sacramental theology, I admit being influenced most by E. Schillebeeckx’s landmark work: Christ: The Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963). Also from the perspective of main oriental traditions, which do not identify the Absolute as God, cfr. H. Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India, China, Tibet, Japan (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968), 350-372. Cfr. J. Carmody & D. Carmody, Mysticism: Holiness East and West (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Idem, Serene Compassion: A Christian Appreciation of Buddhist Holiness (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); P. Sheldrake, Images of Holiness: Explorations in Contemporary Spirituality (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1987); R. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1985). I have taken into consideration the following studies: W. Rordrof & A. Solignac, ‘Martyre’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique. Doctrine et Histoire (Paris: Beauchesne, 1932-1995), Vol. 10 (1980), 717-735; H. Delehaye, Sanctus: Essai sur le culte des saints dans l’antiquité (Brussels: Subsidia Bibliographica, 1927): Idem, Les origines du culte des martyrs. 2nd ed. (Brussels: Subsidia Bibliographica, 1933); M. Pellegrino, La spiritualité del martirio: Il martire e Cristo (Turin: Gheroni, 1957); Idem, ‘L’imitation du Christ dans les Actes des Martyrs’, in: La Vie Spirituelle 38 (1958), 38-54; Idem, ‘Le sens ecclésial du martyre’, in: Revue des Sciences Religieuses 35 (1961), 151-175; M. Spanneut, ‘Patience et martyre chez les Pères de l’Eglise’, in: Several Authors, Pleroma, Miscellanea A. Orbe S.I. (Santiago de Compostela: Seminario de Santiago de Compostela, 1990), 545-560; Tertullian, De virginibus Velandis (Rome: Borla, 1984); F. de B. Vizmanos, Las vírgenes cristianas de la Iglesia Primitiva (Madrid:

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

49

Philosophy takes its cue from the rooster’s crow. The task of crowing is assigned to the man of letters or of culture: he who takes charge of man’s cultivation, as opposed to what is natural or given and even sometimes, from a haughty perspective, denominated as ‘savage’. Philosophy emerges from the culture (what man cultivates and from not what is given him or physis or natura) and enters into the realm of the transcendental, not only to provide the foundation for man’s experiential and cognitive foundation (this is the interpretation of the transcendental of Kant), but to reach out for the transcendental acknowledged even in the most ancient of all traditions, including the Ancient Greek west (beginning with the so-called mythical period with its anthropomorphism of the transcendental and the break away of the so-called ‘presocratics’ to Plato especially with his notion of the Good and Aristotle who postulated a ‘first philosophy’ identifying it with ‘theology’) because of the religious (‘religare’ or ‘relegere’) root and directionality of man’s cultivation – and not necessarily because of the confessional implications with regards to the institutional and its fideistic demands – whose presence as history and permanence in history culminates in what we call civilization and its concreteness in the ‘polis’. The ‘polis’ or at least the individuals within it must find their ‘way back’ in an odyssey that runs smack of salvation (in the Ancient Hellenized world this was greatly emphasized by Plotinus). Mystery, Communion, Participation – Experiential Mediation Man is finite and culpable. He is not transcendental in his existential conditionality, which is the main ingredient of his historicity, commencing from his consciousness of transcendental origin and destination (the origin to be re-encountered as the goal or the ‘originary’). Man possesses a vocation to be transcendental, not to be transcendental in himself, but to be holy: to participate (koinonia) in the transcendental. The transcendental in turn becomes present in the realm of man’s immanence and transforms it into a living history by being ‘mysterion’ or mystery or sacrament: the presence of the transcendent in the immanent. Mystery is inevitably incarnational, for it is assuming an experiential narrative. Experience is mediation: it brings together, links, integrates and mediates what is transcendent and what is immanent. Experience is not just data perceived by the senses (empereia). These data are the logical derivation of this BAC, 1949); Several Authors, Mystique et continence (Brussels: Études Carmelitaines, 1952); J. Alvarez, ‘Vírgenes cristianas’, in: Several Authors, Diccionario teológico de la vida consagrada (Madrid: Publicaciones Claretianas, 1989), 1814-1824; C. Murnier, Matrimonio e virginità nella chiesa antica (Turin: Traditio Christiana, 1990).

50

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

mediation in the level of the empirical which man in his intelligence assimilates and processes in the process of cognition. Experience is the point of encounter, because it is mediation. Man is called to participate, to become holy like the transcendental. Such that man is the holy, the Absolute in experiential and participatory terms because the Absolute allowed itself to be experienced and sacramentalized, even to the point of incarnation. Man is the Absolute in experiential (finite and culpable mediaton of the transcendental) terms. The Absolute became present (mystery) in its transcendence within the realm of the immanent to create history, becoming even incarnate in this history, giving it course, directionality and relationality with the Absolute in terms of koinonia, communion, sharing, fellowship or participation. In a word, experience. Communion is not absorption of the identity of the other or becoming that other or monospolizing the other’s traits, but rather it is only ‘taking part’, sharing, fraternizing and being united with common denominatory metaphysical terms in intimate (mystical or ‘rootedeness in the mystery’) terms. Communion is mediation or it is going beyond one’s frontiers, stretching them without nullifying them. Communion is experience. Communion means the Absolute becoming man by experience (or by participation) and man (the finite and culpable) becomes the Absolute by experience (or by participation). Holiness is man’s participation in the transcendental which participated in man’s finitude and even culpability, without moral responsibility for it.29 This is what we call condescendance or self-emptying (kenosis). Kenosis is the basis of koinonia or methxis or participatio, (experience, which is not simply empereia or sense data for gnosis or cognition). The Way of Holiness – Presence as Mediation, Mediation as Self-Diffusion and Unfolding The way of Holiness30 is the experiential mediation of the Transcendental (the Absolute) and the Immanent (man, in his immanence marked by finitude and 29

30

Cfr. W.M. Thompson, Fire and Light: On Consulting the Sains, Mystics and Martyrs in Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1987); Several Authors, Teología y Santidad: A Special Issue of Communio 9 (1987), 483-563; L. Mendizábal, ‘Vocación universal a la santidad’, in: Manresa 36 (1964), 156-157; Several Authors, ‘Perfection chrétienne’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 12 (1984), 1074-1156; E. Ancilli, ‘Santidad Cristiana’, in: Several Authors, Diccionario de Espiritualidad (Barcelona: Herder, 1964), 346-355. J. Guillet, ‘Sainteté de Dieu’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 14 (1990), 184-192; A. Solignac, ‘Sainteté-Sanctification’, in: Ibid., 192-194; T. Špidlik et al, ‘Saints’, in: Ibid., 196-230; P. Molinari, ‘Saint’, in: Dictionnaire de Vie Spirituelle (Paris: Beauchesne, 1983), 977-986.

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

51

culpability). It is a road of encounter, of meeting. It is the road of presence, of mystery, wherein the Infinite is present in the Finite and the Finite is present in the Infinite. It is the sacramental road of history with its many dramas (or episodes), but metaphysically it is a unique way, common to all that is finite and culpable in their relationality to the Absolute. It is a road of meeting for the finite and the Infiinite, wherein the later becomes visible in the mediation of the finite, wherein culpability, at the same time, spirituality (or concrete historical and dramatic path towards the Absolute) is cultivated. The Absolute, let us repeat, sacramentalizes itself as Mystery. It opens up a way of experience, a way of the spirit. Spirit is the Absolute in its integrity, allowing itself to be experienced or communicating itself in Revelation as God. The way of experience or the way of the spirit, which is man, in his finitude and culpability, responding to the integrating call of participation or holiness, finds the prsence of the Absolute or its experientiality in historicity, in the forms of: History (the way as experiential narrative given the presence of the Absolute), Society (the way as communinon of man desiring to live together given the presence of the Absolute), Liberty (the way as experiential individuality and choice given the presence of the Absolute), Politics (the way as the communion of man who act together towards a goal given the presence of the Absolute) and Beauty (the way as experiential driving force and sublime goal and criterion given the presence of the Absolute). All these, with beauty occupying the sublime place of the incarnated goal within history, as society, in liberty, through politics, takes place as experience and defines man, as spirit, conscious of his origins and of his goal. Borges puts its beautifully: ‘¿Qué arco habrá arrojado esta saeta/qué soy? ¿Qué cumbre puede ser su meta?’31 The aforementioned are the concreteness of the Truth of the Absolute, revealed as God, made sacramentally present. The aforementioned forms are sacramental responses all cultivated by man (culture). They constitute the main categories of man, in his finitue and culpability, in the highest level of his rationality: thought. Thought centers itself in the afromentioned forms as its coordinates for discerning and determining the Turth, which is in effect, the presence of the Infinite in finitude. This discernment and determination is in fact the grammar of Holiness in order to participate in the very Mystery, which is the very essence of Holiness. Thus, man as spirit is man responding to the vocation of integration with a view to communion or full participation. Given his response as spirit, in the way or path of participation called ‘Spirituality’, man opens up the aforementioned forms as area to realize itself as spirit in terms of participation. This opening up is a cultivation. It is culture or man 31

J.L Borges, ‘La rosa profunda’, in: Idem, Obras completas 1964-1975 (Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores, 1993), 407.

52

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

recreating what has been given him (creatio, physis or nature). Culture, as the participatory act of man in order to realize his vocation as spirit, has three main areas: Art (or the spirit as creative, given that creativity, as the self-appropriation and renewal of the given in creation and nature, is the mediational realization of experience related to the Absolute), Science (or the spirit as knowledgeable, for science is certain and true or credible knowledge) and Morals (or the spirit as embodiment of virtues, translated as norms and as the experiential agent of the Law from its Eternal and Natural level to its positive elaboration and praxis). When man lives morally, he elaborates an ethics, an ethos which in turn serves as paradigm within the dynamics of history, within the area of society, in accordance to the principle of liberty, within the praxis of politics, and within view of beauty. Culture is man building himself as spirit and making this universe, liveable, transforming it into a world, and within it his home, wherein he feels ‘he is the Absolute’. Culture is about building home. Its aim is dwelling, to habitate, to be at home, to be the Absolute. It is religious in its nature. In fact, religion is the underlying force of culture, which is the concreteness of spirituality. Religion is relationality to the Absolute and becomes historical in experience. Experience is articulated within history, in society, in liberty, through politics, with beauty as goal as philosophy. Its voice is theological, for it is an echo of God-Talk (or the Absolute allowing itself to be experienced as God). The way man opens up with his voice is spirituality. It is the response to the calling of the Absolute in its integrity, who is Spirit, and who is not just imaterial, but integral in its transcendence, in its metaphysicality. The Absolute as Spirit, is ‘lived out’ in its transcendence,32 by the mediation of experience. within its presence in the immanent level (history, society, liberty, politics and beauty), because of the relationality of Religion. The Absolute, as Spirit, many times limited to its onto-theological reality is not just any reality or real, but is the Real of Reality and the Reality of the Real in its Supreme Instance. The possibility of participating by means of God-Talk to God-Talks constitutes the core of what it is to be a person, which is ‘the most noble and most perfect being in all of nature’.33 32

33

L. Dupré, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972), 245. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.29, a.3. ‘Respondeo dicendum quod persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura, scilicet subsistens in rationali natura. Unde, cum omne illud quod est perfectionis, Deo sit attribuendum, eo quod eius essentia continet in se omnem perfectionem; conveniens est ut hoc nomen persona de Deo dicatur. No tamen eodem modo quo dicitur de creaturis, sed excellentiori modo; sicut et alia nomina quae, creaturis a nobis imposita. Deo attribuuntur; sicut supra (q.13, a.3) ostentum est, cum de divinis nominibus ageretur’.

PHILOSOPHY AND HOLINESS

53

As Jacques Maritain writes beautifully: Spirit is the root of personality. The notion of personality thus involves that of totality and independence; no matter how poor and crushed he may be, a person, as such, is a whole and subsists in an independent manner. To say that man is a person is to say that in the depths of his being he is more a whole than a part and more independent than servile. It is to say that he is a minute fragment of matter that is at the same time a universe, a beggar who communicates with absolute being, mortal flesh whose value is eternal, a bit of straw into which heaven enters. It is this metaphysical mystery that religious thought points to when it says that the person is the image of God. The value of the person, his dignity and his rights belong to the order of things naturally sacred which bear the imprint of the Father of being, and which have in Him the end of their movement.34

Projections and Recapitulation I have essayed here a model of viewing philosophy, parting from the conviction that metaphysics is not only the first philosophy, but all philosophy is metaphysical and vice-versa. I have attempted to show the roots of all man’s metaphysical (philosophical) aspirations, which is religious. At the same, the relationality and goal is religious in nature. In the light of the foregoing reflections on mystery, sacrament and the like we see the play of what is near and what is distant, what is hidden and what is manifest. This essaying is far from over. What remains is our condition of being finite and culpability, the very conditionality of all our reflections. This conditionality would inevitably bring about a methodoligcial confrontation to be formulated in the question of polarity between the divine and human, the infinite and finite, God and man, with the Absolute as an all-encompasing notion, for all forms of spiritualities. Spirituality is a way, but its concreteness lies in being spiritualities, whether oriental or occidental, atheistic or theistic, trinitarian or strictly monotheist. Spirituality too seeks to break the dominance of ontology (or better yet, ontotheological) by pointing out the metaphysical beyondness of the Absolute, which is the Real of Reality and the Reality of the Real, without falling into the empty abstraction of just positing the Real and Reality in themselves, bereft of a Supreme Instance and of individuality, even to the point of positing the notion of person and personality, amidst the reflection on Spirit and its ways of the spirit (Spiritualities). In this light, the confrontation between Being and God or 34

J. Maritain, ‘The Conquest of Freedom’, in: J.W. Evans & L.R. Ward (Eds.), The Social and Political Philosophy of Jacques Maritain. Selected Readings (London: Geoffrey Bless, 1956), 32.

54

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

their resolution has been methodologically relegated to the already overcome past of the historical traditions of philosophizing. Spirituality, after our reflections on holiness, within the perspective of metaphysics and guided by the originary (or the origin, now viewed as the goal), which is communion, opens up new horizons. From these same horizons, we can speak of Truth, with more foundation. Truth is the effectivity of the Encounter between the Absolute and non-absolute, in his finitude and culpability. The questions are difficult and exhaustive. They are a consistent call to overcome by renewal our experiential, thought and linguistic patterns deeply rooted and contextualized in the philosophical tradition we studied and have been accustomed to in the course of our search.

CHAPTER FOUR THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION ‘Los metafísicos y contemplativos vuelven y vuelven, y son englobados, confundidos con los místicos, ya por su parte confundidos en este aire hostil de Occidente’. (María Zambrano, Notas de un método)

The present exploration aims not only to clarify some of the essentials of Christian Contemplation, but to propose a privileged vantage point for a legitimate and valid comprehension of the same. It does not pretend to be an exhaustive or complete presentation of the whole Christian tradition of contemplation, but rather it seeks to address the most important aspects and points by proposing ‘pathways’ towards them. Therefore, it will deal with the essentials, i.e., the essence of Christian Contemplation and not with the accidents that become concrete in the numerous forms or schools of Christian Contemplation that have made their appearance in history.1 Doubtless, there are many movements 1

The appearance, growth, development and even decline of such schools or movements of contemplation have only been discussed by the so-called histories of spirituality or mysticism. Such spiritual schools or movements are not the main or principal objects of consideration of Church historians or authors of the histories of the Church. This fact somehow is an affirmation that such schools do not form the mainstream of ecclesiastical historiography. This is a grave epistemological defect of church historiography, given that such schools or movements are linked with the great movements or reforms (such as the Carmelite, Augustinian, Franciscan, and Trinitarian reforms). Church historiography has long been governed by a hermeneutics of power (of powerful, influential and political figures including heretics and schismatics who have challenged the prevailing power structures in the Church) rather than by a spiritual hermeneutics or hermeneutics from the perspective of spirituality and spiritual development which become concrete in issues such as contemplation, prayer, and the like. For excellent historical surveys of Christian Spirituality, see: P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne. I: Des origines de l’Église au Moyen Age; II: Le Moyen Âge; III-IV: Les temps modernes (Paris: Gabalda, 1917ff); B. Jiménez Duque & L. Sala Balust (Eds.), Historia de la espiritualidad, 4 vols. (Barcelona: Flors, 1969); J.M. Moliner, Historia de la espiritualidad (Burgos: El Monte Carmelo, 1971); A. Royo Marín, Los grandes maestros de la vida espiritual (Madrid: BAC, 1973); J. Aumann, Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition (London: Sheed & Ward, 1985); Several Authors, La spiritualità cristiana: Storia e testi, 20 vols. (Rome: Studium, 1982); Several Authors, World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, 25 vols. (New York:

56

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

and schools within the Christian tradition worth discussing or studying, and each one of them, unquestionably, has its particular merits and peculiar contributions. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us at this time to discuss all these matters in detail. Such an approach would require a specialized procedure. As mentioned, we will deal with essentials, but neither will we expound on them directly. This will necessarily involve a separate study. We are interested in ‘pathways’. This is what this present reflection is all about: tracing pathways towards the essentials of Christian Contemplation. These pathways are the Trinity and the following of Christ. But before discussing them as such, it is imperative to contextualize our understanding of Christian Contemplation within the Christian Life of the Spirit or Christian Spirituality. Therefore, the contextualization of our understanding of Christian Contemplation necessarily implies the following points:  The will to reach the very core of Christian living;  The desire to strengthen not only belief, but also commitment to the confession;  The principle from which all other actions, within the dynamics of Spirituality, necessarily flow. The Context of Christian Spirituality This reflection does not intend to provide a clear-cut definition of Christian Contemplation. Instead, it will provide the basis for any attempts to adequately define and legitimately interpret this tradition of contemplation. This is the novelty of our methodology. Such an approach nourishes the hope that we can overcome and even correct some of the principal prejudices, not to mention errors, with regards to our understanding of Christian Contemplation. Henceforth, together we can journey towards a deeper or richer and likewise truly legitimate and sound comprehension and experience of the same. To do so would bring about the placement of contemplation within its proper hermeneutical context and establish its criteriological basis. This necessary context is Christian Spirituality. From here, our goal is to understand or to comprehend.2 This goal demands a two-fold approach, namely: hermeneutical (interpretative) and criteriological (evaluative).

2

Crossroad, 1985 ff).; G. Helewa & E. Ancilli, La spiritualità Cristiana: Fondamenti biblici e sintesi storica (Rome/ Milan: Teresianum/ Edizione O.R., 1986). In the meantime, we will not insist on a philosophical distinction between ‘comprehension’ and ‘understanding’. Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2nd rev. ed., transl. J. Weinsheimer & D. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1998).

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

57

This proper context, within which Christian Contemplation3 is to be understood and which alone provides a legitimate criteria for evaluation, is, as already stated, nothing less than Christian spirituality or the life of following Christ,4 in the way towards the Father, as inspired and guided by His Spirit in the journey towards the Father. In effect, Christian Contemplation must be understood within the spectrum of Christian Spirituality or the life of the spirit, wherein man (as spirit) – and we understood this term not in the sense of an immaterial being but as a dynamic being tending towards a transcendental goal (the union with God) – is lead and strengthened by the Spirit of God. And the key, the criteria of this life of the spirit is Jesus Christ5 Himself. It is He who leads us to the Father and who together with the Father pours out upon us this same Spirit.6 This makes possible the strengthening force of the Spirit in different historical and social contexts.7 Christian Spirituality provides Christian Contemplation a broad epistemological context (and even a superior plane of understanding and knowing)8 within which the latter could be rightly comprehended and understood and likewise provides the contextual basis so that the same (Christian contemplation) may be appreciated, evaluated and expounded on in its inherent broadness and innate richness, given the present day dangers of reductionism, which we will 3 4

5

6

7

8

Cf. M. Herráiz, Espiritualidad y Contemplación (Madrid: Ediciones SM, 1994). G. Gutiérrez, Beber en su propio pozo en el itinerario espiritual de un pueblo. 6th ed. (Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 1993), 9. Cf. G. Frosini, Spiritualità e Teologia (Bologna: EDB, 2000). On the centrality of Christ in spirituality, see U-B Fringeli, Spiritualität ist immer persönlich: Der Weg zu Christus in uns (Basel: Herder, 2002). Writes Carmelite scholar S. Castro: ‘La Teología Espiritual es aquella parte de la Teología que estudia el proyecto del Padre sobre la maduración del cristiano (Iglesia y mundo) en Jesucristo y en el Espíritu, teniendo por base las conclusiones de los demás tratados teológicos. Por ello podemos decir que es la síntesis suprema de los otros tratados; su culmen, su meta y el pricnipio desde donde deben ser leídos’. See ‘Vida y sabiduría del Espíritu’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 39 (1980), 410. S. Galilea, ‘El rostro latinoamericano de la espiritualidad: Las fuentes histórico-sociales de la espiritualidad’, in: Christus 529-530 (1979-1980), 69. I have given due consideration to the following evaluation of contemplation as superior knowledge within the Christian tradition: ‘Nel cristianesimo, la c. [contemplazione] indica in genere una forma superiore di conscenza per fede: comprensione delle verità contenute nella rivelazione, raggiunta mediante la fede, sotto l’influsso della carità, dal giusto che di tale virtú vive. Atto semplice nella sua emissione funzionale, denso però di contenuto; non esclusivamente speculativo, ma imbevuto di amore e radicato nella vita religiosa dell’individuo: simplex intuitis veritatis ex caritate consecutus. Nella religiosità cristiana, la c. ha il suo alveo e la sua normale espressione nell’orazione: forma o grado dell’orazione cristiana, nuovamente caratterizzata dalla semplicità e dalla intensità dell’atto, realizzato in fede e amore, e diretto come atto di culto alla Persona divina’. T. Alvarez & E. Ancilli, ‘Contemplazione’, in: Several Authors, Dizionario Enciclopedico di Spiritualità. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Rome: Città Nuova, 1990), 617.

58

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

expound on in passing later on. Likewise this contextual basis provides the means, the principles for a hermeneutics (interpretation) and criteriology (evaluation) for Christian Contemplation. The Mystery of God One and Triune – Point of Departure for a Hermeneutic and Criteriology of Christian Contemplation In the light of what has already been stated, this introductory exploration and reflection does not only seek to present to you the most important points involved in Christian Contemplation. This reflection, as revealed in its title, seeks to be hermeneutical and criteriological. This means: a) this is designed to provide points for interpreting (hermeneutical) not only Christian contemplation, but also the very dynamics of the spiritual life from the viewpoint of contemplation; and b) it is also designed to provide the standards or norms (criteriological) by which other forms or currents, that pose as Christians, are to be judged and therefore if to be accepted or rejected by a Christian who not only practices contemplation, but lives a contemplative life. With regards to what has already been stated, I wish to propose this thesis which will serve as a Leitmotif all throughout this exposition and exploration: To be a Christian is to be necessarily a contemplative. In other words, all Christians are (called to be) contemplatives, although (unfortunately) not all contemplatives are Christians. We cannot deny the attractiveness and universality of the very idea of contemplation. This is evidenced by the presence or existence of diverse contemplative traditions in practically all of the religious traditions of mankind. There are Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Sufis, Sikhs, etc. Contemplation is an essential core concept of these traditions and forms given their aim of reaching out to what we all commonly call the Absolute: The Hindus call this Absolute as Atman-Brahman, the Buddhists call it Nirvana (or extinction) or Amithaba Buddha (depending on the school), the Taoists call it Tao, etc.9 We Christians are not alone in the contemplative quest, in the quest for what we all commonly label as the ‘Absolute’ in reference to the inferior values or options that we make in our lives. We commonly identify this Absolute, which is an axiological term (or a term that expresses a value or mode of valuation), with God-which is a philosophical term to designate the Supreme Being, a theological term to designate the Revealer, 9

On this regard, and limiting ourselves to the traditions of India and China, I recommend the following succinct presentations: C. Sharma, Indian Philosophy: A Critical Survey (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962); L. Wu, Fundamentals of Chinese Philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, n.d.).

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

59

who happens to be Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, a liturgical term to designate the object of adoration and cult; and a moral term to indicate the Supreme parameter of human acts. Aside from this, for us Christians this God is a person, who revealed Himself especially in the person of Jesus Christ and who is poured on us and dwells in us as the Spirit. In other words, the Absolute for us Christians is God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This God is a person. He is one and yet is a loving community of persons who share the divine life among themselves and are willing to generously and lovingly share this same divine life to man in a personal way, taking man to be a person like the three are persons although in a different degree. This is the God whom we search for in Christian Contemplation within the dynamic process and relationality which we conventionally label as Christian spirituality. God is a Person. He is a Loving God who wants to reach us in Person (that is why The Son of God became man in Jesus Christ), who came as a Person and who accompanies us in our history transforming it into a history of salvation. This God is not unreachable. He is transcendent and yet immanent or is within our history and therefore, a relational God. Hence, we must live according to the path of reaching this God as decreed by this same God. This path is in effect a path of salvation (or being redeemed from a state of being separated from God or what is commonly designated as the ‘state of sin’) and santification (by which we participate in the life of God in union with Him) and is in effect a recreation (by which we regain the pristine purity at Creation of being a child of this same God). This way of living is contemplation. Christian living would be impossible if it were not contemplative in nature. Indeed that the only way for a person to be a Christian is to be a contemplative. From this premise or thesis statement, it can be logically deduced that Christian spirituality is essentially contemplative. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rediscover the so-called ‘contemplative dimension’ of Christian spirituality or Christian living always with reference to the God of the Christians, who is the God of Jesus Christ, the God whom Jesus Christ revealed to mankind.10 We Christians believe in a Personal God, in a God who deals with man personally in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus revealed God to be Father, by being 10

For a suggestive presentation of the Trinity within spirituality, see: P. Ferlay, Père et Fils dans l’Esprit: Le mystère trinitaire de Dieu (Paris: Centurion, 1979). Also: R. Maisonneuve, Les mystiques chrétiens et leurs visions de Dieu un et trine (Paris: Cerf, 2000). On the relational aspects of the Trinity, which we have taken into consideration in the present reflections, see: G. Vandevelde, Expression de la coherence du Mystere de Dieu et du Salut: La réciprocité dans la ‘Théologie’ et l’Economie (Rome: Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1993). For a dogmatic base, cf.: G. Greshake, Der dreieine Gott: Eine trinitarishce Theologie. 4th ed. (Freiburg/ Basel/ Wien: Herder, 2001); B. Andrade, Dios en medio de nosotros: Esbozo de una teología trinitaria kerygmática (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1999).

60

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

the Son and as the Son, together with the Father, sends forth the Spirit to continue the work of the Son of God in the Church, as the continuous mediation or sacrament of the Son through all times, just as the Son is the Sacrament of the Father and is the ur-sacrament or primordial sacrament from which the Church and the sacraments spring forth.11 This personal God is the object of our contemplation. This personal God is a call to contemplation, to a personal dealing, relationship. Christian Contemplation, first and foremost, is personally and lovingly relating with a God who personally and lovingly relates with us as a Father, above all in the person of the Son, and filled and strengthened by His Spirit. Christian living or spirituality is necessarily trinitarian in nature and origin. It is necessary to repeat this without ceasing in order to point out what seems to have been a lack in direction in most investigations and researches into the very essence of the same. In other words, Christian Contemplation is trinitarian in point of departure, realization and goal. We are not after some altered state of consciousness, nor do we seek to enter an impersonal and empty void, devoid of humanity, devoid of mediations. We contemplate, that is, we look at God. We contemplate a person, who comes to us and deal with us as a person in Jesus Christ, whose very person and testimony of life provides us with the criteria and model for our Christian living. The God, who sent Jesus Christ to redeem man, continues to deal with us in person in His Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son on the Church on Pentecost. Admittedly, this poses a somewhat formidable challenge for us. Though God is a person, we do not deal with Him in the same manner that we deal with each other. Despite the fact that is not our intention to make a direct thematical reflection on this most august mystery of the Trinity, we cannot not make mention of it. The Trinity or the Loving Mystery of God in Three Persons is the necessary starting point and terminal of Christian Contemplation. It is the point of departure and the aim. It is the foundation stone or the very ground on which Christian Contemplation stands; and the dome or the celestial vault which constitutes the very summit of our lives and efforts, crowning them with supreme meaning, with ultimate truth, with absolute significance. As the object of Christian Contemplation, the Trinity is the interpreting gauge for understanding Christian Contemplation. It is a case of knowing the activity by its object. The end defines the means.12 11

12

On this regard, I find the reflections of K. Rahner unparalleled. See his book: The Church and the Sacraments, translated by W.J. O’Hara (London: Burns & Oates, 1986). Not to be confused with the ethical principle ‘The end justifies the means’. The notion of the end as defining the means is in all actuality a teleological affirmation accepted in classical Christian morals and ethics.

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

61

With fellow human beings, our dealings are direct, empirical, circumstantial, even positivistic. From a more philosophical and theological viewpoint, such direct dealings could be labeled as non-mediated or non-sacramental. With God, our dealings are mysterious. We can even say that it is indirect, even though we directly address God Himself in prayer or refer to Him in our thoughts, words and actions. We have to enter the level of mediation or the level of the sacramental. Our relationship with God is indirect, or, better said, ‘not immediate’. It always has to be mediated (experiential), sacramental. This is because we do not get an immediate or direct response no matter how much we insist or talk. God is not an empirical reality, that we can touch, feel, hear like we can hear persons around us or things or events in our shared world, excluding the socalled private or solipsistic worlds. When we deal with God, in Christian living and particular during moments of prayer, we are actually immersing ourselves in a realm of mystery. We hurl ourselves trustingly and lovingly towards the Mystery, which is God Himself. God is not merely a Mystery, but He is Mystery in Himself. He is Mystery not because we cannot understand Him nor because He is abstract or beyond the physical, but because He is immense and transcends all our limitations. God is transcendental and yet is present in our lives, in the immanence of our common history of salvation and search for the Absolute. This is why God is a Mystery. He is definitely beyond us and yet is within us, within the most intimate section of our intimacy, paraphrasing St. Augustine.13 When we lovingly and trustingly hurl ourselves into this Mystery, confident because of faith that someone is holding us in His hands and sustaining us while respecting our liberty and the autonomy of this lived world, we are in fact dealing and relating directly with this Mystery, who is God Himself. And for us Christians, God is and will always be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is unchanging in His unity and in His trinity. We can infer that this Trinitarian God, who is a God of love, of company and of solidarity (and not an isolated, solitaire and aloof God) is the object of Christian Contemplation. This God of love is a God of sharing. The Christian Godhead is shared in Three Persons. Perhaps we can paraphrase the well-known cliché or adage ‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are’ in the following manner: ‘Tell me who is the object of your contemplation and I will tell you what kind of contemplation you are living out’. For us Christians, our spirituality and contemplation are necessarily trinitarian and therefore truly christological.

13

The exact words of St. Augustine were ‘Tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo’ (Confessiones III, 6, 11).

62

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Love is the proper criteria for Christian Contemplation. The personality and reality of Jesus Christ is condensed in love. The life and example of Christ gives meaning to our notion of love. Christ is the concrete, historical and personal exemplification of the love of God for mankind. To undertake a contemplative lifestyle, for a Christian, is an act of love. Christian spirituality, or the living out of the Christian life in terms of following Christ, our Lord, Savior and Brother, in obedience to the Will of the Father, and in the life of the Spirit, is a response to the call of love. Christian Contemplation is a call to love, not just to love or to respond, but to immerse ourselves in the very mystery of love. Therefore, love is not a call but a response. Better yet, an initiative. As St. John of the Cross reminds us, ‘contemplation is science of love (ciencia de amor)’.14 ‘Science’ is to be understood here as a mode of certain knowledge within the realm of mystery, within the context of transcendence or going beyond the grasp and limitation of man. And in hearing or listening to this call, we realize that it is not we who really love, but it is God who loved us first even before we came to be, even before we started to love Him. God took the first initiative This is the fullness of the so-called ‘being hurled into the Mystery’, which we have already mentioned. This is the real secret of Christian Spirituality found in the contemplative lifestyle. The contemplative lifestyle enables us to enter into the very core of the Christian life: which is love. This love, in its innermost mystery, does not consist of us loving God and neighbor, but rather in allowing ourselves to be loved by God, according to His Will, according to His terms, according to His Infinite and Boundless Generosity, beyond all human comprehension and grasp, and not according to our egocentric or selfish standards, distorted and manipulative expectations and finite or limited level. By allowing ourselves to be loved by God, we abandon ourselves to the Mystery. This is in a nutshell the very contemplative attitude of a Christian, expressed in the most intimate union with the Mystery (which in effect is the very mystical core of the Christian lifestyle-since the word ‘mystical’, oftentimes confused with phenomena, is derived from the word ‘myos’ (to close one’s eyes or mouth) or the same derivative of the word Mysterion.15 Christian Contemplation, in effect, signifies to abandon ourselves to the Mystery in love by allowing ourselves to be loved by God in His own mysterious ways. Our model is Christ crucified who on the cross cried out: ‘Father, into 14

15

II Noche Oscura 18, 5. See my study: San Juan de la Cruz: El sentido experiencial del conocimiento de Dios. Claves para un acercamiento filosófico al Santo Doctor (Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo, 2002), 225-226, 239-241. Cf. M. McIntosh, Mystical Theology (Malden/ Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); J. Martín Velasco, El fenómeno místico: Estudio comparado (Madrid: Trotta, 1999).

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

63

your hands I commend my spirit’.16 Jesus on the Cross exemplifies the attitude of contemplation. In His failure, humiliation, suffering, passion and death, He hurls Himself into the Mystery of a Loving Father, who seems to have forgotten or abandoned Him, but is actually enveloping Him in this supreme act for man’s salvation. The ultimate consequence of a Christian lifestyle, marked by contemplation, is this abandonment in the Hands of the Father, following the example of Christ and enlivened by the Spirit that Jesus Himself offered to the Father. This same Spirit came upon Him at the moment of His baptism to mark Him as the one sent by the Father, and which He pours out upon the Church, in communion with the Father. Jesus, throughout His life of ministry and especially on the cross, allowed Himself to be loved by His Father, who did not spare Him a humiliating and painful death and yet raised Him up on the third day, reaffirming His love for His Son, with whom He was well pleased.17 The object defines the subject or the protagonist of the act or experience. Christ revealed this object as the Trinity, One God in Three Divine Persons, united in love. The Trinity (as the principle, essence and end of the Christian living) is the hermeneutical vantage point and the criteriological basis (made concrete in love inasmuch as the Trinity is a community of love) in determining whether the type or form of contemplation we are practicing is truly Christian.18 Basing ourselves on what we have just expounded, we can infer the following: a) Christian Contemplation is never a solitary act, but a communitarian act because God is a community and the Church lives out this communitarian (trinitarian) life; b) given that it is communitarian, Christian contemplation is a shared life made concrete by sharing, self-giving, self-offering towards the Mystery; c) given that involves self-giving or self-offering towards the Mystery it necessarily involves love, a share or participation in this greater love of God to which we have to abandon ourselves (allow ourselves to be loved); and d) this love necessarily involves the communication of this lifestyle with an aim to initiate others into the same dynamic lifestyle (mystagogy or communication of the lived Mystery with the aim of initiating others into this lived Mystery) and to share this love with others.

16 17 18

Lk 23:46. See Mt 3:17. ‘La contemplación cristiana se desarrolla normalmente en un sentido trinitario. Dado que, segeun las palabras de Juan, Dios Padre, Hijo y Espíritu Santo habita en nosotros, su presencia activa se descubre en la contemplación. Todos los teólogos insisten con razón en este aspecto original de la contemplación cristiana: la manifestación del misterio trinitario constituye el vértice de la experiencia contemplativa’. Ch. A. Bernard, ‘Contemplación’, in: S. de Fiores & T. Goffi (Eds,), Nuevo Diccionario de Espiritualidad, 4th corrected edition adapted by A. Guerra (Madrid: Ediciones Paulinas, 1991), 335.

64

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

In other words, Contemplation as a communitarian act, which signifies participation in the trinitarian life of God, is an act of the Church, i.e., it is an ecclesial act, that calls us to share this love with others, especially the poor and the needy. Christian Contemplation is not an escapist nor an isolationist act. It should make us immerse ourselves in the love of God and in the love of neighbor, whose essence goes beyond our understanding, our way of experiencing and our way of reciprocating the love of God within the context of loving our neighbor. Christian Contemplation – From and Beyond Prayer and Institutional Considerations Contemplation necessarily involves life. It is something vital, therefore life giving. Contemplation is not only something to be practiced. It is above all a lifestyle, involving a viewpoint made concrete by an attitude in life. Its being life giving necessarily translates into a lifestyle that cultivates life, the Christian life founded on the love of God in Three Persons as revealed by Jesus Christ. What we are truly after is a contemplative life, the life of a contemplative taken from the Christian perspective. To reflect means to mirror oneself, to project oneself or one’s image or conception of oneself to the outside world, directed to the other and to return, through this projection, to oneself. To reflect means not just to project, but to be conscious of this projection. This consciousness involves the self as the one making the production. It involves the knowledge that one knows (it is not just knowing something, but knowing that one knows), that one is the starting point and terminal point of a process in which one is totally involved and even committed to. This is important in being a contemplative, i.e., in being a Christian. In this light, whenever I use the word ‘Christian’ it means I am referring to the ‘Contemplative Christian’, because, as I have said, a Christian is necessarily a contemplative. To speak of a Christian, is to speak of this ideal and the process to attain this ideal. The word ‘contemplative’, in this light, is to be understood as the very goal and the very process to attain this goal by which the Christian or for the person who wishes to follow Christ, live His commandment of love, as a Child of the Father and journeying towards the Father, filled with the Spirit and strengthened by the same Spirit: who is not just the Third Person of the Trinity, but is the very force, the very power of God.19 19

As a matter of fact, St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that the name ‘Holy Spirit’ is not just a proper name of a Divine Person, but is shared in common by the Trinity: ‘Et huisus quidem

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

65

For quite some time now, it has been in vogue to speak of the ‘Contemplative Christian’, without fully understanding not only the implications of such an expression or label but above all its presuppositions. Curiously the term ‘contemplation’ does not appear in Sacred Scriptures and we have to look into the so-called ‘pagan traditions’ in order to trace the roots of contemplation, even with regards to the way that we Christians ‘practice’ or live it. Before going further, it is imperative point out two limiting factors in understanding Christian Contemplation. We designate them as ‘limiting factors’, in the hermeneutical sense, given the fact they have indeed limited and narrowed down the notion of Contemplation, making it an exclusive property of a select few within the Church, thus making contemplation an elitist notion or concept. The result is nothing less than a conceptual and even experiential impoverishment. The first limiting factor is that in the language of the Church, the word ‘contemplation’ has been applied exclusively to certain institutes of religious life. The Church, throughout the centuries, has limited the notion of contemplation and contemplative dimension or lifestyle to the religious, excluding other sectors especially the laity.20 As a countermeasure (or response) to this reality, it is imperative for the Church, starting with the hierarchy, to express great satisfaction given the existence of diverse lay groups and organizations dedicated to the pursuit of Christian Contemplation. Such groups disprove this elitism within the Church and are a living testimony that contemplation is a universal calling within the very same Universal Church.

20

convenientiae ratio sumi potest ex duobus. Primo quidem, ex ipsa communitate eius quod dicitur “Spiritus Sanctus”. Ut enim Augustinus dicit, XV “Deo Trin.”: “quia” Spiritus Sanctus “communis est ambobus, id vocatus ipse proprie quod ambo communiter: nam et Pater est Spiritus, et Filius est Spiritus: et Pater est sanctus, et Filius est sanctus”. – Secundo vero, expropria significatione. Nam nomen “spiritus”, in rebus corporeis, impulsionem quandam et motionem significare videtus: nam flatum et ventum spiritum nominamus. Est autem proprium amoris, quod moveat et impellat voluntatem amantis in amatum “Sanctitas” vero illis rebus attribuitur, quae in Deum ordinantur. Quia igitur persona divina procedit per modum amoris quo Deus amatgur, convenienter Spiritus Sanctus nominatur. Ad primum ergo dicendum quod hoc quod dico “spiritus sanctus”, prout sumitur in virtute duarum dictionum, commune est toti Trinitati. Quia nomine “spiritus” significatur immaterialitas divinae substantiae: spiritus enim corporeus invisibilis est, et parum habet de materia; unde omnibus substantiis immaterialibus et invisibilibus hoc nomen attibuimus. Per hoc vero quod dicitur “sanctus”, signficatur puritas divinae bonitatis. – Si autem accipiatur hoc quod dicho “Spiritus Sanctus”. In vi unius dictionis, sic ex usu Ecclesiae est accomodatum ad significandam unam trium personarum, scillet quae procedit per modum amoris, ratione fam dicta’, Summa Theologiae I q. 36, a. 1, corpus articuli et ad primum. The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, S.C.R.S.I, La plenaria, January, 1981. An English version of this document can be found in A. Flannery (Ed.), Vatican II: More Post Conciliar Documents (Pasay: Daughters of St. Paul, 1987), 244-259.

66

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The second limiting factor is that Christian Contemplation tends to be exclusively understood in terms of prayer or as ‘Contemplative Prayer’.21 Christian Contemplation is much broader than prayer. Christian Contemplation is the very context, the very attitude in living out the Christian life, in following the call of Christ in our specific circumstances. Prayer, especially in the sense of what is commonly understood to be ‘contemplative prayer’, is only a part of the broader and richer horizon of Christian living which must necessarily be contemplative in nature thus demanding a contemplative attitude from the Christian. This in turn necessarily begets what we can correctly label as a ‘contemplative lifestyle’. These two instances, limiting factors, or cases of reducing Christian Contemplation to a type of institutional elitism and to a particular activity in the Church have doubtless impoverished our understanding of Christian Contemplation. It is time that we start recovering its inherent richness and wealth of experience by contextualizing Christian Contemplation, as already stated, within the framework of Christian Spirituality. To speak of Christian Spirituality is to refer to the following of Christ by all Christians, by all sectors of the Church wherein differences of charism or ministry are put into the perspective that all gifts come from the same Spirit. Correspondingly, Christian Spirituality provides the framework wherein we can rightly place prayer, especially contemplative prayer, within the very dynamics of the correct attitude in living out such a spirituality. This attitude is incarnated by the contemplative lifestyle. After all, Christian spirituality is a lifestyle22 and ‘contemplative’ is the most appropriate or ideal label for such a lifestyle. To the first limiting factor, we can respond in the following manner: Christian Contemplation is for all Christians, regardless of state of life. In fact, the following paragraphs addressed directly to contemplative religious are applicable to all believers, to all Christians: The contemplative dimension is basically a reality of grace, experienced by the believer as God’s gift. It enables persons to know the Father (cf. Jn. 14, 8) in the mystery of trinitarian communion (cf. 1 Jn. 1-3) so that they can savour the depths of God (1 Cor. 2, 10)… 21

22

Proof of this is the section on contemplative prayer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, numbers 2709-2719. The notion of contemplation is subordinated to the discussion on prayer, which forms Chapter III of this groundbreaking document. In the Catechism, there is no mention of Christian spirituality or Christian living. The authors of the Catechism have reduced Christian spirituality and living, of which contemplation is the fundamental attitude, to prayer. This mentality of reducing spirituality and contemplation to prayer has brought about a pietistic and narrow comprehension of the same. Writes G. Gutiérrez: ‘La espiritualidad no concierne únicamente a un sector de la existencia cristiana, es un estilo de vida que pone su sello sobre nuestra manera de aceptar el don la filiación, fundamenta de la fraternidad, a las que nos convoca el Padre’, Beber en su propio pozo, 12.

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

67

We describe the contemplative dimension fundamentally as the theological response of faith, hope and charity, by which the believer opens up to the revelation of the living God and to communion with him through Christ in the Holy Spirit. ‘The concentration of one’s mind and of one’s heart on God, which we define as contemplation, becomes the highest and fullest activity of the spirit, the activity which today, also, can and must order the immense pyramid of all human activities’ (Paul VI, 7-XII-1965). As the unifying act of all human movement towards God, the contemplative dimension is expressed by listening to and meditating on the Word of God; by participating in the divine life transmitted to us in the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist; by liturgical and personal prayer; by the constant desire and search for God and for his Will in events and people; by the conscious participation in his salvific mission; by self-giving to others for the coming of the Kingdom. There results, in the religious, an attitude of continuous and humble adoration of God’s mysterious presence in people, events and things: an attitude which manifests the virtue of piety, an interior fount of peace and a bearer of peace to every sphere of life and apostolate. All this is achieved in continual purification of heart under the light and guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we can find God in all things and people and become the ‘praise of his glory’ (Eph. 1, 6). The very nature of consecrated life stands out in this way as the profound source which nourishes and unifies every aspect of the lives of religious.23

Contemplation must not be reduced to prayer. This is our response to the second limiting factor. However, it must be pointed out that prayer is the most favorable ambiance in order to develop, to cultivate, to strengthen contemplation. In other words, prayer is the best means to cultivate a contemplative lifestyle, but prayer does not exhaust the dynamic reality of contemplation. Christian Contemplation – From Seeing to Being One with the Mystery in Love To contemplate, basing ourselves on the Greek etymological origins of the word ‘contemplatio’, signifies to ‘see’. Contemplation is vision. It is theory. It is a way of seeing things, a way of viewing reality in order to form an intelligent idea of it. Seeing, in this sense and in this level, is not with the eyes, but it is an act that involves the whole being of man. As Sacred Scripture reminds us: ‘No one has ever seen God’.24 This God is the transcendental trinitarian God who remains a mystery to mortal man. No eye, 23 24

The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, 1. Jn. 1:18. Cf. J. Lebreton, ‘Contemplation dans la Bible’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 2 (1937), 1645-1716.

68

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

no mortal eye has truly seen God and yet we are called, through contemplation, to ‘see’ God, i.e., we are called to have an authentic, deep, direct, intimate, and total relationship with God. It is an invitation to open our fragile totality to God’s infinity. It is an invitation brought about by an eternal initiative, a loving initiative from eternity. We all know that having a relationship with God is different with having a relationship with other persons. Much more is involved, because from our mortal (therefore, empirical) standpoint we cannot have a ‘direct’ relationship with God. Christianity, in this sense, gives us the ‘solution’ to this aporia or problem. It is true that no mortal eye has ever seen God, but God has allowed Himself to be ‘seen’, i.e., to be ‘experienced’ directly in Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, who continues to be present in His Church to whom He gave His Spirit and who accompanies us. He promised us: ‘And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’.25 This same Jesus is with us, sacramentally, that is, in the form of the Mystery (sacramentum – musterion) – a special presence of His very transcendence in the immanence of our history together with its processes towards eschatological fulfillment – which is His Church and its efficacious means of grace, i.e., the seven sacraments. He is with us in the Church, in our brothers and sisters, who are in need, because He identifies Himself with us, with our struggles along the journey towards the Father. This same Jesus, in the Gospel of John, breathed His Spirit, His very life and that of the Father to us to guarantee his mysterious or sacramental presence calling us to contemplate Him directly, beyond the limits of what is empirical or direct in the positivistic sense. A ‘direct’ relationship does not mean direct or immediate (non-mediated or non-sacramental) contact in the empirical sense, but rather authentic, loving and intense in a more universal sense going beyond the empirical and reaching down to what is essential, which in the words of Saint Exupéry in his beautiful masterpiece The Little Prince, ‘invisible to the eyes’.26 What is essential is sacramental, meaning mysterious because it transcends, goes beyond the empirical, positivistic limits of our immanence, of our ‘being here’ in this world or in this mortal life within the vast shared cosmos of life. Another etymological explication of the word ‘contemplation’, con (together) and templum (temple or a special space where one could observe the flight of the birds) indicates to us the privileged standpoint of living contemplatively, i.e., we live with full attention, observing the transcendence, the flight of God in our 25 26

Mt 28:19. ‘L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux’. A. de Saint-Exupéry, Le petit prince (Paris: Gallimard, 1946), 72.

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

69

midst and to follow it directly, going beyond what is direct or visible to the empirical sense and shifting, in a transcending way, towards the essential. The ancient philosophers believed that contemplation, in this sense, is the search for the ultimate truth identified with the One (hn) or the good (agaqon). For us Christians, this ultimate truth can only be the Trinitarian God, revealed by Jesus Christ who gives purpose to our existence. This Trinitarian God is the Mystery of Love that permits all kind of love and invites us to a constant life of love. In effect, contemplation is a life of love. It is a lifestyle of love because we Christians deal directly and lovingly with God who sent us Jesus Christ, so that we can have direct access to Him, the source of all mystery without completely solving or unveiling the mystery, but inviting us all to immerse ourselves in the mystery of transcendent love that goes beyond our comprehension and experience. In view of this, unquestionably there is a prevailing danger of isolating the contemplative life or contemplation as a lifestyle. I have intended in the present reflection to propose contemplation as integrative, as essential of Christian life. We have just spoken of love, in the trinitarian vein and in the christological vein. This in itself is an indication that the contemplative life is a call to action, to a committed praxis of life. Frequently in the language of the Church we tend to polarize the contemplative and the active. This is a dangerous option. We tend to identify, in this light, the contemplative with the totally passive which is heretical. In the sixteenth century, heretical schools like the alumbrados and the dejados27 emerged basing themselves on this distorted ideology. The challenge for us contemplative Christians is to make contemplation, our direct relationship with the God whom mortal eye has not seen and yet has been revealed by Jesus Christ, the central praxis of our lives. In effect, this entails that in everything we do, we must view it from the privileged perspective of our direct and loving relationship with God. Our lives, our action must be directed from this relationship. ‘Contemplation is fundamentally an opening of oneself to the mystery of Christ, the word of the Father, who announces to us what He Himself [directly] heard from the Father (cf. Jn 15:15), which for our understanding we have received the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-15)’.28 Contemplation does not mean ceasing to do, but it is doing by ceasing with what is not essential. This is what Jesus meant when he praised Mary before the 27

28

Cf. P. Saínz Rodríguez, Introducción a la historia de la literatura mística en España, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Espasa/ Calpe, 1984); A. Huerga, Historia de los alumbrados, 4 vols. (Madrid: FUE, 1978-1988); M. Andrés, Los recogidos (Madrid: FUE, 1976). A. Bandera, Oración cristológica (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1990), 147.

70

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

fussing Martha as having chosen the best part of Christian living (Lk 10:42). It was not that Jesus was against activity per se, but Mary, who listened at the feet of Jesus, showed what was essential and in fact, made a choice. This poignant gospel episode is a paradoxical moment that teaches us a great lesson which we can summarize in the following terms: He who sits at the feet of the Master and who has a direct relationship with Him views everything, including the work of serving the Master, from this light. Those who fuss about serving the Master, without sitting at His feet, do not have this privileged standpoint and therefore, lose sight of what is essential. The word ‘contemplation’ does not appear in the Bible. This instance in the life of Jesus, in the home of his bosom friends Lazarus (whom he raised from the death) and his sisters, wherein Jesus called Mary’s option as ‘the better part’ is the most authoritative definition of Christian Contemplation. Choosing the better part means never losing sight of what is essential. It is seeing not with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the heart. It is seeing the invisible and essential, as the fox told the Little Prince during that significant conversation about taming someone. By contemplation, we ‘tame’ God. God is no longer just one of the options of life. He becomes the ‘only option’. The option from which all other choices are to be made in life. It is as the fox said ‘creating links, creating a relationship’ that lasts, that makes the other person unique and loved in a singular and unrepeatable way.29 In effect, contemplation means a true and deep friendship. Friendship involves making the other necessary in one’s life. It is happiness in the presence of the other. This is what Christian Contemplation is all about with regards to man’s relationship with God.30 29

30

Here are the exact words of the fox addressed to the Little Prince on creating relationships or links (liens): ‘Tu n’es encore pour moi qu’un petit garçon tout semblable à cent mille petits garçons. Et je n’ai pas besoin de toi. Et tu n’as pas besoin de moi non plus. Je ne suis pour toi qu’un renard semblable à cent mille renards. Mais, si tu m’apprivoises, nous aurons besoin l’un de l’autre. Tu seras pour moi unique au monde. Je serai pour toi unique au monde…’, Le petit prince, 68. On this regard, I find the following words on encounter appropriate for our reflections: ‘Now, encounter occurs at a deeper level. I permit the other person to see something of myself, of my inner being, something I do not reveal by my facial expression or which I do not have on the tip of my tongue. Encounter presupposes trust. I do not confide in a second-rate person. We possess a protective mechanism that shields us from the precipitous giving of confidence. Before I really open up, some previous steps have to be taken. If I then notice that I can have confidence, I let the other person share at least partially in my life and my concerns. And he does the same. That is what we find attractive in such an encounter. This may happen in the hectic pace of everyday life or at work, but preferably during a vacation or when one has time or must take it, for example, while in a waiting room or on a plane or train. Such an encounter may beget the desire to see the other person again. One is happy if he is waiting at the bus stop the next day, if one comes across him on a park bench or if one may accompany him on the way home. Encounter seeks repetition, a closer approach, and one

THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

71

Therefore, contemplation is living out the essentials in every situation. To be contemplative is to be committed with the world. Only in the world, can we have a direct relationship and experience of God. Within the world, our Christian lives are lived out, developed. Contemplation, in this sense, offers us a privileged viewpoint. It is truly a templum, a place to see the flight of things, the flight of events of life, with all its accidentals, in the light of spirituality. From here we can soar to the invisible essential in its transcendence. Spirituality, in this sense, is the attentive God-seeking endeavor which so orders time and space that there arises a reserved area in which God’s impassioned involvement with his creation can be tasted. This endeavor is aimed at the acquisition of a pure and deeply loving knowledge of God. That being the case, however, a certain tension between one’s ordinary conduct and a contemplative lifestyle is programmatically present from the beginning.31

31

confides more readily and more profoundly in the other person. The encounter grows into a relationship, a friendship, and occasionally love also results-the highest form of encounter, namely, the desire to learn to know and appreciate one another, to accept and belong to one another, to exist for and with one another’. B. Doppelfeld, The Encountered Jesus. Vol. 1, transl. G. Roettger (Makati: St. Paul Publications, 1989), 7-8. K. Waaijman, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, transl. J. Vriend (Louvain: Peeters, 2002).

CHAPTER FIVE THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY ‘Je suis allé au marché aux oiseaux Et j’ai acheté des oiseaux Pour toi mon amour Je suis allé au marché aux fleurs Et j’ai acheté des fleurs Pour toi mon amour … Et puis je suis allé au marché aux esclaves Et je t’ai cherchée Mais je ne t’ai pas trouvée mon amour’. (J. Prévert, Pour toi mon amour)

Philosophy is love (or friendship, for friendship alone is purest love) of wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge nor is it merely knowledge in action or knowledge put into good use. Wisdom is not theory or praxis. It is availability for the call of the Absolute, which makes itself heard, in its transcendence in the immanence of man’s finitude and culpability. Only man is capable of philosophy because he is finite and culpable. The love of wisdom is not a fait accompli. It is something to be done. It is an art. It is not a corpus of doctrine already done or a scientific theory. It is an activity, which consists precisely of loving wisdom. Wisdom is not mere knowledge. Many would identify sophia with phronesis, but this view is too narrow. Phronesis is simply knowledge in action. It is merely prudence. It is measured action, founded upon science. Sophia is foundational knowledge, knowledge that provides the grund or ground, the very earth which becomes a world or the liveable portion of the earth or the cosmos. Philosophy is, first and foremost, a calling (vocatio), which is heard within the domain of apophasis, of kénosis, of emptiness in order to claim the plenitude, the

74

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

fullness of living out of the mere availability or status (or befindlichkeit) of mere existence.1 The title of this exploratory essay apparently demands a discussion about philosophy and metaphysics and their relations. This we will forgo. Instead, we will deal with specific questions, which in trun will transpose us directly into the heart of philosophy and metaphysics in itself. Thus, there will be an unveiling (aletheia), the return to the original name of philosophy which in turn is its return to its primordial calling or vocation. Inquiry and Transcendence – The Question of Friendship Inquiry is the starting point to the path of transcendence. Man must go forward from this cosmos in order to transform it into a world, a liveable space and time for him. Man must go forward from finding himself in the state of existence (befindlichkeit) and start to live. His state, speaking a bit like Hegel,2 has to be reversed. He has to go beyond the obvious, the apparent and let the vocation, the hidden essence of his very being, manifest. Inquiry is an anthropological privilege of taking the bull of ontology by the horns and engage in the metaphysical faena, which is the task of listening and responding to the calling to love wisdom by being its friend. The horns could and should wound us, reminding us, with the pain of finitude and culpability that brings about man’s inborn restlessness for something that transcends him (hence, metaphysical), that a philosopher should not always be successful. In fact, a philosopher was not born for success. Philosophy is not undertaken for success. At its best, it disappears into the sunset, when the owl of minerva should not begin its flight. It is too late. Philosophy commences at dawn. The dove flies at dawn to herald a new aurora and disappears into the 1

2

The following words of J. Maritain are points for reflection, especially from the perspective of history of philosophy: ‘Let it be said right off that there are two fundamentally different ways of interpreting the word existentialism. One way is to affirm the primacy of existence, but as implying and preserving essences or natures and as manifesting the supreme victory of the intellect and of intelligibility. This is what I consider to be authentic existentialism. The other way is to affirm the primacy of existence, but as destroying or abolishing essences or natures and as manifesting the supreme defeat of the intellect and of intelligibility. This is what I consider to be apocryphal existentialism, the current kind which “no longer signifies anything at all”. I should think so! For if you abolish essence, or that which esse posits, by that very act you abolish existence, or esse. Those two notions are correlative and inseperable. An existentialism of this sort is self-destroying’. Existence and the Existent, transl. L. Galantiere & G.B. Phelan (New York: Image Books, 1957), 13. Cfr. G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. J. Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Meiner, 1955).

THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY

75

sunset to await the new sunrise with all those who keep vigil, though they may be at rest. Too much success is dangerous. We should transcend our penchant for success with faithfulness. Faithfulness is always starting from groundness in a constant self-encounter which is called humility, from the humus or land, the starting point of metaphysics, of the path of transcendence. Faithfulness is starting to take flight, like a dove, on daybreak, amidst the floodwaters of existence to bring back, before dusk, the olive branch; the guarantee of life amidst the sea of violence, death and destruction from which new life is to shoot out. Our groundedness and self-encounter in the cosmos, in the earth (the cosmos of life and groundedness) is ontological. We find ourselves (Befindlichkeit). We are being-there (Dasein). We are thrown (Geworfenheit) towards death (zum Tode). We have to reverse this as we are headed for a collision course with the possibility that ends all other possibilities: death. A friend is an uninterested,3 unselfish and totally generous lover and fellow traveler. He does not seek his own gratification, his own pleasure, his own success. The good of the beloved is his own concern even to the point of sacrificing everything. He is one who journeys even beyond what is required of him by the other. So to speak, a friend transcends everything: boundaries, divisions, interests and benefits. All these belong to the realm of being inasmuch as being needs attributes. Being, bereft of genus and specie, has attributes identifiable with it but said attributes do not express fully what being is and are only dimensions of the same. These are what the scholastics call the transcendentals: unum, bonum, verum, aliquid, res, pulchrum, etc. These transcendentals are interests4 of being in its truth, they are divisions of being’s manifestations, boundaries with nothingness and benefits of the cognitive and epistemological type that make being the most universal and primordial concept Friendship transcends.5 Philosophy as friendship with wisdom is uninterested love. It is not the love between parents and their offspring which is conditioned by dependence on the parents given the helplessness of the children in their infancy. It disappears when the children become self-sufficient. Nor is it the love between siblings which is determined by rivalry for the inheritance and is only conditioned by permanence under paternal care; it is a tense love that competes for the parent’s attention and dominance within the brood, tribe 3 4

5

‘Uninterested’ must not be confused with ‘indifferent’. Some ontological implications of interest especially in the theory of knowledge and social sciences can be found in J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968). Cfr. my study: ‘Hacia la Trinidad y la Amistad: El camino hacia un redescubrimiento del misterio de Dios’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 33 (1998), 73-94.

76

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

or clan. Neither, in the light of what has been stated above, is erotic love, which is dependent on functionality: the capability to give pleasure and perform the marital act. These kinds of love are based on interest. They are not transcendental. They are conditioned by circumstances. Man, as the sum product of circumstances (‘I am I and my circumstance’6) is nothing more than a victim of history, an ontological casualty who must discover his metaphysical calling: that he is not just being, but a reality who is real and a real who is reality and conscious of it. And this consciousness is a consciousness of uselessness, of being undetermined by circumstances and becoming creative by overcoming mere facticity, hereness or thrownness (geworfenheit). Friendship is useless love. The authenticity of love consists in its uselessness. Friendship is not pragmatic7 nor does it allow itself to be used. It is metaphysical. It transcends interests or conditions such as helplessness, rivalry (or what Girard calls, mimetic desire)8 or functionality (determined above all by pleasure which may be simultaneous with the propagation of the species). It is love that does not seek the self in itself, but the self together with the other in faithfulness and not in success. Faithfulness is going back to the ground to see real value of everything, which consists in that this everything is real as reality and that it is reality which is real. Friendship is inquiry as reversal. It seeks without asking, without demanding, without being inquisitive. It transforms the earth into a world, the cosmos into a home. It makes totality (which is something to be conquered and speculated about) liveable and effectively lived. Friendship is building home, where there is a hearth, where there is the warmth of nearness, intimacy and selflessness. The earth, the cosmos is the savage totality and brutality of spatial and temporal coordinates. It is where success reigns as supreme criterion. It is where success means conquering, whether physical, emotional, spiritual or intellectual. It is where everything is acquired. 6

7

8

‘Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia’, J. Ortega y Gasset, ‘Meditaciones del Quijote’, in: Idem, Obras Completas. Vol. 1 (Madrid: Alianza, 1987). The following notion of pragmatism must be overcome, though it is expressed in an apparently selfless way. It must be overcome because it is an attack on the classical philosophical and metaphysical vocation of laying down foundations: ‘Pragmatism must be defined as the claim that the function of inquiry is, in Bacon’s words, “to relieve and benefit the condition of man” – to make us happier by enabling us to cope more successfully in the physical environment and with each other’. R. Rorty, ‘Heidegger, Contingency and Pragmatism’, in: Idem, Essays on Heidegger and Others, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 27. Cfr. R. Girard, La violence et le sacré (Paris: Grasset, 1972); Idem, Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde (Paris: Grasset, 1978); Idem, Le bouc émissaire (Paris: Grasset, 1982).

THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY

77

The home is where everything is given as grace, where everything is shared. Failure is accepted because it is a part of the growth of faithfulness. Success is given its proper place as a desired effect for faithfulness, but not as the totality. Home is where philosophy dwells and is nurtured. It is beyond the Jerusalem of sacred borders, where true prophets fail, are condemned and are crucified. Neither is it the Rome of sacred and secular powers, where power pontificates. Home is Galilee, beyond the clutches of violence, destruction and death, where friendship and the ministry began, where the once scared disciples become apostles meeting their Resurrected Lord, who is their Friend.9 Galilee is home, the bond of family, not by blood but by something transcendental: friendship in the same ideals, in the same vocation.10 Inquiry and Inversion – From Ontology to Metaphysics Therefore, by means of inquiry, if it is metaphysical, the world is to be inverted. The world must be inverted to become a home. The world must not make Jerusalem or Rome its capital, but Galilee, rustic Galilee with its mountains, plains, small towns and lake. It is no longer a question between Athens and Jerusalem or Jerusalem and Rome or the great European centers of learning since the so-called medieval times: Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Salamanca, Bologna. It is a question of the Galilee in each and every one who is faithful not because he is successful but because he is successful because he is faithful, even to the point of the cross, of humiliation for making a stand for one’s friend, of failure and defeat. We are bound therefore to ask in all liberty and in the name of liberty: where is Galilee? Where is the rustic countryside with its byways, dusty roads, fields, mountains, lake and coast where the calling was first heard and nourished, where we are ourselves with no masks, tensions, pretensions? 9

10

I am referring to the Resurrection accounts in the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark, Mt 28:1-7; Mk 16:1-11. These two traditions emphasize the encounter with the Risen Lord in Galilee. Jn 20:1-2 relates traditions of apprearances both in the violent sacred city and in the hometown of Galilee. Cfr. M. de Tuya, Biblia Comentada. Evangelios (Madrid: BAC, 1964). Also: D.J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991); J.R. Donahue & D.J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002); F.J. Moloney, The Gospel of John (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998). The notion of Galilee, deep within, is developed within the notion of messianic family in Mark and Matthew. This deserves further study and reflection. Exegetes have emphasized only the break with blood families in the name of the Gospel without emphasizing the return to Galilee after the Resurrection, cfr. S.C. Barton, Discipleship and Family Ties in Mark and Matthew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

78

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

It needs not be bucolic or too romantically distant from the hustles of urban living. If indeed it were forcibly bucolic or pastoral, as many of us do not have a rural or provincial background, we might end up again with language being the dwelling of being, wherein man becomes the captive of language games or truth becomes the prisoner of a play of words, which may never tend ‘ad rem’.11 In the first place, the inversion is axiological. This would ultimately bring about the inversion of ontology as the goal. Ontology, if metaphysics is to be the fulfillment of philosophy, must be inverted in its rightful place: as the starting point, never the goal. Philosophy is metaphysical. It is not abstract. It does not seek to propose theories. However, it parts from them, since theories present perspectives which have to be lived out. The path must not only be shown. It must be treaded upon. Otherwise, there would not be any adventure, just charts, just maps. The coordinates must give way to the exact places. It is when ontology becomes the ultimate goal that philosophy becomes abstract, becomes too or totally detached from life. Ontology, the study of being in itself, forgets beings. It forgets life.12 It forgets what is real (inasmuch as it is reality), what is reality (inasmuch as it is real). Being is an abstraction from reality, which we experience. Being is separation, detachment from experience. From the Forgetfulness of Being to the Memory of Experience The forgetfulness of being was an immersion into experience. Being must only remind us of experience:13 the mediation of the real as reality and reality as real. 11

12

13

Cfr. M. Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950). Also: Unterwegs zur Sprache (Stuttgart: Günther Nesek Pfullingen, 1959). The following words of C.G.Jung are worth pondering upon in this regard: ‘For the more a theory lays claim to universal validity, the less capable it is of doing justice to the individual facts. Any theory based on experience is necessarily statistical; that is to say, it formulates an ideal average which abolishes all exceptions at either end of the scale and replaces them by an abstract mean. This mean is quite valid, though it need not necessarily occur in reality. Despite this it figures in the theory as an unassailable fundamental fact. The exceptions at either extreme, though fundamentally factual, do not appear in the final result at all, since they cancel each other out’, The Undiscovered Self, transl. R.F.C. Hull (New York: Signey, 1958). At the conclusion of his influential essay on metaphysics, H. Bergson comes close to what I am referring to. Presupposing the Aristotelian cognitive theory, he speaks of integral experience. However, this is only the sum total of experiences in the empirical sense and not experience as metaphysical mediation which is more than the sum total of its empirical moments. It is the meeting point of transcendence and immanence in life as narrated by history. Here are Bergson’s words: ‘But metaphysical intuition, although it can be obtained only through material knowledge, is quite other than the mere summary or synthesis of that knowledge. It is distinct

THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY

79

Being is the universalization of reality, but it is not reality which we experience as real and it is not the real that we experience as reality. Here, reality and real become sustantive and quality or adjective. Being is existence, it is being there. It is an abstaction, if when it becomes absolute, becomes irrelevant. It is not life. Life is what matters. Existence is only the starting point. Science begins with existence. Science is certain knowledge that must bring about that which is relevant. Being is not that which is relevant. It is life. Some personalist philosophers proposed the Other (autri) as the transcendental alternative to being. Even to the extent of proposing ethics as first philosophy, as the true metaphysical philosophical discipline.14 This radical alternative is incomplete in the sense that it forgets that the Other is just the concrete moment of that which underlies everything: reality inasmuch as it is real and the real inasmuch as it is reality. It is necessary to be cautious because the Other could be as tyrannical as being in itself, the autri could be as dangerous and xenophobic like sein des seindens. Ethics is not first philosophy, neither is ontology. To simply and innocently substitute totality with infinity is tyranny. There can be no substitute except for faith, hope and love, which are experiential coordinates towards the Absolute and traces of the Absolute in man thus, in his very constitution man is metaphysical, to give infinity its true meaning. To merely and naively substitute totality with infinity is to be equally forgetful of the pain and suffering caused by the tyranny of the One. The Other could be just as tyrannical, since it seeks to replace, since it seeks to be the Other One. Experience is the memory of this painful lesson. It is the continuous evocation, provocation of history as the experiential narrative of life. Experience is mediation. It makes present, concrete. It makes the narrative palpable. It goes beyond the One and the Other One in the pretension of being the Absolute. It is a must to avoid the extremes or proposing extreme alternatives. It is imperative to go to the heart of the matter. Totality and Infintity are two extremes. The heart is what we have just labeled as experiential coordinates towards the Absolute: faith, hope and love. They are traces (vestiges) of the Absolute in man’s finitude and culpability, making him capable of the Absolute, constituting him as metaphysical.

14

from these, we repeat, as the motot impulse is distinct from the path traversed by the moving body, as the tension of the spring is distinct from the visible movements of the pendulum. In this sense metaphysics has nothing in common with a generalization of facts, and nevertheless it might be defined as integral experience’. An Introduction to Metaphysics, transl. T.E. Hulme (Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett, 1992), 62. I am especially referring to E. Levinas, Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1974); Idem, Totalité et infini (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1961).

80

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

This is what philosophy is all about: man’s metaphysicality. Man has a philosophical calling. This calling is metaphysical. Thus, philosophy does not just have a metaphysical vocation. It is a metaphysical vocation. It answers faithfully to this calling by going to the immanence of the matter by (re)discovering metaphysics as truly the first philosophy, going beyond Aristotle’s ontological or ontotheological project. By doing so, we go back to the ancient (and ever new) philosophical vocation of seeking the Absolute. It does not seek to simply overcome Totality with Infinity, Ontology with Ethics in the pretense of first philosophy. It seeks salvation. Philosophy is the struggle for salvation. It is soteriological. Metaphysics is first philosophy. It contains that which underlies everyting: reality inasmuch as it is real and the real inasmuch as it is reality. The meeting point of reality and the real is experience. We meet the Other in and through and as experience. The Other cannot be an absolute. Experience opens up man for the Absolute not just as an Other. It is an opening to being Together. The Other must be openness to being Together and thye dynamicity of this is of being One Another. The Other is the concreteness of experience, which is always the point of encounter between the real and reality, wherein the real is reality and reality is real. It is only the point of departure for One Another. Being and becoming One Another is the constant harmonization of history as Memory, as presence that transcends all absences. One Another is the continuity of the narration, in dialogue, in the word of two, in the shared word, in the word that crosses the solitary confinement of the ego and transcends, reaches us to make history, to make present, to make Memory. Experience and the Metaphysical Path from Science to Religion through Art Experience is not to be taken in its empirical form. Experience is above all encounter, mediation. It is the sacramentalization. It is when the Absolute, inasmuch as it is real in itself is reality and reality in itself inasmuch as it is real, becomes present in the coordinates of finitude and culpability. It is when Absolute in its transcendence becomes Mystery in the immanence of said coordinates. Experience is when transcendence and immanence meet. Experience is when reality and real coincide. Science only seeks certitude (episteme as opposed to doxa). It is selfish, selfreducing and reducing. Certitude is absolute selfishness which is an extreme in itself. It can only be a point of departure. Self-love is only a staring point. Science only understands experience as an empirical data thus reducing experience as an aid to its formulation of theory, whose result is being in itself: the primordial concept. Thus, experience is criteriology and is reduced to be the foundation of theory, which is expressed as concepts. This is, however, only a starting point.

THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY

81

Art is the dynamism of certitude. It is action and facility for action (tekne). This dynamism, left to itself demands absolute selflessness, which is unacceptable since the starting point of the self is totally forgotten in the pretense of reaching Absolute Otherness. It is the growth of experience into creativity, into praxis, into action. Creativity is always a practice that consists in transforming the images, which are the memory of certitude, into symbols. Experience here becomes the movement of certitude in its quest not for certainty anymore but for realization. Through Art, concepts give way to symbols, which are in fact texts that speak of the presence, of the sacramentalization and the experience that is behind it. Experience here is not just empiricism, it is the act of presence. Presence, which is acknowledgement of the Other, is a path that must go beyond, transcend the Other. Presence is not just having the word or expressing it nor giving it, but sharing the Word as the discursive power of mediation. Religion is the terminal point of this acknowledgement. Religion goes beyond concepts and symbols. Religion goes beyond texts though its parts from them. Religion is seriousness, diligence by going beyond linguistic texts and entering into the living texts of life (‘ad rem’). This is religion as relegere, of rereading language, of which the supreme and primordial instance is being, and going to the things in themselves in the concreteness of expereince. Religion is experience in the rootedness of the Mystery, which is the coincidence of the Absolute with the Finite and Culpable. Mystery is the experiential ambiance of the realization of religion as religare, relinking with the Absolute, rebinding with the rootedness of reality and the real in its immanence stretching out to its transcendence. Mystery is the root of experience inasmuch as it is sacramental mediation for the real inasmuch as it is reality and reality inasmuch as it is real. This rootedness is what is in fact mysticism for it is rootedness in the Mystery, inasmuch as it is the presence of the Absolute in the categories of the Finite and Culpable. Religion goes beyond the unacceptable extremes of Absolute Selfishness and Absolute Otherness, of Totality and Infinity with Absolute Sharing. Philosophy is the path of Science to Religion through Art. Philosophy is an experiential path inasmuch as it is response to the metaphysical vocation. And the response is always a calling, an invitation to the rest of the journeyers to enter into the same adventure. Hence, the response is initiation, accompaniment, solidarity in the paths of the Absolute and its traces as Mystery. It is mystagogy. In effect, Science, Art and Religion are the three moments of experience in its quest for the fullness of realization in the metaphysical plane, going beyond empirical and actual (or practical) planes in order to be mediation of the real inasmuch as it is reality and reality inasmuch as it is real. Only in this mediation can the Real and Reality be attained in its Absolute instance. Religion in its most perfect realization, which is eschatological, becomes a relational current with this Absolute thus revealing that this Absolute is a Person,

82

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

with whom a Personal Relationship is possible and even desirable. This is the unveiling of the face, not just of the Other, but of One Another. Eschatology is this very process of unveiling. It is tense. It is tension that is openness to Beatitude. Beyond the polarity between Totality and Infinity, Metaphysics tends towards Beatitude: the encounter (definitive) between the Real and Realality, wherein the Real is (truly) Reality and wherein Reality is (truly) Real. The Continuous Realization of the Vocation Metaphysics, as a vocation, is in continuous realization as an art, striving for religion, parting from science. It is a call that continuously fulfills itself in the experiential narrative of history as an act, striving to reread and to relink. This art takes the form of religion in this contingent historicity, in this contingent stage of experiential narrative. Thus, becoming a consistent eschatological struggle to the fulfillment of religion, which is imperfect in this contingent stage. In this contingent historicity, art may take the forms of religion. These forms are necessarily institutional and thus confessional, but they are contingent only to be perfected eschatologically in the purest and most unhibbited sharing with the Mystery unveiled, which is the Absolute in itself, face to face. Philosophy is the journey towards the Absolute in itself, face to face, beyond the limitations of Totality and Infinity because it goes to the soteriological level. Soteriology is simply beatitude. Thus, philosophy fulfills itself as the search for the ‘beata vita’. Philosophy assimilates both Selfishness and Selflessness, correcting the limitations of the former by qualifying it as not as self-centerdness and establishing the self as firm and foundational subject, thus qualifying selflessness as the constant memory of the self in its act or art of self-transcendence. And the result is not a synthesis. There is no dialectics involved in reaching Absolute Sharing. Love and Sharing – Beatitude as Fulfillment of the Metaphysical Vocation Sharing is being oneself and being another without abandoning the self and neglecting the other. Totality and Infinity, Being and the Other are forms of enslavement. Only Absolute Sharing brings about true freedom, true liberation from oppressive systems of thought and action and of their opposition as ontologyethics within the context of the pretense of being first philosophy, abolishing metaphysics in the name of pragmatism and the postmodern dream of having no foundations.

THE METAPHYSICAL VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY

83

Love of wisdom (amor sapientiae) is being and becoming together, one another. Sharing is the meeting point. It is mediation. It is sacramentalization. It is metaphysical response to a metaphysical calling. Love, given the fact that it is beyond extremes, is not in the totality of selfishness nor in the infinity of selflessness. Love is in sharing. Sharing is salvation. Sharing is beatitude. Sharing is faith, hope and love in the opening up of the self, in finitude and culpability, to the Absolute, who is already the constituting presence, as the Mystery, in faith, hope and love. And love is where faith (groundedness in confidence) and hope (action in awaiting amidst history) converge and become perfect. This convergence and perfection is nothing less than Beatitude. Science and Art, when left to themselves, create markets of many theories, styles, techniques. In themselves they produce, creating gaps between One and the Other, between Totality and Infinity in an ever growing market mentality or competition (‘homo homini lupus’). Only Beatitude could eliminate all these. Religion corrects all these by sublimating thought and action, concept and creativity in the journey towards the Absolute who is not just Totality nor Infinity, who is not just the One (of Plotinus) or the Other (of Personalism). The Absolute is always in sharing, in One Another: One being the Absolute in itself and Another as the Absolute by participation. Sharing is not monopolizing. It is being Absolute in itself who is open to giving and it is being Absolute by participation who is open to receiving and there is a continuous interplay of giving and receiving. And this interplay is the dynamics of love.

PART TWO THE MYSTAGOGICAL REALIZATION OF PHILOSOPHY ‘La première hospitalité n’est autre que l’écoute. C’est celle que corps et âme nous pouvons donner jusque dans la rue et sur le bord des routes, quand nous n’aurions à proposer ni toit, ni feu, ni couvert. Et c’est à tout instant qu’elle peut aussi être donnée. De toutes les autres hospitalités elle forme la condition, car amer est le pain qu’on mange sans que la parole ait été partagé, durs et lourds d’insomnie sont les lits où l’on se couche sans que notre fatigue ait été accueillie et respectée. Et l’ultime hospitalité, celle du Seigneur, ne sera-t-elle pas de tomber, vertigineusement, dans l’écoute lumineuse du Verbe, l’écoutant pour parler, parlant pour l’écouter? L’écoute est grosse d’éternité’. (J.-L. Chrétien, L’arche de la parole)

CHAPTER SIX LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT ‘Was dämmert um mich Erde! dein freundlich Grün? Was wehst du weider, Lüftcehn, wie einst, mich an? In allen Wipfeln rauschts, Was weckt ihr mir die Seele? was regtihr mir Vergangnes auf, ihr Guten! O schonet mein Und laßt sie ruhn, die Asche meiner Freuden, ihr spottetet nur! O wandelt Ihr schicksaallosen Götter vorbei und blüht In seelger Jugend über dem Sterblichen’. (F. Hölderlin, Palinodie)

Writes José Ortega y Gasset: ‘Now then, the tendency of philosophy is the opposite direction. It is not interested in the profound, like mysticism, but the reverse, it emerges from the depths to the surface’.1 The foremost Spanish thinker of the twentieth century clearly had a phenomenological concept of philosophy and a narrow concept or knowledge of Mysticism. Philosophy, for this great philosopher of our time, reveals. It does not hide. Mysticism, for Ortega in the text we have just cited, hides. Hiding has become the most sublime art. Art, in fact, nowadays is mastery of hidenness. It must not be overt, expressive. It must conceal its truth, its craft. This has put into crisis the modernist heritage of expressivity and openness, which has culminated in the Age of Enlightenment. After this great era, we are confronted with hiddenness and thus, a revival of the art of interpretation or hermeneutics, parting from the phenomenological character of reality, i.e., that it is open to unveiling (offenbarung) or revelation (revelatio). Many would argue that we have seen the end of modernity or are actually living in postmodern times. Others would simply state that modernity is an unfinished project and that we are constantly rebuilding the question of the ‘modos’ or mode or fashion in a consistent renewal process with its inevitably historical ups 1

‘Ahora bien, la tendencia de la filosofía es de dirección opuesta. No le interesa sumergirse en lo profundo, como la mística, sino al revés, emerge de lo profundo a la superficie’. J. Ortega y Gasset, Obras Completas. Vol. 7 (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 342.

88

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

and downs, twists and turns.2 Modernity and postmodernity highlights the question of communication, especially within the context of rationality or of man’s rational action within society.3 In these so-called postmodern times, can anything be worth communicating be communicated? Is there anything worth communicating? Is communicating possible? Have we not enclosed ourselves in our own fragmentary natures such that fragmentation may have resulted not only in the absence of that which is to be communicated but also of the possible of communication given that fragmentation could have resulted in isolation? The present exploratory chapter has a programmatic and yet tentative projection. It takes into account how philosophy should proceed from the backdrop of the modernist heritage and the postmodernist consciousness. We will take into consideration these debates.4 However we will only consider said heritage and consciousness as the backgrounders for what is truly in question here: Is it legitimate for us to understand mystagogy as thecommunicative dimension of spirituality that takes a concrete form? Mystagogy puts into crisis the bias of many, as captured by Ortega, against mysticism. Mystagogy necessarily implies openness, revelation, communication and participation. To address this concern, it is necessary that we take into account the key question of modernity: the question of the dominance of the self, which is not just the ego but the ego in its growth and maturity toward becoming spirit. Spirituality and the Question of the Self In spirituality, both as an academic discipline and as a lived experience, there are two constants: the Absolute Self (which various traditions, including the Christian – wherein the following reflections were developed – call the Personal God)5 and the Finite and Culpable Self, identified with man: given his rationality and his imperfection finds himself existentially writing his history as a search for 2

3

4

5

Cfr. D. Weir, Decadence and the Making of Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995). Also: S. Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). Cfr. J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handlens (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1981). Also: Several Authors, Communicative Action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas’ ‘The Theory of Communicative Action’ (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). For a competent overview, see: P. Sheldrake, Spirituality & History, new ed. (New York: Orbis, 2000), 1-13. Also by the same author: Spirituality and Theology: Christian Living and the Doctrine of God (London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 1998), 6-14. With regards to the Personal God, from the Christian tradition, from the viewpoint of spirituality and theology, I find timely this article by S. Guerra: ‘El misterio trinitario como tema teológico-espiritual’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 60 (2001), 49-73. Also: R. Maisonneuve, Les

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

89

meaning, which could only be attained in relation (or specifically in communion) with the Absolute Self. The variables depend on the context which take form6 in schools, situations, cultures, institituions, systems, etc. Spirituality is precisely the dynamic process, amidst the aforementioned contexts or forms, usually symbolized as a way, that takes place in history that speak of the relationability between the Absolute Self and the finite and culpable self, called to participate in the life of the former and wherein the former takes the initiative in inviting the latter to communion with it and wherein the latter responds positively, therefore carving out concrete realizations in its diverse historical forms to attain such a communion involving the metaphysical principles behind such a realization, the cosmological, anthropological-psychological realization itself in its diverse modalities, and the ethico-moral norms that govern and serve as a criteria to the same realizations. The finite and culpable self must constantly remind itself of its status of finitude and culpability, to protect itself from the hubris of the Enlightenment, inasmuch as spirituality, inevitably, parts from a cogito with a claim to the Absolute Self. The finite and culpable self must always remind itself that it is not the foundation nor the aim. In other words, the cogito is not the guarantee of Spirituality but the gratuity of the Absolute Self who allows Himself to be experienced as the Supreme Reality inasmuch as it is Real in itself and the Real in itself as Reality in the supreme degree in the gratuity of the Spirit. The Spirit is the gratuity of experience; it is the self as it gives itself experientially and journeys accompanying the human self, the totality of the finite and culpable self, in its projection to participate in the Absolute Self. The human spirit is not the guarantee, the Supreme Self, but it is the protagonist of the adventure of Spirituality and the task of communication parts from this necessary lesson of humility.7 Nevertheless, to attain such a realization there exists the need for a vital recourse: communication, specifically of the experiential content8 in its cosmological (objective and ontological dimension), historical (contextual and cultural dimension) and anthropological-psychological (subjective dimension) modalities

6

7 8

mystiques chrétiens et leurs visions de Dieu un et trine (Paris: Cerf, 2000); X. Pikaza, Enchiridion Trinitatis (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 2005). Cfr. the interesting reflections of K. Waaijman on form in spirituality, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, transl. J. Vriend (Louvain: Peeters, 2002), 11-303. Cfr. E. Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World (Edinburgh: Clark, 1983). On this regard, I have taken into consideration these words of the Spanish scholar F. Ruiz: ‘La mistagogía presta mayor atención al contenido espiritual y a sus modalidades de comunicación’. ‘Funciones y dinámica de la teología espiritual’, in: Several Authors, La teologia spirituale. Atti del congresso internazionale OCD (Rome: Teresianum, 2001), 669. Cfr. also: G. Uríbarri, ‘La mistagoía y el futuro de la fe cristiana’, in: Razón y Fe 239 (1999), 141-150.

90

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

of the Absolute Self, taken as a Mystery-because of its inherent transcendence and its presence within the immanence of the finite and culpable self-in its act of mediation, in its act of allowing itself to be experienced with the finality of bringing the other (the finite and culpable self) to the fullness of sharing in this same experience. This sharing is inevitably theological, for it participates in the Absolute’s experiential self-disclosure as God in revelation which is an experiential event. The Absolute, inasmuch as it communicates itself experientially, i.e., allows itself to be experienced, creates a communicative mediation of itself as experientiable within the immanent coordinates of the finite and culpable self, inviting a rational response (logos) which is labeled as theological, in terms of participation in the logos or the communicative word of the Absolute as God.9 By communication, the Absolute Self presents itself as Spirit and calls the finnite and culpable self to be spirit. To be ‘Spirit’ does not mean being immaterial. Spirituality is not a way of immateriality, but of integration, of integral directedness towards that which is transcendental, the Absolute Self. St. Augustine would say that one should make one’s interior man live with his guest not with carnal desires, but with spiritual fruits, meaning implicating one’s exteriority and interiority, within the cosmos,10 in the same projection towards transcendence, which offers relationally and personally itself as Veritas or Truth.11 Spirituality is the Absolute Self tending towards itself in love, in desire (eros) and is the call to the finite and culpalble self to be spirit, to be directed, with a view to communion, to this Absolute Self, who offers Himself as Spirit. For the Christian tradition, the Absolute Self as Spirit is God: who is Spirit and Person, who is the Principle (Father) and is the Word made Flesh (Son) and is the Force that remains to animate the finite and culpable Self (Holy Spirit). The Trinity is the Truth of God who is Love by which man can know and participate in Him and participate and know in the cosmos, the totally of everything that is.12 As St. Thomas Aquinas says: Omnia cognoscentia cognoscunt Deum implicite in quolibet cognitio: nihil est cognoscibilie nisi per similitudinem primae veritatis.13 9

10

11

12

13

The reflections of P. Coda on this regard are worth taking into consideration, cfr. ‘Il ruolo della ragione nei diversi modelli teologici: verso un modello ermeneutico di teologia?’, in: Several Authors, Il sapere teologico e il suo modelo: Teologia, ermeutica e verità (Bologna: EDB, 1993), 113-139. Cfr. V.J. Bourke, ‘St. Augustine and the Cosmic Soul’, in: Giornale di Metafisica 9 (1954), 431440. St. Augustine, De Vera Religione, 39, 72. Cfr. the study of L.F. Ladaria, ‘Persona y relación en el “De Trinitate” de San Agustín’, in: Miscelanéa Comillas 30 (1972), 246-291. Cfr. G. Greshake, Der dreieine Gott: Eine trinitarische Theologie (Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 2001); L.F. Ladaria, El Dios vivo y verdadero (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1998); C. LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1991); X. Pikaza, Dios como espíritu y persona (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1988); W.J. Hill, The ThreePersonned God (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982). St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, XII, art.2 ad 1um.

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

91

Spirituality, in view of this, if it is to be Christian makes use of a mystical approach, wherein this Absolute Self, who is God, Spirit and Person, is relational in Jesus Christ, whose history is the very act of revelation of the One and Triune God.14 Spirituality is a relational experience and because of this it must be understood above all as a communication. In effect, spirituality is communication; it is mystagogy. Spirit is not a term of distance or distantiation, it is closeness, intimacy, with the Absolute implying the cultivation or care of the self in relation to this Absolute, who allows Himself to be experienced mediatively in a loving communicative way which is initiation into the dynamics of the Absolute and communication of its very integral life in life: mystagogy, at the same time underscoring that the Absolute transcends us, transcends our ‘scheme of things’. This Absolute comes. Admittedly, here we are echoing Heidegger’s dictum of Das Kommen des Anfangs (The Coming of the Principle).15 At this point, it is worth the while to take into consideration the following paragraphs from Karl Rahner: The mystical approach of which we are speaking must impart the correct ‘image of God’, based upon the accepted experience of man’s basic orientation to God, the experience that the basis of man’s existence is the abyss: that God is essentially the inconceivable; that his inconceivability grows, and yet does not derrogate from the fact that the more rightly God is understood the more nearly does his selfbestowing love touch us; the experience that in mapping the course of one’s life one can never confine God to specific points in it without being brought up against the fact that when one does so the sum fails to come out right; the experience that he only becomes our ‘happiness’when we pray to him and love him unconditionally; but also the fact that he cannot be defined as a dialectical negation of the affirmative ‘thrown up’ by our experiences, for intstance that he is not simply the one who is remote as opposed to one who is near, nor to be thought of as the diametrical antithesis to the world, but rather that he transcends such oppositions. Our basic orientation to him is more primary, then, and prior to all such dialectical opposites, and this has the effect that he wills to be and is ‘our’ God in an act of absolute self-bestowal and grace as he who is ‘so and not otherwise’, without becoming involved in the complexities of our dialectic. The mystical approach of which we have been speaking must teach us in the concrete to maintain a constant closeness to this God; to say ‘thou’ to him, to commit ourselves to his silence and darkness, not to be anxious lest we may lose him by the very fact of calling him by a name, as though he cannot, if he wills (as in fact he has willed) also enter into our eternal duality precisely because he does not constitute one element among others in our scheme of things. It must teach us that he does not belong to any specific place in our scheme of things (…) Such an essentially Christian approach to mysticism must, of course, also take 14

15

Cfr. X. Pikaza, ‘Experiencia religosa, historia de Jesús y revelación trinitaria’, in: Estudios Trinitarios 13 (1979), 19-93. Cfr. M. Heidegger, Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (1910-1976): Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 13 (Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1976ff).

92

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

cognisance of the place which Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen one, must occupy in it.16

In line with Ancient Greek philosophy, spirituality was care of the self. Recently, Michel Foucault echoed this dictum (souci de soi).17 The cultivation of the self as spirit, in relation to the Absolute, is, in effect, care for the self. The self is the subject of the good life. It is geared towards the fulfillment of itself: the good life, which is the goal of spirituality. The self, as protagonist of an adventure or journey of the good life towards the good in itself (agathon), was an artisan who had to cultivate certain skills or crafts or customs or backgrounds (culture) in order to discipline himself (ascesis). The self, thus, constructed by means of culture, the art of the good life, which consists in communion with the Absolute (koinonia). Spirituality, in effect, is the art of the good life. The self is the basic truth in search of the Absolute Truth. Spirituality charts this path animated by the love of this Truth, which is liveable and attainable. This liveable and attainable Truth, inasmuch as it is possessed or participated in with regards to the Absolute in communion, is lived out and not just an abstract entity. Thus, it becomes sophia or wisdom. Wisdom is the Truth, shared and participated, as lived out by the self, in the context of the good life, in the context of the care and cultivation of the self as ‘spirit’.18 Philosophical Perspectiva for Mystagogy – The Communication of the Truth19 Philosophy commences as an epistemological quest.20 It is a quest for knowledge or the truth in its manifestation and use.21 As Ortega y Gasset would put it, 16

17

18

19

20

21

K. Rahner, ‘Christian Living Formerly and Today’, in: Theological Investigations. Vol 7: Further Theology of the Spiritual Life 1 (London: Darton, Longmann & Todd, 1971), 15-16. M. Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College of France 1981-1982, transl. G. Burchell (New York: Picador, 2005), 17. Admittedly, in some points, I have benefitted from the reflections of P. Ricœur, Oneself as Another, transl. K. Blamey (Chicago-London: Chicago University Press, 1992), 1-25. I wish to preface these preliminary reflections with a word on philosophy, especially as the perspective for my approach in this essay. It is not just that I am advocating the primacy of philosophy among the disciplines. As a mater of fact, I advocate an interdisciplinary approach to maintain the relevance of philosophy in this postphilosophical age. Philosophy, together with the other disciplines, must always be subservient to the truth, to the communication of the truth. Philosophy, in relation to the other disciplines in the service of the truth, plays a fundamental role, i.e., it lays down the foundations on which the other disciplines stand in their specialized discourses. Because of this, philosophy is somewhat privileged. As the foundation stone, it has the primordial role of communicating such a foundation. In doing os, it lays down the foundation for the appreciation of the truth in its specialized forms. I have taken into consideration some fundamental considerations from my article: ‘Charity, Modernity and Anthropological Centrality in Saint Thomas of Villanova’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 41 (2006), 609-632. Cfr. J. Ortega y Gasset, ¿Qué es conocimiento? (Madrid: Alianza, 1987).

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

93

philosophy is a ‘curious adventure’.22 Why is it curious? Because ‘it seeks out the universe. And the universe is something we do not know radically or what we absolutely ignore in its positive content’.23 It means going out into the unknown. Philosophy begins with curiosity. It denotes taking risks. It is tasked ‘to capture the universe, to hunt for the unicorn’.24 In philosophy, we are always students, we are always beginners. Beginners or neophites are always in search: they hunt, they capture eventually they are the ones captured. To be a philosopher is to be a perpetual neophyte. In philosophy, we are always beginners. We are called to become teachers, communicators, mentors because we will always become students of life. Thus, philosophy is a mystagogy, an initation, a leading of the neophyte into the mystery.25 Perennial beginners need an endless and consistent initation in order to initiate others. Philosophy is always a beginning. It is a consistent initiation, not to master or dominate (which Heidegger and those who follow him call ‘thought’ or denken as the perfection or overcoming of philosophy), but to contemplate (theoria, contemplatio): to participate in the Reality contemplated, thus always begins anew, though it begins at dusk, after the owl of Minerva has returned to its master in order to begin a new dawn. Thought aims to reduce the Absolute to the finite and culpable categories of the human spirit, whereas Contemplation seeks to participate in the Absolute in all its fullness, in its transcendence, parting from the spirit’s own finitude and culpability. Spirituality is the call of philosophy to perfect itself. Spirituality can be understood in two levels: a) that of thought or purely academic spirituality and b) that of contemplation or that of lived spirituality. Philosophy, given it is love of wisdom, is the most sublime activity of the spirit in its calling to be spirit in its fullness, in the vocation to possess the Truth. In the same vein, there are two alternatives: that of reducing the truth to one’s cognitive categories (thought) or participating in its fullness (contemplation). Spirituality is the process of consistent initiation. This consistency is what we label as ‘ascesis’ inasmuch as it becomes concrete in acts, exercises, processes, options. This consistency needs to be always concrete in the experiential narrative called history which is the nucleus of what we call ‘life’. By what means? By means of communication. Communication has the finality of making the other correspond to the message so as to attain its dynamic and 22 23 24 25

J. Ortega y Gasset, Obras Completas. Vol. 7 (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 300. Ibid., 308-309. Ibid., 330. Cfr. my study: ‘Possible Relationship between Mystagogy and Philosophy and its Bearing on Theology and Spirituality’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 34 (1999), 219-246; Idem, ‘Distinguir para unir: Algunos presupuestos fundamentales para comprender la relación filosofía-mística’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 62 (2003), 439-468.

94

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

existential effect or finality. It is attunement to the message of the messenger. As Heidegger writes: ‘Philosophia is the expressly accomplished correspondence (Entsprechen) which speaks in so far as it considers the appeal of the Being of being (Sein des Seiendens). The correspondence listens to the voice of the appeal. What appeals to us as the voice of Being (Stimme des Seins) evokes our correspondence. ‘Correspondence’ then means: being determined, être disposé by that which comes from the Being of being’.26 In Spirituality, correspondence is always understood in terms of the communion between the Absolute Self and the finite and culpable self. In this sense, communion necessarily implies a pedagogy wherein there is a conversion of the information about the Mystery into a concrete modality of living and personal assimilation, which in turn is translated into the practical level by means of a gradual process and continous growth on the part of the finite and culpable self, as spirit, in its quest for communion with the Absolute Spirit to take part (participate=methexis or participatio).27 Communication presupposes the existence of the self who communicates. It is also the self who initiates, who leads another self. The self has been the great conquest, the great unicorn, the great universe of modernity. The self of the mystagogue or the initiator, by means of communication, is the self of the mystic or the self as subject of the mystical experience. The mystic, or he (the finite and culpable spirit) who is called to fully participate in the Mystery in the fullness of its transcendence as Absolute Spirit is the subject of a mediation of the Absolute in its transcendence within the same subject’s immanence. But this self is not isolated. It belongs to a community which from an epistemological viewpoint is a community of learners, from a religious standpoint is a community of believers (or worshippers) and from a methodological perspective is a community of readers. The mystic is a person immersed in the Mystery. He does not live in isolation, but in a community. He is a self living with other selves in whose shared universe he lives. This shared universe is what we commonly call ‘world’. It is the venue for communication to build up the essence of community (communio or koinonia). Mysticism is communion characterized by full participation, wherein the whole human person, in its historical immanence, enjoys in participating in the Person of the Absolute, in its transcendence. This participation involves the wholeness being of both man and the Absolute or God, going beyond the totality dictated by ontology and entering into the beyondness of metaphysics, wherein the Mystery remains ineffable and whose Name 26

27

M. Heidegger, What is Philosophy?, transl. W. Kluback & J.T. Wilde (New York: Twayne, 1958), 75-77. F. Ruiz, Caminos del Espiritu. 5th ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1998), 10.

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

95

cannot be pronounced and yet is the very language of man as he partakes of it.28 Participation makes the Absolute and man ‘Spirit’. Spirit is wholeness called to participate, to be in communion, to feel in the wholeness the loving self-giving of each other. Spirit is not just an object of experience, but is the modality of the experience.29 This world is a world of language or the self as a communicative center that becomes concrete in relational structures immersed in the contextual structure called culture. These structures are exclusive and are only meant to those who share the experiential patterns delineated by said structures such that there is a necessity for initiation, for pedagogy (mystes=mystery; agogeo=teaching or leading). From a mystical and mystagogical viewpoint this initiation brings about understanding (as the intellectual status of being initiated) and comprehension (as the criteriological verification of the same intellectual status) into the Mystery. The last paragraphs of A. de Saint-Exupéry’s famous fable The Little Prince drives home this point: Here, then, is a great mystery (un bien grand mystère). For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has – yes or no? – eaten a rose (…) Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes (tout change) (…) And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance (et aucune grande personne ne comprendra jamais que ça a tellement d’importance)!30

In other words, only the initiated would understand! Especially the changes in the self, the growth of the self into the Absolute, which empirical yardsticks and material axiologies cannot measure. Thus it is important to always have a transcendental viewpoint which Saint-Exupery captures with the words: Regardez le ciel (‘look up at the sky’, or ‘look at the sky’).31 The communication on the part of the subject of a mystical experience, the subject of a mediation of the Absolute in its transcendence within the self’s immancne transcends the conventional structures governing language, expression and even experiencing. The most eloquent manifestation of such a communication 28

29

30 31

Cfr. J. Kellenberg, ‘The Ineffabilities of Mysticism’, in: American Philosophical Quarterly 10 (1973), 201-211; C. Appleby, ‘Mysticism and Ineffability’, in: International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 2 (1990), 143-166. X. Pikaza, Experiencia religiosa y cristianismo: Introducción al misterio de Dios (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1981), 448. A. de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, transl. K. Woods (London: Mammoth, 2001), 89. One is reminded of the Augustinian attitude in contemplation, cfr. F. Cayré, La contemplation augustinienne (Paris: Blot, 1927).

96

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

is silence! Silence is not refusal to talk. Silence is returning from the long path to talking and allowing the word to have its plenitude in just mediating beyond conceptualizations. And this notion of silence is signified by the sky with the solitary star which Saint-Exupéry, reflecting the nostalgia for the Absolute given its absence, its disappearance back into the sky like the Little Prince, is le plus beau et le plus triste paysage du monde (‘the most beautiful and saddest landscape in the world’). Ortega y Gasset did not mince words in his criticism of the mystics because of their silence before the mystery and yet acknowledged that they were the greatest writers in Spanish literature.32 Mysticism is the most eloquent testimony of the struggle to make the experience speak in its transcendence. It is ineffable because of the mediation of the transcendental in the immanence of human experience and language. This brings about the task of mystagogy: to bear witness by teaching (by communicating) the power of the Word of the Mystery over the limitations expressed in silence without the intention of annihilating this silence, but to make it speak in its depths even going against or beyond linguistic convention. Mystagogy expresses the power of the self not simply as a subject of the experience, but as a sharer of the experience. The perfection of the experience or mediation of the Absolute in its transcendence within the immanence of human finitude and culpability does not consist in the establishment of the self as subject of the experience, but in the establishment of the self as the sharer of the experience. Sharing is what makes mysticism latent in all of us.33 Plato’s classic allegory of the cave in Book VII of the Republic captures the mystagogical nature of philosophy. The philosopher who escapes from the hold of the deceitful images, struggles with the comfort of the darkness and enters into his own ‘dark night’, the bright light of the fullness of truth, which for Plato is the agathon or good. This dark night establishes him as a subject of the experience. Yet the philosopher returns to the darkness. He must go back to the darkness. There is no other alternative! He returns to the darkness to share his illumination though his fellow human beings do not wish to listen to him even to the extent of opting to assassinate the liberator. The darkness is the world or the shared universe. The brightness was the universe to be conquered. It was too bright, thus it was too dark at first for the philosopher. No words were enough 32

33

See his famous essay: ‘Defensa del teólogo frente al místico’, in: Obras Completas. Vol. 5 (Madrid: Alianza, 1987). H. Bergson speaks of a mystical element latent in all of us, ‘Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion’, in: Oeuvres (Paris: Centenaire, 1959), 1059-1060.

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

97

to speak of the brightness, but there was a communicative act, starting with the return to the darkness. If the philosopher were able to lead his fellow men to the light, he would not have only expanded their world into the unknown, but would have also made his fellow men transcend their finitude and culpability and become subjects of the experience themselves. This transcending or metaphysical movement, going beyond the conditionality of finitude and culpability which establishes the human subject vis-à-vis the Absolute, is the movement of spirituality. Adopting Levinas’s terms with caution in this context, it entails going beyond the totality of ontology and entering into first philosophy (or metaphysics) in the Infinite.34 In the mystagogical vocation, within the context of the development of philosophy as a spirituality, we find the purpose of philosophy within this postmetaphysical or even postphilosophical era, wherein all foundations have disappeared. Philosophy must rediscover its ancient vocation to lay the foundations for our comprehension of reality. Comprehension, especially in the light of the Absolute made present as Mystery, always takes place in a linguistic activity.35 But this reality has to be experienced in its transcendence within our immanence, especially in the Ultimate or Absolute degree. Doubtless, this implies a return to what is hidden. It is a return to the darkness. It is hidden from the superficial viewpoint of our finite and culpable condition. It is hidden but it is present. This presence establishes the Absolute as Mystery. Its hiddenness is its dimension of transcendence from the viewpoint of our finitude and culpability, which is the inevitable starting point that must be overcome. To overcome this obstacle, which is the inevitable point of departure, we (the philosopher) must transcend, make a metaphysical move within ourselves, by discovering within ourselves our metaphysical vocation as philosophers, as men of the Spirit. This is where spirituality comes in. In the wake of the so-called postmodern downfall of systematic philosophy, which is the crowning glory of the Hegelian Englighnment with the Cartesian vision of the self asserting its existence passing through the Kantian refinenment of the self in the level of action from transcendental deduction, it is possible to do philosophy, to affirm the truth, not as something to be conquered but as a Mystery ever present in its transcendence within our immanence, which Spinoza claims is contingent: ‘The essence of man does not involve necessary existence; that is, from the order of Nature it is equally possible that a certain man exists or does not exist’.36 In this presence, 34 35

36

Cfr. E. Levinas, Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’Exteriorité (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1961). Cfr. G.L. Hallet, ‘Mistica e filosofia linguistica’, in: Several Authors, Mistica e misticismo oggi (Rome: Settimana di Studio di Lucca, 1979). B. Spinoza, The Ethics, transl. S. Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1982), 64.

98

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

it is a Mystery not just to be experienced (or to be converted into a mere object of experience), but it is Mystery in which and by which we experience, in which we are mediated to be realities possessing the quality of being real. Far from digging the grave of philosophy, we announce its immortality in mystagogy: in the vocation of leading others to the truth, to communicate the truth as Mystery and not reductible to empirical or idealist or abstract standards. The Mystery goes beyond the Husserlian guarantee of the cewrtainty of the existence of God parallel to the same guarantee of subjectivity in the existence of the Cartesian cogito.37 Mysticism, in its rootedness in the Mystery, and in its dynamism as Spirituality, is the announcement of the new life of philosophy. It is a new life in the sense that it announces a new transparency, that is above all experiential (experience as mediation of the Real as Reality and of Reality as the Real) in a semantic, reflective and existential level. This means that philosophy has a new semantics as a way of the spirit. Philosophy is reflective since it calls upon the self as the protagonist of such a way in which the self grows and sees itself consciously and in a relational manner with itself and the Absolute and this takes place in the existential or lived level and not just in speculative projections or utopias. This existential level seeks to transform being there (dasein or existence) into being there for and with someone and with a purpose, and not just being thrown into the ontological arena. in view of the Absolute who is experienced and given as God, who is Truth in his Absoluteness and Love in His Givenness and Giving, which for Christians is the Trinity of Persons. In view of this, there is no superficial transparency and openness, as in the traditional phenomenological notion or going up the surface like an iceberg (as expounded, for example by Ortega), but a deeper initiation into the Mystery, which in effect ceases from being a mode of knowledge or a mode of being, but the mode of experiencing for being real and reality participating in the Supreme Real and Reality. Spirituality is not simply understanding the Mystery, which is impossible but exposure to it, immersing into it in order to participate in its transcendence. This participation is the effectiveness of the experiential communication of the Mystery which in turn must be communicated as a concrete, contextualized way which we come to know as a specific spirituality (depending on the context, school, style, period, etc.), within a specific community, where experiencing always takes place, where mediation mediates itself, by which we come to define spirituality in general. Philosophy as phenomenology advocated the attainment of truth (knowledge) from the depths to the surface. Philosophy, rooted in the Mystery, speaks of not 37

Cfr. E. Husserl, Méditations cartésiennes (Paris: Collin, 1931).

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

99

just an attainment of truth (knowledge), but communion with the Truth in itself, in its source by means of initiation. This initiation is attained through communication. The Truth is the very transcendence of the Mystery in its accessibility in the mediation of experience into the context of human immanence in its finite and culpable historicity. The truth, as proclaimed by philosophia (love of wisdom) as Mystery is living, vibrant and dynamic. It is mediation in itself. It is experience in itself that mediates the distance between transcendence in itself and human immanence in its finite and culpable historicity. This truth in its sublimity experientially contextualizes itself and makes itself concrete in the matrix which we call concrete or the human cultivation of truth within a specific context. Thus, in its mediating self (in its opening to man’s finite and culpable historicity), the truth opens up a way of experience, which is circumstantial in presentation and which is realized, concretely lived out as spirituality (wisdom of love), creating a new situation of growth, which is spirituality, the way of the spirit. It is a way that does not only settle in the way in itself (Erfahrung), but in the communion with the Absolute in itself from the experiential vantage point of a finite and culpable historicity. Mystagogy is the communication of this way, with a view to initiate into this way. And the fullness of this initiation is not absolute knowledge, but participation (taking part of the Absolute which freely and lovingly shares itself, mediates itself, allows itself to be experienced) in communion (union with a common denominator: love). Philosophy, in this light, has to rediscover its real focus of study: the presence of the Absolute in its transcendence in the experientially contextual immanence of the human self in its finite and culpable historicity. This presence or meeting point is what we term as Mystery. Mystagogy is speaking, communicating about this Mystery with a view to initiation into it. The true love of wisdom consists in grasping this Truth, the Truth of the Mystery, the Truth of the presence of the Absolute in the experience of man, making this very presence experience in itself. Language and Modernity – Communication as Medium38 The question of the self is necessarily a question of communication. The self is a personal history, an incarnate experiential narrative called to communicate (modality of mystagogy) this same narrative in order to initiate (immediate 38

Cfr. G. Cosée de Maulde, ‘Analyse linguistique et langage religieux’, in: Nouvelle Revue Théologique 91 (1969), 168-202; J. Ladrière, ‘Langage des spirituels’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualitè. Vol. 9, 204-217; G. Pattaro, ‘Il linguaggio mistico’, in: Several Authors, La mistica: Fenomenologia e riflessione teologica. Vol. 2 (Rome: Città Nuova, 1984), 483-506; M. de Certeau, La fable mystique, XVIe-XVIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard), 1982.

100

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

finality of mystagogy) other subjects, within the same community (which may expand as worlds expand or are conquered from the universe), towards Communion with the Absolute (ultimate finality of mystagogy). The self is an incarnate will39 to communicate, to say: not just to express itself but to make others participate in the experience, in the mediation behind the communication. In doing so, the self makes use of fabulation or creation of images, techniques, analogies, comparisons, etc. This reveals the openness of the self towards the community of learners, believers and readers, which has its roots in his openness as subject of the Communion with the Absolute. Openness, in these two paths, shows the originary attitude of man towards Reality: his own reality, his surrounding reality and towards the Absolute Reality first understood axiologically or as values. The path is metaphysical since it goes towards the Absolute. However, the origin in itself of this openness is metaphysical, it is a transcendental vocation, a spiritual calling: incarnated in the self as incarnate spirit in search of the Absolute creating a path for this search, which we all call spirituality. This incarnation has taken place in different contexts and milieus. Incarnation necessarily means pluralism. The experience of the Absolute inevitably is incaranted in pluralism.40 Communication takes on an ontological component in its exercise with the finality not of self-expression (which is the ontological frustration of ending up with the Being of beings assuming that beings cannot express their ‘being’ and thus the need to articulate), but in making others take part (participare) in the same experienced Mystery (the perfection of ontology in metaphysics or the perfection of the division of aesthetics and mysticism in the unitary vision of spirituality). In the above-mentioned ontological component, there is a variety involved made concrete in the variety of resources, schools, methods, images (which history has registered as the differences between movements, schools and systems of spirituality). Communication and Groundedness in the Mystery – Spirituality and Metaphysicalty However, the very root of the mystagogical vocation, in its spiritual and mystical context and realization, is creativity. Spirituality, through or as communication, makes others participate in this originary creativity by a creative act of initiation with language as the tool. 39

40

Cfr. G. Lakoff & M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999). Cfr. the interesting reflections of D. Tracy & J. Cobb, Talking About God: Doing Theology in the Context of Modern Pluralism (New York: Seabury, 1983).

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE AND SPIRIT

101

Language is not only the tool of the self, but is the very constitution of the self in terms of experientiability. It attains its purpose only in communication. In the light of the foregoing, communication is only a means, never the end in itself. Spirituality is the very process of communication. It is the dynamicity of the act of the self as subject of the experience or mediation of the Absolute in its transcendence within his immanence. Spirituality is the weaving of the experiential narrative having recourse to communication, thus transfering the experience to the text: to the status of the experience in its authentification. Authentification is only a criteriological moment with the aim of making explicit the purposefulness of the status of the self as subject of the experience. The growth of the self into what Hegel would call ‘absolute knowledge’ or what we may term in our study of spirituality as ‘communion with the self’ is not solipsistic. Solipsism or the absolutization of the constitution of the self as subject of the experience would mean the destruction of the self. To correct this, another means or medium is needed: communication. Communication does not aim at absolute knowledge, but communion. Absolute knowledge is the reduction of experience as a mere path. Communication highlights experience as mediation, sharing, participation of the finite in the Infinite through the loving generosity of the latter. Communication makes experience the event in itself and not just a process or journey (Erfahrung) to Absolute knowledge. Communication is growth from solipsism into communion (koinonia). Communication is the very process or journey. Communication is the very growth. It is an experiential growth, process or journey. Experience is not just a journey (Erfahrung). It is above all communion (koinonia). In communion, there is joy, profound feeling or experience (which the Spanish mystics called ‘sentir’) and not just knowledge of something or someone, as if it were a data or something accumulative, as it came to be in the long history of philosophy, wherein some, since the times of the Greeks, have notably reduced experience to sense data (empereia). Further Projections – Spiritualitas and the Constant Call to Reinterpret it as Communication Spiritualitas concerns itself with matters of the spirit, which is a self, the finite and culpable self in its quest for transformation and ultimately communion with the Absolute Self. It is the science (Wissenschaft) of the spirit par excellence! Moreover, Spiritualitas, given that it concerns itself with matters of the spirit, denotes the dynamicity of the spirit, primarily of the Absolute Self, in its complete transcendence, i.e., its metaphysiciality, in its invitation to the finite and

102

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

culpable self. Consequently, it also refers to the dynamicity of the finite and culpable self in its response to such an invitation. The response to such an invitation constitutes the finite and culpable self as spirit, geared towards communion with the Spirit in itself, in terms of loving participation. The invitation and response necessarily make an experiential projection, which is necessarily metaphsyical because it aimis towards communion with the transcendental. This projection reveals both selves to be spirits and consequently, an avenue of realization is opened. This realization is rooted in the nature (essence) of the protagonists: the selves mutually opening up as spirits. Thus the realization is spiritual. In other words, its perfection is spiritual in nature. Communication, in the light of the discussion above, is spiritual in nature (because of its essence) and metaphysical in projection (therefore, philosophical).41 Spirituality finds its fulfillment in communication, in mystagogy. Communication is the opening up of spirituality in terms of initiation, in terms of mystagogy. It is initiation into the metaphysical transcendence and the immanence of mystery, brought together in the life of the spirit (spiritualitas) which is the life of the love of wisdom (philosophia) which necessarily has to be communicated by means of initiation (mystagogia). Only then can the spirit of life be shared and that the wisdom of love be realized. Communication thus becomes the primary epistemological category to live spirituality (lived spirituality) and to define it in academe (studied spirituality). Communication is a process of the ego to become a self in order to become spirit. The only goal of the spirit is communion through the process of Spirituality. This is an interpreting process, a process of doing hermeneutics, which presupposes, reading, on the relationship between the finite and culpable self with the Absolute Self in a process of mutual self-opening and self-giving which is initiation and communication in mutual sharing or communicating or thinking together and for the other.

41

We may even add that because it has a metaphysical (or philosophical) projection, communication is metaphysical in its roots, in its basis, in its starting point, in its vocation which grows as a response or projection towards the transcendent.

CHAPTER SEVEN MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS ‘Outside it was a lovely, cool, sub-tropical winter day and the palm branches were sawing in the light north wind. Some winter people rode by the house on bicycles. They were laughing. In the big yard of the house across the street a peacock squawked’. (E. Hemingway, To Have and Have Not)

The first premise of this exploration1 is that mystical texts are spiritual texts. They are products of the author’s and his community’s attempts to live the life of the Spirit. Though the relationship between spirituality and mystical texts has yet to be scientifically elaborated, there can be no doubt that the processes involved in living as a Spirit, that is, man as transcending towards the Absolute as existential goal involves experiential moments which are interpreted in terms of mystery, given the transcendence of spirituality as life of the Spirit. Spirituality goes beyond what is superficial, immediate and readily grasped and necessarily must plunge itself into the mystery, not only as aim or end but as the very source or fountainhead of the spiritual endeavor. ‘Spirituality has its origin from the lived and personal mystery and would lead to it in a renewed manner’.2 Spirit is man at his best. Spirit expresses the summit of man’s reality, in its processes of being and in the attainment of the goals of its existence. Spirit is not only man’s immaterial dimension, but it is man’s integrating dimension. Spirit, as a term and concept, condenses the essence of man as he travels towards his transcendental aim in existence transforming this existence into life, into an existence with meaning. Mysticism is intimate and authentic rootedness in the transcendental mystery which we deem as the Absolute. The Christian tradition views the Absolute in relational or personalistic and trinitarian terms from the mediation of Jesus 1

2

Our study primarily involves philosophy inasmuch as we want to contextualize our discussion within the rational sphere; and literature, particularly literary theory and criticism, inasmuch as we deal with texts of perennial humanistic and even aesthetic value (the mystical texts) and it is our aim to formulate principles of interpretation, appreciation. F. Ruiz, Espiritualidad sistemática (Madrid: Instituto de Espiritualidad a Distancia, 1995), 39.

104

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Christ, true God and true Man. The mystery consists in the immanent presence, through the embodiment of the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus Christ, of the transcendental mystery of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.3 Mystery is transcendental presence in immanence made possible through embodiment, which in the case of Jesus Christ, is incarnation. It is not only the case of the word taking flesh, but the event becomes theophanic4 and is, therefore, in effect a revelation. Other theistic and monotheistic traditions (Judaism and Islam) though they do not accept Jesus Christ as God and Man affirm the presence of the Personal Absolute in its transcendence in the immanence of human history. This is what mystery is for them. Other traditions, while denying the personality in the Absolute, affirm its presence and its attainability.5 Mysticism is life according to this presence. It is the opportunity for man to fulfill himself as spirit. Spirituality proceeds from this attainability. It involves processes and their dynamics based on this attainability. Mysticism qualifies this attainability and its processes and dynamics in terms of the mystery. Often this qualification is reduced to a qualification in terms of the goal or end. This is a reductionist if not a mistaken view, since the Absolute in its presence as the mystery permeates the whole process as its foundation, beginning, quality all the way to its attainment described often in terms of union, communion and participation.6 However, methodologically and heuristically, spirituality, as an 3

4

5

6

For a succinct presentation of the Trinity in the Christian spiritual life, one can rely on the studies presented from a carmelite perspective in the collective volume: In comunione con la trinità (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000). Basque professor X. Pikaza highlights the theophanic dimension in Dios judío, Dios cristiano (Estella: Verbo Divino, 1996). Said presence and attainability is possible through meditation. This activity links the personal object of the great theistic traditions (philosophically developed along Western lines, especially in the case of Christianity) and of traditions that deny such personality, especially Buddhism. See for example: C. Humphreys, Concentration and Meditiation: A Manual of Mind Development (Baltimore: Penguin, 1974); W. Johnston, Silent Music: The Science of Meditation (New York: Harper & Row, 1979); D.T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (London/ Sydney/ Wellington: Unwin, 1988). In all religious traditions, the culmination of all religious experiences, which are mystical in nature, takes place as union and communion. But not all religious traditions accept the notion of participation in such a culminating experience. For example, there is no participation in the nihilistic state of Nirvana in Buddhism or in the union of Atman-Brahman. Cf. P. Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads (New York: Dover, 1966); Sadananda Bhaduri, Studies in Nyaya-vaishesika Metaphysics (Calcutta: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1975); C. Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1962; C. Garma & C. Chang, The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972); D. Kaluphana, Buddhist Philosophy (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1976); F. Muller (transl.), The Upanishads: Part I and II (New York: Dover, 1951); R. Sarvepalli, The Hindu Way of Life (New York: Macmillan, 1971); S. Prathavananda & C. Isherwood, Shankara: The Crest

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

105

academic discipline and as a science, necessarily includes mysticism within its thematic fold.7 Text, Spirit and Mysticism – The Question of Spirituality in the Academe through Mystical Texts A text is mystical because its criteriology is deeply rooted in the mystery and it is spiritual at the same time given that it deals with the processes, dynamics and adventures involved in living the life of the Spirit. Though, more often than not, the adjective ‘mystical’ sticks to the text because it reflects manifestations of the immanence of the transcendental in the person (the so-called mystical phenomena) and because of the dominance of the goal of union, communion, participation. Given this conventionalism, mystical texts (which are also spiritual) have been accorded a special place in the emerging scientific discipline of ‘spirituality’ which is sometimes still equated with mysticism, which is not a scientific discipline but is a science of a different sort or of a supernatural epistemology. More often than not, mysticism is placed under the umbrella discipline of spirituality inasmuch as it is an area of spirituality as an academic discipline or science, with a natural epistemology. In this sense, mysticism is either seen as a phenomena within spirituality (identified with the so-called mystical phenomena) or as the criteria that underlies all forms and types of spirituality (especially in terms of being the end or goal of spirituality).

7

Jewel of Discrimination (New York: Mentor, 1947); E. Stevens, Oriental Mysticism: An Introduction (New York: Paulist Press, 1973). This is due to the fact that the notion of duality or the retention of individuality is eliminated. The Christian tradition, which is the context of our present reflections, insists on the duality and distinction between the Absolute and man, between Creator and creature, between the Infinite and finite. This distinction takes on a special twist in the Mystery of the Incarnation wherein God becomes generously condescending with man by assuming the finitude of human nature but not the culpability of man. In a broader context, Christianity must be viewed as a theistic tradition that affirms that the Absolute does not only have a personal relationship with man, but is also a personal reality (or a person). This personal notion of man occupies the center of philosophical discussion of God or Natural Theology, which has developed within a generally theistic framework. See for example the excellent survey and discussion of E. Coreth, Gott im philosophischen Denken (Stuttgart/ Berlin/ Köln: Kohlhammer, 2001). This is what Dutch scholar K. Waaijman has intended to do. He speaks of the elements and components of spirituality as a broad science in terms of research areas and places mysticism, as a research area, within the broader epistemological spectrum of spirituality and from mysticism, the research area of mystagogy seems to be derived. Cf. Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, transl. J. Vriend (Louvain: Peeters, 2002). Also: A. Matanic, La spiritualità come scienza: Introduzione metodologica allo studio della vita spirituale cristiana (Alba/ Roma: Paoline, 1990).

106

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

In the light of all these, it is our wish to postulate mystical (or spiritual) texts as sources for spirituality. The spiritual or mystical text is testimony that man can live as spirit. To find oneself in front of the mystical text is to understand oneself as spirit. Said texts are not only merely sources or references. They are primary sources for study and research with the aim of establishing spirituality as an academic discipline and respectable science, with a concise demarcation, cogent and intelligible definition and defined borders, tasks and points of departure for interdisciplinary undertakings. They are primordial testimonies and pristine teachings on the life of the Spirit, with the sacred books and traditions of the particular religious traditions as principal references for such testimonies and teachings (like the Bible for Judaism (Torah and Old Testament) and Christianity (Old and New Testaments), the Koran for Islam, the Vedas and Upanishads for Hinduism, the Sermon at Benares and the Buddhist Sutras for the Buddhists, the Dao De Jing for the Daoists, etc. Spirituality and Mysticism occur within the framework of the religious question:8 the question of man rereading (relegere) his existence in order to give it meaning and with the aim of binding himself to this question in order to relink himself to the fountainhead of existence and meaning (religare).9 Exposure to the spiritual/mystical text, through reading, is to receive a wider and more sublime notion of the self. Said exposure offers to man a truly appropriate response to the this lived world we find ourselves in. Said text offers a world narrated, in time and history, that speaks of the fulfillment of human existence in the Absolute in terms of participation brought about by union and communion. Said text becomes an authoritative bearer of a world understood in these terms. Such terms have become the criteria of fulfillment of the so-called diverse religious traditions. This world depicted by the spiritual/mystical texts, making use symbols, metaphors and other linguistic tools and resources, is a history which we can qualify as history of salvation highlighted not only by the attainment of salvation in terms of union and communion and participation of finite man with the Absolute, but also in terms of the processes, dynamics, difficulties and demands. A complete history or depiction of a world does not only focus on the reward, but also on the efforts. The latter make up the bulk of such histories and depictions. Thus, ascesis (efforts, exercise) make up the bulk of spiritual/ 8 9

Cf. S. Katz, Mysticism and Religious Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). O. Steggink contends that Mysticism is the religious moment of Spirituality. See: ‘Study in Spirituality in Retrospect: Shifts in Methodological Approach’, in: Studies in Spirituality 1 (1991), 22. This affirmation may bring about problems. Mysticism, understood especially in terms of phenomena, are part of the domain of religion and Religious Studies. Mysticism and Spirituality in essence are elements of the religious quest and hence fall under the area of Religious Studies. It would be better to state that mysticism highlights or emphasizes the roots of the religious nature (or moment) of Spirituality. This matter calls for further reflection.

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

107

mystical texts. The reward for ascesis is generically called mysticism and consists in the state of union and communion.10 Texts, doubtless, play a primordial role in establishing the religious tradition as a religious community. Within said community, arise various spiritualities or schools of spirituality or schools of living out the essence and dynamics of the tradition. These spiritualities, more often than not are schools and community, have produced their own texts to be viewed within the primary texts (or Sacred Texts) of the religious tradition (the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc.) These texts produced by the schools or communities within the larger mainstream religious community are what we call spiritual texts, which may be autobiographical (such as the Confessions of St. Augustine), rules or regulations (the Rule of St. Benedict), instructional (such as St. Ignatius’s Exercises), methodological (such as Francisco de Osuna’s Tercer Abecedario or Luis de Granada’s Summa), historical (such as St. Teresa of Avila’s Foundations), etc. Given the aforementioned role of mystical texts in the establishment of Spirituality as a member of the academe,11 interpretation is an important key, though not the only one, in the enterprise of establishing Spirituality as a scientific discipline. In this light, the hermeneutical question defines Spirituality as a task not only in order to elaborate its proper contents, but to establish it as a partner in the academe. Spirituality as a science is interpretation of the relationship between man and the Absolute and the purpose of such relationship is the participation of man in the Absolute, which is, strictly speaking, the area of mysticism. This interpretation entails discipline, commitment and above all creativity within the situation. Thus, Spirituality is also an art. To be spirit, one has to read, interpret, live the relationship. The texts provide a basis and cornerstone for such a relationship beyond the confines of the written page and into the discipline, commitment and creativity of life itself in the world beyond the text, which the very same text depicts from the viewpoint of relationality with the Absolute. Accordingly, we can highlight the importance of the science and art of discipline, commitment and creativity in the academic establishment of a science and 10

11

However, such mode of classification is to be used with caution for it may undermine or totally annul the unity of the spiritual life, cf. J. González Arintero, Evolución mística (Salamanca: San Esteban, 1989). The unity and division of the spiritual life has been a polemical question involving the Dominican and the Carmelite traditions. For an excellent survey and theological interpretation this work, originally published in 1971, remains a classic: C. García, Teología espiritual contemporánea: Corrientes y perspectivas (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2002), 15-221. Cf. especially, S. Schneiders, ‘Spirituality in the Academy’, in: Theological Studies 50 (1989), 676-697; B. McGinn, ‘The Letter and the Spirit: Spirituality as an Academic Discipline’, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1 (1993), 1-10. From another perspective, see A. Guerra, ‘Teología espiritual, una ciencia no identificada’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 39 (1980), 335-414.

108

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

art. However, to take interpretation in itself as the elaboration of the contents of Spirituality, centered on mystical texts, would entail a highly specialized work.12 Our aims in the present article are much modest. Above all, we aim to lay down the foundations of the hermeneutics (interpretation) of mystical texts as a model type of hermeneutics and to discuss specific questions in the religious language employed in mystical texts, within the context of the dynamics of spirituality. The elucidation and elaboration of the principles of hermeneutics, based on the hermeneutics of spiritual/mystical texts, is necessarily beyond the scope of this introductory and exploratory essay. For methodological purposes, we have qualified said religious language as mystagogical13 in nature. Mystagogy represents the fulfillment not only of the experience, but the very constitutionality of the spiritual/mystical texts. All description, interpretation and ordering of experience and phenomena converge in the fundamental and core mystagogical intent of the spiritual/mystical text.

The Hermeneutics of Mystical Texts as Paradigmatic Hermeneutics We are interested in hermeneutics and religious language. The language in mystical texts is certainly religious: it is a rereading of man’s existence in search of meaning and has a binding aim of relinking man with the Absolute. In spirituality and mysticism, the Absolute is the principal referent for meaning – in terms of being the giver of meaning –, but does not monopolize meaning. The Absolute allows a sharing or participation on the part of finite and culpable rationality (man). This act of sharing or allowing participation is an act of giving, which entails an act of receiving (on the part of man). The relationship thus between man and the Absolute, in terms of meaning, is the very dynamics and process of the reference of meaning. This relationship occupies the center of the hermeneutics of spiritual/mystical texts. Neither the Absolute nor the person (as mystic) is the center of the hermeneutical venture applied to mystical texts, but rather the dynamic relationship between the two. Thus, the danger of polarization, brought about by any pretension of exclusivity or excessive attention getting, is an impossibility. Hence, the hermeneutics of spiritual/mystical texts proposes a model for hermeneutics: a model based on relationality, which proceeds from 12 13

As of this writing, we are in the process of elaborating a monograph along these lines. In these reflections, primarily we will make use of the notion of mystagogy as communication with the aim of setting the foundation for initiation. Cf. M.A. Schreiber, ‘Mistagogia: Comunicazione e vita spirituale’, in: Ephemerides Carmeliticae 28 (1977), 125-441; L. Borriello, ‘Note sulla mistagogia o dell’introduzione all’esperienza di Dio’, in: Ephemerides Carmeliticae 32 (1981), 35-89.

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

109

the principle or beginning of the relationship (the Absolute) to the receiver (man). Notwithstanding, it does not end with man per se, but rather there is a devolution, a return to the Absolute thus creating a hermeneutical circle of reciprocity, wherein meaning is not the monopoly of any pole or sector, but is shared in terms of relationality, thus establishing the hermeneutics of spiritual/ mystical texts in terms of encounter, i.e., as an hermeneutical venture of encounter or the process that leads to the definitive encounter, exceeding the intellectual or literary level of the text and entering the existential and truly experiential dimension. Hermeneutics as a discipline began with the exegesis, the interpretation of the most well-known sacred text: the Bible. Hermeneutics as we all know it today is inspired in biblical exegesis.14 Hermeneutics is not just exegesis or the practice of interpreting. It is first of all hermeneutical or the theory of interpreting. It is our aim, therefore, to expound on hermeneutics as something appropriate for mystical texts, given its historical link to the art of understanding and interpreting the Sacred Scriptures.15 Sacred Scriptures are the concrete texts of the encounter between the Absolute and the people (community and tradition). This is the essence of the religious pretension of rereading in terms of relinking. In its very origin, hermeneutics was religious. It centered on the rereading of man’s existence in terms of man’s relinking quest for the Absolute. Such a quest brought about a dynamic process of meaning, wherein meaning was shared in a relational form within the context of encounter. This religious dimension and origin of hermeneutics has yet to be explored in order to fully understand this science and art of interpretation, especially of texts, wherein the two worlds of the reader and text meet, eventually producing a third world: the world of the text itself. The world of the text becomes the product of the encounter, the very dynamic and process sharing of meaning in terms of reciprocity and not in terms of polarity or solitariness. This certainly sheds light on hermeneutics in itself. Interpretation is deeply rooted in man’s religious quest, i.e., in man’s rereading of his existence in search of meaning and in terms of binding himself with the Absolute thus, relinking himself. The mystical texts on this hand shed a lot of light on the hermeneutical enterprise in itself. Thus, the mystical texts shed light on the hermeneutical activity establishing it as an act of rereading vis-à-vis the Absolute in terms of union 14

15

See the masterful survey of R. Brown & S. Schneiders, ‘Hermeneutics’, in: R. Brown, J. Fitzmeyer et al. (Eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (London: Chapman, 1998), 1146-1165. Hermeneutics, at this point, is taken in the broadest sense. However, it has to be always noted that its recent development has been within the realm of philosophy, and is taken to be a specific philosophical school or movement. Cf. J. Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, transl. J. Weinsheimer (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 1994), 2-25.

110

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

and communion, in terms of participation. This is the first ‘movement’ to be established in studying the relationship between hermeneutics and mystical texts. In this sense, the hermeneutics of mystical texts becomes a paradigm for understanding the hermeneutical enterprise. The reading of texts in itself is an act of encounter. The spiritual/mystical texts highlight this very same act of encounter in a very special way: in terms of the Absolute, in terms of what we may label as ‘participational relationality’. This could be a potential contribution of the sector of the hermeneutics of spiritual/mystical texts, given its religious rootedness (especially on the aspect of religare as aim and relegere as the primordial act of encounter in reading towards religare) to the total discipline or area of hermeneutics in itself. The Reading of Mystical Texts and the Possible Worlds of Transformation – Appropiation, Community of Readers and Traditions The world of the mystic is the same world where ordinary humans live. The only difference is that the world of the mystic is seen from the eyes of participation in the transcendent in its immanent presence as the mystery from which all experience flows. The world is a confluence of experiences. As a confluence of experiences, the world is the mediation of reality in order to be real. It is in effect, the real order as mediated into experiences that converge establishing what is called life, which is not isolated but always communitarian and intersubjective, open always to relationship. Thus, experience is not only to be understood in empirical or positivistic terms no matter the gnoseological elevation of the same as data for rational knowledge. In the case of mysticism, the reduction of experience to its empirical and positivistic sense, prevalent especially in gnoseology, would mean the long standing confusion of mystical phenomena with mysticism in its very essence. Experience in the sense of mediation as mentioned can be termed as ‘metaphysical’. This is the case that applies in spirituality and mysticism.16 The experiences of a mystic-who necessarily belongs to a community of intersubjectivies in spite of his circumstantial isolation (as a monk, hermit and the like such as Zhuang Zi, Thomas Merton, John Main, etc.) –, sometimes accompanied by extraordinary psychological and pathological phenomena, are experiences that take place in the world wherein the mystery becomes a lived process or lived experience (erlebnis) in the same world. Such experiences are living testimonies and teaching of the mediation of the real as reality and this real that mediates 16

See my programmatic and introductory work: Experience, Reality and Beauty: From the Aesthetics of Ontology to the Mystagogy of Art in Metaphysics (Manila: University of Santo Tomás, 2002).

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

111

itself in the world is the very same Absolute in its opening towards union, communion qualified as participation, wherein the mystic takes part (participates) in the whole of the Absolute in the state of union and communion. This experienced, lived within the experiential bounds of the mystery, constitutes itself as such, in all objectivity and with universal pretensions, in terms of language, in terms of discursivity that is fixed with the production of the text, specifically of the written text. As Ricœur writes: ‘A text is any discourse fixed by writing’.17 The written text is the recognized (intersubjective dimension) and concrete (interobjective dimension) bearer of the mystic’s experience taking place within the confluence of experiences which is the world. In terms of ownership, the experience in the text pertains to the author. In terms of appropriation, the experience of the text belongs to the reader. In terms of structural and discursive rights, the text owns the experience inasmuch as it is a discourse in itself and this ownership is the very textual structure in itself. Appropriation here is to be understood as the right to interpret and assimilate the experience through the funnel of the experiential mediation of the text. Especially in the case of the mystical texts, the question of appropriation is important since taking possession of the experience and its existential application is the aim of the mystical text.18 Mystical texts possess a special discursivity that is not exclusive, but is universal and communitarian-true to its participational relationality in terms of its reference of meaning. This universality and communitarian nature is especially made concrete by the religious tradition which from the viewpoint of literary theory and criticism is the community of readers. The special discursivity affirms the community of readers which produces the text and strengthens it and expands it even beyond its traditional borders. And this expansion becomes 17

18

P. Ricœur, ‘What is a Text? Explanation and Understanding’, in: Idem, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, ed. J. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 145. This definition of Ricœur is limited to the literary (writing). In fact, any discourse that is fixed and with the quality of permanence for future reference and study is a text. Any piece of civilization is a text. We methodologically adopt this Ricœurian definition for the purpose of limiting ourselves to the mystical texts from a literary angle. For a suggestive, though dense and difficult, reflection on discursivity, see: M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language, transl. A.M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon, 1971). Appropriation is to be understood in the present study as the right to take possession and the effectivity of such right in the very action in itself. Cf. P. Ricœur, ‘Appropriation’, in: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, 182-193. Ricœur also speaks of the ‘relinquishment of the self’ in appropriation. This deserves further reflection which cannot be done as of the present. What is important is that we can affirm that ‘as appropriation, the interpretation becomes an event’, ibid., 185. However, it would be necessary to go beyond the act of textual interpretation per se in the long run, especially in the existential level and even in the production of a new mystical text.

112

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

especially true in the establishment of the same spiritual/mystical text, produced within the context of a specific community of readers (defined traditionally as a religious tradition) in literature. We can cite, for example, the case of the Inner Chapters of Zhuang Zi, produced in an early phase of Daoism as a religious tradition or community of readers. This very same community is expanded beyond the traditional borders defined primarily by traditions in readers such as the Catholic monk and mystic Thomas Merton in the twentieth century.19 Another example, would be the great spiritual immersion into Hinduism of Westerners and Christians such as Monchanin, Le Saux, Pannikar and Griffiths.20 Literature (or the literary in its act of establishing the written letter) is the establishment of a significant and select experience in its written discursivity. This is the foundational principle of the universal and humanitarian appeal of literature as an art form, with its aesthetic appeal that reflects human life as we know it, with its forms, symbols and literary or metaphorical recourses. Literature is the vehicle not only of the production of the community of readers as a reading community in order to be defined traditionally (or that which is passed on or institutionalized with historical permanence and stability as its primary purpose with the ultimate aim of creating a specified system or as a particular culture and civilization).21 It is furthermore the vehicle of the expansion of the 19

20

21

Cf. T. Merton (transl.), The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965). See also my study: ‘Lessons on Spirituality from Zhuang Zi: Dichotomies and beyond Dichotomies between Man and Nature’, in: Studies in Spirituality 10 (2000), 66-76. See the useful study and survey of S. Calza, La contemplazione: Via privilegiata al dialogo Cristiano-Induista. Sulle orme di J. Monchanin, H. Le Saux, R. Pannikar e B. Griffths (Milan: Paoline, 2001). Tradition, coming from the Latin ‘tradere’ (to bring) is transmission with the aim of historical permanence and stability. Thus it is an enterprise in the name of sameness amidst the challenges of historical transitions and change. A system establishes the tradition as the end in itself, especially as a criteria amidst historical challenges. The dogma is its most cogent and closed linguistic formulation. A system brings together thought and language in the name of permanence and stability in order to promote sameness or link with the founding past amidst the challenges of the present with a view to survival in the future. All this is a question of culture or that which man cultivates to answer to his most noble aspirations of survival and self-fulfillment as a rational being and civilization or the concrete proofs or tangible historical texts of this act of cultivation. The question of system as applied to culture and civilization entails differentiation and specification, above all intellectual. From a Hegelian perspective this notion necessarily implies a certain reduction of reality to thought. Hegelian experience is essentially the very process of this reduction. Our notion of experience as mediation overcomes this reduction into openness to what is dynamic, beyond all intellectual reduction highlighting the relationality between the Absolute and man. Hegel’s notion of experience proposes the transformation and qualification of man into the Absolute, losing himself into the Absolute in terms of absolute knowledge and consciousness of this absolute knowledge thus negating man’s finitude and culpability vis-à-vis the Absolute, thus eliminating all notion of relationality

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

113

community of readers beyond the borders specifically and traditionally defined penetrating into other communities of readers of other civilizations or milieus and religious traditions. In this light, it is clear, how literature, or if you prefer, the literary, challenges the traditional notion of religious traditions with its dogmatic and exclusive security blankets which have led to religious intolerance and even fundamentalism, which is the worst illness of the human spirit in its immersion with the Absolute within a community. Literature, among the humanities, is the most explicit form. Thus, the literary element, in its mediation into texts, are explicit carriers of messages. They disclose within the confines of language and its idiomatic peculiarities, a world of experience in its full expressiveness, in its full tautology and atomic precision within the current of usage and conditioning of historicity and ideological interests. The literary element provides the most specific, categorical, clear-cut and definitive foundation and cues, leads and clues for interpretation without drowning out the richness of insinuations and possibilities. Explicitness does not mean nor does it spells unilateralism and dogmatism. The experience behind the language does not exhaust itself in the specificity, explicitness, categorical character of the written text in its assimilation of the convention of language. This is especially true of the spiritual/mystical texts. The literary in itself, especially in the hermeneutics of spiritual and mystical texts, poses a challenge to dogmatism and exclusivity with particular focus on the rights of interpretation, production of texts and even the act of experiencing in itself-given the universality of spirituality and the mystical experience. To cite a historical case, spiritual and mystical texts written by unlearned lay people or religious like Catherine of Siena,22 Teresa of Avila,23 Thérèse of Liseux24 (who

22

23

24

and participation. Cf. M. Alvarez, Experiencia y Sistema: Introducción al pensamiento de Hegel (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1978). Cf. G. Cavallini (Ed.), Il dialogo della divina provvidenza (Rome: Cateriniane, 1968); E. Dupré Theseider (Ed.), Epistolario di S. Caterina da Siena (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, 1940); G. Cavallini (Ed.), Le orazioni di S. Caterina da Siena (Rome: Cateriniane, 1978). Also: G. D’Urso, Il genio di Santa Caterina: Studi sulla sua dottrina e personalità ((Rome: Cateriniane, 1971); A. Grion, La dottrina di Santa Caterina da Siena (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1962). Cf. A. Barrientos et al. (Eds.), Obras Completas de Santa Teresa de Jesús (Madrid; Editorial de Espiritualidad, 2000). Also: T. Alvarez (Ed.), Diccionario de Santa Teresa de Jesús (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2000); A. Barrientos (Ed.), Introducción a la lectura de Santa Teresa, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 2002). Cf. St. Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus, Ouevres complétes (Paris: Cerf, 1992); T. Alvarez & V. Martínez (Eds.), Diccionario de Santa Teresa de Liseux (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 1997); Several Authors, Teresa di Lisieux: Novità e grandezza di un Dottorato nel centenario della morte (1897-1997) e nella proclamazione a dottore della chiesa di S. Teresa di Lisieux (Roma: Teresianum, 2000); E.J. Martínez González (Ed.), Teresa de Liseux: Profeta de Dios, Doctora de la Iglesia (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1999).

114

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

were women and women in their milieu where second class or even third class members of the Church of their times) have shattered the clerical and hierarchical claim to exclusivity to the most sublime forms of religious experience which has become the basis of their centuries old claim to authority within the religious tradition and community of readers. Others, fleeing from the power or claim of authority proceeding from the authorship of a ground breaking mystical text have preferred anonymity. Such is the case of the 6th century B.C. work Dao De Jing attributed to a certain Lao Zi who may have not existed historically – some would even claim that Lao Zi or ‘old master’ is a pseudonym of one or more authors25 – or the celebrated work of the 14th century The Cloud of Unknowing.26 Admittedly, these examples or cases have favored the authorship of the mystical texts accepted as canonical referents and standard sources. But, from the authorship, readership and right to interpretation necessarily follows given that the inevitable context is always the community of readers. From the group of readers, writers and producers of texts emerge not only as witnesses or subjects of the experience (mystics) but communicators and initiators (mystagogues) into the world of experience transmitted by the text and lived beyond the confines of the same text. The emanation of writers and producers from readers only confirms the reality of the shared world, the commonness of the disclosed world by the spiritual/mystical text and the same experiential ambiance and its call for relationality, participation, union and communion with the Absolute within history. Truly, spiritual/mystical texts are a special case in literature. Because of their notions of participational relationality, they establish literature in terms of a relational manner of comprehending the mediation of experience. The mediation of experience, in making the real reality, is an expansion of history in its vastness highlighting what is shared by all men, regardless of traditions in their specifications and communities in their particularities. This sharing highlights the same existential goal of meaning: experience of the Absolute, experience in its fulfillment as participation within the sublime state of union and participation. Thus, the literary made concrete in literature, regardless of idiom, particular culture and civilizations, reaches out to all men shattering their tendencies towards fragmentation fostered by differences highlighted by dogmatic and authoritative interference. In a special way, spiritual/mystical texts as literature shatter such an interference by highlighting the universal call of meaning by participation in the Absolute. The hermeneutical act applied to such spiritual/mystical texts gives special meaning to hermeneutics in itself inasmuch as meaning does not become 25

26

For an excellent survey of the critical, textual and doctrinal problematic, see: G. Finazzo, The Notion of Tao in Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (Taipei: Mei Ya, 1968). See the excellent edition and annotations of W. Johnston, The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling (New York etc.: Doubleday, 1973).

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

115

limited to the text in itself, but in the relation, stimulated by an interaction with the mystical text, between man and the Absolute. Mystical texts, in this sense, establish the universal appeal of the literary in a special way and shatter all narrowness of traditional borders and definitions of religious traditions, especially with its peculiar notion of appropriation, wherein the experience of the Absolute, within the process commonly and generically called ‘spirituality’, belongs the author (ownership), the reader (appropriation proper wherein the one who appropriates becomes the protagonist and in effect, owner of the experience although not of the text) and the text (constitutive and structural referent at the same time mediation). Mystical texts, in this light, make experience the object of appropriation. The author still owns both experience and text, the text does not cease to constitute itself in terms of the experience reflected therein. But the reader, though not the owner of the text (for not being its writer) becomes the owner of the experience and becomes challenged to communicate the experience through a discourse. Writing is the act of owning the text (act of establishing oneself as author in terms of constructing the structure of the text). Reading becomes the act of owning the experience in the text (appropriation). This is the hermeneutical perfection that does not violate the authorship (ownership of the text) and structural textualism (ownership of the text of itself as a text of experience). Together with appropriation is the question of interpretation – especially in its ‘purity’ and inevitable social and communitarian aspect with its prejudices, interests, possiblities and limitations-which is the main concern of hermeneutics. Writes a literary critic: Interpretation of texts, like interpretations of reality, are shaped by the interests, experience, and point of view of the interpreter. Hearers/readers (…) are producers of meaning, and what they hear/read out of a text depends at least in part on what they put in. The same text can call forth divergent interpretations, and we cannot determine the validity of these interpretations by appealing to a correspondence theory of meaning any more than we can determine the validity of a claim about reality by appealing to a correspondence theory of truth. Discourse involves not only the interaction between different subjects, but also that between different modalities of subjectivity. All speech acts presuppose hearers as well as speakers. When I speak, I do so with the expectation of being heard. Any theory of communicative action and interactive competence must take account of the role of the hearer no less than that of the speaker, and any conception of an ideal speech situation must include an account of the norms and values implicit in the ideal of being a good listener.27 27

P. Schwieckart, ‘Engendering Critical Discourse’, in: C. Koelb & V. Lokke (Eds.), The Current in Criticism: Essays on the Present and Future of Literary Theory (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1987), 310.

116

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

In other words, in the case of the experience transmitted by the mystical texts, there is the communication of the experience, viewed in terms of finite participation in the Infinite Absolute, within the same world, within the same confluence, but beyond the strict limits of the text and into the shared and common world, as the venue of the search of meaning. There is then a transformation of the same and shared world becomes the venue of initiation in the same experience, which given its relationality, becomes the dynamic referent of meaning. This process of initiation in the same mystical experience, towards the fountainhead (the mystery itself) in a dynamic process of relationality with the Absolute is what we term ‘mystagogy’. Mystagogy is accomplished in two principal moments: a) communication of the experience and b) initiation into the experience) This is accomplished in the protagonism of the reader as the new ‘subject’ of the experience, as the one initated (for having received the communication). The mystical texts open up a transformed and transforming common world going beyond the strict limits of the text, with its own experiential level qualified within the structure of the written text as a discourse in itself, into the existential and truly experiential level. This world beyond the text in its literary nature, this world in its existentiality becomes the world of mystagogy, the very world of communicated participation which initiates others into the very experiential dynamics of this participation. Of course, the mystical texts, because of their esoteric or particular or peculiar character, within the strict level of literariness of the text, are in themselves ‘worlds’. But these diverse worlds, especially in the case of spiritual/mystical texts open up to the common world, to the shared objective world of intersubjective discourses. This opening is the very summit of the very same experience mystery: union, communion, participation28 in terms of communication with the functionality of initiation. The very root of all this is hermeneutical in nature. It is the very act of appropriation of the reader whose readership is especially fulfilled beyond the world described by the text and found within its structural borders (by means of hermeneutics) into the level of communication and initiation in the shared existential world, which is the true experiential world. This same true experiential world was the context in which the literary world of the read and interpreted mystical text emerged in its very structure.

28

Participation can be viewed as the quality of the state of being united (union) and sharing the same union (communion). Participation characterizes union (being united) and communion (partaking of the same in union) because it means taking part of the great infinite whole which is the absolute. Participation qualifies the mystical end of union and communion as something personal and thus not common to all religious traditions which do not uphold personal union and communion since the Absolute is not a personal reality (in the case of Upanishadic mysticism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc.)

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

117

This appropriation necessarily subscribes to the anti-dogmatic stance of hermeneutics. From a rather superficial view, this anti-dogmatic stance is exclusively understood in terms of plurality of interpretations and polysemy, with the abundance of symbolic recourses, textual embellishments, metaphorical usage, etc. However, in all actuality, the profound root of said anti-dogmatic stance is the inexhaustible richness of the mediation of experience within the immediate particularity of the author as textualized and addressed to the reader (experiential circumstantiality). This is the sense of the aforementioned variety in interpretation. This anti-dogmatic stance necessarily involves the loss of the dominance of the ego of the reader, and the establishment of the same reader, in the act of appropriation, as universal paradigm. The world of the mystical text becomes projected in the reader, as a member of the shared world. The reader then projects himself as subject of the experience, given that the reader receives a new mode of experiencing from the text itself.29 Mystagogy, Religious Language, Worldliness Taken as literary texts, spiritual/mystical texts enclose and disclose a world, with its symbols, fictionalities, mythical configurations. But they are not ordinary kinds of literature. The worlds they enclose and disclose point to this external, shared world wherein the challenge to live out the experiences takes place. Just like any other form of literature, spiritual/mystical texts or works are bearers of possible worlds. They legitimately possess what we may call a ‘world of the text’. This is common too to any work of art. While many works of literature and art are evasive in going beyond themselves, into the world beyond themselves-with the purpose of trapping readers into the limiting confines of the world of the text-mystical or spiritual texts cannot afford to do so. Such entrapment would nullify the mystical character of the experience written in the text and communicated by the text. Mysticism (or spiritual/mystical texts) in order to remain genuinely mystical must be mystagogical. The experience, which brings about participation and is possible only in relational terms, in order to fully blossom as such must be communicated with a view to initiate others into the same dynamics in the shared and common world, beyond the strict structural limits of the world of the text. This is the essence of mystagogy and we cannot avoid not speaking of mystagogy in studying mystical/spiritual texts (in their literariness or as literature) and language (inasmuch as such a language is religious in nature). 29

This is my paraphrase of Ricœur’s argument on the projection of the reader himself, ‘Appropriation’, in: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, 192.

118

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The hermeneutics of mystical texts reveals that mystical experience in itself is necessarily mystagogical. The experience has to be communicated with a view to initiation. The privileged moment of such communication takes place in the discursive act, particularly in the production of the mystical texts within the context of the dynamics and process of spirituality with a view towards the participation of man in the Absolute in terms of union and communion. Thus, mystical texts are in themselves mystagogical and become foundational sources for the act of mystagogy within the context of establishing the epistemological foundations and frontiers of spirituality. ‘Mystagogy is the textualization of the spiritual/mystical experience’.30 Textualization, in this sense, is the opening of communication, with the aim of initiation, to the level of permanence, stability and universality. Aside from this, as already discussed, mystagogy affords experience the opportunity to fully blossom as truly mystical, as truly rooted in the mystery, as the immanence of the transcendent. This immanence is fully confirmed in the participation of others in the very same mystery and its dynamics culminating in participation within the state of union and communion. Mystical texts as discourses are constituted linguistically. They are constituted as a sample of religious language configured textually. Functionally, the religious language of mystical texts are not simply mystical (or merely esoterical or mysterious), but mystagogical (or leading to the very mystery in itself, by communicating the mystery-thus overcoming the esoteric boundary or barrier-with the purpose of initiating into the same experience). Thus we enter into the same and shared existential world wherein expression is configured in terms of the participation of all (thus the esoteric is overcome by the exoteric), wherein the discourse is shared and read by a community that may have to go beyond the strict definitions of its being a religious tradition, wherein the text becomes the communication of the experience with a view to innitiation into the same experience by being a peculiar form of religious language (with its pretensions towards relinking by rereading man’s existential situation) making use of recourses such as symbols, metaphors, etc. This same existential world is the genuine experiential world defined by mysticism in terms of taking part, in terms of participation. This presupposes generosity (from the Absolute), response (from man) and reciprocity which is the very current of the relation viewed as encounter. Therefore, mystical texts are truly historical-not only in the sense of being empirical and tangible fragments of civilization. They are narratives that point beyond the symbolic and metaphorical configurations of the world of the text, thus resisting the absolute pretensions of fictionality wherein the world of the 30

M. Ofilada Mina, ‘Comparative Spirituality and Literary Theory: Laying the Groundwork towards a Scientific Inquiry’, in: Studies in Spirituality 12 (2002), 281.

MYSTICISM AND POSSIBLE WORLDS

119

text occupies center stage and replaces the world beyond the text, and enter into the shared narrative of the existential and external world of history of humankind viewed in terms of relationality with the Absolute, whom we posit as God and discover personally and intimately as Lord, Savior, Friend and Lover. The growth from the confessional address of God as ‘Lord’ to the mysterious appellation as ‘Lover’ is a mystical growth of the same seed of confession within a particular religious tradition into the blossom of being rooted in the reality that is present as mystery and that mediates itself experientially within the shared world as the condescending, intimate and loving root of all life without shedding its transcendence, glory and power. In this way, man grows from mere credal statements (of confession) into participatory discourses (of mystical rootedness in the mystery that relates with man personally). Hermeneutics open up this historicity, this world of developing relationships not only for the reader to comprehend, but also for the reader to be initiated and to communicate this initiation. Hermeneutics is world opening. The opening of the spiritual/mystical texts by means of hermeneutics reveals a special kind of religious language: the mystagogical language. This same opening challenges the sovereignty of the text and establishes its instrumentality. What really matters is the movement of the experience, starting with the movement of the reader. The movement of the text is basically narrative and mystagogical. The reader’s primary movement is hermeneutical. The movement of the experience through hermeneutical commences with the reader and proceeds to the interpretation and comprehension and finally, assimilation of the text. This assimilation finds its culmination in mystagogy: in communication and initiation not only of the reader, but of other readers and members of the community of readers. The most (or truly) important world, beyond the strict confines of the world of the text and the world of the readers, is the world of experience that overflows from the text into the existential level through mystagogy, already found in the peculiar language of the spiritual/mystical text and unlocked by the hermeneutical act of reading and going beyond reading. A deeper consciousness of experience, as the fruit of mystagogy, as truly mystical or deeply rooted in the Mystery is in itself a world-disclosure. The text has been instrumental and source for a sustained and institutional study of such a world-disclosure. This sustained and institutional study is what scholars are trying to establish within the academe as the Study of Spirituality. The opening of the aforementioned ‘most important world’ is the opening up of the text, the reader and the author not in terms of sovereignty but in terms of appropriation. Appropriation, ownership is the key to appreciating the experiences disclosed by the spiritual/ mystical texts, unlocked by hermeneutics and communicated by mystagogy. All within the current of language, in its aim to reread and relink.

120

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The same opening brings about a history of salvation, a narrative by which we arrive at a better understanding of ourselves as finite beings in search of the Absolute and called to participate in the Absolute. Correspondingly, in man there is an existential desire for the Absolute, present as Mystery in the shared and common world and disclosed in the world of the spiritual/mystical text. More so, there is in man the ingredient of finitude that can only be fulfilled in sharing, in participating with the All, with the Absolute. The key to all these, as we end this exploration, is the notion of experience as mediation which we have mentioned. Mediation makes participation possible. Mediation is the ambience and venue of hermeneutics. Mediation culminates in appropriation. Mediation means an overcoming of the traditional notion, culminating especially in Kant,31 of experience as data or an empirical component of knowledge. Mediation necessarily has to open up to communication of itself and initiation within itself, i.e., into mystagogy thus perfecting the notion of experience as that which is deeply rooted in the Mystery that allows itself to be experienced in its very own presence by creating an ambiance of being real and palpable. Hermeneutics, as applied to mystical texts, especially as a source for Spirituality in the Academy and making use of mystagogical religious language, unveils to us a world wherein the Supreme Reality (termed the Absolute) makes itself real, makes itself experientiable through the same experience that is felt and undergone in order to be communicated with a view for initiation. This activity of communication, with a view to initiation, presupposes the very act of hermeneutics in itself going back to the reader of the text who is challenged to share his reading and become a writer and producer of a text. Here we have a complete hermeneutical circle! Truly, this circle can be described in terms of the neoplatonic and thomistic exitus-reditus that starts and culminates materially in the text, but spiritually or metaphysically in the very experience. If we may add, not just in any particular experience or phenomenon highlighted by symbols, metaphors and other linguistic devices as found in the spiritual/mystical texts, but by experience as the mediation of the Absolute in order to be reality, in order to be presence as Mystery in the history of this external and shared world in order to transform it into a history or narrative of salvation, which religions have spoken of in their call to a rereading and relinking of man towards his true destiny. This is what Spirituality is all about!

31

Cf. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, transl. J.M.D. Meiklejohn (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1990). For a compact commentary, see: S. Gardner, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (London/ New York: Routledge, 1999).

CHAPTER EIGHT COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM ‘Sólo cada cual, por sí, puede llegar a él, y el libro místico se diferencia de un libro científico en que no es una doctrina sobre la realidad trascendente, sino el plano de un camino para llegar a esa realidad, el discurso de un método, el itinerario de la mente hacia lo absoluto. El saber místico es intransferible y, por esencia, silencioso’. (J. Ortega y Gasset,  ?Qué es filosofía?)

The human mind is by nature comparative. The process of human cognition depends greatly on previous experiences. Experience, in the sense of being a past empirical phenomenon which unfolded before the knowing subject or may have affected him and lreft a lasting impression in him plays a key role in new cognitive events. Man by nature compares a new experience at hand or a new cognosicitive object with something that he previously knew. Most likely, to be able to identify the object during the actual perceptive and cognoscitive moment, man appeals to the authority of past experience. For example, I encounter in the classroom something white, of powdery texture, smooth, with no smell, etc. I could immediately reason out that what I have at hand is a piece of chalk. Previously, somebody (my first teacher) showed me something similar and told me that it was conventionally called ‘chalk’. Previous experience has somewhat left me biased and is now the determining factor of my own personal epistemological framework. Said in simpler terms, any new perceptive or cognoscitive moment is predetermined, pre-epistemologized by my previous experience(s). All of these previous experiences come together and are assimilated as one experiential unit in our psyche. Such assimilated form may take many forms depending on any given moment of circumstance. For instance, if my mother makes a certain dish I become accustomed to her way of preparing it and if I taste the very same dish at a neighbor’s house or in a public restaurant I would naturally tend to compare their cooking with that of my mother’s. In the given example, the conglomeration of all my previous experiences takes the form of ‘taste’ or ‘culinary preference’. The point we wish to stress here is that previous experiences constitute a structural tradition in our psyche that would express itself culturally, socially, morally, linguistically, politically and even religiously.

122

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

We were all brought up in a particular religion. Naturally when we face another religion, we would compare it to our own. Or if we are faced with another ‘brand’, ‘style’, ‘custom’ of the same religion – in its institutionalized form – we will naturally, unconsciously compare it with our own ‘brand’, ‘style’, ‘custom’, etc. Now these varieties of ‘brands’, ‘styles’, ‘customs’ are what we can call ‘spiritualities’. If religion is a way of life, then spirituality could be understood (not defined) as the way (chosen) to live this way. Thus, in the same religion there could be many spiritualities; but all of them share the same roots, have the same claims inspite of a variety of forms. In other words, the content, if one looks at it deep within, is one and the same notwithstanding the variety of forms. Forms are the differentiating factor in this world. Unfortunately, a great number of times we have mistook the forms for content. The author of this book, as a Catholic Christian, knows that there exist many spiritualities as almost as there are many saints in the Catholic Faith. More often than not, said Catholic spiritualities are inseparably united with institutions or movements founded by exemplary catholics most of whom have found their way to the glories of the altar. Said institutions have charisms or ‘spirits’ or particular flavor and purpose; the way to live out these charisms is precisely what we call ‘spirituality’. All of these institutions, with their charisms and spiritualities, identify themselves as ‘under’ the umbrella organization which we call the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. But beyond these institutional considerations and above all, they identify their ‘spirit’ (or essence as distinguished from ‘spirits’) with Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Christ, for all Catholics and Christians, is the Way and not just any other way. Their various ways of life are intended to follow this singular Way. This singular Way is so perfect that it could only be imperfectly followed. In other words, due to our limitations we can only live intensely or in a satisfactory manner one or more particular dimensions of the Way without necessarily neglecting or ignoring the other dimensions especially when they are essential or complimentary to the particular dimension or virtue chosen or imposed by limitations, circumstances and historicities. All these reflections must lead us to one premise: that spirituality is inevitably religious or linked to a particular religious institution with its own general or universal creed, code and cult. Said in a few words, with its own tradition. Religions need not be theistic. They could be atheistic or devoid of an object of worship like various Buddhist sects especially of the Theravadin tradition. But all religions are spiritual. Therefore, all of them have spiritualities. Spirituality does not necessarily mean a way that is opposed to what is material or worldly. They are ‘ways of the spirit’.1 ‘Spirit’ does not mean the immaterial dimension of man or his soul 1

This expression is from F. Ruiz, Caminos del Espiritu, 5th ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1997).

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

123

as opposed to his flesh, but the total man in search of perfection. ‘Spirit’ is man, of body and soul, with all of his opposite tendencies reconciled and without risk of personal fragmentation that would cause neurosis as Freud would put it. ‘Spirit’ is man with a noble determination and said determination is his way of defining himself, his existence, his life with the intent of formulating his elusive essence as the existentialists would say. ‘Spirit’ is the total man towards the noblest goal: fulfillment in its various forms whether union with the Personal God or be it the buddhist nirvana or annihilation of the self. At the outset, we must accept that man is teleological. He acts for an end which he views as good. As St. Thomas of Aquinas puts it: ‘If there were no last end, nothing would be desired nor would any action have its term nor would the intention of the agent be at rest’.2 Clearly, spirituality has ethical dimensions. Not only that, but it also necessarily possesses axiological and teleological dimensions. Man’s tending towards fulfillment is determined and influenced by his hierarchy of values which must be good. Spirituality is, effectively, the search for the Supreme Good. The Science of Religions and Spirituality He who only knows his mother tongue does not know any language at all. In the same vein we could say, that he who only knows his religion (spirituality) does not know any religion (spirituality) at all. The way of fulfillment of the cognoscitive and educational process is necessarily comparative. Due to the pioneering efforts of Friedrich Max Muller there came to existence what we now know as religionswissenchaft or science of religions. For Muller ‘it was high time to dispel such illusions and to place the study of the ancient religions of the world on a more real and sound, on a more truly historical basis’.3 Muller, who is commonly recognized as the father of the scientific study of religion, wanted to demythologize religion from the common notion that all the so called sacred books are ‘full of primeval wisdom and religious enthusiasm, or at least of sound and simple moral teaching’.4 This is due to the fact that religious studies then did not avail of scientific resources. In other words, scholars then did not have access to primary texts; their conception of religion was too panegyric. This is due to ignorance. With the dawn of studies announced by Muller, religion became a fact, a historical fact subject to historical development or evolution. Because it is a fact, religion in its various forms has a particular language, customs, 2 3

4

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q.1 a.4. F.M. Muller, ‘Preface to the Sacred Books of the East’, in: The Upanishads. Part 1, transl. F. Max Muller (New York: Dover, 1962), ix. Ibidem.

124

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

rites, traditions, texts, etc. We must not forget that all these are man made. The science of religions is indeed the collation of various hermeneutics to comprehend the distinct languages by which man expresses his relationships with the sacred (…) the sacred show itself through concepts, myths, symbols which the homo religiosus experiences only as modes of speech, approximations, ideograms more or less suitable for their goals. They are human transcriptions of a reality that remains as such, more or less, hidden to man, but man intends to relate all his actions towards it.5

Spirituality is all of these things: concepts, myths, symbols, etc. projected towards the Supreme End. It is the actualization of these human transcriptions beginning with a special cognoscitive and axiological consciousness on the part of man then it matures in his so called moral conscience before it goes to the practical everyday level. Man is the protagonist of spirituality; he is also its author. But the hero is the goal to which man aspires. If this goal is a personal Supreme Being the more the term ‘hero’ becomes meaningful; but if it is only a state then the goal is a heroic state. In Nirvana, there are no heroes just pure bliss, nothingness, freedom which is in itself the hero’s reward. Spirituality, in its externalized forms which are the objects of study of any scholar of religious studies, is then a fact or empirical or observable data of this world just as the world religions are facts in the positivistic sense. As Wittgenstein I puts it: The world is everything that is the case (…) The world is the totality of facts, not of things (…) The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts (…) For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case (…) the facts in logical space are the world (…) The world divides into facts.6

Effectively, we are affirming a positivist attitude with regards to religion and to spirituality. We are not interested in the intensity of spirituality nor of its authenticity, its veracity, its degree of holiness, its degree of satisfaction, etc. These are subjective considerations and are normative or subject to value or moral judgements. Objectivity is the key word here. To quote Muller once again: The religions of antiquity must always be approached in a loving spirit, and the cold-blooded scholar is likely to do here as much mischief as the enthusiastic 5

6

M. Meslin, Pour une science des religions (Paris, n.d.). Spanish translation: M. Meslin, Aproximacion a una Ciencia de las Religiones (Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1978), 13-14 (translation mine). For an authoritative survey of the Science of Religions, see; W.H. Capps, Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1995). L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. 1-1.2, transl. C.K. Ogden (London: Routledge, 1990).

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

125

sciolist. But true love does not ignore all faults and failings: on the contrary, it scans them keenly, though only in order to be able to understand, to explain, and thus to excuse them (…) What we want here, as everywhere else, is the truth, and the whole truth; and if the whole truth must be told, it is that, however radiant the dawn of religious thought, it is not without its dark clouds, its chilling colds, its noxious vapours.7

Admittedly, we cannot touch the essence of spirituality with our positivist attitude. This is the role of each one probably with the help of a truly qualified spiritual master, which we call ‘mystagogue’. Even the great St. John of the Cross, universally recognized master of Christians and non-Christians alike8 was hesitant to comment the verses which he himself composed to Mother Ana de Jesus, one of the Discalced Carmelite nuns under his direction: These stanzas, Reverend Mother, were obviously composed with a certain burning love of God. The wisdom and charity of God is so vast as the Book of Wisdom states, that it reaches from end to end [Wis 8:1], and a person informed and moved by it bears in some way this very abundance and impulsiveness in his words. As a result I do not plan to expound these stanzas in all the breadth and fullness that the fruitful spirit of love conveys to them. It would be foolish to think that expressions of love arising from mystical understanding, like these stanzas are fully explainable. The Spirit of the Lord, who abides in us and aids our weakness, as St. Paul says [Rm 8:26], pleads for us with unspeakable groanings in order to manifest what we can neither fully understand nor comprehend.9

Comparative Analysis as Point of Departure Earlier we have alluded to the nature of the comparative method as far as our cognition is concerned. But before that, we must first establish certain notions or points as to comparative analysis before we could fully establish it as our point of departure. It is of primordial importance that we accept and assimilate the positivistic fact that each one of us belongs to a particular tradition. We are all victims of our historicity. We were born in a particular town or city and country. We did not choose our parents, nor our native tongue, nor our accent, nor our relatives 7 8

9

Muller, ‘Preface to the Sacred Books of the East’, xi. See for example: S. Guerra, ‘San Juan de la Cruz y el dialogo con Oriente’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 49 (1990), 501-541; Idem, ‘Juan de la Cruz entre Oriente y occidente’, in: Vida Religiosa 68 (1990), 467-476. St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle B: Prologue, 1. I used this translation: The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, transl. K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez (Washington: ICS Publications, 1979).

126

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

and friends. Most likely, we did not choose our religions. Most of us were born into a particular religious tradition until we may decide to change our religious denominations. The point here is that we were born to be ‘insiders’ to a particular tradition. It is timely, at this juncture, to quote at length a renowned American scholar of Comparative Religions: The word ‘cross-cultural’ may be understood to refer to items belonging to broad cultural areas, such as China, South Asia and Europe. But there can of course be many traditions within areas: thus Jaina, Buddhist and Hindu traditions are important in classical India. but even here there are vital sub-traditions within each, while some scholars rightly question whether we can really treat Hinduism as a single tradition. In modern times perhaps we can, because that is how to a great degree it is perceiving itself. But what about in classical times? We have to be realistic in the study of religion and take the richness and variegations seriously. That is often why the insider can be wrong about her tradition. When Kristensen said that the insider is always right, he meant that she is right about herself. that is, she has certain feelings and beliefs and they are an important part of the data we as religionists are set to explore. But an insider can be terribly wrong about her tradition, ignorant about or insensitive to the variety of her religious heritage (…) While the comparative study of religion is usually conceived in macro terms, it could equally well be construed as dealing with micro or intra-tradition comparisons.10

It is imperative to have a profound knowledge of one’s particular tradition and to accept the varieties that exist therein. Perhaps, each person represents a variety and because of this person’s growth or maturity there would be evolutionary variety of the same personal mode of experiencing and practicing religion. That is, there may be an evolutionary variety of the same spirituality. The variety does not only exist within the same tradition, but within the same person who is subject to various circumstances, historical factors and the like. Doubtless, what really matters is a profound knowledge which automatically begets a tolerant and universalizing attitude. In other words, varieties are welcome because of the profound acknowledgement of the fact that a particular religious tradition is inexhaustible in its richness, beauty, depth and offers in spirituality. What’s more, this sprouts from a truly humble attitude: that of recognizing our limitations which at the same time reflects our enthusiasm to learn more and broaden our experiential horizons and possibilities. Indeed, it is appropriate to adopt here the famous Socratic dictum adopted from the Delphic Oracle Cults: ‘Know Thyself’. This is where philosophy in its traditional and historical sense starts entering the scene. 10

N. Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1996), 4-5.

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

127

Thus, through this profound autognosis or self-knowledge we know where we are and where we are not. From this spatio-temporal consideration we can proceed to what is psychological, that is, we know who we are because we know who we are not because of our spatio-temporal limitations. Then we could proceed towards moral or ethical considerations. We proceed to affirm what we are given the fact that our actions define us before others. And the contact and impact with others necessarily has a reflexive effect: it all goes back to us, it reflects us, it complements us. This is not a karmic (from karma) notion, but the thing is we are implied, we become authors and not just mere protagonists or pones as in a game of chess. As a whole, we are an experiential whole. In traditional ontological-noetic terms, we are subjects of experience. In personalist-existentialist terms, we are persons, human beings who experience, who feel, who sense, etc. Likewise, we know from what experience we proceed and the whys of the various experiential moments of this constitutive experience from whence we come as we journey towards new experiential moments in order to fully realize that we share the same experience, we desire the same experience: to be united with the Absolute or to attain it in terms of communion. In the field of spirituality, we identify ourselves with a particular umbrella tradition and within it we know to what sub-tradition or ‘school of spirituality’ we belong to. It is up to us then to determine how we live it and to measure the way we do so as if we measure our lives with spoons as the poet would say. Then we are faced with the ‘Other’ or as Buber would put it ‘Thou’: The Thou meets me. But I step into direct relation with it. Hence the relation means being chosen and choosing, suffering and action in one; just as any action of the whole being, which means the suspension of all partial actions and consequently of all sensations of actions grounded only in their particular limitation, is bound to resemble suffering. The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say thou. All real living is meeting.11

This ‘Thou’ or ‘Other’ is different from me. He may belong to another tradition or may belong to my religious tradition but of different spirituality or religious tastes. If this is so, then I am different. I have to acknowledge my difference. This is the starting point: to acknowledge that I am different, I am unique, I am particular. We cannot deny this fact. We cannot deny that there is a difference. This presupposes a profound knowledge of one’s tradition which boils 11

M. Buber, I and Thou, transl. R. Gregor Smith (New York: Mentor, 1987), 11.

128

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

down to a profound knowledge of the self. The Khandogya Upanishad has a beautiful way of putting it: My child, they bring a man hither whom they have taken by the hand and they say: ‘he has taken something, he has committed a theft’. [When he denies, they say], ‘Heat the hatchet for him’. If he committed the theft, then he makes himself to be what he is not. Then the false-minded, having covered his true self by a falsehood, grasps the heated hatchet – he is burnt and he is killed. But if he did not commit the theft, then he makes himself to be what he is. Then the trueminded, having covered his true Self by truth, grasps the heated hatchet – he is not burnt, and he is delivered. As that [truthful] man is not burnt, thus has all that exists its self in that. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it. He understood what he said, yea, he understood it.12

By knowing one’s self, one cannot take or appropriate for himself what does not belong to him. By admitting our differences we avoid being false-minded. We reveal our true Self. Only by knowing our differences can we be True to ourselves and to others, to the ‘Other’, to the ‘Thou’. This should be the starting point and attitude of ecumenism and especially Ecumenical Spirituality which still has to define itself after many decades since Vatican II. By acknowledging the differences in spirituality, starting from our very own, we make a wiser move. Is not philosophy, love of wisdom? This attitude makes us realize all the more our limitations, the inevitability of being ourselves and reminds us of the constant vital, existential, experiential challenge of being true to ourselves. We become aware of the inevitability of our existence and life. As Heidegger puts it, we are hurled there and nowhere else. But there is a path to be trod upon. We can travel. We can go places. We can go necessarily alone. But the journey of solitude goes about in circles, the circles of oneself and there can be no escape from these circles. Traveling with the other is the first step in overcoming these endless circles. But we must know ourselves through the circles that we make in our solitary journeys to ourselves. From here we can realize in a powerful manner that we are different without pushing this difference to the limit or to the point of mutual self-exclusion. It is by knowing ourselves we become authentic, genuine. Only by genuine self-knowledge can we share ourselves, explore new frontiers or attempt to redefine them until the day when we get totally rid of them. This attitude is the valid point of departure of all comparative analysis, especially when it comes to comparing spiritualities as facts of this world of ours. We realize the richness of the shared world. We truly become capable of dialogue. We become tolerant, compassionate. We become enriching beings at the same time we become 12

Khandogya-Upanishad, Sixth Prapathaka, Sixteenth Khanda. (I am using the translation of F.M. Muller cited earlier).

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

129

enriched. ‘The naturalness of the ocean is an unbroken round of motion and rest. Each wave comes and goes, gathers and poises itself to hurtle beyond its own limits, into boundless change. Yet the currents co-exist. Going backward and forward, to for and back again, is an evocative interplay: in dialogue: in the ocean itself’.13 We have just attempted to define or justify comparative analysis as our starting point. Better said, we have just attempted to state the conditions or ambiance in which we can make a valid and comprehensive study of comparative spirituality. Texts and Textuality – The Necessary Data and Context for Comparative Spirituality Comparative Spirituality, as of this writing, is still bereft of scientific status. Hence, there is a need to look for concrete and tangible material in order to set the foundations of what would eventually be a science. I am referring to the religious or spiritual or mystical texts,14 acknowledging at the same time their value for the task of setting the epistemological foundations of a discipline, which in its pristine or primitive stage is a craft (τεκνη) oftentimes (and wrongly) identified with art, which is the maturity of the craft in terms of creativity. There is an ongoing trend of identifying mysticism with spirituality from the textual viewpoint. This has brought about the confusion, fusion or identification of the two as scientific disciplines.15 For the meantime let us take both of them 13

14

15

J.W. Kidd, ‘Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Taoism’, in: Asian Journal of Philosophy 2 (1990), 72. It is worthwhile to take into account the following remarks of German philosopher J. Habermas, even though we disagree with him on certain key points: ‘In these moments of its powerlessness, argumentative speech passes over beyond religion and science into literature, into a mode of presentation that is no longer directly measured by truth claims. In an analogical way, theology also loses its identitiy if it only cites religious experiences, and under the descriptions of religious discourse no longer acknowledges them as its own basis. Therefore, I hold that a conversation cannot succeed between a theology and a philosophy which use the language of religious authorship and which meet on the bridge of religious experiences that have become literary expressions’. J. Habermas, ‘Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World’, in: Several Authors, Habermas, Modernity, and Public Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 233. Aside from the journal Studies in Spirituality, pioneering efforts in truly making Spirituality a scientific discipline have been undertaken for example by: A.G. Matanic, La spiritualità como scienza (Rome: Paoline, 1990); Several Authors, La spiritualità come teologia (Rome: Paoline, 1993). The latter volume presents the works of various specialists wherein the scientific paradigm is incarnated by theology; F. Ruiz, Espiritualidad sistemàtica (Madrid: Instituto de Espiritualidad a Distancia, 1995). Ruiz believes that to be scientific is to be systematic or the imperative to construct a system. Together with these efforts are the attempts to give a suitable and comprehensive definition of spirituality. But said definitions are just the starting points. Cfr. K. Waaijman,

130

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

as if they were synonymous terms. A full length treatment of their distinctions and all the subtleties involved would demand a separate essay. In the meantime, though we ‘methodologically’ and ‘temporarily’ identify these two let us be cognizant of specific dimensions of each one of them: spirituality is the discipline as a whole, whereas mysticism is the experiential root of the same discipline. Others prefer to immediately speak of mysticism as a sector of spirituality or as the sector that immediately points out to the goal of spirituality in its defined state together with the corresponding phenomena. This is a legitimate approach. However, it neglects the processes involved in attaining such goal or sublime state. I believe that my ‘methodological’ distinction or clarification is more wholistic in approach. The task of establishing the two aforementioned disciplines as scientific presupposes the need to discover an inherent or inchoate epistemology, i.e., knowledge that is a) demonstrable or can be proven and, b) conscious of the ‘Toward a Phenomenological Definition of Spirituality’, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 5-57; J. Dan, ‘In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism’, in: Ibid., 58-90. Likewise, see this synthetic article of Jesuit C.A. Bernard, ‘La natura della teologia spirituale’, in: Various Authors, Compendio di teologia spirituale in onore di Jordan Aumann, O.P. (Rome: PUST, 1992), 81-102. Also: C. García, Corrientes nuevas de teología espiritual (Madrid: Instituto de Espiritualida a Distancia, 1971); Several Authors, ‘De Theologia spirituali docenda’, in: Seminarium 26 (1974), 1-291; A. Queralt, ‘La espiritualidad como disciplina teológica’, in: Gregorianum 60 (1979), 321-375; M. Dupuy & A.Solignac, ‘Spiritualité’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 14, 1142-1173; T. Goffi & B. Secondin, Problemas y perspectivas de espiritualidad (Salamanca: Sigueme, 1987); A.Ch. Bernard, Teologia spirituale (Milan: Paoline, 1989); A. Huerga, ‘El carácter científico de la teología espiritual’, in: Teología Espiritual 36 (1992), 41-63; A. Guerra, ‘Teología espiritual, una ciencia no identificada’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 39 (1980), 335-413; Idem, Introducción a la teología espiritual (Sto. Domingo/ Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 1994); D. de Pablo Maroto, El Camino Cristiano. Manual de Teología Espiritual (Salamanca: UPSA, 1995). It is about time to propose criteria for scientific status with regards to spirituality. The Discalced Carmelite international congress on Spirituality points out the various elements and dimensions that are to be considered in this project, cfr. Several Authors, La teologia spiritual: Atti del congresso internazionale O.C.D. (Rome: Teresianum, 2001). Also: J.A. Antolín Palenzuela, ‘Introducción a una teología espiritual “actualizada”’, in: La Vida Sobrenatural 82 (2002), 25-44. From the perspective of philosophy, see the following publications: Several Authors, Filosofia e mistica: Itinerari di un progetto di ricerca (Rome: Piemme, 1997); F. Maas, ‘Spirituality and Postmodern Philosophy: Emptiness as an opportunity for esteem’, in: Studies in Spirituality 11 (2001), 5-27. From the viewpoint of mysticism, see: L. Bouyer, ‘Mystique: Essai sur l’histoire d’un mot’, in: Supplément á La Vie Spirituelle 3 (1949), 3-23; Idem, Mysterion: Du mystère á la mystique (Paris: O.E.L.L., 1986); M. de Certeau, ‘Mystique’, in: Several Authors, Encyclopaedia Universalis. Vol. 11 (I used the digital version of 2009: https:// www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/mystique); Idem, ‘Mystique au XVII siècle: Le problème du langage mystique’, in: Several Authors, L’homme devant Dieu. Vol. 2 (Paris: Aubier, 1964), 267-292; Idem, La fable mystique, XVI-XVIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1982). This topic deserves a seperate essay.

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

131

fact of knowing and being the knower. Said demonstrability necessarily implies a) correspondence – that the subject and knowledge conform to one another, b) coherence – that the pieces logically or rationally fit together and c) explicitness – that the knowledge, given a) and b) can be expressed or it evades what phenomenologists and analytic thinkers call ‘solipsism’. Gone indeed are the days wherein the great mystics and masters of spirituality (more often than not these two traits coexist in one and the same person) simply affirm without demonstrating, mystify without explicating and theorize (contemplate) without ‘going down’ to the level of praxis. Both mysticism and spirituality enclose, presuppose and contain a world of experiences. Experiences, in turn, presuppose realities. ‘Experience’ here does not only imply that the mystic and the master of spirituality is a man who has experiences (interpreted as enriching events in his life with relation to the Totally Other or God). It definitely means or at least implies a whole lot more; it is beyond the scope of this essay to probe into the richness of this word. It may even take a lifetime of thought to come up with a valid report or investigation with regards to the polysemy of experience. But what is of interest to us, for the moment, is that if both mysticism and spirituality are to attain their scientific status, the contained experience should correspond to what is objectively real, it should be coherent-all the elements, circumstances and details of the relational experience with God must fall into place and lastly, explicit. To achieve these goals, the mystics and masters of spirituality transformed their experiences into texts or they textualized their experiences. In other words, from being just mystics or subjects of the experience they became mystagogues or simply said, sharers-teachers of the experience and thus earn the title of ‘master’. In other words, the texts of the mystics are mystagogical in character. Experiences, as mentioned, presuppose realities. Mysticism and spirituality views or takes reality in the intimate sense. It seeks above all not just realities, but the Reality, the Supreme Reality. In order to attain the mentioned intimacy, mysticism and spirituality part from the premise that the Supreme Reality, necessarily a person in the great monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and principles, values, virtues and [non]-values in some Oriental traditions like Upanishadic Hinduism (Atman-Brahman) Buddhism (Nirvana), Taoism (Tao) and Confucionism (Tien), is relational. For our purposes here, it is enough to affirm that both mysticism and spirituality are relational in nature or are concerned with the relational inasmuch as it has a soteriological (saving) and existential dimension and bearing. We first come to know of mystics or masters of spirituality and their experiences through their texts whether written or not; even actions are texts and could serve the purpose if said mystics are our contemporaries. But for us who

132

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

are centuries apart from Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas à Kempis, Hadjewich, Ignatius of Loyola, Luis de Leon, John of the Cross, Teresa of Jesus, etc.16 we first came to hear and learn from these luminaries from the texts they penned. For the present study, our interest will be limited to the written text. A text is the result of the ‘scientification’17 process of an experience-scientification here must be understood according to the three-fold way just proposed, i.e., correspondence, coherence and explicitness. The end product is a document meant to immortalize even institutionalize, as some of these great mystics were founders or reformers; documentation, as the end-result of the scientification process, is the text itself open to study. But the question is: Do we know how to read these texts? Perhaps, aside from attempting to define mysticism and spirituality, the frist step to take in establishing their scientific status, is to learn how to read these texts. This is where Literary Theory steps in. Before we enter into generically presenting the role of Literary Theory with regards to the subject matter at hand, it is imperative to take into account these two coordinates present in all mystical texts. Given that these are experiential texts, they convey a doctrine at the same time said doctrine or doctrines are molded in a particular language. Language is an instrument in the scientification process with the aim of producing a document. It is the key instrument in order for the experience be documented for study; it is the ‘scientific’ presence of the experience. More often than not, in the case of the mystics, this language is born out of a struggle with itself because of the ineffable nature of the experience itself. Ineffability presupposes a reality beyond the description (Wittgenstein I) and use 16 17

I am clearly speaking from the Christian tradition of spirituality. This proposed neologism must be understood in terms of epistemological process. ‘Episteme’ or science or proven/probably knowledge is opposed to ‘Doxa’ or opinion or knowledge that can be refuted by proof or knowledge that is still not proven/probable. In order to be qualified as ‘epistemic’ or ‘episteme’, an opinion must conform to a criterion of truth. The most dominant criteria, to my mind, are a) correspondence, b) coherence and c) explicitness. Epistemological knowledge is what we can commonly call ‘Objective Knowledge’ as opposed to the subjective one wherein the individual is the only criterion. Cfr. B. Allen, Truth in Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); C. Wright, Truth & Objective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); M.P. Lynch (Ed.), The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives (Cambridge, MA/ London: Routledge, 2001). Philosophy of Science is subdivided into two areas: a) metaphysics of science or the philosophical investigation of the world as described by science and b) epistemology of science wherein the claims to scientific knowledge are analyzed whether they are justified. D. Papineau, ‘Introduction’, in: Various Authors, The Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1. Likewise: J.L. Casti, Paradigms Lost: Tackling the Unanswered Mysteries of Modern Science (New York: Avon, 1998).

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

133

(Wittgenstein II) of language.18 Inspite of the beyondness of said reality, which for the mystic is Supreme, it still generously allows itself in a mediating manner to be experienced, to enter the experiential realm of man. This process is communicative, better said, self-communicating. That being so, said process is linguistic in character. Due to this linguistic character, language thus becomes an approximation of the mentioned linguistic process given that the experiential Supreme Reality is self-communicating19 and therefore, relational and for the Christian is personal. Language, thus, becomes the challenging vehicle to put the experience into the text. The experience must contain a doctrinal baggage if the scientification process is to be labeled as mystagogical. The scientific character of the textualized experience, which more often than not is not directly transmitted by the scientification process, is then discovered and explicitated by the reader albeit the mystic himself indicates this very scientificity when he ‘overcomes’ the personal nature or spectrum of the experience by integrating it with the experience of others, with the environment and historical circumstances. An added surplus is that many of these experiential, doctrinal and scientific texts are also literary masterpieces or universal or classical models of writing and its rules and conventionalities. All texts are literary pieces (littera, litterae or letters or anything written to be read) but not all are literary masterpieces or possessing aesthetic appeal. Not everything, not all experiences are written down and thus become literary. It is a selective process. Literature only concerns itself with significant and key experiences. The aforementioned dimensions to mystical texts or works of spirituality possess the following basic characteristics: The experiential is descriptive, the doctrinal20 is interpretative and the scientific is the proven and the assimilated; all three converge in the literary inasmuch as they are texts in order to be studied 18

19 20

More often than not, specially since the dawn of Logical Positivism particularly of the Vienna Circle as ‘inspired’ by Wittgenstein I, God or the object of the experience has been removed from the realm of language. The task of theology must consist in returning God to the realm of language which effectively is the realm of experience. Our concern here is not the object of the experience, but the experience in itself as experienced by the subject who has the task of consigning the experience to a text. Cfr. J. Baillie, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1997). Cfr. this interesting monograph: A. Delzant, La communication de Dieu (Paris: Payot, 1981). In the case of mystics and authors/masters of spirituality, the doctrinal dimension reveal the theological and even philosophical character of their works. This opens up a new area for reflection and debate as to whether works of mysticism and spirituality are theological and philosophical. At the same time, the issue calls for criteria for distinguishing theology and philosophy and vice-versa. This has been a vicious circle. In a previous work, I suggested a point of convergence for theology and philosophy as scientific (epistemological) disciplines. Cfr. ‘Dios para creer y Dios para pensar: La Trinidad como punto de convergencia epistemològica de la Teologìa y de la Filosofìa’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 23 (1998), 467-500.

134

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

(historical documents) or aesthetically enjoyed (masterpieces of art) and profoundly integrated and lived out (works of spirituality). Therefore, what is experienced is that which concerns the mystic inasmuch as he is in direct contact (experientia=direct knowledge) with the Supreme Reality in the journey of his life (Erfahrung=journey) inasmuch as the contact enriches said journey; this can be taught and shared with the aim of leading others to the same experience and thus become doctrinal and at the same time, it is scientific or valid, verified, authentic, free and conscious.21 It is the destiny of the experience to be constituted as an experience to be communicable or to be scientific. It must not remain in the subjective level or at least its nature must be open to the objective. Solipsism nullifies the experiential nature of experience. The perfection or fulfillment of experience is the attainment of the scientific character. The true vocation of the mystic is not just to remain a subject of the experience, but rather he must go beyond the personal and subjective nature of the experience in dialogue with others with the aim of sharing, validating, teaching, comparing and eventually verifying freely and consciously. It is enough to have an intense experience of God though in itself it is authentic and vital. The doctrine must be transmitted to others – this way the mystic becomes a mystagogue and he must at least leave a clue so that others may discover the scientificity or the authenticity, demonstrability of the doctrine. In this manner, the mystagogue becomes a master of spirituality; this is the crowning point of the mystagogue’s career. The texts in themselves are mystagogical, but if these texts in themselves contain the keys to unlock the riches that they contain, in order not just to lead others to the experience but to explain it, clarify it and make it a conscious and free endeavor, then we have a mystagogical piece that is a masterpiece of spirituality! Though the texts are in themselves mystagogical, we have to ‘read’ the experience in them. This is where Literary Theory and Criticism enter. This specialized area helps us to make a valid reading. They are 21

St. Teresa of Jesus expressed more or less the same ideas inspired in part by Francis of Osuna: ‘For it is one grace to receive the Lord’s favor; another, to understand which favor and grace it is; and a third, to know how to describe and explain it’. The Book of Her Life 17,5. I am using this translation: K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila. Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: ICS, 1976). The grace to receive the Lord’s favor corresponds to the experiential level, the understanding to the scientific level and the knowledge of describing and explaining it to the doctrinal and also to the experiential level. Cfr. T. Alvarez, ‘Santa Teresa de Jesús contemplativa’, in: Ephemerides Carmeliticae 13 (1962), 9-62; Idem, ‘Santa Teresa di Gesù mistica’, in: Vita cristiana ed esperienza mistica (Rome: Teresianum, 1982), 199-299; S. Castro, Ser cristiano según Santa Teresa: Teología y espiritualidad (Madrid: EDE, 1981); M. Herráiz García, Sólo Dios Basta: Claves de la espiritualidad teresiana. 3rd ed. (Madrid: EDE, 1982).

COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM

135

aids in grasping the mystagogical intention of the text as intended by the author, made concrete by the text and demanded by the reader. Thus, there is no competing author, text and reader dominance, but rather the permeance of the experience in itself, which the reader must capture in the intention of the mystagogue or author within the concreteness of the text. A mystagogue must make the experience appealing, interesting, worthy of comunion, create an ambiance of friendship, intimacy and sincerity. But he must also strive for a constant authority. Being a mystagogue, he is already a spiritual director. Aside from this, he must continually form the persons under his direction by attempting to make them mystagogues in themselves. This is how he acquires his authority; the authority that proceeds from the experience in itself and the giver of the very experience who, according to the demands of the theistic religious traditions and consequently the spiritualities that spring from said traditions, is the Experiential, Relational and Personal God. This authority is forged when the scientific goal is attained and thus, the mystagogue becomes truly a master of spirituality. He started from being a mystic or a subject of the experience. His vehicle to attain at least the title of mystagogue is the literary mode whose concreteness is the text. Our aim then in this work is to provide guidelines wherein we can read the mystical texts, fruits of the mystagogical task, in order to discover the master who wrote them and confirm these very texts as to whether they are truly masterpieces of spirituality. Spirituality thus becomes the mystical way of life in order to become a mystic; it entails certain exercises or acts (ascesis) geared towards the end of all mysticism (union with God). However, it is necessary first to make considerations about the literary element and the role of Literary Theory with regards to our theme. It is still a largely uncharted area.22 * * * What does Literary Theory have to do with the central theme of our reflections? A lot! The mystical or spiritual texts are the concrete tangible instruments for the establishment of the scientific nature of mysticism and spirituality and consequently of comparative spirituality. Comparative spirituality has to operate on texts in order to gain access to the experiences whose religious nature is essentially universal, inasmuch as all religious experience signifies contact with the Absolute. It is impossible to operate without texts and given the textuality of the experiences, it is necessary to use literary theory and criticism in order to 22

For an initial exploration, see my article: ‘The Textuality of Mystical Experiences: Mysticism as Literature and Theories of Literary Criticism’, in: Studies in Spirituality 11 (2001), 28-46.

136

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

better handle and interpret the texts with the finality of discovering the points of convergence. Basically, literary theory and criticism provides the necessary hermeneutical tools in order to properly situate the text and the experience that it narrates. This goes in line with the necessary starting point of comparative spirituality and of any other ecumenical undertaking: that of properly situating oneself along one’s own tradition. This makes the enriching and comparative dialogue possible with the other or foreign tradition of spirituality. It is necessary not to lose oneself in the maze of innumerable trends and currents. Without this necessary ‘self-situationing’, one could get lost and lose oneself and be diluted in the superficiality of sheer proselytism. In other words, literary theory and criticism and the starting point of comparative or ecumenical spirituality go hand in hand. The former proposes a method, whereas the latter is a possible area of application. The point of convergence is the text, the mystical or spiritual texts that make the dialogue possible, primarily as source material for the endeavor; and that keeps us in touch with ourselves so as not to lose ourselves amidst the possible dangers allurements of heuristic novelties and legitimate differences. There can be no doubt that the success of any venture into comparative spirituality begins with one’s capacity of reading: reading oneself in one’s own religious and spiritual tradition which is the needed perspective in order to read another religious and spiritual tradition. Literary theory and criticism can be defined as the discipline that teaches us to read texts, experiences which are written down and handed to future generations as texts within a particular tradition or within a particular community of readers and writers. A religious or spiritual tradition is distinguished by its creed (epistemological beliefs and doctrines), code (moral norms) and cult (liturgical act and praxis), all of which are consigned textually as experiences to be handed over, as experiences that are meant to be consigned for the historical perpetuation of said tradition. From these three coordinates, the dynamics of living the tradition (spirituality) and its key experiences (mysticism) are drawn out in order to be read or studied and eventually, compared. Much more can be said about the topic at hand. It would necessarily take an overhaul within the ever emerging multifaceted discipline of religious studies, especially in terms of history and phenomenology of religions. This is not within the scope of our article, but it would be a grave injustice not to mention this possibility and it would not be honorable on our part not to admit, in closing, that the present study is open-ended because of this.

CHAPTER NINE MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY ‘¡Oh, válgame Dios’ ¡Cuál está un alma cuando está así! Toda ella querría fuese lenguas para alabar al Señor. Dice mil desatinos santos, atinando siempre a contentar a quien la tiene así. Yo sé persona que, con no ser poeta, que le acaecía hacer de presto coplas muy sentidas declarando su pena bien, no hechas de su entendimiento, sino que, para más gozar la gloria que tan sabrosa pena le daba, se quejaba de ella a su Dios. Todo su cuerpo y alma querría se despedazase para mostrar el gozo que con esta pena siente’. (Sta. Teresa de Jesús, Libro de la Vida, c.16, 4) ‘Vitaque perpetuo fracta labore fuit’. (S. Bautista Mantuano)

Status Quaestionis Philosophy plays the role of making explicit and, therefore, comprehensible what is implicit in the realities that we live with in, better said, paraphrasing Xavier Zubiri, this very world of realities. The primal moment of consciousness reveals to man that his existence is at first marked by a seemingly insuperable alientation from his very own realm of society. He has to fight, struggle, work, study, philosophize in order to live. Primum vivere deinde philosophare, says the scholastic axiom. It is as if he were a foreigner or even an alien or lifeform from another planet. Philosophy reorients us foreigners/aliens into this shared reality by establishing, highlighting, making explicit and documenting new relationships apparently hidden from the beginning by extreme and sheer implicity or perhaps by the silence of indifference and ignorance. It is in this light that we pen this essay on a topic neglected by most philosophers due to the fact that they are not capable of perceiving how their speculating could have anything to do not with what is just merely immaterial or spiritual, but with spirituality. Spirituality, inasmuch as it involves personal participation and commitment, brings together what is material and immaterial. It is a converging point in itself. It is the key to understanding man’s totality and the totality of the reality. Spirituality is that element, in any philosophy, that gives life to philosophy for it presupposes a profound assimilation and experiencing of reality on the part of man, the subject of experience as a reality in himself. Spirituality thrives

138

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

within the realm of the real for it is interested or concerned with what is real inasmuch as it is experientiable. From the viewpoint of Spirituality, God, the Supreme Reality, is experientiable. The experientiability of God has been long neglected by traditional Philosophy which relegated God to the role of the impersonal, undifferentiated Prwth aitia or First Cause. The affirmation that God is experientiable necessarily implies his Personality and not just His being impersonal or non-differentiate principle or cause. At the outset of this part of our essay, this writer feels that he is obliged to make a preliminary apology for the clumsiness of its elaboration. This is true of any pioneering work. Likewise it is appropiate to make the following declaration in order to clarify our approach and methodology: it is the duty of the philosopher, especially one who professes to be a Christian, to search for truth. We are tasked to confront probably the most sublime truth and the only literary possibility that could flow out of this said truth in its intital stages could only be fragmentary, clumsy, unrefined and simply imperfect. Some have distinguished philosophy from theology in the sense that the latter is concerned with God, whereas the former with truth. But is not God the Eternal Truth Himself? With the paradigm shift (Kuhn) or change of episteme (Foucault) inaugurated at the advent of critical and ideological modernity (Habermas) which is always hermeneutically (Ricœur) in conflict with tradition (Schleiermacher, Gadamer), the cultural and sociological wave of secularization1 evident and described as a Logic of Ideas (Husserl) without abstracting to a mere husserlian trascendental ego and contextualized as hermeneutical facticity (Heidegger), has brought about the radicalization of the difference between Philosophy and Theology. This has led to an emancipation process, after an analysis of substructures and superstructures (Marx), wherein Philosophy ceases to play the role of ancilla theologiae.2 For the moment, let us 1

2

I have taken into account the following words of Swiss theologian H. Küng: ‘Formerly “secularization” meant primarily the transference – in a legal-political sense – of ecclesiastical property to worldly uses by individuals and states. But today it seems that not only certain items of ecclesiastical property, but more or less all the important spheres of human life – learning, economy, politics, law, state, culture, education, medicine, social welfare – have been withdrawn from the influence of the Churches, of theology and religion, and placed under the direct responsibility and control of man, who has himself thus become “secular”. It is the same with the word “emancipation”…’. On Being a Christian (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 26-27. Cfr. also: W. Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World (New York: Crossroad, 1989). In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas does not insist in the role of Ancilla Theologiae. In establishing the difference between ‘Revealed Theology’ and what we nowadays call ‘Philosophical Theology’ or Theology in the Aristotelian sense, the Angelic Doctor recognizes the need for a science that would deal with the salvation of men at the same time affirming the superiority of Aristotelian Theology over the other sciences. Says St. Thomas ‘…in order that

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

139

just make the following affirmation: in Theology the Truth necessarily has to be Personal-since God is believed to be a person. Aristotle was bereft of the notion of a Personal God and yet he named his project Qeologia or theology.3 In Theology, Truth, the Eternal Truth has to be a Person and not just a mode of being.4 This ‘Personal Truth’ reveals Himself and invites (provokes?) a confessional response. Christianity believes that this Eternal Truth took flesh, became a human person in Jesus Christ. Nowadays Philosophy, especially after the impact of the Heideggerian critique of the ontotheological reduction of Western Metaphysics, need not (must not?) reach a ‘Personal Truth’. Neither does (must?) it elicit a confessional response. If philosophy would ever need to confess, it need not confess the truth as something personal or better said, truth as a person. In fact, the truth could be taken by man as mere concepts, values, abstractions and the like. But said confession necessarily becomes a testimony. The truth could only ‘shine forth’ when the testimony is held (proven) to be credible.5 Within the light of this testimonial and experiential truth, we hope to go beyond the cold and rigid realm of paradigmal truths as proposed by pure philosophy (Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher,

3

4

5

men be saved, it was necessary that they be instructed on divine matters by divine revelation. Thus, it was necessary that apart from the philosophical disciplines, which are mastered by the intellect, that there be sacred doctrine which is known by revelation’. Summa Theologiae I, q.1 a.1, respondeo (translation mine). Cfr. L. Elders, La Thèologie Philosophique de Saint Thomas D’Aquin (Paris: Tèqui, 1995). The term in the west originated with Plato in the Republic II, 379 a. Aristotle in Metaphysics VI, I, 1026a, 21b writes that ‘The divine is present anywhere, it is present in this kind of nature’. Both Plato and Aristotle denied the personality of the God of Logos (or philosophy), but not of the poets or the God of Mythos and Poiesis. St. Thomas Aquinas in his Prologue to his Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle Vol. I affirms: ‘It [Metaphysics] is called divine science or theology inasmuch as it considers [divine] substances. It is called metaphysics inasmuch as it considers being and the attributes which usually accompany being (…) And it is called first philosophy inasmuch as it considers the first causes of things’. Transl. by J.P. Rowan (Chicago: Regnery, 1961). Nowadays the challenge is to make Theology relevant and contemporary. In Catholic theology, Karl Rahner’s trinitarian modalism is most remembered. Cfr. K. Rahner, The Trinity (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 101, 113. For a general rundown on modalism Cfr. S. del Cura Elena, ‘Modalismo’, in: Several Authors, El Dios Cristiano: Diccionario Teológico (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1992), 916-922. Aside from Rahner names such as Hegel, Barth, Jenson, Pannenberg and Moltmann should be taken into account. For authoritative introductions on these authors Cfr. W.J. Hill, The Three-Personned God: The Trinity as Mystery of Salvation (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 112-178; X. Pikaza, Dios como Espíritu y Persona: Razón humana y misterio trinitario (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1988), 125-145. Cfr. M. Ofilada Mina, ‘La credibilidad como base de un discurso de teodicea en un mundo secularizado’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 32 (1997), 223-246. This article is my first attempt to contextualize theology and theodicy within a secularized set up.

140

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Foucault, Kuhn) and perhaps adopt some vitalist creativity (Nietzsche) with the aim of overcoming and recreating the same in a renewed comprehension of experience: experience that is intense, authentic, transforming, unifying and loving as related by the subjects of said experiences called to bring forth logically, coherently and validly a literary text of signs, symbols, lexicon, language and words (Saussare). Against this historical and epistemological backdrop, this writer wishes to make some philosophical reflections concerning mystagogy, a very important dimension in any spiritual or mystical process or experience. Mysticism, in general, has already been studied philosophically.6 Likewise, its relation with theology has already been explored, although not fully.7 There are epistemological lacunae which could only be filled by epistemological specifications. 6

7

There is an abundance of works written from this perspective. It would be too pretentious to enumerate them all. However, the following may be considered to be a respectable list: J. Baruzi, L’intelligence mystique, ed. J.L.Viellard-Baron (Paris: Berg, 1985); G. Berger, M. Blondel & L. Lavelle, Chant nocturne: Saint Jean de la Croix mystique et philosophie (Campin: Universitaries, 1991); C. de Jesús Sacramentado, ‘La percepción de Dios en la filosofía y en la mística’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 5 (1945), 118-130; B. Jiménez Duque, Mística: La experiencia del misterio (Valencia: Edicep, 1995); J. Martín Velasco, La experiencia cristiana de Dios (Madrid: Trotta, 1995); N. de Sta. Teresa, ‘La “Ciudad de Dios”, filosofía de la mística: De S. Agustín a S. Juan de la Cruz’, in: La Ciudad de Dios 169 (1956), 151-178; Idem, Filosofía de la mística: Análisis del pensamiento español (Madrid: Studium de Cultura, 1953); R. Piñero Moral, ‘La inefabilidad mística: Oráculo para la metafísica’, in: Several Authors, Actas del Congreso Internacional Sanjuanista III (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 1993), 351-363; C. Tresmontant, La mística cristiana y el porvernir del hombre (Barcelona: Herder, 1980); M. Zambrano, Filosofía y poesía (Alcalá de Henares: Ed. de la Universidad, 1993); Y. Floucat, L’être et la mystique des saints (Paris: Tèqui, 1995); D.L. Carmody & J.L. Carmody, Mysticism: Holiness East and West (London: Oxford University Press, 1996). As to the discursivity of mysticism, in part I have taken into consideration: M. de Certeau, La fable mystique: XVI-XVIIe siècle. Vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1987). These articles have helped me in familiarizing myself with de Certeau’s interpretation of mystical language: T. Polo, ‘Decir “lo otro” que todavía habla: El lenguaje herido de los místicos’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 53 (1994), 317-347; Idem, ‘Un viajero en el país de la mística: Michel de Certeau’, in Teresianum 42 (1991), 533-559. Cfr. the following important publications: Ch. Bernard, ‘Teologia e mistica’, in: Several Authors, Vita cristiana ed esperienza mistica (Rome: Teresianum, 1982), 137-157; G. Phan Tan Thanh, ‘Il “problema mistico”: Variazioni sul tema’, in: Several Authors, Compendio di teologia spirituale in onore di Jordan Aumann, O.P. (Rome: UPSA 1992), 207-223; Various Authors, Esperienza misitca e fenomeni mistici. 3 Vols. (Rome: Citta Nuova, 1984); J. Martín Velasco, Espiritualidad y mística (Madrid: SM, 1995); S. Guerra, ‘Mística’, in: El Dios Cristiano, 897-916; B. Jiménez Duque, Teología de la mística (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1963); Idem, ‘Experiencia y Teología’, in: Several Authors, Actas del Congreso Internacional Sanjuanista, 155-176; K. Rahner, ‘Mística’, in: K. Rahner & H. Vorgrimler, Diccionario Teológico (Barcelona: Herder, 1996), col. 440; A. Stolz, Teología de la mística (Madrid: Rialp, 1952); R. Zaehner, Mysticism: Sacred and Profane (London: Oxford University Press, 1967);

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

141

Philosophy, in its highest form, is theology says Aristotle and also St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas was one of the pioneers in recovering the old word Theology following Abelard (although Aquinas used the word sparingly preferring ‘Sacra Doctrina’) in the light of the pagan implications of the term ‘Theology’ given Varro’s distinctions. It is the Theology (God-Talk), better said, Sacra Doctrina (the act of God’s Talking) as the Angelic Doctor says, that does not have any soteriological concerns for it limits itself with the notion that God is merely a First Principle.8 It is the Theology that is not necessarily linked to any ecclesial institution as its mouthpiece or intellectual tradition.9 St. John of the Cross affirmed the superiority of Mystical Theology over what he calls ‘Scholastic Theology’.10 Of course, the Mystical Doctor was working within the context of Soteriological or Revealed Theology. Could we not also affirm that the supreme form of philosophizing be mystical and effectively, spiritual? Should not philosophy speak about the experience of supreme reality? The ontological tradition affirms that Metaphysics or First Philosophy deals with being inasmuch as it is being or existing or real. Should not Metaphysics be elevated to the experience of the Supreme Reality, i.e., mysticism? ‘With regards to the real things, God is the foundational (fundante) reality: realitas fundamentalis as I would call it. Foundationality is a characteristic trait of absolutely absolute reality. But it is not a constitutive moment of reality, but it is consecutive to it’.11 In the same light, it is rational to affirm that God is the Apodictic Experience not just as data for an epistemological (scientific) venture or investigation, but more so in the experiential or spiritual level wherein said experience would really be a life event. Of course, this is not a denial of the pivotal role that an experience of God could play in the ongoing process of establishing the epistemological validity of mysticism.

8

9

10

11

K. Waajiman, ‘Toward a Phenomenological Definition of Spirituality’, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 5-57; J. Dan, ‘In Quest of a Historical Definiton of Mysticism’, in: Ibid., 58-90. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1 a.1. See also this excellent article: H. Hoping, ‘Understanding the Difference of Being: On the Relationship between Metaphysics and Theology’, in: The Thomist 59 (1995), 189-221. Speaking about Revealed Theology, American Jesuit theologian A. Dulles clamours that ‘theology must serve the Church and be accountable to it. While theology needs to have a measure of autonomy in order to perform its distinctive service, it loses its identity if it ceases to be a reflection on the faith of the Church’, in: The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (New York: Crossroad, 1995), x-xi. St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle (B), Prologue, 3 (translation mine). I am using this edition: S. Juan de la Cruz, Obras completas, ed. E. Pacho (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2004). X. Zubiri, El Hombre y Dios (Madrid: Fundación Xabier Zubiri, 1984), 172. (translation mine).

142

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The Secularizad Backdrop for a Renewed Comprehension of Mystagogy The Wittgenstein of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has assigned mysticism to the transcendental realm of silence. What is transcendental for the Austrian Philosopher, in the first stage or phase of his philosophical career, is what is beyond the realm of language. After having delved into all the possibilities offered by linguistic philosophy, he had no other recourse. Wittgenstein must have probably realized that Symbolic Logic with all of its pretensions of expressing relationships in the world is pseudo-mysticism. True mysticism is beyond mere relational expressions inasmuch as these reflect the empirical or observeable realm. Beyond the empirical and the symbolical lies a realm of silence which transcends all linguistic limitaions: ‘The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling (…) There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical. The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said (…) Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’.12 Given the rise of Postmodernism13 (which has also drank from the wells of the thought of Wittgenstein), mysticism is considered as ‘pensiero debole’ or weak thought. This weakness springs from the fact that ‘for some postmodernism suggests the death of God and disappearance of religion’.14 We live in an era posterior to God. The phrase ‘After God’ is definitely not only the title of a controversial work,15 but it could well be the main characteristic of this age of ‘posts’ not only as far as institutional religion is concerned. They seem to be more likely, as viewed in the present context, cultural remains or skeletons. This writer opts to employ this expression: we live in an era posterior to the Experience of God. Given today’s axiological and cultural shifts, God, inasmuch as He is transcendental, abstract or not experientiable in today’s somewhat TractatusWittgensteinian paradigms, does not fit into contemporary man’s experiential paradigms and axiological selections. Mysticism is an authentic experience of God taken as the Absolute Reality who is likewise a Person and thus capable of experiencing, being experienced, 12

13

14

15

L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.522, 6.53, 7. I am using the translation of C.K. Ogden (London: Routledge, 1990). Cfr. the following studies: E. Zemach, ‘Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical’, in: Several Authors, Essays on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1993), 359-376; J. Carmona Adorna, ‘Los gritos de silencio de Wittgenstein’, in: Several Authors, Wittgenstein-Heidegger (Badajoz: Diputación Provincial de Badajoz, 1990), 53-56; J. Ma. Ayuso Díez, ‘El ahogo del lenguaje: Sobre el carácter místico de la ética de Wittgenstein’, in: Ibid., 151-156. For a comprehensive survey Cfr. S. Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). M. Taylor, ‘Reframing Postmodernisms’, in: Several Authors, Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992), 11. Cfr. D. Cupitt, After God: The Future of Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

143

relating and above all, loving. This is our working definition. Present day theologians are challenged to deliver the reflection on God from this postmodern attack and demonstrate that it is epistemologically a ‘pensiero forte’ or strong thought.16 A ‘pensiero debole’, which is part of the ongoing crisis of thought, is a frustrated system from the very beginning of the process of converting thought into a system. ‘System’ means an all comprehensive view of reality which affirms, at the same time, reality’s facile conversion into a compendium, into a synthetic total picture of reality. This means that reality, in its totality and as a totality, could be captured, comprehended, represented in the intellectual faculties and expressed as such through the prose of direct representation. The ‘pensiero debole’ is incapable of this prose and thus it resorts to presenting reality as something fictional, adventurous, quixotic or too poetic. Thus, a ‘pensiero debole’ can be said to be, by nature, tragic (Nietzsche, Unamuno). In other words, reality is slipping away from the hands of system builders and building. System building in its primordial stage is proud and haughty (Hegel). It can be enhanced only by nihilist play (Nietzsche) or cultural-artistic and constructive play (Ortega). Reality could thus only be ‘lived’ (and not captured) and ‘poeticized’ in a fragmentary manner. The Zarathustra of Nietzsche wrote aphorisms in a poetic manner in an attempt to recover and enhance Dionysius whereas Freud, in the previous century, affirmed triplicity in the fragmentation of man in the ego, superego and the id. Wittgenstein’s calculated theses and aphorisms ends in silence. Mysticism, with its cues of silence, poetry, aphoristic way of speech and indirect way of expressing itself, is, mistakenly, taken in this light.17 From a contemporary platonic point of view, it is pure poiesis or mythos. From a Wittgensteinian (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) perspective it is tantamount to a brand of transcendentalism wherein the object of thought does not give or reveal itself in the world. Hence, it is outside the world. It is outside of the realms of philosophy and of language, with the latter taken as the guarantee of systematic tautology with the aim of making a synthetical summation: ‘How the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world. Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole. The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling’.18 16

17

18

I admit having been influenced a little by P. Ripa di Meana, ‘All’ascolto di un “pensiero forte”: la dottrina tomista della Trinità’, in: Salesianum 54 (1992), 9-39. In a previous work, I have reflected on mysticism as a solution to modernism which is somewhat the predecessor of the current secularized postmodern trend. Cfr. M. Ofilada Mina, ‘La autognosis por medio de la mística frente al modernismo: Reflexiones desde Miguel de Unamuno’, in: Studium 36 (1996), 121-137. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.44, 6.45.

144

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

At the end, the ‘pensero debole’ will experience its own limitations and would find a way out of its imposed (or self-imposed?) dead corner of silence. Silence, as some critics put it, has been the game of mysticism and mystics. The mystagogue must be a master of language given the insufficiency of language to narrate the mystical experience. Ineffability is the great maze in mystagogy and the feared minotaur is indifferent silence that must be overcome at all cost. Mystagogia and the Maze of Pensiero Debole Silence is demeaning if taken in the sense previously expounded on. The ‘Pensero Debole’ is nothing else, but the incapability to build discourses. The silence of mysticism is not a failure of discourse nor of thought building, but rather the acknowledgement of the power of the word, of the testimonial word. Said word affirms only the grandeur and infinity of reality that condescendingly allows itself to be experienced. Silence is not abstaining, but rather it is the power of the word inasmuch as it points to what transcends it, as the Tractatus would put it. Better said, it is the power of the reality that lies ahead to be experienced. Wittgenstein in the Tractatus was aware of this and affirmed the beyondness of the experience as something that transcends words or language. The word, given the renovating touch of mysticism becomes an invitation to an experience. This is how we should understand the notion of mystagogy. What is mystagogy?19 Mystagogy simply put is the act of leading towards the mystical experience. It is the teaching of the mystical experience by initiating the novice in the mysteries. Better said, it is sharing the mystical level with the 19

In spite of its incompleteness and vagueness, I still consider the definition of mystagogue (or one engaged in mystagogy) of F. Ruiz Salvador as the best formulated to date: ‘The mystagogue (…) is somebody who has undergone the experience of God and of His mystery and accompanies the one who undergoes the path (…) The assistance (rendered) does not consist of giving practical norms, but in presenting the very mystery of God and His communion with man making the very mystery mark the content and modalities of the new experience. The art of the mystagogue consists in knowing how to transmit not his own experience, but thanks to this experience, the personal and gratuitous mystery of God reveals itself freely to those who seek God’. In: S. Juan de la Cruz, Obras Completas, 25 (translation mine); Idem., ‘Dos Testigos Supremos de Dios: Teresa de Jesús y Juan de la Cruz’, in: Several Authors, Actas del Congreso Internacional Teresiano (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1983), 1044; Idem, Místico y Maestro: San Juan de la Cruz (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1986), 58; Idem, ‘El carisma del Carmelo vivido e interpretado por S. Juan de La Cruz: Carisma de S. Juan de la Cruz vivido e interpretado por el Carmelo’, in: Several Authors, La recepción de los místicos: Teresa de Jesús y Juan de la Cruz (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1997), 587.

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

145

aim of initiating geared towards the perfection of the craft or experience. Mystagogy presupposes having attained the supreme level, commonly called ‘union’ and yet the mystagogue accompanies the begginers and proficients towards the very same experience. More than accompanying, it is living all over again the very experience by means of words, actions, examples. The mystagogue is no bodhisattva. The former has already reached the highest limit. But the mere fact of reaching this supreme limit signifies that the experience is gratuitous. Being gratuitous, it must be taught, shared, transmitted and breathed. This means that the mystagogue is tasked to construct a discourse. Mystagogy takes concrete form as a discourse. By nature, it is a discourse. Mystagogy, simply said, is the discourse of the mystical experience. The mystical experience is a process towards the union with God, the Absolute Personal Reality. The aforementioned discourse obtains its data from the configuration, guiding principle and execution of the process towards union with God: Spirituality. Mystagogy assures the authenticity of the mystical experience. Experience cannot be contained. It must be experessed, shared; it must be transformed into the basis of a necessary pedagogical activity. Said activity necessarily flows from the experience itself. St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila) insisted on the necessity of the expression of the experience: ‘It is one gift that the Lord gives the favour, and another thing is to understand what this favour is and what grace it is. It is also another thing to know how to say it and make others understand how it is’.20 The authenticity of the mystical experience is tantamount to its scientific or criteriological validity. Mystagogy is the confirmation of the authenticity of the experience and thus, elevates the experience to the universal level. The mystical experience is not only for the few, but is for every person given that man is an animal who experiences, i.e., man remembers, interiorizes, assimilates, narrates, shares and explains what is real inasmuch as it is a reality. What is real becomes truly a reality for man through the mediation of experience. For the mystic, what is real in itself is identified with a Personal, Relational, Experientiable and Loving God. God is not merely an Absolute and Transcendental Reality. He is experientiable not only as a Supreme Value or in the axiological level, but also in the intimate level which is not limited to the interior or profound dimension of ma, as the subject of the experience. Rather, the intimate level is that which configurates the totality of the subject of experience. Teaching, sharing and breathing are acts of language. Language is therefore the key in resolving the problematic of the ‘pensero debole’. Only by acknowledging and manifesting the variations of language can the arrogance of the stiffening mimetic or representational prose be properly addressed and humbled. 20

Book of Life 17, 5 (translation mine). I am quoting from this critical edition: Sta. Teresa de Jesús, Obras Completas. 7th ed. of T. Alvarez (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 1994).

146

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Mimesis, as representation in the sense of imitation, is too narrow. There must be a call to creativity, wherein representation is transfigured into creative reliving or celebration (liturgy), which easily facilitates itself especially in poetic language. But prose, in this creative process, has to be re-discovered not only as a venue for poetic lanaguage, but more as an experiential mode, i.e., its narrative potential has to be unlocked. Present day prose has tended to become too dogmatic. It must be re-channeled as something more experiential, narrative… prophetic. The discourse of the mystical experience cannot be weak in the secularized sense which demeans it as not being a part of the present day axiological parameters or which considers this kind of experience as nonsense because it is not something empirically demonstrable. the transcendental nature of experience affirms its truly experientiable nature. And it is not just any experience or experience taken in common parlance as a mere happening or event of empirical significance. Empiricism and narrativity do not form a perfect equation. The experientiability of mysticism flows from of the Supreme Reality wherein said Reality, in spite of its sheer transcendence, is also intimate, loving and condescending. Mysticism is not a ‘pensiero debole’. On the contrary, it speaks not only of the Strongest or Supreme Reality as a person, as relational and experientiable, but it also affirms the configuration and elevation of the subject of experience into a full experiential participation in the Supreme Reality. Mystagogy gives a new sense to narrativity. Thus, narrativity is not only limited to what is empirical. Mystagogy enriches the sense of narrativity with the notions of signigicance, authenticity, intensity, transformation in reference to the experience. What is narrated is the experience. In mystagogy, the experience is not just an event (empirical sense), but it is also significant, authentic, intense and transforming wherein the subject of the experience is elevated, given the condescendence of the Supreme Reality, to participate of the Supreme Reality. This then is the fullness of human life. It is not just mere ‘being there’ or existence. It implies being significant, authentic, important and transformed by being elevated in a personal, total, loving and relational manner. Events make up a narrative. A narrative with a guiding principle or perspective is what we call history. A mystical experience, with or without the accompanying phenomena necessarily of second nature, is more than just an event. It is, as mentioned, personal, relational, loving, transforming, significant, intense, etc. Thus a mystagogical discourse is in effect a history, a history of salvation! The union of God and man or of man with the Supreme Reality, the aim of all mysticism, cannot be understood or expressed except in soteriological terms. Mysticism is in itself the thought, the language of the experientiability of the Supreme Reality. Mystagogy is the discourse of this thought and of this language. Mystagogy reveals the discursiveness of the authentic and intense experience of

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

147

the condescending and elevating Supreme Reality and is the availability, disposition and openness of said discrsiveness to a process of human symbolization. From Language to Experience – Theos as Experienced and Shared It is not our aim to make a thorough linguistical-philosophical analysis of mysticism. This can be done on another occasion and by more competent scholars. We prefer to proceed by presupposing the possibility of teaching, sharing and breathing experiences whether they may be fictitious or not. In other words, we are interested in discourse building. This naturally presupposes the question of language. But we prefer not to delve into the intricacies of language and instead we would like to focus our attention on its dynamic character. This can only be encountered in the discursive form of language. In other words, by means of discourse language enters into the games of everyday living and experiencing instead of playing its own solitary game.21 The mystic is conscious of his own radical incapacity of communicating due to the lack of adecuate expressive modes. He is forced to borrow from human language meanings or senses which are beyond the normal. However, the expressive mode is not identifiable with the content, but the latter cannot be understood without the former. The message reaches us through language. Those that have been inseperable from the beginning cannot be separated.22

Many would deem mysticism and mystagogy as fictitious because they speak of an experience of something or somebody that is not in the world. But does He not reveal Himself in the world? We would like to make a side remark on Wittgenstein: How do men know of God if it were not primarily by revelation? It is not that we are denying the validity of the Quinquae Viae of St. Thomas Aquinas which is an affirmation of the capacity of the human intellect to construct ways (viae) towards God relying on its own merits and capabilities. Neither are we making a fideist statement. What we wish to affirm is the primacy or primordiality of gratuity. Everything is primordially gratuitous: What we are, Who we are, Where we are, Why are we here, etc. From the gratuitous we start reaping rewards based on our own 21 22

Cfr. J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). E. Pacho, ‘Lenguaje y Mensaje’, in: Several Authors, Experiencia y Pensamiento en S. Juan de la Cruz (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1990), 72 & 81. See also: Idem, ‘Lenguaje técnico y lenguaje popular en S. Juan de la Cruz’, in: Several Authors, Hermenéutica y mística: S. Juan de la Cruz (Madrid: Tecnos, 1995), 197-219; G. della Croce, ‘Semantica della parola: Il linguaggio mistico di San Giovanni della Croce’, in: Several Authors, Juan de la Cruz: Espíritu de Llama (Rome/ Kampen: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1991), 493-506.

148

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

merits. Gratuitousness is, however, only a starting point. It is not the end although it never ceases. It may constantly reappear in our lives as a means. In the very end, everything may be summed up in terms of gratuity, but a gratuitousness that has been deserved given the fact that man has accomplished things on his own merits. If we were pressed to provide a more concise and exact definition of mystagogy, we would no doubt quote one of the most beautiful phrases inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas and which has become one of the mottos of the Dominican Order: ‘Contemplári et contempláta aliis trádere’:23 ‘To contemplate and to share with others what has been contemplated’. The question of gratuitousness is a question of experience. The mere fact that we exist is in itself gratuitous. We do not just exist (like the so called ‘non-living’ things). We live. We are alive. We are not just vital beings like the plants and brutes. We are capable of experience. An experiential being is a being capable of language. He experiences because his structure is basically linguistic or open to receive communication from others. Because of this, he is capable of expressing himself or finding an objectivized outlet for his experiential-linguistical structure which consists in making others know of what is in him. Thus, he is a being who communicates, a being who shares. Is it not high time that we start reconceptualizing (or redefining?) philosophy as sharing? Has not the ‘kairos’ of redefining philosophy as a spirituality arrived? Philosophy has long been thought of as a way of life in vulgar parlance or in existentialist inspired terms. Spirituality is nothing else but a directed, firm and guided way of life. It would be deplorable, given the superficiality and weakness of thought of this secularized or postmodern era, to respond in the negative. By being conscious always of the notion of gratuity in the act of philosophizing, language and experience can be fused into a singular process of discourse building. In the discourse, language (form) and experience (content) become one in the same discourse wherein the dialectical relationship between language and experience ceases giving way to an interplay of the two dimensions complementing each other to the point of mutual identification. Mystagogy necessarily involves thought. It is a thought process and thus, the mystagogue is basically a thinker. But his thinking is only concerned with the truth. He is not interested in converting his thought into an ideology or a discourse about his ideas with the aim of mobilizing or moving the readers to any kind of manipulative action. Mystagogy is beyond manipulation or civil 23

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q.188, a.6, respondeo. The exact words of the Common Doctor are ‘Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari’. Aquinas was talking here of the ‘perfect’ or best religious order, obviously referring to the Dominican Order.

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

149

mobilization that follows the traditional critical social paradigm of theorypraxis. In between and beneath theory-praxis is a special kind of experience, an experience of gratuitousness that does not in any way require reciprocity nor any kind of manipulation or conventional mobilization. Certainly as a thinker, the mystagogue communicates knowledge, but not a knowledge determined by critical or manipulative interests or interests of the limiting kind which necessarily are particular and thus, run the risk of being fragmentary. The experience of the mystic as narrated by his mystagogy is totalizing: dignifying, transcenind and yet intimate and thus truly personal and participatory. There can be no interest as selfishness, critical theory-praxis manipulation and mobilization or as mere fancy. The experience that the mystic calls for compromise, existential assent, love. Sharing the Experience and Justifying it Mystagogy is the discursive sharing of the transcending, intimate and personal experience of God. It is not about God in Himself or per se. We could say that mystagogy, and mysticism as well, is about God as experienced by man. In fact, we could not engage in theology or God-Talk if we do not presuppose the fact that somehow He is experienced as a mystery of salvation. Philosophy does not necessarily have soteriological concerns,24 which is the realm of a confessional theology, but it necessarily deals with experience. Likewise it has to be noted that, as in the case of Aristotle, theology is philosophy in its highest form though aconfessional. Experience is our contact with what is termed to be real. What is real is what is experienciable. Reality is the totality of all the experienciable including that which has already been experienced.25 What is experienced should be the content of all philosophical discourses; its form must give the hint that what is contained is experienced. The mystagogical process is a linguistic process of sharing with the purpose of teaching and leading with the gratuitousness of the sharing process having primordial importance. The mystagogical process presupposes the experience 24

25

St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.1, as already mentioned, distinguishes the theology of Aristotle from that of Sacra Doctrina basing himself on the soteriological question. However, there are certain philosophical systems that are concerned with presenting soteriological models such as those in India: Yoga, Vedanta and in China: Dao De Jia (especially Zhuang Zi). In the West one could think of the Neoplatonic school (especially Plotinus) and even St. Augustine, Boethius, the Pseudo-Dionysius, etc. I beg to disagree with E. Schillebeeckx who affirms that experience is always an interpreted experience. Cfr. Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1980); Idem, Church: The Human Story of God (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 15ss.

150

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

itself. In the mystagogical discourse, phenomenology (description without judgements or prejudices) and hermeneutics (experiential interpretation) are fused into a personal and transcending participation. This fusion is first of all expressed in symbols and these symbols are then fused into a text in such a way that a posterior sifting process would be necessary to distinguish symbol from text. The very authenticity and intensity of the experience gives the symbolic text or textual symbolism its discursive nature. Discourse is based on power: power or virtue to share, to express and eventually, to justify and to convince in a scientific manner. This power is better conceptualized by authority guaranteed by the authenticity and intensity of the experience based on previous experiences, community and confessional context or acceptance and universal, humanistic appeal. Said authority is better enhanced if the mystagogue possesses philosophical formation. Said formation must be very theological. Theology is not just God-Talk or discourse about God, but it is above all God-Talks. We theologians and philosophers can talk about God because God talks about Himself. The discourse of theologians and philosophers who talk about God, who do metaphysics in its highest form (a mystical metaphysics or metaphysical mysticism) commences by description (phenomenology – or purely narrative state) and then it develops as an interpretation (hermeneutics – wherein the narrative becomes a history) geared towards assimilation (experienciologizing – wherein the described and interpreted are fused and assimilated in an experiential discourse) for the reader or listener. But this process necessarily presupposes a previous experienciology or assimilation on the part of the speaker or writer. This is the very foundation of mystagogical discourse as genuine theology: allowing God to talk in talking about Him after having listened and assimilated what God talked about in experience. If the mystagogue allows God to talk in his experiential discourse then, the authenticity and intensity is enhanced further by: 1. The presence of a living and experiential God and not just a theoretical God; 2. The testimonial character which necessarily accompanies this conceptualization of theology; 3. A richer, more conceptualized, experiential and beautiful language open to inspiration and more applicable universally; 4. A greater attractive force to the secularized man in search of meaning in a secularized world. The mystic, because he allows God to talk allows the liveliness, vitality of the experience of God in faith and communion to be something more palpable in his text, whereas the philosophy controls the thought and its discursivity and thus gives it the necessary organized manner (at least in presentation) and

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

151

likewise offers criteria, guidelines for discernment, explanation, justification, interpretation. The text does not contain the experience shared. The experience is beyond all symbols and texts though said symbols and texts point to the experience itself. The mystagogical discourse is in itself not an end, but only a means. The true mystagogue does not allow that his texts, his writings, his very own testimony would be a substitute to the very experience itself. Experience is the very horizon of the mystagogue, a horizon that does not only seek to fuse with other horizons, but that seeks to disappear in the sense that as one progresses the horizon vanishes or is constantly replaced to give way to a new and enriched one that is likewise enriching, expanding and creative. We obviously cannot go beyond experience and enter or posit an idealist utopic world of ultra experience. Even science fiction presents us with possible, if not imagined, experienciables which need not be actually experienced. By the mere fact they were imagined by experiential beings or persons, they are in themselves experienciables if only in the mind, but not in the shared history or experiential realm of everyone. Given what we have just affirmed, many may categorize mystagogy as a merely fictional or literary experience found only in texts and that configurate the imagination. Thus, God as an experience is only fiction or purely literary as what most mystical-mystagogical texts are.26 All mystagogical discourses start by being literary pieces. Literature is not everything that is written, but that what is written about a significant human experience with universal meaning, validation and outreach at the same time of individual intensity and authenticity. The Theodiceal Convergence Point of Mystagogy as Literature The challenge is to go beyond the literary or the purely textual (form) and enter what is experiential (content). The presence of the discourse in itself is a call to go beyond the literary and the textual which are particular and historically conditioned in order to go to the universal and criteriological level. This does not imply that we must abandon our interests for forms. Forms are important. They are the modes of presentation and schematization of the experiential content. In the absence of said forms, the subject of the experience would not be comprehend his experience and himself as the subject of the experience. Neither could the experience as experienced by the subject be expressed or shared with others. 26

Cfr. D. Weir, Decadence and the Making of Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995).

152

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

However, forms, aside from their capacity to impose borderlines, could lead to distortion and/or reduction. The only plausible way to respond to the challenge we have just posed is to look for the form that would enhance and buildup the experiential content taking into account the urgent needs of today’s secularized world hurt by the myths of postmodernism and its ‘pensiero debole’. There is the urgent need for a ‘strong’ form that would speak of the experience of God as something strong, powerful, moving and revolutionizing. This power or virtue springs from the creativity of the mystic as a subject of the experience. His being subject of the experience necessarily funnels into a creativity that analyzes, assimilates and recreates circumstances and situations not necesssarily by creating new ones, but by giving the circumstances that surround human life a renewed touch. It is our belief that the form of discourse qualified to meet these demands is theodiceal. Since we are talking about the experiential God, we have to justify this God. We have to be engaged in a Theodicy. Nowadays, the Leibnizian sense of the word would fall short of what the current situation demands.27 Theodicy must be more than just a justification of God amidst evil. It must inquire as to whether God is still experientiable. Better said, it must look for ways and arguements in order to affirm that God is indeed and truly experientiable. By asking whether God is still experientiable, man inquires as to whether God is still real or could be considered as such given the axiological demands of the times. At first glance, Theodicy could be considered as tantamount to the form of apologetic discourse in the face of the contemporary challenge of affirming God’s experientiability. Theodicy, however, is more than just mere apologetics. There is nothing to defend or apologize about. On the contrary, there is something to be proclaimed. Philosophy (since Theodicy is a philosophical venture and responsibility) must be a kerygmatic process of experience. Only what can be experienced can be taught and shared. Without this experientiability, it would be impossible to have a mystical experience. Neither would there be any mystagogical process. Said process consists in the construction of the discourse. Theodicy could be creatively regenerated as the justification of Spirituality, in the sense that justification be taken as discursiveness or discursive explicitation of something lived and commonly held to be private or internal and hardly expressed at all. Theodicy then becomes or could become, as a form of discourse, the ideal tool to narrate mystical experiences mystagogically. Theodicy could only prosper, within a secularized context, as a testimony of a profound spiritual experience and thus, be a mystagogical discourse! Genuine theodicy is mystagogical-it presupposes the assimilated experience previous to the springing 27

G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Freedom of Man, the Goodness of God and the Origin of Evil, ed. W. Stark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952).

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

153

forth of said experience into description and interpretation towards another assimilation. It is like the Plotinian journey of the solitary to the solitary; an exitus-reditus scheme. The theodiceal dimension gives the mystagogical discourse its effective power especially in overcoming the frontiers imposed, not only by cultural, geographical and sociological factors, but above all by modernity and secularization. This dimension insists not only in the transcendence of God, but in the fullness of man within said level of transcendence in participation, full freedom, full realization especially in terms of knowing, experiencing and appreciating in the sense that the reader of the mystagogical text is invited to be creative like the mystagogue in narrating the presence of the human elevating and glorifying transcendence in his very life. Said theodiceal dimension is like a trampolin, better said, a creative point of departure in the consideration of the reader or the one inititated mystagogically in the consideration, description, interpretation and projection of his very own experiences in dialogue not only with the mystagogical text but also with his own circumstances, contemporaries and particular historicity. Thematical Variations and Mystagogical Consistencies – Outlines of Forms of Religious Language There are various forms or genera of talking about God for today’s world situation.28 Our discourse could be narrative in character in the sense that it has to above all tell a story. Basically, all discourses are narrative in the sense that they fundamentally relate and describe. It is only later on that our discourses become dogmatic usually as an apologetical response to an adverse intellectual or otherwise situation. That being the case, it is also feasible to construct a normative discourse wherein we touch on certain norms and practices that are missing and could form solutions to the present theological-theodiceal crisis. When a normative discourse imposes, it acquires a legislative nature. This kind of discourse may be considered as the praxis of any dogmatic discourse. Likewise a sapiential discourse is possible and likewise necessary, since in these times of great questioning man is in constant search for the meaning of his existence. In the same light, said discourses must also be proverbial in character in the sense that they are tasked to build bridges over different perspectives and temporalities in order to shed light on the present situation and its ‘lack’ of the presence of God given that previously God was ‘present’ in the world. 28

I have partly adopted and followed the schema of M. Maceiras Fafián, ‘Dios en la filosofía de Paul Ricœur’, in: Several Authors, Filosofía de la Religión (Madrid: Trotta, 1994), 691-692.

154

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The aforementioned are merely forms. Indeed there are various forms. There is an abyss between form and content. The content must be experiential in nature. But what could be the basis of the experiential content of a discourse? Through the content, the historicity, circumstanciality and accidentality of the forms are transcended and transfigured in a transcendental, immanent, intimate and personal process. Said necessary basis could only be found in the very roots or souces of the discourse. Who is the one speaking or constructing the discourse? Nowadays, taking into account the various possible forms of discourse making, all of them must be prophetic in nature. To be a prophet does not mean to be an astrologer nor a fortune teller; it means being the spokesman of another who has a very important message to impart. To be the spokesman of another necessarily entails being a witness of the gratuitousness of the Other in one’s owns life. Thus, the witness becomes also a sharer in the gratuity; he becomes the subject of experience. His discourse building qualifies him as a teacher, as a sharer of the experience. Therefore, the prophet is truly a mystagogue in the fullest sense of the word. Mystagogy makes the best theodicy because it is necessarily the translation into discourse of a theophanical experience, the root of religious phenomenon (Eliade), as something not only witnessed or viewed, but assimilated and accepted. Theophanies are gratuitous experiences. Philosophy would only reach its grandeur upon realizing the true value of all human efforts to rationally understand and explain, by means of models, reality. Said true value is only transparent in the light of the acknowledgement that reality is gratuitous. Man may approach it. But said approach would have not been possible, if reality taken as a whole and as a context, did not make the first inviting move. Man’s approach hopefully would eventually end up in an intimate, profound and personal assimilation. The process towards this kind of assimilation is nothing else but Spirituality. More than just searching for the truth (which is quite generic), the philosopher is tasked to present his fellowmen with models and schema in order to understand the reality that they are experiencing. Said models and schema could be collectively labeled as ‘modes of experiencing’. This presupposes that the philosopher has had an intense and authentic experience of reality. Truly, the philosopher is (must be) a mystagogue in every sense of the word. He should be a prophet… a spokesman for the reality of the experience. Though he may be the subject of the experience, he must always be aware of the gratuity of the experience. Thus, the experience is not exclusively his; it was given to him in order to be shared. Indeed, the philosopher must be a teacher… one who shows the experience and the way to it. But he must also be an experienced teacher. Experience, in the enriching sense of the word or as an accumulation of learning

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

155

moments, is the guarantee that the teacher would ‘speak clearly, with love and integrity, with lesser words and always commited with these words’.29 Taking all this into consideration, the following are the coordinates charted and touched by the journey narrated by the mystagogical discourse: 1. The totality of reality with God, reality as He is, as the centerpoint, source and finality; 2. The personal history of the mystagogue; 3. The human experience as a whole and as the experience addressed by the discourse; 4. The organization of the text and the dynamic and flexibility of the process in the experiencial text; 5. The invitation to follow, to read, to persevere and to go on in the process; 6. The credibility of the experience in its text as a whole and in its various moments and dimensions. Trinitas – Converging Point of a Christian Mystagogy and its Theodiceal Nature We are aware that these reflections will not convince everyone. By citing the example of the Buddhists, many could legitimately claim that mysticism is not exclusive of theism but is also the experience of atheists. For them nirvana is the ultimate reality. God or the ultimate reality, from an all-comprehending viewpoint, need not be a person. It could be a concept, a value, a state, a non-state, etc. But being a Christian, this writer believes that only in being a person could there be experiential plenitude. Earlier in this essay, we aluded to the notion of person within a trinitarian context. Thus, a non-personal notion of mystical experience and experience in general is quite imperfect and empty from our viewpoint. The Anatta Doctrine of Buddhism is Anatta, emptiness! How could nirvana or bliss be non-existence or totally empty? But we do (and must) respect the way of thinking of others. Experiences are for persons and persons are experiences in themselves. Thus, God for us, the object of mystical experience, must be a person. Indeed He is. 29

S. Juan Bautista de la Concepción, La llaga de amor. II, 2. I am using this critical edition: Obras Completas I: Escritos Espirituales, ed. J. Pujana & A. Llamazares (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1995). An eminent Philosopher of Religion writes: ‘Thus in order to answer the claim that one’s putative experience of God is this worldly only, one can appeal to the witness of others who are more advanced in the Christian life, to the revelation of God in His historical acts, and to general philosophical reasons for believing that God as construed in Christianity does exist and rule his creation’. W.P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 306.

156

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For a Christian, the ultimate experience should be trinitarian. The Trinity is a mystery of faith. Many would say that it is not the realm of philosophy. We beg to disagree. Philosophy is love of wisdom. In the Trinity, we see God love Himself in Three Persons. And God is the infinite source of Wisdom and is Wisdom in Himself. We then could say, with St. John of the Cross who was Mystic, Theologian, Master of Spirituality and Philosopher, that ‘…to philosophize is to love God, to philosophize about the divine flame of love is to experience this divine flame of love by loving it’.30 Genuine Christian mysticism attains its fullness in the experience of God as Trinity.31 The most urgent task of Christian mysticism consists in being a more and more explicit trinitarian experience to be transmitted, taught and shared to others. ‘Man is mystery precisely because, though limited, he is a seeker after limitless being. He is seeking thus not just himself, or the being which makes him exist, but he is seeking someone who is other than himself, one whose essence is to be precisely limited’.32 The Mystery of God as Trinity provides the firmest ontological basis in order to respond to the mystery of man especially in terms of being a reality, experiencing, relating, being a person open, creative, open and loving. Is the present time not the ‘kairós’ for rediscovering the Trinity: God in Three Divine Persons loving each other eternally as the supreme model of philosophizing? What is philosophy if not love of wisdom? Is not the Trinity God, Source of all Wisdom, loving himself in three divine persons? Truth could only be personal and thus, it is experientiable and real. Shouldn’t we strive to love wisdom ascending from the wisdom of this world to the wisdom of the cross where the Trinity shared man’s radical finitude in Christ? This paschal event was perfected in the Resurrection wherein the Trinity glorified and divinized man in the Resurrection of the Incarnate Word. The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Death may be for some the last of all the potentialites of man, but it is the openness to the resurrection of the flesh, the triumph of the Word, Wisdom Incarnate. In the present reflections, we have attempted to propose a methodological innovation: the exploration of the possibility of philosophy as a mystagogy especially in one of its branches or dimensions: Theodicy. This possibility urgently needs to be further elaborated and explored. We would be happy if this essay would call the attention of better prepared scholars to said possibility. 30

31

32

II Dark Night 10, 2. Cfr. M. Ofilada Mina, ‘Philosophy and Spirituality: Reflections from St. John of the Cross’, in: Studies in Spirituality 6 (1996), 145-152. Cfr. Several Authors, Trinidad y Vida Mística (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1982). This is the best collective volume on the relationship Trinity-Mysticism. F. Imoda, Human Development: Psychology and Mystery (Louvain: Peeters, 1998), 39.

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

157

But should there not be a Christian Theodicy wherein the discourse gushes out from a radical, intense and authentic experience of the Christian God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Or do the mentioned theodices exist mainly in the writings of Christian Mystics and Saints which are waiting for us to be discovered and read using the theodiceal, inasmuch as it is mystagogical and therefore necessarily a testimonial paradigm? If a theodiceal discourse is deeply rooted in an authentic and intense experience of God, it could be said that said discourse is a discourse of Spirituality. All discourses of Spirituality innately are pedagogical, i.e., mystagogical in nature. For Christians, the God that is spoken of or narrated in said experiential discourse is necessarily trinitarian, i.e., personal, relational and experiential. A mystagogical discourse of Christian Spirituality presupposes the experience of participation in the trinitarian life. This life is the factor that makes the Christian experience singular, unique and geared towards the insuperable fullness which is nothing else but union or salvation.33 With the Trinity as focal point, centerpoint, starting point and end the following dimensions of Christian experience are necessarily highlighted by the mystagogical discourse: 1. The Revelation of the Triune God in the Experience of God made man; 2. The Union of God and Man with the Experience of God made man; 3. The Union of Men as an assembly, community within the Experience of God made man; 4. The Experience of God made man being experienced today by sacramental, mysterious means; 5. The Experience of God made man as an existencial compromise with a concrete, compromised and faithful way of life; 6. Said way of life in the Experience of God made man as harmony with all that is created whose summit is Man, the glory of God and the Man in whom God became Human as its saving and perfecting point and personality; 7. The perfection of man as Experience of God through, with, and in the Experience of God made man. God became man in order that man would become like God. This is the mystical drama. This is the Trinitarian commitment with mankind. Said commitment is indeed an existencial and experiential drama that passes through the following stages which are then (or must be) narrated by the Christian mystagogue: 1. God and man in union: This relational dimension occupies first place above all; 33

Ch. A. Bernard, ‘La natura della teologia spirituale’, in: E. Gutiérrez de Cea (Ed.), Compendio di teologia spiritual (Rome: Pontificia Università San Tommaso d’Aquino, 1992), 93.

158

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

2. Jesus Christ: Necessary mediator and the fullness of God as experience of man and fullness of man as experience of God; 3. Faith-Hope-Love: The driving forces for the compromise; 4. Commitment/Option: or Ascesis – not only denial, suffering, but continous commitment, lifeliving and lifegiving acts; 5. Process: The concrete path of the existential choice and commitment; 6. Transformation: I prefer the term ‘Transfiguration’ because just like the experience on Mt. Tabor there is an anticipation of future glory or perfection and fulfillment. The realization of the processual dimension of compromise and is fulfulled in the union between God and man, between the Triune God and man, between Mystery and mystery. But mystagogy, as such, though it relays the lived message, and in the Christian tradition said message is trinitarian, it is necessarily limited with the following ironical or better said, contrasting characteristics:  it is mystical, but does not assure that the reader or listener will become automatically a mystic though it must necessarily relay the mystical notwithstanding the limitations of language;  it is theological and confessional, though not imposing asnd not necessarily abounding in technical terminology and systems;  it is literary, without necessarily being technical, but truly highly readable though its true beauty requires a refined and educated sensiblity. This literary quality is enhanced by a critical approach to reading;34  it is psychological, though it does not offer a ready made, universal, generalized diagnosis but helps in understanding the person all the more especially the person’s dimension and reality as a mystery;  it is scientific, again without necessarily being technical, but definitely objective, justifiable and corresponding coherently to a certain criteria for confirming or even falsifying (Popper);  it is philosophical, without (necessarily) being attached to a particular school or thinker, but may use their insights and this philosophical characteristic guarantees: a) critical thinking in terms of discernment and logic, b) it puts wisdom over factual knowledge, and c) it is hinged on experience and yet giving it conceptualization not only for expressing, but above all for an assimilating experiential comprehension.

34

For the present reflections, I have taken into account the following studies: T. Eagleton, Literary Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); R. Selden, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989); M. Steele, Critical Confrontations: Literary Theories in Dialogue (Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1997).

MYSTAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

159

Thus, for the Christian, the experience of the Trinity is mystical, theological and confessional, literary, psychological, scientific and philosophical. Let us conclude this part of our reflections with a question wherein Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality and Mysticism need to converge and combine forces:35 Is not the Trinity the Narrative, the Experiential History of a Loving, Personal and Relational God in Three Persons.

35

Cfr. M. Ofilada Mina, ‘Dios para creer y para pensar: La trinidad como punto de convergencia epistemológica de la teología y de la filosofía’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 33 (1998), 461-494.

CHAPTER TEN SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM ‘Como inquieto mar joven Del cauce nuevo henchido Rebosa, y por las playas Bulle y muerte tranquilo’. (J. Martí, Penachos vividos)

On the eve of his famous Asian Journey during which he unexpectedly met his death, the acclaimed Cistercian spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, said: ‘But the thing that really makes me wonder a bit about the progressive Christians is their staunch repudiation of the mystical element in religion and their firm approbation of the nineteenth century, which is what they’re trying to catch up with right now’.1 For Merton, the nineteenth century standed for positivism. Mysticism,2 viewed especially from this positivistic prism of the herusitic demands of empirical and logical contemporary thought, has been frequently studies from the perspective of its cognitive value. It is, from the empirical and logical criteriology brought about by the onset of modernity (Merton’s nineteenth century), reduced to its mystical phenomena3 such as levitations, revelations, visions and the like. 1 2

3

W. Capps (Ed.), Thomas Merton: Preview of the Asian Journey (New York: Crossroad 1989), 54. Cfr. J. de Guibert, ‘Mystique’, in: Revue d’ Ascétique et de Mystique 7 (1926), 3f; Several Authors, Encylopédie des mystiques (Paris: Laffont, 1972); C. Tresmontant, La mystique chrétienne et l’avenir de l’homme (Paris: Seuil 1977); Several Authors, La mistica: Fenomenologia e riflessione teologica. 2 vols. (Rome: Città Nueva, 1984); Several Authors, Vita cristiana ed esperienza mistica (Rome: Teresianum, 1982); L. Bouyer, Mysterion: Du mystère à la mystique (Paris: Cerf, 1986); Several Authors, Mistica e misticismo oggi: Settimana di studio di Lucca 8-13 settembre 1978 (Rome: Passionisti-Cipi, 1979); P. Dinzelbacher (Ed.), Dictionnarie de la mystique (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993); M.-M. Davy, Encylopédie des mystiques. 4 vols. (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 1996).; L. Borriello, E. Caruana et al., (Eds.), Dizionario di mistica (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998); G. Berti, Dizionari dei mistici: I grandi maestri dello Spirito di ogni tempo e religione (Milan: Vallardi, 1999); J. Martín Velasco, El fenómeno místico: Estudio comparativo (Madrid: Trotta, 1999); Several Authors, Sentieri illuminati dallo spirito: Atti del congresso internazionale di mistica. Abazzia di Münterschwarzach (Rome: OCD, 2007). For an excellent introductory presentation, J. Martín Velasco, ‘El fenómeno místico’, in: C. García (Ed.), Mística en diálogo (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2004), 19-28. From the perspective of

162

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Any discipline, from this positivistic criteriology should be, consequently, open to interdisciplinary scrutiny, falling under or outside the specifically confessional realm of religion (while retaining its broad religious roots as the search for meaning in terms of the Absolute),4 like psychology, anthropology and sociology and taken to be a phenomena, a happening, an event with aesthetic or perceptive value and therefore with manifest visibility, classified as beyond the ordinary or natural and taken to be a way of knowing reality. Simultaneously, mysticism inevitably highlights religion (or at least what we may term as ‘the religious’ given the postmodern aversion for institutions), tracing its origins to the radical drive of man towards his transcendental roots, given that religion, viewed aconfessionally primarily from phenomenology and philosophy of religion, is the condensation of mystical phenomena.5 At the outset, mystical phenomena should not be reduced to extraordinary experiences, but must include and begin from everyday contacts with the Absolute such as prayer, inner inspiration, moral actions, and the like. However, all this necessarily implies a way of living out the religious root, which has acquired the quite acceptable name of spiritualilty. In face of the fundamental question regarding the reality of what is deemed to be transcendental (especially in its ultimate instance: that of the Absolute itself), there is a more biting and perhaps relevant line of inquiry: that of the possibility of ‘spiritual’ experience. In light of this, the so-called mystical phenomena are the presented proofs of the reality not of the transcendent, but of the experience itself which is the very affirmation of the validity of what is generally called spirituality, which is human relationality with the Absolute wherein the latter becomes effectively present in the non-absoluteness of man, in its characteristic of being finite and culpable. The effectivity of such a presence brings about, not only a participation (or elevation) in the Absolute by man, but the participation (or condescendence) towards man or the non-absolute on the part of the Absolute. In this light, the so-called mystical phenomena can be taken to be the proofs or scientific (empirical or verificative) data, not of the Absolute but of the very possibility of spirituality (the possibility of the relationality between Absolute and non-Absolute, which is the very possibility of ‘spiritual’ experience) itself.

4

5

catholic theology, see the fine essay of K. Rahner, ‘Mystical Experience and Mystical Theology’, in: Idem, Theological Investigations. Vol. 17 (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 94f. W. Ralph Inge, Mysticism in Religion (Westport: Greenwood, 1976); R. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London: Macmillan, 1909); Fr. Von Hügel, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends, 2nd ed. (London: Dent, 1923); G. Parrinder, Mysticism in the World’s Religions (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); J. Martín Velasco, ‘Mística y religión’, in: XX Siglos 5 (1991), 25-35. This is the thesis of H. Bergson, ‘Les deux sources de la morale et la religion’, in: Idem, Oeuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959).

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

163

Status Quaestionis – The Absolute from Spirituality and Mysticism The so-called aim or object of mysticism, the Absolute, because it is transcendental in nature, is notoriously difficult to pin down. More so, that mysticism consists of the aim of man to have union or communion with this Absolute. Consequently, it can also be said that the very concept of mysticism is practically impossible to pin down. Wittgenstein, in drawing the limits of the factual or empirical world, famously elevates the mystical into the realm of silence, where logical and atomic language fails.6 The true mystics on this regard would speak of a certain musicality of silence, wherein the divine harmony could be perceived.7 But it exists and it manifests itself to be a specific state, within a religious context. Phenomenologist of Religion N. Smart concludes that a mystical experience is ‘reported by a class of persons generally referred to as “mystics”’.8 And these mystics are historical persons, historical subjects of an experience that manifests itself as an experience characterized mainly by Ineffability, Noetic Quality, Transciency and Passivity.9

6

7

8

9

L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus, 7. I am citing this work, according to this version: transl. C.K. Ogden & F.P. Ramsey (London: Kegan Paul, 1922). See the following studies: E. Zemach, ‘Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical’, in: Several Authors, Essays on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1993), 377-392; A. Tornos, ‘La filosofía del cristianismo y de la religión en L. Wittgestein’, in: Pensamiento 46 (1990), 23-47. For example, consider the following words of Elizabeth of the Trinity: ‘Une louange de gloire, c’est un âme de silence qui se tient comme une lyre sous la touche mystérieuse de l’Esprit saint, afin qu’Il en fasse sortir des harmonies divines’, in: Écrits spirituels (Paris: Philipon, 1958), 203. N. Smart, Reasons and Faiths: An Investigation of Religious Discourse, Christian and Non-Christian (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), 55. These four characteristics have their origin in William James. This author lists them as the fundamental traits which identify a psychological state of consciousness as something mystical, see: W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902 (New York: Modern Library 1936), 371-372. See also for their own lists of the basic characteristics of mystical consciousness, for example: E. Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York: Meridian, 1955); W. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1960), 131-133; Idem, The Teachings of the Mystics (New York: Mentor, 1960), 196-198; F.C. Happold, Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970); A. Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer (Westminster: Celtic Cross Books, 1978), 54-99; P. Agesse & M. Sales, ‘Mystique’, in: Several Authors, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 10, 1189-1984; L. Dupré, ‘Mysticism’, in: Several Authors, Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 10 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 245-261; S. Guerra, ‘Mística’, in: Several Authors, El Dios Cristiano, 897-916; J. Martín Velasco, Espiritualidad y mística (Madrid: Ediciones S&M, 1994); J. Wiseman, ‘Mysticism’, in: Several Authors, The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993), 681-692; R. Faesen, ‘What is a Mystical Experience? History and Interpretation’, in: Louvain Studies 23 (1998), 221-245.

164

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

With these basic or fundamental characteristics mysticism reveals the Mystery, its very root: the very transcendent Absolute made present in a hidden or occult way in the inmanence of human existence, in its finitude and culpability. In other words, mysticism reveals, opens up a world of sacramentality, of effective, relational and transformative presence, in all its metaphysical stability,10 beyond all rational comprehension, for living out and for study.11 Especially from a positivistic viewpoint, the primary significance of mystical perception is not spiritual, but epistemological.12 Mysticism, thus, opens up a new world by providing a model of comprehending reality in relation to the Absolute, in its non-transferrable transcendence, sacramentality present in man’s experiential coordinates as Mystery.13 Thus, truly affecting man’s existence. Without exhausting itself, this Mystery is open, in its metaphysical stability, to the comprehension of man, ‘elevated’ in his non-transferrable historical inmamence in the world characterized as finite and culpable to participate in this transcendence, as a rational being, as a lover of wisdom (philosopher).14 The relationship of mysticism with spirituality15 is not that all clear or not that firmly and definitely established by scholars and experts. Mysticism is usually 10

11 12

13

14

15

In the background, I have taken account the attack of J. Derrida to this stable presence in terms of ratinal comprehension, cfr. L’Ecriture et la différence (Paris: Seuil, 1967); Idem, Grammatologie (Paris: Minuit, 1967). Cfr. E. Poulat, L’université devant la mystique (Paris: Salvator, 1999). W. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 2. Cfr. S. King, ‘Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism’, in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988), 257-279; D. MackKinnon, ‘Some Epistemological Reflections on Mystical Experience’, in: S. Katz (Ed.), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (London: SCM, 1978), 132-140; P. Moore, ‘Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique’, in: Ibid. 101-131; A. Moore, ‘Mystical and Philosophy’, in: The Monist 59 (1976), 493-506; J. Shear, ‘Mystical Experience: Hermeneutics and Rationality’, in: International Philosohical Quarterly 30 (1990), 391-401; N. Kretzmann, ‘Mystical Perception: St. Teresa, William Alston, and the Broadminded Atheist’, in: Several Authors, Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 65-90. See my exploratory study: ‘Distinguir para unir: Algunos presupuestos fundamentales para comprender la relación filosofía-mística’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 249 (2003), 439-468. Likewise: D.Z. Philips, ‘Mysticism and epistemology: One devil of a problem’, in: Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995), 167-188; S. Breton, Philosophie et mystique: Existence et surexistence (Grenoble: Million, 1996); M. Vannini, Mistica e filosofia (Cacciari: PIEMME, 1996); Several Authors, Filosofia e mistica: Itinerari di un progetto di ricerca (Rome: San Anselmo, 1997); Several Authors, Philosophie, poésie, mystique (Paris: Beauchesne 1999). See: E. Ancilli (Ed.), Dizionario enciclopedico di spiritualità. 2 vols. (Rome: Studium, 1975); M. Downey (Ed.), Nuovo dizionario di spiritualità (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003); A.G. Matanic, La spiritualità come scienza: Introduzione metodologica allo studio della

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

165

understood, vis-à-vis spirituality, as the culmination, the summit of the latter. Mysticism is termed as the crowning glory of spirituality, understood or reduced as a way towards union or communion with the Absolute (or mysticism). There is a tendency to reduce spirituality as that process which precedes mysticism or that which mysticism presupposes. Thus, spirituality has been rashly reduced to ascetism or ascetical practices that have the aim of reaching mystical union or communion. This reduction is by no means acceptable16 and though it may have proposed interesting historico-hermeneutical keys in rediscovering the original meaning of praxis,17 there still exists the anthropologico-hermeneutical keys18 of dividing the subject of the spiritual and mystical experience, which is the very core of spiritual and mystical anthropology, and sacrificing the unity of the spiritual and mystical experience.19 Spirituality is a broad concept involving a process, an intense and committed way of life. Without attempting to propose a definition of the term, it is a commited

16

17

18

19

vita spirituale cristiana (Cinisello Balsamo: Paoline, 1990); Several Authors, La teologia spirituale. Atti del Congresso Internazionale OCD, Roma 24-29 Aprile 2000 (Rome: Teresianum, 2001); R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Les trois âges de la vie intérieure, prélude de celle du ciel. 2. vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1938); Idem, Christian Perfection and Contemplation According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross (Rockford: Tan Books, 2003); A. Royo Marín, Teología de la perfección Cristiana. 5th ed. (Madrid: BAC, 1968); C. García, Teología espiritual contemporánea: Corrientes y perspectivas (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2002); K. Waaijman, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods (Leuven: Peeters, 2002). This tendency can be seen in classical works of spirituality such as: F. Naval y Averve, Curso de teología ascética y mística (Madrid: Mestres, 1914); A. Farges, The Ordinary Ways of the Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetic Theology According to the Principles of St. Teresa declared by the Carmelite Congress of Madrid (March, 1923) (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1927); A. Tanquerey, Compendio di teologia ascetica e mistica (Rome: Desclee, 1927); G. de Sta. Maria Maddalena, Manuale di teologia spirituale secondo la dottrina di Santa Teresa di Gesù e di San Giovanni della Croce e della scuola mistica teresiana. 3 vols. (Rome: Facoltà teologica del Collegio di S. Teresa, 1936); C. de Jesús Sacramentado, Compendio de ascética y mística. 3rd ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad / Avila: S. Díaz, 1949). See the interesting study of praxis in relation to philosophy, though somehow reducing philosophy or theoria to ascesis or spiritual exercise, P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. A.I. Davidson (Malden/ Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). Cfr. L. Borriello, ‘Mistica come pienezza dell’uomo’, in: Several Authors, Esperienza mistica e pensiero filosofico: Atti del Colloquio ‘Filosofia e Mistica’. Roma, 6-7 dicembre 2001 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2003), 109-143. On this question, the contribution of the Dominican J. González Arinterio cannot be forgotten, La evolucion mística (Salamanca: San Esteban, 1989); Idem, La verdadera mística tradicional (Salamanca: San Esteban/ Editorial Fides, 1926). In relation to this, see: M. Belda & J. Sesé, La ‘cuestión mística’: Estudio histrórico-teológico de una controversia (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 1998). Also the classical article of G. Moioli, ‘L’acquisizione del tema dell’esperienza da parte della teologia e la teologia della spiritualità cristiana’, in: Teologia Brescia 6 (1981), 141-153.

166

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

life, that takes shape as a relationality, rooted in the Absolute, which in its transcendence, is made present, in the realm of the immanent, as mystery.20 Thus, mysticism, from ‘myos’ or closing of one’s eyes in order to initiate oneself to way of life, is rootedness in this very same mystery. Mystery is presence, but it is a vocational presence, it calls out within immanence and its context to the one who is conscious of his difference as nonabsolute vis-à-vis the Absolute because of his consciousness of his experiential structure of finitude and culpablity, i.e., as profane as compared to the holiness (or the Absolute’s inherent metaphysical quality)21 of the Absolute in its presence which creates an ambiance of relationality to it, which is termed as the ‘sacred’. The sacred, as opposed to the profane,22 is the meeting ground between Absolute and non-absolute. In this meeting ground, the non-absolute becomes holy or possesses holiness, understood as ‘mystical’ participation in the inherent metaphystical quality of the Absolute. In the light of what has been stated, the sacred is in effect the soil of the relational way of life that implies the integrity of both Absolute and non-absolute, which we term as ‘spirituality’ and through which this same relationality is cultured and cultivated in its concrete forms, always presupposing its rootdeness in this same mystery. Mysticism is profound contact in terms of rootedness with the mystery and thus seeks to reveal this presence of the Absolute in a concrete way of life which is Spirituality. Therefore, Spirituality is the phenomenological expansion (manifestation as historical development and narrative) of mysticism and taken in its phenomena or experiential episodes,23 mysticism is the hermeneutical development (interpretation in terms of concrete events that presuppose a way of life, cfr. the traits enumerated by authors like James, Underhill, etc.) of spirituality. 20

21

22

23

Cfr. M. Ofilada Mina, ‘De la escuela mística carmelitana a la cuestión mística: Tres modelos evaluados desde la hermenéutica y la antropología’, in: Archivum Bibliographicum Carmeli Teresiani 42 (2003), 615-657. Also: T. Alvarez, ‘Estado actual de los estudios místicos’, in: Several Authors, Contemplación: Primer Congreso Nacional de vida contemplativa (Madrid: Claune, 1963), 95-108. Clearly, my notion of holiness is different from the classical phenomenological study of R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958). I have greatly modified the clasical presentation of R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism sacred and profane: An inquiry into some varieties of praeternatural experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). On religious or spiritual experiences (in the plural), see: Several Authors, Experiencia religiosa hoy: Preocupaciones y possibilidades (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1978); A. Léonard, ‘Experience spirituelle’, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité. Vol 4, 2005-2026; A.M. García-Ordas, La persona divina en la espiritualidad de santa Teresa (Rome: Teresianum, 1967); T. Alvarez, ‘Experiencia cristiana y teología espiritual’, in: Seminarium 26 (1974), 94-100.

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

167

Conversely, mysticism is the criteriological guarantee that the way of life, called spirituality, has profound contact with the mystery. Because of this, mysticism, in all actuality, is the phenomenological criteria (manifestation as certitude and validity) of spirituality, given that the cultivation of spirituality necessarily implicates the integral manifestation of the relationality in concrete moments in life (visible as phenomena even in its most discrete forms). At the same time, mysticism is the hermeneutical possibility (openness to interpretation) of spirituality, of the way of life. We are, at the outset of this introductory essay, confronted with a interplaying relationality between spirituality and mysticism in terms of phenomenology24 and hermeneutics.25 These pages, bereft of any pretense to be exhaustive, will explore this conceptual interplaying from the angle of epistemology. Experience as Facticity – The Epistemological Starting Point As stated earlier, the object of questioning is the very possibility of spiritual experience: that of the relationality between the Absolute and the non-Absolute, in its finitude and culpability. The only proofs of such a relationality are the so-called mystical phenomena or experiences, which are experiences that are textualized in what we now call Scriptures or Sacred Texts or Mystical or Spiritual Texts. The textual process eventually establishes the fleeting experience in the permanence of human historical consciousness. The same textual process also establishes the relationality as a practice or as praxis, such that the experience itself has been lived by certain historical individuals. Here we see the link between spirituality as a lived experience and as something historically established and thus studied or capable of being studied.26 This establishment (which is historical in nature), culminating in the textual process, brings about foundational certainty. In other words, it makes possible 24

25

26

Cfr. M. Faurer, The Aims of Phenomenology: The Motives, Methods and Impact of Husserl’s Thought (New York: Harper, 1966); J. Kocklemans (Ed.), Phenomenology (New York: Doubleday, 1967); Q. Lauer, Phenomenology: Its Genesis and Project (Paris: Gallimard, 1945); H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction. 2nd ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970). Cfr. R. Palmer, Hermeneutics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969); P. Ricœur, The Conflict of Interpretations (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974); Idem, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. & transl. H.B. Thompson (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); H.G. Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. & transl. D.E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). Admittedly, I have taken these two basic levels of spiritulaty as being lived and as study from Waaijman, Spirituality, op. cit.

168

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

for the treatment of spirituality as certain knowledge, i.e., as a science. Epistemology is the philosophical foundation of certain knowledge or scientific (certain) knowledge.27 Experience is the mediation of the transcendental in the inmanent. It is the mediation by which that which is beyond becomes real and reality in the realm of what is human, given the cognitive-experimental faculties of man. Applied to the Absolute (or understood at least within the epistemological domain of spirituality), experience is the mediation by which the Absolute becomes immanent or real and reality in and according to the experiential categories of the non-Absolute. This mediation becomes concrete in what is taken to be mystical experiences, visible as phenomena. This is the metaphysical understanding of experience. From this notion of mystical phenomena (which are experiential episodes of the metaphysical mediation), we can derive the first directionality in understanding the relationship between spirituality and mysticism. The mystical phenomena are the ‘raw’ data for spirituality which are assimilated as texts: testimonies, teachings, narratives, hagiographies, etc. These raw data both make manifest, while configuring itself as a specific approach or form (phenomenology) of the relationality between Absolute and non-absolute. At the same time, it interprets or provides meaning (hermeneutics) to this same relationality, in order to make it comprehensible, in terms of the dynamics of experiencing, that takes place in history and conserved as a textual narrative. Conversely, it would also be feasible to propose the following ‘directionality’: the aforementioned relationality or spirituality is the descriptive development of the specific approach or form as perceived in history (phenomenology) of the rootedness in the mystery that takes place as phenomena or experiences. In the same vein, the relationality expounds (hermeneutics) the rootedness in the mystery in its characteristic features, finer points thus establishing this rootedness as a specific kind of language, a language that struggles with the ineffable and touching on the Absolute parting from the metaphysical distance to this same Absolute of the non-absolute. In view of what has already been stated, phenomenology, as descriptive (in terms of configuration of specific approaches or forms or development of the specific approaches or forms in history), provides a historical testimony, establishing that the Absolute is real and a reality in the experiential realm or lived 27

Cfr. K. Popper, Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972); Several Authors, Companion to the History of Modern Science (London: Routledge, 1990); A. Rosenberg, The Philosophy of Science (London: Routledge, 2000); S. Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

169

and liveable world of the non-absolute (which Husserlian phenomenology calls Lebenswelt).28 On the other hand, and in relation to phenomenology, hermeneutics, as interpretative (in terms of the elucidation with a view to comprehension and as the expansion – exposition towards a specific language), develops a magisterium or a collection of teachings which draws out the lived experience as a liveable one with a plan, itinerary and goal. This eventually takes its more developed form as a mystagogy, i.e., initiation29 into the same experiential dynamic, presupposing the relationality between Absolute and non-Absolute in its historical dynamics and institutionalized narrative, by means of the effective communication of the same dynamic. The Facticity of the Experience – Convergence of the Directionalities and Development of the Fundamental Theses Both ‘directionalities’, which we have just enumerated and only briefly expounded, constitute the basic epistemological possibilities in the comprehension of the relation between spirituality and mysticism. Their range do not only encompass strictly spiritual and mystical terms (such as God and belief) but imply totality, which we call world, the cosmos. This is because of the question of experience, which is how the non-absolute relates to the totality, in which the Absolute is revealed and found as God. This revelation becomes the mystical nucleus of what we call ‘the religious’ institutionalized as religion.30 At this point, it is worth quoting the following paragraph from W. Stace: If a mystic speaks of the experience of ‘an undifferentiated disctinctionless unity’, this mere report or description [or phenomenology in our terms] using only classificatory words may be regarded as a low-level interpretation [or hermeneutics in our words]. But this is being more fussily precise than is usually necessary, since for all intents and purposes it is just a description. If a mystic says that he experiences a ‘mystical union with the Creator of the universe’, this is a high-level interpretation since it includes far more intellectual addition than a mere descriptive report. 28

29

30

Cfr. E. Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (New York: Collier, 1967); Idem, The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964); Idem, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy: Philosophy as Rigorous Science and the Crisis of European Man (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965); P. Ricœur, Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967). Cfr. P. Rodríguez Panizo, ‘El carácter iniciático de la experiencia mística’, in: Miscelánea Comillas 53 (1995), 93-113. Cfr. B. McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. Vol. 1: The Foundations of Mysticism (London: SCM Press, 1992), 23-61.

170

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

It includes an assumptiuon about the origin of the world and belief in the existence of a personal God.31

Both ‘directionalities’ point out to the same root or have the same basic presupposition: the facticity of the experience. And this facticity takes place in the world. The facticity of the experience is our starting point. In this preliminary exploration, it is our aim to analyze this methodological starting point in terms of some preliminary ‘categories’ which we have already mentioned and which serve as the viewpoiont from which we ‘condense’ the directionalities, which we have expanded as possible points for development, as the epistemological relationship between Spirituality and Mysticism is not to be resolved in an exploratory essay such as this one, but is most likely a life-long project. In the following reflections, we will re-state these categories in thesis form: Thesis One – Spirituality as Phenomenological Expansion of Mysticism and Mysticism as the Hermeneutical Development of Spirituality Epistemology or established certain knowledge is only possible when there are things themselves in their plurality and diversity, taking place or giving themselves as data in this shared lived-world (Lebenswelt). Thus, epistemology parts from facticity, which allows us to ‘see’ and do and distinguish what is certain from what is false. What is certain is what is true. And the true is derived from the ‘raw’ data of phenomena or experiences. What is true is what is revealed, open, unveiled. It becomes the vehicle for language. The phenomenal expansion of mysticism in spirituality consists precisely in giving ‘language’ to the rootedness of the mystery. This, in turn, establishes the mystery noemtically, as something perceptible to the mind, for it is the data, the noematic data of reality that has direct access to the knowing faculty giving this same knowing faculty access to the thing or things in itself, the very mystery, in its expansion as experiences or phenomena (which are the experiences inasmuch as they are noematically intentional or directed to the knowing faculty). This linguistic ‘event’, given it gives the ‘logos’ or language to the rootedness in the mystery, qualifies this same rootedness into its historical specificity as a 31

W. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, 37. Obviously, this author favors hermeneutics or interpretation over mere description or phenomenology which he reduces to a ‘mere descriptive report’. For a more profound study of the God of the Mystics, see; Ch.A. Bernard, Le Dieu des mystiques. 3 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1994-2000); R. Maisonneuve, Dieu inconnu, Dieu Trinité: Anthologie. Comment les mystiques chrétiens ‘voient’ Dieu un et trine (Paris: Cerf, 2002); X. Pikaza, Enchiridion Trinitatis (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 2005).

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

171

form, as a school, as a movement, i.e., with identity within history. As a linguistic event it is availabilty as language for textualization. Such textualization signifies the possiblity of being seen. Spirituality makes mysticism visible by giving it language or reason or intellectual perspective. Spirituality makes mysticism visible by making it intelligible. In this directionality, spirituality is the relational current between the Absolute and the non-Absolute. As the relational current, spirituality is the movement of Experience such that there is a perceptible, or rationally viewed, effect in the finite and culpable level.. Such perception32 takes ‘form’ in the language of mysticism, taken as concreteness of the Experience or of the mediation in mystical phenomena, which then serve as ‘raw’ data. Given the ‘raw’ data, spirituality is developed as the texts for spirituality as the relational current narrated as history. History, the history of the relation between Absolute and non-abnsolute take the form, as earlier observed, in testimonies, teachings, hagiographies which make manifest the rootedness in the Mystery, given the relationality between Absolute and non-absolute. This history, in its texts, constitute spirituality, which expands the rootedness in the Mystery. In this sense, spirituality does not merely indicate an object of investigation, but the limits of what is manifested and what should be the data of the investigation, that is still to be developed with the phenomenological and hermeneutical considerations provided by mysticism. In relation to this, it should be pointed out that spirituality, as the phenomenological expansion of mysticism, establishes the phenomena as data and indicates them to be be encompassed by spirituality, the relational current inasmuch as it is narrated as history. Spirituality makes the experiential episodes the object of an investigation, the first step of certain knowledge, the first step of epistemology. Spirituality provides the raw data an area for certitude, expanding itself as a relationship (that between Absolute and non-absolute) and thus as a discipline that sets specific areas or limits. Thus, there are two levels at play here, spirituality as lived and spirituality as study or to be studied. This history necessarily takes the form of a description. Phenomenology is description. Thus, the expression ‘descriptive phenomenology’ is tautological. Description is the giving of language to the mystical phenomena. Descrption consists in giving them the ‘logos’, which delineates and determines them as within the camp of spirituality, as within the camp of the relatinal current between Absolute and non-Absolute which brings about a transformation that leads to communion between the two. 32

Cfr. M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1965); Idem, La structure du comportement (Paris: Press Universitaires France, 1963).

172

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Spirituality as phenomenological expansion or description unveils the spiritual essence and meaning, without imposing any restrictive ontology (the husserlian regional ontology which defines the essence of phenomena in a specific area or lived world or Lebenswelt), of the mystical phenomena. Mysticism, at the same time, provides the data which develop into spirituality. Such data form the narrative of the phenomena taken as experiential episodes for such an experiential narrativity, for such a history, which is testimonial and magisterial given that spirituality possesses these two characteristics. In this sense, mysticism establishes itself as the hermeneutical development of spirituality, i.e., it is the interpretation of the relationality between Absolute and nonabsolute. In history, hermeneutical development can only take place as experiential episodes, as phenomena, observable to reason, because it is language or ‘logos’. Mysticism is taken here, at first glance, primarily in the empirical and experimental level, that is in that which is lived out spontaneously and that is lived out consciously. Mysticism, at the same time, given that it provides the data develops spirituality, which is the narrative with the phenomena taken as experiential episodes for such an experiential narrativity, for such a history. In this sense, mysticism establishes itself as the hermeneutical development of spirituality, i.e., it is the interpretation of the relationality between Absolute and non-absolute. In history, hermeneutical development can only take place as experiential episodes, as phenomena, observable to reason, because it is language or ‘logos’. Mysticism is taken here, at first glance, primarily in the empirical and experimental level, that is in that which is lived out spontaneously and that is lived out consciously. Mysticism, however, is not taken here exclusively in the reductive manner of mystical phenomena, despite the dominance of its role of providing the raw data. It is also, and above all, the profound experiential33 sense of being rooted in the Mystery, which implies the whole person, integrated in love and in fullness of the will. The experiential episoldes establish that the relationality between Absolute and non-absolute, which is spirituality, is hermeneutical, is capable of being interpreted and thus developed as such in the light of history. Thesis Two: Mysticism as the Phenomenological Criteria of Spirituality and Spirituality as the Way of Life Which is Made Hermeneutically Possible by Mysticism What has been expanded above complements what we are to reflect on in the following paragraphs. Thesis one could only be understood in relation to thesis two and vice-versa. Our interest here is to show points of convergence which 33

These three classes or levels of experience (empirical, experimental and experiential) are taken from Mouroux, Expérience chrétienne: Introduction à une théologie (Paris: Aubier, 1952), 24.

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

173

are necessarily interplaying moments of the same organic experience as characterized by the way of life brought about by the Presence of the Absolute in the realm of the non-absolute. Spirituality, previously, has been taken as relationality, which then brings about transformation towards communion. This means that spirituality is a way of life to be lived and to be studied. Here is its first epistemological expression. As a way of life, it has to be provided with a phenomenological criteria: the basis or guarantee that manifests its epistemological certitude and validity. A spirituality without experiential episodes or just being a metaphysical mediation in the purely theoretical level is not a spirituality, but only a movement established in history. Spirituality is a living and dynamic concept. It is a relationality that has to be manifested in language. Thus, mysticism provides this phenomenological criteria. Mysticism is the cultivation of spirituality. This does not mean that there is the necessity for extraordinary phenomena so that there would be spirituality. Mysticism is the cultivation of spirituality, it is the living out of the relationality from the criteria of rootedness in the mystery which guarantees the experiential and existential projection towards the transcendental in communion. Mysticism as the cultivation of spirituality is the form of reaching or attaining the ideal of communion, which is the fullness of the mediation. Spirituality is only possible as mysticism. The way of the spirit is integrative. Ascesis and Mysticism are not two different realms. They are not natural and supernatural, but the very same natural life with a supernatural vocation and realization. Organically, the spiritual life is one. The perfection of ascesis or the exercise of the virtues takes the form of the fullness of love, which is communion, which is not loving the Absolute but allowing oneself to be loved by the Absolute, for the latter was the first one to love from all Infinity, such that any response of love from the non-absolute only takes part or participates in this Infinite love. ‘The spiritual life (spiritualitas) is attained through charity (per caritatem est)’.34 Consequently, in the perfection of the virtues, the perfection of ascesis in its ordinary development of the fullness of communion (thus ascesis and mysticism are not two different zones but two moments in the same experiential current) does spirituality become possible in its dynamicity and not just a fossilized object of study. Even as an area of study, spirituality must be taken historically in the fullest sense, as something living and dynamic, as something lived and transforming and not static or purely institutionalized. It must historically lived 34

St. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum III, d. 38, q.1, a.4, sol. Also: Quaestiones Quodlibet VII, a.17, ad.5; Summa Theologiae I-II, a.65, a.2, sed contra; Ibid., III a.59, a.3, arg. 2. I have used the edition of Turin published by Marietti.

174

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

and liveable (erlebnis) and not just a static historical form which reduces history to a museum. For history is, above all, experiential narrative. All this opens up spirituality as a doctrine, as a teaching. A way of life in its dynamicity remains not in history (or history as static) but as history (as experiential narrative) as a teaching, a doctrine. As such, it is the starting point of mysticism. It gives mysticism ‘epistemologically experiential’ stability to remain as history, in order to continue being a way of life to be lived (hence, liveable) and to be studied, presupposing the reality of the Absolute, to which the nonAbsolute aspires by allowing his integrity (spirit) to be transformed towards communion in the current of mediation (experience as a metaphysical principle) taking place as episodes (experiential episodes or phenomena whether extraordinary or ordinary).35 The aforementioned ‘epistemologically experiential’ stability is attained by teaching, or the presentation of doctrine as model, as paradigm,36 which dynamically remains as history in and as mystagogy. Mystagogy presupposes a descriptive act. It presupposes a phenomenology which deals with the pluralism of the experiential mediation in experiential episodes. These episodes establish spirituality, the way of life, in its difference, in its speciality, in its specificity whose interpretation or hermeneutics culminates in the configuration of a teaching or doctrine. In other words, as a teaching or doctrine contextualized specifically or in its forms, or in its schools, as history would capture them in its dynamic experiential narrative process. Mystagogy as converging point for both phenomenology and hermeneutics unveils and interprets ‘the hidden (verborgen) presence of the incomprehensible God (Gott) and the working of his Spirit (Geist), as transcendent origin and ground, and as horizon and goal of the individual’s life history’.37 Mysticism, as stated, gives spirituality its phenomenological certitude and validity as history also opens spirituality to hermeneutics, to openness by initiating the hermeneutical process of dealing with plurality, with various data. This culminates in the hermeneutical capturing of form, in its interpretation within the dynamics of history as schools. Thus, spirituality defines mysticism hermeneutically into categories comprehensible by history (forms, schools, movements) by underlying contextual 35

36

37

For these two basic levels of spirituality, in terms of reality and in terms of doctrine, I am indebted to W.H. Principe, ‘Toward Defining spirituality’, in: Sciences Religieuses 12 (1983) 127-141; Idem, ‘Spirituality, Christian’, in: Several Authors, The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993), 931-938. I have taken especially in account, H. Kung & D. Tracy (Eds.), Paradigm Change in Theology: A Symposium for the Future, transl. M. Kohl (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989). W. Simon, ‘Mystagogie’, in: Several Authors, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg: Herder, 1998), 570.

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

175

specificities, which in spirituality are called ‘charisms’, which become phenomenologically manifest as experiential episodes or phenomena (whether ordinary or extraordinary). Spirituality establishes mysticism in terms of ‘charism’ in terms of gifts of the Absolute Spirit to contextualize the integration of the non-absolute as spirit within the limits of his finitude and culpability, within the transformative process of spirituality, rooted in the Mystery (sacramentological presence) towards the fullness of participation, i.e., the transcendence of communion. And ‘charism’ is only comprehensible (interpretable or hermeneutically open) by means of experiential phenomena which are the everydayness of spirituality in the life of the non-absolute and which are later on categorized as ordinary and extraordinary exercise of virtues (ascesis) made perfect in the fullness of love, which is being loved by the Absolute in its Infinity. This in turn presupposes the perfection of love in the act of passivity.38 Hermeneutical openness, presupposing the act of description, establishes that experience is truly mediation. And as mediation it is factible or possesses factiticity. It takes place here in the realm of experience, transforming it in life, in a specific way of life called spirituality. The Absolute allows itself to be experienced as Spiritu in its integrity, implying existentially the life of the non-absolute within a specific context, which is a specific way of life. This medation is nothing more than the ‘powerful’39 (in the sense of dynamic and transformative) establishment of the presence of the Transcendental in the immanent: the Mystery and the way of life, established in terms of ‘charism’ is nothing more than the rootedness in the same Mystery towards the fullness of participation, i.e., communion. Hermeneutics gives meaning to this mediation in terms of rootedness, giving sense to the notion of ‘charism’ in the process of living out the process of integration in the here and now. Hermeneutics establishes the meaning, the sense of what is described, of what is phenomenologically revealed, opening up the horizon of meaning, i.e., that of the way of life (spirituality) made comprehensible by experience and its episodes 38

39

Passivity is giving the Absolute ‘absolute protagonism’. In theological terms it can be condensed as the act of letting oneself be loved by God, be guided by God. Writes J.A. Estrada, ‘Podríamos definir la espiritualidad como la vida según el espíritu, es decir, la forma de vida que se deja guiar por el Espíritu de Cristo (…) Según el cristianismo, el Espíritu es Dios mismo que se revela al hombre. Con lo cual la espiritualidad sería la que trata de la vida cristiana en cuanto guiada por Dios mismo’, La espiritualidad de los laicos en una eclesiología de comunión (Madrid: Paulinas, 1992), 14. Also: A. Queralt, ‘La “espiritualidad” como disciplina teológica’, in: Gregorianum 60 (1979), 321-376; A. Guerra, ‘Proceso histórico en la formación de la teología espiritual’, in: Teresianum 52 (2001), 39-42. M. Buber speaks eloquently of the presence of Power of the Absolute Thou: I and Thou (New York: Collier, 1958), 110-111.

176

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

as rootedness in the mystery (mysticism) in its dynamic process of transformation (spirituality) towards the fullness of transcendence or particpation in the transcendental Absolute made present or mystery (mysticism). This hermeneutical establishment, always presupposing the act of descriptive phenomenology, also makes possible the study of all these aforementioned interplays of meaning, which always begin with data, especially in its most ordinary or discrete forms as phenomena, and with the establishment of principles of certitude (epistemological foundations), in all dynamicity as something to be lived out and to be studied,40 and in relation to the Absolute reality and with the stability of being an established doctrine in history through context made concrete in forms, schools, movements, etc.41 Hermeneutical establishment, always presupposing descriptive phenomenology and united to it, is no less than the determination of horizons, both for experiencing (level of being lived and in relation to reality) and meaning (level of being studied and contextual concretization). There is no pretension of the fullness of the grasping of the essence, especially with regards to the Absolute, but there is the opening of a horizon, wherein we could, from our finitude and culpability, point our finger at the Absolute for we have experienced Him, we have a way of life in relation to Him (spirituality) and rooted in His presence, called Mystery (mysticism) and conversely, we produce a teaching based on our relationship with Him (spirituality) made concrete in moments of our life or in experiential episodes (mysticism). And this point out to the Absolute, this feeble attempt at tautology is nothing more than a tautology of love, of reaching out to participate in the transcendence of the Absolute in our finitude and culpability. The key here is cultivation: the cultivation of spirituality as mysticism or of the way of life in concrete experiential moments (thesis one) and the cultivation of mysticism in spirituality or the rootedness in mystery in its contextualized specificity (forms, schools, movements), as seen in thesis two. Such a cultivation would demand permanence. Mystagogy is this permanence, the permanence of the way of life by means of initiation and communication.42 40 41

42

Again, these levels are taken from K. Waaijman. This is my modification of two meanings of spirituality by W.H. Principe. This author also speaks of spirituality as taught or scientific knowledge. We prefer to speak of scientific knowledge in terms of certainty. Certainty is the basis of teaching. In the case of spirituality, such a teaching could only take place as mystagogy. See my study: ‘Possible Relationship between Mystagogy and Philosophy and its bearing on theology and spirituality’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 34 (1999), 219-246. With this affirmation, I am somehow reversing my ideas expressed in an earlier essay: ‘La mistagogía como teología de la liturgia y su permanencia en la espiritualidad’, in: Studium 43 (2003), 291-323.

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

177

Admittedly, each thesis emphasizes a specific understanding of the key words spirituality and mysticism. These specific understandings are only levels which find their complement in the other thesis. The levels are complimentary and not exclusive. However, the cultivation presupposes the ‘charism’ which is the invitation of the Absolute to the non-absolute interpreted in terms of grace. Spirituality and mysticism necesssarily part from grace which become present sacramentologically (in mystery) as ‘charism’. Spirituality and mysticism are the finite and culpable response of the non-absolute, conscious of its facticity, to grace given as ‘charism’. Cultivation, aided by ‘charism’, makes possible the living out and study, of the relationship with the Absolute reality and the teaching or mystagogy, is a continuous epistemological act of opening and limiting horizons and sailing beyond fixed points or fields of vision and developing criteriological principles of possibility of expansion and elaboration. The Truth as Facticity of Experience and the Groundedness in Love To reflect on the relationship between Spirituality and Mysticism is to reflect on the truth of the Absolute, which makes itself experientiable, in the mediation of experience, to the non-absolute in its immanence. This creates a history, which becomes contextualized in spiritual schools, forms and movements underlying the rootedness of the finite and culpable non-absolute in its rootedness in the experiential (mediational) presence of the Absolute in Immanence or mystery. The Absolute becomes factical in its presence, in mystery. Thus, it becomes ‘true’ not only in itself but also in relation to the non-absolute in terms of grace, with the effect of the outpouring of its integral self (‘charism’) to build up the non-absolute in its process of building of integral self (spirituality) towards the fullness of participation in the Absolute (mysticism) with various everyday phenomena both ordinary and extraordinary (mysticism) underlying a teaching or doctrine contextualized in forms, schools and the like (spirituality). Truth is facticity. This facticity is established by the mediation of experience and not just by discourses on truth.43 Facticity opens up vistas, horizons. Its very act of opening is descriptive of itself, with no pretenses of static and fullydefined essences but tautologicl paths in terms of love and which at the same time make meaning and comprehension possible. In this facticity, the experiential episodes confirm, from the viewpoint of the finite and culpable, that the opening up has found its completion in the participation of the non-absolute in the Absolute which has mediated itself experientially, i.e., allowed itself to be 43

M. de Certeau, L’absent de l’historie (Paris: Mame, 1973), 52.

178

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

experienced. As St. Teresa would say, ‘I base this on experience (tengo por experiencia)’,44 thus indicating the effectivity of the mediation of the experience on the part of the Absolute. Existence is facticity. Truth springs from this and yet manifests itself (aletheia) in the configuration of a way of life, contextualized and specified, characterized by experiential episodes with an organic development in the exercise of virtues, made perfect in the perfection of Love, which is allowing oneself to be loved. This is the fullness of participation in the Absolute. This is communion. This is the ‘originary’ truth: the origin of the invitation of love which becomes the goal at the summit of the way, at the perfection of the same way, the very integral process of becoming oneself in spirit, participating in the life of the Absolute Spirit. Existence is just being there. This is the basic truth. But spiritualilty and mysticism make this being there ‘being there for someone’ in terms of love. And this someone is the Absolute which became facticity, in its presence in order to be there, for someone, who is the non-absolute. This is the very truth of the relationality between the Absolute and non-absolute. The truth is characterized by transformation, which is the descriptive development of the relation and the interpretational sense of the dynamicity of such the same relation. Truth is relational. It has to be dynamic. It is living and thus liveable and open to study. It is formulated as a way of life, a teaching, a model, a paradigm and thus becomes its own communication and initiation, its own mystagogy. The dynamicity of this relationalilty could be termed as ‘proximity’, the Absolute becomes near and intimately united with the non-Absolute in the Spirit, as God. This is obvious especially in the language, both phenomenological and hermeneutical, of the greatest masters of spirituality, the mystics.45 Spirituality and Mysticism, and the full comprehension of their relationships which we have only commenced to study here in a somewhat clumsy and reiterative manner (characteristic of a pioneering approach which only aims to open doors and to point out to convergences instead of differences), affirms the facticity of the Absolute. Spirituality and mysticism are the approaches, both lived and studied, in relation to the reality and as a doctrine (paradigm or model) of the non-absolute towards the Absolute who took the initiative to approach the non-absolute in terms of love and as a constant invitation of love to the fullness of love. Love alone, in its metaphysical signficance as the will of Reality to be to desire itself and satisfy itself in sharing with the whole of the universe, specifically man, 44

45

St. Teresa of Jesus, Libro de la Vida 4, 2; 13, 7. I am using this edition: Santa Teresa de Jesús: Obras, 12th ed. by T. Alvarez (Burgos: Monte Carmelo 2002). J. Martín Velasco, ‘El fenómeno místico en la historia y en la actualidad’, in: Several Authors, La experiencia mística: Estudio interdisciplinar (Madrid: Trotta, 2004), 18.

SPIRITUALITY AND MYSTICISM

179

becomes the fullest criterion from which Spirituality and Mysticism sprung and to which they will converge in all the senses that we have enumerated. Love alone is the defining force that defines the condition of possiblity of Spirituality and Mystism, because it is participatory in the sense that it makes possibe the participation of the non-absolute in terms of a way of life which is in effect a way of perfection rooted in the very presence of the Absolute, which is the personalized supreme degree of the force of Communion and beyond the positivistic limits of language, as Proclus would put it (τω αρρητω το αρρητον).46 In love, the Absolute, which becomes factible, in the silence in which we immerse ourselves (per hoc quod ea silemus),47 has its historicity. Spirituality and Mysticism, through description (phenomenology) and interpretation (hermeneutics), makes the non-absolute appropriate for himself this very historicity. Recapitulation and Projections This exploratory essay is a reflective attempt to establish the complementary differences and convergences between Spirituality and Mysticism in the course of epistemologically delineating and determining their fields of competences as areas of life and areas of study. The study parting from two fundamental theses tackles these questions from the perspectives offered by phenomenology and hermeneutics of the relationship between the Absolute and the non-Absolute inasmuch as the Absolute mediates itself as experience and the experience becomes concrete (and empirically or positively accountable) in the phenomena or episodes, both ordinary and extraordinary, within the current of a way of life, which is a doctrine or taken as paradigm or model, necessarily implying the notion of mystagogy. The result is an opening of a broader vista of an already explored question, as seen in the cited works, with new advances in terms of truth, facticity and historicity.

46

47

‘Through the unsayable, the unsayable’, Théologie platonicienne. I, 3rd ed. (Paris: Saffrey/ Westerink, 1968), 15. This is an expression of St. Thomas Aquinas, In librum beati Dionyssii De divinis nominibus expositio (Turin: Marietti, 1950), number 14.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES Mysticism as Literature and Theories of Literary Criticism ‘Instead of reducing literature to a manifestation of something nonliterary, these various theoretical enterprises – in fields as diverse as anthropology, psychoanalysis, historiography – discovered an essential “literariness” in nonliterary phenomena. They identify the literary not as a marginal phenomenon but as a ubiquitous logic of signification. Literariness is no longer the property of a canon of poems, plays, and novels, but a problematical and inescapable aspect of signification, which can be studied in a variety of discourses’.1 (J. Culler, The Future of Criticism)

Methodological Considerations – From Spirituality to Mysticism vis-à-vis Textualization In a secularized world like ours, it is difficult to speak of spirituality and to look upon ourselves as ‘spirits’ or men and women not totally attached to the pleasures of the material world, but aspiring to a different, totally transcendent (metaphysical) level of experience with all its cognitive implications (Hegelian geist) and ethical or moral exigencies. One might well ask whether these ways of talking about spirits and spirituality make good sense in our culture, if this same culture often seems to resist spirituality. But if spirituality is unavoidable and if recognizing ourselves as spirits is part of what it means to take our place in history responsibly, we should probably not be surprised at the contemporary return of interest in spirituality. On the contrary, what requires explanation is how our culture ever became resistant to spirituality.2 1

2

In: C. Koelb & V. Lokke (Eds.), The Current in Criticism: Essays on the Present and Future of Literary Theory (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1987), 30. H. Hardt, ‘Conceptual Understanding and Knowing Other-wise: Reflections on Rationality and Spirituality in Philosophy’, in: J.H. Olthuis (Ed.), Knowing Other-wise: Philosophy at the Treshold of Spirituality (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), 24. It is beyond the scope of the present reflection to examine the reasons behind the present day culture has been

182

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

It is against this backdrop that scholars have come together from all parts of the world with the aim of defining and delimiting spirituality as a scientific discipline and establish its autonomous, systematic and institutional academic status.3 In the course of the history of the epistemological definition of spirituality to which numerous specialists are committed, one thing is certain: that spirituality is an all-embracing concept. In other words, it integrates many concepts, notions and even traditions. There exist many definitions, approaches and modes of delimitation of spirituality.4 Within this same context, spirituality has been erroneously or otherwise identified with or reduced to mysticism. We must not forget that until the later part of the twentieth century the academic discipline

3

4

resistant to spirituality as Hardt claims. In the meantime, I recommend the reading of a previous work of mine which more or less touches on these issues: ‘The Lack of Spirituality in Secularization: An Experiential Paradigm from a Philippine Setting’, in: Studies in Spirituality 9 (1999), 203-229. For a recent and representative synthesis of the efforts thus far, one may consult the works of J. Strus, A. Huerga, O. Steggink, K. Waaijman and Ch.A. Bernard in: La spiritualità come teologia (Cinisello Balsamo: Paoline, 1993), 255ss. However, these works put spirituality under the academic umbrella of theology or the revealed word of God which is the general trend. The collective volume cited in the preceding footnote edited by Olthuis seems to be pointing towards a general direction in the philosophical development of spirituality as a discipline. So far, these efforts have effectively reduced spirituality to the ethical question. Likewise: see S. Schneiders, ‘The Study of Christian Spirituality: Contours and Dynamics of a Discipline’, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1988), 38-57; Idem, ‘Spirituality as an Academic Discipline: Reflections from Experience’, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1 (1993) no.2, 10-15; B. McGinn, ‘The Letter and the Spirit: Spirituality as an Academic Discipline’, in: Ibid., 3-10; M. McIntosh, Mystical Theology (Malden, MA/ Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 1-118. A similar ‘struggle’ is still going on in the theological realm as spirituality is still distinguishing itself from moral theology. Cfr. B. Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ. 3 vols. (Middlegreen, Slough: St. Paul, 1978); D.J. Billy, ‘Mysticism and Moral Theology’, in: Studia Moralia 34 (1996), 389-415. In this light, it is imperative to acknowledge the pioneering merits of the following studies: A. Guerra, ‘Teología espiritual, una ciencia no identificada’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 39 (1980), 335-415; E. Pacho, ‘Definición de espiritualidad: Respuestas y tratamientos’, in: Burgense 34 (1993), 281-302; C. García, ‘?Qué es la teología espiritual? Intentos de nueva recalificación’, in: Ibid., 303-319; A. Huerga, ‘El carácter científico de la teología espiritual’, in: Teología Espiritual 36 (1992), 41-63; Idem, ‘Teología espiritual y teología escolástica’, in: Revista Española de Teología 66 (1966), 11-15; A. Matanic, La spiritualità come scienza: Introduzione metodologica allo studio della vita spirituale cristiana (Turin: Paoline, 1990); G. Moioli, ‘Teología espiritual’, in: A. Guerra (Ed.), Nuevo Diccionario de Espiritualidad (Madrid: Paulinas, 1983), 1349-1358; A. Queralt, ‘La “Espiritualidad” como disciplina teológica’, in: Gregorianum 60 (1979), 321-375; F. Ruiz Salvador, ‘Temática de la teología espiritual’, in: Seminarium 26 (1974), 191-202; T. Alvarez, ‘Experiencia cristiana y Teología Espiritual’, in: Ibid., 94-110. These studies have broken new ground. The studies mentioned in the collective volume La spiritualità come teologia (see previous footnote) synthesize the results of the findings of the past two decades and have not really broken new ground.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

183

of spirituality was called ‘ascetic and mystical theology’.5 The present reflection is not the proper venue for properly evaluating this identification. But it is the right place and the opportune occasion to insist on the importance of mysticism in the scientific (epistemological) establishment of spirituality as a discipline. The semantical vagueness of the two terms ‘spirituality’ and ‘mysticism’ has contributed in great part to the phenomenon of the failure to give an exact delimitation of spirituality as a discipline. Present-day scholars have only succeeded in proving one thing: that the notion and scope of spirituality is constantly growing. For the moment, to contain this growth and evolution is futile. Epistemological precision is out of the question in the long run.6 Broadness, tolerance and amplitude are the key attitudes7 to insure the academic status or survival of spirituality. The same holds true with mysticism, although conveniently mysticism must be classified together or under the broader umbrella of spirituality8 given that 5

6

7

8

The titles of some of the most prominent manuals or textbooks in the first half of the twentieth century attest to this. For example: A. Tanquerey, Précis de théologie ascétique et mystique (Paris/ Tournai/ Rome: Desclée, 1960). Original French ed. first published in 1924; C. de Jesús Sacramentado, Compendio de ascética y mística (Avila: Mensajero de Santa Teresa, 1931); J. Heenricks, Introductio in theologiam spiriuaem asceticam et mysticam (Turin/ Rome: Desclée, 1931); O. Zimmermann, Lehrbuch der Aszetik (Freiburg: Herder, 1929); A. Stolz, Theologie der Mystik (Regensburg: Pustet, 1936); F. Naval, Curso de teología ascética y mística (Madrid: Coculsa, 1955); J. González Arintero, La evolución mística (Salamanca: San Esteban, 1989); L. Bouyer, Introduction à la vie spirituelle: Précis de théologie ascétique et mystique (Tournai: Desclée, 1960); B. Jiménez Duque, Teología de la mística (Madrid: BAC, 1963). However, at that time many authors too were opting for the term ‘spirituality’ to designate the discipline. Given this perspective of the new millennium, it is safe to say that the growth of knowledge aside from being understood in merely accumulative or even evolutionary terms is characterized above all by lack of epistemological discipline. The present interdisciplinary trend might give way to a process of constant and consistent disappearance of epistemological frontiers which in turn would lead to a homogenous notion of science just like in the origins of science with the Greeks wherein everything was reducible to the philosophical question starting with the pre-socratics all the way to Aristotle who can be considered as the father of the sciences and who was the starting point of the process wherein the various disciplines acquired their autonomy and started defining their line of specialization. These attitudes are without a doubt symptomatic of the trend mentioned in the preceding footnote. This, doubtless, is the stand of most specialists. It is worth our while to quote here O. Steggink: ‘The fifth element within the study of spirituality is mysticism. It is the heart, the nucleus of spirituality. Spirituality is directed at mysticism as its fulfillment; conversely, mysticism is the source of spirituality itself. Mysticism is the religious moment of spirituality’. See ‘Study in Spirituality in Retrospect: Shifts in Methodological Approach’, in: Studies in Spirituality 1 (1991), 22. In this essay, we will propose this stand as a conjecture with no intention of refuting it, in Popperian terms. Thus, methodologically speaking, the themes in our present reflections will be developed from the conventional premise that mysticism is less broader than spirituality and is a thematic under the wider concept of spirituality. Neither is this essay the place to

184

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

mysticism9 tends, in my opinion, to be an abused term just like metaphysics given the surge of new age trends, characteristic of modernity,10 modernism and postmodernism. The philosophical buttress of metaphysics has avoided its total semantic and lexical abuse by the so-called new age trends. This essay pleads guilty to the charge expanding the horizons of the uncontainable scientific discipline of spirituality. This writer is cognizant that this growth vehemently opposes the epistemological demands of definition so that a body of knowledge would cease from being merely opinative (doxa) and enter into the realm of the certain in criteriological terms (episteme). The interdisciplinary character, style and exigencies of this article would necessary stretch the established limits of the epistemological frontiers of spirituality with mysticism placed at its side or under it as a subordinate area or concept. It was Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset who wrote that the mystics have usually been the most formidable technicians of the word. They are the most exact writers. It is curious and a paradox that in all aspects the mystics have been the great classical writers of language, of the verb. Aside from being portentous decision makers, the mystics have always been gifted with great dramatic talent. This dramatism is the supernormal tension of our soul brought about by something that is announced to us for the future, towards which we draw closer each moment, such that this curiosity or fear or appetite brought about by this future thing multiplies by itself increasing itself by the moment (…) The classic of language, the mystic, effectively becomes the specialist of silence.11

9

10

11

propose a systematic definition of mysticism within the broader spectrum of spirituality. However, a meritorious publication seems to indicate that major themes of spirituality fall under the broader range of mysticism. Cfr. L. Borriello et al. (Eds.), Nuovo Dizionario di mistica (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2016). In this excellent dictionary, many entries that are more proper to spirituality are classified under mysticism and their themes are developed under the epistemological spectrum of mysticism. For a generalized thematic appraisal of mysticism, one could consult the article of G. Phan Tan Tanh, ‘Il “problema mistico”: Variazioni sul tema’, in: E.G. de Cea (Ed.), Compendio di teologia spirituale in onore di Jordan Aumann, O.P. (Rome: UPSA, 1992), 207-223. Writes K. Waaijman with regards to mysticism: ‘On the one hand, spirituality itself became “modern” to the extent it began to view itself as self-santification. Consequently, it had to eliminate mysticism – precisely to the degree that mysticism lays bare man’s inner powerlessness – as an unproductive element, often falsely labeled as quietistic, irrational and occult. In reaction, mysticism – a living indictment against every form of self-interest, self-will and technicalism – developed a language and logic of its own which in turn rendered it unintelligible to cultural rationality. This position of mysticism already starts to take shape in the seventeenth century’. See ‘Toward a Phenomenological Definition of Spirituality’, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 35. J. Ortega y Gasset, ‘Defensa del teólogo frente al místico’, in: Obras Completas. Vol. 5 (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1947, 457 and 459.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

185

It is, without a doubt, the intensity and authenticity of the experience that made the mystics, these great witnesses of the experience of God, the divine, write down their experiences. The quality of the experience and the horizons that the experience has opened to these mystics made the content of their writings known for their aesthetic and humanistic appeal making most if not all of the mystical writings literary classics in themselves. Of course, all the credit couldn’t be given to the objective pole of the matter, i.e., the experience in itself. Credit is also due to the personal creativity of the mystic/mystical writer.12 This creativity can be understood in terms of creative intuition or direct access to the reality through the funnel of experience in an aesthetical and artistical key. In this regard, I find this appraisal of Sir Karl Popper quite helpful: The question of how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man – whether it is a musical theme, a dramatic conflict, or a scientific theory – may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge (…) Accordingly, I shall distinguish sharply between the process of conceiving a new idea, and the methods and results of examining it logically. As to the task of the logic of knowledge – in contradistinction to the psychology of knowledge – I shall proceed on the assumption that it consists solely in investigating the methods employed in those systematic tests to which every new idea must be subjected if it is to be seriously entertained (…) My view of the matter, for what it is worth, is that there is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of the process. My view may be expressed by saying that every discovery contains ‘an irrational element’, or ‘a creative intuition’, in Bergson’s sense.13

However, the intensity, the range and the implications of the experience of the reality have forced these technicians or craftsmen of the art of language to silence, the antithesis of the word, of language from a prima facie point of view. To this day, specialists on mysticism still have to lend their ears to Wittgenstein’s often quoted closing remarks in the Tractatus: ‘There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical. The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said (…) Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’.14 Perhaps we all have paid too much attention to the silence. This is the reason why we don’t hear anything at all! We are in need of a new 12

13 14

Arguably, there can be a distinction between ‘mystic’ and ‘mystical writer’. The former is said to be the subject of the experience, whereas the latter is merely one who pens on the experience without necessarily being a subject of it. In the course of this article, given its focus on mystagogy and incursions into literary themes, ‘mystic’ and ‘mystical writer’ are to be considered as one and the same. K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Routledge, 1968), 31-32. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London/ New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1990), 6.522, 6.53, 7.

186

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

light in order to see things clearly from this Wittgensteinian vantage point in spite of the void and vagaries of its banshee-sounding notes of silence. The mystical is simply that which is. It is simply there. It simply is or has to be bereft of traces of contingencies which in turn clamor for linguistic expression. As famed specialist on mysticism E. Underhill put it: ‘But Reality must be real for all, once they [the mystics] have found it: must exist “in itself” upon a plane of being unconditioned by the perceiving mind. Only thus can it satisfy that mind’s most vital instinct, most sacred passion – its “instinct for the Absolute”, its passion for truth’.15 Given that this reality exists in a plane of being unconditioned by the perceiving mind, it is likewise unconditioned by human language which, by nature, is primarily perceptive. Thus, words do not count. Las palabras sobran, as we say in Spanish. Words can get in the way because they are excess baggage in this case. True, the mystical is beyond linguistic limits. But it is there. There is a real presence16 which we posit, which we experience but which words cannot just capture. There is no need to speak of the obvious or to enhance with words the presence of something which is truly present in itself. What then is the purpose or the use of mystical discourse or text? ‘The mystical text becomes a copy of the experience, or better said, interior adventure of the mystical/religious genius in his journey to the absolute’.17 The mystical text 15

16

17

E. Underhill, Mysticism: The Preeminent Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (New York: Image Books, 1990), 11. I have taken the expression ‘real presence’ from literary critic G. Steiner. It is worth the while to quote here at length the opening argument of his book: ‘We speak still of “sunrise” and “sunset”. We do so as if the Copernican model of the solar system had not replaced, ineradicably, the Ptolemaic. Vacant metaphors, eroded figures of speech, inahbit our vocabulary and grammar. They are caught, tenaciously, in the scaffolding and recesses of our common parlance. There they rattle about like old rags or ghosts in the attic. This is the reason why rational men and women, particularly in the scientific and technological realities of the West, still refer to “God”. This is why the postulate of the existence of God persists in so many unconsidered turns of phrase and allusion. No plausible reflection or belief underwirtes His presence. Nor does any intelligible evidence. Where God clings to our culture, to our routines of discourse. He is a phantom of grammar, a fossil embedded in the childhood of rational speech. So Nietzsche (and many after him). This essay argues the reverse. It proposes that any coherent understanding of what language is and how language performs, that any coherent account of the capacity of human speech to communicate meaning and feeling is, in the final analysis, underwritten by the assumption of God’s presence. I will put forward the argument that the experience of aesthtetic meaning in particular, that of literature, of the arts, of musical form, infers the necessary possiblity of this “real presence”. The seeming paradox of a “necessary possibility” is, very precisely, that which the poem, the painting, the musical composition are at liberty to explore and to enact’. Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 3-4. P. Cerezo Galán, ‘Filosofía, literatura y mística’, in: A. Heredia Soriano (Ed.), Actas del II Seminario de la Historia de la Filosofía Española (Salamanca: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Salamanca, 1982), 44.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

187

is a discourse about the steps, paths, journeys, successes and pitfalls along the road towards that Real Presence whose reality is beyond words, whose being there would make words superfluous. The mystical text writes about those things which need words aside from being accessible to the level of language and its explanations or justifications. Thus, the mystical text is, more often than not, about contingencies and such contingencies do not really touch the core. These contingencies only scrape the surface given their innate inability and inadequateness in plunging into the real depths, although they succeed in someway in showing the breath, depth and height of the matter. In the ‘presence’ of the Absolute there can only be silence, the silence of adoration and love.18 The Absolute is self-evident in itself; beyond words, though not to us men, linguistic and cultural beings.19 Thus we have to get to the Absolute. But in getting to the Absolute there are stages, all of which are contingent and admissive of variants depending on circumstances, which are accessible to language and are in need of its services because they are not selfevident in themselves, unlike God or the Absolute. Aside from this, they are more linguistically adept to explanation, justification and schematization. After all, reality is linguistic in nature:20 it articulates itself experientially, giving vent to idioms which are not only the vehicles of expression, but defines the mode of experiencing: of reality (substantive) mediating itself as something real (quality) and the real (substantive) mediating itself as reality (quality). 18

19

20

‘Sa littérature a donc tous les traits de ce qu’elle combat et postule: elle est l’éprouve, par le langage, du passage ambigu de la présence á l’absence; elle attest une lente transformation de la scéne religieuse en scéne amoureuse, ou d’une foi en une érotique; elle raconte comment un corps “touché” par le désir et gravé, blessé, écrit par l’autre, remplace la parole révélatrice et enseignante. Les mystiques luttent ainsi avec le deuil, cet ange nocturne (…) Certes leurs procédures sont quelquefois contradictoires, puisque á multiplier les techniques mentales et physiques précisant les conditions de possibilité d’une recontre ou d’un dialogue avec l’Autre (méthodes d’oraison, de recuéilement, de concentration, etc.), ils finissent, tout en posant le principe d’une absolue gratuité, par produire des semblants de présence’. M. de Certeau, La fable mystique (Paris: Gallimard, 1982), 13-14. This reminds me of St. Thomas Aquinas’s reply to the question as to whether the existence of God is something self-evident. ‘Sed contra, nullus potest cogitare oppositum eius quod est per se notum, ut patet per Philosophum, in IV “Metaphys”. et 1 “Poster”, circa prima demostrationis principia. Cogitari autem potest oppositum eius quod est Deum esse, secundum illus Psalmi 52,1: “Dixit insipiens in corde suo, non est Deus”. Ergo Deum esse non est per se notum’, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.1, sed contra.. With regards to man’s linguistic and cultural nature, see: H. Landar, Language and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965). From the perspective of mysticism, see: E. Wolz-Gottwald, ‘The Interculturality of Mysticism: On the Task of Creative Intercultural Dialogue’, in: Studies in Spirituality 7 (1997), 217-227. Within the academic discipline of spirituality, I only know of K. Waaijman’s application of this dictum. See his programatic article on Jewish-Christian spiritual currents: ‘A Hermeneutic of Spirituality: A Preliminary Study’, in: Studies in Spirituality 5 (1995), 6-13.

188

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

The Textuality of Mysticism and Mysticism as Literature ‘And even mysticism’, writes R. Otto, ‘in speaking of it as to apphton, the ineffable, does not really mean to imply that absolutely nothing can be asserted of the object of the religious consciousness, otherwise, mysticism could exist only in unbroken silence, whereas what has generally been a characteristic of the mystics is their copious eloquence’.21 Mysticism, as an experience and as a characterization of a peculiar type of experience, is a text. This textuality indicates its facticity. A text is anything that is woven together to make a unity. A conglomeration of events within the spectrum of specificity and meaning is a text in itself. This is its facticity. This textuality is the openness of the conglomeration weaved together as something meaningful or potentially meaningful to becoming a written text, something that is consigned to the letters or symbols of the human idiom.22 Any written text is literary, since letters, those arbitrary symbols to which the texts of human experience are consigned, are involved. The term ‘literature’ refers to any written work, such that these works have as their originating form and final point of reference with regards to their existence their written textuality.23 Man, given his rationality, experiences. Events just don’t simply happen to him or he merely does or performs actions without meaning or previous reflection or liberty. Events, taken together, have meaning and form that unity which we commonly call: experience – especially, in the light of its pedagogical utility. We often say ‘experience is the best teacher’ or that we ‘learn from experience’. Man is a linguistic being. His experiences are his mode of linguistic communication with himself and with the world of his experiences which not only surround him, but is placed in front of him as an object. Effectively all of our experiences, given their meaning, are texts. But not all are consigned to the collective memory or archive of mankind. This function of this collective memory is not limited to that of a communitarian archive, but this same memory serves as the very background, wherein events strewn together effectively become the human drama. Thus, this collective memory is effectively the backdrop wherein events are transformed into history, wherein experience becomes objectivized and shared in the communitarian sense as history. Men and women of all ages, from all walks of life may have had their own mystical experiences, but to study this in detail is not of interest for us now. More so, it would be impossible to give a full account. We are interested in mystical experiences inasmuch as they form part of what we have just defined as 21 22 23

R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), 2. Henceforth, in this study the word ‘text’ refers to the written or literary text. P. Widdowson, Literature (London/ New York: Routledge, 1999), 15.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

189

history. In history, these mystical experiences are not merely private, but become truly human. Though the intensity of the experience happens in the private or individual plain or range, the humanity of the mystical experiences only emerges with the communitarian appraisal which is also historical in nature. Mystical experiences become human events or part of the drama of the human experience as literature, as written texts penned for a reading community and elaborated within the nucleus, interpretative context and standards or demands of the same reading community. The historical nature of the mystical texts stems from this context and is put to the test when it imparts lessons or messages (the lessons of history) for the reading community given that these very same lessons spring from the very same reading community. This same reading community is a community of experiences. It is also a writing community, for within it spring vocations of writers or those men and women who would like to consign to the collective archive the experiences of the community inasmuch as these have had an impact in certain individuals, taken as prototypes, models or paradigms of the same community. From the ranks of these men and women come the mystics, those people who are in search of God, of an intense, authentic and lasting relationship with God, in the very recesses of the memory – not taken as a faculty, but as the very experiential ambit wherein such experiences take place given its demands that the experiences be transformed into histories, histories of and for the community.24 The very epistemological or scientific nature of the study of mysticism is hinged on its written textuality, its being, first and foremost, literature. Literature is the consignment or conveyance of significant experience(s) to a written discourse. Not all experiences, inasmuch as they are events, can be or should be the object of a written discourse. From the outset, in the writing of texts there is a two-prong primary prejudice of interest and limitations. These two proceed from the criteria of significance. This is determined by the needs, demands and structures (criteria) of the reading community to which the author, the writer belongs to. These needs, demands and structures inasmuch as they have the reading community as referent point converge in what is deemed by the same community as tradition. Tradition is commonly held to be the main factor in the Gestalt of the text, however, on its own the text configures its own textuality regardless of the criteria of the tradition it proceeds from. In other words, it 24

There is a beautiful text from St. Augustine’s Confessions on this regard: ‘Quomodo ergo te quaero, Domine? Cum enim te, Deum meum, quaero, vitam beatam quaero. Quaeram te, ut vivat anima mea. Vivit enim corpus meum de anima mea et vivit anima mea de te. Quomodo ergo quaero vitam beatam? Quia non est mihi, donec dicam: “Sat, est illic”. Ubi oportet ut dicam, quomodo eam quaero, utrum per recordationen, tamquam eam oblitus sim oblitumque me esse adhuc teneam, an per appetitum discendi incognitam, sive quam nunquam scierim sive quam sic oblitus fuerim, ut me nec oblitum esse meminerim’, X, 20, 29.

190

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

seeks originality. It seeks to configure a tradition of its own, not created in a vacuum, but with traditional preceedents. This self-configuration counts for the very textuality of the new text, that is, its very textness as distinguished from other texts produced by the same community or other reading communities. In this sense, mysticism, as far as we know it and as far as we can study it is a text-centered discipline. This is due to two main factors, namely: a) the reflection or study of the mystical life and its processes are carried out through the production of texts; and b) said reflection is carried out within a particular tradition or community of readers (and writers) with their own texts, standards and intrinsic demands.25 The scientific status of mysticism can only be attained through a reflection on texts and this reflection produces, in turn, new texts. Thus, the starting point is the text. The instrumentum laboris is the text and the end-product is an enrichment by the studied text which is effectively the starting point for the production of another text. The written text is the culminating point of the mystical experience in itself, especially from the vantage point of the community. The mystical experience becomes communitarian in nature or truly becomes an ‘experience’ – given that the community is the experiential context – only when the occurrence or experience overcomes the tendency towards solipsism. Hence, there are two basic degrees of experience: a) the solipsistic or individual level, wherein the experience is bereft of any qualification; and b) the communitarian level,26 which is a criteriological level or the level that labels and accepts (not only in the sense of affirmation or assent, but also and above all ‘takes note’ of the experience) the experience to be as such since it is presented to the community either as an actuality or an experiential possibility in conformity with the criteriological models of correspondence, coherence and pragmatic use. The communitarian level, aside from being a criteria and the accepting power with regards to the experience, is in itself the assurance that the experience is configurated as something truly human. The communitarian level is in itself the demand for the narrativity of the text. This in turn brings about the configuration of the 25

26

I have taken into account and paraphrased to fit my arguments, W.G. Jeanrod, Text and Interpretation as Categories of Theological Thinking, transl. T.J. Wilson (New York: Crossroad, 1988), xvss. It would be interesting to apply here Th. Kuhn’s notion of scientific paradigms inasmuch as these are developed within the nucleus of a scientific community. Cfr. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). From the perspective of the theological activity, see: H. Küng, Theology for The Third Millenium: An Ecumenical View (New York: Image Books, 1988), 123ss; S. Guerra, ‘Teología y Santidad: Nuevas perspectivas de la teología y misión teológica del carmelo teresiano-sanjuanista’, in: S. Ros García (Ed.), La recepción de los místicos: Teresa de Jesús y Juan de la Cruz (Salamanca/ Avila: CITES/ UPSA, 1996), 645-666.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

191

experience within the commonly accepted and understood temporal and spatial forms not only to establish the experience as an event, but as a history that the community can share depending on its acceptance in the level of affirmation or assent. In the case of the Christian mystics, the communitarian level is always ecclesial. This makes their text truly theological, since theology is the ‘logos’, the word of the Church about God. It is God-Talk by the Church27 based on the Talk of God or God-Talk by God Himself addressed to a community gathered in His name and journeying together in salvation. This ecclesial level in Christian mysticism qualifies their discourse as truly theological and not just mere religious language. The production of texts is inevitable, since reflection is crystallized into new texts. The non-production of texts, whether written or not, frustrates the ‘vicious’ hermeneutical (interpretative) cycle of the texts. This, in turn, demands that scholars of mysticism must be equipped with the proper heuristical tools in text understanding. Text interpretation presupposes a set of text theories. The text to be studied is a paradigm for comprehension of the mystical life, including its mystical states, phases and the like which are somehow revealed in the text. But the study of the mystical text, however, must not be too attached to these phenomena, phases and the like,28 which are only circumstantial, but somewhat vital to the production of symbols, for which mystics are generally known. It is paradigm in search of a paradigm, the paradigm of literary theory. A text is an experience or aggregation of experiences (significant ones that have passed through the funnel of limitations and interests within the backdrop 27

28

‘Theology is, moreover, an ecclesial discipline. It is done in the Church because the Church is the primary bearer of faith. Christ delivered his revelation to a community of disciples; the Holy Spirit descended upon a gathered community (…) A theologian who departs from the Church and seeks to work without the support of fellow believers has forfeited a necessary resource for the theological enterprise. Theology, then, is a methodical effort to articulate the truth implied in Christian faith, the faith of the Church’, A. Dulles, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 8. ‘Mystical experience – special insight, rapture, transport, realization – bore on the ordinary. It was extraordinary precisely because it revealed the structures, the depths, the potential of everyday, ordinary events that people normally missed. People went through their routines fairly dully. They did not experience eating, drinking, working, or having sex as dazzling revelations of the full meaning of life, of the transcendent depths holding all that is in being. What we, looking backward, would now call mystical moments or preoccupations of the traditional world religions were the times and ways in which members of those religions actualized their beliefs, became fully aware of the mysteries they were convinced were the most crucial aspects of human existence’. D.L. Carmody & J.T. Carmody, Mysticism: Holiness East and West (New York/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 15. For a succint enumeration of the characteristics of the mystical states, see: S. Guerra, ‘Mística’, in: X. Pikaza & N. Silanes (Eds.), El Dios Cristiano, 898-900; J.M. Velasco, Espiritualidad y mística (Madrid: Ediciones SM, 1994), 55-81.

192

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

of tradition) of and for history. Behind it is the unfolding of history in circumstances with the constant interference and interplay of struggles and conflicts of a political, social, cultural, racial, philosophical and even genital nature. From the vantage point of the action taking place behind the scenes, one can fully appreciate the capacity of the text to render meaning and in the case of the mystical text, this meaning must necessarily echo the real presence. It will be safe to say that all literary theory seeks to go behind the scenes of the text in order to accompany it in its fullest manifestation and its confirmation: the comprehension and intelligent assimilation of the narrated experiences on the part of the reader. However, this process involves three experiential coordinates, which may be mutually antagonistic, inspite of their innate interrelatedness: a) author, b) reader and c) text. Below, we will get back to these three experiential coordinates which are likewise the three basic literary coordinates. Most likely, the access of readers in general are not to the facts themselves, but only to the text. At first glance, this signifies that texts have a primary mimetic or imitative/representative function. But, indeed, it too has a poetic or creative function. Its creativity does not consist in the formulation of myths (in the present way of understanding its term vis-à-vis factual reality), but rather it is made up of the challenge to produce texts, first and foremost in the existential sense, out of the text taken as point of departure. The production of the existential text or the life testimony produced by the creative, assimilative and interactive reading of the mystical text is a response to the demands and values of the present. The present brings about the demand of the reader, member of the reading (and writing) community, to read the text and articulate the meaning of the text with the testimony of his life and deeds in conformity with the present of the said community. In the same vein, it is inevitable that the values of the present dictate the modality and focus of the reading to be done. In this sense, the present is the determinant of values for writing and reading. The present is the canon-referent and axiological backdrop wherein these two aforementioned activities take place. Mystical texts, inasmuch as they are literary pieces of (a) significant human experience(s), are fundamentally testimonial in character. They were written in conformity with the demands of the reading and writing community to produce a testimony of the authenticity and intensity of an experience of God by a member of this community. Said demands are always taken in the present or as the present of the community. In a negative sense, any lack or contingency of the community is its present. In a positive way, the present is to be understood as what the community can contribute in the light of said lack which forms a yawning gap. Thus, a mystical text, as a testimony, is the present taken in a positive way, i.e., as a contribution. Of course, it cannot be denied that its production has been stimulated by a negative factor (lack, contingency). The testimony effectively

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

193

has testimonial value, when it is presented as a paradigm of truth for the community. A testimonial text does not impose its truth paradigm as universal for the community, but only presents a certified way, buttressed by experience, of a possible way, of a goal towards which ideally the community must tend in its journey in search of self-fulfillment. The appeal is always directed to the freedom of the rational members of the community. The notion of rationality, within the context of mysticism, must be further clarified, especially in experiential terms. In other words, it is more than just posession of the rational faculties of intellect and free will. It is capacity to experience. This experiential capability provides an integrated vision of rationality instead of just analytically presenting it by means of the enumeration of faculties and actions which spring from the use or interaction of said faculties. In this light, the configuration, within the community, of the mystical text is dependent on the following determinants in order to constitute itself as such, a mystical text from and for the community: 1. God as an experiential reality for the community: This is the necessary starting point. God is not just a distant reality, but is experientiable. What is experientiable is real and vice-versa. God, really as HE is, is not just a mere realities side-by-side other realities. He is the fountainhead of reality. He is reality in itself and is experience in Himself. His experientiability is the special qualifier of His reality. It qualifies Him as a Person, as capable of experiencing and being experienced. Objects can only be experienced, but cannot experience. To experience is to interrelate personally as a person. The experientiability of God springs from the insondable depths of God’s being a person: He can experience and can be experienced. 2. The personal history of the author of the text. The starting point of any personal history, is the personality (the fact of being a person) of the author. This is the basis of his experientiality which has to be qualified as finite in contrast to that of God. 3. The experience taken within the context of human experience as a whole. This is an affirmation of the interpersonal relationality of experience. The experience, thus, can be presented as a universal paradigm. It can hold true for others as well. If not, it can be of pedagogical value for others. 4. The organization of the text as the configuration of the experience with its dynamicity. Behind the text is a personality and the text is presented and organized to have a personality of its own, not only reflective of the individual personality of the author, but as an instrument geared towards interpersonal relationality or a ‘transfer’ or transmission (at least pedagogical) of the experience. 5. The presentation of the text as an invitation to the community. This is the goal of number 4. The community is taken as a aggregation of persons and has

194

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

its own personality that is not only receptive to the text, but acts upon the text. Foremost of these acts is the criteriological determination of the authenticity and credibility of the experience immortalized in the text (number 6). 6. The credibility of the experience (and effectively, that of the author).29 But this judgement is not the terminal point. Other acts include living out the message of the texts or sharing the message to others within the same community and even outside of it. This is a call to further creativity, of appropiation of the message and creating a new situation out of it. However, the openness and availability of the mystical text to literary theory is dependent on the following factors (or dimensions) that must be inextricably woven into the very structure of the text itself:30 1. The experiential factor: the text in itself must speak of experiences, particularly the mystical experience inspite of the ineffability of the essentials. 2. The linguistico-literary factor: wherein the mystical author makes use of the tools of language (symbols, metaphors, expressions) to relay the intense and authentic experience of God. 3. The communitarian factor: most often than not, this communitarian factor is likewise confessional and ecclesial. The text belongs to a particular community of readers and writers. An experience of God demands a confessional and ecclesial confession as communitarian basis and context. 4. The personal factor: this includes the psychological make-up of the author as an author and said make-up should provide tips for a diagnosis of the human reality, in other words, the personal factor should be helpful in the understanding of the person as a subject of experience, as a mystery in himself open to the experienced Mystery. 5. The scientific factor: wherein the experience is not just opinative or highly subjective, but truly objective, justifiable, coherent, corresponding to criteriological standards of truth, veracity, falsifiability. The experience must not only be systematic or orderly or taxonomic (classifiable), but epistemological, that is, must project certain knowledge (επιστημη) overcoming the limits of doubt or opinion (δοξα). Certain knowledge is based on criteria wherein what is casual is causal and what is random and intuitive becomes systematic or definitive, proven, backed up by premises.31 29

30

31

For this chapter I have modified a previous presentation of mine in: ‘Possible Relationship between Mystagogy and Philosophy and its Bearing on Theology and Spirituality’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 34 (1999), 241. The following factors, again, are a modification of a previous presentation I made in the article mentioned in the previous footnote: Ibid., 245. The late Canadian critic N. Frye made the following inquiry with regards to the scientific status of criticism: ‘What if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a “pure” or “exact” science,

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

195

6. The philosophical factor: any mystical text seeks explanation of the phenomenon taking place thus, there is necessarily an element of critical thinking wherein, there is wisdom over factual knowledge, vagaries, errors, illusions, etc. This necessarily presupposes the fullness of the term ‘experience’ (its pedagogical value) or that which distinguishes truth from falsity, the essential from what is accidental, what is constant from what is variable, etc.32 More often than not, literary texts are distinguished from other written texts for their beauty. In common parlance, newspaper articles or studies such as this one and even classics such as St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae are not considered literary texts; whereas the term ‘literary texts’ are immediately applied to works such as St. Augustine’s Confessions, Shakespeare’s plays and almost unintelligible modernist poems of today. The aesthetic appeal seems to be the most binding of all conventional theories. In almost all instances, mystical texts are distinguished for their aesthetic beauty given that most mystical writers were gifted craftsmen of the written word. In sensu stricto, this is only secondary to the above-mentioned factors. The same holds true for matters concerning genre, though this is of structural interest to the text itself. Hence, it is more important than aesthetic considerations. Our interest, given that the thrust of this present study is ‘subordinated’ to the wider discipline ‘spirituality’, is not focused on the

32

of course, but these pharases belong to a nineteenth-century cosmology which is no longer with us. The writing of history is an art, but no one doubts that scientific principles are involved in the historian’s treatment of evidence, and that the presence of this scientific element is what distinguishes theory from legend. It may also be a scientific element in cirticism which distinguishes it from literary parasitism on the one hand, and the superimposed critical attitude on the other. The presence of science in any subject changes its character from the casual to the causal, from the random and intuitive to the systematic, as well as safeguarding the integrity of that subject from external invasions. However, if there are any readers for whom the word “scientific” conveys emotional overtones of unimaginative barbarism, they may substitute “systematic” or “progressive” instead’, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 7-8. In this regard, it is worth taking into consideration what W. Proudfoot has written about the religious factor in explaining experiences: ‘While one might venture a hypothesis to account for Bradley’s accelerated heartbeat [as something done by the Holy Spirit] (…) that approach will not yield an explanation of their experiences. What must be explained is why they understood what happened to them or what they witnessed in religious terms. This requires a mapping of the concepts and beliefs that were available to them, the commitments they brought to the experience, and the contextual conditions that might have supported their identification of their experiences in religious terms. Interest in explanations is not an alien element that is illegitimately introduced into the study of religious experience. Those who identify their experiences in religious terms are seeking the best explanations for what is happening to them. The analyst should work to understand those explanations and discover why they are adopted’. See: ‘Explaining Religious Experience’, in: R. Douglas Geivett & B. Sweetman (Eds.), Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology (New York/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 351.

196

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

text’s aesthetic appeal, but rather in its experiential appeal. What matters most is the experiential factor and how this experience truly is linguistic or literary, confessional, psychological, etc. The Methodological Antagonism/Rivalry of Author, Reader and Text and their Unification in Experienciology Previously, we have mentioned the three experiential coordinates: Author, Reader and Text. These three are also the basic taxonomical elements in literary criticism. Put together as an equation, they constitute the basic taxonomy for all kinds or approaches of literary criticism. Normally, the equation is expressed as follows: ‘Author-Text-Reader+World model’.33 World model or Weltanschauung is presupposed as parting point (origin) of each of the three elements and is what the mystical text wishes to purvey and make explicit (aim), of course with the help of literary criticism. In fact, the three elements potentially provide a world model if the equation is solved by literary criticism. Thus, I prefer to present the three elements: Author-Text-Reader, at the risk of sounding Hegelian, as the three moments of the experience, parting from and presenting themselves as experiential areas with the aim of presenting an experience, which effectively, upon effective reading with literary criticism, proposes a world model. The world model is the very experience, passing through an epistemological (criteriological) funnel presented and proposed theoretically in the level of praxis. This epistemological funnel establishes the scientific status, the ‘logos’ of what has passed through it. Any literary theory applied to a mystical text must conform to what we may call ‘experienciology’.34 Said theory must give the ‘logos’ (λογος) or the ‘word’ (sometimes translated as ‘reason’) to the experience. The theory must let the experience, as something historical,35 speak. It must let the experience speak for itself even to the point of further stretching the borders of silence. The ‘logos’ is the word that makes explicit. Explicitness here is taken in an epistemic (truth) sense. Reason takes form in the ‘logos’. Reason is the criteriological cast of the word, wherein the discrusivity of the word is hinged on correspondence 33

34

35

‘Preface’, in: C. Koelb & V. Lokke (Eds.), The Current in Criticism: Essays on the Present and Future of Literary Theory (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1987), xix. Cf. Macario Ofilada Mina, ‘Realidad, Experiencia y Ser’, in: Philippiniana Sacra 33 (1998), 239-249. Also: K. Waaijman, ‘Toward a Phenomenological Definition’, 42ss. I fully subscribe to this affirmation of J. Dan: ‘The first and, I believe, the most important aspect of a definition of mysticism as a historical phenomenon is the insistence that such a definition be qualitative rather than quantitative’: ‘In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism: The Contingental Approach’, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 63.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

197

or imitation (μιμησις), coherence and pragmatic use. It is a discursiveness based on causality, grounds, basis that have to be made explicit not created. ‘Logos’ is freedom from the ‘mythos’ (μυθος) or the implicit word that has been intrinsically interwoven into a discourse that flees from the clutches of criteriology. ‘Mythos’, on the other hand, does not explicate causes, grounds and basis but rather creates, fabulates or invents (ποιησις) them. The accepted criteriological standards of correspondence, coherence and pragmatic use are not made explicit in the epistemic sense, but rather are converted into fiction. Fiction pertains to another level of truth. Its level of truth is not epistemic. The epistemic level is truth that is geared towards knowledge (epistemology or the ‘logos’ of knowledge) and hence, criteriological (with criteria in determining the truth value of the knowledge attained). In other words, ‘logos’ has epistemic value because it seeks to tell the truth, whereas in the case of ‘mythos’ is bereft of epistemic value because it does not seek to tell the truth, but rather to lie. The ‘mythos’, given its fictional character, finds truth in lying.36 In mysticism, previous to the ‘logos’ and to the ‘mythos’ was the experience and its consignment to the written text. Literary criticism seeks to give the ‘logos’ to the mystical text.37 This does not mean that it does not have its own ‘logos’ or ‘logoi’, nor does it mean that it is necessarily bereft of mythical elements. Literary criticism, better said, is tasked to make explicit the implicit ‘logoi’ in the mystical text. This may mean a total eradication of mythical elements, since they may enhance the aesthetical value (mostly centered in symbols)38 of the literary piece, or to view them within the function of an explicit ‘logos’ or ‘logoi’ and its necessarily epistemic appreciation of the truth as opposed to the fictional appreciation of ‘mythos’. The giving of the ‘logos’ to the mystical text is the act of interpretation. Interpretation, which is an epistemological (criteriological) activity, is aimed at 36

37

38

Cf. the excellent presentation and discussion of N.F. Partner, ‘History Without Empiricism/ Truth Without Facts’, in: C. McDonald & G. Wihl (Eds.), Transformations in Personhood and Culture After Theory: The Languages of History, Aesthetics, and Ethics (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 1-12. From an analytic and pragmatic vantage point and combining epistemology and natural theology, W.P. Alston made a study of mystical or religious experience hinging his efforts on direct experiential awareness or perception of God as grounds for certainty or epistemological sureness in religious experience. The analytical chacter of the study, while providing the basis for a coherent religious statement with criteriological basis (coherence), does not enter into the very core of the experience itself, the perceiving process, the assimilating phases all the way to the production of the mystical texts. Credit however, must be given Alston for employing concrete mystical texts. Cf. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY/ London, 1991). For a comprehensive survey of the problematic, cf. F.W. Dillistone, The Power of Symbols in Religion and Culture (New York: Crossroad, 1986).

198

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

technical comprehension and understanding. It must not be confused with hermeneutics, which, in its various approaches or schools, aims at formulating and giving techniques of comprehension and understanding.39 Interpretation has a lot of options inasmuch as theories of literary criticism are concerned. All interpretation, however and no matter what the theory or theories adopted are, must be a reflective act wherein the act of reading and interpretation must commence with self-comprehension proceed to comprehending the text and return once again to self-comprehension, this time a more enriched self-comprehension given the interpretative contact with the text40 and of, course, the text is enriched given the reflective interpretative act. Henceforth, the text cannot be read in a vacuum, but in a fixed tradition incarnated by the community of readers. All posterior readings must have contact with the precedents set by the community of readers. And this contact should be as extensive and exhaustive as possible given that this contact is vital to the continuos explication of criteriological concerns. In the case of mystical texts, however, criteriology must necessarily go beyond mere correspondence, coherence and pragmatic use especially with regards to the proposal of a world model. The criteriology must be based on the capacity of the very structure of the text to confirm the author’s participation in the life divine and the openness of said participation to the reader. This openness is made patent as an invitation. Thus, the epistemological (criteriological) basis of the mystical text is centered and hinged on its capacity experiential mediation wherein participation goes beyond textuality, is confirmed by history and becomes an occasion for application and precision above all with regards to the various stages of the mystical life. This epistemological (criteriological) basis is found in the very structure of the text, i.e., it is an innate and potential element that has to be untapped in the act of reading, aided by literary criticism. This untapping is effectively the very moment of truth of the writing of the mystical text. The act of writing of the mystical text, taken on a superficial level or on a prima facie basis, is the formulation of norms or is the normative aspect of the text. But, on a deeper level, writing is much more than what is normative. It is, in the case of the mystical texts, the very action of the mystical process processing themselves textually and consigning themselves to history with their own peculiar aesthetics (symbols and 39

40

A. Gabilondo Pujol, ‘El conocimiento como lector, traductor e intérprete: los caminos de la Hermenéutica’, in: Several Authors, Problemas fundamentales del conocimiento (Salamanca: Sociedad Castellano-Leonesa de Filosofía, 1993), 54. An author calls this process ending with self-comprehension but without the notion of enrichment in the reader nor in the text ‘new hermeneutics’ to oppose the traditional hermeneutical methods and schools, S. Guerra, ‘El reto del discurso cristiano: Decir hoy “Dios” significativamente’, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 53 (1994), 304.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

199

literary/idiomatic configurations). In the determination and assessment of this epistemological (criteriological) basis, indeed, one inevitably has to deal with the antinomy of norms-processes.41 This antinomy inevitably leads to the primordial experiential antinomy at the composition of the text: event and meaning and their tense historical relationship in the formulation of a historical text of a mystical experience. Event and meaning are the antinomies with which the author struggles in the redaction of his text. The mystical text or any other text for that matter is much more than an event, wherein the act that disappears in time and space is immortalized. The meaning of the text assures that what is textually consigned goes beyond mere eventness. Meaning makes the event enter into the dynamics of history, wherein the experience, inasmuch as it is consigned to the text, calls for actualization. The reader or interpreter will re-encounter this antinomy primarily in the antagonism between norms and processes, which are the primary coordinates of the symbols with which the text was configurated. Previously we have made mention of the three fundamental literary coordinates, moments or taxonomical elements: author, reader and text. As already stated, our interest is in the experience in itself and the task of letting the experience speak for itself. At first glance, we would generally say that what is of interest is the experience of the author or of the personage(s) of whom the author speaks. In this sense, the term ‘author’ is not only restricted to the writer of the text, but to the subject matter of the text given that his experiences culminated in the 41

To my mind, the distinction between norms and processes or the static and the dynamic element of the spiritual life or life of the spirit is key in affirming the autonomy of spirituality or spiritual theology from morals or moral theology especially in a thomistically inspired curriculum. Hence, I find this distinction by A. Royo Marín insufficient: ‘Pero más íntimas son todavía sus [la teología de la perfección] con la teología moral. como advierte un gran teólogo de nuestros días [S. Ramírez, De hominis beatitudine I, n. 85, in: Idem, Opera Omnia. Madrid, 1971, 79] es evidente que la teología moral y la teología ascética y mística – nuestra Teología de la perfección Cristiana – tienen el mismísimo objeto formal primario. Proque el acto moral por esencia, que es el acto de caridad hacia Dios, es también el objeto primario de la teología ascética y mística. Sólo hay una diferencia modal y accidental, en cuanto que la teología moral considera ese acto de caridad en todo su desarrollo, o sea, como incipiente, proficiente y perfecta; si bien la moral casuística se fija principalmente en la caridad incipiente, que trata de lo lícito o ilícito, o sea, de lo compatible o non compatible con esa caridad inicial; y la ascética insista, sobre todo, en la caridad proficiente, acompañada del ejercicio de las demás virtudes infusas; y la mística trate principalmente de la caridad perfecta bajo la influencia predominante de los dones del Espíritu Santo. Sin embargo, no hay entre todas partes departamentos irreducibles o estancos: es cuestión de mero predominio de detinadas actividades comunes a todas ellas. Ya Santo Tomás [In IV Sententiarium, d. 21, I, 2] advertía, que, aunque los activos se distinguían de los contemplativos, estos últimos son también activos en parte, y los activos son contemplativos a veces’, Teología de la perfección cristiana. 5th ed.(Madrid: BAC, 1968), 30-31.

200

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

writing of the text though not by his own hand. His own experiences became the text. This is a simplistic, generic, vague and even risky stand.42 The antagonism of the three taxonomical elements is an antagonism of sovereignty in the act of reading and interpreting. Especially in the case of the mystical texts, it is an antagonism of experiential sovereignty – although the question of experiential sovereignity should apply to all types of texts. Who owns the experience? Whose experience are we interested in? Traditionally and until the dusk of romantic (pre-Heideggerian) hermeneutics, the author has dominated the experiential scene in the interpretation of the texts. The text is more than what the author has written. It is also more than what the reader has read, grasped or interpreted. It is more than the sum total of the interactions between author and reader. It is also its very own history and the experiences behind it, its polysemy, plurivocity, ambiguity, cumulative and holistic processes. Conventionally, the following literary theories are classified as to which element they ‘side with’ in the interpretative process:43 I.

Pro-author: 1. Romantic Hermeneutics 2. Traditional Formalism 3. Psychoanalysis 4. Marxism II. Pro-Reader 1. Reader Response Theories (Eco) 2. Phenomenology 3. Certain Hermeneutical Currents or Subjective Hermeneutics (Gadamer) III. Pro-Text 1. New Critical Formalism 2. Post-Heideggerian Hermeneutics (Ricœur) 3. Analytic Trends 4. Structuralism 5. Poststructuralism 42

43

Hence, I take this affirmation of J. Dan with extreme precaution and reserve: ‘In general, I believe, the adjectival use of the term “mystical” when describing a certain element within a text is extremely subjective, and should remain as such. A writer has every right to use such an adjective if he feels it is appropriate, and other readers and scholars may agree that this adjective is appropriate, or deny it; the text is still there, unchanged, and open to many interpretations and descriptions’: ‘In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism’, 60. For a global vision of contemporary literary theories, see: M. Steele, Critical Confrontations: Literary Theories in Dialogue (Columbia: University of Carolina Press, 1997); T. Eagleton, Literary Theory. 2nd. ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1996); R. Selden, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989).

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

201

It would be worthwhile to discuss the mentioned theories, in the light of the foregoing discussions on mystical literature. However, considerations as to time and space do not allow us this intellectual luxury. Perhaps some other time. In a mystical text, the author does not have the monopoly experiential sovereignty. The author is merely the transmitter or the first experiential witness of the experience. The reader is the one to whom this transmission is addressed. The text contains the transmitted experience. I am cognizant that this runs the risk of extreme simplification, but for the moment, it can orient us. The same holds true for the schema above. It is close to impossible to strictly classify the various trends according to experiential sovereignty. Hermeneutics, for example, may at the same time cater to author, reader and text in terms of experiential sovereignty. Phenomenology, especially the Husserlian type, is characterized by its insistence on the conscience or on subjectivity. However, it also speaks of a transcendental subjectivity which is pure objectivity and this objectivity, as a point of confluence, caters not only to the author, but to the text itself as the incarnation of the Husserlian transcendental ego. It is not a question to choose which literary theory over another or the others. Rather, it is a question of having an integrated viewpoint wherein the contributions of each theory are harnessed and synthesized in order to give the ‘logos’ to the experience. In doing so, justice must be given to the experience whose only possible way to achieve this is through mystagogy (μυσταγογια). The mystical text must be effectively made into a mystagogical text. This shouldbe the aim of the application of literary criticism to the mystical text: to reveal its originary structure as mystagogy, through the path of Spirituality which is the unfolding (phenomenology) and interpretation (hermeneutics) of the text as Mystagogy: the act of leading someone towards the dynamics and processes of the mystical experience. Mystagogy is the transmission, the teaching of the mystical experience by means of initiation, introduction, guidance and pedagogy.44 It necessarily presupposes that the mystagogue has already undegone the experience, but in the mystagogical act (the writing of the text), he accompanies the novice (the reader) once again towards the very same experience. The mystagogue (…) is somebody who has undergone the experience of God and of His mystery and accompanies the one who undergoes the path (…) The assistance (rendered) does not consist of giving practical norms, but in presenting the very mystery of God and His communion with man making the very mystery mark the content and modalities of the new experience. The art of the mystagogue consists in knowing how to transmit not his won experience, but thanks to this 44

B. Schreiber, ‘La mistagogia’, in: E. Ancilli & M. Paparozzi, La mistica. Fenomenologia e riflessione teologica. Vol. 2 (Rome: Cittá Nuova, 1984), 363.

202

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

experience, the personal and gratuitous mystery of God reveals itself freely to those who seek God.45

It is only through mystagogy that the mystical text attains its epistemological (criteriological) effectivity. Mystagogy brings about the experiential participation: not only of the reader or novice, but also the participation of the mystagogue or the author as initiatior and the text (given that participation is mutual enrichment) inasmuch as it is truly a mystical in nature amidst this historical situation, characterized by an experiential or clamor for silence. F. Ruiz is more specific as he enumerates the four elements that intervene in this process: a) the Divine Mystery, b) Assimilation and Transformation of the Subject (Reader), c) The Aid of the Master (Author), and d) Mediation of Doctrine and Praxis (Text).46 In the case of the mystical texts, one has always to add God, for He always intervenes in the experiential process. The challenge, therefore, is to give the ‘logos’ to the mystical text. This consists in the revelation of the mystical text as a mystagogy or making it explicitly mystagogical or uncovering its mystagogical elements. This may apply to other types of literary texts. Experienciology, in the case of the mystical texts, is mystagogy. However, the reduction of Experienciology to mere mystagogy must be avoided especially in the case of other literary types. If not avoidance, there should be caution for there are degrees, varieties and limits of sharing, transmitting and initiating into the experience. The mystical experience, given its gratuitousness, calls for a total and commited sharing. Other literary types do not for necessity or limitations. The most they can require is perhaps empathy – given the necessary distanciation required by the norms of the interpretative process. But this is not the case of the mystical texts. There is truly experiential and existential participation and not just textual or emphatic as required by textual distanciation. If this kind of participation is not attained, then the mystical text (including the author and readers) has failed. The success of a mystical text is in its mystagogical role and it is in this area that literary criticism comes to the aid of mysticism.

45

46

F. Ruiz, ‘Introducción general’, in: J.V. Rodríguez & F. Ruiz (Eds.), S. Juan de la Cruz: Obras Completas. 5th ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1993), 25; Idem, ‘Dos testigos supremos de Dios: Teresa de Jesús y Juan de la Cruz’, in: Several Authors, Actas del Congreso Internacional Tersiano (Salamanca: UPSA, 1983), 1044; Idem, Místico y Maestro: S. Juan de la Cruz (Madrid: EDE, 1986), 58; Idem, ‘El carisma del Carmelo vivido e interpretado por S. Juan de la Cruz: Carisma de S. Juan de la Cruz vivido e interpretado por el Carmelo’, in: S. Ros García, La recepción de los místicos, 587; Idem, ‘Mistica e mistagogia’, in: Several Authors, Vita cristiana ed esperienza mistica (Rome: Teresianum, 1982), 280; Idem, Caminos del Espíritu. 4th ed. (Madrid: EDE, 1991), 43-45. F. Ruiz, ‘Mistica e mistagogia’, 280.

THE TEXTUALITY OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

203

Back to Spirituality Much more can be said about our subject matter. We hope to have occassion in the future to develop the other relevant topics that we could not elaborate on in this study. The present chapter seeks only to lay the foundation for a possible fertile dialogue between mysticism and literary criticism at least and starting in the textual level. The primary sources of each religious tradition are its sacred scriptures or its oral traditions. But in spirituality, the primary sources are not these sacred scriptures, but the mystical texts. The content of the sacred scriptures and of the traditions and magisterium have funneled through the mystic and thus, these mystical texts constitute the primary sources, the primordial discourse of the witness and subject of the mystical experience. Spirituality, as a science (certain knowledge and academic discipline), grew out of this. It developed as a commentary to the mystical texts, to the stages, paths and moments of the mystical experience as consigned in these texts. The existence of these texts presupposes the art (tekne or techniques) of experiencing, transmitting and initiating or mystagogy. I even dare say that the development of spirituality as a science, as a discipline is dependent on how we understand the mystical texts. This is the reason why explorations as to the possible contributions of literary criticism are an urgent thematic for scholars and specialists. The better we understand the mystical texts, and understanding requires techniques or an art, assures us of surer epistemological grounds in the quest for the scientific definition of spirituality. And in doing so, we inevitably need to have a face-to-face encounter with the art of mystagogy. Earlier, we placed mysticism under the broader spectrum of spirituality. But now we conclude this study affirming that the scientific development of spirituality is dependent on the art of mystagogy, on the better understanding of the mystical texts which presupposes the techniques of literary criticism. By its techniques literary criticism is an art, but its elevation to theory or contemplation (θεορειν) qualifies it as true or certain knowledge (episteme or science) and its elaboration as such as a systematic body of knowledge (science). Science and art: both have its origins in experience and will or must return to the experience. This return is the originary process of eschatology. And through this process of return, which is is historically creative, both will be enriched and thus making the terminal point of experience something richer, deeper and more developed. This same terminal point was the point of departure now experientially enriched in history. This is the very biography of mystagogy: from experience and back to the experience, enriched by the process. The enriched experience belongs toauthor, reader and text and it is gratuitously given by God, who is the Absolute with a face, a Person with identity, a Spirit who offers Participation in communion.

CODA HUMAN HOPE – UTOPIA IN A POSTMODERN WORLD A Preliminary Inquiry No se soprenda nadie porque quiero entregar a los hombres los dones de la tierra, porque aprendí luchando porque es mi deber terrestre propagar la alegría. Y cumplo mi destino con mi canto. (P. Neruda, Oda a la alegría)

Immanuel Kant, upon initiating the critical period of his intellectual career, probed into the limits and possibilities of key philosophical questions with the interrogatories: a) What can I know?, b) What must I do?, c) What must I hope in? Religion is tasked to answer this final question whereas the first two questions are the domains of epistemology and morals respectively. To these two Kant dedicated two of his greatest works, published in his critical period, namely the Critique of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft] (1781) and the Critique of Practical Reason [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft] (1788).1 In his attempt to answer the third question, Kant did not write a major work. Kant spoke of God and religion in essays and lessons (or minor workswith no pretense of definitiveness or of being systematic treatises)2 and only in passing made mention of the 1

2

For a synthetic discussion of the context of Kant’s critical philosophy within the spectrum of the German tradition of philosophizing, see: L. White Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1996), 469-501. For a succinct presentation, see: A.W. Wood, ‘Rational Theology, Moral Faith, Religion’, in: Several Authors, The Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 394-416. Aside from the famous work Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone [Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft] (1793), we have our disposal in English: I. Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology, transl. A. Wood & G. Clark (Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 1978). P. Ricœur rightly proposes a theodiceal reading of hope within the framework of the third question as expounded by Religion in the Kantian opus Religion Within the Limits of Pure Reason: ‘A third motive of taking Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone as a philosophical

206

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

third question (What must I hope in?) in the third major critique entitled the Critique of Judgement [Kritik der Urteilschaft] (1790), which verses on aesthetic perception and judgement, under the guise of finality.3 It is as if there can be no systematic or major response to the question of hope. It is as if only a fragmentary or fragmented response is possible. Perhaps, the great Immanuel Kant, despite his talent for constructing a critical system, found the answer to this religious question of hope elusive in the sense that what is hoped for is something that we do not effectively possess at the moment. In other words, it is not possible to critically determine the limits and possibilities of our thematic.

3

hermeneutics has to do with the articulation of the thematics of evil, which inaugurates Kant’s reflection on religion, and its relation to the threefold thematic constitutive of religion per se. In this respect, the existential-historical condition of evil constitutes the challenge to which religion brings the reply of an “in spite of…”, an “even though…”. This tie between challenge and reply is the tie of hope, concerning which one well-known text of the Opus Posthumum says that it can be formulated as a question – “What can I hope?” – that gives rise to the two questions that drive the first two Critiques: “What can I know” and “What must I do?” So we can consider Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone as an attempted philosophical justification of hope, by means of a philosophical interpretation of the symbolics of evil and of the text of representations, beliefs, and institutions that delimit the religious per se. If the question “What can I hope?” constitutes the central interrogation of the philosophy of religion, we can understand why the theory of radical evil, as a challenge, along with the theory of the means by which religion gives a reply to evil are so closely bound up with each other at one point that perhaps has not been sufficiently recognized (…) Thus the motifs of radical evil and hope criscross throughout this work, with evil affecting the process of religion from beginning to end, while hope is affirmed as strictly contemporaneous with the irruption of evil. For this reason, one of the major motifs of Kant’s philosophical hermeneutics of religion is to give an account, within the limits of reason alone, of this interweaving of the confession of radical evil and the assumption of means of regeneration. And consequently, to the extent that this interweaving is constitutive of the motif of hope, we can say that hope is the specific object of this philosophical hermeneutics of religion. It is a hermeneutics, not a critique, because the interweaving of the signs of evil and the signs of regeneration is itself a seconddegree “historical” phenomenon, one that combines the cultural historicity of positive religion and the existential historicity of the “propensity” to evil. It is in this complex sense that the Kantian philosophy of religion can be called a philosophical hermeneutics of hope’. See: ‘A Philosophical Hermeneutics of Religion: Kant’, in: Idem, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, ed. M. Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 76-77. Writes Pedro Laín in his classical work on hope: ‘El hombre es un ser que, por imperativo de su propia constitución ontológica, necesita saber, hacer y esperar, y todo ello dentro de ciertos límites y conforme a ciertas normas. Un hombre sin esperanza sería un absurdo metafístico, como un hombre sin inteligencia o sin actividad’. La espera y la esperanza: Historia y teoría del esperar humano. 2nd rev. ed. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1958), 17. Finality, according to Kant, is a guide for reflection. Thus, it exercises a similar function to that of the ideas of speculative reason. It helps man in thinking of reality in an adequate manner so as to satisfy man’s speculative needs and demands.

CODA

207

I will not reflect for now on theological or theologal hope. Instead, I will present an introductory reflection on human hope. My brief presentation, in this light, could be understood as a ‘preambulum theologiae spei’.4 Modernity, Modernism, Postmodernism – Utopia, Mímesis and Poiesis Personally, I am not fond of the term ‘postmodernity’ and its derivatives ‘postmodernism’, ‘postmodern’, etc. Aside from being a vague and more than ambivalent term with no definite meaning, it is indicative above all of man’s finding himself in a dead-end. Thus, it is a term of ‘compromise’. I am only forced by conventionality to make use of this term in this reflection. Many independent concepts had to be compromised in order to break the wall of the dead-end situation. At first glance, the term ‘postmodernity’ implies an option of going ahead, when things are already untenable. However this is far from being the ideal option in order to move on. The theme of our reflection suggests that the postmodern era is the ‘U-topia’ (from the Greek: ‘ou’ meaning not and ‘topos’ meaning place) or ideal place for human hope. But ‘u-topia’ also means no-place or a non-existent place.5 An utopia is an ideal, perfect, absolute, consummate, model, but imaginary place. Given its imaginary nature, a utopia is not just merely a theoretical construct, but it is above all implicitly a challenge: the challenge to convert the ‘u-topia’ into a ‘topos’ or existing place or order. In view of this, I prefer to interpret our theme as a challenge. In this light, the reflections that follow, in the spirit of a Kantian critique, aim to set the terms and limitations for the possibility of the ideal of human hope within a postmodern context. It is near impossible to formulate a precise definition for postmodernism.6 It is at once a slippery and somehow meaningless term, in the sense that it does 4 5

6

P. Laín, ‘Prólogo a la primera edición’, in: Idem, La espera y la esperanza, 12. The term ‘utopia’ was popularized in the west with the publication of Sir Thomas More’s classic first in Latin in 1516 and later on in English in 1551. In the words of Robert Nisbet: ‘Let us turn now to a notable example of still another form of ecological community, this time, however, an imaginary form, one that never became actual, that existent only in the fertile mind of its distinguished author, but that has been the inspiration of many a community since, whether actual or imaginary. More’s Utopia is, apart from Plato’s Republic, which is a very different kind of work in dominant theme, unquestionably the most famous presentation of the utopian community in the history of the West’, The Social Philosophers: Community & Conflict in Western Thought. Concise Ed. Updated (New York: Washington Square Press, 1982), 164. Cfr. for example: J.-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992); H. Foster (Ed.), Postmodern Culture (London: Pluto Press, 1985); S. Connor, Postmodernist Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); C. Norris, The

208

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

not have a singular, clear meaning. Upon viewing the vast panorama, it can be deduced it is more profitable to associate postmodernism with an incessant plurality of stands, ideologies and worldviews within the context of a conscious or contrived separation from what is termed as ‘modern’ (from ‘modo’ or what is recent or just now). Modernity was said to have ended with the nineteenth century. This industrial century, characterized by the downfall of an old empire and the rise of a new one, was also understood as the complete overcoming of medieval, theocentric, pre-scientific and outdated models with scientific, definitive, liberal and liberated alternatives. As one literary critic puts it: ‘At the very least, postmodernism highlights the multiplication of voices, questions, and conflicts that has shattered what once seemed to be (although it never really was) the placid unanimity of the great tradition and of the West that gloried in it’.7 The notion of modernity, above all, entails the overcoming of the old or outmoded with the new usually associated with scientificism or technologism. It is also associated with the idea of emancipation from class and institutional, especially ecclesiastical, impositions. The feeling of modernity was especially heightened within a triumphalist ambiance until the first half of the nineteenth century with the industrial age (as the age of scientificism and technology) and the age of enlightenment (or the era of reason and secular emancipation from theocentric, medieval and ecclesiastical models) wherein humanity entered an era of security, self-affirmation, self-glorification based on human rationality and effort. Modernity was the era of human greatness and hope in the face of the hostile challenges of nature such as diseases, epidemics and slow production with scientific, medical and technological inventions. It also meant freedom from theocentric or supernatural impositions, viewed as superstitious from a modern perspective. In short, modernity, a term first used in the third century, was a break away from what was labeled as ‘traditional’ or inherited or imposed and therefore,

7

Truth About Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); T. Docherty (Ed.), Postmodernism: A Reader (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993); D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989): R. Appignanesi & C. Garratt, Introducing Postmodernism (New York: Totem Books, 1996). J. McGowan, ‘Postmodernism’ in: Several Authors, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism (Baltimore/ London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 587. This same author contends: ‘In sum, postmodernism is best understood as marking the site of several related, but not identical, debates among intellectuals in the last four decades of the twentieth century. These debates revolve around the relation of artworks to social context, the relation of art and of theory to political action and to the dominant social order, the relation of cultural practices to the transformation or maintenance of society in all its aspects, the relation of the collapse of traditional philosophical foundations to the possibility of critical distance from and effective critique of the status quo, the relation of an image-dominated consumer society to artistic practice, and the future of a Western tradition that now appears more heterogeneous than previously thought even while it appears insufficiently tolerant of (open to) multiplicity’ (Ibidem).

CODA

209

obsolete, antiquated, passé focusing on the totality of human achievements, constructs and inventions. It was the era of man’s greatness. The prefix ‘post’ does not immediately denote the total breakdown or overcoming of modernity, but is, above all, a postulate as to the endurance of modernity. At the outset, ‘postmodernity’ is not the total negation of modernity, but somehow its prolongation, at least in spirit (the spirit of being constantly modern or new). Postmodernity at first implies aftermath, afterbirth, development and even continuity of modernity. For some, it meant denial or rejection of modernity and modernism.8 After the height of modernity, there was a brief interlude roughly labeled as modernism, which is ‘a comprehensive but vague term for a movement (or tendency) which began to get under way in the closing years of the 19th c. and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th c…’.9 This movement was associated with avant-garde movements such as surrealism, formalism, symbolism, etc. It is normal to associate the modern in art with a breakdown of the traditional decorum in Western culture that previously connected the appearance of works of art to the appearance of the natural world. The typical symptoms of this breakdown are a tendency for the shapes, colours and materials of art to lead a life of their own, forming unusual combinations, offering distorted or exaggerated versions of the appearances of nature and,in some cases, losing all obvious connection to the ordinary objects of our visual experience.10

In the ancient classical period as well as in the humanistic renaissance of the modern era, mimesis or imitation of nature was the norm for art. This entered into a crisis with the ghastly gargoyles of the middle ages and in the twentieth century forms of art such as cubism, expressionism, orphism, dada, surrealism, kinetic art, minimalism, etc. All these pointed out to a crisis of conformity or imitation.11 During modernism, mimesis or imitation was replaced by poiesis or fabulation, which some have translated as creativity, modification or even distortion.12 Modernity with mímesis understood truth in terms of the correspondence 8 9

10 11

12

Appignanesi & Garratt, Introducing Postmodernism, 4. J.A. Cuddon, ‘Modernism’, in: Idem, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. (London/ New York: Penguin, 1999), 515. C. Harrison, Modernism: Movements in Modern Art (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997), 9. For an authoritative overview of these trends, see: Several Authors, Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to Postmodernism. 3rd ed. (London: Thames and Ludson, 1995). Also: N. Lynton, The Story of Modern Art. 2nd ed. (London: Phaidon, 1996). Professor R. Scruton has this interesting hypothesis as to the origins of modernism within modernity: ‘To mean “modernist”, as in “modern art”. A modernist is committed to the modern age, believing that traditions must be overthrown or redefined in order to do justice to the new forms of experience. For a modernist it is intellectually, morally or culturally necessary to

210

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

between the knowing subject and the known object wherein the form of the external object was reproduced by imitation or copying in the human mind which serves as a mirror. On the other hand, modernism and ultimately postmodernism shattered this totalizing mirror of imitation and picked up the pieces with poiesis necessarily entailing fabulation, invention and distortion. Modernism and postmodernity insisted on fragments instead of totalities; fabrications instead of copies.13 Thus, it is no wonder then that certain so-called ‘postmodern’ thinkers resorted to fabulations or literary forms to express their fragmented thought. At this moment, we can recall the likes of Kierkegaard with his pseudonyms, Nietzsche with his appropiation of Persian religions, Unamuno with his poems, short stories and novels, Camus with his literary works, Sartre with his plays, Heidegger with his commentaries on poems, etc. Modernist Epistemology and System – The Modern Dream At this point, I wish to propose the tentative thesis that postmodernism is the radicalization of modernism, which commenced with the shattering horrors of World War I and is heightened especially by the horrific atmosphere after 9/11 and its after effects-especially the rumors of war which reached its thermal point as early as December, 2002 are far worst than the fact of war in itself, which commenced on March 20, 2003. To be modern is to overcome or outmode the old tradition. Thus, modernism, as a reaction (or ‘ism’) to modernity, and especially postmodernism is the overcoming of the already outmoded modern tradition. It is, in effect, a new modernity given that the old modernity is already outdated.

13

manifest one’s modernity, to “challenge” what resists it, and to pour scorn on those who take refuge in the values and habits of a superseded age. (Since these people are in short supply, a vast modernist industry is devoted to inventing them. They are the “bourgeois”, targeted in the writings of Sartre, Foucault, Habermas and Adorno)’, Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey (New York/ London: Penguin, 1994), 2. Thus modernism is a consequence of modernity in itself, in its constant affirmation to be modernity. This is representative of an aufhebung or overcoming, inspired in the dialectical tradition in itself, of modernity with itself in the formation of a defined commitment to its own ideals, conventionally labeled as ‘modernism’. Another option is to present the history of modernity as the history of human consciousness culminating in its most dehumanizing instance. See: W. Barrett, Death of the Soul: From Descartes to the Computer (New York/ London: Anchor Books/ Doubleday, 1986). From a literary viewpoint in terms of decadence, see the interesting study of D. Weir, Decadence and the Making of Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995). One is reminded of the title and pragmatic and relativistic program of R. Rorty’s seminal work: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979). After publishing this classical work, Rorty published a collection of introductory articles to his thought, Philosophy and Social Hope (London/ New York: Penguin, 1999).

CODA

211

In modern epistemology, the knowing subject or man enjoys the predominance. One is reminded of Descartes’s ‘cogito’ and Kant’s anthropological twist in terms of knowing, willing and appreciating the beautiful. Man, as a knowing subject, is above all the knower of the totality. From this knowledge of totality and given the predominance of the conformity mode of knowledge,14 man constructs a system or an intellectual world of harmonious elements with taxonomies, paradigms and norms. Man is capable of absolute knowledge, that is, knowledge of himself as knowing in terms of the absolute as Hegel would put it.15 The only logical result is the system or the intellectual construct, given man’s absolute knowledge, of all reality as a coherent and ordered totality, wherein everything falls into place according to the dictates of man’s knowing faculties.16 Thus, the subject-object relationship, according to the epistemological model of correspondence or mímesis, becomes a perfect equation. Objective reality (or reality outside the human faculties of knowing) becomes conformed to the order, arrangement and coherence of the human mind which, like a mirror, consciously captures or reflects objective reality in its totality in absoluteness. This subject-object relationship in Absolute or comprehensive knowledge becomes the system or the grand narrative of totality. This is can be said to be the summit of mímesis or imitation or of conformity. This is what I call the fulfillment of the modern dream. Hope in Modernity, Hope in Postmodernity – From the Dream to Utopia Therefore, human hope in modernity meant above all man’s hope in himself as the constructor, guarantor, creator of the great systems, which have effectively 14

15

16

This means the predominance of the criteriological theory of knowledge which affirms the conformity of the knowing subject and the known object with one another. See: J. Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Oxford/ Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996); J. Dancy & E. Sosa (Eds.), A Companion to Epistemology: Blackwell Companions to Epistemology (Oxford/ Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992). A.V. Miller (Transl.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). For authoritative commentaries, see; Q. Lauer, A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. 2nd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1995); M. Forster, Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit (Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press, 1998). Hegel wrote the Phenomenology as a prelude to the system. The Phenomenology of the Spirit was conceived by the author as ‘Wissenchaft der Erfahrung des Bewußtseins’ (science of the experience of consciousness). Experience (Erfahrung) is understood primarily by Hegel as a way towards absolute knowledge. For studies on the Hegelian system, see: M. Alvarez, Experiencia y Sistema: Introducción al pensamiento de Hegel (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1978); W. Kaufmann, Hegel (New York: Doubleday, 1965); C. Taylor, Hegel (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975); P. Singer, Hegel: Past Masters (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

212

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

taken over our notion of reality especially in the institutionalized forms of religion, works of art and culture and the state.17 We no longer speak of societies. Instead we speak of states. We no longer speak of belief or faith, but of religions or religious sects. We no longer pay attention to human creativity but rather to works or schools of art. Modernity was an age of confidence, of hope in man and in his creations, in his systems, in the achievements of his reason or his rational faculties which all spelled totality or absolute totality inasmuch as it is knowable.18 Postmodernity means an overcoming of this kind of hope, of this hope in the grandeur and absoluteness of the systems of man’s reason. I believe that philosophically postmodernism has its remote and implicit origins in the ‘masters of suspicion’ in the darkest night of modernity which opened up into modernism especially with the advent of World War I in 1914. These masters of suspicion, according to Paul Ricœur, are Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.19 These thinkers, together with others, were ‘suspicious’ of the totalizing pretensions of modernity. They felt that they found themselves at the end of the age or in a dead-end situation and thus it was necessary to demystify the totality or pretensions to totality and its intellectual forms (systems) of modernity, brought about by the triumph of ontology or rather ontotheology.20 ‘Postmodern’ suspicion held that the ontological totality of systems was untenable, fragile and bound to disintegrate The reactions to this totalizing were diverse. For example: Kierkegaard with his diverse pseudonyms affirmed that identity cannot be totalizing nor singular;21 Nietzsche’s Zarathustra pronounced various discourses hinting that about reality there can be no singular discourse;22 Unamuno during his crisis period in Salamanca peeped into the well in the 17

18

19

20

21 22

This is clearly the Hegelian triad of the objectivized forms of Absolute Spirit in the Phenomenology of the Spirit. For an interesting study as to the survival of modernity in postmodernity from a cultural vantage point, consult: J.J. Sosnoski, Modern Skeletons in Postmodern Closets: A Cultural Studies Alternative (Charlottesville/ London: University Press of Virginia, 1995). P. Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, transl. D. Savage (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 1970), 32-36. Also: G.B. Smith, Nietzsche, Heidegger and The Transition to Postmodernity (Chicago/ London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). Apparently, the term ‘postmodernism’ was first coined and used by F. de Onís, cf. P. Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London/ New York: Verso, 2002). See: M. Heidegger, Identidad y Diferencia/ Identität Und Diferenz. Bilingual ed. of A. Leyte (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1988); Idem, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, transl. P. Emad & K. Maly (Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994). For a theological ‘postmodern’ critique of ontotheology especially in the Heideggerian light, see: J.-L. Marion, Dieu sans l’être: Hors-text. (Paris: Communio, 1982); G. Lafont, Dieu, le temps et l’être (Paris: Cerf, 1986). See: R. Bretall (Ed.), A Kierkegaard Anthology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946). See: F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Every one and No One, transl. R.J. Hollingdale (London/ New York: Penguin, 1966).

CODA

213

Dominican Convent of San Esteban and shouted ‘Yo’ (or I) in order to hear the echoes of the plurality of the self;23 Freud showed that man the totalizer and systematizer was not a coherent totality but a divided one with contradicting tendencies (Ego, Superego, Id);24 Wittgenstein after the rigid structure of the Tractatus chose to keep silent after reaching the limits of an idealized and tautological language just like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra;25 Heidegger spoke of the end of metaphysics in Nietzsche and in his latter period devoted his thought to commenting on fragments of poetry (Rilke and Georg);26 Ricœur admitted that his philosophical approach was fragmentary;27 Derrida did not accept the existence of a singular and totalizing reading and instead proposed difféaence (difference of readings and deferment of meaning);28 Foucault citing a text of Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges spoke of an endless means of taxonomy or mode of classification,29 Rorty spoke of relativism and pragmatism inspiring himself in Dewey, Wittgenstein and Heidegger.30 Plurality meant disintegration of total and unilateral systems. It denoted openness, fragility and even mortality. In postmodernity, instead of a total whole we are left with fragments and shattered pieces. Instead of discovering the Heideggerian formidable Being of beings we are faced with the other as Levinas puts it.31 Instead of systems that are the wages of our intellectual conquests and efforts, we receive gifts following the terminology of Marion.32 23

24

25 26

27

28

29

30

31

32

See: M. Ofilada Mina, ‘La autognosis por mediio de la mística frente al modernismo: Reflexiones desde Miguel de Unamuno’, in: Studium 36 (1996), 121-138; P. Cerezo Galán, Las máscaras de lo trágico (Madrid: Trotta, 1996); M. Nozick, Miguel de Unamuno: The Agony of Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971). See: J. Strachey (Ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 24 Vols. (New York: Random House, 2001). See: A. Kenny (Ed.), The Wittgenstein Reader (Oxford/ Cambidge: Blackwell, 1995). See: M. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, transl. P.D. Hertz (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1982); Idem, Poetry, Language, Thought, transl. A. Hofstadter (New York/ Grand Rapids: Perennial Library, 1975). See: P. Ricœur, Critique & Conviction: Conversations with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay, transl. K. Blamey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). See: J. Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1982); D. Attridge (Ed.), Jacques Derrida: Acts of Literature (London/ New York: Routledge, 1992). See; M. Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1994). See the already cited works of this author in a previous note. Likewise: Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). See: A.T. Peperzak et al. (Eds.), Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Unversity Press, 1996). See: J.-L. Marion, ‘Sketch of a Phenomenological Concept of Gift’, in: M. Westphal (Ed.), Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), 122-143.

214

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

Postmodernity announces that gone are the days of the great, centralized and centralizing narratives and now we are left with the ‘suspicion of metanarratives’, those universal guiding principles and mythologies which once seemed to control, delimit and interpret all the diverse forms of discursive activity in the world (…) The postmodern condition, we are told repeatedly, manifests itself in the multiplication of centres of power and activity and the dissolution of every kind of totalizing narrative which claims to govern the whole complex field of social activity and representation.33

Ricœur tells us of the multiplicity of narratives;34 novelist Salman Rushdie in his controversial work,35 which won for him Khoemeni’s fatwa, shows us a string of unrelated narratives in an attempt to be weaved together; anthropologist Clifford Geertz instead of writing a treatise wrote memoirs which are incomplete and fragmented.36 Human hope in modernity was hinged on the capability of man to create great narratives, called systems, to justify reality and its rules. With postmodernity, this object of human hope disappears and we are left with broken and varied pieces. Gone is the object of hope cultivated since the ancient times: that of great systems created by man. Gone too is the totalizing God, who was the postulate of modern man to explain the totality of the cosmos and was the moralizing God, who was the great witness, who saw man’s guilt and ugliness. This was the God whom the Ugliest Man in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra killed and thus announced the new era wherein ‘God is dead’: ‘But he had to die: he looked with eyes that saw everything – he saw the depths and abysses of man, all man’s hidden disgrace and ugliness (…) The God who saw everything, even man: this god had to die! Man could not endure that such a witness should live’.37 This god was above all the totality of all ethical and moral systems, wherein man put his hope to sustain the system in itself. With the disappearance of the modern object of human hope we are left with a recognition of pluralism and indeterminacy in the world (…) a renunciation of intellectual hopes for simplicity, completeness, and certainty; a new focus on representation of images or information or cultural signs as occupying a dominant position in social life; and an acceptance of play and ficitionalization in cultural fields that had earlier sought a serious, realist truth.38 33 34 35 36

37 38

S. Connor, Postmodernist Culture, 8. See his three-volume work: Temps et récit (Paris: Seuil, 1983-1985). I am referring to: The Satanic Verses (New York: Vintage, 1998). See: C. Geertz, After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist (Cambridge/ London: Harvard University Press, 1996). F. Nietzsche, ‘The Ugliest Man’ in: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 278-279. L. Cahoone ‘Introduction’, in: L. Cahoone (Ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (Cambridge/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4. For a study on the epistemic

CODA

215

With the disappearance of the object of hope, has human hope disappeared? And now we are left with the dissolution and disappearance of the modern dream and the appearance of utopia. The Alternative of Utopia, Utopia as Alternative – Human Hope, Teleology and Transcendence Postmodernism is an occasion for us to learn a powerful lesson when it comes to our hopes and aspirations. As Gabriel Marcel puts it: ‘speaking metaphysically, the only genuine hope is hope in what does not depend on ourselves, hope springing from humility and not from pride’.39 Hope is necessarily hinged on an object or a goal. The goal or object has defined the teleological or finalistic notion of hope ever since the days of Aristotle, eventually assimilated by Thomas Aquinas.40 Modernity, with its systems, was the era of arrogant human self-sufficiency. It was the era wherein man constructed intellectually and even politically the object of all of his hopes. Postmodernity revealed the fragility of these objects, of these systems of hope. It is as if the rug were pulled from beneath the feet on which man has set firm his hope. In this light, it can be concluded that human hope is utopian, a ‘no place’ in postmodernity. This is one side of ‘utopia’. Instead I opt to present the other side of utopia, that is the laying down the foundations of what may be termed as the ‘impossible dream’. Thus, the ‘no place’ (u-topos) must be creatively transformed into a ‘place’ (topos) or a ‘possibility’. The fragility of the modern systems, taken as objects of human hope, eventually would mean disappearance. Thus, eventually, with the disappearance of the systems, the object of hope would disappear. Therefore, the traditional finalistic or teleological notion of hope would prove untenable. How can we hinge our hopes on an object that is in itself fragile and would eventually disappear? How could hope survive this ordeal? Hope by its very finalistic nature is in itself fragile. The object, though present, may not be available. Thus, hope is necessarily accompanied by uncertainty, by the state of expectation. Hope ‘is not an absolutely certain expectation, but accompanied by an element of uncertainty. Hope is always vulnerable and

39

40

consequences of this distortion of truth, see: M. Barrett, The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991). G. Marcel, ‘On the Ontological Mystery’, in: Idem, The Philosophy of Existence (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 19. I am taking into consideration the observations of J. Moltmann, ‘Christian Hope – Messianic or Transcendent? A Theological Conservation with Joachim of Fiore and Thomas Aquinas’, in: Idem, History and the Triune God: Contributions to Trinitarian Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 95.

216

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

its close companion is fear. Doubtless, too, it is sometimes prudent to fear’.41 It is prudent to fear, as St. Augustine, since hope is proper for man as homo viator, as a traveler still discovering and fulfilling his destiny.42 The solution does not consist in eliminating the teleological notion of hope, which makes hope centered on an object. The question of hope, especially in the light of the challenge posed by postmodernism, requires a re-examination not only of the object, but of the very act of hoping in itself. Hoping is not demanding for a specific outcome. Hoping is opening oneself up to the goodness of reality, to its best mode of fulfillment given our human situation. As stated, without eliminating the teleological notion it is necessary to revise the act of hoping in itself. This entails starting with learning how to hope. It is necessary to methodologically focus first on the act of hoping instead of jumping immediately to the object. This may involve the cultivation of the act of hoping in itself without a definite or defined object. I repeat, the object of hope or the teleological notion is not eliminated. Instead, we put the object in a transcendental realm, in sort of a Husserlian methodological bracket. We must first have a radical cognizance of our immanent state, which is reflective of our very own fragility. With this radical cognizance, we learn that we cannot dictate destiny, but we can hope for the best possible world or result. We learn from postmodernity that both the hoped-for object and the one hoping, are fragile. In the light of the situation, we have to cultivate hope. In doing so we truly become men. For hope is a virtue. It is that which establishes man as man (vir=man).43 Hope aims for a transcendent object, that is, ‘dificult but possible to attain’.44 That which is difficult is that which is beyond the immediateness of human immanence. In other words, we must train human hope to take root in its immanence and at the same time, it must strive, as an act, for what is transcedental. Albert Camus, speaking of Kafka, writes: ‘The more tragic the condition (…) the firmer and more aggressive the hope becomes’.45 In other words, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Because of its immanent groundedness and 41

42

43

44

45

K. Pesche, Christian Ethics: Moral Theology in the Light of Vatican II. Vol. 2 (Manila: Logos, 2001), 66. St. Augustine, Enarratio in Psalm, 103; Sermo 4, 17; G. Marcel, Homo Viator (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962). St. Thomas Aquinas writes: ‘Respondeo dicendum quod per virtutem perficitur homo ad actus quibus in beatitudinem ordinatur, ut ex supradictis patet (q.5, a.6)’, Summa Theologiae I-II, q.62, a.1, Respondeo. A. Bandera, La iglesia misterio de comunión en el corazón del Concilio Vaticano II (Salamanca: San Esteban, 1965), 48. A. Camus, ‘Hope and the Absurd in the Work of Franz Kafka’, in: Idem, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, transl. J. O’Brien (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 99.

CODA

217

transcendental projection (with its transcendental object), hope is, in effect, a horizon46 to be viewed existentially.47 In effect, ‘hope is the name of the human spirit as conative openness to reality, as outreach in search of the meaning and value of life’.48 Modern man committed the error of placing his hopes in his own constructions, edifices or systems. The era of postmodernity showed that these great modern temples are nothing more than ruins where the winds of time blow revealing the space to be hollow and shallow. Modern man identified the transcendental God with the immanent human system capable of absolute knowledge as Hegel shows us in the Phenomenology of the Spirit. It would be a facile solution to immediately propose theological (from God) or theologal (towards God) hope, which, as St. Thomas stresses, has God for its object.49 Theological or theologal faith has the same object: God inasmuch as the substance of faith which is lived out in hope.50 And together with charity, hope places the christian in the world however, this is no assurance that the christian would be satisfied or calm or contented in the world.51 In this light, ‘christian hope is the courage to be, to grow, to take risks in the midst of uncertainty and suffering’.52 The New Catechism reminds us that the virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and 46

47

48

49

50

51

52

I have taken into consideration certain points found in P. Ricœur’s article: ‘Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems’, in: Idem, Figuring the Sacred, 203-216. ‘El hombre, en su fragilidad, descubre una inquietud permanente hacia algo que sobrepasa toda realización y posesión. Una experiencia de apertura que se hace “apasionamiento por lo posible” (Kierkegaard). El ser humano se manifesta así incurablemente utópico; extendido hacia lo que le sobrepasa absolutamente, nostálgico de algo, totalmente otro (Horkheimer). Esta pasión se puede juzgar inútil (Sartre), pero también orientación fundamental del ser humano no puede ser frustrado’, J.M. Mardones, ‘Esperanza’, in: El Dios Cristiano, 477-478. M.J. Scanlon, ‘Hope’ in, Several Authors, The New Dictionary of Theology. Reprint (Pasay City: St. Paul, 1991), 493. ‘Sed spes est vitus theologica habens Deum pro obiecto’, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q.18, a.1, sed contra. See the excellent commentary of T. Urdanoz, Introducciones y comentarios al tratado de la esperanza de Santo Tomás: Suma Teológica., II-II. Vol. 7 (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1959), 475-639. ‘Since the object of hope is identified with the object of faith, inasmuch as faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen (Heb 11.1), the articles of faith and the definitions of the Church with respect to the object of faith, also indicate the object of hope’, S.M. Ramírez, ‘Hope’, in: Several Authors, The New Catholic Encyclopedia (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1966), 133. F. Ruiz Salvador, Caminos del Espíritu. 5th ed. (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1998), 272. B. Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity. Vol. 2. Phil. Ed. (Quezon City: Claretian, 1985), 398.

218

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude.53

The alternative in the light of all these is to reconstruct our utopia of hope by revising our hopes, by shifting our gear from the object to the act itself, to the act of learning how to hope. The first step in learning how to hope consists in establishing the axiological difference between what is immanent from what is transcendental and not identifying both dimensions with the system. Postmodernism can never reduce hope to an irrational feeling. True hope, with its transcendental projection, is always a ‘rational feeling’.54 From here, we can learn to hope. This necessarily also means to purify our notion of God. Our notions of God, most of the times, are linked to our caprice, desires, personal projections, personal expectations, personal utopias. This is especially evidenced by the excesses of popular religiosity. We have to, in the expression of Edward Schillebeeckx, ‘let God be God’.55 We must not manipulate Him, confuse Him with our greatest aspirations and achievements and effectively ‘rob’ Him of his transcendence. It is imperative to acknowledge that there is an abysmal difference between who God really is and our images of Him. We must purify our notions of God, enter into a mystical dark night, and realize that God is beyond all our caprices, expectations and concepts. Waiting to Hope This new utopia for human hope would necessarily involve a constant reminder of our limitations. This constant reminder highlights the greatness of human 53

54

55

Catechism of the Catholic Church. No. 1818. I am following the definitive ed. (Manila: ECCEWord & Life Publications, 1997. P. Ricœur, History and Truth, transl. C.A. Kelbey (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965), 12. ‘That God is experienced as dark light implies that the infinite God is not exhausted in his interpersonal relationship to men and women, even if he calls this relationship to men and women, even if he calls this relationship to life in an absolutely free way, with a freedom which is identical to his own absolute being! In this sense he is at the same time impersonal and more than personal. However, the fact that we have to deny a limited individuality to God’s personhood has consequences both for his divine identity and for his personal relationship to men and women. The interpersonal relationship between God and human beings is not to be envisaged on the model of two persons who in their limiting and limited individuality stand over against each other and encounter each other as finite beings. God does not know this limitation: in the I-thou relationshipbetween God and humankind God himself includes the human I’, E. Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Face of God, transl. J. Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 100.

CODA

219

hope as it opens itself to the wider horizon provided by theological or theologal hope. But for a change in attitude on hope, it may be necessary to wait.56 We have to wait for man to learn how to hope by recognizing the distance of transcendence from our finite and culpable immanence. Hope is respecting this distance with love by letting the other be another self to transform or grow as a Spirit. Hope is suppression of all selfishness and thus is the unleashing of Spirit from the self toward the Other in integrity. From this immanence, in hope we cannot dictate, but we must wait for the benevolence of reality to fulfill its metaphysical promise of goodness to all beings. This is Spirituality, transformation and growth in goodness, transformation or growth from self to spirit in selflessness, respecting distances, viewing these distances as transcendence or the horizon of the Absolute in its beauty, lived and interpreted as truth, executed as goodness. This goodness is the self-perfecting act of nature to fulfill itself and never frustrate itself. The words of Simone Weil contain a great lesson for us: ‘This universe where we are living, and of which we form a tiny particle, is the distance put by Love’.57 Given the fragmentary and fragile nature of these reflections, it is my hope that this rather introductory presentation would stimulate you all to continue reflecting on this interesting topic. And I wish to leave you with a poetic or creative fragment from Miguel de Unamuno: pues para algo nací; con mi flaqueza,

cimientos echaré a tu fortaleza y viviré esperándote, ¡Esperanza!58

Translated roughly: I was born for a reason, and with my weakness, I will lay the foundations of your stronghold and I will live waiting for you, Oh hope!

56 57

58

See the play of words between ‘espera’ and ‘esperar’ in P. Laín, La espera y la esperanza. S. Weil, Waiting for God, transl. E. Crafurud (New York/ Grand Rapids: Perennial Library, 1973), 127. M. de Unamuno, ‘Rosario de Sonetos Líricos, CXX, 2º’, in: Idem, Obras Completas. Vol. 6 (Madrid: Escelicer, 1966), 409.

FINAL PROJECTION ART, PHILOSOPHY, AND MYSTAGOGY1 Et ipsas contemplatione suae indicibilis pulchritudinis, quam vident sicut est, beatificans, in ha cab ipsis omnem eliminans egestatem. (Hugo de Balma, Theologia Mystica) The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost, Stopping on the woods on a snowy evening)

Whenever we discourse about art, we inevitably refer to man’s creative power which cannot be ex nihilo as the scholastics put it. It is the creative power of a limited being who himself is created, caused or is the work of art of a superior craftsman, which in the Hebrew Scriptures is the Supreme God, called Elohim, or in the plural in order to emphasize his greatness beyond the singular and in the Platonic tradition as an inferior kind of God to the impersonalized ideals in the World of Ideas. Accordingly, man, according to the adamic myth, was bidden to go forth and multiply, that is, to participate in the creative venture of the Supreme Craftsman and become a craftsman on his own, starting with the propagation of his race. But perhaps he took this invitation a bit too far and transformed it as the mandate of the self to forget the creator. It is not my intention to go back to an old story nor to be nostalgic nor apologetic at the same time. Indeed man has gone a long way. He has exercised his creative power and pushed it to its limits. But it will always remain finite. He has made this God-given world more liveable, beautiful, comfortable… in a word more God-given and divine, revealing by His works the vestiges of the Absolute. Truly, he has a divine mission: to make divine what the divine has 1

This final projection is a modified version of what I published in my book: Experience, Reality and Beauty: From the Aesthetics of Ontology to the Mystagogy of Art in Metaphysics (Manila: University of Santo Tomás, 2002), 107-111. I retrieved and recreated this portion in the present publication to show continuity with my previous work which is the continuance of a cycle into another one. We create a Feldweg (Way of the Field) through which we create cycles as we intensify in each repetition in every reflection and renewal toward the originary at the end in order to avoid the meaningless circles of a Holzweg (Woodland Trails) which do not lead or go anywhere.

222

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

created. Man has accomplished this, has made his God-given creative power and mission concrete in ‘art’ which is Spirituality in terms of Beauty. The conglomeration of all these accomplishments is what we call ‘culture’. Culture is simply what man cultivates (cultura, culturae) and not what is given to him, on a silver platter so to speak, bynature. Culture is man’s art. It is the text of his creativity, of his pariticipation in art, in the Absolute whose law cosmologically in embodied by nature. Philosophy and the Text Art without philosophy is not art at all, but just whimsical movements stimulated by caprice and irresponsible emotions and passions. Art would be meaningless, senseless! Behind the artist and his work is his personal philosophy or set of beliefs,condensed in the human spirit, outgrowing the dominance of the self, creating in terms of beauty a horizon of communion with the Absolute. But let us elevate the so called set of beliefs to something more technical or sophisticated. This does not mean that philosophy, in its technical or sophisticated version, plays the role of ‘check and balance’. It is something else. A Humanities course that just enumerates with pretended erudition is useless. What must be taught above all is to appreciate the various forms that man can make this God-created world more ‘Godly’. Some may argue that a course on Aesthetics or Art Appreciation is normative and descriptive (in the Kantian sense) and must resist dogmatic formulations. This way of thinking relegates philosophy, whether technical or not, to the role of ‘meta-art’ or to be more diplomatic, to the role of a critic who is like a eunuch who just helplessly and enviously watches lovers in action! It can be even said that the Kantian theory of art remains deformed due to the insufficiency of the doctrine of practical reason with its inistence on the autonomy of the moral subject. The idea that beauty would possess some kind of autonomy because of morality is truly presumptuous. Intelligible or not many would view (in this case: the autonomy of beauty from the beholder or the I) or philosophy (as the case of the supreme I) as going platonic en route to a separate world of ideas. Some may adapt a rather modified posture by being knowledgeable about the so-called art theories more or less derived from contemporary literary theories. With the excessive emphasis on theories, we do tend to become like helpless eunuchs. But then again, the relationship philosophy-art is more than this. Even in its most sophisticated form, philosophy need not be a system. Sophistication requires depth, power, analysis just like true art which is not just a random or fortuitous thing like what most so called ‘new artists’ in search of newer forms would claim.

FINAL PROJECTION

223

The aforementioned relationship philosophy-art must not polarize the two protagonists, but rather must integrated them, fuse them as if they were two souls living in one body, in one incarnation, in one form, in one work. Some may opine that everything is a text within the so called ‘postmodern’ era. This is not true. We make the texts. Reality is not, in its natural state, a pictorical text. It is above all an experience. The text is the expression of how we experience reality. The text should always be expressed: whether written, spoken. The things that are painted, played, danced, performed etc. only become ‘textualized’ when what they stand for is articulated or explicited by means of words. As Felix Mendelssohn would say, there are ‘Songs without words’. These are not texts, in the conventional sense, but when we add the lyrics or words we textualize. However, when anything is written to be read (or to be interpeted and executed), even music without words, then that piece of writing is already a text. There is a need to broaden our notion of text. From Textualization to Philosophy-art To inquire as to the relationship philosophy-art is definitely not a novelty. But to make the inquiry makes philosophy, as well as art, ever ancient and ever new as Augustine puts it. I would like to proceed from the tendency of ‘omnitextualization’ to the very origins, i.e., the very root of the inquiry itself which is the originary or the origin as the goal which reveals itself as such in terms of Beauty. Spirituality is the discovery of this revelation as beauty by being a goal to the originary. The inquiry goes beyond the limits of the text. It goes towards its origins. The question of the relationship philosophy-art should be seen from its very encounter in experience. Encounter presupposes transformation or growth and progress from the dominance of the ego as it establishes itself as the self in order to become Spirit. Before the text came to be there was the experience. The experience, by nature, renders itself to language. It in itself is language; the language of being experienced. It is the primordial language that becomes contextualized in everyday language, in writing or speaking or in language as far as it is used: the idiom. We usually and conventionally confuse language with the idiom(s). Conventionalism, as we know it (phenomena), sprouts from our idioms or use of language. It is innate in us, as subjects of the experience, to establish conventionalisms (noumena) which are not normative, but dogmatic. Only inthe realm of idioms,or contextual specificities of language, do they becomenormative, and thus, descriptive. Philosophy and Art can be infused into one another in their meeting point: experience. In experience there are just moments converging in one moment to

224

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

be denominated and recognized as the experience itself. Experience itself becomes the very spring of the word of two. Not just one, but two that comes across, that penetrates like the blade of a newly sharpened knife through the webs of existential barriers: dialogue! Dialogue and Truth Dialogue is in itself an experience. But we perceive it more as the process of having an experience, since experience is viewed as something interpersonal. We can only have experience with a person, with an individual of rational nature. Experience must be seen in the light of the role of mediator. It is that which mediates between reality and us, especially with regards to our intellectual capacities to ‘grasp’ especially by feeling (sentir) what is real. Whatever is experientiable is real and vice-versa. As the great Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges wrote: And the dead, the incredible? His reality is below his diferent flowers and his mortal hospitality will give us another memory for time and long streets from the South to deserve them slowly and the dark breeze over the face that goes back and the night which frees us from the greatest anguish: the tediousness of what is real.2

In other words, we are left with what is real, with reality in its tediousness, in its prolixity. We cannot escape its inevitable eternal duration even though it renders itself into time for us mortals who seek freedom from time into a breathless eternity through art, through our participation in the creation of God. Everything then is experience, since it is real. Thus, previous to all ‘omnitextualization’ would be the ‘omniexperiencing’ which is redundant as a term since everything, in so far as it is real, is an experience. Likewise, everything, in so far as it is an experience or experientiable, is real. Experiencing which the dynamic of the spirit is living out the real. Spirituality is the transformative living out of experiencing as it is a journey of growth and growth toward the real in its Absoluteness. This is the basis of all truth. There could be no other criteriological model regardless of its basis: the model of conformity or coherence.3 2

3

J.L. Borges, ‘La noche que en el sur lo velaron’, in: Idem, Nueva antología personal (Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores, 1980), 12-13. Translation mine. For a succinct overview as to this question, see: J. Dancy, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (London: Routledge, 1985).

FINAL PROJECTION

225

The Role of the Philosopher ‘Contemplári et contempláta áliis trádere’ (‘To contemplate and bring to others the contemplated’) writes St. Thomas Aquinas.4 This immortal phrase later on was adopted by the Dominican Order as one of its mottos. It could be taken as a medieval formulation of what should be the motto of a philosopher. For this writer, it is undeniably a classic – something timely and timeless, something historical and yet bursting into eternity. Conventionalism would dictate and simplify the philosophical motto as merely ‘to think’. Thus, ‘to think’ taken in itself may imply an isolated act and thus, an elitist act. Thinking must not be the lifestyle of an exclusive or elitist group. It must be the task of each and everyone whether philosophy of not. Perhaps the true legacy of the philosopher is the act of sharing, which is commenting or thinking with. In fact, one may interpret St. Thomas’s dictum as truly pedagogical, even mystagogical. Mystagogy, simply put, is the pedagogy of the mystical experience. It is sharing the experience and teaching it even to the point of leading others to it. It is not being a Boddhisatva, because it means that the ultimate experiential goal has been reached. And yet the mystagogue returns to invite others to the same path. Mystagogy is the gradual intitation of the believer in the mysteries of faith by means of an experiential communication of the same mysteries, by testimony and teaching, which in effect transmit these same mysteries with the aim of personal asimilation on the part of the initiated by means of commitment to a higher spiritual plane with the help of an experienced master. A country may be blessed with an intellectual elite made up of scientists, artists, philanthropists, educators, politicians, etc. The term ‘elite’ need not be associated with any economical or nepotist strata, but rather it may refer to a a strata or class capable of creativity and of rallying their countrymen (whom we could call ‘masses’) to something creative and noble. These men are dedicated to the pursuit of in their respective fields. Their country becomes truly blessed if these men would share their discoveries and inspirations. So much so, the members of the elite bring out the ‘philosopher’ in each and every one of them. This is how commenting or thinking with is done. It is in effect reading with and to, toward communion through communication which is the voice of Mystagogy in as much as it is mediational initiation and accompaniment in Experience. A philosopher is necessarily a pedagogue. Someone who is available. Hence, the notion of ‘Vacare Deo’ (Carmelite tradition) or being available to the Absolute in order to teach it. It is pedagogy of reality. Philosophers must teach what reality is from its origins in the Absolute. They must contemplate reality and bring it

4

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q.188, a.6, corpus articuli.

226

FROM WISDOM TO MYSTERY THROUGH LOVE

(I would prefer rendering ‘trádere’ as sharing) it to others as contemplated reality, the originary, the experienced Absolute. To share with others models of reality is the task of the philosopher who comes up up with models for not only comprehending reality as a person but to experience it as a spirit in its integrity. A model is above all an ideal pattern that is presented in a programmatic setting. It is the building block for any type of human discourse. When a model becomes accepted by a community of readers (or of scientists and researchers), the model has ‘matured’ or ‘grown’ into a paradigm. A paradigm, because of its acceptability, is the discursive fluidity of a model and as such becomes the basis for the attempt of the human intellect to make reality conform globally to the structures imposed by the same intellect. The result of this attempt at global conformity with the intellect (or mind) as determinant is what we commonly call as system, which in praxis has ethical or moral impositions in order for it to be sustainable in the realm of everyday living. Said models have to be presented pedagogically, better said, experientially since a philosopher could only very well impart what he has experienced. For him, reality is the experientiable. It is that which he has to assimilate and thus, present the assimilated to others in an act of sharing. In this light, it is imperative that the philosopher as a pedagogue be a mystagogue. The philosophical enterprise consists of initiating the rest, our fellow men into the mysteries or profound dimensions of reality which is transmitted and asimilated by way of experience. A philosopher must also be an experienced master or companion in the journey of discovering reality. This same journey is inevitably experiencial. It starts and ends by being a student. Originality is what is usually required of a philosopher. Said originality must be understood in its context or must be understood from its point of departure, its environment, history, ambiance, etc. Unfortunately, originality has been reduced to being a ‘status symbol’ or an incentive for ambition and mere publicity. Perhaps, we must revise our notion of originality. Originality means sacrificing oneself for the truth, the truth taken as a friend. For this reason, the philosopher must lead others to the great friend, the Truth who is experientiable and of which we are all students. That which is experientiable is personal, and therefore real; and that which is real is personal and is experientiable. The experientiable is a call to appropriate for oneself the Truth which guides us as we move from the origin toward the originary. This movement we label as experience. To trace, even with winding and circular paths, the journey from aesthetics (appreciation) to art (creativity) is an occasion to be a mystagogue and to be original. To be original is to grasp the originary in its circumstantiality. Truly experienciology, which is creativity, only moves as an eschatology! However, there is a risk in this camp or field or area that Heidegger forwarned: we could lose ourselves in a Holzweg which is an absolute circle and thus closed

FINAL PROJECTION

227

to the dynamics of a series of concentric circles that define linear paths. And yet, Robert Frost tells us to go more miles and not to stop even we are lost in the woods. Only by going on do we create paths and with paths we create itineraries, which are metaphysical in goal, eschatological in realization, experiential in dynamics and mystagogical in realization (becoming real in reality and reality in the real) toward the Mystery reencountered as the originary, as the Absolute effectively experienced and lovedby letting onself be loved by the Mystery. As philosophers we search the meaning of life. This search is the adventure of man to become spirit: to enter the labyrinths of the self and discover the spirit or element of integrity which could only take form in service. Service is the only way to move forward, to get away from the Holzweg, to go on even if we go around in circles toward their center. Spirituality starts with the care of the self, as it emerges from the ego, but it is care that does not end with oneself or going back to the ego (solipsism) but enables oneself to serve others (hospitality). The Other is occasion for transformation: for growth and progress. Solipsism is do ut des, or I give so I may have from you. Hospitality is complete grace or I have because I give to you. Grace is the grammar of transformation, of growth and progress. Spirituality is service of grace which becomes concrete in works of mercy because the spirit is growth of integrity in doing Good to others. Goodness is flowing out toward others. Service is mercy flowing from love with charity as its identity and eros as its force. This is in effect what Mystagogy is all about: service of charity with the force of eros. Spirituality is service of the Truth. Knowledge is power, as philosophers say. But Truth is service of the Truth. The Truth is a servant. Truth does not enslave. It sets free. Freedom is the basic element of the Spirit or Integrity of the Self. Truth serves the Spirit so that the latter may unleash its identity as spirit, by serving, by doing good, by means of charity. Spirituality is living out the good founded in Truth by means of service which is Mystagogy. Mystagogy is creative service of the Spirit. Only by Mystagogy could the Spirit reveal its true origin: which is Beauty or the horizon of seeing oneself by communication in participative experience in terms of compassion (suffering with others), commentary (thinking with others), community (building with others) toward communion which is the plenitude of all experience revealed in eschatology: the definitive encounter: union and participative sharing (communion) with the Absolute, which is the originary or the origin found at the end of the journey as the goal. The encounter can only take place in terms of Beauty: the dwelling of the originary Spirit of the Absolute in the attainment of encounter in communion.

PRINTED ON PERMANENT PAPER

• IMPRIME

SUR PAPIER PERMANENT

N.V. PEETERS S.A., WAROTSTRAAT

• GEDRUKT

OP DUURZAAM PAPIER

50, B-3020 HERENT

- ISO 9706