Benedictine/Christianity/Religion

Ultimate Truth and Truthy Truth

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In a discussion about truth on a Benedictine forum I’m on, it occurred to me that I can become quite dogmatic in my belief that access to ultimate truth is impossible; as dogmatic as some who hold to the accessibility of ultimate truth. The irony was not lost on me. In any case, in trying to explain my position just a bit more, I think I may be dismissed by both fundamentalists and liberal-liberals. As follows:

What I’ve needed to do is distance myself from the category “Ultimate Truth,” because when I lifted the cover I found that it was an “ideal,” an apotheosis, a non-such, and so in the end it didn’t touch me. In other words, I believe “Ultimate Truth” is disembodied truth. And the claimed possession of this category of truth is what lies inside every form of fundamentalism.

I held to this in a kind of half-conscious way through much of my early life until it got to me in a truly existential way–over several classes and coffees with a recalcitrant philosophy professor–that as a contingent being I could have no direct contact with the ultimate ground of Being, or rather, the transcendent ideal of all Perfection.

Subsequently, my heart’s attraction to St. Benedict was his earthy, fleshy, communal, faith. This, and his sign-off humility that if I find a better way, a practice that corresponds to reality more fully, and therefore holds more fruit, well, then, I should seek it out.

Blue Poinsettia 640

(Intermission: Upon exiting the show pavilion in the Muttart last weekend we were informed that all the multi-coloured poinsettia’s, with of course the exception of the red and white ones, were painted. So some silliness here. Is the statement: “This is a blue poinsettia,” true or false? )

To my mind it’s better to drop the adjective and simply talk about truth. Jesus never said, he was the “ultimate” truth, as if ultimate was somehow more “truthy” than regular truth.

When Jesus says he is the truth, he is making truth accessible. He is saying that truth is found, discovered, learned, in relationship, and specifically in a relationship with him, and therefore profoundly and mysteriously, in relationships with our neighbours.

He is saying–by virtue of relational not relative truth–that truth has a shape, has contours, and so may look different from different angles but that this doesn’t make it false. What’s more, he is saying that we will continually be lead into truth if we keep our ears open to the Spirit he sent. But that this truth is still always mediated truth. And, in this he is disassociating himself from the “Greek” or “Platonic” notion of truth–from where the idea of “Ultimate Truth” sprang.

“Ultimate Truth” is, again, not accessible because its claim is that it is beyond the personal. Which, unless one has received some kind of unmediated emanation, would make it the most untrustworthy sort of “truth.” (If “Ultimate Truth” was accessible, other people would not be required.)

Some years ago and someplace in here I had to hold up a mirror and see that my marching banner of “Ultimate Truth” was not only a phantom, it was also effacing and condescending and that it effectively relativized other truths and ways of understanding and so broke off any dialogue before it began. I had to recognize my own part in creating, if not hostility, a profound indifference to the Church and the Christian faith.

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Politics

Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge

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During his life, Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), had four careers: a medical doctor, physical chemist, social thinker, and philosopher.

Polanyi was a brilliant scientist with the breadth and depth of mind to know that his observations, enquiries, experiments were never value-free, never wholly objective, never beyond the contingencies of the human. He argued this without peer in books such as “Personal Knowledge,” and in doing so made his most important contribution–that of humanizing scientific inquiry.

As a result, no informed, eyes-open scientific enquiry can hence forth disregard appreciating the role of the individual and the individual’s values in the seeking and finding of truth.

polanyi Polanyi showed that natural science itself, which he knew from the inside, does not and cannot meet the “objectivist ideal,” because it necessarily requires the personal engagement and judgment of the scientist herself. With many examples, he shows how scientific research is an art, and has to do with the deployment of artful skills.

But all acts and forms of knowing employ a kind of “art.” Because, “All ‘impersonal’ measurements, readings, observations, ‘data’, etc., have to be personally understood, appraised, and accepted or rejected by the individual (scientist) using his own informed personal judgment.”

It follows of course that we can never completely test our knowledge, for in doing so we acritically rely upon our personal judgment and skills.

And that is of course the stumbling stone of the Science Fundamentalists, as one letter writer to Vue Weekly called them. It is the case, as Polanyi has somewhere said, “We know more than we can tell.” The Sci-Fundies say instead, if we can’t tell it, show it, reproduce it, we can’t know it, ergo, it’s not true, or at best it’s suspect and inferior. Well, let them try that with the Big Bang. (By the way, can you see the Religious-Fundie parallel? If it’s not in the Bible somewhere it’s not true.)

I have no idea what Polanyi would have thought about alternative medicine. I do know that he would have approached it with scientific rigour, but that he would in no way have disregarded it because it hasn’t passed the “objectivist” ideal, or because its rules and methods cannot be explicitly articulated.

But again, as he has shown, neither can what we call natural science pass the “objectivist” ideal. And that, amazingly, remains (S)cience’s dirty little secret, the exposure of which would undermine all so-called Science-backed efforts at marginalizing ancient and newer therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic and curtailing the importation of plant-based medications. (See this week’s Well, Well, Well.)

There are a number of good bio’s on Michael Polanyi. Here’s just one.

Spirituality

Surrender

Posted on by stephen t berg / 3 Comments

 

 Canadian poet, author and gardener, Patrick Lane, says in his memoir, “Surrender is what got me to these moments in the garden, this acceptance of what I have and what I am.”

In “There is a Season,” (the most exquisitely written book I’ve read this year) Lane describes how at 62, having been an alcoholic and drug addict for 45 years, it was the process of surrender that moved him out of the morass.

And isn’t it the case that surrender is what releases us? Surrender, not “doormat surrender,” which is a pathological from of self-loathing, or locked in shame, but active surrender. This is the kind of surrender that releases all those we perceive owe us something; releases those we so desire attention from; accepts the inevitability of being misunderstood and rejoices in the achievements of others. This surrender unbinds ourselves so that we are able to reengage.

The surrender that accepts our minds, our bodies, our faces, our habitus’–all that we use to make contact with our world–is adult surrender…and is our life raft.

Uncategorized

The mirror is a gate

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On a summer evening in 1971 I walked out of Yorkton Saskatchewan’s Tower theatre crossed the street and disappeared into myself. I reemerged a conjugate of Joe Cocker and Leon Russell and for months to come inhabited that blended persona. To this day, in spite of myself, I still carry the ghost of that warm summer evening. Not that I mimic the spasms of a young Joe Cocker (although I’ve tried this) or imitate the hazy-glare-under-hooded-lids, of a Leon Russell (although, rather comically, I’ve done this as well), instead I inhabit something of the message and intent of all those physical and mental mannerisms.

joecocker The impression that “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” had upon me was so strong that to this day I catch myself dreaming of its seedy glamour, its skewering of domesticity and seemingly wild and free flight for the sake of music and life. Right. Well, I was impressionable, at an impressionable age, living just a wink past Woodstock. I was a follower and I had about me the sponginess of youth.

But I’ve grown up. The eager mimicry of my late adolescence now behind me, I see myself as in control of what impresses me and able to choose what I will imitate, or rather, incorporate. Yet, at particular moments, almost always while in the presence of someone close to me, I see that I’ve left nothing of this behind. I mean, I’m still impressionable, still a follower, still a sponge. In other words, still dependent on receiving myself through the reception or rejection of others. leonrussell

And now I discover that all of this has a basis in biology. It turns out that in that theatre as I sat gazing up, groups of mirror neurons were brightly firing inside my premotor cortex. These mirror(ing) neurons not only allowed me to mentally imitate the physical gyrations but also to ingest the complexity of intent, motives, goals, in other words, to mentalize the state of mind of my subject. 

For this ability that we take for granted, there should be inexhaustible wonder. It is how social units and cultures are begotten. For good or bad, mirror neurons are the “welcoming gateway (JA)” through which your “I” is reproduced within me and through which my “self” is constituted by you.