Intuition is a form of knowing and processing experience. With the development of writing and the evolution of systematic education, reliance on intuition has increasingly been diminished. Yet intuition continues to play a role in understanding our world and the universe.
In a fact-orientated world, reason is the dominant means for obtaining new knowledge. We know because we reason, and we reason because we know. Reasoning is very much a conscious, spiracle process that increases knowledge based on what is already known; new facts based on old facts, even should a new fact lead to disestablishing an old fact.
Intuition, on the other hand, is more subtle and a less conscious process. Intuition is frequently described as phenomenon; something beyond conscious reasoning. Such an understanding, however, tends to minimize its utility and leads to an under-appreciation of its role in advancing knowledge. Although intuition appears to "come out of the blue," out of nowhere, it relies on possessing a knowledge of concepts and context by which the intuitive experience is recognized. As such, intuition is related to insight - a deeper understanding of a known subject gained through an unintended experience. The fundamental difference between intuition and reasoning is nothing more than intentionality.
Most discoveries, scientific and otherwise, frequently stem from a reasoned examination of an intuition on the part of the discoverer. Both Newton and Einstein had intuitive experiences in the form of unintended insights garnered from everyday occurrences that led them to reason how our universe works. I speculate that theism arose from similar occurrences. It is no wonder that theism is considered by some to be the prototype of science, a way of knowing our world.
Given this premise, it is not difficult to deduce that what we call religion today was intuitively derived from nature by our prehistoric ancestors. It is easy to say this from a 21st century perspective, but I feel it would be remiss to understate the immense impact this had on the development of our ability to reason. Consider the probability that our prehistoric predecessors lacked our ability to identify concept and context as such. At best they worked with a rudimentary form of the differentiating paradigm I discussed in my last post. [See post on Religion]. Language itself was nascent and wouldn't fully evolve until writing emerged. What our prehistoric ancestors likely possessed was an ability to understand difference and the connection between cause and effect. What would not be understood for some time was how they were able to understand. The fact is we still don't have a good grasp of why we possess understanding. To delve into that topic further, I would recommend reading Sam Harris's book, "Waking Up."
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
To further speculate, it seems reasonable that lacking a concept of one's own mind and having an extremely rudimentary sense of context led early humans to conclude that their emerging sense of knowing was being given to them from an "out-there-other." The question of "How do I know?" was met with an "I don't know, but I know." It's conceivable that this led to the concept of revelation; something being shown by an outside source. Any knowledge that explained how and why things were the way they were, beyond simple cause and effect, had to come from somewhere or something. This thought represents one of humankind's earliest intuitions derived from experience. The question "How do I know " required an answer, and thus the divine other was intuited.
It was with the dawn of written language that reason and logic took shape. This is not to say that reason did not exist before writing. It did, but with writing, reason could be examined. Prior to writing, reason or wisdom was an oral tradition that was handed down, and because it could not be stored outside of the mind, it became sacrosanct and inviolable. Questioning it was an anathema because it risked losing knowledge. The residue of such inviolableness is still evident in theism today. It is in written language that we finally were capable of storing wisdom and knowledge outside of one's memory. With writing we could examine oral tradition and our own thoughts. We could question and fine tune them. This is exactly what took place in what the philosopher Karl Jaspers identified as the Axial Age, which roughly spanned a period in antiquity from 800 to 200 BCE. This was the age when most of our modern understanding of religion and philosophy had their beginning.
What did not change, however, was the differentiating paradigm of religion. This remained current and became highly evolved, leading to divergent paths of philosophy in comprehending our universe. At one time, philosophy and theology would have been impossible to distinguish. With writing came the ability to make discrete distinctions that could be reasoned logically. It is interesting to note that as written language advanced, revelation, as it was likely understood prior to the Axial Age, becomes less and less a player in our way of understanding of knowledge, itself. With the arrival of Aristotelian logic there came a clear demarcation between science and theism. What was once revelation increasingly became identified as intuition. Revelation, as a term, still has a strong hold on the religious. Modern religions continue to cling to the notion of revelation, particularly monotheistic religions. In my opinion this is more the result of clinging to a traditional understanding than it is a refutation of intuition.
THEOLOGY AND THEORY
There exists a linguistic divergence between what is considered secular and sacred which frequently becomes the source of confusion and confutation. Science and theistic religion, for example, frequently lock horns over terminology. Yet both are based on an understanding of how and why things are the way they seem based on intuitive insights that resulted from divergent paths of reasoning and knowledge each took.
Both science and theism are a mirrored reflection of each other. Theistic religion in its consideration of a known intuitively reasons an unknown, whereas science in its consideration of an unknown intuitively reasons a known. Theology and theory are related processes. Interestingly, a study of both leads one to see that each embraces the concept of paradox within the differential paradigm of religion; that can be expressed in the following: We agree that this is this, not this, and yet this.
This paradigm is interestingly captured, albeit in a somewhat convoluted way, in Christianity's doctrine of the Trinity and described in similar terms by Quantum Mechanics understanding of light. For example, in the doctrine of the Trinity, The Father is God, The Son is God, The Holy Spirit is God, The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, The Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son, yet the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit is God. In Quantum Mechanics we can talk about light as a particle or light as a wave. The light particle is not a light wave. The light wave is not a light particle; yet the light particle and light wave are both light.
That divergence ultimately leads to convergence is reasoned from a religious intuition; that what appears and acts differently proceeds from the insight that the concepts and contexts by which we determine difference is rooted in similarity. If there were no such concept as appearance or no such context in which actions take place by which to determine what looks and act the same from what looks and acts different, we would not be able to make any intelligible distinctions. "All is one" is a highly reasoned premise that proceeds from a religious intuition found in both science and theism, that ultimately concludes that what is different is in essence the same.
I posited in my previous post that the religious impulse is found in every human activity, including science; that the need we have for each other in every field is premised on our mutual need for validation and a sense of congruence. Where scientific religion and theistic religion diverge is in their respective handling of mystery. A prime example of this is the kerfuffle between various scientific and theistic groups over the origin of the universe. From my perspective the difference between the two is not all that different.
Stepping way back from the debate and listening from a far distance, once can hear the same thing: The universe we know today had a start from a single source. If you ask a scientific question, the universe came from single source, a particle known as a singularity. If you ask a theological question, the universe came into being from a single source, a wave, known as the Word of God. Obviously, I have simplified this horribly and recognize that both in the fields of science and theology there exist extremely divergent theories and theologies regarding this topic, but my point is that standing from a distance there is a sameness to it all by which we can formulate our differences in it all.
In purist terminology, science attempts to extract mystery from the known in order to increase understanding about ourselves and the universe. Theism, on the other hand, imbues the known in a cloak of mystery as a means of understanding ourselves and the universe. In my opinion, both views are needed, although I feel theism has become too reliant on traditional terminology that renders it appearing less relevant and at times acting irrelevant. This is one of the reasons I tend to avoid using the terms mystery or mysticism when discussing theistic topics because of its tendency to be interpreted as something being inexplicable.
A CLOSING NOTE
I feel a need to apologize for this pedantic post. I appreciate those who bear with me during one of these forays of mine into speculation. There is a reason for my doing so. From time to time I see a need to use terminology that is perhaps unfamiliar to some, such as, "religious impulse," "the differentiating paradigm." and "religious intuition." Having mentioned them here, I hope to proceed to a more in depth discussion on theism and, in particular, Christianity.
Until next time, stay faithful.
No comments:
Post a Comment