Mysticism and New Theology

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Mysticism and New Theology

• Kyros Lecture 8

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Mysticism

• Emphasizes direct experience of divinity, God, or
  Ultimate Reality
• Often incorporates meditation, prayer, altered
  states of consciousness
• Belief in a world outside of normal perception

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Mysticism in language - Heidegger

• Old Heidegger
• Man authenticates himself through angst (feeling
  of dread)
• Has no object
• New Heidegger
• Something, Being, is there
• This something makes itself known
• Language is one with Being and makes Being known

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Heidegger

• We cannot know rationally what is there, but
  language proves something is there
• Postulates that long ago men spoke in Greek such
  that the universe was speaking ideally
• Now this is the case for the existence of all of
  mans language

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Heidegger

• As a rationalist, Heidegger cannot accept that a
  personality behind the universe has spoken
• Language connotes personality
• Listen to the poet not the content, but the
  language itself

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Mysticism in music John Cage (1912-1922)

• Proposes art based on chance
• Challenges power of art to
• Communicate ideas and emotions
• Organize life into meaningful patterns
• Realize universal truths through individuality of
  artist

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John Cage Influences

• I Ching (Book of Changes) ancient Chinese text
  which develops a system of tossing coins or
  yarrow sticks by which spirits speak
• Composes Music of Changes by adapting this idea

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John Cage Influences

• Thomas Mace the function of music is to sober
  and quiet the mind , thus rendering it
  susceptible to divine influences
• Mace refers to personal God of Scripture
• Cage sought to allow the impersonal universe to
  speak through blind chance

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Mysticism in literature Henry Miller (1891-1980)

• Best known for novel Tropic of Cancer
• Murders meaning in all human endeavors
• Led to overthrow of obscenity laws by US Supreme
  Court

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Henry Miller

• Wrote preface to Elie Favres History of Art
  entitled A Sense of Wonder
• "My Sense of God is my sense of wonder. Albert
  Einstein
• Chooses pantheistic view of the world

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Henry Millers pantheism

• Knowledge has crushed Mans sense of wonder (i.e.
  sense of god)
• behind all creationlies an impenetrable
  mystery
• The individual artist is but the humble
  instruments whose privilege it is to unveil the
  glory and the splendor of life

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Henry Miller

• Individuals are irrelevant as pantheistic cycles
  will continue
• spirit which first breathed upon the waters will
  create anew
• art more than religion offers us the clue to
  life

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New Theology
No categories for God No knowledge about God
The personal God is dead
Nonrational Faith
All contacts with the cosmos All contacts with
history God is dead, Man is a machine
Rational
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New theology

• Attempts to renew faith systems contacts with
  history via assertion of limited historical
  validity of Scripture
• God is redeeming all of history
• Semantic use of history
• Arbitrary events in Scripture are historical
• Bible contains existential events, not accurate
  historical information

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Conclusions

• Society is losing all sociological structure
• The Reformation provided a framework for culture
  of Northern Europe, US, and Canada
• Protestant foundation has largely been replaced
  with relativism

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Conclusions

• Problem Society must take some form
• New theology offers arbitrary religious absolutes
• They cannot be arrived at through reason, must be
  accepted blindly
• Historical Christianity offers radical alternative