Hi Platt --
I guess my friend that it all boils down to what we emphasize -- the words
or the music, prose or poetry, intellect or intuition, pragmatism or
mysticism.
When it comes to metaphysics, my inclination is towards the latter
although
I realize the inherent contradiction therein. What I rely on to rescues me
is
the conviction, confirmed by artists and mystics, that true understanding
is
not necessarily explicable.
My own conviction is that if "true understanding" is possible, it must also
be explicable. I don't claim to have all the answers, or to have discovered
an open portal to absolute truth. Nor will my thesis satisfy everybody.
However, I do believe thinking people yearn for an understanding beyond the
relational level, at least enough to confirm that their life on this planet
counts for something more permanent than experiential existence. Religion
and mysticism purport to answer this human quest for the faithful.
Philosophy and metaphysics attempt to approach it intellectually, with the
aid of reason and logic.
Of the "critical thinkers" you have quoted, Davies is a cosmologist with a
Christian bent, Pirsig is an English professor-turned-philosopher with an
anthropological bent, and Ben Franklin was a bon vivant journalist and
statesman. I find it interesting that RMP chose to describe the 4th stage
of his MoQ as "...where the term 'God' is completely dropped as a relic of
an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic freedom." (Dan
Glover apparently feels that it's only the "term" he was disparaging, not
the concept.)
I can understand your skepticism, Platt. You feel that to theorize about
the ineffable by intellectual means is blowing in the wind, inasmuch as we
can never test the theory. At the same time, we are all endowed with
discriminating sensibility and rationality, and if these faculties are the
Creator's gift to us for a reason, might it not be to point to a solution
within our grasp? Judeo-Christians believe "man was created in the image of
God." I happen to believe that the values we realize are the essence of
that transcendent source, that Value itself is our link to Absolute Essence.
Inject that concept with a bit of intuitional insight, and you may just come
up with a rationale that approximates the truth that is hidden from us.
How can we know if we don't at least try?
Thanks and best regards,
Ham
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