Sublimation
In the previous posts I have
charted the development of religion from a localized to non-localized
phenomenon and the development of something I term the Divine Supplement. I use this term to describe how something
that exists in the space between the fully sacred and fully profane can
substitute for the authentically Divine.
I will address this aspect of authenticity in my next post, because I
want to fully lay out my framework of theological evolution before I tackle the
authentic. As you will see, authenticity
is very fuzzy and morphs over time and depends on how you approach it. For now, I want to finish the development process.
In the last post, I
discussed Eliade’s terms of Theophany and Hierophany. These terms circumscribe the two ways that we
can connect to the Divine, and thereby establish the idea of the Sacred. In a Theophany, connection is established by
direct manifestation of God. In this
system, there is a physical presence, without which, the Sacred cannot
exist. This sort of system is typical of
Greek and Egyptian religions, where, for example, the Gods were thought to be physically
present in statuary, otherwise known as fetish objects.
The Hierophany expands on
this idea. In this system, physical
manifestation of God is not necessary for the space or action to become
sacred. Although a Hierophany can still
encompass a manifest Deity, it is primarily defined by a system called an Ideal
Model. This system consists of laws,
commandments, and rituals which create value, direction and purpose. Through this development, the establishment
of the sacred becomes behaviorally based, not physically based.
This is the first step of
the process of internalization. As an example, at this
point in religious development, we get the Covenant. The Jews are no longer defined by place, nor
are they defined purely by heritage, they are defined by a series of actions
and rituals, as laid out in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I should note here, that at least to the more
Orthodox sects of Judaism, obeying the Law is not sufficient for being a Jew,
you also must be born of a line of Jews.
But for now, I will look at the keeping of the Law as the primary
requirement of Judaism.
Unlike the other religions
of the Classical World, where externalities created religious identity, for the
Jews, you also needed to live by internalities.
You had to be circumcised, an externality, but you also had to keep the
Sabbath, which is internal. Even though
you can be observed keeping the Sabbath, which would be superficially external,
you are required to keep it even in the absence of others, which makes it a
personal ritual. This may have been the first time that an internal system defined religious identity. It certainly was one of the earliest instances of this existing in written form.
So, as I have discussed,
this is another aspect of the Divine Supplement; a religious internal identity
providing connection to God, instead of a physical external connection. This is a substitute because system of laws, which whether divinely
inspired or not, are still grounded in the world of man and thus become a substitute
for the physical presence of God through what is called religious experience.
I would like to explore this
briefly before continuing. In primitive
religion, the initiation into the Divine Cult occurred through physical trial
and Ecstasy, which is the actual experience of the Divine Presence. Typically the initiate would be fed drugs,
starved, sleep deprived, wounded or some combination of these actions to bring
about an altered state of consciousness where they could receive God. I should note here, this concept still exists
in some modern religions, such as the Pentecostal ritual of Speaking in Tongues,
or the neo-pagan act of suspension. But as
Eliade describes, even in the modern era, these rituals are a link to the primitive aspects
of the initiatory experience.
In the more modern
Representational Initiation, such as the Bar Mitzvah, baptism or First
Communion, are ritual experience substitutes for the Ordeal practiced in
ancient religions. The child being
baptized does not experience an actual presence of God, but nonetheless is
initiated into the Divine Cult known as Christianity. I would like to note here, cult, like fetish,
is being used in the anthropological sense of the word, and holds no negative
connotation.
To return to my point, I
would like to chart this development of internalization.
In a Theophany, connection
to God was external, extra-personal and hierarchical. It was external in that it required a
manifest Deity. There was a need for the
Divine Presence in order for the condition of sacredity to exist. It was extra-personal because all of the
Truth was delivered from the outside, in this case, through Divine Revelation
and the presence of Deity. Finally, it
was strongly hierarchical, priests were the only ones who could perform the
rituals that appeased the Gods and only through the priests could salvation be
achieved. At this stage, those rituals
had to occur in the presence of the Gods, which was done through their
Fetishes. Further, salvation was not for the afterlife, it was an aspect of the
physical world, again another externality.
The priests literally stayed the hand of the Gods, and protected the
people from their Divine Wrath.
As we move forward into the
early Hierophanies, which I will term Priestly Hieropanies, connection to God
shifts somewhat. It remains
extra-personal and hierarchical, but it is now both internal and external. In this stage, Truth is still divinely
delivered, and the intercession of the priest is necessary to find salvation,
but now we have systems of ritualized behavior to establish the Sacred. Some of that behavior is external, such as
the rituals of the temple, the laws of dress and the physical markings required
of devotion, such as circumcision. However, some behaviors are
now internalized. We are introduced into
the idea of the Unclean, the abomination and the pure, all of which define the internal religious life.
These notions create the
Sacred Space, not only in the temple but in the soul as well. It is important to note here that salvation
has become Salvation, and we are introduced into the idea of the immortal soul
that receives reward or punishment for deeds done while in the flesh. At this stage, Salvation still requires the
hierarchy of the priest to intercede with God to save the soul; Salvation
cannot occur without it. Also in this
type of Hierophany, the priest also continues to guarantee salvation, the
staying of God’s Wrath, turning His eye from the people.
At the next stage, we come
into a system that I will call an Internalized Hierophany, which has the
characteristics of being internal, subjectivist and egalitarian. Although some external trappings may exist,
such as religious services, much of the system relies on internalizations; for
example, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
This is an internalization without any external cue at all. Only God can know what is truly in a person’s
heart. In some sects of Christianity,
and in Islam, the internal is the single most important thing to mark a person
as a believer. There is little to no
ritual for conversion beyond accepting Deity into your heart.
But this Hierophany is also
subjectivist. Although there are some
Divine Truths, the most important aspect of being Sacred is being Good. Although we might not like to think so, good
is an utterly nebulous and subjective thing.
If you ask ten people what makes a person good, you will likely get ten
different, but equally valid responses.
Just as evil is utterly dependant on context, so is good; an act that at
a certain time could be right or wrong could be completely different in another
situation. The same thing could be said
of being Righteous, or any of the other terms that describe adherence to
faith. It is no longer a public display;
religion becomes a private experience, which is the hallmark of the internal.
Finally the Internalized
Hierophany is egalitarian and by its very nature it must be so. When there were externalities, there could
also be a priest to intercede, because a priest could observe the forms and
rituals that displayed the entry into the Sacred. In an Internalized Hierophany, there are no
outward forms to display, and no way for the intercessionary priest to
determine adherence to the Law. When you
are the only person who can determine your tie to the Sacred, you must pray for
yourself. You become your own key to
Salvation. Further as God becomes an
internalized experience, there is neither salvation, nor any need for it in the
first place. God moves from a physical
to a purely spiritual presence and, as such, no longer directly acts in the physical
world. This is the John Spong view of
Christianity, where God is a very personal, internalized process.
With this, I have outlined the three
models of religion. Understand, I am
dealing with idealized models here; the real world expressions of these systems
are much messier. For example,
Catholicism still contains physical manifestations of Deity through the miracle
of Transubstantiation and yet believes intent, not action defines what is a sin. Evangelical Christianity relies strongly on
extra-personal Truths revealed by God, but are internalized through the
experience of being “Born Again.” The models are never pure outside of a thought experiment, but they do provide a framework for understanding.
Now that we have looked at
how the Sacred can be created, and models of doing so, I would like to examine
a further implication of this. We have
created what Douglas Hofstadter would term an isomorphism, where two complex
systems can be mapped onto each other. He expanded the thought from a purely mathematical model to one that can be applied more broadly to all sorts of theoretical frameworks. We are created by God and then we create God in our image. More specifically, we create rituals to make
the Sacred, and then the Sacred circumscribes our lives. Put another way, did we write these crazy
stories, or did these stories make us crazy?
This isomorphism is
fascinating. We have set up a system,
through either a Theophany or a Hierophany to be able to create the
Sacred. This Sacred Experience defines
our connection to Deity and we can build the entire chain of connections in
this way. Here we are on very solid
ground, well trod by theologians, anthropologists and academics.
However, we can flip it
around, which is a very different way to look at it. If we do this, the rituals, processes, rules
and forms create for us our notion of the Divine. We can map one system directly onto the other;
the only difference is the order of development. We can look at these rituals, Laws and forms
and through them develop the notion of God.
In this case, we are not a reflection of the Divine; the Divine is a
reflection of us.
This broaches the subject of
authenticity. Which side is the
authentic, the Divine Experience or the Human one? This is the subject that I will pick up on in
the next post.
St Barts Cathedral, New York City