I have been struggling for three years or more to escape from one universe into another. Wandering and flailing in the dark, gathering snatches of truth from rumor and hearsay, leaving the familiar paths of habit--catchphrases and methods--and striking out into the woods after this or that light or landmark.
When I say universe I'm speaking of a universe of meaning: familiar symbols, habits, and assumptions that fix the stars and horizons that make up the mental furniture of daily life. Human beings exist in a meaning universe more directly than the physical one. Ask the reductionist-materalist how difficult it is to truly cleave to the "nothing but" of things and then watch them realize that this, too--this arrival at the bare whatness of objects in the physical universe is just another shaping of the mental universe of meaning. That's the double-edge of Kant's great divide: even the scientist is a phenomenologist.
I didn't just start up and break out into the forest after a new universe. You don't realize you've left a path until it is long behind you. It starts with tiny deviations. Look at that over there. A quick investigation. A short foray to get a better view.
My little steps were quite simple: a firm belief that matter is not of itself a sinful thing. The body too can hope. An eschatological lean toward the postmillenial end of amillenialsm. A strict habit of avoiding material notions about godself so that the triune being is not a thing among things. A denial of the present-day urge to use the doctrine of providence as a divining rod. A realization that it is modernity that values authenticity, this baptized in "God has a plan for my life." The kingdom of God recruits worshippers for God's sake, not for the sake of a realization of one's inner you. Leaving anabaptist traditions behind and joining an episcopal church. These all taken together slowly lead away from a universe, what others have called the enchanted universe.
Just naming the darn thing took years. The enchanted universe--yes! I've blogged about this before. This is the universe in which the Christianity of my youth dwells.
Naming the other universe has taken nearly as much time, as I don't know it at all. I'm an alien and a stranger to it. Nothing is familiar. This is the sacramental universe.
I've not really arrived in the latter. And so much of the habits of mind and the phrases that go with being a Christian go with the former, it has been an odd process of sorting it all out. The brits have pants but call them trousers. Both universes have the word "worship" but mean very different things. It is a repatriation.
A fundamental difference between the two is the way each understands the relationship between God and the world. The god of the enchanted universe is far away, though invoked and expected in the smallest parts of daily life with great fervency. Matter in the enchanted universe is hopeless, the world will burn up and the soul will one day put aside the body and go on to a better realm. The god of the sacramental universe is astonishingly close, though far less invoked and expected in daily life. One expects laterally, the way that plants grow or time flows in unnoticeable continuity that evades the most intense awareness. Matter has hope, the world will be redeemed and transformed, and human beings will go into the new creation as embodied persons, transformed, yes, but still human beings. The eschatologies are different, and so is the drama. Warfare characterizes the former; wonder the latter--at least in my experience. The way religion and science relate to one another is also very different depending on which universe you inhabit. In the former, science is a helpful maker of comforts but is not allowed to say anything of real importance. In the latter, science is taken seriously. It is not embraced, but it becomes a partner in dialogue. If one is a Christian coming up in an enchanted universe, the only option available if you take the scientific route is to put things in tight boxes, otherwise there is no motivation to engage in the mental and physical rigor of scientific investigation. If one grows up in a sacramental universe, there is a great deal of motivation to pursue the sciences, perhaps more motivation than if one grows up an agnostic.
At any rate, the doctrine of revelation is far different in the two universes. In an enchanted universe, revelation is immanent and pregnant in all things, what is necessary are the keys to its discovery. It is personal, and so God is personal. In a sacramental universe, revelation is restricted to word and sacrament: and perhaps even to word through sacrament (word governed by sacrament). It is largely impersonal, though one's person is caught up in the story. God became a person, and so what is confessed is a God in three persons. The self is wholly at the center of the enchanted universe; God's redemptive purpose at the center of the sacramental one. Faith is also differently understood. In the former faith is a Kierkegaardian leap full of the will and human drama; in the latter it is a signpost planted by the Holy Spirit sticking stubbornly from one's own rocky heart, sometimes a beacon but most times a nuisance.
science and religion; enchanted universe; sacramental theology; Christianity
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
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4 comments:
Hi Thom
Good post. You put into words an experience I am undergoing too. The distinction between "enhancted" and "sacramental" is an important one. I notice you didn't prefix the word 'dis' to 'enchanted' to describe your new outlook. Is that deliberate? What's the difference between that an sacramental?
Before I comment further, I think I first need to clarify something. It may be the use of the term "Sacramental" universe, but... Can the "Sacramental Universe" be found other places than the Episcopal Church? They definately are heavy on the "Sacrament" side of things. Can I, as a lowly Baptist be part of the sacramental universe? Or does my church affiliation cause me to drift about in the enchanted universe?
Thanks for clearing this up. More comments to follow your response :)
My apologies for the tardiness of a reply; I can only plead the daily moment-by-moment interruptions of a family man with no time to blog. Paul, fantastic to hear from you. I think of you often. Please correct me if I'm off, but my understanding is that the "disenchanted" universe of Weber and others represents more the view of a pure materialist that would deny any transcendence at all. Such a view is not embraced by either the enchanted or sacramental universe: both are supernaturalist and theistic. I would love to hear how things are going with you as you have been struggling in this no man's land for longer than I have been. That and you always say things so intelligently. And Marc, I'm so pleased to hear from you and honored that you'd be reading this, I'm embarrassed to say, much neglected blog. (Though, as you too are probably aware, the spirit is often willing, oh so willing, but the flesh is weak.) As you are a student of history, you know that often we are caught up and, in some ways, governed by that history even if we ourselves are unaware or would prefer it otherwise. That is how I understand the anabaptist traditions. Products largely of a rising middle class, an expanding frontier, and other issues (there are always other issues), anabaptism is individualistic and private, self-reliant and given naturally to experience as the ultimate test of authority. Ethics and social justice is stressed over purity of dogma and confession. Retreat toward purity favored over engagement and a perceived (or real) dilution of holiness. Both have their own kinds of mystics. Hmm . . . I don't mean to say that anabaptist have not produced good minds and good schools: there is no doubt that they have. I'm talking about the general tendency of such things. In this sense, I'm sorry to say that you cannot understand what I mean when I talk about the sacramental universe and that /yes/ your church affiliation does gently pull you, ever so gently, in the direction of the enchanted one. You may best feel this current most clearly in a desire expressed in the hymnody and in other forms of worship to forget one's surroundings and ascend interiorly into some higher plane. Different people will favor one universe over the other, and I can't see that either make any difference at the foot of the cross. And I hope I was plain that I was not aware of crossing any sort of line until it had already been crossed. And, no, you don't have to be Episcopal, but, I might venture to say, you'd need to trace your history back to the magisterial reformation, to Roman Catholicism, or to Eastern Orthodoxy: in other words, a branch of Christianity that has developed a dogmatic structure around the eucharist. As a baptist and, before that, worshiping in the Christian Church (denomination, not religion), I celebrated the Lord's Supper, but the dogmatic structure surrounding that was Christology, dealing directly with the propitiatory death of Jesus. Approaching the table was not an act governed by Ecclesiology or any worked out doctrine of the sacraments. It was only when I worshiped in a community that did have that structure in place that I began to be aware of an entire wing of the building, so to speak, that simply went unnoticed before. Not that it wasn't there. It was, but it wasn't important and went without any real notice. So, to sum up, I would never say you are a "lowly Baptist," as grace is the only foundation for anyone. I'm merely describing a religious experience I am undergoing--whether for good or ill really isn't my issue, though, because it is happening to me I think it good. And it is not an experience which that branch of Christianity which comes out of anabaptism is built to support or encourage.
The faerie people from our woods are gone,
No Dryads have I found in all our trees,
No Triton blows his horn about our seas
And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon. ~ C. S. Lewis
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