Guiding Question: How was reason born out of faith?
Galahad further proves his role as the "chosen one"
by coming to no harm when taking the sword "held fast in its red marble"
and the Shield of Josephus. We may see the sword as a metaphor for reason,
which cuts through falsehood, while faith protects us like a shield.
Faith, in the Hebraic sense, translates as "trust"
and is usually applied to belief systems that require trust as the final
proof of their reality. Reason, on the other hand, is seated in "proofs"
through observation, experimentation, or abstract reasoning as the foundation
for the validity of its conclusions. Of the two methods, faith is older
than reason—and although there are distinctive reasoning patterns in the
development of tribal cultures around the world—reason makes its strongest
appearance in the ancient cultures of India, Egypt, Sumeria, Mesopotamia
and the Mayan; particularly concerning celestial observation, mathematics,
engineering and dating. In many ways the concept that faith and reason
are antithetical in their approach to knowledge is a modern one—dating
most discernibly from the late Renaissance and the Enlightenment in Europe,
and this distinction, as we shall investigate later, is not at all as clear
in Oriental traditions. The concept that faith and reason complemented
one another, or that faith took over where reason left off and vise versa,
is far older notion remaining at the foundation of many civilizations.
Much of the tradition of reason as we know it in
contemporary science grew out of early Greek philosophy, however; and for
the Ancient Greeks faith and reason were anything but antithetical. It
is more correct to say that the Ancient Greeks had faith in reason;
or that they trusted reason as a means by which humanity might interpret
the patterns of the phenomenal universe. The word "philosophy" itself reveals
this relationship as it translates as "love of knowledge," or "love of
wisdom," using the Greek Philos to express a unique form of love
based on spiritual kinship. What is important is that one must love
reason to be a true "philosopher." Those who sought wisdom or knowledge
without such love were referred to by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as
"Sophists," who were not true philosophers, and therefore incapable of
actually discerning or even understanding "truth." Perhaps Gawain in the
Quest may be seen as an example of Plato's Sophist. His insincere
attempt to utilize the sword/reason was inappropriate and called down a
curse upon him. In Philosophy, the act of love as trust was vital to the
integrity of reason itself. Reason, expressed in Greek as logos,
was revealed by attending to the patterns, symmetries, and even in the
beauty, of nature. It is because the natural world showed itself in discernible
patterns and symmetries that its essence was considered to be "rational."
In fact, in Ancient Greece, mythically, all began
as chaos, out of which logos, or divine reason, concerted
the elements into cosmos, or an intelligible whole. This logos,
which had concerted chaos, was also an integral aspect of being
human, and humanity could use this capacity to interpret and integrate
with the whole, and thus access the mysterious order of the cosmos.
Heraclitus, one of those who first uses the term logos, speaks of
its mystery in a fashion reminiscent of the manner in which Oriental Philosophy
speaks of the Tao, or the way. The logos, like the Tao,
is not tangible and cannot be touched or physically grasped. Yet it sets
the natural world, and all its elements, on course. The primal element,
fire, for Heraclitus, was metaphorical for all the elements in turmoil,
and Heraclitus uses the word "war" to describe these contending forces.
Yet the greater logos unites apparent opposition into a discernible
whole which prevents conflict from resulting in chaos. Conflict
becomes itself a pattern of turbulence in an unending flow of ever-changing
events, and Heraclitus likens the logos to a river. Due to the intangibility
of a river's current, it is impossible to step into the same stream twice.
It seems as if the water, embankment, current and turbulence are in conflict—although
all these elements make the river flow. The river itself cannot be broken
down to its elements alone, for it is the whole of the water, the intangible
current, the flow, the embankment and force driving them which makes up
the river—although the river itself is more than the sum of these elements.
The river, as a phenomenon, follows its reason; its way, its logos.
Thus for the Greeks, reason was in fact to a degree mystical—and human
reason was an amazing capacity of the human mind to access the rationale
of the universe. The fact that the universe was rational, that it followed
formal patterns that could be discerned, was amazing, and later for Aristotle,
was due cause for all of humanity to be filled with "wonder."
Thus logos revealed itself by observing the
phenomenal world, and by calling upon our own capacity for reason, we could
read the logos and understand the cosmos. Yet for the Greeks,
trying to understand this mysterious logic by examining the human mind
alone would have been like trying to find music by taking apart a radio.
The mind, through reason, could receive the logos, but it was not
the origin of it. In fact, as in certain Yoga disciplines, logos
was thought to be drawn in through breathing. The mind, properly disciplined,
learns to "listen" to the logos, to attend to it almost intuitively,
and as a consequence could follow the same phenomenal symmetries as did
the cosmos itself.
This logos, of course, later becomes logic,
and the power of logos as a rational patterns that reside in the
natural world echoes in our world every time we place the suffix "ology"
after a word; which literally means the reasoning patterns behind a particular
phenomenon. Thus the Greek word bios (meaning life, or that which
pertains to living things) and logos (meaning the reason underlying
phenomena) equals biology, etc..
Perhaps the "ology" which best portrays the early
Greek conception of reason as it relates to mythic elements is revealed
in the myth of the Goddess Psyche. Psyche was to
be punished by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, because of Aphroditeís
jealousy. Eros, the God of Physical Love and Aphroditeís son, was
to be the agent who visited this punishment on Psyche, who is likened to
a spiritual entity. Eros, however, became enamored with Psyche, and Psyche
returned this love. Psyche, however, was forbidden to ever see the face
of her lover. Defying this taboo, Psyche lit a lamp and saw Eros’ face,
and from that time onward was abandoned by the gods and by destiny. She
eternally roamed the world seeking reunification. Eventually she is reunited
with Eros, and the myth ends happily as this unification between body and
spirit transforms her name "Psyche" into a synonym for the "soul." The
myth is filled with passion, love, trust, revenge and betrayal: the very
longings and turmoils of the soul itself. It was Aristotle who wed Psycheís
name to logos, however, to produce "Psychology," or the logic of
the irrational longings of the soul in often tumultuous relationship with
the body. In turn, this attempt to reconcile mind and body becomes one
of the great themes of Occidental knowledge. It is interesting, however,
that the Greeks had such faith in reason that to an extent the very word
"psychology" means the reasons behind the irrational. Even the irrational,
as well as the world of emotions, passion and longing, could be understood
through its logic, its reason, its logos.
Thus one could construct the argument that faith
and reason co-inhabited a similar space in the early Greek intellectual
world. It was the patterns of the phenomenal world which revealed a concerted
cosmos, and it was the revelation of these patterns which inspired
humanity to reason with the world itself. This relationship between revelation
and reason perhaps reached full exposition in the presocratic philosopher,
Parmenides, whose work demonstrated one of the most complex domains of
Greek inquiry: the logic of Being, or Ontology.
Ontic was a word meaning Being, or that which
exists. Ology, of course, referred to reason. Thus Ontology, one of the
oldest areas of philosophy, referred to the logic of Being, or the logic
of what IS. Parmenides exposition argued that there is first and foremost
that which IS, and that all other questions are reducible to that which
IS, first and foremost. In other words, one might, for example, take the
sun, and try, through reason, to discover the logic of that which underlies
this phenomenon. If we do so using the model of modern physics, we most
certainly would conclude that the sun is a star, and that the patterns
of energy manifest in our sun conforms to the principles of nuclear fusion
common to all stars. We might go even further into the principles of nuclear
fusion founded in subatomic particles to explain this conception of intensified
energy under the forces of gravity. Parmenides would hold, however, that
before you can explicate the phenomenon the "sun" through reason, there
must BE a sun, it must exist independently of its reason, and that explaining
the phenomenon through analytic reason depends upon the fact that the sun,
first and foremost, exists.
In fact, for Parmenides, the world we perceive and
know is reducible entirely to the greater phenomenon of all that IS, and
all other rational explication must follow this fact. Therefore, even reason
is an afterthought of Being itself. First, and finally, it is Being and
Being alone which is revealed through witness and reason alike. This absolute
Being of all that is, in fact, postulates that non-Being is, for Parmenides,
impossible. The mind can only think about what is, thus what does not exist
is irrational and unthinkable. The true Being of all that is, however,
can not be grasped by the senses, but only arrived at through pure reason
itself. The conception that non-Being is impossible, and that that which
IS neither arises or can be destroyed, was later adapted by Empedocles
and Democritus (the father of modern physics). Einstein and others, later
applied this premise as the foundations for the very modern conception
in physics that matter is neither created or destroyed. Add to this notion
that of Heraclitus that all the natural world is in constant flux and transformation,
then the very modern conception that matter merely changes form is complete.
Thus many of our most advanced notions of science are contained within
the founding premises of rational methodology taking place in a nascent
form in the mind of the Ancient Greeks.
Required Reading: "Week 2" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 53-71; Heraclitus: Fragments ; Parmenides: On Nature; The Myth of Psyche.
Homework:
Write a short paper (3-5 pages) on the relationship between logos
and the soul (Psyche). Share you papers in the appropriate conference.
(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 2/I> are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the Authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)