Knowing
I have a problem with the assertion that one way of knowing is superior to another way of knowing.
The “spiritual” way of knowing is claimed as a form of experience, but of what kind is this experience if it is not had through the five senses? How can we be sure that a spiritual substance has moved through us delivering its own special brand of experience instead of the experience being produced by uncommon brain activity brought about through a particular neurochemical admixture. It seems certain that certain people can produce these experiences at will (either through training or by means of a genetic predisposition), but why is this means of perception unavailable as an autonomic function to the majority of humanity? When one of the great unwashed has a transcendent experience, the triggering brain cocktail is best explained as the product of both internal and external variables: diet, fatigue, acute trauma, chronic stress, etc. When the internal and external variables are altered and the person is returned to the mundane world of experience, he or she cannot reproduce the experience at will. There is a democracy to the five senses. I am suspicious of those who claim a place among the “spiritual” elite.
Regardless of what this transcendent mode of experience actually is, what it actually means is difficult (if not impossible) to determine. Perhaps advances in neuroscience will eventually be able to establish for us a reliable body of knowledge that will allow us to define what this mode of experience is and what it means. (In the meantime, I can quantify my sensual experience [even if only indirectly], interpret its meaning by imposing upon it the requisite logical rigor, and pass it on as truth (with a lower-case “t”).
The “rational” way of knowing doesn’t seem to me to be a mode of experience at all. It is the application of disciplined thought to specific premises in order to draw out some meaning that feels like truth or Truth. An obsessive subscription to this mental activity produced the Cartesian fantasy. But, no one with good sense throws the baby out with the bathwater. The application of reason is a useful tool in the quest for truth (and perhaps, Truth). The potential trap it poses for such a quest, however, is when it is based upon scholastic, faith-based “truth.” One founds ones truth/Truth upon a series of premises whose validity is dependent upon indemonstrable “facts” that are Believed to be axiomatic merely because some authority has asserted them to be so. Depending on how closely these premises match reality, the logic imposed upon our various forms of knowledge can produce the greatest degree of unreliability. The purist, Cartesians eschewed experience, transcendental or sensual. For them, knowledge was to be found in the mind and independent of the inevitable confusion to be found in experience. But how do you find the ultimate axiom without an infinite, logical regression? We can’t “know” that the universe is “turtles all the way down,” (We can’t even imagine it.) so what is to be gained by basing a Theory of Everything upon the topmost turtle?
Anyone who in childhood has assumed the sun moved through the sky knows that “sensual” experience is not entirely dependable as a source of knowledge. But as demonstrable facts are collected and organized rationally into logical explanations capable of correct prediction, our five senses take on a dependability for revealing truths in a way not apparently offered by “spiritual” ways of knowing. Of course, the knowledge to be gained sensually is gained indirectly and it inevitably gestures toward other truths as yet unknown. Such knowledge is always of the “how” and never of the “what” and “why.” This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs to the intellectually curious. Hoping to escape the discomfort of facing a potentially inexplicable reality, the Positivists dismiss questions of “what” and “why” as pseudo-questions. This is tantamount to Melville’s Ahab giving up his obsession for the sake of a little peace-of-mind.
So here we all are, admitting to one way of knowing truth and debating the validity of another. We are all of us products of a culture of certainty, and despite the criticism we have leveled at the certainty felt by fellow Mormons, we too display an unwarranted degree of certainty in our arguments. We often fail employ nuance or subtlety. This is attributable (in some degree) to rough and tumble nature of our conversations, but we still sometimes betray an unwarranted degree of certainty through categorical and definitive statements. Some of us are certain that Truth is out there and that we can achieve it. Others are certain they have to an important extent achieved it. Still others are certain that Truth is not to be achieved by mankind. (I am, of course, speaking of ultimate truth, Truth with a capital “T.” I am not speaking of those truths, which provide us with the sufficient evidence of order that we need to make mundane decisions.)
I suspect that each of us can easily think of someone else in the council who fits in one of these three categories of certainty. But who, upon reading this, thought first of himself and not of another? Sorry for the preachment, my brothers, but one of the things that sets us apart is the fact that this group is a safe haven. The hurt we have all felt –coming from friends, family and church leaders– is the product of certainty.
Perhaps it is our unexamined proclivity toward certainty that bring us to the same arguments each month. Perhaps it that, which leads some of us to believe our way of looking at the world is superior to that of another. Perhaps it is that, which leads some of us to suspect another of personal disrespect.
I think we are strengthened, rather than weakened, by being hesitant and tentative. It prevents us from making sweeping declarations. I once discovered that I defined Joseph Smith differently than everyone else in the room. That was a surprising moment for me. It didn’t prove me wrong because the majority was in disagreement, but it did remind me made me that I can assume too much and with too much confidence.
Your Brother in Uncertainty