Monday, January 17, 2005
PATHS TO THE HEART: SUFISM AND THE CHRISTIAN EAST
That is the title of the book edited by James S. Cutsinger, which is compiled out of the essays presented at the Christian/Sufi conference held at the University of South Carolina, October 18-20, 2001, the purpose of which was to find common ground in the esoteric aspects of Islam and Christianity.
"Esoteric ecumenism" is the phrase applied to this approach. Cutsinger, in the final chapter of PATHS, proposes esoteric ecumenism, as the means of escape from the "dogmatic narrowness" of the Christian dogma that Jesus is the unique Son of God and Savior of humanity. (p. 231)
Applying this concept of "narrowness", he suggests:
Christian tradition forbids us to think that the Second Person of the Trinity is the same as the first, or that His Divinity was confined to the historical individuality of Jesus alone. ...
Jesus is most certainly God....But this does not mean that saving power was fully expended at a single moment of history or that we should confuse the uniqueness of Him who was incarnate, the only begotten Son of God, with the human particularity of Jesus of Nazareth. (p. 230)
In so doing he makes room for the Sufi doctrine which teaches that Jesus is a lesser prophet than Muhammed.
Cutsinger packages this concept in a deceptive wrapper, saying:
The solution, however, is not the "false ecumenism" of the liberals which "abolishes doctrine", and which (as Schuon sharply notes) in order "to reconcile two adversaries...strangles them both". No, a "true ecumenism" must honor and uphold the importance of traditional dogmas, irreconcilable as they may appear exoterically, while at the same time appealing, on the basis of prayer and contemplative insight, to "the wisdom that can discern the one sole Truth under the veil of different forms". (p. 228)
Just what is that "one sole Truth"? Whose doctrine do we use to define it? Or is it that only visionaries can hope to know the real Truth? Echoing in the distance of Cutsinger's statement I seem to hear the subtle "You, too, can be a god." Are we to have a unique Savior of the Sufis? Another of the Hindus? One of the Buddhists? The Zoroastrians? The Jews? What, then, of the Catholic claim that Jesus Christ came to save the whole world? How can we assent to both the Truth of our individual faith and this new "Truth" being suggested by Cutsinger when they are mutually exclusive? And what makes Cutsinger the bringer of Truth?
In another essay Peter Samsel presents the same concept:
The shoal on which so much polemical furor and ecumenical fervor has run aground is the assumption that the truth or validity of another faith rests largely on its degree of exoteric identity with one's own. While attractive for obvious reasons, it nevertheless places limits upon God, who is presumed to have revealed Himself once, or at least best, in one's own faith. But God is not exhausted by a given revelatory disclosure, nor does He disclose Himself in the same way twice. In respect of God's distinct revelatory disclosures, we cannot expect to overcome uniqueness and difference, precisely because the disclosures revealed by God are distinct. Only in respect of their Source, God, who is one and singular, can such differences in His revelatory disclosures be overcome. As we cannot stand at such a level, what we may attempt instead is to grasp, through the offered parallels that lie at the heart of His multiple disclosures, a vision of their unique underlying Source. (p. 223-224)
Pluriform Truth? God, whom Samsel asserts is not limited, nevertheless chose to reveal not one single Truth, but rather multiple truths at random. To what purpose? In order to confuse his creation? In order to deceive? In order to promulgate a lie? If God was not limited in His choice, why would He choose to do such things? These concepts at the core of Christianity and Islam, which the premise of the book claims are sources of unrest that man must overcome in order to bring peace, are attributed to God? This makes God evil, and makes man a greater good. Anathema!
Since the proposed path is mysticism, and since the end of that path is a grasping of God's "multiple disclosures" which emerge from a single reality beyond the dogma of each of the world's religions, and since mysticism is not the province of those who adhere to an exoteric dogma, what Peter Samsel is suggesting is an elite core at the center of every faith. Esoterica, with those "in the know" the self-acknowledged superiors of those who are not so blessed.
Twice Samsel refers to "antinomian" concepts (p. 206, p. 207) in an effort to reconcile two mutually exclusive doctrines about Christ--one Christian, one Sufi--suggesting that if doctrine gets in the way of chosen goals of reconciliation in the name of peace, we can simply rise above it.
What do we get when we rise? Light.
The association of light with both God and existence runs throughout the Islamic tradition (p. 221)
Citing Vladimir Lossky and Gregory Palamas, Samsel also places this "light" in Orthodox doctrine:
This union with the energy [of God] is conjoined with its vision, where--as on Mt. Tabor--the vision of the uncreated energy of God is perceived by the spiritual eye as light. (p. 218)
Thus, seen in the "light" of Hesychasm, or Orthodox mysticism, and Sufism, the conflicting doctrines of Islam and Christianity can be viewed as two facets of the same reality. Jesus, then, when seen in this "light", easily morphs into the prophet second only to Muhammed.
In another essay John Chryssavgis asserts:
Alongside the more institutional unbroken "apostolic succession" of the Christian Church, we must also discern a parallel charismatic "spiritual succession" that rejuvenates the Church through the centuries. (p. 112)
"Parallel succession?! That would be a variety of "Enthusiasm"? Visionary experiences? Influx of the Holy Spirit? Channeling? What? This, I presume, is what is meant by "light".
Chryssavgis, too, wants us to rise above doctrine in an antinomian disregard of dogma based on new revelations.
In his essay, Vincent Rossi spells it out:
These three governing principles--apophasis, apatheia, agape--are insisted upon by the Hesychast tradition because the "highest metaphysics" of the Fathers of the Philokalia is grounded in the inescapable reality of the infinite gulf between the Uncreated and the created, and the paradoxical experience--not abstract doctrinal expression, but practical experience--of simultaneously bridging the uinbridgeable gulf in a Person to person relationship, while acknowledging its eternal reality. (p. 110)
In other words, the visionary experience--the phenomenon--trumps revealed Truth. An argument can easily be made here that distancing oneself from revealed doctrine is the equivalent of making oneself one's own god. Once we can convince ourselves that experience has more validity than does revealed Truth, we can invent our faith as we go along, without those inconvenient "Thou shalt nots" to get in the way.
It is only by adhering to doctrine that it is possible to evaluate the visionary experience. It is only through doctrine that discernment of spirits is possible.
If Adam and Eve were standing before us, they could explain the pitfalls of visionary experience. Lucifer is an angel of light, the greatest of the angelic band, who wanted to be a god. He does not cease in his efforts to draw man away from the Trinitarian God. His "light" can indeed bedazzle. Close adherence to revealed truth will reveal his cunning as the evil that it is. Abandoning doctrine will open the visionary to the "light" from the father of lies.
As the biography of James S. Cutsinger at the above-linked website will explain, Cutsinger is a Traditionalist, and the Secretary to the Foundation of Traditional Studies. John Chryssavgis is an Orthodox priest and Professor of Theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, according to the information presented in the book. The book also describes Peter Samsel as an independent scholar with a doctorate in physics. This conference, I presume, is a good example of where Traditionalism will lead.
Jesus asks "Who do you say that I am?" and each of us will be required to answer.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
