As a Christian Transcendental Existentialist ...

Disclosure ... I think of myself as a Christian transcendental existentialist ... who does NOT believe in the necessity of a supreme being in the Biblical (King James Version - KJV) sense of that identity.

Let us begin ...

I believe my interpretation of John 1:1-4:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

... which is that the potential of existence existed at the beginning, whatever that "beginning" was (is?)

... which deals with the idea that "what is" came out of "what was" and "what will be", will come out of "what is" ... which of course is the "transcendental" part ...

Pause

Though we perceive existence (are aware of -- "awareness" relative to "existence" is important to existentialists ... like in which comes first, the chicken or the egg?) as ongoing -- past, present, future -- the reality of the cosmos does not HAVE to be in that "form". It could be like the infinity symbol and we are (I am?) simply passing along it's endless band ... or multiple bands with or without multiple dimensions.

However ... I experience my existence as ongoing -- past, present, future ... in a universe that is ongoing.

And -- this is my interpretation of Kierkegaard's leap of faith -- I choose to believe that my existence and that of the universe has meaning in its unfolding "ongoingness".

I am engaged in a search for that meaning.

From Luke 17:20-21 (King James Version, New Testament): Note: "He" is Jesus.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

I find the meaning of my existence, including my awareness of experiencing my existence, within myself. I come to "understand" that meaning by sharing my awareness with others as they share theirs with me.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20

If the sharing of experience is done in the spirit of pursuing the truth (as in the blind men and the elephant) it frees us from the mistakes of our past.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

More to come ...

ncswede

Footnotes:

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kierkegard

As tiny url:

http://tinyurl.com/ymdrru

All Biblical quotations are taken from:

http://blueletterbible.org/

Pause

Putting aside the issue of dealing with our mistakes for a moment ...

Fear ... how do I conquer fear?

As a child I drew close to a parent or my older brother as I walked through the forest at night.

Now when I have time to think, I "assess" the situation ahead and "calculate" whether or not I can handle it ... then continue or turn aside.

When caught up without warning, the adrenalin kicks in and I react. (One of the reasons I love the Interior Alaska wilderness ... the adrenalin high is awesome because I have not been there long enough to have being in that environment become "normal". The individuals I REALLY admire are like the mountain climbers, and the rock climbers. I can get another shot of adrenalin simply by taking another step further into the bush.)

But what happens to a person in the devastation of a disaster such as a hurricane, a drought, an earthquake, ... war ... when the person is caught up in something so vast and consuming that every last vestige of hope in it ever getting better again is taken from him/her?

Or something close and personal and singular like the death of one's child ...

What then?

What rekindles the flame of the human spirit, what rekindles hope?

For me it is faith ... faith that "this to", whatever it is ... will have meaning as I (we) go on.

And I do not mean that in the sense that it is "a lesson to be learned" ...

And it does not mean that I could or would retain my faith if I were in the middle of a seemingly unending disaster ... I can't say because I have lived such a "blessed" life.

I can only discuss these issues from the perspective of my perception ... which is NOT the whole elephant by any means.

But faith was instilled in me as a child ... and it has never left me.

Now I don't believe in some Supreme Being acting as producer and director of the "Show On Earth" ... mostly because it ain't "the greatest" for whole bunches of people.

But I do choose to believe that what is happening/unfolding (living) has meaning in its becoming what it does become ... and that what I do now does affect the outcome ... (as in chaos theory of the small pebble being able to alter the course of the boulder as it starts to roll down the hill ... or as Jesus taught, "if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move a mountain"[sic].)

And in this process of living, I make mistakes ...

Pause

I'm going to defer my discussions of "mistakes" (sin?) for now ... again.

I was reading in Gilson, Langan, & Maurer's RECENT PHILOSOPHY: Hegel to the Present last night in bed about the emergence of Existentialism with the works of Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Nietzsche's greatness lies in his discovery of the individual existent as the unequivocal "lieu" of historical Being's coming-to-be"

This is to me the incredible excitement of existentialism. "I" and my awareness of "I" comes out of existence. Existence does NOT come out of awareness.

I reject the nihilism of Nietzsche by accepting faith, not specifically in God as Kierkegaard did, but in meaning ... and not in coming out of a past purpose but going toward a future in which I can and do participate meaningfully (as chaos theory demonstrates) out of my awareness ... by choosing what I believe ought to be and acting to make it what is.

And that choice is mine to make, as a result of searching for meaning within my own experience ... that I validate in concert with others to the extent that I am willing to be truthful (honest) about my own experience.

I find the roots of this incredibly exciting point of view in the teachings of Jesus ... which itself has roots in other teachings ... but I came to my point of view by believing that what Jesus taught has relevance for my life ... and exploring Jesus' meaning relative to my experience.

An aside: Y'know ... that almost 6,000 mile journey across the North American continent taught me one thing ... I have enormous liberty in a culture based on Judeo-Christian values. Not everyone in that space has the same freedom to come and go as I do for numerous reasons ... I think that freedom should be expanding, not shrinking. But how to do it? That's what we should talk about at some point. Is there any other place on our planet where a relatively poor, relatively old person such as myself can have this much freedom? I love it so!!!

ncswede

Footnote:

nilihism n- an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.

nihilism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1). Retrieved December 05, 2006, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nihilism

lieu n- Note this is the French word commonly translated as "place", and here meaning the point of Being, not as an idea put as a real center of awareness/experience in the cosmos that has arisen out of (from the ground of) existence.

Pause

If we are not honest with each other ... telling each other the truth about ourselves ... not worrying about our mistakes because all of us make mistakes (For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 New Testament, King James Version, www.blueletterbible.org)... then we cannot discover the meaning of our existence unfolding into the future. Because the potential of our future is with us here and now.

So, when those in authority lie to us ... they lead us astray from the discovery of the true meaning of our existence. That's the same for parents who do not tell their children (at the appropriate time) what is happening to their bodies and minds as they grow older. That's the same for teachers who do not provide the actual history of our world. That's for politicians who say one thing to get elected and another once elected. Or leaders who lie us into a war of their choosing. Or even friends who do not tell one another how they really feel about the way we treat each other.

An interesting experiment is having people guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. The larger the number of people guessing, the closer the average of all the guesses is to the actual number in the jar ... which makes a lot of sense.

Pause

A couple of ideas from Jesus ... that the Kingdom of God is within us (like, within ME) ... and Heaven is it's the realization of it's (the "Kingdom's) potential ...

I can readliy wrap these ideas into the transcendentally evolving ongoingness of existence ... toward (never ending) something positive ...

All of life responds positively to the nuturing of life ... and the seemingly limitless diversity of life within a given environment (bounded only by that environment ... which can in fact interact randomly (chaotically) with events overlapping from other systems/environments to expand possibilities) ...

So life is in the process of exploring all its options in its setting ... and expanding into those that are positive for one form or another ... which may be negative for another form of life ...

But then ... we humans ... seem to be able to build new environments to accentuate the positive ...

Fascinating ... to say the least.

Pause

Invitation to Philosophy Issues and Options - Eighth Edition,
by: Stanley M. Honer, Mt. San Antonio College, Emeritus; Thomas C. Hunt, Mt. San Antonio College, Emeritus; and Dennis L. Okholm, Wheaton College

There is a section on Existentialism in Chapter 4 Epistemology: How We Know. It asserts the nihilistic view that all knowledge is subjective and therefore "there is nothing stable or objective about" knowledge.

It does go on with the view of religious existentialists as "likely to argue that human beings cannot know; they can simply believe. And belief is a nonrational 'leap of faith.'"

YES!!! I choose to believe ... and to work out my "knowledge" for forming my belief out of an honest dialogue with others.

And it is not the past governing the future put the future forming out of the present ... a future that I can affect by my choices. I do not disregard the past, put I m not bound by it either. I can decide that "what is" is NOT "what ought to be".

To be continued in Part II ...