So far we have seen spirituality names the return of religion and theology as non-object (Davis, 2009: 3). How did prefixes such as “post” and “re” invade our comfortable country club? When did the seam of our credal hems loosen which left us tripping over formless inklings? Why would we throw out the religious tonic and keep the persuasive gin? Such questions are arduous if answerable at all.
In fact, each thinker considered in this study offer different answers to one or more of the above questions. Let us wait for them to parse the geography leading up to the fissure between lex orandi, lex credendi which caused the “post” and “re” avalanche. For now, let us consider the avalanche most cogent prophet. As with all prophets he came too early and belongs to everyone except himself. I am speaking, of course, of Nietzsche.
One cannot understand the current seismic activity without Nietzsche’s (2004: 119-120) madman modelled on Diogenes the Cynic looking for a real or moral man. Nietzsche’s passage is so delightful it seems criminal to shorten it, mea culpa:
Haven’t you heard of that madman who in the bright morning lit a lantern and ran around in the marketplace crying incessantly, ‘I’m looking for God! I’m looking for God!’ Since many of those who did not believe in God were standing around together just then, he caused great laughter… …show more content…
Diogenes reawakened, however, brings his own baggage. The seducer from Sinope unties the triadic enlightenment knot binding the human to the divine. One, Socrates’ daemon, without which he would never know he knew nothing, comes undone. Two, the enlightenment phoenix of Judea-Christian theology, the deistic god, thrown from his throne. Three, and most worrying of all for the authors we consider, old doubting Descartes’ third meditation fails; he cannot get the world back; his introspection becomes the mere navel-gazing of a
In fact, each thinker considered in this study offer different answers to one or more of the above questions. Let us wait for them to parse the geography leading up to the fissure between lex orandi, lex credendi which caused the “post” and “re” avalanche. For now, let us consider the avalanche most cogent prophet. As with all prophets he came too early and belongs to everyone except himself. I am speaking, of course, of Nietzsche.
One cannot understand the current seismic activity without Nietzsche’s (2004: 119-120) madman modelled on Diogenes the Cynic looking for a real or moral man. Nietzsche’s passage is so delightful it seems criminal to shorten it, mea culpa:
Haven’t you heard of that madman who in the bright morning lit a lantern and ran around in the marketplace crying incessantly, ‘I’m looking for God! I’m looking for God!’ Since many of those who did not believe in God were standing around together just then, he caused great laughter… …show more content…
Diogenes reawakened, however, brings his own baggage. The seducer from Sinope unties the triadic enlightenment knot binding the human to the divine. One, Socrates’ daemon, without which he would never know he knew nothing, comes undone. Two, the enlightenment phoenix of Judea-Christian theology, the deistic god, thrown from his throne. Three, and most worrying of all for the authors we consider, old doubting Descartes’ third meditation fails; he cannot get the world back; his introspection becomes the mere navel-gazing of a