Application #1 from
A Succinct Summary of
the Theology of Gary Marvin Davison and
Extended Thoughts
Thereon
Humanity is still working
through the insights of the Enlightenment, seeking to reconcile the theology
and practice of the families, communities, and societies that are part of the
environment in which they have dwelt through life.
The impact of scientific
discoveries and the explanatory power of those discoveries turned many people
away from religion.
Some religious people developed
theologies compatible with science, transforming religious myth into metaphor
and acting upon the best in the ethnical systems of the major traditions.
Others clung to the religions of
the past.
Ot those responses, the first
tends to lead to a firm grasp of observed terrestrial reality but is often
accompanied by resistance to, or habitual blockage of, spiritual impulses that
emanate from places of worship, music, art, and natural beauty.
The third response tends to
proceed from those mired in ignorance, fear, resistance to ineluctable change,
or inability to think independently;
since conservative and reactionary religion is hard to reconcile with
the insights of Enlightenment and the revelations of science, such religious
practice often proceeds upon an nagging
undercurrent of doubt that results in intolerance, cynicism, and hypocrisy.
The optimal response is the
second, allowing religious and spiritual impulses to enter one’s consciousness,
finding metaphorical power in religious expression, but basing action on
rational evaluation of religious and spiritual emotional responses.
In society as of the year 2024,
many people are ethically adrift, muddling through life in the absence of a
firm moral code:
Some people are troubled by an
absence of a sense of meaning and become seekers, very often moving from one
spiritual practice to another or embracing one of the established religions of
the past that she or he had turned against or disregarded.
Others forever cling to
traditional, typically inherited religious expression in the absence of
individual critical evaluation.
Others just continue to muddle
through, going to their graves as confused as when life began; and in the deeper recesses of candid
consciousness, this oft becomes the fate of the seekers and the clingers, as
well.
Those live best who go forth
with rationality as their guide but who are able to incorporate the
metaphorical power of religion, music, art, and nature into a life in which the
governance of the rational is balanced with a sense of the Divine.
Such a person then lives
abundantly, gratefully, in awe of the Cosmos, and with a commitment to making
the best possible life for as many people as possible.
Such a person is ever open to
spiritual insight but, genuinely confident cognitively and spiritually, is able
to focus intently on the life of terrestrial reality, applying firmly developed
ethics to the betterment of humankind.
Such a person is cautiously
optimistic, acknowledging challenges but eschewing defeatism and pessimism, committing
to sequential action guided by an overall plan that is adjusted along the way
as informed by experience and reflection.
Such a person stands firm, does
not retreat to an exclusively personal safe harbor, but rather utilizes safe
harbors to venture forth circumspectively onto the oft-gentle but inevitably
turbulent seas of Existence.
In her or his vocation and much
of that person’s avocation, such a person commits to a life of service to humankind.
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