Why so Cognitive? Missing Elements (Main Forum)

by Nicholas , Sunday, September 21, 2008, 18:17 (1704 days ago)

I’m going to stick my neck out here.

I have been reflecting on the posts in recent weeks, and there is an element missing. Have we fallen into the same trap as the church throughout history by an overemphasis upon cognitive and rational analysis, and a preoccupation with ‘thought’ as the gateway to faith? Not that the rational is not important (on the contrary), but it is only one way of ‘knowing’.

We have had some great exchanges recently, eg. the discussion on faith, but so much of it has been at a very cognitive level of definitions and meanings and, sometimes, fine distinctions. The fascinating discussions lack some complementary elements.

I am battling with this, but I suggest that those missing elements might be our personal stories, experiences, expressions of needs, emotions – in the modern terminology, the ‘emotional intelligence’. Our theology needs to be informed by them.

Is our God one who can only be understood (or mainly understood) and reached through the intellect?

Is our theology one that relies upon fine intellectual distinctions, in a way that swaying to one side or the other can make the difference between being a heretic or a safe orthodox believer?

Is a person’s union with the God of Catholics dependent upon her/his orthodox belief at that cognitive level?

Even the departures from the orthodox that are suggested take place on the ground of rational analysis and rejection, not lived experience or felt need. Are we suspicious of those aspects of our lives as things to sway us from the ‘objective’?

Yes, Ian talked about faith as being ‘irrational’. I would prefer the term ‘non-rational’, as irrationality suggests out-of-mind madness. But I see his point. Or do I?

Obviously I am struggling with this, but someone may understand me sufficiently enough to come to my rescue and help me either to express the question better, or to give an answer.

Is it significant that no women have participated in the lengthy, mainly theological, discussions, of the nature of faith and the meaning of infallibility?

If this is a typically Catholic way of trying to come to terms with our faith, is there a clue, even in our own discussions, as to why young Catholics are disengaged?