Part 2. "The heart and soul of our everyday living" (continued)

In traditional Christian theology, there are two worlds – visible and invisible, the seen and the unseen. I have this on reasonably good authority:
(Pope John Paul II, Catechesis on God, Creator of the World, session 19)] [Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]:

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things (that is, entia or beings) seen and unseen".

"We know that man enjoys a unique position within the sphere of creation: by his body he belongs to the visible world, while by his spiritual soul which vivifies the body, he is as it were on the boundary between the visible and invisible creation. To the latter, according to the Creed which the Church professes in the light of Revelation, belong other beings, purely spiritual, therefore not proper to the visible world, even though present and working therein. They constitute a world apart."

This viewpoint is uniquely Western. According to Cynthia Borgeault, it arises out of an “egoic” perspective based on a subject-object duality under which we implicitly accept the need for a viewer separated from the thing to be viewed. Cynthia then proposes an alternative, a “wegoic” non-dual perspective.

Things seen are tangible, verifiable by touch, sight, or smell. They are accepted as “scientific evidence.”

“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Things unseen, intangible, and un-seeable cannot be verified from the “egoic” perspective;” the unseen cannot be touched, seen, or smelled. When we view the world from an “egoic” perspective, based on a subject-object duality, we are implicitly accepting the existence of a viewer separated from the thing to be viewed. We see only “things” out there; after all, "seeing is believing.”

Hence, as John Paul II said, things unseen are not of this world. For me, this creates a cognitive dissonance – people of faith do not accept that God does not exist simply because God cannot be seen – which is driven by our innate urge to “thingify” our beliefs into objects that can be seen, through the use of familiar symbols, images, and metaphors. Pope John Paul II alludes to entities in the realm of the unseen as ”angels,” so, of course, we know angels must look just like Roma Downey.

The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.
(Edward de Bono, (1990) I Am Right, You Are Wrong)

We see the world in terms of our cultural heritage and the capacity of our perceptual organs to deliver culturally predetermined messages to us.
(Jamake Highwater, Blackfeet/Cherokee, (1981): The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America.)

Which is to say that each of us sees the world from our own viewpoint; however, I know there is more to the world than that which I can see, touch, taste or smell. How many of you share that belief?

How do you and I know this in the absence of verifiable scientific evidence?

Because we have experienced emotions – love, hate, sorrow. We have and hold insights, revelations, epiphanies, ideas, and concepts and, because we believe they are important, we struggle to communicate them to others. This struggle is at the heart of creativity as we seek to find a means to re-present our insights and feelings. But the best we can do in this “thingification” process is to create a “mind map” in the form of a painting, a poem, a piece of music, sermon or some other form of intellectualized experience.

But my re-presentation is not the real thing --- Alford Korzybski's dictum, "the map is not the territory." Furthermore, because this re-presentation is grounded in my own unique cultural heritage and experiences, it is even more difficult for anyone else to see and to accept it as reality.

[View my self-description, "What Language Do You Speak," in the sidebar]

(To be continued)