The following was distributed at, and forms the basis of, a talk given at Seaville Meeting on January 7, 2006 by George A Crispin of Woodbury Meeting.
YET ANOTHER EXPLANATION OF QUAKERISM
George A. Crispin
QUAKER BELIEFS
Long ago, perhaps a million years, a creature appeared on earth like no other, as far as we know. This creature had the power not just to survive like the other creatures, but the power to think about survival. He later developed the power to write about it, and in so doing left his thoughts for future generations. The creature had been given a wonderful gift, a mind, a spirit. The creature was man.
Somewhere a long time ago man walked from his cave, looked to the stars, and began asking questions. He has been asking questions ever since, questions, as far as we know, the other creatures do not ask. Three basic questions haunt nearly every man who walks the earth:
From whence have I come?
Where am I going?
What is the meaning of my life?
With his wonderful mind man has been able to ask these questions. From whence have I come? Is my being here a product of divine intent or a product of random chance? Have we been created by God, or is our presence the result of the right mixture of elements resulting from billions of random combinations?
Where am I going? Is there life after this life, perhaps on a higher plane, or, are We here for a brief moment in the vastness of time and space, and, then, our lives are extinguished like a blown out candle, and we are gone forever with nothing of our ego that survives.
What should we be doing while here? Is there purpose in our lives that transcends us? Or, is there no purpose beyond what we might conceive as the good life?
These questions have haunted every generation that has inhabited the earth. From these questions mankind has reached upward, thought about, and hoped for some meaning, which transcends our mortal frame, and from this search has given rise to the development of a new vision of the world, special to those creatures who can think.
The world came to be understood as being divided into two parts. The natural world, governed by the laws of nature, such as gravity , inertia, chemical interactions, and the like, was reflected in the world about them.
But they came to believe in another world, the spiritual world, governed by another set of laws and presenting another reality .When ancient man slept he dreamed, and when he dreamed he believed his spirit ventured forth from his body.; hence, man had a spirit, another part of himself; another reality .When he died, his spirit went forth into another land not to return.
At first the world of nature was not understood. Thus, the lightning during- a thunderstorm was perceived as the gods throwing spears across the sky .All developments were caused by the immediacy of "the Will of God.”. A storm was "the Will of God." A famine was "the Will of God." One man was rich and another man poor. It was "the Will of God.
The acceptance of these beliefs gave rise to "spiritualism," the embracing of the reality of another world, the world of the spirit. It encompassed the belief in God, the power of prayer, the reality of spirit, faith 1iealing, prophecy, heaven and hell, and like ideas. One who accepts such beliefs may be called "spiritual."
Along with the evolving of "spiritualism" came the development of "religion." Humans are gregarious. They like to be together. They derive support and comfort from one another. Thus, they develop institutions, such as family, groups, neighborhoods, and ultimately government and religion. People found that they could accomplish more collectively than they could
individually.
In the course of time they developed "religion." They institutionalized their "spiritual" beliefs. They adopted a standard set of beliefs that everyone in the institution had to accept. They grew in membership. They came to develop rules and traditions for a wide variety of occasions. They acquired property and wealth. Thus came into existence religion, today commonly
embodied as "the church."
With the necessity of a common set of beliefs, the church embraced the "prepositional" nature of truth and set to work developing a series of "propositional truths.” A "proposition" is a statement that one examines and weighs as either being true or false, or, perhaps, mostly, or partially, true or false. "There is a God," is a proposition. "Jesus is the Son of God," is a
proposition. "Jesus was born of a Virgin," is another propositional statement. "The Holy Bible is the Word of God," yet another. This gave rise to doctrines, dogmas, and creeds. Propositional statements can be disputed and argued. Thus, churches with differing beliefs emerged.
There are a variety of grounds upon which propositions can be argued. One ground is that of authority .Just as there are authorities in medicine, architecture, and law one can posit the existence of authorities in religion. For Roman Catholics the Pope and College of Cardinals are considered authorities. For Protestants the Holy Bible is considered the authority .
One can argue a proposition on the basis of "empiricism," that is, through the measuring of observable phenomena that can be duplicated and tested. That vi~ C prevents the common cold can be experimentally observed, measured, and duplicated in an effort to establish its verification
as a proposition. Empiricism is the basis of most scientific research. A theory is postulated, and experiment constructed, results measured, and the process repeated. One then has a tentative truth until refuted by later empirical tests.
Propositional statements can also be tested by
reason, or logic. Logic is a branch of philosophy. Philosophy is the search
to truth through reason. One philosopher developed an argument for the existence
of God through the following syllogism: 1)
In the field of religion, some propositional truths have been accepted by tradition. Beliefs, even propositional truths, have crept into the communal mind and have become accepted as such by general consensus. Sometimes the origin of a belief has been lost into the vagueness of the past but held onto tenaciously nonetheless. Some of the belief systems of nearly every religious group lay within this category; one should never underestimate the power of tradition.
"Where is the Repository of Truth?" is
a question all religions ask. Within mainstream Christianity generally two
Repositories of Truth have emerged, generally separating Roman Catholic and
Protestant thought. In Catholic thought the Repository of Truth lies with
the hierarchy of the church. "This is Peter. Upon this rock I will build
my church. " Thus, for a Catholic, a religious
question is taken to the local priest. If needed, the priest takes the question
to the bishop, the bishop to the cardinal, the cardinal to the College of
Cardinals at
"papal infallibility" when he speaks "ex cathedra."
For Protestants the "Repository of Truth" is the Holy Bible. When a Protestant has a religious or spiritual question, he refers to the Holy Bible. It is, for many Protestants, the Bible that has "infallibility ." Due to the fact that the Bible was written in a vastly different age, long ago, in an ancient language~ and has passed through many translations, copied by monks who added their editorial comments that were copied into the text by the next monk~ there is much disagreement about what the Bible says. There is also disagreement among scholars regarding other texts, written in the first century, the Gnostic Gospels, by a developing Christian community , that were never canonized, and are not, as such, by some included as sacred texts. Thus, there are over 400 different Protestant denominations.
With the coming of George Fox, and the Quakers who followed him, a sharply different approach was developed to the issue of truth seeking. It can be seen that Quaker developed, and embrace today, four basic and unique concepts that represent a great contribution to religious thought. They are:
THE PRIMACY OF EXPERIENTIAL TRUTH OVER PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH
THE PRIMACY OF THE INNER LIGHT AS THE REPOSITORY OF TRUTH
THE PRIMACY OF ORGANIC TRUTH OVER MECHANISTIC TRUTH
THE PRIMACY OF COLLABORATIVE TRIITH OVER AUTHORITARIAN
TRIITH
Quakers accept propositional truths and sometimes spend time arguing about them. Barclay's Apology is an effort to state Quaker beliefs in propositional statements. But, for Quakers, experiential truths, that is, truths that are experienced, rather than argued about, are primary .When Fox said, "When all faith in men had gone, then, oh then, did I hear, 'There is one, even Christ
Jesus, that can speak to my condition,' and my heart did leap for joy," Christ was, for F ox, and later Quakers, not a matter that one argued about. Christ was a spiritual experience to which one related. And when Fox taught, "Christ has come to teach us directly ," he meant that Christ was a spiritual
reality, just as real as the hills over which he walked, that accompanied him on his journey. Christ was a reality to whom everyone had immediate access as an inward experience. Early Friends referred to the "Inward Christ," the "Christ Within," and later the metaphor, which perhaps best described what they were experiencing, became known as 'tthe Inner Light." The Inner Light became the experience Quakers sought as their guide to Truth.
Truth, for early Friends was also organic rather than mechanistic. Mechanistic truth is truth that operates like a machine. In mathematics, for example, "one" is always "one, one and cannot be "two," in accordance with Aristotle's Law of Identity. Hence, "one" plus "two" can only be "three" and nothing but "three." Upon this law we build buildings and bridges.
Organic truth is truth that has the power to grow and change. As the metaphor of mechanistic truth is the machine, the metaphor for organic truth .is the garden. Organic beings have the potential to grow and change. Some religious groups see the commandment "Remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy,” mechanistically. From exactly sundown Friday until sundown
Saturday there can be no travel, no work, no cooking. Some members of religious groups holding this view within Christianity had to give up dairy farming because they could not milk their cows on the Sabbath. But this is viewing the commandment mechanistically.
Early Quakers asked, "Is the Sabbath one day, or is it a relationship to the exerience 'day?’" Are we not to keep every day "Holy?" What is "Holy?" Is it not traveling, not working, not milking cows? Or does not the word "Holy" derive from being "whole." Can work be "Holy?"Can milking
cows be "Holy?" Thus, for early Friends there was the obligation to make every day Holy and every activity Holy. This relationship to the commandment is organic rather than mechanistic. Eighteenth century Quakers viewed so much of religious practice of their day as mechanistic.
Liturgy and ritual, repeated over and over, became thoughtless and empty , thus, mechanistic.
Therefore, Quakers took the step of eliminating an but the very essential. Their houses of worship became plain, without alters, stained glass windows, choirs, robes, prescribed services, and were reduced to a central focus on the direct contact with God in the silence. Silence became it self an elimination of distractions allowing deep and direct focus into one's inner Life.
Truth, for Quakers, was also '~co1laborative' rather than "authoritarian. " The search for Truth is a "mystical experience. The word "mystic" is derived from the root word mysterious, full of mys~erious. But unlike the mysticism of Eastern religious, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, which practice individual mysticism, Quakers practiced group mysticism. In their search for Truth, Quakers meet together, not individually, and, thus, the search becomes corporate. No one person has all theTfifth. The search for Truth, therefore, is collaborative, not authoritarian.
Truth, then, too, is organic rather than mechanistic. Quakers embraced the concept of "continuing revelation." Many Truths are open to us. Some are expressed in the Bible, some in inspired writings. But Truth is an on-going search and discovery , and God continues to reveal His Truths as man grows spiritually and becomes more capable of receiving them. Most people, probably, would agree that there are certain truths that cannot be ascertained through argumentation of propositional truths. These truths are experienced within. Whom one marries, for most people, is not a matter of sitting down and counting the pluses and minuses of another person. Most marriages are entered into because one has an "experience," mostly inward, of another person. That inward experience tells us "this is the person whom I want to marry ." People are not argued into appreciating the truth of it that renders its meaning and value.
A powerful Quaker contribution to religious history is the central importance of the Inner Light, as accessible to everyone, at all times, with equal presence. This experience was so intense for early Friends that nearly all outward trappings were pushed aside in its seeking. Quakers worshipped ~ first in homes and then plain meetinghouses, eschewing music, stain glass,
rituals, liturgy, sermons, sacraments, and replacing them with one central quest: "To wait upon the Lord." With nothing but a profound central focus in the silence, Friends sought an experience more powerful than anything else in their lives. For the right to pursue this Truth, they were
willing to give up everything. Many suffered terrible persecution, some died in prison, others lost their possessions, but nothing could drive them from their central mission, to seek the presence of the Light in their midst within the silence. Truth for them was primarily experiential, not propositional, organic, not mechanistic, collaborative, not authoritarian, and the repository
of Truth was the Inner Light.