Apostleship of Prayer Spirituality IMAGES OF GOD ( continued)

When a person says that they experience God’s presence, how are we to interpret that statement. Our experiences are shaped by the cultural environment in which the “experiencer” has and is living. How the experience is felt is thereby determined by that person cultural environment. This all can be shown by the following table:

The Presence of God is conditioned and shaped by:
a) CREEDS, that which we believe;
b) CULTS, how we respond in worship;
c) CODES, how we behave as a result of these Creeds and Cults.

  However we must not forget that Creeds, Cults, and Codes are only expressions of that much deeper and more primary fact that we are called to relate personally to God, to experience God.   This relationship is an unequal one and also deeply mysterious, not only because man himself is mysterious but, above all, because God is mystery beyond human comprehension.

 From all this we can deduce that there are three vital experiences in the religious experiences of people; firstly, there is the fundamental religious experience; secondly, there are the attempts to capture again those religious experiences; and thirdly the codifying of those experiences.
 
 

FIRST	SECOND	THIRD
Faith Experience	Fasting Exercises Isolation Repetition of    Prayers Sweating  Loneliness	Myth Ritual Spirituality Law Theology Morality

 

"'First the god, then the dance, and finally the story' [Robert Palmer's translation of Walter Otto's Dionysios: Mythos und Kultus] All religions begin in theophany, the real encounter with the numinous present in a particular way in a particular time and place.  .../... The god experienced in the oracle of Eleusis was not less real than that which appeared to Moses in the burning bush.   The theophany or encounter with the numinous expresses itself first of all in cult: that is to say in ritual action.   The presence of the god is re-enacted, made present again, first of all in dance and drama.   Only afterwards is it formulated as word or story.   In that sense theology, the systematisation of the stories, is the stage furthest removed from the actual experience of the god."  (Ruether, R. R., Disputed Questions, Nashville, Abingdon, 1982, pp. 26 - 27.)

Faith experience drives a person to affirm that there is “something greater than himself” and the contemporary person is longing for unity with this “something greater than himself”.   Another definition of spirituality could be the "lived unity of human existence in faith."(Duquoc, C., O. P., "Theology and Spirituality" in Duquoc, C., O. P., (Ed.), Spirituality in the Secular City, Glen Rock, N. J., Paulist, p. 89.)  This experience may be encountered on a mountain-top, or during a fast, or in a sweat lodge, or in a retreat, or during a time devoted to prayer, etc.  People from the beginning of time or at least of recorded history have spoken of these experiences and have struggled to possess again this "lived unity".
Secondly, as a result of this struggle to experience this unity again, the ways that had proved successful for obtaining such an experience were gather together and became the possession of the priests, the shamans, the medicine-men.  The initiates were introduced to the "successful" patterns of behavior over a period of time and at various stages of life, especially at times of crisis.
Thirdly, reflection on that experience produces myths and rituals which are the primary expression of the faith experience. These are not secondary expressions of the experience but come to carry the very embodiment of the experience. The myth and the ritual were generated by the faith experience. It is only much later that further reflection produces a theology; often, in the past, dogma (doctrines and beliefs) has then become an end in itself rather than becoming the means to enter into the incomprehensible mystery that is God.   This fostered a separation between Theology and Spirituality, resulting not only in a Theology that became sterile because of its separation from experience but also in a Spirituality that required immense will - power and sentimentality.   Religious traditions die when they lose contact with their God.

“Religions usually degenerate in the end into a rationalistic theology, a formal morality, and a ritualistic cult.  When in this way rites and practices are detached from religious experience, they can only survive as a form of restraint which the religious society exercises on its members ... Sometimes a religion which is nothing more has ceased to live.  To take religion in this state of existence and define it as religion is almost the same as taking a decomposing corpse and defining it as life and a living being.” Cited in Dunn, J. D. G., Jesus and the Spirit, Philadelphia, Westminster, 1975, p. 456.

Furthermore, this has often, too, developed into the belief that by teaching the dogmas of Theology that we can always help people to enter into a faith relationship with God, the Ground of all being: this is not to deny that people did grow into some form of faith, but I would argue that they grew into their faith in spite of what they were taught.

 "Outward practices have no religious value save for the interior devotion which inspires them and is supported by them; they may create a favorable disposition, but they do not deeply touch the actual continuity of the psychological life."   Marechal, J., S. J., Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, New York, Magi Books, 1927,  p. 159.

 Humans have been created for a relationship with God, their Creator.   Nevertheless, mystical experience must not be considered as the only means of contact with God.   Moreover, mystical experience has often been considered as the exception, but it is possible for all, when we are talking about the mystery of God.

However, religion itself is primarily a question of experience, and only secondarily a question of acceptance and practice.   Beliefs may be contradictory, but in the realm of experience they begin to reach out to each other and attain a unity which they do not manifest on their doctrinal and practical level.   Mystics of all cultures and traditions have unanimously testified to the peace and joy that their experiences of unity have produced, and of the love that wells up from their hearts and flows out to reality, impelling them to work ceaselessly for the good of their fellow-men.   Thus religion is the expression of a relationship not only with God but also with the people
 

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