T
hese nine witnesses all testify to the way of knowledge resulting from an encounter with the Wholly Other. Their descriptions indi-cate the personal nature of their encounter and a knowledge derived from personal acquaintance (kendskab). In each person’s testimony one hears of an increased understanding, a clearer vision of reality, and a transformation in their lives. One recurrent theme in their lives is an increased capacity to understand their own place in existence, coupled with a more profound joy and an increased capacity to love. One may choose to think their experiences are illusions, but if they claim another valid way of knowing derived from these experiences, can we reject their testimony simply because we have not experienced a similar knowledge derived from personal acquaintance?If we have not experienced such a way of knowing, how can we know that this way of knowledge is not real? We may choose to side with Freud and call their experiences illusions, but we should also understand that Freud had not experienced a kendskab, participatory knowledge of the di-vine. If one has not experienced this way of knowledge, how does one know that it is an invalid way of knowing? We may choose to revert to a Kantian empiricism requiring input from our five senses, but that choice reflects a leap of faith and the adoption of what may be an overly restric-tive worldview.
The knowledge from personal acquaintance does not mean that one cannot come to terms with God’s existence through a more intellectual route. Antony Flew claims that his conversion to theism was done through reason. Jacques Maritain argued that all forms of knowledge, including empirical, metaphysical, and mystical are valid. Nor does one have to make an approach to God by way of one specific encounter. A participat-ing knowledge in the love of God may develop over a long period of time on a substantial journey through the course of one’s life. Michael Polanyi held that one can increase one’s skill of “religious knowing” by participat-ing in worship (e.g., participation in hymns, prayers, or the Eucharist).
The kind of knowledge or understanding described by these nine wit-nesses is not the kind of understanding derived from an empirical or sci-entific investigation but is more closely analogous to an understanding de-rived from the arts in which music, paintings, poetry, and fiction can enrich us in ways beyond an objective description. Consider the difficulty in describing the experience of listening to Pavarotti.
Participatory knowledge is not opposed to reason. Reason serves as a confirmation of participatory knowledge in many respects. Participatory knowledge is not irrational. Participatory knowledge should be consistent with what we know to be true in all areas of rational disciplines. But this knowledge by participation is not confined to an inference drawn from a premise. It requires more than mere reason; it requires a commitment and a transformation of the knower, not a mere rational argument. A mere in-tellectual analysis will not bring participatory knowledge. One cannot know love intellectually. To gain this way of knowing, one must be willing to act and step forward into a process of transformation. The path to par-ticipatory knowledge is through the forest of interior change. Such a path is more demanding than a detached, objective analysis of a syllogism.
For a person participating in a religious experience, an indescribable co-gency may vividly connect the experience to what the person knows to be
true. Although the experience is not subject to empirical investigation, there is a knowledge of truth that has its own indescribable explanatory power.
This may be quite dramatic as in some of the conversion experiences de-scribed by our witnesses or it may be only a glimpse that serves as an inti-mation of a more comprehensive reality full of love and beauty. But this re-ality is not experienced in a detached methodology. The person engaged in a spiritual practice is not objective but is an acting subject who participates from a perspective of personal transformation. Rudolf Otto held that the ex-perience of the Wholly Other cannot be described but is nevertheless known powerfully by the participant. Clare Boothe Luce wrote as well as anyone of her enormous sense of another reality of beauty and truth, but she warned that she could not capture her participation in words alone. William Wordsworth used poetry to attempt to convey a sense of his experience.
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am
I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world.1
Clare Boothe Luce’s and William Wordsworth’s experiences in all likeli-hood involved changes in their brains. A scientific explanation of the chemistry of the brain, however, does not deny the possibility of a true transcendent reality that may produce intimations of overwhelmingly love, beauty, and purpose. Intimations of a transcendent reality may cor-relate with physical events, but that does not mean that the transcendent reality is dependent upon the physical. More importantly, the glimpse of a transcendent reality appears to require a trust and a receptivity to an in-ner transformation. One may not be able to approach the transcendent as a scientific investigator with no personal stake in the question of the ex-perience on one’s life.
This is the subjectivity that Kierkegaard held to be required in gaining a knowledge of transcendence. A person brings the integrity of a desire for inner transformation to the experience. In the personal involvement of a spiritual practice this integrity may be tested, and the fruits of the trans-formation bear their own witness to the veracity of the intimations. Ulti-mately, this may involve participation in a community given to spiritual practices. These practices, in turn, must remain connected with what one knows to be true in other areas of knowledge, including the quantitative and the empirical aspects of the physical world. One cannot be connected with an ultimate truth and follow a path that denies the other aspects of truth verified in other disciplines. My friend Jim Houston describes un-tethered spiritual practices as “California Cotton Candies” that may con-tain very little real substance.
For most persons transformation is not merely a one-time event but a process encouraged by involvement in a community of persons engaged in spiritual practices. Reason should not be abandoned in this community in-volvement. One needs to evaluate the moral nature of the community, particularly the capacity to love generated by the practices or worship pat-terns of the community. Our discussion of the boundaries of right and wrong is relevant in considering the value of a participatory transforma-tional knowledge engaged in community. The moral content is important and should reflect what we know to be in harmony with our moral reflec-tions. The spiritual practices of the community should increase one’s abil-ity to love. Authentic love in turn should bear the fruit of joy, peace, pa-tience, kindness, goodness, and self-control.
Involvement in a community does not mean that one is never gaining knowledge in solitude. Solitude is a necessary complement of community participation. One who is in community must also take time to be in soli-tude.2One cannot grow in the knowledge (and love) of God by frenetic participation in a constant flow of group meetings. The knowledge of God requires solitude, reflection, and personal communion with the divine.