I've just come across this concept that i find profoundly helpful when helping to deal with my unanswered faith questions, and also when pastorally working with those people with existential questions. I think that is also helpful for those who have left church because church has not been a place where they have been able to articulate their questions without fear of being burnt as a heretic.
It seems that certain sectors within the Church place to much value on formal logic, i.e. analysing a range of factors in order to get a right answer - apologetics. Whereas dialectical logic - a concept of Klaus Riegal - ends up with a question rather than an answer. It demands the ability to be able to tolerate contradictions and by pondering the contradictions to discover more profound questions.
Life is therefore seen and experienced as too complicated and rich to be held within our thinking and in this way energises the thinking process.
Fascinating stuff, that also ties in with Fowlers stage 5 in the faith process...
Technorati Tags: churchless faith, Dialectic Logic
