Dialectical Logic

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

Comments

[Philip]

Really enjoyed and appreciated your thoughts on being afraid of being labeled a heretic with all the questions one has.

[phil goodacre]

as my tutor at cym once said, "i never agree with anybody, not even myself"

[Tom Allen]

Riegal is great, and helps understand why so many people believe that Christian's leave their brains at the door of the Church. I think the unintended implications of what he writes are even more interesting for our understanding of how we do theology. So for example it might suggest that your description of how Christians engage in "formal" logic is more properly described as "didactic" rather than 'apologetics'. What so many people need for the Church to have any crediblity is for our apologetics to relate to THEIR questions, rather than the questions we would like them to asking.But of course the latter demands that we are prepared to engage with their world and insights with the missional belief that the Spirit is already at work in their world and culture. However this can be deeply threatening to other Christians who need fixed answers - or perhaps need even more for clergy to offer them easy/fixed answers.

[diana]

I am reminded of a statement that one of my placement supervisors offered me when I felt I was more able to sit with questions than answered. "Diana, the day you think you have the RIGHT answer" he said "is the day you have got it "WRONG"