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287 Chapter Fifteen Symbolic Engagement as Praying the Ultimate I. Theological Understanding as a Sign The metaphysical theory of ultimacy developed in Part III and from which consequences about the knowledge of the ultimate were drawn in chapters 13 and 14 stands as an hypothesis. It was drawn up in light of analyses of how ultimacy figures in people’s worldviews, both as more or less directly symbolized in those portions of worldviews we called sacred canopies and as the worldviews relate the sacred canopies to certain other more mundane contexts within them. The hypothesis is about what ultimacy might be such that it can be symbolized in sacred canopies and understood as providing ultimate dimensions of other parts of life. Some of the arguments for the hypothesis are internal dialectical ones arising from the consideration of the classic metaphysical problem of the one and the many, treating being as the putative one for the many and identifying being with ultimate reality. Other arguments for the hypothesis come from its responsiveness to the constructions of ultimacy in sacred canopies and their larger worldviews. Yet other arguments for it are in the process of being made to show its fruitfulness for the development of a systematic philosophical theology, and these arguments continue throughout Philosophical Theology Two and Three. Laying out the overall plausibility of the hypothesis is a complicated task, more like binding many fibers together to make a rope than creating a chain made of independently standing links.1 An interesting element of the plausibility of the hypothesis is revealed when we temporarily set aside the concerns for its truth and examine some of the ways the hypothesis itself can function in the engagement of ultimacy. Chapter 3 sketched an epistemological theory of symbolic engagement.2 The primary contention of that theory is that the real object of symbolic engagement itself is involved in the engagement. Whatever ultimacy really 288 v Ultimates is, it is directly a part of the interactions involved in theological symbolic engagement, however mediated that engagement is by the symbols.A symbolic engagement is a transaction, a causal interaction, of the interpreter with the interpreted, shaped and guided by means of the interpreting signs. Some actual symbols of ultimacy are necessary for any such interpretive engagement with ultimate reality to take place. Although religious and philosophical traditions have developed myriads of symbols of ultimate realities and the religious dimensions of things, not all of them are adequate to effect a genuine symbolic engagement of ultimacy. In part, this is because the semiotic, cultural, and existential contexts of the interpreters have to be ready and fit to use those symbols in a genuinely engaging way.3 Symbols from someone else’s tradition might leave the ultimate inaccessible. Or symbols that were effective in earlier times might lose their potency under new cultural or personal conditions. Surely many aspects of ultimacy cannot be engaged now because no one yet has imaginatively constructed symbols that can interpret them in appropriate respects. Symbols of ultimacy must first be engaging, making an interpretive connection between the ultimate object and interpreters. But then again they should also be true. Truth in this context means that, when they are employed in actual interpretive engagements, the symbols carry over what is important in ultimacy in the respects in which the symbols stand for ultimacy. By itself, the interpretive engagement bears its truth, if it has it, but it cannot tell whether it is true. The assessment of the truth of such an engagement needs to take place around the engagement in various ways that can identify what is important about ultimacy with some independence and check to see whether this in fact is carried over properly into the engaging interpreter. In this regard, all of the assessments of plausibility mentioned above are relevant to identifying ultimacy. In addition spiritual discernment is important for understanding the engaging experience on the personal level. The hypothesis to be defended here is that the theory of the ontological creative act, whether metaphorized as Brahman, Emptiness, God, Heaven, the Ultimate of Non-Being or some other appellation, can itself serve as a symbol for engaging ultimacy. The theory itself is to be understood as a complex sign that functions as an engaging symbol. According to the epistemological theory of symbolic engagement, certain conditions of the interpreters and their contexts and intentions must obtain for actual engagements to take place. These are discussed in more detail in Section IV of...

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