Getting more acquainted with Mahayana Buddhism, I'm having to develop my affinity for lists.
I must say, though, I find them helpful. Their ability to facilitate retention of spiritual material stands on its own merit.
It's a concession, of course, to the human cognitive affectation for discrete ordered information - and it probably won't go away anytime soon.
I really think this is a good one you've made here as well. The issue of faith deserves a critical look, and I can recall how vaguely I felt it was addressed in non-denominational Protestant services, for example. "Faith is just faith"; but the distinctions are lost.
I know you've been reading this too, but I think Harold Stewart similarly endeavored to clarify some of the aspects of faith in his writings (specifically, What is Faith?):
"As for 'belief', it is surrounded by such a strong verbal aura of mental and emotional attachment to tenet and institution that it is hardly fit to express serene detachment. So it is important to differentiate between faith and belief, as well as to determine their opposition to doubt. Belief is 'what one would lie', that is, would rather choose by personal preference or, in psychological jargon, 'wishful thinking'; whereas 'faith', from the Latin fides, still retains a trace of its original meaning of 'trust'. Periods of belief tend to alternate with relapses into doubt; for just as belief conduces to a static absolutism, so doubt misleads into the aberration of nihilism. Neither of these extremes, whose falsity was exposed by the Buddha, keeps to the Middle Way that transcends all such opposites."
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branchandroot
List love
Date: 2020-08-04 10:22 pm (UTC)I must say, though, I find them helpful. Their ability to facilitate retention of spiritual material stands on its own merit.
It's a concession, of course, to the human cognitive affectation for discrete ordered information - and it probably won't go away anytime soon.
I really think this is a good one you've made here as well. The issue of faith deserves a critical look, and I can recall how vaguely I felt it was addressed in non-denominational Protestant services, for example. "Faith is just faith"; but the distinctions are lost.
I know you've been reading this too, but I think Harold Stewart similarly endeavored to clarify some of the aspects of faith in his writings (specifically, What is Faith?):
"As for 'belief', it is surrounded by such a strong verbal aura of mental and emotional attachment to tenet and institution that it is hardly fit to express serene detachment. So it is important to differentiate between faith and belief, as well as to determine their opposition to doubt. Belief is 'what one would lie', that is, would rather choose by personal preference or, in psychological jargon, 'wishful thinking'; whereas 'faith', from the Latin fides, still retains a trace of its original meaning of 'trust'. Periods of belief tend to alternate with relapses into doubt; for just as belief conduces to a static absolutism, so doubt misleads into the aberration of nihilism. Neither of these extremes, whose falsity was exposed by the Buddha, keeps to the Middle Way that transcends all such opposites."