Most Unitarian Universalists are probably familiar with the seven principles
of the tradition. I personally love it when we get to sing the
children out on Sundays to the “Principles Song,” because it removes the complicated
language and identifies the simple spirit behind each principle. Maybe lesser
known are the six sources of our faith, which help us to understand more deeply
the call behind each of our principles, and inspire us to engage the potential
for diversity inherent in our tradition. Of these six sources, perhaps the most
commonly celebrated in UU communities today is the humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and
the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
With this source, our tradition lifts up the fact that we are enlightened
beings, with a capacity to understand some of the most intricate complexities
of our existence. We are able to engage in thoughtful dialogue over
controversial issues, and critically respond to harmful ideologies that
disregard what we as informed citizens know to be reasonable and empirically
sound. With this source, we not only celebrate the fact that we can think, but
we also recognize this ability as a responsibility. It comes as no surprise
that our Unitarian predecessors thoroughly engaged the power of reason and
intellect, knowing that our ability to understand our experience has the power
to help us appreciate it even more. They believed that our capacity for reason
helps us to critically examine the accepted norms of society, and their
tradition of challenging practices that violated human rights and dignity is
one that we continue today. That’s pretty awesome.
Yet, with all of the gifts and potential that arise out of
our ability to use reason, it does have its limits. Intellectualism carries
risks, in particular, the risk of getting stuck in our own minds. When we place
so much importance on the power of the mind and our capacity for intellectual
discourse, we risk forgetting the limitations inherent in our thinking. When we
focus so much of our energy on being critical consumers, on relying on what we [can]
know, we risk assuming that we are capable of understanding and explaining everything.
In effect, we brainwash ourselves with our own rational thinking. The reality
of our “freedom of the mind” is that it comes with a responsibility to
recognize its conditionality. Our minds are free, but they are bound to a certain
context. Thus, when we exercise our gift of reason, we are better served in
doing so humbly and responsibly, by first acknowledging that our thinking is in
fact limited to our context.
But there is a happy twist. By recognizing the limits to our reason, we open ourselves up to new forms of freedom, forms that are based in trust. We become free in our ability to hear challenges and learn from another’s point of view. We become free in our ability to detect and eliminate the dominant and oppressive paradigms that may permeate the foundation of our thinking. We become free by sitting with the contradictions that our mind tries so hard to resolve, perhaps even welcoming them as evidence of something greater than us that we may not know. We are freed of the desire to explain everything so that it fits our view of the world. This idea may be objectionable for some – when I first came across it in the fall, I dismissed it as a “lazy theology.” But if we think about it, resisting the urge to neatly rationalize everything is actually harder than we might realize. It is a significant intellectual challenge to stay in the messiness of contradiction, and to be willing to say that we cannot know all that we need to explain our experience. A lazy mind cannot accomplish that task. But a mind that is engaged in a responsible search for truth and meaning can – a mind that is humble can be freed by recognizing its limitations.
But there is a happy twist. By recognizing the limits to our reason, we open ourselves up to new forms of freedom, forms that are based in trust. We become free in our ability to hear challenges and learn from another’s point of view. We become free in our ability to detect and eliminate the dominant and oppressive paradigms that may permeate the foundation of our thinking. We become free by sitting with the contradictions that our mind tries so hard to resolve, perhaps even welcoming them as evidence of something greater than us that we may not know. We are freed of the desire to explain everything so that it fits our view of the world. This idea may be objectionable for some – when I first came across it in the fall, I dismissed it as a “lazy theology.” But if we think about it, resisting the urge to neatly rationalize everything is actually harder than we might realize. It is a significant intellectual challenge to stay in the messiness of contradiction, and to be willing to say that we cannot know all that we need to explain our experience. A lazy mind cannot accomplish that task. But a mind that is engaged in a responsible search for truth and meaning can – a mind that is humble can be freed by recognizing its limitations.
*Due to word count constraints, this post is limited in its exploration of the potential for humility to be exploited or taken to an unquestioning extreme.
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