Seekers

A philosophy student friend of mine and I were making the dark and winding journey back from Big Sky one January evening when he suddenly broke the tense silence that had been lingering for the last twenty minutes.  “It is all really down to two choices.”  I looked at him apprehensively, knowing that he had been working on this for the last twenty minutes, while I had been thinking about something like a really crispy piece of cheese pizza, and prepared myself jump on board his train of thought—wherever it was at that moment.

“Do you choose to pursue knowledge or peace?” He shot out.  “Because really, that is what it comes down to in life.”

I had never been asked a question quite like this before and had no instant answer.  And at the time, I didn’t know where a question like this had come from.  But in Steiner, we find ourselves facing some sort of a similar dilemma.  As Dr. Sexson and KJ posed to us at the end of class, what is the relationship between knowledge and faith?  Can a person pursue both whole heartedly?  Or does one eventually fall to the other in the end?

We hear in Steiner a cautionary tone, and yet a somewhat approving tone toward the adamant pursuit of knowledge.  And yet, he himself is a member of the Jewish faith.  He uses both those who have pursued primarily knowledge, as well as those who have pursued primarily faith (I use these knowing they cannot in truth be completely defined or separated) to explore the nature of the Master.   Both, in some way could be considered on a search for Truth/truth.  Steiner points out, that to pursue knowledge is to be in a constant state of grasping for something that can never be completely known: “Neither human will nor systematic exploration can attain the final mysteries or any complete grasp of natural phenomena.  Frustration is inscribed in reason,” (65).  For the most part, this could also apply to the idea of faith.  As Saint John Chrysostom wrote, “Let us invoke him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible, invisible, and unknowable… He eludes the grasp of every mortal intelligence.”

As I find the question of the “relationship between faith and knowledge” to be a sticky one, I see the best way to go about exploring this idea is to observe how those individuals we are reading about seek knowledge or faith—how does their relationship appear to the reader?  We cannot be too certain about the pursuits of a person as in the case of Steiner.

Socrates supposedly made a “commitment to the life of the mind.”  But he was also known for his constant ability to contradict himself.  As Steiner says, “Certain Church Fathers were to concern in Socrates a creature of the devil; others hailed him as sanctified” (24).  However, in Plato’s, The Apology, we hear Socrates stating that, “the word of God…out to be considered first” and claiming he is “obedient to the god.”  This could be viewed from several different angles however.  Possibly Socrates knew that this sort of rhetoric would be most impactful to his listeners.   

It is difficult to label Jesus as a “faith seeker” because this depends on how a person views Jesus, but if Jesus has to be on a team, let's say it's the faith side of things.  So now I am wondering what knowledge is for Jesus?  Does he seek it out as well?  I could look at the idea that Jesus took up a calling to carpentry as a way of seeking out to know how to construct.  “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?” Matthew 13:54-56.  If Joseph was a carpenter and had to pass his trade down to Jesus, wouldn’t there be some knowledge passed down from a Master carpenter to a disciple?

While it may be easy to read Steiner and find many examples of those who sought out the life of the Master in return for eternal damnation—we have to remember, this is just one perspective.  It seems to me that true masters are able to live in the realm of both faith and knowledge if they so choose to.  I believe that to be able to successfully pursue peace, there has to be knowledge behind it.  Ghandi knew law before he was able to promote his idea of non-violence.  Dr. Martin Luther King received his Doctorate in Philosophy of Systematic Theology before he became a key figure in the Civil Right’s Movement.  It was Budda who was known for stating:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.