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From this point of view, theology's task is to take the core of that divine revelation as a starting point, expand and extrapolate from that foundation to a complete systematic treatment. In one sense this task has not changed. It is still the task of theology to take that core sense of ultimate reality and extrapolate that into a systematic treatment that addresses ultimate foundations and concerns. The difference today is that the idea of supernatural revelation seems unreasonable to many. With the global spread of changing worldviews, it has become less tenable to grant supernatural epistemic powers to someone of the past or present. If this is true, it presents a challenging situation for theology. If some sort of special supernatural knowledge seems unreasonable, what is theology to be based on?

The answer is that theology must accept its own tentative epistemic situation, and follow up on subjective metaphysical decisions that have been made. Revelation today can no longer point to supernatural events. It must instead rely on an informed intuition. It is through that intuition shaped and sharpened by sustained learning and self criticism that the foundations for theology can be selected. To form that starting point, there are metaphysical forks in the road that must be navigated based on the best insight and intuition available and chosen with faith. Once, that is done, then theology, acting on that faith can forge ahead to expound the implications for those metaphysical choices and address the existential ultimate concerns that have driven the quest in the first place.

What is the task of theology in the first place? All traditional religions strike some sort of distinction concerning reality. Often this is framed using the terms sacred and mundane or profane. The mundane realm is the realm of the five senses. It is life as we commonly experience it. However, for religion there is also another realm, the realm of the sacred, holy, transcendent, eternal, etc. It is somehow different from the mundane world. The history of theology is about how to describe this distinction or difference and how the two realms are related to one another. This is theology's task.

The question then arises concerning the possibility and source of knowledge of the sacred realm and its relationship to this reality. In the past quite often the theologians of the day, shamans, priests, holy men etc. appealed to some special knowledge. This may have occurred through special means, visions, insight, voices, secret ritual, drug or frenzy inducement, etc. This knowledge was special because of how it was delivered. It was the in-breaking or epiphany of the sacred realm into the mundane. This special knowledge may also have been accompanied with or enabled magical or miraculous events. The magical or supernatural events surrounding the attainment of this knowledge gave it its authority. Once that was established then the task of theology was to expand and apply this knowledge.

This all worked well in isolation but when faithing communities encountered other faithing communities who had a different take on the sacred and mundane, then there was a challenge. The resolution of this challenge might range from a peaceful incorporation of one of the other theology all the way to violent conflict. History is full of stories of religious wars.

The mingling of cultures and people has in fact been the impetus for marked change throughout history. One such period that I think is similar to ours is the so-called Axial Age. This as a period a few centuries before and after 0 BCE. It represented a time of great cultural exchange world wide. This exchange also brought about enormous challenge and growth. Whenever competing belief and knowledge systems interact there is a dynamic reaction. In the case of the Axial Age this interaction of cultures brought about an explosion of new thought in areas of philosophy, religion, art, politics, etc.

I suggest we live in a similar age now. Just as in the axial age where cultures mingled, so now, with the shrinking of the globe, economic and political interdependence, vast migration of peoples moving away from their home lands, a pluralistic society is becoming more the norm than the exception. Isolation of ideas is no longer an option. In the past when children went to school in the U.S. they encountered primarily other Christians or Jews. No more. Our children now see Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and any number of other faiths, each feeling some level of authority for their understanding of sacred reality. This plurality can engender some level of doubt for believers of each tradition. When intelligent, devout and well meaning people of different beliefs interact, questions of veracity inevitably emerge. The net result for some is a skepticism concerning religion in general.

But that is not the extent of the challenge to belief. We also live in an age that feels the after effects of postmodernism. While most people may not be familiar with postmodern thought directly, they are most certainly affected by it indirectly. Postmodernism has mounted and continues to mount an assault on the foundations of truth. The enlightenment era (circa. 17th century on) had a bright optimism that philosophy could discover the absolute foundations of truth. For that movement reason was the brilliant star that would eventually work it all out. However, it wasn't long that skeptics arose by the likes of philosophers Locke, Hume and Berkeley who began chipping away at that optimism and replaced it with doubt and skepticism. From that point on postmodernism was born and has kept its steady erosion of the quest for the absolute foundations for truth. Not only that but it has had remarkable success in penetrating almost all arenas in society, art, music, architecture, economics, and, of course, religion.

To sum up the situation today, for many the challenge of competing belief systems and the assault on truth itself has created a profound doubt about those things that speak to our deepest concerns, religion being the most prominent. The effect on theology has also been enormous. Except perhaps for fundamentalist elements in religion, scholars, practitioners, and theologians are scrambling to find support for their beliefs or reformulated them in the face of challenge. While this is an important effort, eventually the question arises as to how much a tradition can be reformulated and still maintain its identity. DLC believes that the changes that are necessary to make the traditions of the past viable for the future are so significant that when completed the traditional identity is lost to something new. If this is the case, then perhaps a better alternative would be to start from scratch, delve deeply into understanding religion, per se, and formulate a new religious framework that draws on past religious traditions, finds their core truth but reframes their message in a way that is both relevant and reasonable for today. This is the approach of the Divine Life Communion.

The challenge for DLC has been two fold. First a reasonable approach to religious knowledge must be formulated and second, choices must be made to reconcile a sense of the sacred with a sense of a scientific understanding of the cosmos.

As suggested before, DLC opts for an informed intuition or insight as the source of religious knowledge. The metaphysical realm is not directly available. Accordingly the only tools available to address metaphysics are the heart and the head. The head embraces the full range of cognitive abilities that include deduction and induction. The heart represents a gestalt or gut feeling about things. Both these for the Divine Life Communion are part if an informed intuition.

Any merit to a metaphysical formulation depends by how personally compelling it is and how systematically sound it is. There are no uncontested approaches to metaphysics. However, history has shown both in philosophy and religion that not all metaphysical speculations are equally compelling. In the final analysis those that speak to both the need to be believable and existentially relevant are those that find some level of acceptance.

DLC does not claim to have some sort of special lock on metaphysical truth. It relies on speculative thought just as other systems do. What DLC does is make metaphysical decisions that seem intuitively compatible with its goals to be believable, reasonable and personally compelling. The Divine Life Communion will not be for everyone. No one system can be. However, only you can decide if it speaks to your intuitive sense about life and its depth. If it does then perhaps the theology that ensues from its foundational choice will be meaningful to you.

The first step for DLC metaphysics is to catalog the metaphysical options/choices that are available. These choices represent what seem to be logical categories describing markedly different ways to intuit the foundational structure of reality. In many cases they represent metaphysical forks in the road that, when taken, significantly shape the metaphysics and theology that will ensue and distinguish it from the results of taking another fork.

The following is a list of metaphysical choices that can be made in regarding the structure and dynamics of reality:

Transcendence - Immanence. In all religious forms there is a contrast struck between sacred and mundane reality. In early religious forms sacred reality was just a different type of this reality. The fabric of the sacred and the mundane was of the same cloth, interwoven but each with its own differences. In these themes the sacred was to a large extent familiar and close. This views the sacred as immanent. The opposite of this is transcendence. This element came more into play during the Axial Age with blossoming of abstract thought (more on these later.) Transcendence emphasizes the distance and difference of the sacred realm. In this case a sharp contrast is struck between sacred and mundane reality possibly even to the point where the sacred is considered “wholly other” or so totally different that nothing can be known or said about it. The Hebrew’s refusal to write the name of God is an example. While most themes emphasize one side of this element, they usually try to strike some balance between them. This is probably because the idea of ultimacy inevitably pushes the sacred farther away, while the need for interaction brings it closer in.

Wholly Other / Familiar. A slightly different way of looking at transcendence/immanence would be these elements: While transcendence is more of an abstract notion, wholly other is very concrete. An example of wholly other would be the eeriness that people have described when encountering spirits or ghosts. In contrast to this are the very familiar gods of the pantheon. They are very similar to humans in many ways but just have different powers and limitations.

Abstract - Concrete. Early religious themes were almost entirely concrete. They related to the concrete images they saw everyday. Gods were very concrete and similar to other creatures in the mundane world. Later, however, sacred elements included abstract ideas which are conceptual. Terms like perfection, absolute, unconditioned, ultimate reflect abstract concepts instead of concrete symbols.

Monistic - Dualistic. When distinctions are drawn concerning reality these distinctions can typically fall under the categories of monism or dualism. These are technical terms because they relate to the “being” of reality. In monistic systems reality is essentially one reality, one being or essence. Any distinctions that are drawn (i.e. sacred/mundane, mind/body) are descriptive or qualitative. In essence, however, reality is one. Another term that is synonymous is non-dual. Eastern religions like Buddhism and Taoism are monistic or non-dual. Relation in monistic systems is between parts of the one, not separate independent entities.

Dualistic or polytheistic systems, however, make a starker distinction in reality. Distinctions here are “ontological”, that is they are grounded in the very being of things. In dualistic systems the distinctions (sacred/mundane, immanence/transcendence, mind/body) are thought to have the ability to “stand on their own.” In a dualism the separate parts of reality may or may not relate to each other but if they do they do more as separate equals.

The One - The Many. This basically represents the difference between monotheism and polytheism.

Structure - Unstructured. Unstructured themes are those where there is very little hierarchy. In structured themes there is an order or hierarchy to sacred entities. Early religious forms had little structure whereas later there were elaborate structures with higher and lower gods and spirits.

Mediated - Immediate. This is a major category. Apparently even in primitive religious themes there was a sense the some sort of mediate was helpful in connecting with the sacred realm. If the sacred realm is somehow different from the mundane, then how does one connect with it? This connection can be immediate or mediated. The more that the sacred realm is different or wholly other, the harder it may be to connect directly to it. Mediation may be required. Even in early religious themes there were mediating elements. Shamans, medicine men and women, etc. represented those who for some reason were able to relate to sacred reality better than others. They could act as mediators and interpreters of sacred reality and its relationship with mundane reality. For much of the history or religion there have been human mediators. Particularly when the sacred was considered very transcendent, mediation was necessary. The Gnostics had many levels of mediation in emanations. Other themes had prophets and priests who specialized in the mediating with the sacred. Then with the advent of literacy the scriptures of these mediators became another form of mediation that could spread beyond the physical boundaries of cult and region. For more on this check out the essay on revelation.

The next step in mediation goes beyond mere knowledge of the sacred to a genuine participation in it. The advent of incarnation represents this next level of mediation. In many of the major religious themes there are incarnations, emanations, avatars, etc that represent individuals who have traveled the gap from the sacred realm to the mundane realm. Examples of this are Dionysus in Greek mythology, Krishna and Shiva in Hinduism, and Jesus in Christianity. The challenge for this thematic element is establishing what this type of mediation means. Incarnations and epiphanies can range from charismatic human beings who are “touched” by the sacred and can reveal it to “gods” who somehow leave the sacred realm to take on the limitations of life. In Christianity, over the centuries Christology has changed. In early Christianity Jesus was a mediator like a prophet, later Jesus became more of the god who gave up godly attributes in “kenosis” to become human and both a mediator and savior.

Mediation is driven by the need to connect with that which is beyond normal interaction. The more removed sacred reality, the more that mediation is required.

Of the Book - Of the Mind. This element is closely related to mediate/immediate. Mediated approaches that look for very concrete mediation often place a central focus on scripture. This provides a stability but also a rigidity to theology. Approaches that emphasize immediacy look to the mind as the source of sacred knowledge. This offers flexibility but often makes it hard to solidify a communal set of beliefs. Historically religious traditions were suspicious of the mystical element of their tradition because it often challenged dogma.

Personal - Impersonal. There are two was of looking at sacred reality from the viewpoint of structure vs. dynamics, or law vs. flexibility. Impersonal elements represent a law like style of the sacred. The impersonal sacred acts mechanistically according to “metaphysical laws”. It does not contain a flexibility to make accommodations for the situation. As a mechanistic system it acts invariably according to certain metaphysical law. The sacred as personal has this flexibility. A personal sacred may respect the structural aspect of law but is not bound to it. The personal has an element of freedom that the impersonal doesn’t. The “personal” when talking about the sacred is a metaphor that anthropomorphizes. While it may recognize the transcendent nature of the sacred it projects the human perspective of freedom and relationship onto the sacred.

World Rejecting - World Accepting. All religions assume there is something “wrong” with our world. Whether this “wrong” is characterized as an inherent evil like original sin or a moral problem, all religions are looking for solutions to this problem. This element asks the value question about the world. What is this “wrongness” of our world? Is it a radical, inherent problem or an element that can be changed and progress made. The answer to this question depends on this element. World rejecting themes see the world as hopelessly and inherently corrupt. The answer to this problem will always be escape to the new reality or a re-created reality. World accepting themes recognize the need for change but formulate the solution not in escape but some sort of evolution. This evolution can be that of the individual, society or both.

Escape - Telos. Closely related to the element of world rejecting or accepting are the salvation themes of escape or telos. Typically world rejecting elements require some sort of escape, either to an alternate reality or a recreate reality. With a telos element the religious themes stresses change and progress, a teleology or evolution, rather than escape. This usually arises out of a world accepting theme.

Merit - Grace. When faced with the “wrongness” of our world, salvation themes generally emphasized either a merit or grace based program. In merit based systems some sort of law like structure had to be followed in order to attain salvation. In grace based systems although compliance with a law was encouraged, salvation was attained not through merit but as an unconditional gift.

Active - Inactive. In theistic themes almost invariably there is an active relationship with the sacred. However, this level of activity and who does the acting varies. In more transcendent systems the activity between the sacred and mundane may only occur between “lower level” sacred entities like angels or demons. In immanence style themes active is immediate with the gods or God. How this activity occurs is currently a challenging area for modern theism.

Natural - Supernatural. This is a point of departure for religious theme. A supernatural position says that natural law is not sacrosanct and that the sacred realm may and does when so choosing act outside the natural order that science attempts to discover. The miracle stories that are found in all ancient scripture represent this view. With a natural element, any divine activity would occur within natural processes. With this approach telos is embedded in the natural openness of nature. This is also a controversial topic in modern theism and we’ll look at it at length later.