Mystical Existentialism
Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasises the importance of personal experience and responsibility of all of us as individuals; we exist as free agents with free will with no pre-destined purpose laid out for us by nature or some other source of being such as God. We are in charge of our own lives and determine our own development.
Existential theology is an attempt to understand God, our ‘source of being’ in relation to our existence and how this relates to faith and spirituality – one theory being that our essence precedes bodily existence, our purpose on Earth may be pre-given and our life-path pre-determined according to God’s plan for the universe.
Irenaeus, The Bishop of Lyons (2nd century AD - circa 202) denounced existential access to faith as heretical. The doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was against the revelation of God’s truths directly to common people because this would mean that they would then have no need for the Church and its establishments. The Church would cease to have Divine authority over the populace.
Existential reading of the Bible and religious tracts requires that we recognise ourselves as existing, living ‘beings’ studying the scriptures as the literal ‘Word of God’ and that the ‘Word’ is coming to us personally from the ‘source of our being’ – the words in the Bible speak directly and intimately to us as individuals rather than a congregation of believers. It is then up to us to define our own identity as we live the most authentic and fulfilling life possible with and through our Creator. This is in contrast to looking at these writings and the words of God as coming from an anonymous supernatural entity and being simply a collection of ‘truths’ that are outside ourselves and are unrelated to our time and not relevant to our own lives.
Some believe that God can only be known to us when he chooses to reveal Himself to us. The Holy Scriptures are ‘revealed knowledge’, the ‘Word’ incarnate. Through existential reading of the Holy Scriptures, we are guided and moved by inner rather than external forces. We experience for ourselves what the ‘Word of God’ means to us, and its relevance to our own lives. We are living beings through which the living word of God becomes physical. Life is more than just a beating pulse. We develop an organic rather than an intellectual connection with God. We are the mediums through which the ‘source of our being’ speaks and works, and is manifest in our everyday lives. We acquire a personal and private spiritual knowledge (gnosis) of God. This is a mystical existentialism and veridical experience unique to everyone – the ‘revealed Truth’ that is relevant to our own life. Once we recognise and accept what is revealed to us through that experience, we then have a clear grasp of what our life is about and we will be able to commit ourselves to it with all our heart and mind.
It is possible for us to have a genuine experience of the same thing as other people, such as a direct and perceptual awareness of the Divine i.e. a gnosis of God. We may not though, necessarily agree as to what this experience is like as it is unique and special to each of us. Doubters tell us that our senses can and do lie to us, that we can have illusory or even delusory experiences. However, sense perception is not the only way in which we can achieve cognitive contact with objective reality and our experiences are ours alone. No-one can disprove that we have these experiences or that they are not real and meaningful. Our knowledge of the Divine Spirit, the source of our being, is our own personal ‘Truth’ we do not have to explain it - it does not need to be qualified or justified to anybody.
Jesus did not die on the Cross in order to give us a religion. He suffered, died, and rose again to gift to us the knowledge that we can experience a personal relationship with God our source of being and to demonstrate to us that there is life after life. This message is as relevant now as it was 2000 years ago.
Extract from Tract by Patricia Sadler Copyright 2009
