The central message of Friends is immediate revelation, that God can communicate directly to every person without the mediation of words, either from other people or the Bible or for that matter even from a chain of reasoning. In describing this experience, early Friends often use the term principle.
“And as touching doctrines, we have no new doctrines to hold forth. . . . Now whereas many are offended at us, because we do not more preach doctrinal points, or the history of Christ, as touching his death, resurrection, ascension, &c.; but our declaration and testimony is chiefly concerning a principle, to direct and guide men’s minds thereto. . .” Penington, Works, v.3, p. 357 “Now the main thing necessary towards the redemption of the soul is, after the revealing of this principle, and some sense and feeling of it, and the turning of the mind towards it, to wait to be made more and more acquainted with it, that in the stirrings, movings, and leadings thereof, there be a ready giving up to be gathered into it, and guided by it.” Penington, Works, v. 2, p. 395. Principle is being used here in a sense unfamiliar to most people and so they may miss the point. Early Friends use it in the way that Aristotle uses it to describe living things: “It defines the things by whatever in them goes beyond our organizing and doing, whatever in them organizes their activities.” (Eugene Gendlin, “Ultimacy in Aristotle: In Essence Activity,” ) Principle as Friends use the word is close to the "whatever in them." An example of this is a seed, which has within it the principle that controls how a plant will develop. The key point is that this principle is independent of us and has a life and dynamic of its own separate from our own “organizing and doing.” Below is a quote that speaks to that point. Smith was a contemporary of Isaac Penington and an important influence on Friends. There are a sort of mechanical Christian in the world, who, not finding religion acting like a living form within them, satisfy themselves only to make an art of it, and rather inform and actuate it, than are informed by it; and setting it such bounds and limits as may not exceed the short and scant measures of their own homeborn principles, then they endeavour to fit the notions of their own mind as so many examples to it: and it being a circle of their own making, they can either ampliate or contract it accordingly as they can force their own minds and dispositions to agree and suit with it.. But true religion indeed is no art, but an inward nature that contains all the laws and measures of its motion within itself. A good man finds not his religion without him, but as a living principle within him; and all his faculties are still endeavouring to unite themselves more and more in the nearest intimacy with it, as with their proper perfection. . John Smith, “The Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion,” ch. 3 The main contrast is between a religion that we figure out intellectually from our own ideas and a religion that we know experientially because it is living and in us while at the same time other, not something that we devised. We only discover it and then cleave to it. Principle translates the Greek term arche, which we know from the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word..." Arche gets translated as beginning in John. It's related to the word archon, which was the name for the rulers in Ancient Athens. So it has the sense of being both a beginning and a ruler, kind of what we mean when we talk about a new administration. This is closely related to the idea of the kingdom of God as a new rule or beginning, only in the case of Quakers, the kingdom is found within ("I will write my law upon their hearts." Jeremiah, ch. 31, verse 33): "Head notions do but cause disputes; but heart knowledge, heart experience, sense of the living power of God inwardly, the evidence and demonstration of his Spirit in the inward parts, puts an end to disputes, and puts men upon the inward travel and exercise of spirit by that which is new and living, and avails with God." Penington, Works, v.3, p. 357. While we don't control the power of God that touches us, we can cooperate with it by feeling after it and giving up to it. "And this sensible plant of God's renown being thus entertained, and being not afterwards grieved, despised, quenched, or hurt by the giving way to, and letting in that which is contrary to it, it shooteth up into a kingdom of righteousness, within the compass whereof, and under the shadow whereof, the soul sitteth down in peace and rest, and is defended and nourished with that which is pure and living, and full of the pure sap and virtue, and so becomes strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, against the power and strength of darkness. Now, this all men may experience (at first in some low measure and degree, and afterwards more and more) as they come to feel after, and have a sense of that which is of God and good in the heart, and come to join and give up to it." Penington, Works, V. III, p. 257.
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AuthorI am Andy Hoover. I was first exposed to what would later become focusing as a college freshman in 1972. I can't say that I understood then what it was about. About a decade later, when I came across the Focusing book, I was researching "right-brain" practices as the key to religious experience. Focusing was a perfect fit. I became a Quaker because I came across Quaker writings that sounded a lot like Focusing. Archives
May 2019
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