Definiciones conceptuales y operativas del pensamiento computacional

present day, since his attempts to articulate the ‘spiritual religion’ of Quakerism gave rise to concern about his dualistic expressions.¹⁸ Discussions include: a) Keiser’s use of relational theology in his analysis of Barclay, and b) Ambler’s justification of Barclay’s use of

apologetic language. Both are considered briefly below to remove any confusion that might otherwise arise if the issue of dualistic language is ignored.

4.2.1 Melvin Keiser’s relational interpretation of Barclay’s work

Keiser accepts the academic reasons for criticisms of Barclay but indicates that they should not be regarded as final in understanding Barclay’s intent. He indicates that talk of

‘otherness’, ‘beyond-ness’, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Inwardness’, for example, as complex concepts, ultimately make sense only when seen in their connectedness. It is then necessary, for Keiser, that there should be comprehension, even if tacit, of a ‘relational emergent

framework’¹⁹ as the wholeness within which connectedness is One.²⁰ In turn, Keiser’s view is that Barclay’s convincement amidst the community of Quakers is paramount in reading beyond his academic language to its interpretation in terms of spiritual experience.²¹

18 Endy, William Penn, pp. 76-77, according to Endy, this tendency towards dualism was present from the beginning of Quakerism not merely once written in scholastic mode by Barclay.

19 Keiser explains that the term ‘prehend’ is often used in this sense to avoid interpretation of

‘comprehension’ as cognitive or intellectual. Keiser speaks of a tacit and pre-cognitive knowing from which emerges explicit expression of understanding. ‘Comprehend’ is used by Barclay to mean ‘include’– Apology, p.

vii.

20 See chapter 6.

21 See also Ambler, R. ‘Inward Light: Then and Now’, Universalist, 90, (2010), pp. 3-15. Also, Keiser, ‘Touched and Knit’, Quaker Studies, 5 Issue 2, (2001), pp. 141–164.

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Keiser’s analysis begins with Barclay’s ‘starting point’ i.e. community.²² This, in itself, provides a clue to Keiser’s interpretation of Barclay’s position: connectedness in community is seen as the lynch-pin of his argument. Barclay’s expression of convincement [g] is

understood in both the ‘sense’ and the fact of community. For Keiser it is important that Barclay says of the worshipping community, ‘In entering physically into this space where people are sitting in silent worship, he is touched in his mind, but it is the mind as heart, not as head merely …’²³

From this, and other similar expressions in Barclay’s writing, Keiser shows that it is within community that certainty is attained and demonstrated. Importantly, this is certainty founded in connection rather than separation. For Descartes, the way to certainty is through questioning that eats away at all relations in search of an absolute idea that can be held beyond doubt. ‘For Barclay, it comes through the sensing and trusting of experience felt within the inwardness of the individual self in the world and in community’.²⁴

So, ‘Certainty comes through attachment and relatedness for Barclay: for Descartes it comes through separation and detachment’.²⁵ According to Keiser it seems that in the community of Friends, Barclay experienced the ‘Spirit of God over all’; by extension this encompassed the manner in which, in biblical terms, the ‘Spirit of God is over all’ in the entire creation.²⁶ Biblical disclosure, even when regarded as metaphorical, is a guide to a) the will of God b) that will manifest in creation and c) the will and its manifestation in creation as directly experienced encounter i.e. as personal communication, or revelation.

Keiser maintains that for Barclay this is knowledge available to individuals in Quaker

worship, knowledge not reliant on scriptural acquaintance, but found in the depths of the self

22 As indicated Keiser refers to the importance of ‘community’, both as sensed and as fact, for understanding the connectedness that is seen as the essence of relational thinking.

23 Keiser, ‘Touched and Knit’, Quaker Studies, 5, issue 2, (2001) p. 148.

24 Keiser, ibid, p. 161.

25 Keiser, ibid, p. 161.

26As Genesis 1 and 2 suggests ‘The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters’ i.e. the ‘waters’

being all, at this stage, of the creation. Although the narrative of Genesis may be factually questionable it is nonetheless, as other biblical narrations, a script that ‘constitutes the image of truth or record of revelation’.

Borg maintains it is not to be read as historically literal but rather as historically metaphorical.

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in silence. It is here that, in Barclay’s words, all who ‘draw near him’ (the Spirit) in experience, find that knowledge of God is inward, direct and objective.²⁷ Inwardness facilitates the move to discernment, which for Friends, gives rise to convincement.

Keiser’s arguments about Barclay’s Quakerism imply connections between delivering a ministry of words and a living ministry of action. Central to comprehending Barclay’s

theology, according to Keiser, is an appreciation of the way in which all things emerge from a

‘skein of connectedness’²⁸ from the silent depths: from the Spirit at the heart of all that is.

Keiser shows that major ideas from Propositions 2 and 11, examined from a relational perspective, reveal an understanding of Barclay’s theology that is consistent with other expressions of Quaker experiential theology.²⁹ The main issue is that a radically different interpretation of Barclay’s notion of Inwardness is accessed if his experiential theology is given precedence over his academic theology. Keiser’s view is that the mode of Barclay’s convincement, and its occurrence in the midst of the community of Quakers, is paramount in reading beyond Barclay’s academic language to its interpretation in terms of his spiritual experience.

Keiser is describing and explaining the experiential realities of Quaker spiritual practice.

He acknowledges that evolution of spiritual consciousness, as described by Quakers, in terms of growth of measure, brings about changes in experiential knowing.³⁰ Such growth is interpreted here as facilitating progressively distinction between multiplicity, duality and Unity.³¹ The use of the term ‘duality’ in this context is to be distinguished from Barclay’s use of the language of Cartesian dualism. It is discussed further in chapter 6.

27 See below 4.3.1.

28 Keiser, M. ‘The Growing up of Principles: Otherness in Robert Barclay’s Emergent Thinking’, Quaker Theology Seminar 1998-9, pp. 66-78.

29 See Keiser, M. ‘Touched and Knit.

30 See chapter 6, and Appendix 1 on Kelly.

31 See Table 6.

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4.2.2 Rex Ambler’s supportive view of Barclay’s use of dualistic language

For Endy, Barclay ‘represents the tendency to focus on the noetic or epistemological function of the inner light and to use philosophical concepts to express spiritual-corporeal dualism present in Quakerism’.³² It is this dualistic reference that can lead to criticism of Barclay.

According to Ambler the earliest Quakers, including Barclay, understood that ‘the light was a supernatural power’ but understood little about ‘the operation of the light within the human mind’. However, Ambler³³ maintains that ‘it is not strictly fair to Barclay, or to other early writers for that matter, to suggest that their 'new idea' was 'locked up... in [the] old system'’. His argument rests on two factors: one is the prevailing philosophy of Cartesian dualism, and the other is the fact that Barclay was writing an apologetic work. In so far as Barclay set out to write a defence of Quakerism against its philosophical critics, he used the language of these critics to clarify and justify his defence. Ambler asserts:

His great book was an 'Apology' after all, that is, a formal defence of the faith against those who were attacking it. And like all good defences in argument it appealed to the common ground, the ideas and principles that could be shared by all.

Barclay’s concern was to demonstrate that Quaker faith and practice made sense even when framed in the language of the day. It was not however, says Ambler, ‘a capitulation to his opponents’ view’.³⁴ Ambler, in agreement with Keiser³⁵ indicates that Barclay’s manner of expression was academic when needed but experiential when preferable.

Ambler points out that chapter 11 of the Apology ‘stands out from the others as a genuinely Quaker way of articulating our (Quaker) truth, though, surprisingly, Barclay

32 Endy, William Penn, p. 151. Barclay and Penn both wrote of the relationship between the spiritual and the physical in their efforts to describe and explain Quakerism, Barclay in the Apology and Penn in his Collected Works , (2 vols. 1726).

33 Ambler, R. ‘The Light Within: Then and Now’, A talk to the Quaker Universalist conference at Woodbrooke 13^th March, 2010; p. 8 -f/n 17.

34 Ambler, R. ibid; p. 8-f/n 17.

35 Keiser, M. ‘Touched and Knit in the Life: Barclay's relational theology and Cartesian dualism’, Quaker Studies, 5, issue 2, (2001), especially pp. 158-163.

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himself does not seem to have recognized the incongruity, or the immense potential for a new way of thinking to accompany and articulate the new way of being’. Barclay’s apologetic work may have required, in his own view, the necessity of using the Cartesian language of his time, to facilitate and communicate meaningful apologetic analysis.³⁶ However the incongruities of language have led to an ongoing problem for subsequent academic considerations of Barclay’s Quakerism. According to Ambler, Barclay’s attempt to defend Quaker faith and practice seemed to be ‘(generally) distorted by his strategy for defending it’. In this respect the key concern of Barclay to defend the experiential aspect of Quaker theology, including the significance of Inwardness in spiritual practice, was open to the criticism of his detractors.

The views of Keiser and Ambler, as expressed above, suggest the need for a degree of open mindedness in consideration of Barclay’s thinking as expressed in his Apology.