Christic Method

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

While reading in Kenneth Burke today, I read the following:

When Christ said “I am the way” (hodos), we could translate, “I am the act,” or more fully, “I represent a system, or synthesis, of the right acts.” Tao and yoga are similar words for act. And we see how readily act in this sense can overlap upon agency when we consider our ordinary attitude towards the scientific method (met-hodos) which we think of pragmatically, not as a way of life, or act of being, but as a means of doing. (GoM 15)

This led me to consider the term “method” from its etymological origins in the Greek. Met  means “following” while hodos means “a way.”

If we look at a religion, then, as a hodos, a “way” for acting, and being, and living, then we see how thoroughly the “scientific method” is a religion.

We also see a way for addressing the teachings of Jesus Christ as a “method” of its own, a method for acting and doing and being, and how it can be worked into a critical method (“way of going”).