Lecture XXIII (Nr. 0289)
Facs
Transcript
[285] activity, theoretical or practical, or aesthetic, is based on a hidden or open ultimate concern, and, in this sense, on a religious attitude, on an element of a. On this basis we want to proceed in this semester as we did in the first. Now on this basis I then fought against mistaken interpretations of the concept of b as meaning c in some hardly believable things, or as assuring things for which there is no evidence, in terms of religious authorities. All these definitions of religion and faith were rejected and, instead
of that, the fundamental definition was the fundamental criterion: d is the state of ultimate concern in every realm of cultural creativity. I expressed that in another way by saying: Religion is theeof culture, and culture is the fof religion---whereby "substance" means that it gives ultimate meaning, and "form" means that it gives the expression. Therefore we can analyze every cultural reality according to its power to express ultimate concern. Whether it is a political system or a scientific method or an artistic creation, or anything else, in every case there is behind it an ultimate concern, a concern about the meaning of our existence as a whole. Now this is the foundation, and on this basis we proceeded to the different realms of cultural activity. I divided them into two, according to the two semesters: the theoretical and the
practical ones---"theory" meaning receiving reality, and "practice" meaning transforming reality. In the first semester, all our interest was directed towards human creative activities, cultural activities, in which man LOOKS at reality—theoria means looking at something, envisaging, seeing, contemplating it, i.e., receiving it in its structures and forms. We started with the foundation of BOTH cultural activities,