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2) Rational: The Domain of Scientism
Scientism is the treatment of science as absolute source of all valid knowledge; in this sense science has the same claims and qualities as what is usually meant by religion.
Here, a person is able systematically to make inferences and come to logically-deduced conclusions, and think abstractly. Any religion can have both prerational and rational elements, and any religion can have persons in prerationality and other persons at rationality. There are definitely, it seems, prerational and rational aspects to all the major world religions. Any form of dogmatism, furthermore, has a stronger element of prerational than such devotees can discern, even when the dogmatism is couched as enlightened rationally: fear is at the basis of dogmatism, not reason.
3) Postrational: The Domain of Contemplation (or Mysticism)
Contemplationwas referred to by mysticism in the Early Church. I use the terms interchangeably in my writings; however, due to the misconstruing of mysticism in much of our culture, "contemplation" is the safer term for use in the Christian context.
Certainly, myth often holds valuable lessons, and reason does, likewise. The error in both is not that either is essentially wrong; both are incomplete visions and spectrums of action, however.
Contemplation is the experience, itself transcending and encompassing religion, indeed all, by which the self is transformed to encompass the good of myth and reason, but to transcend both in a vision and action greater than either or both together. Mysticism is not myth plus reason; contemplation is a transcendence of both, not the added culmination of both. This means contemplation is not myth plus reason. Contemplation is the consciousness, or beingness, that exists both before, within, and after all other consciousness, or beingness.
The Christian is called to move from before mind, through mind, to ecstasy. This ecstatic vision and action is outside mind. Christian contemplatives, since the patristic church, have called this theoria. Often Christian contemplatives have spoken of reason in regard to contemplative union. However, here they do not mean what we usually mean by mind: rather, they refer to a spiritual reasoning, or contemplative intuition, that grasps the Beyond-Reason.
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