Religiology and Ultimate Reality

At the end of yesterday's post the following sentence popped unthinkingly from my fingertips, and now we have to figure out of it's true, true-ish, or what: 

For whatever else a religion is, it is a symbolic framework for thinking about ultimate reality, or the absolute, or one's deepest concerns.

Well, it is symbolic, since it is conveyed to us via language. And it is more or less systematic; certainly Catholic doctrine is highly systematic, while other denominations are less so -- for example, Quakerism, which, from what little I know, is grounded in immediate experience:

Unprogrammed worship is based on silence and inward listening to the Spirit, from which any participant may share a message. In unprogrammed meetings for worship, someone speaks when that person feels that God/Spirit/the universe has given them a message for others. After anyone speaks, several minutes are allowed to pass before anyone else speaks, to allow the message to be considered carefully. Friends do not answer or argue about others' messages during meeting for worship.

So, the religion the almighty & them works out betwixt 'em. Silent head & open heart. 

Then there's Zen, which is also refreshingly dogma-free and grounded in experience. Taoism too is pretty uncluttered. 

But let's get back to the claim: a symbolic framework for thinking about ultimate reality. Our first witness will be Schuon, even though, like a bad lawyer, I'm not certain how he will answer the question.

First, religion is essentially discernment. It is discernment between God and the world, between the Real and the unreal, or between the Everlasting and the ephemeral.

That seems to track with our thesis: a system to help us discern between reality and appearances. Elsewhere he writes that religion  

is an integral whole comparable to a living organism that develops according to necessary and exact laws; one might therefore call it a spiritual organism, or a social one in its most outward aspect. 

In any case, it is an organism and not a construction of arbitrary conventions; one cannot therefore legitimately consider the constituent elements of a religion independently of their inward unity, as if one were concerned with a mere collection of facts.

Ah ha. That's helpful, for it implies that the system we're talking about is not static, but rather, a holistic or organismic "process structure" with interior relations. 

Analogously, a single part of a biological organism cannot be understood outside the whole. Certainly Catholic theology looks at revelation in this way: for example, it exercises the old hermeneutic circle vis-a-vis scriptural interpretation, in which the whole is in the part and vice versa. I guess you could say that Christ vivifies each part. 

Next witness: our Aphorist, of course, and again, I'm not sure of his testimony, but this first one is a favorite:

He who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul soon needs a theological vocabulary.

True, but this presumes the existence of the soul to which religion speaks. Just how does it speak to the soul?

The soul is fed from what is mysterious in things.

And

Even in the immensity of space we feel caged. Mystery is the only infinity that does not seem like a prison.

Conversely, 

An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how imbecilic it may be.

Instant karma:

The simplistic ideas in which the unbeliever ends up believing are his punishment. 

Back to our thesis. To put it another way, religion is a symbolic system to help us navigate the farthest reaches of the soul.

Religion is not a set of solutions to known problems, but a new dimension of the universe. The religious man lives among realities that the secular man ignores...

Depending on how you look at it, it is a dimension of height or depth, but in any case, 

Religious thought does not go forward like scientific thought does, but rather goes deeper.

 Moreover,

When their religious depth disappears, things are reduced to a surface without thickness, where nothing shows through.

 This is partly because

The natural and supernatural are not overlapping planes, but intertwined threads.

So, to lose one is is to lose the ability to make sense of the the other. Returning full circle to religiology and ultimate reality,  

As long as we do not arrive at religious categories, our explanations are not founded on rock.

And speaking of the whole vivifying the parts, 

The voice of God passes through the sacred text as a wind storm through the leaves of the forest trees.

Beautiful simile. To be continued...