Bill Grace

A Poet's First Prose Paragraphs on Noetic Theology

WHAT IS NOETIC THEOLOGY AND WHY COULD THIS BE AN IMPORTANT QUESTION?

It is through the influence of Victor Frankl that the word 'noetic' has come to me. If Robert C. Leslie's interpretation is correct Frankl understands noetic to mean that which is spiritual but not religiously based. To many, perhaps of orthodox faith, this must appear to be an oxymoron but let me continue. I worked as a chaplain's assistant for my work.stduy job at a large teaching hospital during my seminary years. On a rare Suday off I attended a worship service at a nearby Fellowship of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It was a jazz concert being given as a memorial service for the daughter - who had died - of the musician who was playing. The sense of grief that poured out of the end of that father's saxaphone for his dead daughter is a vivid memory thirty five years later. There was no talk of Jesus or resurrection, and for that matter there was relatively little talk, but it was an unmistakeably spiritual experience that has stuck with me. I am convinced that there is a noetic spirituality that functions in the world for better or for worse.
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