Quaker Business Method and Rational Decision-Making

This is a long post, exploring issues in detail, and I would encourage those interested in the topic to read the whole thing. However, a summary is provided at the end of the post, covering both arguments and advice, and should you wish, you can skip to it.

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive in
the application of Quaker Business Method.

As Quakers, we try to make our decisions using Quaker Business Method – a subject on which I have written a lot, albeit no basic introduction, but please check out the Quaker Business Method tag on this blog for more of my writing on the subject. This is a method, also known as discernment (or more specifically group discernment, as one can engage in discernment entirely alone) whereby we do not set aside our rational mind entirely; we prepare by trying to understand the subject as much as possible, and try to be aware of all the rational factors involved, as well as spiritual ones. We do, however, make the decision in silent waiting, led by spoken ministry (when meeting in such a way that that is possible), so as to make the decision under the guidance of the Divine.

As such, many would say we can’t always (or possibly ever) give clear reasons for decisions. Sometimes the ministry is such that we can see how the various factors were balanced, and we can give an ex post facto rational explanation. Sometimes it’s just “the ministry led us this way, and well, that’s the decision”.

On Ministry and Clear Sight: A Reflection on Imperfect Divine Reflection

Copper alloy mirror, Turkey, circa 500 BCE

I was recently given written ministry to which I gave the title On Ministry and Clear Sight. It flowed as easily as any ministry I have ever given, and came as unexpectedly – a strong, clear leading to write or say certain things. As the ministry itself expresses, of course, there is much of myself in that ministry; it is an imperfect reflection shaped by what one might call, from the language of that ministry, as the ‘landscape of my mind’. In any case, it hit me hard, and I felt the need to think about it and give my own reaction to it.

The first, possibly most immediate point being that we have no sure way to know that any ministry offered is not genuinely drawing on the Spirit. Something might be so antithetical to our understanding of Quaker values and philosophy that we cannot countenance the idea that the Spirit gave it forth, yet still it did. Our task is to understand the possibilities of how it might have been inspired, let the ministry teach us about the Divine, about the world, and about the person who is speaking. We have to live with the discomfort that someone can say something we consider horrific in ministry, and yet there is some truth to it.

On Ministry and Clear Sight

The ministry that comes to us from the still silence within, that we share together in worship or in other ways, most often comes out as words. But the inspiration of the Divine that becomes such ministry is not given to us as words.

The gift of ministry is pure inspiration, an injection into our being of guidance, of ideas, of symbols, of images, of relationships, and we cannot comprehend it consciously in its original form. Sometimes, for some people, it finds its best expression and understanding in a form other than words, though still it is not exactly what was given. When we do express it as words, it is necessarily imperfect. The inspiration might help us find the right words, but still it is we who find the words.

Maxim 12

Aphorism 2

Flashes of Clarity

It is inescapably true that we see, as the quote goes, “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12) or, in more modern translations, “in a mirror, dimly” – assuming glass to be in the old sense, as in “looking glass”, though there is debate as to which sense was meant by the author of the epistle. This is clearly true, from the evidence of modern neuroscience, of our perception of the mundane, everyday world. We see the reflection of the world that our senses and our complex neural circuitry manage to produce, and it fills in the blanks with reasonable assumptions all over the place. It finds patterns anywhere it can, so we see dogs and sofas in clouds. We miss far more of the world around us than we see.

True Inspiration

Many Friends find great value in reading the writings of early Friends. This is understandable. Some of it inspiring, some is intellectually very interesting. Some borders on being incoherent, but overall the hit rate is pretty good.

It is important to treat such writings with some caution, however. As early Friends wrote in the heat of the new inspiration they had found, we may read them hoping to catch a little of that inspiration. While it may inspire us, however, it is nothing like the inspiration that led to those writings.