Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 154

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Popular Culture Review

Hegelianism. Hegel’s objective science of the human spirit and his systematization
and fusion of logic with existence was repudiated by Kierkegaard as narrow and
dogmatic to understand the complex nature of the spirit or faith. Kierkegaard
suggests that “Faith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation,
nor does it come directly; on the contrary, in this objectivity one loses that infinite,
personal, impassioned interconnectedness, which is the condition of faith”
(Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1846). Thay’s religious philosophy attempts
to transcend the pulls of doctrine and places ultimate value on the Holy Spirit who
is the all-encompassing author or source of humanity. Thay focuses on communion
with the Holy Spirit instead of falling prey to doctrinalism, not unlike Kierkegaard
who focused on human existence in its relationship with faith in the Maker.
This case study is informed, in part, by two notions: Burkes “syllogistic
progression” and our notion of “rhetorical bridge.” Burke says: “Like a syllogism,
syllogistic progression starts from certain given premises and buijds, step by step
to a final conclusion. But Burke’s syllogistic progression is more than a logical
syllogism. It has rhetorical properties, employing logical, emotional and aesthetic
proofs. Indicative of the extra-logical elements of syllogistic progression are Burke’s
statement that rhetorical form is “an arousing and fulfilling of desires, or the creation
of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of that appetite.”
Additionally, Burke indicates that there is power and satisfaction in the progression
of the form itself in so far as one part of it leads a reader to anticipate another part,
to be gratified by the sequence (Burke, p. 124).
Our notion of rhetorical bridge is related to syllogistic progression in that, at
least in these two case studies, syllogistic progression orders the arguments in
such a way as to lead the auditor step by step to a rhetorical bridge that connects
the different elements of the synthesis. For a genuine synthesis to result there must
be a rhetorical bridge that provides a rationale or encompassing conception that
pulls the synthesis together and makes it coherent.
Thay utilizes syllogistic progression to move his auditors toward his rhetorical
bridges, his ultimate unifying devices. First Thay sets the stage for his synthesis by
drawing parallels between Christianity and Buddhism, thus building common
ground between followers of Jesus and Buddha. He believes Jesus was one of the
great spiritual teachers, and cites such Christian Scripture as “Greater love no one
has but to lay down one’s life for another, “Be still and know that I am God,” and
by drawing parallels between the theology of the Trinity and the Buddhist concept
of inner being (Hanh, p. xx).
In the second step of his syllogistic progression, Thay seeks to dissolve doctrinal
rigidity in his auditors by reminding them that “Christianity was not always this
narrow and that “by discovering ... long-hidden sources, we learn that the early
Christian Movement contained enormously more diversity of viewpoint and practice