[May 2001 journal entry]
Bonhoeffer correctly (in my judgment) realized (e.g., 30 April 1944 letter to Bethge) that any ‘religious a priori’ had to be set aside. For me, ‘religion’ here has the nuances Bonhoeffer addressed in his prison letters as well as the nuances I address throughout my journal entries since 1992. The ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality I am discovering builds instead on an ‘ontological a priori’. The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm begins any consideration of ontology (i.e., the nature/essence of being) ‘from above’. For me, the ‘ontological a priori’ begins ‘from below’ with the exercise of observation/reflection and with indiscriminate attention given to the full range of human experience (i.e., from the beautiful to the tragic).
