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The Lost Key: An Explanation and Application of the Masonic Symbols

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Prentiss Tucker

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“So the recognition of the obvious fact that many of the Rites and Symbols of Masonry were devised from the standpoint of a believer in Rebirth or the evolution of the soul, does not involve any necessity on the part of the Masonic student to believe the same or to make it a part of his religious dogma any more than the Egyptologist, when he deciphers a prayer to Ra, the Sun god, carved upon some Egyptian tomb thousands of years before the time of Christ, is thereby compelled to believe in the existence and power of Ra and begin to worship him with the same prayer.”

InterpretationFreemasonry1927
Book:The Lost Key: An Explanation and Application of the Masonic Symbols
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“In any event, even if one’s concept of rationality or of what constitutes a science is too constricted to recognize the contemplative path for what it is, the essential point remains: no matter what one’s private beliefs may be, any attempt to confirm or disprove the reality of God can be meaningfully undertaken only in a way appropriate to what God is purported to be. If one imagines that God is some discrete object visible to physics or some finite aspect of nature, rather than the transcendent actuality of all things and all-knowing, the logically inevitable Absolute upon which the contingent depends, then one simply has misunderstood what the content of the concept of God truly is, and has nothing to contribute to the debate. It is unlikely, however, that such a person really cares to know what the true content of the concept is, or on what rational and experiential bases the concept rests. In my experience, those who make the most theatrical display of demanding ‘proof’ of God are also those least willing to undertake the specific kinds of mental and spiritual discipline that all the great religious traditions say are required to find God. If one is left unsatisfied by the logical arguments for belief in God, and instead insists upon some ‘experimental’ or ‘empirical’ demonstration, then one ought to be willing to attempt the sort of investigations necessary to achieve any sort of real certainty regarding a reality that is nothing less than the infinite coincidence of absolute being, consciousness, and bliss. In short, one must pray: not fitfully, not simply in the manner of a suppliant seeking aid or of a penitent seeking absolution bur also according to the disciplines of infused contemplation with real constancy of will and a patient openness to grace, suffering states of both dereliction and ecstasy with the equanimity of faith, hoping but not presuming, so as to find whether the spiritual journey, when followed in earnest, can disclose its own truthfulness and conduct one into communion with a dimension of reality beyond the ontological indigence of the physical. No one is obliged to make such an effort; but, unless one does, any demands one might make for evidence of the reality of God can safely be dismissed as disingenuous, and any arguments against belief in God that one might have the temerity to make to others can safely be ignored as vacuous.”

PhilosophyGodReligionFaithPrayerAtheismTheologyRationalityDavid Bentley Hart
Book:The Experience of God : Being, Consciousness, Bliss
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