April 8, 2016

April 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand quotes Merton (1948), who describes the a-volitional quality of genuine or graceful religious experience as follows: “And no one can believe these things merely by wanting to, of his own volition. Unless he receive grace, an actual light, and implosion of the mind and will from God, he cannot even make an act of living faith.” The reader needs to understand this quote in that he or she will only be able to have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) if his or her experience is of greater importance to him or her than his or her understanding. 

Understanding our experiences still refers to our own volition, but experiencing it transcends this idea that we cause our own behavior. Such experiencing during our interaction will only occur if we maintain an environment which is free of aversive stimulation. Speakers can force listeners into Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), but they can’t force SVB on the listener. In the natural world, the speaker only receives “grace” from the listener, who can and who does also speak. What is in fact the potential of genuine human interaction has been construed as a religious experience. 

SVB is based on the premise that human interaction can only happen when nobody is coercing anybody else. Rather than considering it “an act of living faith”, it should be considered an act of genuine knowledge. Merton (1948) seems to be describing NVB when writes about effortful religious acts: “ And, therefore, even when we are acting with the best of intentions, and imagine that we are doing great good, we may be actually doing tremendous material harm and contradicting all our good intentions…the only answer to the problem is grace, grace, docility to grace” (p.206). Besides sublimating real interaction into an imaginary conversation with God, religious people, like Merton, and Strand too, separate “graceful and effortless” verbal behavior from verbal behavior that is “effortful, purposeful and functional.” According to this writer, however, this distinction only exists because of our NVB way of communicating in the first place. As we discover SVB, we will find that we can be purposeful and functional in a graceful and effortless manner.