The Dao and Orthopraxy
One more post reflecting upon the Dao--"This is the Way"--and Christian faith.
Specifically, while we've been reflecting upon Jesus as "the Way" and Christian community as "Followers of the Way," we should pause to make a comment about orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
I don't know if this is completely true, but I have a suspicion that the creedal debates that characterized the first three to four centuries of the church, the constant concerns over heresy, tipped Christianity toward an overemphasis upon orthodoxy, the espousal of "right belief." To be sure, theology matters. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But when faith is reduced to assent to metaphysical propositions, something vital is lost.
One of those things is the rabbinic context of the Gospels, where followers of Jesus were just that, followers of a rabbi. Jesus didn't present himself as a metaphysician, theologian, or a philosopher. Instead, Jesus set before the world a way to follow, a life to emulate. Following in this way is the mark of a disciple.
The word to describe all this is orthopraxy, the "right practice" of the faith. And for many Christians, due to our bias toward orthodoxy, this is a foreign, exotic notion, the idea of "practicing Christianity." Along with the related notion of a "skilled Christianity." Any yet, if Jesus is "the Way," the Dao become visible in human history, then the life of faith can be viewed as a practice. There is believing in Jesus, and there is following Jesus. There is believing in Christianity, and there is practicing Christianity. There is a propositional Christianity, and there is a Daoist Christianity.
There is orthodoxy, and there is orthopraxy. There is belief, and there is also the Way.
The Chinese term 道 （"dao" or "tao") contains within itself both the sense of "something said" and "a path traveled". This is why the famous opening phrase of the Dao de jing (Tao te ching) works as such a great pun as well as a profound paradox: 道可道非常道, the Dao that can be Dao'ed is not the lasting Dao. It's often translated as "the path that can be spoken of is not the constant path" but there are many other permutations at play in the Chinese. Although as a commenter above pointed out, there are Daoist schools that emphasize thought and others that emphasize practice, the term "dao" itself encompasses both.
"I don't know if this is completely true, but I have a suspicion that the creedal debates that characterized the first three to four centuries of the church, the constant concerns over heresy, tipped Christianity toward an overemphasis upon orthodoxy, the espousal of 'right belief.'"
I think this statement may misappropriate "blame" for *overemphasis upon orthodoxy* onto the Church and Councils surrounding Nicaea. I think history shows that this overemphasis on belief came from the Reformation, not from the Ecumenical Councils.
Remember, the ante-Nicene Bishops were discussing Creeds *and* Liturgy (orthodoxy and orthopraxy) hundreds of years prior to 319... just read the Apostolic and Ante-Nicene Fathers' writings--and Paul. The Empire's cessation of hostilities toward the Church, among other things, gave the church the societal endorsement to write it all down and codify it. The 4th Century and following was a time of a flourishing publication of The Divine Liturgy, hymns, prayers, and yes, Canons... including *The Canon* (don't forget that). Practice and Belief were not separated for another thousand years. The Way (described in Acts, no less) was firmly established prior to this time.
Now, the marriage of Church governance with political governance (which made all of this possible, no doubt) probably proved too great a temptation for some future Bishops and Emperors, but they did not acquire such overemphasis from the Creeds and Councils as much as utilize portions (prooftexting?) of the corpus for justification of less than Kingdom benefits. Emphasis of right-belief *is* politically expedient, but that was not the fault of the Church Fathers' canonization efforts.
The Way was already established... and emphasized in the Creeds and Canons. They were not separated until much later.