Faith and reason again, hermeneutics and faith

The hermeneutic of the Holy Scriptures, because of its polysemous nature, constitutes a labyrinth, an ocean or flow of divine discourse. The only way out, the only north in this ocean is faith. Faith is ultimately what gives final sense to any interpretation. But faith is a sense, an spontaneous feeling that does not emerge from the act of knowing something empirically opposed to the theoretical. Faith is experience, but an experience that emerges spontaneously, not subject to the taming of abstract concepts that can only be understood as part of a network of theoretical concepts. In fact, a sure way to eventually kill a feeling is by rationalising it through words (psychoanalysis is used to kill a phobia).

As Eco points out:

"...the moral sense can be understood only through the mediation of the allegorical one, and is attainable only by the faithful ones...which can be summarized through the line of Nicholas of Lyra: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralia quid agas, quo tendas anagogia". (Eco, 1984, p. 149)

In a similar way, in the Zen tradition, it is only the experience through practical means what gives the correct interpretation of the scriptures. The understanding of the scriptures is done through practical action. The scriptures serve to inform the formal aspects of the practice but they are not "principles" from which practice can be deduced, as it is the case with western law and western ethics. In other words, it is not possible to understand the koan from a pure rational stance. As master Dogen said, "awakening awakens awakening" or, akawening is only awakened by the force of awakening" or "Buddha alone knows Buddha".