8
- CONCLUSION
This final Section reviews what has
been done in the research, suggests what can be gained from it, and
makes a final connection between Building and Scripture.
8.1
Review of the Research
In this dissertation, four things have been done.
First,
taking a comprehensive view of what Building and Professional Practice
are, five key areas have been studied: the major royal project at
Windsor; the issues surrounding homelessness and the housing of the old
and others with special needs; the Latham review of ethos and
effectiveness in procurement and contractual matters; the concept of
professionalism; and the adarnic experience of every particular person involved in Building.
It has been argued that each of these is a major axiological,
values-related matter. They may not be the only ones but they are
important and they are varied.
Second,
each of these Building matters has been viewed in a dyad with,
respectively: Solomon's developments in Jerusalem: the insistence of the
prophets on social justice, often using housing-related images; the
Mosaic law, the torah, which is the scriptural model for life in relationship and
community-, the concept of Wisdom; and the person of Christ
as the new Adam.
Third,
in each dyad connections have been made in terms of historical
continuities, ethical discussion and metaphorical interplay. The varied
natures of these three connectivities has indicated the subtlety and
richness of the relationship between Scripture and Building. With each
dyad, all three types of connection are necessary and authentic. There
is nothing contrived.
Fourth,
out of the work done in relation to each dyad. detailed and specific
axiological, values-related aspects have emerged. While the selection of
the Building components of the dyads was itself based on value
judgements, only the detailed work has revealed what the embedded values
are and enabled them to emerge.
The first aspect of the research objective was to
discover valid ways of making connections between Building and
Scripture. It is believed that the disciplined taking of these four
steps has enabled such validity to be achieved, when judged from both
the Building and scriptural viewpoints.
8.2
Benefits of the Research
It was stated at the outset that the need for making
these connections was an intra-personal one for the researcher. Hitherto
it had been taken on trust that good connections exist. The research has
given the opportunity for that trust to be tested. Although one cannot
disprove a commitment in the same way that one can disprove a
hypothesis, the research has enabled implications and details of the
commitment to be more fully- understood and appreciated. This has led to
greater confidence in the commitment. It has been demonstrated that
there is an underlying robustness.
It
was further maintained at the outset that this matter of establishing
connections was important for consideration by all who seek the good of
Building and by all who believe in the significance of Scripture as
practical guide. To each of these constituencies, the research offers an
unusual but important way of seeing itself. It has enabled the process
of inter-illumination to take place. Each has shed light on the other.
Each has been a mirror to the other.
Looking
at Scripture in relation to the specific scenario of Building has helped
to reveal its relevance at least to one area of life in the late
twentieth century. It will be for others to discover whether similar
investigations into other specific areas of life yield comparable
benefits. Similarly, looking at Building in relation to Scripture
enables it to be seen as more than a set of professional tasks to be
carried out in response to a need and for a payment, more even than a
matter of public and social concern. It is an activity of human beings
which, whether they wish it or not, always embodies and constantly
challenges their attitudes to each other and to the purposes towards
which they direct their considerable creativity and inventiveness.
The
second aspect of the research objective was that it should discover ways
of making useful connections. To increase confidence through careful
study and to put two major elements in life, Building and Scripture,
into a situation where they are seen to give greater depth of meaning to
each other in ways that are durable, constitutes usefulness. This is not
the kind of usefulness that yields a quick solution to project, social,
systems or professional problems. Rather, it indicates where the solid
strata may be, on which durable judgements and decisions can be based.
8.3 Singularity
in the Research
It
is important to reiterate that this research started out with the
concepts of Scripture as a whole and Building as a whole. For the
puposes of investigation five facets of each have been identified and
formed into dyads. This breaking down is to enable the internal
structures of Building and Scripture to be revealed and related to one
another.
In
order that the benefits may accrue, Building and Scripture have to be
put back together and become unities or singularities again. It is not
possible to take the insights of only selected dyads. Scripturally.
Solomon and the prophets are contrasts and to some extent in tension
with each other. The Mosaic law and wisdom, respectively structured
guides to living and open-ended education in living. need one another if
a heavy legalism on one hand and an unanchored individualism on the
other, is to be avoided.. Similarly with Building, the magnificent
project and the homes of the people, the structured, industry-wide
relationships addressed by Latham and the individual and personal
aspirations of professionals, are all necessary. Neither the scriptural
nor the Building element is complete without the adam
and new Adam concepts of Section 7.
While
there are times when it may be possible to see only part of the picture,
it is not within the terms of this dissertation for one to pick and
choose between its five component parts.
8.4 Imagining
and Building a Future
As this research was being brought to a close,
Johnson's paper Imagining the
World that Scripture Imagines (1998) was published. Johnson suggests
that what Scripture does is to imagine a future world and that what
readers of Scripture must do is come to imagine the same world.
Scripture is neither history nor archaeology nor the verbal archaeology
of textual analysis. It is about picturing the future, as Brueggemann (1978
and 1986) imagines the
prophets imagining the future. The scriptural future, suggests Johnson,
is like a city. The more intimately we know the streets of the city, the
more able we shall be to visualise, and imaginatively create, the city
of the future.
Building
looks to the future. As a work-hungry industry, it does not want Windsor
to become a permanent archaeological site or a conserved, static ruin
bearing the marks of fire. Its purpose is to use its skills, effectively
and ethically, to enable Windsor to do tomorrow's work. Building does
not want homeless or inappropriately housed people. Its purpose is to
build a world in which those things do not exist. The purposes of Law
and Wisdom were to build up a useful people, able to play their part in
the human story. Latham models a future of justice and prosperity. Rice
ended his life in engineering by thinking back over his years of
imagining structures, which, through being built, had become part of the
future of the built environment and of the life of the people.
So, Building and Scripture are connected by the twin
concepts - another kind of dyad - of 'imagining' and 'the future'. They
do not stand 2000 years apart (the New Testament). 3000 years (Solomon)
or longer (Moses). Rather, when each is its true self as authenticated
by the other, they stand together imagining and building the city of the
future. (Rev 21: 22-27 and Grey 1995 ppl-2). That is no easy task. As
Ecclesiastes put it, '...one bungler destroys much good'! (Eccles 9:18).
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