Williams, an Aboriginal man from South East Queensland, makes reference to
a juridical concept of the sacred; what is sacred is sacred by law, the law gives
obligations and duties. What he says can be entered into, debated and discussed
as an interpretation of law.
These people are saying different things, and the word sacred should not be
interpreted as meaning the same things in these cases. It is based on a different
conceptual understanding of the world, or metaphysics, and has different
implications for action. One question it does raise is the issue of intolerance.
Where spiritualism sees itself as being free from the constraints and dogmatism
of organised religion, one claim (that based on religious law) is debatable, while
the other (based on personal sensibility) is not. In conclusion, we do need to
extend the term sacred to the personal, but at the same time, we need to recognise
that different metaphysical conceptions of the world, and different experiences,
will produce different normative implications. To understand the sacred, we
need to pay closer attention to these metaphysical frameworks, and to allow a
broader understanding of its normative force.