glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Orthodoxy (quintessential): Quintessential orthodoxy is sanctity, which in the purity of
its experience combines or transcends all partial truths. [CI, Images of Islam]
Orthodoxy (religion intrinsically orthodox): For a religion to be considered
intrinsically orthodox – extrinsic orthodoxy depending on specific formal factors that
cannot be applied literally outside of the perspective to which they belong – it must be
founded on a doctrine of the Absolute which, taken as a whole, is adequate; this religion
must then advocate and achieve a spirituality that is proportioned to this doctrine, which
is to say that it must comprise sanctity both in notion and in fact. Therefore, the religion
must be of divine and not of philosophical origin, and consequently it must be the vessel
for a sacramental or theurgic presence made manifest notably in miracles and also –
though this may be surprising to some – in sacred art. Specific formal elements, such as
apostolic personages and sacred events, are subordinated inasmuch as they are forms to
the principial elements just mentioned; their meaning or value can therefore change from
one religion to another – human diversity making such fluctuations inevitable – without
this constituting any contradiction with regard to the essential criteriology that concerns
both metaphysical truth and salvific efficacy, and secondarily – and on that basis –
human stability; this stability can make demands that seem paradoxical at first sight given
that it necessarily entails a certain compromise between earth and Heaven. Islam may
appear markedly problematical from the Christian point of view, but it answers
unquestionably to the overall description given above; it is intrinsically orthodox while
differing extrinsically from the other orthodox monotheistic forms, and it is bound to
differ most particularly from Christianity owing to a kind of regression – in appearance –
to an Abrahamic and as it were timeless equilibrium.
Every religion has a form and a substance; Islam spread like lightning by virtue of its
substance; but its expansion was brought to a halt on account of its form. Substance
possesses every right; it derives from the Absolute; form is relative; its rights are
therefore limited. [FSR, Truth and Presence]
A denomination or a religion is intrinsically orthodox when it comprises a metaphysical
doctrine that is at least adequate, and which offers both the notion and the phenomenon of
sanctity. [CI, Images of Islam]
Orthodoxy / Intellectuality: At first sight there seems to be no connection between
intellectuality and orthodoxy, for the term orthodoxy is too often taken as a synonym of
“conformity,” even of “prejudice” or “mental laziness,” while intellectuality, on the
contrary, appears to most of our contemporaries as “unfettered exploration” or even
“creative thinking,” hence as something at the antipodes of intellectual intuition and
contemplation. From our standpoint, orthodoxy is the principle of formal homogeneity
proper to any authentically spiritual perspective; it is therefore an indispensable aspect of
all genuine intellectuality, which is to say that the essence of every orthodoxy is the truth
and not mere fidelity to a system that eventually turns out to be false. To be orthodox
means to participate by way of a doctrine that can properly be called “traditional,” in the
immutability of the principles which govern the Universe and fashion our intelligence.
[SW, Orthodoxy and Intellectuality]
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