Byrne begins with an extensive discussion of the philosophy of science and presents a classification of sciences. He points out that many sciences are not just theoretical or descriptive of reality, but practical as well, that is, as formative. One may immediately think that the use of the terms "form" and "formation" indicates a neo-Platonic approach to reality. This would be a mistake. The use of these terms denotes nothing like a static platonic form, but the dynamic processes of reality. Writes Byrne:
Energy assumes form. Its forms rise and fall. They increase and decrease; they flow and rush together; they continually change and return. The most simple of forms strives toward complexity, and the complexity of forms returns home to the simple... Contemporary theoretical physics affirms a similar conception of the cosmos as a dynamic field of formation.
Reality is viewed not as mechanisticly static, but as always in flux and process. It is the dynamism of reality that is stressed. A formative approach notes that the human never passively receives information or experience, but there is always an inner re-creation. A creative, dialogical activity.
While the human always apprehends form as such, it does not necessarily engage in what van Kaam calls "form appreciative apprehension". By this he means that the individual not only apprehends form, but recognizes it in so far as it is relevant to his or her own life. This act of form appreciative apprehension is not just passive, but actually gives form to the the person's life by means of symbols. Symbolization is central to what appears as relevant to our lives.
Symbols play a crucial part in the shaping of form appreciative apprehensions. [Religious] traditions, myths, proverbs, and works of art express in symbols possible links of formative meaning... (People) are exposed to these symbols of meaning. This exposure modulates their apprehensions.... Other sources of formative symbols that influence form appreciative apprehensions are legal codes, constitutions, and social conventions.
Thus, the human gives and recieves form to and from self, others and the world. Formative Spirituality calls this form donation and reception. With this we begin to glimpse the dynamism of Formative Spirituality. We can say that Formative Spirituality views all of reality, in its most basic or foundational appearance-to-the-human, as engaged in formation. Matter and energy come together and give rise to forms which then, in turn, both give and receive form to and from other forms. "There is nothing in human experience of which we can think that does not in some way manifest a process of active and receptive formation."
For the human, formation exhibits consonance and dissonance and is dominated by the quest for consonance. That is, forms-as-discrete can "fit together" with each other in a consonant whole, but human experience always has an element of things not "fitting together", of dissonance. What is referred to here is the fact of suffering, angst, incompleteness, restlessness, surprise, unpredictability etc. that is present in all human life.
We live in relative dissonance with the forming energies at work in the universe, world, history, and our lives. Philosophers and religious traditions often refer to this dissonance as a state of "fallenness" in human life. It is an ongoing experience of having fallen away from a primordial consonance.
Healthy human formation thus entails the appreciative apprehension of forms, out of which directives to formation are apprehended and appraised in relation to the possibility of increased consonance and decreased dissonance. These directives are then embodied in acts of form reception and donation.