A Basis for Theology
One of the most interesting questions in theology and religious philosophy, at least for me, is why certain individuals and cultures opted for a particular religious framework. While this is certainly a complex issue, one can speculate at what might have been happening with seminal figures (i.e. Elijah, Moses, Jesus, Siddartha, Lao Tsé, etc.) in history who for some reason formulated their religious thinking as they did. One way to approach this question is, I think, from the standpoint of religious experience. Now, what I mean by religious experience is any experience that is interpreted as revealing something about the ultimate basis or structure of reality. I believe the issue of religious experience as a basis for forming religious sentiment has become particularly acute in this age of religious pluralism. Prominent Christian theologian Langdon Gilkey wrote:
If I were asked what are the biggest changes in theology since the first half of the twentieth century, since the great neo-orthodox days, I would mention, first, the concern for the issue of the pluralism of religions, and second, the deep, and very new, theological concern with nature.
Religious pluralism calls into question the truth and authority of a particular tradition. A survey of religious sentiment throughout history reveals both similarities and differences between religious traditions. If religion, in some way, taps into and characterizes ultimate reality this begs the question why there are differences? There are, of course, adherents who just claim that the others just got it wrong. To an objective observer these claims will, in my view, be almost always circular.
Another thing that might bother this observer is the vast amount of detail in religious philosophy that is claimed to be authoritative. Typically this authority is granted to religious scriptures. It can come in at least two varieties. For many people it is granted because the scripture is thought to have come directly from ultimate reality. In Christianity this is biblical literalism and in Vedanta Hinduism the Vedas are often thought to be śruti (”what is heard”). However, this view presents a problem for many educated individuals because of what we now know of neurobiology. This amount of detail would seem to require lots of diddling by God with synapse gaps, dendrites, etc. The more moderate and liberal branches of these traditions grant them normative authority and do not take scripture as “holy writ” but some still claim that many striking events are literally true (i.e. Virgin birth, bodily resurrection). But even in this case religious pluralism raises its ugly head.
For Christian theologians the problem of authority for religious sentiment was particularly acute in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was a time of higher criticism (historical-critical method) in biblical studies and it presented a very human view of the Bible. There were contradictions, inconsistencies, multiple authors of books, intermingled theological views, etc. So if biblical literalism could not be the source of authority what could? The solution that Friedrich Schleiermacher, Rudolf Otto, and others came to was religious experience. They claimed it was sui generis. While the irreducibility of religious experience has been contested by scholars, it still remains, in my opinion, probably the strongest contender as a valid source for religious sentiment. But even if religious experience is considered the only fundamentally sound basis for religious formulations, why are there differences in religious philosophy? I suggest that although the source of religious experience may be sui generis, the interpretations are not.
If this is true, it can create quite a quandary for the objective seeker who, for whatever reasons, seeks some religious grounding in their life. Perhaps the best we can do is seek some sort of explanation why even if religious experience comes from the same source, the interpretations may vary.
To do this it is first necessary to explore how religious experience might be the basis for a religious framework. This could, of course, be a vast undertaking (particularly if my definition is employed), but if only a few fundamental types of these experiences are examined some light might be shed on the issue. I would like to focus on reports of two types of religious experience, oneness and negativity.
One common type of religious experience is the experience of oneness. Reports abound on this type both from the mystics and everyday people as they experience life in many various ways (i.e. In nature, personal relatedness, prayer, meditation, love, etc.) Now these experiences can be taken as an illumination of some aspect of ultimate reality, but they can also be interpreted differently. These interpretations are, in my view, informed by the complete milieu of life experience, psychology, cultural influences, cognitive and emotive factors, etc. Now while this experience is of oneness it is also the experience of an individual. How is this to be resolved? How it is resolved forms an ontology that can provide a profound basis for what follows in the religious formulations. For instance in classic theism this oneness does not point to an ontological unity but a unity across some divide. For Buddhism the experience is taken to mean that individuation is an illusion (maya). For the Vishistadvaita school of Hinduism the dichotomy of unity and individuality is taken to represent a qualified monism where there is no ontological divide but that God has “aspects”. Whichever way this experience of oneness is interpreted it has extensive consequences for what follows. In the ontological-distinction interpretation any divine action will be an intervention across this divide. In the individuation-illusion model detachment and the dissolution of illusion becomes paramount. In an aspect monism model relations between God and the world are not interventionist but self-relations (i.e. No god of the gaps). All these interpretations come from the same type of experience but their interpretation forms a fundamental basis for the religious philosophy that ensues.
Let’s take another common religious experience, negativity. This can come in many forms. For the mystics, reports indicate terrifying experiences like the dark night of the soul. For others it may be the experience of evil both personal and in the world. If this experience points to ultimate reality how is it to be taken? It can be interpreted that this world is, in some way, a corruption of being or a tragic consequence of the transition from essential being to existential being as Tillich describes it. This interpretation leads to the need for salvations schemes. Witness the soteriology of Christology and in Eastern thought the drive toward enlightenment. The ultimate goal will be some type of escape from this reality to a perfect one, a cosmic healing, or enlightenment to eliminate suffering. If, however, this experience of negativity is not taken as an indication of corrupt being, the religious philosophy changes dramatically. In this view the negativity is seen as a necessary consequence of life. The presence of evil does not indicate a corrupt ontology, but a necessary component of what it means to live. If life is fundamentally a wonderful thing then the potential for evil is an acceptable consequence. The goal here will not be escape but action to promote the good.
There are, of course, other religious experiences (i.e. The personal/impersonal nature of ultimate reality, etc.) which also have profound influences on a religious philosophy. Granted what I have examined are but two examples of religious experience, a minimalistic snapshot.
What I think is that from a few basic interpretations of religious experience an adequate metaphysical foundation can be extrapolate as needed without getting into excess. Unfortunately many religious thinkers succumb to the temptation of excess. For the critical seeker this can be rather disconcerting. The problem with excess is that it calls into question the credibility of what otherwise may be soundly based on fundamentals. If religious experience is the only reasonable resource for a religious framework and neural-diddling is rejected then when extrapolations go beyond those based on fundamental experiences this is, in my view, problematic. Ultimately it will be up to the person to decide which, if any, interpretations they accept.
Steve, do I feel like idiotus maximus!
I drafted a post for your blog. A post on Gilkey and your general comments on circularity in theology. I hit some sort of hyperlink that landed my post in another blog. No clue how. I previewed my post on that other blog and I noticed some new notes about the pope in the main header. I figured I was still on your blog and that you added some pope-notes. So I added some pope-notes too! You know, for Gilkey’s sake in the comity of pluralism! So, I posted. On the wrong blog!
Thus proving your point about circularity in theology without ever landing it on the right blog!
Let’s see if I can do it right this time. I’m trying real hard, so be patient with me.
I still want to post some Gilkey observations. But not fully stripped of my pope-notes.
Talk about circularity. Wipe that grin off your face and enjoy the exponential complexity in engineering.
Here goes.
Steve, if this paragraph on the pope is a total ramble and irrelevant on your blog, please forgive me. It’s a note that slides into your Gilkey love-fest on pluralism. Please bear with me. My accidental post on the other blog included my observations of Douthat’s NYT OP-ED on Benedict’s encyclical “Caritas.” Benedict best shot at pluralism so far still grounds theology in economic solidarity with moral conservatism, and links the dignity of labor to marriage, and nods to the redistribution of wealth, and decentralized governance. Thus, Benedict is still not pluralist enough to riff off of Weber’s WASP work efficiency; but, he’s in the conversation.
One reason why this sidebar is relevant to your Gilkey note (which I want to get to) is because I noted how a Lutheran science-geek-qua-theologian friend (posting elsewhere, and influenced by the Catholic charismatic renewal) has noted that the economics department at Norte Dame no longer wants to intermix econometrics and theometrics (applied empirical theology) because Norte Dame is selling out to neoclassical economics, leaving the pope’s “Caritas” hanging like a Vox Clamantis, in the desert of economic discourse.
I noted in response that where I went to school, God’s name was Milton. Not the poet. But Friedman. Now Norte Dame bows down. What I wanted to post here was that at the same school where Friedman held court with the god-of-rational choice, Gilkey held his own tout court in a class on Barth.
Gilkey wanted to slash and burn (this is a bit too harsh) Barth’s claim of having attained a “presuppositionless” theology (see Barth’s, “Evangelical Theology’). Gilkey says Barth wanted theology immune from analyses and metricization. Yeah, a theology immune from democratized rational choice and econometrics. At least, at God’s heart of hearts. Gilkey assaults Barth’s desire for a theology immune from metricization by the sheer strength of a Word of God so active, that this Rambo-active Word blows away human presuppositions. Alas, I’d say that Gilkey did not prevail over Barth because Gilkey won the war of advocating plurality for its own sake; but, the real plurality that won out over Gilkey’s plurality amounted to Friedman’s econometric of rational choice becoming insinuated into consumer theology itself, in which consumers buy a theology of their choice.
A result Gilkey would find ironic. At best. Imprisoned we are. Back at the compound of economic choice.
This irony takes me to your comments about circularity in theology.
Sure, you’re right. Circularites hold in theology. Like derivatives in econometrics. Or, like Ptolemaic epicycles of small groups of minor Barthians adding epicycles to Barth’s active Word to make the Word according to Barth work out in a pluralistic world. Or like the very few economists left among Catholics applying the epicycles of heterodox economics to the pope’s Love.
But at the same time that Norte Dame sells out to the god of rational choice, I’m thinking that theology becomes simultaneously circular and genetic. Forget the stupid popularization of “DNA” in church planting theology. I’m thinking of genetic theology in the sense of allowing for random mutations that project a broken orthogonal direction (maybe an asymptotic) in theology empirically derived. Mutations which allow Popes to talk to us in Caritas. And Barthians to pontificate. Mutations which result in the fact that Gilkey didn’t wax Barth after all, except maybe in an amused classroom between icy stone walls at U. C., but not given the relative references to them in popular literature.
The circularity in theology is twisted. Maybe in broken helices after all.
Plurality is here to stay. So long as it’s ramified through the market place of a theometrics of rational choice. Which is not plurality at all. Which goes to Gilkey on nature: maybe Freeman Dyson is correct in saying that the new religious ecumenism will emerge and finally hold us together, in environmentalism. I’m not so sure. If actual future praxes in environmentalism follow our north American lead, that is, following in the circles (your circularity) or the legal epicycles of our history under the Environmental Protection Act, then the new ecumenism of environmentalism may just be a repeat of “rational market” choices, of selling pollution rights.
Though I’m not a buyer of ecological holism, Lynn Margulis has said that “Gaia Is a Tough Bitch.” I’m not sure whether Gilkey is right about our concern for nature, that is, whether our concern for nature is really an empirically stable and fixed trait of concern. Beyond the cheap selling of pollution rights. In a new whoring of theometrics and econometrics. Maybe Margulis (not Dyson and Gilkey) is right in saying that Gaia will bitch-slap us back before we care enough. Like Sen said too in warning the Pakistanis and Punjabs against nuclear war. Maybe Gaia will slap us hard and fast, before the epicycles of Barth’s active Word. With all due respect to Gilkey.
Comment by Jim —
Hi Jim,
Sorry for the delay in responding. I’ve been out of touch for a week and trying to catch up.
I have to admit I didn’t follow your arguments very well, probably because my lexicon is not at vast as yours. However, I’ll comment on this.
My knowledge of Gilkey is not very deep so I can’t comment on his reasons or rationale for promoting plurality. However, what ever reasons there were for or against plurality in religion, it is inevitable at this point in history. The promotion of arbitrary absolutes in religion have evaporated with the advent of the contemporary style of reasoning and employment of evidence and evidentiary intuition. Absolutes pontificated by the few no longer carry the sway they use to. Many will bow to authority whether it be a putative scriptural authority or from religious leaders, but not all. Rational choice in economics is, as in religion, the result of people opting to process information themselves and making their own choices instead of subjugating themselves to others without rigor. Whether this is good or bad for the individual or society, I cannot say because individuals are often ill equipped to make good choices outside their specialties. The gestalt of all these personal and communal choices makes for a complex “mess” with results that are uncertain. Only time will tell but my guess is that the “organism” of the world may be headed for dramatic change over the next century that will effect religious sentiment, economics, and life style. If the human race survives, it is my hope that the global “organism” will be healthier and more grounded in some beneficent moral bearing. Religious pluralism can play an important part if it does not become radicalized. Throughout history major change has come about through trial. I am of the opinion that the greatest trial of all for our planet is upon us. I’m also guardedly optimistic that this coming trial will further the telos of the universe.
Steve
Comment by Steve Petermann —