Being Less than Everything

In the last post I suggested that United Methodists, and indeed Christians generally are locked in conflict because they have at least two fundamentally different understandings of the structure of reality. Current dialogue is at an impasse because these understandings are totalizing: the claim of each to account for reality as a whole excludes the validity of other such understandings. In the light of such a claim dialogue isn't merely pointless, it is a dangerous retreat from upholding the truth - saving truth - before a misguided world. 

The problem of dialogue between different understandings of reality isn't new, and came to be fully recognized in 20th century efforts at inter-religious dialogue. As such dialogue became more common the depth of the problem became clearer. In 1992 Schubert Ogden published his Is There One True Religion or Are There Many to address this problem. In 1995 Mark Heim published Salvations addressing the same problem with a different approach. And in the same time period Samual Huntington published his Class of Civilizations, adding a political sciences perspective very much focused on cultural and religious differences.

In all three cases the conclusion was that different religions were essentially closed systems whose axiomatic assumptions about reality were different and incompatible. Because the language in which they expressed themselves was tied to these internal axiomatic assumptions, dialogue was likely to be misleading or worse. Indeed the very use of the word "religion" was misleading since it assumed a common structure that didn't exist between these realms of human experience. 

One might have thought that these carefully crafted arguments, widely read and considered, would have a profound effect on the practice of inter-religious dialogue. This wasn't the case. While those engaged in inter-religious dialogue may have possessed naive ideas about commonality, it wasn't those naive ideas that founded the basis for dialogue. In almost every case dialogue is pursued because people in different religious communities share common interests and problems that urgently need to be resolved. Theologians and political scientists could offer whatever analysis they might, dialogue remained an existential necessity. 

Once dialogue arising out of shared interests and problems begins it may drive participants to examine one another's axiomatic assumptions about reality. But in the meantime the problems or desires that spark a dialogue can often be resolved without addressing these fundamentals. Schubert Ogden used to tell his students (I was one of them) that most systematic theologies don't get written because the theologian gets caught up in the prolegomena. And he approached inter-religious understanding, as did Heim, as if it started with the prolegomena. 

In reality dialogue begins precisely with what religious people do have in common: a shared social context and situation that they must address together. This can range from a mixed religious marriage (more and more common) to addressing a community need, to tackling an issue like climate change.

In this kind of dialogue parties do not define their terms in advance, much less clarify the axiomatic assumptions of their worldview. That is a theologian's fantasy. Instead, as has been common throughout human history, they develop a common language with shared referents by speaking to each other until each knows what the words of the other actually mean and thus together they create a shared language for the purpose of dialogue and quite often much more. 

Over my lifetime I've had to live in work in three different languages, sometimes in translation into yet another language. And I've needed to speak at least a little of two other languages. The process of actually using a second or third language is very different from studying it. And it is illustrative of what happens in dialogue. Initially words are misused and misunderstood, but with further conversation the native speaker grasps the meaning of the learner and corrects their terminology. Or sometimes the native speaker realizes that their language doesn't have an exact fit and adopts the word for the learners language. Grammatical structures are sometimes ignored and sometimes corrected. Hybridity is common in this kind of language learning, as it is in dialogue. 

So eventually the two speakers develop a common vocabulary and grammar that allows them to communicate with relative fluency and thus work together on shared problems. And often that is enough. I know many happy marriages in which neither husband nor wife is fluent in the other's language. Every day across the world buildings are built, products are designed and manufactured, and everything from burgers to kabobs are sold in multi-lingual environments where fluency isn't present. 

Religious studies scholars assert that the English word "religion" has no equivalent in Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism and that its use for these widely varying social phenomenon is a colonial imposition. True, but in the last century it has become a common term among these different "religions" for the purposes of identifying whatever it is they have in common. Like almost all words it isn't defined by etiology or genealogy, but by use.  

Yet something deeper than a functional language is created by dialogue. The longer individuals and communities remain in communication with each other the greater their shared experience of reality. Ultimately they may come to share many, if not all, of their axiomatic suppositions about the nature of reality. And this is the key point: The axiomatic assumptions that humans have about the nature of reality emerge from their common experience shared through dialogue. 

Put another way, while different religions identify historical moments and individuals whose decisive insight or revelation founds the religion, the comprehensive construction of an understanding of reality only emerges through a dialogue as its initial adherents engage with their neighbors. All religious histories bear witness to the fact that civilizations with a shared understanding of reality only emerge over time through constant engagement with the wider social and cultural environment. 

This is certainly true of Christianity. The fact that our founding documents are in Koine Greek rather than the native language of Jesus and his apostles alerts us to the fact that before there was a Christian scripture there was already an intercultural and linguistic dialogue going on. Even those who regard themselves as orthodox within United Methodist acknowledge this, accepting that canonical authority emerges only in the ecumenical councils culminating in Nicaea and that contemporary theology reads from this authority with the Church through the ages toward contemporary understandings of reality. And this can hardly be less true of United Methodist progressives who have clearly rejected pre-modern understandings of reality in favor of those emerging in post-modernity. 

In short both sides are in, and have been in dialogue. They just aren't in dialogue with one another. And perhaps this is because both sides appear to believe that they must begin with axiomatic assumptions about reality before they can proceed to discuss shared concerns. Their relationship is predicated on the defense of a worldview rather than resolving practical problems in a shared social context. This is a theological imposition on a process of mutual problem solving in which theology has little or no value. It may be that the sooner the theologians leave the room the more likely it is that real dialogue can begin. 

More on that in the next post.