Perplexed and Pessimistic
Timothy Garton Ash has a piece in the current New York Review of Books that strikes me as unusually perplexed and pessimistic (though it may be only an indication of how intractable the reality is).
Under the title, “Islam in Europe,” it is his review-cum-reflections of books by Ian Buruma and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (The latter is the Somali-born Dutch politician whose Dutch citizenship was revoked and then reinstated; but who has now left Holland for the United States.)
The most interesting passage of the article for me was the following:
Having in her youth been tempted by Islamist fundamentalism, under the influence of an inspiring schoolteacher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now a brave, outspoken slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist. In a pattern familiar to historians of political intellectuals, she has gone from one extreme to the other, with an emotional energy perfectly summed up by Shakespeare: “As the heresies that men do leave/are hated most of those they did deceive.” This is precisely why she is a heroine to many secular European intellectuals, who are themselves Enlightenment fundamentalists They believe that not just Islam but all religion is insulting to the intelligence and crippling to the human spirit. Most of them believe that a Europe based entirely on secular humanism would be a better Europe. Maybe they are right. (Some of my best friends are Enlightenment fundamentalists.) Maybe they are wrong. But let’s not pretend this is anything other than a frontal challenge to Islam.
Sounds rather like Pope Benedict in Regensburg:
In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion to the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.
I found the citation of Shakespeare apt and helpful. For honestly, I haven’t encountered too many Enlightenment fundamentalists. After reading Toulmin or Kuhn I see most responsible scientists taking a much more humble approach to reason. Perhaps they’re out there though …
However, the Shakespeare line does help me understand figures like Michael Novak, Avery Dulles, Alisdair MacIntyre (& Benedict?) and the war they wage against their 60′s selves.
It is a sign of hope in the case of Benedict that he acknowledged the gifts of modernity as well as sounding the caution against excessive modernism in his Regensburg lecture.
I don’t know of anyone who has done more exhaustive work than Robert Orsi in this field. There are indisputably problems with ‘official’ Christianity, especially from the 4th century on, when the state virtually took over.
Same with Islam as later followers emphasized violence.
There is also a strange modernity in Christainity which holds that only a certain type of Christianity is acceptable.
Here is the salient quote from Orsi’s “Between Heaven and Earth” which I gave here at another time.
pg 191
“The work of the discipline in constituting itself this way has had grave
social consequences beyond the academy. By inscribing a boundary between
good and bad religions at the very foundation of the field, religious
studies enacts an important cultural discipline. There is no end to human
religious creativity (a comment that has nothing to do with whether this
is a positive thing or not). One would have to look to the staggering
varieties and complexities of what humans have made of sexuality to find
another site of explosive and inventive activity. Yet it has been the impulse of religious studies since its inception to impose closure and discipline
on religion, to control and contain this complexity. When the Branch
Davidian compound was incinerated at Waco, Texas, in April 1993,
much was made of the failure of the government and of federal law enforcement
officials to recognize the religious character of leader David
Koresh’s movement. It was not as widely noted that the government’s
failure paralleled the limitations of religious studies, which has long offered
an authoritative map on religious experience that excluded such a
“marginal” group.
Any approach to religion that foregrounds ethical issues as these are
now embedded in the discipline obstructs our understanding of religious
idioms because religion at its root has nothing to do with morality.
Religion does not make the world better to live in (although some forms of
religious practice might); religion does not necessarily conform to the
creedal formulations and doctrinal limits developed by cultured and circumspect
theologians, church leaders, or ethicists; religion does not unambiguously
orient people toward social justice. Particular religious idioms
can do all of these things. The religiously motivated civil rights movement is a good example of a social impulse rooted in an evangelical
faith and dedicated to a more decent life for men and women. But however
much we may love this movement and however much we may prefer
to teach it (as opposed to the “cultic” faith of Jonestown or the “magical”
beliefs of “popular” religion) this is not the paradigm for religion,
nor is it the expression of religion at some idealized best. There is a quality
to the religious imagination that blurs distinctions, obliterates boundaries-
especially the boundaries we have so long and so carefully erected
within the discipline-and this can, and often does, contribute to social
and domestic violence, not peace.
Religion is often enough cruel and dangerous,
and the same impulses that result in a special kind of compassion
also lead to destruction, often among the same people at the same time.
Theories of religion have largely served as a protection against such truths about religion.
It is the challenge of the discipline of religious studies not to stop at the
border of human practices done in the name of the gods that we scholars
find disturbing, dangerous, or even morally repugnant, but rather to enter into the otherness of religous practices in search of an understanding of their human ground.” Endquote
As far as Benedict is concerned what is his and our answer to a religion “deaf to reason” as the RCC is when it objects purely on authoritative grounds.
Dialogue requires a certain openness. Each one must be read to understand what the other believes and what the other is saying, what the other really wants and what it requires to satisfy that want.
But problems easily arise. One man’s principle is another man’s prejudice. Where the differences are political, by which I mean about power, men of good will should be able to come to agreement. I am thinking here of some of the difficulties that plague Roman-Orthodox dialogue. But where truth is a stake, agreement is much more difficult.
We are all rather attached to our own “truths”, sometimes because they mean more to us that truth itself.
Official inter-religious dialogue is carried on by theologians and others deeply conversant with their own tradition and able to enter into an understanding of another tradition. I have never participated in such a dialogue, but I have often thought about how arduous and rational a process it is.
But I have participated in inter-religious, inter-faith events–services of various sorts that are not primarily theological or even “rational.” I think especially of seders to which Jewish friends have invited us at Passover. I find them deeply moving in part because they narrate the story of the passover and God’s saving acts, but also because for me they are like the passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples, so much of which persists in the Euchartic feast.
Does this mean that true inter-religious dialogue must try to embody both kinds of “dialogue”?
I was put in mind of this question reading the WashPost this morning and the story of a Catholic convert to Islam. Much of what he found so congenial in Islam is, of course, present in Catholicism as well, but its form in Islam seems to have been more compelling for him.
The story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101975.html
The danger of dialogue is that one can be drawn to the other view. Second, when someone truly listens to us we are drawn to them making way for love or manipulation.
So it is truly difficult to enter into another’s faith or beliefs because we inevitably bring our own biases, also.
Dialogue is not easy. That is why those in charge advise against it since the may lose their charges. The alternative is conflict which we amply have on these pages and many encounter.
Blessed are those peacemakers who keep persons over dogma and God’s command to love all above all.
Regarding interfaith relations, see the website maintained by the Center for Interfaith Relations (formerly the Cathedral Heritage Foundation). This organization sponsors an annual Festival of Faiths that gives people an opportunity to learn about other Christian denominations and faith traditions. It is events such as these, mentioned by Margaret Steinfels, that give most “ordinary” folks the opportunity to learn in a truly sharing, non-threatening environment.
I took the point of the two passages Fr. Imbelli quotes to be the difficulty many Enlightenment fundamentalists face in trying to understand religion at all. It brings up a quite different point, not as often discussed, than that of the difficulty that religious people face in trying to converse with and understand other religions. I find it odd that the emphasis in the responses has been on the latter.
At the end of the New York Review article Garton Ash recommends Tariq Ramadan as a spokesman more likely than Ayaan Hirsi Ali to promote reconciliation between Islam and the West. A while back Ramadan was denied a visa to the U.S. and hence could not accept a teaching post at Notre Dame. For Ramadan’s reaction to the Regensburg speech see this article in the International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/09/20/opinion/edramadan.php
Ramadan here argues that the Pope’s speech neglected the contribution of Arabs to European rationalism. In Ramadan’s view, if the pope were more knowledgeable he should have regretted the loss not only of Hellenism but also of Muslim rationalism in the modern West. For a critique of Ramadan to the effect that the Pope was speaking of Muslim theology, not of Islam as a civilization, see:
http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2006/09/tariq-ramadan-on-popes-message.html
Thanks to Patrick Molly for the two interesting links he provides.
I’m grateful to JAK for bringing the focus back to the tone deafness of “Englightenment fundamentalists” (Garton Ash’s phrase!) to religion.
I wonder whether he or others have further thoughts on the matter.
Bob and Joe K.
Good point!
Perhaps referring to people as Enlightenment fundamentalists is sufficiently polemical to cut off the possibility of dialogue with the likes of Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Secularists, atheists, non-believers are of various “beliefs” and dispositions and the category is simply too broad.
Or perhaps, believers hearing the word dialogue can only imagine “dialoguing” with those who agree with a basic premise: there is a transcendent reality that creates and shapes us and our world. By definition non-believers are outside the box.
Is there an ecumenical conversation between believers and non-Bs?
Thanks to Patrick Molly for linking to my remarks on Tariq Ramadan’s response to the Pope’s Regensburg lecture.
I never expected so much attention when I blogged this past week about the Pope’s actual words, but the links here at Commonweal, over at the , and elsewhere sent the hits at my blog, Gypsy Scholar skyrocketing … for a couple of days.
Now, I’m again obscure.
Anyway, I’m glad to discover through the link to my blog that Commonweal is online. The internet can be a wonderful resource.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
I didn’t realize that coding wouldn’t work here. Let me try that again…
Thanks to Patrick Molly for linking to my remarks on Tariq Ramadan’s response to the Pope’s Regensburg lecture:
http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2006/09/tariq-ramadan-on-popes-message.html
I never expected so much attention when I blogged this past week about the Pope’s actual words:
http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-pope-didnt-quote.html
However, the hits at my blog went skyrocketing for a couple of days from the links here at Commonweal, across the internet, and especially over at the National Review:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGZkODY2YjA0MjJjODM2MDAzYTM0NzEyNGViNDZmYzI=
Now, I’m again obscure.
Still, if anyone is interested, I’ve posted several blog entries on the Regensburg controversy, which can be read at my blog, Gypsy Scholar:
http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/
At any rate, I’m glad to discover through the link to my blog that Commonweal is online. The internet can be a wonderful resource.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Peggy:
I didn’t take Garton Ash to be referring to all non-believers as “Enlightenment fundamentalists,” but used the term of those who have simply dismissed the religious option a priori. There are such people, and the difficulties in the way of dialoguing with them are not all on the side of believers, who for such people are out of the box from the start.
Pope Paul VI established a secretariat for dialogue with non-believers. One doesn’t hear too much from it nowadays, or at least I haven’t.
What most struck me in Garton Ash’s article is this question which he poses toward the end: Can one be a good Muslim and a good European? I suspect that Benedict wonders, when he considers the decline in religious practice in Europe since the post-WW II period, whether it is still possible to be a good Catholic and a good European, or if it is, will it continue to be. If the primary cultural orientation of Europe is becoming secular humanism, atheistic in practice if not dogmatically, tolerant of religion but chiefly because it takes religion to be moribund, then it will be impossible to be either a good Muslim or a Christian and anything but an outsider in Europe.
Can Christians and Jews enter into dialogue with secular humanists? Again I would say that it is necessary for each party to understand what the other believes. I would say that one of the fundamental beliefs of secular humanists is that the world as the natural sciences portray it is the world as it is and also as it is not–a variation on the Protagorean saying: Man is the measure of all things–and that there is no place in the world thus portrayed for gods, and that God or G-d is simply the last of the gods. A second fundamental belief is that Darwinism has finally obviated any need for a Supreme Intelligence by showing how chance can produce effects which appear to the naive as products of design. I suspect that it is possible to show the limits of these principles: to show that former is a postulate for which neither philosophy nor science can marshal any proof; and perhaps to show that Darwinism has not yet explained some things that need to be explained, and that to assume it will do so is to beg the question (in the old sense rapidly and unfortunately now falling into disuse). I am thinking is particular of the appearance of fully modern humans as language users. What do Christians and Jews believe on these questions? It might take interreligious dialogue to establish that, if it is possible to do it at all. I do not mean to be pessimistic.
Like Joseph Komonchak, I too wondered about the office that Paul VI had established to promote dialogue with non-believers. I discovered that it had been integrated under the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Here is the description on the Vatican Website:
THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE
The history of the Pontificium Consilium de Cultura, the Pontifical Council for Culture, dates back to the Second Vatican Council. A whole section of that Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church – Gaudium et Spes – emphasises the fundamental importance of culture for the full development of the human person, the many ways in which salvation and culture are linked, and the mutual enrichment of the Church and cultures throughout the history of civilisations (Gaudium et Spes, 53-62).
Pope Paul VI wrote, in a document which harvested the fruits of the work which went into the Synod of Bishops on evangelisation, held in the autumn of 1974: “The Gospel, and therefore evangelisation, are certainly not identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the Kingdom which the Gospel proclaims is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the Kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures. Though independent of cultures, the Gospel and evangelisation are not necessarily incompatible with them; rather they are capable of permeating them all without becoming subject to any one of them” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 20).
Building on the riches inherited from Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council and the Synod of Bishops, John Paul II founded the Pontifical Council for Culture in 1982 (Personal Letter to the Cardinal Secretary of State, 20 May 1982). In his Motu Proprio Apostolic Letter Inde a Pontificatus of 25 March 1993, John Paul II merged the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers (founded in 1965 by Paul VI) with the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Can there be dialogue with outsiders when we are so inept in dialoguing within? How well do you think it happens here?
A tiny few boast about dialog with their pastor. How many pastors know their parish?
Now with foreign students serving as associates, the pastor and associates know people less and vice versa.
The one priest that has done this best, in my opinion, and stayed with it and done so much is Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame.
How many names would you list?
Two observations about dialogue possibilities.
First, One of my former philosophy colleagues is an “Enlightenment fundamentalist.” ( i dislike this teerm.) We were able to agree that therre is evil that is not reducible to a sickness or a transitional phase in the process of evolution. In short, we agreed that evil is a mystery. Why is there moral evil that human beings, and only human beings perpetrate? This raises a curcial question about just how wwe ought to understand what it is to be human. My colleague and I haven’t gotten beyond this issue, but he does agree that he has no satisfactory answer. That agreement does keep lines of dialogue open.
Second, I fret that too often we Catholics talk about our understanding of our view on life in excessively moral terms. I mean that we seem to stress the moral conclusions of our faith, e.g., about abortion, without giving sufficient attention to the “premises” of our faith that give rise to these conclusions. For example, we believe that creation is good, that God has repeatedly made covenants with us that manifest His love for us, that the life, death, resurrection, and ascensionof Jesus are God’s testimony tous that He finds humanity, for all the messes that we humans have made, still eminently lovable, and that the oly Spirit remains active throughout all of humanity. This is an extraordinary set of beliefs that we hold by faith. It is these beliefs that we take to underpin our moral concerns. Without the underpinning of these beliefs, our moral concerns can seem to be just one of many sets of preferences that that peopple happen to hold.
As best I can tell, to be well equipped to enter into dialogue with people holding other views about life, Catholics have to keep in mind the fact that, in the last analysis, their view of life is the faith that is a gift of God, given to us for the well-being of all humankind. Accordingly, we both need to undrstand it as such and not fall into the trap of trying simply to advance arguments that somehow prove that we have “the right answers.”
Speaking of dialogue, this morning I read a piece in the Parish Bulletin by one of the parochial vicars. He said that the “Holy Father” was being maligned because he had been quoted out of context by irresponsible journalists. Fortunately I did not encounter the author of these remarks at church this morning. I would have been speechless. No actual quotation from Benedict’s speech was provided and there was no link for anyone who might want to read the text. I don’t think I need say what I make of this.
Re: Professor Dauenhauer
As I thought about the challenge of dialogue with non-believers, the question of evil popped into my head. When talking to non, former, etc. believers this is often their justification/argument for non-theism. My first move is to suggest that a lot of evil in the world is generated by humankind–so don’t blame God! But that only gets you so far. And you are probably right to conclude that it is a mystery in everyone’s believing and non-believing tradition.
I am curious to know, however, how you both reached that bottom line. How did the argument go?
I agree that evil can be a sticking point in dialogue with unbelievers. I do not think there is a way to explain why God allows moral evil, or for that matter physical evil. For that reason I think it is important not to overdo the “reasonableness” of God lest we encourage the idea that after all our ways and God’s ways must be the same when clearly they are not.
I second Prof. Dauenhauer’s second point: that Christianity, before being an ethic, is a worldview that rests on what we believe about God, the world, and history. NT scholars often speak of the Christian imperatives deriving from the Christian indicatives. The love we are to have for God and for neighbor is enabled and motivated by the love of God for us. Think of the parable of the unmerciful servant: because we live in a world of infinite, unmerited forgiveness, forgiveness has to be the law of our lives. If we do not, we are fundamentally alienated from the very structure of this universe.
Some years ago the London “Tablet” had an exchange of letters as to whether Chiristianity differed significantly from Buddhism. The whole conversation revolved around ethics. Not a single contributor mentioned Jesus Christ, Word Incarnate.
I support Fr. K’s second. The Christian world-view is the most attractive one I have ever heard of and also the most exciting. The problem is then to present Catholic Christianity as more than a moral code or a cult of the Pope. Logically there seem to be two steps. (1) Show what Christianity essentially is. (2) Show that is not irrational or even unreasonable to believe. God would do the rest. In fact he would really also be doing the first two.
Thanks to Mr. Gannon and Fr. Komonchak for their comments. But let me reply to Mrs. Steinfels at this time.
There’s not much to tell about the “dialogue” I’ve had with my colleague, hereafter C.
Briefly, and roughly, C is a thoroughgoing materialist. Accordingly, he holds that whatever a human being does is, in principle, explicable in terms of physical processes. However, he admits that that there are differences between events such as trees shedding leaves and sleepwalking people walking into doors, on the one hand, and events that are human actions, e.g. my writing this message. Furthermore, e admits that some human actions are rightly called evil. They are not mere malfunctions nor the result of some diseased condition. C admits, therefore, that he sees no way to account in purely materialist terms for evil deeds. Perhaps some such account can someday be given, but he doesn’t see just how it could.
For my part, I accept Paul Ricoeur’s argument that philosophy canot account for why therre is moral evil No theodicy works. It is logically incoherent to hold the following three propositions. 1. There is an all-powerful God. 2. This God is all-good. 3. There is genuine moral evil. Nonetheless, we find ourselves born into a world in which there is moral evil whose consequences we suffer from. And we find ourselves perpetrating evils.
We believers accept the Bible with its message of God’s lovig creation and ongoing providence. My colleague C does not. But both of us find ourselves confronted with the limits of what human reason can accomplish. Though we still have these fundamental disagreements, we can at least recognize that neither of us has given up on reason. Nor is either of us likely to find a knock-down philosophical argument that definitively defeats the other’s position.
This is as far as C and I have gotten.
Let me also say thanks to Joe Gannon and Fr. Komonchak. I’m no theologian. So I feel relieved when a real theologian says that I’m at least in the ball park when i say something about Catholicism.
One last thing. I delight in the absence of titles in these blogs. “Profesor” makes me cringe a bit. I’m just a retired teacher who is glad to be in these conversations. But I can’t bring myself to discard the title “Father” for priests that I don’t know personally.
Thanks to Mr. Gannon and Fr. Komonchak for their comments. But let me reply to Mrs. Steinfels at this time.
There’s not much to tell about the “dialogue” I’ve had with my colleague, hereafter C.
Briefly, and roughly, C is a thoroughgoing materialist. Accordingly, he holds that whatever a human being does is, in principle, explicable in terms of physical processes. However, he admits that that there are differences between events such as trees shedding leaves and sleepwalking people walking into doors, on the one hand, and events that are human actions, e.g. my writing this message. Furthermore, e admits that some human actions are rightly called evil. They are not mere malfunctions nor the result of some diseased condition. C admits, therefore, that he sees no way to account in purely materialist terms for evil deeds. Perhaps some such account can someday be given, but he doesn’t see just how it could.
For my part, I accept Paul Ricoeur’s argument that philosophy canot account for why therre is moral evil No theodicy works. It is logically incoherent to hold the following three propositions. 1. There is an all-powerful God. 2. This God is all-good. 3. There is genuine moral evil. Nonetheless, we find ourselves born into a world in which there is moral evil whose consequences we suffer from. And we find ourselves perpetrating evils.
We believers accept the Bible with its message of God’s lovig creation and ongoing providence. My colleague C does not. But both of us find ourselves confronted with the limits of what human reason can accomplish. Though we still have these fundamental disagreements, we can at least recognize that neither of us has given up on reason. Nor is either of us likely to find a knock-down philosophical argument that definitively defeats the other’s position.
This is as far as C and I have gotten.
Let me also say thanks to Joe Gannon and Fr. Komonchak. I’m no theologian. So I feel relieved when a real theologian says that I’m at least in the ball park when i say something about Catholicism.
One last thing. I delight in the absence of titles in these blogs. “Profesor” makes me cringe a bit. I’m just a retired teacher who is glad to be in these conversations. But I can’t bring myself to discard the title “Father” for priests that I don’t know personally.
Thank you, Prof. Daunhauer, Mr. Gannon, and Fr. Komonchak!
Bernard,
You might try asking how your friend judges that actions are evil. In a wholly material universe there does not seem to be room for any “ought to do” or “ought not to do” as applied to human actions. Perhaps by “evil” he means that he does not approve, but that does not seem adequate.
I agree that no theodicy works. We cannot judge God and he needs no defence.
Finally, on a personal note, I am not now and never have been a theologian, if that was your impression.
Joseph,
Some materialists think that moral codes, with their oughts and ought nots, can be the result of the evolution or development of physcical processes such as those studied by geneticists or neuroscientists. Such a hypothesis is not logically nonsensical. But what it would take to confirm it or even to let us see clearly what it actually entails makes it seem wholly implausible. My colleague and I agree about that. But then what? Evil remains a deep dark mystery that is still a manifest reality with which we must cope every day.
What we do to cope with it is, I think, based finally on a serious, often difficult, hope.
Bernard,
I would say that at best evolution could explain why we have come to believe that that we ought to do some things and not do others, e.g., because such beliefs are useful and tend to preserve and strengthen the communities that hold them. But in the last analysis in a universe that is a product of chance there can be no moral value that stands by itself apart from its evolutinary origins and consequences.
Joseph,
What you say is exactly right. But, some people would say that, of course, “no moral value stands apart from its evolutionary origins and consequences.” That’s why, they would say, moral values, like everything cultural, is one of the products of evolution. The hard part for those of us who do want to say that there are moral values that are in some nontrivial sense self-standing but who also want to take evolution seriously find ourselves confronting a genuine mystery.