FAITH: SECURITY & RISK
Epilogue: Can There
Be a Universal Faith?
After
our discussion of any "unitive" or
so-called "universalizing" faith, this problem simply cannot be
avoided. To the extent that unitive consciousness tends
to universalize faith, the question of a universal faith or set of
beliefs naturally follows; consequently not only every known major religious
faith but even most of the great mystics themselves have made the claim of
their own special insight into ultimate reality and, on the basis of that
claim, tended to absolutize their own views as the
superior, sometimes the only way, of approaching God or achieving salvation.
Thus the subjective experience of unity with the absolute all too easily
becomes the exclusive claim to absolute objectivity. The truth as grasped by
this or that person or culture is elevated to the status of the sole ultimate
truth for all persons, all cultures.
Theologian
Hans Küng, in his book Theology for the Third
Millennium, sums up the possible alternative reactions to this claim of
religious faith. They are basically four (with Küng's
phrasing given in italics) :
1.
No religion is true or all religions are equally untrue -- this
usually meant in the sense of absolute atheism.
2. Only one religion is true or all other religions are untrue --
this is the "absolutist-exclusivist" position.
3. Every religion is true or all religions are equally true --
this is seen as a typically "relativistic" approach.
4. Only one religion is (essentially) true [while] all other
religions have a share ([more or less]) in the truth of this one
religion -- generally termed the "inclusivist"
view.
In
light of the various faith stages, we have to eliminate the first two choices
given above. Both dogmatically preclude any further discussion, neither qualifying for consideration by either a truly conjunctive
or a universalizing faith. The first, "absolute atheism",
reflects, as it usually does, the extreme negative or rejecting phase of the
process that would otherwise lead toward a personal faith. Rather than being a
cautious agnosticism, such a dogmatic rejection of all religion often assumes
all the trappings and intolerance of a competing religion-for example, as [was]
seen in the official atheistic propaganda of the communist world.
Much
the same degree of fanaticism mars the second possible response, the
"absolute-exclusivist" position. This attitude, which often
accompanies literal and conventional faith, unfortunately sometimes displays
even more intolerance when it is taken into a more personal faith. Long the
stance of most of the Christian denominations -- either regarding themselves or
Christianity as a whole -- this second position was essentially repudiated by
the Catholic Church at Vatican II.
The
third possibility, however, is especially appealing to the conjunctive and unitive stages of faith, despite its questionable logic. It
is claimed, for example, that each religion, within its cultural setting,
essentially performs the same function -- giving ultimate meaning to life. Some
will go further and claim that all the religions have the same essential
message. But I would dispute both claims. No doubt any religion gives
some meaning to life. But are all meanings of equal value? For example,
can a faith that turns its back entirely on the world be considered
functionally the equal of one that tries to transform the world? Or, on the
other hand, can we say that a religion that promises worldly success be
considered as advanced as one that seeks to develop higher consciousness of and
unity with the ultimate truth? Obviously, even by the criteria we've seen
developed in our consideration of the stages of faith, there are serious gaps
and contradictions in a purely relativist view of this type.
So
this leaves us with the fourth possibility, what would be an "inclusivist" and, I presume, universalized view -- but
the problem here is: of which "true" religion? Küng points out that this is essentially the view taken by
Hinduism as it has evolved in recent times, while we might add that Christian
theologians, including Küng, are scrambling to come
up with a convincing Christian version of the same. Even just a sketchy review
of what has been attempted along this line so far would require another whole
book.
This
is the reason that I decided to avoid, as much as I could, up till now, the
term "universalizing" faith or, even more, the suggestion of a
"universal faith". Not that I don't believe that one is theoretically
possible -- it is just that the importance of faith understood primarily as commitment,
and only secondarily as a set of convictions leading to an all-enabling
confidence or trust, has been the main point, even if not the whole point of
this book.
Yet
the fact is that strong commitment cannot be made, except to someone or
something. And, accordingly, certain convictions about that object of
our commitment come to the fore. Unfortunately, even error, when firmly held,
can sometimes inspire the highest confidence. Given the wrong
set of convictions, that same confidence can wreak havoc upon the human mind
and upon the world. Ultimately, only "the truth will make you
free."
Truth
involves, whether we like it or not, teachings or doctrine. But doctrines
unfortunately still tend to divide more than unite. This is why Hinduism's and
especially Buddhism 's attempts to solve the problem
propose to sidestep the issue of doctrine altogether by relegating it to a
lesser level of religious consciousness -- of course, by advocating a
"higher" mystical doctrine of their own. Or else one may attempt a
synthesis of competing doctrines -- such was the idea of the founder of Sikhism
who attempted to blend the Hindu world-view, with its belief in karma
and reincarnation, with Islamic monotheism. Unfortunately, history shows that
such attempts at syncretism often turn out to become just another competing
sect.
So too in the west. Not even
the attempt to formulate a universalized interpretation of Christianity has
ever been very successful, with what one group or another considers
"heresy" dividing such efforts almost from the beginning. So also
many groups stubbornly resist the ecumenical movement today. Nor has organized
ecumenism's strategic shift to "service" instead of doctrine been
noticeably more effective -- in fact many of the moral and political dimensions
of such service turn out to be more divisive than pure doctrine alone.
What
then is the answer? Does the unitive faith stage
inevitably call for not just a universalizing, but a truly universal faith? I am
personally convinced that despite the divisive effect religious teachings have
had in the past, only a deepened religious faith in the broadest sense
of the word -- which includes doctrine -- can generate the hope, confidence, or
trust that makes life possible in the long run. So I would like to end with a
short consideration of what the content or convictions of that faith might
include, at least from a Christian perspective. It is not the only and hardly
the latest such attempt, but it is the one with which I am most familiar, and
because of its emphasis on faith both as a conviction leading to confidence
or hope for this world, as well as to a renewed commitment to the
future of humanity, it is most appropriate for concluding our discussion.
About
seventy years ago, the scientist-philosopher-theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
began pondering the question of humanity's future in the face of a growing
pessimism. We have, he felt, reached an impasse in the evolution of the human
species; either we shall have to make the difficult choices that are necessary
to advance, or else we will slowly, but surely, regress (see "The Grand
Option" in The Future of Man). And that choice, he said, is
essentially a question of faith, a faith that must combine both a
"propulsive" faith in the future of humanity along the horizontal
horizon of this world's evolution, as well as an "ascensional"
faith that aims at the transcendental goal of the spirit (see "How I
Believe" in Christianity and Evolution). To Teilhard's
mind, the classical faiths or religions of mankind had fallen into a trap:
either the development of the "soul" or spirit at the expense of this
world, or else, as in the case of western and Marxist civilization, development
of this world at the expense of the spirit. These two "faiths" must
be reunited, and the world must search for the religious expression that is
capable of doing so. For Teilhard, as a Christian,
the symbolic goal of this dual faith is the "Christ-Omega", the focal
point in which creator and creation are brought into a union through which
"God becomes all in all" (1 Cor 15:28).
If I were to attempt to recast Teilhard's
vision in trinitarian terms (or should we say
Hegelian terms? -- something similar to R. Panikkar's
venture some years back) we might say that what Teilhard
attempted to do was to reach a synthesis of the western emphasis on the
transcendent "Father" God-image, on the one hand, and the immanential tendency of Oriental [Asian] religion on the
other. The latter's tendency to immerse divinity within the universe as its
"soul" or "spirit", which, to Teilhard
's mind, paradoxically tends to devaluate the material, changing universe as maya or illusion, too often ends up cultivating an
indifference to the world as something not really real. Teilhard's
approach to a synthesis of the two is based on a progressive or evolutionary
view of the universe where "spirit" is not opposed to
"matter", but where the two are seen but as poles of a single weltstoff and what appears to be pure materiality
evolves, through a process of complexity leading toward consciousness, into
what is more and more capable of full communion with God in love.
The
great agent of this evolution is God's "Word" or the
self-manifestation of God in human form, Jesus Christ. In him are not only the
two views of divinity, transcendence and immanence of God, united, but through
the evolution of his own humanity into a perfect instrument of the spirit,
Jesus himself becomes the concrete embodiment of the "Omega"-goal of
evolution where materiality itself is transformed into the consummate
expression of the spirit. Yet, at the same time, the risen Christ is physically
united to the universe, not just as the ecclesial or even the sacramental
"body of Christ," but through him the universe itself becomes, as it
were, "the body of God" or the pleroma,
"the fullness of him who is filled all in all", or, as some
translations put it, "who fills the universe in all its parts" (see
Eph 1 :23).
Teilhard himself never developed an
express "pneumatology" or theology of the
Holy Spirit, but his writings are pregnant with possibilities. His concept of
the "noosphere", the interconnected
"skein" or network of consciousnesses pushed ever more tightly
together by "planetary compression" (the effect of ever-expanding
population on a limited earth surface), not only portends a growing
"world-culture" (as well as a world population crisis unless astutely
managed) but also a growing unanimity of spiritual aspirations -- even perhaps
a drawing together of the world 's religions. We can
no longer ignore the existence of and the values of the other religious
traditions. Either we learn to draw together under the attraction of that great
spiritual pole and through the force of its primary energy, love
, or else we will implode upon ourselves in an orgy of disharmony and
self-destructive friction. Just as Christ's "body" grows, so to
speak, through its expression in Christianity (or to Teilhard's
mind, in whatever is "christified" in
creation), so, too, cannot we say that God's Holy Spirit "grows" as
it were, where and whenever the spiritual potentialities of the universe are
developed and unified (or, as Teilhard would say,
"amorized") through the power of love?
No
doubt such a vision, however philosophically astute in speculative terms, is
neither scientifically well-founded according to the methodology of biological
science nor even theologically well-grounded according to the canons of
biblical scholarship. At best, it resembles, somewhat vaguely, the Christology
begun in the later Pauline "captivity" epistles (Colossians and
Ephesians). The historical figure of Jesus presented in the scriptures,
(especially the first three "synoptic" gospels) becomes all but
swallowed up in the suprahistorical personage of the
"universal Christ" -- the universal meeting point between God and
humanity.
In
addition, in the face of the claims of the other major world religions, Jesus
of Nazareth becomes (to Teilhard's mind, expressed in
a later unpublished "Journal" note) the "definitive" (but,
it seems, not the exclusive) manifestation of the "Trans-Christ" --
the revelation of the divine "Logos" within the universe,
which, by implication, has expressed itself in manifest ways, perhaps even in
other "incarnations".
What
are we to think of such speculations? No one can doubt the daring power of his
thought -- Teilhard even seriously pondered the
implications of not just the possibility but even the virtual certainty of life
on other planets. But, as Küng (1988) implies, not
only do such flights of theological fancy break with the claims of the gospel
as the absolute norm (the "norma normans") for Christian theology, but Teilhard's naive belief in the "infallibility" of
human evolution, which so scandalized his Roman censors, is, in our
"post-modern" period, a passe remnant of a
bygone era. We can no longer be so optimistic about this world or our abilities
to shape its future. So are we not dealing here with a mystical vision of
sorts, a personal faith of one extraordinary individual that just happened to
fill the needs of many persons seeking a new faith or a new sense of security
in a very insecure time? Perhaps. No doubt there is
much truth in these criticisms.
Nevertheless,
I believe there is also something more to be said in his favor. Teilhard's synthesis, because of its mystical dimension,
represents for me the clearest example of a conjunctive faith straining toward
a unitive resolution -- for what could be, at first
glance, more paradoxically disjunctive than a faith in both the
"infallibility" of the world and in the God of biblical
tradition who "thinks, loves, speaks, punishes, rewards in the same way as
a person does"? (See Christianity and Evolution,
p. 99.) How expand trust in Jesus of Nazareth into a faith in the
universal Christ except as the product of a unitive
vision that embraces, all at once, God and cosmos, the "pantheistic"
insights of the east and the "personalistic"
views of the west? (See "The Spiritual Contribution of the
If
I have brought this discussion to a close by turning to Teilhard's
version of "The Evolution of Faith" (the introductory section of
"How I Believe") it is not because I think his is the only possible
version of a unitive vision that reaches out toward a
universal faith. There have been and will be many more such attempts -- Teilhard perhaps only having been one of those "precursors"
(see Küng, 1988, pp. 186 and 214) who attempted to
speculatively bridge the gap between traditional belief and modern scientific
views. But I personally think that it was less a matter of Teilhard's
speculative genius and more the power of his unitive
consciousness that inspired him in his universalizing synthesis and his
attempts to formulate a universal faith. For Teilhard,
"research" was the cutting edge of evolution, and mysticism the
highest form of research.
Teilhard more than once remarked in
letters that he knew that his efforts would not be appreciated either by strict
scientists or by the church theologians. It was a very accurate prediction,
still largely borne out by the treatment of his thought in professional
circles. The power of Teilhard's vision is instead in
its dual commitment to God and the world that alone can inspire the confidence,
along with the trust in God and in the Spirit working through us, that this present age demands. Only by taking the risk
of breaking through the confines of outmoded forms of thinking and formulas of
belief can we hope to arrive at the renewed confidence and security that
we so desperately crave.
Yet
when all is said and done, I doubt whether on this side of eternity any
so-called "universal faith" is possible as such. Perhaps the most we
can expect is an all-embracing, a "catholic" (in the original
sense of that word) openness and faithfulness to the truth wherever it is
found. Just as there has always been a plurality of theological approaches
within Christianity, even within the New Testament itself, we have to resign
ourselves to the fact that the human race, as long as it is made up of separate
peoples, with different cultures, and varying outlooks on life, will also have
diverse religions, some as different as Hinduism is from Islam, or Christianity
is from Buddhism. Yet each has something to contribute, because each has
experienced, in its own way, something of the ultimate truth.
I
may firmly believe -- as I do, and as did Teilhard --
that the "ever-greater Christ" will be
revealed as the culmination of an on-going process by which, in humanity and
through humanity, the whole cosmos is progressively united with God. Yet, even
if I were to say that I knew this to be true as a result of some
peak-experience of some sort or another, the habitual enjoyment of such a unitive consciousness remains provisional in this life. At
best, even the highest vision of the truth remains as "a dim reflection in
a mirror" (1 Cor 13:12), always on the level of
the life of faith. Such faith demands that we always remain
committed to the search for ultimate meaning -- enough that we are willing to
take the risk of recognizing it wherever and whenever it is encountered.
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