Mechteld Jansen

JOHN SOBERT SYLVEST AND AMOS YONG

REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD

Toward a Contemplative Phenomenology for Interreligious Dialogue

Introduction Our present postmodern situation is characterized by radical pluralism. There is resistance to essentialism in religion and insistence on religious pluralism as a fact, a suspicion about theological metanarratives as opposed to thinking about theological systems or worldviews, and a rejection of any type of philosophic synthesis in favor of epistemological perspectivism and axiological relativism. Yet the quest for unity—philosophic, theological, and even religious —will probably never subside, perhaps in large part because there is a commonality of human experience, as difficult as that might be to identify discur- sively. The key may be to be suggestive rather than definitive about the human condition, proposing a speculative vision that is simultaneously pragmatically guided.

We are bold enough to suggest yet another way forward, although also chas- tened enough by late modernity to do so tentatively. In brief, the hypothesis we propose is an axiological one concerning human life as a quest for value- realization. The task of axiological discernment, however, will need to proceed along various lines, some confined within a particular community of inquirers and others engaged across various communities of inquiry. More precisely put, if we adopt a contemplative phenomenology that more broadly conceives religious epistemology beyond the traditional philosophical categories of epistemic justification (empirical and logical) and normative praxes (ethical, moral and practical) to include other indispensable human values as well, such as the esthetic, affective, aspirational, relational, and other embod- ied aspects of all that humans experience as true, good, beautiful, and unitive, then these additional perspectives will not only contribute to a more holistic (hence, authentic) anthropology but will, at the same time, challenge the received questions (and answers) that pertain to philosophic, theological, and

170 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART inter/religious dialogue.1 Toward this end, our reflections will traverse a good deal of ground, beginning with the religious life and the interreligious encounter, then considering, in turn, philosophical and epistemological dimen- sions of such a theoretical vision. Our concluding section summarizes the gains made toward what we call a praxis-oriented contemplative phenomenology for interreligious dialogue.

We should note, however, that our postfoundationalist orientation—to be commented on further below—means this essay does not provide an argument in the strict sense but rather should be seen as a form of reasoning from the heart that unpacks and presents a “vision of the whole” that may resonate with others.2 The one caveat, of course, is that both authors are Christians, and these Christian commitments are not bracketed in what follows. More precisely, ours is a more fully trinitarian worldview in terms of taking seri- ously not only the incarnation but also the pentecostal reality of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity in the world.3 At the same time, we also think it plausible that such an incarnational and pneumatological vision is capable of providing insights and maybe even stepping stones to the sought after unity without neglecting the diversity and plurality of beliefs and practices, even across religious lines. Thus our proposal is intended to be fully ecumenical, not only for intra-Christian consideration but also for the wider interreligious encounter.

1 This approach, because of its much wider epistemological spectrum, articulates a third way between or beyond alternating emphases on the pre-theoretical (mystical) religious experience versus that which is more linguistically and textually mediated (Yong 2009), and we offer it as another avenue toward any earnestly sought after quest for commensurability across religious lines. 2 Here we are drawing from but also going beyond Pascal, accepting his claim that “the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing” but also fleshing out that insight in a late-modern world of not only many cultures and religions but also many philosophic systems. For a more philosophically oriented exploration of this matter, see Wainwright 1995. 3 By “incarnational and pentecostal” we refer first and foremost to the two major biblical salvation history events—the Christ event as manifest in the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to the people of God. Of course, the pentecostal emphasis is also connected to the fact that Sylvest has long been a participant in the Catholic charismatic renewal and Yong derives from the tradition of modern pentecostalism—but there is no intention here of thinking these modern movements as being on a par with the mystery of the incarnation. Unless otherwise noted, all references to “pentecostal” in the remainder of this essay are to the biblical episode rather than the modern phenomena.

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Reflecting on the Religious Life and the Interreligious Encounter If we take life as a journey made up of individual steps, which we might consider to be value-pursuits, and we measure the distance we travel in terms of milestones, which we might consider to be value-realizations,4 then we might consider each complete movement to require, minimally, three separate motions, optimally four. Those motions would be 1) the descriptive motion where we ask: Is that a fact? 2) the evaluative motion where we ask: What is it to me? and 3) the normative motion where we inquire: How do we best obtain (or avoid) it? There is no value-realization movement that does not consist of these three integrally related motions.5 Arguably, these distinctly human motions and movements are also the very essence of spirituality, which relates to that aspect of life which exceeds our purely material dimen- sions. And we may, through the vagaries of formation, deformation, and re- formation, be variously competent or incompetent spiritually. Also, even if competent, we may be either consciously or unconsciously competent, which is where the fourth motion comes in, the interpretive, which asks: How does all of this tie together? This interpretive motion can be understood to be cen- tral to the nature of religion, which may variously be institutionalized (or- ganized) or not, which may even be theistic, non-theistic, atheistic, or agnos- tic. Thus it is that many can say they are spiritual but not religious or that they are religious but not “believers” (self-described religious naturalists, for example).

We may also broadly conceive of these motions as comprising the enterprises of science (descriptive, as in our empirical methods), culture (evaluative, as in our social, economic, political and esthetical methods) and philosophy (normative, as in our moral, ethical, metaethical and logical methods), which together would articulate our cosmology. Religion would function as the interpretive axis around which our cosmology spins. Our cosmology would thus represent what we would consider to be Everybody’s Story, one that we

4 This notion of value-pursuit and value-realization we get from Robert Cummings Neville, especially from across his three-volume Axiology of Thinking series: Neville 1981, 1989, and 1995, respectively. 5 This is not as bold or controversial an epistemological claim as it might first appear for some. Consider it an adaptation of Lonergan’s transcendental epistemology, albeit applied through application of Neville’s work to the human knowing of values. Remember that, for Lonergan, all knowing emerges out of a hermeneutical spiral con- sisting of four moments—experiential perceiving, intelligent understanding, normative judging/deciding, and responsible acting—and any attempt to provide an alternative epistemological account will necessarily proceed through these four “steps.” See Lo- nergan 1972: 13-20; for further discussion, cf. Yong 2002, esp. part II on epistemology.

172 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART all share, a story that is not really up for grabs. That is to recognize that we cannot go around making this stuff up, for what we are dealing with is what has been, so to speak, given. Thus it is that our axiological interpretations will often, in large measure, be about exploring this donative nature of reality as we discover what has been given as the true, the good, and the beautiful. Still, our cultural expressions will enjoy a wonderful diversity because our socio- economico-politico-cultural and esthetical evaluations and value-realizations entail our practice of the art of the possible as created co-creators (Hefner 1993). In our cultural value-pursuits, the created co-creator, as artist, enjoys the privilege of self-expression and self-realization and this liberty gifts us, practically, with a diversity of ministry though not without an underlying unity of mission, and aesthetically, with a plurality of expression of the beautiful though always ordered to the true and the good.

A fulfilling spiritual journey thus requires our ongoing development and growth intellectually, affectively, morally, and socially. Optimally, it will also be religious, which, as an interpretive motion, necessarily entails much more than mere propositional assent, descriptively, but also the celebrations of the beauty we have encountered, evaluatively, the preservation of the goodness we have discovered, normatively, and the enjoyment of the community we have realized, unitively.6 Through our participatory imaginations, there is much that humanity shares spiritually, and even religiously, of a non- propositional nature. This allows us to endeavor together to celebrate the beauty, advance the goodness, and enjoy the community we have already realized and can foster our engagement in ever more authentic dialogue that we might together construct a much more compelling meta-perspective, which would bring us closer to what is true.

In Thomas Merton’s writings and recorded lectures, he generally describes our human journey in terms of humanization, socialization, and transformation.7 Early on, formatively, we become less like little animals and more hu

6 Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, Fowler, and other developmental theorists have described such growth dynamics psychologically. Gelpi 1998, expanding on Lonergan 1972, describes them in terms of conversion, which leads to progressive human authenticity. 7 References made to Thomas Merton’s recorded lectures—from which this and the following paragraph derive, in large part—come from scores of his conferences, recorded as early as 1962, for the novices at the Abbey of Gethsemani. In these daily lectures Merton passed along his understanding of the contemplative tradition. These thoughts are liberally paraphrased from Merton’s conferences and have been reproduced on compact discs entitled Becoming Our True Self (CD, Kansas City, MO: Credence Communications, 2006), and The True Self and the False Self (CD, Kansas City, MO:

173 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 man. Primary school teachers report that parents turn in mixed results in this regard, speaking of the little animals that often occupy our primary schools. After some success with humanization, next we are socialized in all sorts of ways by all sorts of institutions like marriage, religion, government, and schools. Through socialization, we learn how to function in society and we get our needs met through mutual give and take. This is mostly a pragmatic dynamic governed by extrinsic reward systems. We think in terms, hopefully, of enlightened self-interest as we buy into such notions of truth, beauty, goodness, and unity. At some point, we might attempt to describe their origins, which, minimalistically and reductionistically, might be partly explained in terms of evolutionary adaptive significance and sociobiology. These existential orientations might also be explained as transcendental imperatives. This is about as far as much of humanity ever goes. And, to be sure, it is a wonder to behold. We could say that our cosmology, through science, culture, and philosophy, fosters human value-realizations of truth, beauty, goodness and unity in abundance, while religion, as an interpretive value-pursuit, aspiring to what Tillich described as our ultimate concern, interrogates reality asking if there might be more, embarking on a religious quest for superabundance.

Sometimes, due to exceptionally good formation, but maybe most often through crisis, as Merton would say—usually a crisis of continuity (death in all its forms) or of creativity (the need to matter or make a difference)— some journey further, which is to say beyond mere humanization and socialization to transformation. Transformation has many descriptions, which vary from tradition to tradition, but its essence, in our view, is marked by the move beyond extrinsic reward systems to intrinsic reward systems, which is to recognize that some pursue truth, beauty, goodness, and unity as ends in themselves, or, as we might say, as their own reward. By definition, one needs no apologetic or defense or explanation of such a path. And, we reckon it sometimes makes little sense to invite anyone to take such a path because there is no way to explain such a reward system to the uninitiated. For one thing, it may not be developmentally appropriate. Also, it can only be self- realized. At any rate, this type of approach is more often “caught” than taught. Another hallmark of transformation is the gifting of a new interpretive lens, which views reality not just empirically, logically, morally, esthetically, and practically, but also relationally. This view entails what we might call, across traditions, the contemplative stance. It complements the problem-solving, dualistic mindset with a non-dual approach that receives what reality

Credence Communications, 2004). Different Merton societies will loan older print mater- ials— e.g., Merton 1950-1955 and 1961.

174 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART donates with raw awareness and without prejudgment, in other words, with an open mind and open heart.

The Christian religion very much affirms what we would call the erotic aspect of our relationship to reality, or, in other words, the “What’s in it for me?” dynamic. This is a good thing and quite natural. This dynamic, which the Greeks called eros, is, alone, both necessary and sufficient, spiritually and religiously, for all God really requires of us is an enlightened self-interest. This is, in fact, the exoteric aspect of most traditions. The mystics of all traditions, however, also give witness to a more esoteric aspect, which is the agapic dynamic (from the Greek agape, which corresponds to unconditional love) that consists of the realization of the superabundance to be found in the intrinsically rewarding parts of our journey. This goes beyond doctrines and metaphysics and belief systems, though not necessarily without them. Simi- larly, agape goes beyond eros although not without it. This goes beyond the empirical and rational and practical to the robustly relational, to the “just-because-ish-ness” of reality.

In the spirituality practiced by all of the great traditions, we do encounter many utterly transformed people and can reasonably attribute this to their esoteric teachings and mystical practices. And that is quite the commonality across the world's religions. They otherwise differ, then, at least in the exoteric and socialization aspects of the human journey. And we do not want to say that getting those aspects as right as we possibly can is not important because optimal humanization and socialization and indoctrination can best foster transformation and better form people for transformation. Adjudicating which paths best lead to authenticity, following the aphorism that orthopraxis authenticates orthodoxy, is a task to which we will return to address later. Clearly, we are not advocating any insidious indifferentism, facile syncre- tism, or false irenicism even as we suggest that the Holy Spirit animates all human goodness. What we want to emphasize is that it is important to pay attention to the world’s transformed people and to listen to their reflections on how it is their transformations may have come about because each such story contributes, along with many others’ reflections regarding their paths, to part of the blueprint for the human journey. Also, it is great to recognize what we have in common with others even as we grapple with those aspects of the journey that are different.

For those who cultivate a habitual contemplative approach, as commended by Merton, it can be difficult to discuss reality at a level that is one or two removes from experience. Since one dwells habitually in a relationship to reality with an approach that goes beyond words and without prejudgment, with an approach that is robustly relational and not solely analytical, the ineffa-

175 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 bility that inheres in the process does not readily lend itself to a lingua franca of mysticism precisely because we are being led into an experience beyond words. We must rely, rather, on stories and testimonies and myths and songs and koans and poetic narratives and even metanarratives. Of course, this is going to be true for all religious practitioners, even those who are not primarily contemplative, because our axiological interpretations will engage our participatory imagination to a greater extent than they will engage our conceptual mapmaking.

Humankind, as a community of inquiry, a community of value-realizers, articulates its descriptive, evaluative, normative, and interpretive claims and stances with categories and concepts that are variously semiotic, theoretical, heuristic, or dogmatic. These categories and concepts can be classed, broadly speaking, according to whether or not any given assembly of value realizers has negotiated their meaning. Negotiated terms are thus considered theoretical. Those still-in-negotiation are heuristic, acting as placeholders. Nonnegoti- ated terms, not shared by the community-at-large or held only by a restricted assembly of value realizers, are dogmatic. Semiotic terms are nonnegotiable because they include First Principles and self-evident values on which mean- ingful communication itself depends.8

For example, in some Reformed epistemologies (e.g., Hoitenga 1991), where- in the God-concept is taken as an indispensable presupposition, or as properly basic, one might say that God is a nonnegotiable or semiotic concept without which meaning itself could not be established and a nihilistic outlook would necessarily ensue. By contrast, the Tillichian Ground of Being would be a heuristic concept within an existentialist metaphysical framework. Also, the greater the amount of specification of a God-concept, such as in creedal affirmations or confessions, the greater the likelihood of a concept being considered nonnegotiated or dogmatic within any given community of inquiry. The most vague God-concept of all has perhaps been the pneumatological formulation or reference to Spirit, which might very well, from a sociologic perspective, enjoy such a universal appeal as to be considered a valid theoretical

8 Our formulation received its initial inspiration from Yehuda Elkana (see the pre- face in Elkana et al. 2002). Elkana formulated the concept of “negotiated universals” to replace otherwise dogmatic, absolute, and universal values and theories. The distinction is drawn between negotiated and imposed universals within the context of ongoing glo- balization as we consider how successful values and worldviews in one culture might gain validity in others. This concept of negotiated universals inspired our own formulation of the categories dogmatic, heuristic, theoretical and semiotic in terms of whether or not a given concept in a given community of inquiry has been negotiated or not or is or is not negotiable.

176 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART concept cross-culturally. These categories apply to any concept, including those of science and philosophy and general usage, so that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution would also be an example of a negotiated term within the biological scientific community. To some extent, it may well be that a concept’s status as dogmatic, heuristic, theoretical, or semiotic is somewhat reflective of the community’s ability to cash out more versus less practical value through time. Our formulation is intended to describe a sociologic datum vis-à-vis the status of a concept in any given community of inquiry, however broadly or narrowly conceived, and not to prescribe norms for the use of any concept. Nonetheless, there may be an inherently normative dynamic in play, especially through time, as a fallible community of inquiry inexorably approaches the truth and other value realizations and this reality is reflected in its linguistic conventions.

Once we realize that the interreligious dialogue involves such semiotic, theoretical, heuristic, and dogmatic encounters, we can be more sensitive to the different issues at stake. In the following, we will attempt to clarify why the search for metaphysical clarity across cultural-religious lines is not only so difficult but often consists of speaking past one another altogether.

Reconsidering the Quest for a Metaphysics In our view, following Whitehead, Christianity indeed remains in search of a metaphysics, as does all other human endeavor. There is a type of God-talk that begins within cosmology, what we have described as descriptive science, evaluative culture, and normative philosophy. Some call this cosmological re- flection philosophical or natural theology. We can be metaphysical realists even regarding God-concepts. Within our cosmological perspective, we can clarify categories, disambiguate vague concepts, frame up questions, and for- mulate arguments. It is here we can affirm the meaningfulness of our questions. This philosophical exercise is not unimportant, but we must understand that it is woefully insufficient for a number of reasons, primarily, because we are dealing with an excess of meaning. After forming our arguments and asking our questions, which can be done in a single afternoon’s parlor sitting, we have to stop. We must not pretend to have answered these questions and we cannot proceed with God-proofs using syllogistic argumentation. Who would want to worship a deity so small that we could wrap our minds around it? But there is another type of God-talk that then proceeds from within the faith, where we can wax metaphorical with our analogical imaginations. Such axiological interpretations are what we might call a theology of nature. While all metaphors do eventually collapse, those drawn in fidelity to our cosmology are going to prove the most resilient because our analogs are better and our tautologies, so to speak, are more taut. Of course, there are other descriptors for God-talk, such as kataphatic and apophatic, both aspiring to increase our

177 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 descriptive accuracy of God, the former through positive affirmations and the latter through negations. These categories apply to both natural theology and a theology of nature.

The currency of natural theology is the affirmation: Good question! This does not mean, however, that the lingua franca of a theology of nature is going to therefore be: Good answer! A theology of nature traffics, instead, in icono- graphy. It brings us to value-realizations via a more non-dual, contemplative stance toward reality. The chief caveat emptor where icons are concerned is their elevation into idols. In this regard, our twenty-first century religion could use a huge therapeutic dose of ancient apophatic mysticism to ensure that our icons do not become idols. Another good distinction between natural theology and a theology of nature is that the former is philosophical and en- gages our problem-solving dualistic mindset while the latter is robustly relational and nondual. Even some of the best theologies of nature, like John Haught’s esthetic teleology and Joseph Bracken’s divine matrix, with all of their sophisticated references to the biological and cosmological sciences, are poetic ventures, metaphorical adventures, much more akin to St. Francis’ hymns to nature than, for example, Gödel’s modal ontological argument.

These enterprises are integrally related intellectually but not strictly related logically. This is also to suggest that our descriptive sciences, evaluative cultures, normative philosophies, and interpretive religions are methodologically autonomous but axiologically integral since they foster our realization of human values, which might be further understood in Lonerganian and Gelpian terms as intellectual, affective, moral, sociopolitical, and religious conversions. That is to say that each, as an autonomous method, is necessary, but none, alone, is sufficient, to realize any given human value-realization. They all ask distinctly different questions of reality such that, when their answers are taken together, our modeling power of reality is enhanced and human values are better realized.

All of this is to say, then, for example, that we do not look to Christianity, or any other religion or ideology, to determine the nature of human conscious- ness, to determine whether or not what we call the human soul is intrinsically immortal, to determine whether or not the universe is eternal, or how to resolve the many paradoxes that result from the classical tensions between essentialism and nominalism, substance and process approaches, or all manner of dual and nondual claims, categories, and concepts. We do affirm metaphysics as a viable enterprise and, say, let a thousand metaphysical blossoms bloom, but let us judge them empirically, rationally, and practically in the

178 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART crucible of human experience by how well they foster human conversion toward authenticity.9

Metaphysics, at this stage of humankind’s journey, in our view, remains a great way to “probe” reality but not a reliable way to “prove” reality. Our de- ontological claims, then, should be as modest as our ontologies are tentative. However, they have been anything but modest as the general tendency among the great traditions, religious and ideological, has been, as we see it, to attempt to “prove too much.” The truth of the matter is that reality presents in such a way that is far too ambiguous for us and far too ambivalent toward us for us to draw any coercively compelling inferences regarding the precise nature of its primal origins. Perhaps we reflexively recoil from Mystery and thus try to banish the vague by anxiously pursuing the specific? Authenticity, in our view, grows as our faith moves from the clear but tentative to the vague but certain.10 And this so happens to track our spiritual movement beyond (but not without) the discursive and kataphatic to the non-discursive and apophatic, beyond (but not without) the merely rational and practical to the robustly transrational and relational, which is the essence of the contemplative gaze.

Merton grappled with such distinctions as between immanent and transcendent, impersonal and personal, apophatic and kataphatic, existential and theological, natural and supernatural, implicit and explicit, acquired and infused, in an effort to reconcile East and West. Many of these theological conun- drums were rooted, perhaps, in philosophical error, as the essentials of the Christian message became needlessly entangled with arcane and archaic metaphysics. What if, for example, Transcendental Thomism was ultimately de- rived from Kant who, instead of responding to Hume, should have ignored

9 Again, this is not to plead metaphysical agnosticism or relativism. It is to recognize that metaphysics, which trades in generalities, is open to variable specifications and instantiations; and it is also to acknowledge that in a post-metaphysical philosophical environment, the salvaging of metaphysics requires a reorientation from a priori to a posteriori approaches, especially those which emphasize the revisability of metaphysical proposals or treat them as speculative hypotheses to be tested. These issues are discussed in an exemplary manner, in our judgment, by Neville (1992, esp. part I, “Philosophy around Modernism”). In fact, using the exploratory heuristic for the axiological epistemological architectonic that we are proposing in this article, Sylvest continues to work on his own fallibilistic natural theology and pneumatological theology of nature, which together comprise what he has called a pansemioentheism. 10 This is Sylvest’s paraphrase of Fr. Benedict Grosechel, C.F.R., as retrieved from a long and fond memory of his different television series over the years, primarily originated from EWTN.

179 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 him? What if Rahner’s aprioristic thematic grace was, instead, a realization of transmuted experience, a dynamic unfolding of the union of creatures with the divine that involves creaturely responses?11 What if we viewed original sin not so much, or at least not solely, in terms of an ontological rupture lo- cated in the past but as a teleological striving oriented toward the future (see Haught 1984)? What if the Incarnation was not a response to some felix cul- pa, as Duns Scotus argued long ago (see Cross 1999: ch. 10), but a panenthe- istic reality featured in the cosmic cards and loaded in the probabilistic quan- tum dice from the eternal get-go, metaphorically speaking? Might the dicho- tomy between the natural and supernatural resolve into the ontological possibility that “it’s all supernatural” and that all experience is thus graced and dif- fers, thusly—not necessarily in kind but instead—in degree?12 Rather than the theological machinations of this or that Thomism (transcendental, existential, analytical, Aristotelian, and so on), for example, could we not, rather, prescind from our specific metaphysical ontological approaches to a more vague phenomenological perspective that affirms the robustly relational and personal, still conforming to humankind’s vague intuitions regarding “intimacy” with the Divine, while recognizing that our autonomy from the Divine Matrix of interrelated causes and effects is, necessarily, only “qua- si,” thus also conforming to humankind’s vague intuitions regarding “identity” with the Divine (see Bracken 1995, 2001, 2008, and 2009)? Perhaps some of Merton’s dualistic conceptions are mere distinctions and not necessarily true dichotomies, at least from the standpoint of salvific efficacy, which was the real conundrum with which Merton and Rahner were, in essence and at bottom, grappling—that over against a somewhat prevalent exclusivistic ec- clesiocentrism.

If all reality is graced and not bifurcated out into natural and supernatural, the very questions change even as the Incarnation and Pentecost remain the An- swer, for it/this has never been an ideology or merely another set of affirmations, but, instead is an initiation into an intimate relationship. If grace is transmuted experience and all experience is graced, from the standpoint of salvific efficacy and Lonerganian-Gelpian conversion, then, we (humankind) have all been abundantly gifted with what is necessary and sufficient (minimalistically speaking). Implicit faith might thus be viewed as a type of uncon-

11 For Gelpi (1988 and 2001), grace as transmuted experience allows creatures to grasp and value what is real not only through rational judgments formed by inductive inferences but also through affective judgments formed by feelings and expressed lyr- ically and dramatically in literature, art, ritual, and myth. 12 More recently, this argument for the “supernaturalization of the natural” has been argued by some members of the Radical Orthodoxy movement—e.g. Milbank 2005.

180 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART scious competence. What is at stake, then, via explicit faith (amplified in sac- rament and liturgy, for example) is the further transmutation of our human experience into a subconscious or conscious competence, which leads, in turn, to a superabundance.13

In this context, certain questions will not arise, for example, those that require such distinctions as acquired and infused contemplation, natural and supernatural, immanent and transcendent, while others take on a new significance, such as between the impersonal and personal, apophatic and kataphatic, existential and theological, implicit and explicit, etc. Our experiences of God will thus differ not necessarily in kind but in degree and not necessarily in ontological terms of either substance or process but in those of fullness of realization. Our vague intuition of “identity” can re-gift us with the realization of our unitive destiny, we believe, reinforcing just how close God is to us via the Divine Matrix of interrelated causes and effects (without leading us into quar- rels over monisms and pantheisms). It can serve to moderate our dialectical imaginations, which, in some parts of Christianity, have redistanced God in a manner tantamount to a de facto Deism, which is clearly at odds with a reality Jesus conveyed by calling Yahweh “Abba.” At the same time, and iron- ically, our analogical imaginations have overemphasized the analogical and metaphorical and this has raised questions of relevance via causal disjunction, for how can a reality described only via analog interact causally with anything else? The “identity,” which we like to describe as “intra-objective,” we believe reinforces and does not detract from but, rather, enhances the “inter- subjective intimacy” in a reality that is radically graced, pervasively incarnational, profusely pneumatological. We are perhaps guided more so by Beauty and Goodness to hold these types of beliefs as Truth and not so much by metaphysical proofs, which, while they indeed hint at the reasonableness of our beliefs, cannot compel anyone to recognize their veracity or soundness. Thus our beliefs can be normatively justified even if not otherwise epistemic- ally warranted. This is also to say that being in proper relationship to Love is intrinsically rewarding, an end unto itself beyond any apologetic or theodicy.

Some of our experiences of God, East versus West, for example, thus may or may not differ with respect to their origin—natural versus supernatural—but rather with respect to degrees vis-à-vis the fullness of our realization of the God encounter. What we do resist, however, is any temptation to suggest that

13 Nowhere in our argument do we presume the doctrine of soteriological universalism. As with Balthasar (1988) and Barth (see Colwell 1992), we might even hope for such, but in the end, given the creaturely freedom to resist even divine grace— as incomprehensible as such resistance might be—it remains possible that some might not be finally saved.

181 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 this versus that experience is necessarily natural or supernatural or any a priori claim that the Holy Spirit is necessarily here but not there (pneumatological exclusivity).14 Still, we would not deny anyone’s experiences or even their own interpretation of those experiences even as we think we might properly question how much normative impetus such interpretations could and/or should exert for others in the broader community of human value-realizers.

Rethinking Epistemology and Normative Discernment Because there are metaphysical implications that flow from revelation, we prefer to think of human value-realization in terms of a recursive feedback loop that involves descriptive (scientific), evaluative (cultural), normative (philosophic) and interpretive (religious) domains.15 Each of these human value-realizations presupposes the others. This is not a strictly truth-conducive algorithm (or strong type of inference) but a fallible process that is also, maybe even more so, truth-indicative (a much weaker form of inference). We cannot even give a complete theoretical account of how knowledge works but can attest, pragmatically, that it indeed works, slowly and falteringly but inexorably advancing such human value-realizations as truth, beauty, goodness, and unity (through such as creed, cult, code, and community). The categories, concepts, and claims associated with each aspect of this feedback loop are communicated, unavoidably, by a mixture of dogmatic, heuristic, theoretical, and semiotic terms which we have described, respectively, as nonnegotiated, still-in-negotiation, negotiated, and nonnegotiable vis-à-vis this or that community of inquiry or value-realizers.

Our dogmatic interpretive positions will have clear metaphysical implications, especially implicit in our affirmation of God. While this leads to a positivist-like descriptive claim, it tends not to get in the way of other positivist endeavors because, as far as our metaphysical enterprise is concerned, it is a claim regarding primal and/or ultimate origins, boundaries, limits, and initial conditions, or what we might consider to be ontological paperwork that re- sides in the bottom drawer of the last desk in the back corner of the basement of our metaphysical library. So, we positively eschew the God of the gaps ap-

14 Our claim is that spiritual discernment is an empirical (or experiential) task, and it may be, in some cases, we come to the judgment that what is present are what the Christian tradition has called demonic spirits rather than the Holy Spirit. Still, even in these cases, we hold God is present and active in and capable of redeeming even such situations. See Yong 2003 and 2010: ch. 4. 15 In biblical interpretation, such has been called the hermeneutical circle or spiral, and Lonergan’s eightfold functional specialties exhibits a similar recursivity for theological method. See Osborne 1991, Lonergan 1972, and Yong 2002.

182 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART proach of religious fundamentalism even as we adopt a methodological naturalism. This is because we cannot know, a priori, when it is that our knowledge advance is being temporarily thwarted due to methodological constraints epistemologically and when it might be that we are otherwise confronted with an aspect of reality that will forever remain unknowable, in principle, ontolo- gically, for whatever reason. For the same reason, however, we must sum- marily reject the philosophical naturalism of Enlightenment fundamentalism with its explanatory promissory notes. This scientism is but the obverse side of the same philosophically bankrupt coin of a naïve realism that jingles in the pockets of the religious fundamentalists. Perhaps this explains why the “new atheists” and creationists can so often be found fighting in line to the same metaphysical candy machine, while the rest of us look on aghast and perplexed.

At any rate, while we do well to take the counsel not to place God in metaphysical gaps, this does not mean that Nietzsche and the nihilists get to guard reality’s perimeter! Instead, we should all rest content with the limitations of reality’s ontological vagueness, where necessity yields to probability (under- determined), and to its epistemic indeterminacy, where possibilities are not to be ruled out (over-determined) a priori. Together, this vagueness and indeterminacy will necessitate a semantic vagueness,16 where our phenomenological logic will become a tad more fuzzy than that employed in our classical metaphysics and where our fallibilism will become, hopefully, much more con- trite. Which realities will present in black or white, which in grayscale, and which in vivid technicolor we do not know ahead of time. Which paradoxes will resolve in a Hegelian-like dialectic, which will dissolve from perspec- tival or paradigm shifts, which we will be able to successfully evade practically (by ignoring) and which we will be able to exploit transformatively (by nurturing their creative tensions), we cannot know a priori. So, in place of the epistemic hubris of yesteryear’s rather sterile scholasticism and modern-

16 It is beyond the scope of this present discussion, but students of philosophy might recall semantic vagueness as discussed in the writings of Peirce, Frege, Wittgen- stein, and many others, also in the paradoxes of ancient Greece, the fuzzy logic of arti- ficial intelligence, and even implied in the writings of Nagarjuna. Essentially, the am- biguity that inheres in the realm of possibility results because the principle of non-con- tradiction does not hold in this modal category. This simply means that, in the mode of possibility, contradictions exist side by side because nothing yet has been specified. Am- biguity will also result when the realm of the necessary changes to that of the probable because, in this category, the principle of excluded middle no longer holds. This means that, in the mode of probability, our conceptual schemes will remain incomplete. This is because we will no longer find ourselves dealing only with either-or solutions but, instead, also with answers that may well turn out to be neither-nor. For clarification of these matters vis-à-vis the writings of Peirce, see Yong 2002: 152-56.

183 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 ism’s intemperate pretensions, we are not advocating the excessive epistemic humility of a radically deconstructive postmodernism. Rather, we appeal to the epistemic holism of a nonfoundational, pragmatic realism.

Again, religion looks at cosmological reality and asks: How does all of this tie back together or re-ligate? Put another way, it looks at life’s truth, beauty, and goodness and asks: Is there, perhaps, more? As we previously noted, religion is our pursuit of superabundance. To the extent that life is a journey, we aspire to travel even more swiftly and with less hindrance toward truth, beauty, and goodness. Religion seeks to augment these value-realizations by am- plifying the risks we have already taken in science, culture, and philosophy. For science clearly has its epistemic risks, as do cultures and philosophies. And we amplify these risks in order to augment the values that are gifted us as their fruit. Faith is a clear amplification of the risks we have taken in pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. Religion amplifies these risks through faith, hope, and love and realizes these augmented values in creed, cult, and code. In creed we articulate truth in doctrine and dogma. In cult we cultivate beauty in liturgy, ritual, and practices. In code we preserve goodness in law and disciplines. Thus it is that through faith, hope, and love (the best man- aged risk amplifications around) we reap the value-augmentations of creed, cult, and code in an existential turn to community.

This turn to community is, more simply put, a turn to love. It is best amplified through a self-emptying kenosis. It is as if once all things are otherwise equal empirically, logically, practically, and morally, then, relationally, we thus leap in order to cash out the pragmatic value of an existential option that Wil- liam James so very well described as forced, vital, and live. Very many get the forced and vital bit in their very bones, but so few seem to pay attention to all that goes into making a particular option live, which is precisely what we are exploring in the present consideration. So, none of this is to deny that most of our value-realizations come more from our participatory imaginations (hometown knowledge) than our propositional cognitions (conceptual mapmaking). In fact, our participatory, imaginative, and interpretive engage- ments, collectively, get systematized and with great practical effect. These systems (like our Great Traditions) are truth-laden—not in the manner in which they conceptually describe the ultimate but rather—in the manner they foster human value-realizations vis-à-vis our concerns regarding ultimacy. One must inhabit the symbol systems of such systems, existentially, to “realize” their value and truth, as they do not readily lend themselves to mere propositional analysis. We believe this approach should prove increasingly fruit- ful for our interreligious dialogue and understanding of religious pluralism.

184 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART

In no way are we suggesting that, while God is wholly incomprehensible, He is not partly intelligible. But we are saying that we do need to take heed of just what we are saying about God, being clear as to what came from special divine revelation and what we have imagined from what has been called general revelation in the “book of nature.” As far as natural theology goes, the book of nature provides us with the questions (rather some questions) and a few vague concepts and categories that provide but a heuristic that may help us to refer successfully to Whom we cannot but otherwise aspire to describe. We do gain some descriptive accuracy through apophatic negations (for example, Sylvest is NOT God), but our kataphatic affirmations are quite limited to weak analogical predicates, metaphors, that are gifted through special revelation and faith.

All this said, we do not want to say, for example, that all hypotheses (let us say, theological anthropologies) are equally worthy of acting as working hypotheses (let us say, spiritualities). How do we determine which tautology has the most taut grasp of reality?

There are a host of considerations such as inventoried in the work of Stanley Jaki (1989), also such criteria as internal coherence, external congruence, logical consistency, interdisciplinary consilience, hypothetical consonance and fecundity, and others. There is another criterion that we would offer, especially if we want our metaphysical affirmations to have any real traction in the broader community of value-realizers, the wider human community of inquiry. And we offer it because we assume we might be seeking a more uni- versally compelling metanarrative (hence, morality), that we might be trying to gauge the amount of normative impetus such speculative descriptions might generate. What we offer is this. We need to be mindful of the propor- tional mix of dogmatic, heuristic, theoretical, and semiotic terms that are employed in any given metaphysical affirmation. It is not enough, we maintain, to issue forth with metaphysical claims that do not conflict with positivist data; rather, in our formulations and affirmations we must be mindful of our terms and definitions and employ as many nonnegotiable (semiotic) and negotiated (theoretical) concepts and categories as possible, and as few nonnegotiated (dogmatic) ones as necessary, employing those that are still-in-negotiation (heuristic) mindfully and respectfully. Thus we can better avoid idle tautologies (rationalisms) that bear little resemblance and have little relevance to people’s daily lives and lived experiences.

This is the epistemological architectonic we recommend to the twenty-first century, navigating between the epistemic hubris of classical foundationalism and the excessive humility of a radically deconstructive postmodernism by retrieving a dynamic semiotic hermeneutic as old as the Church Fathers with

185 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 their Neoplatonic and Dionysian logic, as bold as Medieval Scotism with its formal distinction serving as a rudiment of a robust American semiotic pragmatism. The precise move, as warranted both by modern physics and by Peirce’s semantic vagueness,17 and as anticipated by Dionysian logic mysticism even, is to prescind from a modal ontology of the possible, actual, and necessary to that of the possible, actual, and probable. The epistemic holism we are proposing would recommend that we prescind from the static and sub- stantial and necessary to a view of reality that is more dynamic and process- like and probabilistic.

Practically speaking, this means that a non-reductive but physicalist account of the human soul is just as metaphysically tenable as any classical hylomor- phism or even Cartesian dualism. This means that transubstantiation cannot be an ecumenical stumbling block for a metaphysics that does not traffic in such categories as substance. Natural law-based ethics and deontologies thus have a more tentative normative impetus, at least as tentative as one’s ontology is speculative. This means that any Manichaean-like tendencies and du- alisms lose their traction for, quite possibly, everything is sacred and holy and good and quite natural while all-encompassingly supernatural, pervasively incarnational, and radically pneumatological in terms of being variously docile to the hidden promptings of the Spirit Who accounts for reality’s donative nature or what has been given, cosmologically.

Re-Engaging with Praxis: A Contemplative Phenomenology for Interreligious Dialogue A movement toward praxis might be one of the value-added takeaways for any who resonate with this speculative account. Such a movement is embedded in every aspect of this hermeneutical spiral.

Peirce leads one away from what can often become an endless and fruitless cycle of abductive hypothesizing and deductive clarifying, such as can hap- pen with a sterile scholastic metaphysics, by always insisting on inductive testing. Indeed, one will there enjoy a recovery of the measure of concrete reality; but this is only a recovery of logical import. Such a pragmatic turn is but a test of truth; it is merely informative. Neville’s axiological turn leads us to a recovery of the measure of that which has vital import, which is per-for- mative. Lonergan’s conversions provide us the categories through which we

17 For an elaboration of Peirce’s notion of vagueness see Nadin1983: 154-66; Williamson 1994: 46-52; and Baker 2007: especially ch. 6, titled “Metaphysical Vague- ness.”

186 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART recover the measure of this Peircean-Nevillean axiological epistemology in terms of the transformative.

In Merton’s encounter with the East and his excursus on humanization, socialization, and transformation, one can see these pragmatic and axiological turns playing out in categories that would, per Everybody’s Story in our shared cosmology, correspond to a naturalistic, evolutionary epistemology that then extends to our existential phenomenology described above. Phe- nomenologically, any robust description of the human species will require a radically social ontology. This is because Homo sapiens are not merely social but, singularly, the symbolic species (Deacon 1998). To describe the distinctly human experience robustly, any authentic social, hence participatory, ontology must break open such categories as self, other, world, and horizon.

We have come full circle back to the creative tension that is present between the speculative and practical, between justification of beliefs and critical en- gagements of praxis, between our exoteric mythical accounts and our esoteric mystical experimentations, and even between radical fundamentalisms (including Enlightenment narratives) and radically deconstructive postmodernisms (such as Rorty’s vulgar pragmatism; see Haack 1995). Our postmodern milieu has had believers searching for an apologetic to articulate what it is that the common folk of all religious traditions, in every culture and age, have always known in their bones. This has been a difficult search because the philosophers of religion, at every so-called “turn,” have repeatedly buried this existential apologetic by variously misrepresenting it in many different forms of rationalism, evidentialism, fideism, presuppositionalism, existentialism, and perspectivalism.

For philosophers of religion, there has been, then, a rather frantic attempt to recover a measure of certainty that was lost with the demise of various foun- dationalisms, by establishing some type of epistemic parity between, for example, the beliefs of science, culture, philosophy, and religion. It will be the nature of the strategy employed in any given argument for epistemic parity that will distinguish one apologetic from the next. Certainly, one must attend to the validity and soundness of the reason, the quantity and quality of the evidence, the nature of the leaps, the basicality of the presuppositions, the existential actionability of the options, and the integral relations of the perspectives. However, as we sort through our various scientific, cultural, philosophical, and religious beliefs, it is too facile a notion to suggest that their epistemic playing field has quite simply been leveled by the postmodern critique such that, for example, one can merely claim that these beliefs are all con- fessional (and unapologetically so, as some cultural linguistic theorists or some members of the Radical Orthodoxy group might assert) or all basic (and

187 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 properly so, as some presuppositionalists and Reformed epistemologists might suggest). Not to worry, though, for we have already suggested, in our consideration of the Peircean semeiotic, that rationality is robustly participatory and imaginative and not merely conceptual and cognitive. From our axiological epistemology, we have gathered that it is value-oriented but horizon- situated. This is to recognize that the human condition offers an abundance of value-realizations, juxtaposed though they may be with the cosmic irony of its value-frustrations.

Our axiological epistemology aspires to value-realization and thus to epistemic virtue. Any epistemic parity we enjoy vis-à-vis our various scientific, cultural, philosophical, and religious beliefs will derive from a shared virtue (when they meet such criteria, of course, which they can but often do not). We must otherwise concede that, even when equally virtuous (being neither unreasonable nor unwarranted), not all beliefs entail the same amount of epistemic risk, hence the perceived (and undeniable) epistemic disparity. This is not to suggest that any increased risks will necessarily take our hermeneutical spiral out of its otherwise virtuous epistemic cycle; rather, we look to each risk amplification for some concomitant value augmentation. It is this epistemic maneuver, then, that characterizes any theological (or atheological) turn. Such augmentations of value become cultural data (anthropological, psychological, social, political, and economic).

While the implications may be clear for some, we have not explicitly demon- strated how this contemplative phenomenology can foster interreligious dialogue. At this point, we can only offer a few suggestions. Sometimes explicitly and well formulated, at other times implicitly and inchoately, such a contemplative phenomenology, as an axiological epistemology, has found expression in both a Continental phenomenology (Gadamer) and American pragmatism (Peirce as appropriated by Neville), and also in various strands of Islamic (Ali Shari’ati), Hindu, and Buddhist philosophies. Precisely because an axiological epistemology emphasizes the relational, in our view, it will most fully flower in a theological milieu that nurtures devotional elements, which are prominent enough in the monotheist traditions. Also, the Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti schools of Hinduism, and the Mahayana school of Bud- dhism, are now the major (larger) schools of these great living traditions and all have prominent devotional elements. While the dualist and modified non- dualist Vedantic schools are primarily associated with the explicitly devotional Bhakti thought, even the Advaitic school can be associated with devotional elements through its founder, Shankara. Even in Zen Buddhism (Maha- yana), both Chinese (Chan) and Korean (Soen) schools integrate devotional elements. Some would imagine that the reform movement of the Japanese Soto school might not so readily accommodate devotional elements. Still, to

188 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART the extent that Japanese Zen lacks a governing body and a per se orthodoxy, unlike other Asian schools, it naturally lends itself to what would otherwise be considered heterodox adaptations, such as the emergent Christian Zen line- age.

Our hypothesis would suggest that, in each of the Great Traditions and in many indigenous religions, orthopraxis will most fully authenticate orthodox- ies whenever a cohort of religious practitioners moves beyond its exoteric mythic spirituality to also practice an esoteric mystical spirituality. Certainly, both mythic and mystical spiritualities are practiced in all traditions and some mystical elements are introduced at every stage of faith development. So, regarding the emergence of such mystical cohorts, we are suggesting that they would present in varying degrees of mystical realization and not, rather, as an either/or reality. Put simply, we are not suggesting that cohorts within traditions are either exoteric or esoteric, mythic or mystical, but that they do otherwise differ in terms of how much they are in touch with and how fully they then realize both aspects of their tradition’s spirituality. This spirituality, most fully realized, is a profoundly relational and participatory reality that cashes out its value in terms of intimacy.

Per our account, then, and counterintuitively to many, humankind’s aspira- tions to interreligious unity would proceed more swiftly and with less hindrance—not first by unitive strivings on the exoteric plane of religious reality via some putative reconcilement of otherwise disparate mythic elements vis- à-vis our cognitive propositions between our traditions, but rather—by better fostering greater degrees of esoteric experimentation and mystical realization vis-à-vis our participatory imaginations within our traditions. This is to suggest that, transformatively, the performative enjoys primacy over but not autonomy from the informative. Think thus of Scotus and the primacy of the will over the intellect and of how God’s nature, according to Neville (1968), is determined by the Divine Will. Good News, within all of these traditions, then, enjoys a primacy over good knowledge. In other words, to understand the cause of our shared fruits better, we need to look more at the esoteric and mystical, which lie below ground in our common roots, and less at the exoteric and mythical, which diverge above ground in our different shoots. Put differently, orthopraxy authenticates orthodoxy and is first mediated by ortho- pathy in orthocommunion. Put simply, in all traditions, generally, belonging precedes desiring which precedes behaving which precedes believing.

What we are also suggesting is that esoteric experimentation and mystical realization can be pragmatically cashed out in terms of a growth in human authenticity. That is to say that they will result in conversion, growth, and development in our intellectual, affective, moral, sociopolitical, and religious

189 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 20 (2010) 2 spheres of existence. They are also the prescription for overcoming any insidious radical fundamentalisms within our great religious traditions.

What might this look like in our traditions? In each of the great traditions, the esoteric and mystical will present in terms of a) some form of critical realism vis-à-vis an axiological epistemology; b) a critical scriptural scholarship; c) a nondual, contemplative stance toward reality; d) some social justice com- ponent in an eschatological realism, in other words, some type of theology of liberation with a salvific efficacy that has both temporal and eternal significance; e) an eternal now awareness permeating this temporal milieu; f) an in- stitutionally marginalized yet still efficacious voice of prophetic protest and hope; g) a solidarity with and preferential option for the marginalized; h) a deep compassion ensuing from an awakening to a profound solidarity; i) a broadly inclusivistic and ecumenical sensibility; and j) emergent, novel struc- tures that are radically egalitarian, including noninstitutional vehicles and nonhierarchical leadership roles. Summary Reflections and Anticipations The recurring theme we took from Merton, in our words not his, was to always go beyond but not without. Richard Rohr (2009) continues to advocate our transformation eloquently from an exclusively dualistic outlook to a con- sciousness that more fully develops a nondual stance toward all of reality that we might better see, with a loving gaze, how everything belongs. So, we offer nothing new, just a synthesis that perceives reality’s donative nature, is radically incarnational, pervasively pneumatological, and only vaguely panen- theistic, with pentecostal sensibilities and with Franciscan and Scotistic intuitions that ground an epistemological architectonic that would pass the Goldilocks rubric of neither too much epistemic hubris nor humility. It is as old as the Desert Fathers and Neoplatonic mystics and as new as American pragmatism, honoring the ongoing call to a more robustly inculturated theology for our truly new age.

Of course, to explicate the preceding fully would take another three or four essays, even a long book, as we have covered a great deal of interreligious, philosophical, and theological ground. Yet we have both been thinking about these matters for years, largely on separate paths, even while every now and again comparing notes. Our delight in “catching” one another’s vision has translated into this collaborative exercise that we seek to share with the wider ecumenism and academy in the hopes that others along their own paths of inquiry may find something of use among our musings. And this, too, shall be

190 REASONS AND VALUES OF THE HEART testimony to the grace that envelops us and enables the further realization of value in our midst.18

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