3 Religion and Culttural Traditions – Sections & Papers 3.1 Interreligious Dialogue Section Head: J. R. Hustwit Tuesday, July 4, afternoon Room: Stuba Session 1 1 Donna Bowman PhD Honors College, University of Central Arkansas 201 Donaghey Avenue Conway, AR 72035 USA e-mail: [email protected] The Ethics of Pluralism and the Price of Submission Abstract: American students are being well taught,in primary and secondary settings, to behave well in a pluralistic setting. The mantra "Teach Tolerance" has produced handsome results. Students learn early and often that not everyone believes as they do, thinks as they do, or acts as they would prefer or think natural. "Tolerance," however, is a limited principle of behavior. It simply urges one to restrain oneself from criticizing or impeding another. It is not closely linked to a cognitive understanding of why one should do so; indeed, other than the idea that others have a "right" to their beliefs and private behaviors, or that one would dislike being criticized or restrained oneself, tolerant individuals are often at a loss to explain why tolerance is a better course of action than intolerance. At an extreme, students who have been taught tolerance believe that one should not intervene in another culture's practices even when they are manifestly cruel or unjust; honor killings, genital mutilation, even slavery must be allowed to continue in the name of an uncomfortably restrictive notion of tolerance. In this paper I link a more robust ethic of pluralism, with its intellectual basis for action and conviction in the face of difference, to the related problem of an obedience ethic. When individuals are not taught to "think for themselves," especially in the face of different moral imperatives in conflict, the promise of pluralism can easily devolve to the toothless detente of tolerance. I argue that the functional good of obedience during a person's development is strongly tempered by the maladaptive properties of obedience as a supposed virtue during adulthood. A strong ethic of pluralism allows persons to negotiate pluralistic communities and still remain responsible for the consequences of their action or inaction. To the extent that our culture of collective irresponsibility is nurtured by a hands-off, "tolerant" or libertarian notion of our responsibility for shared injustices -- to the extent that we no longer believe Martin Luther King, Jr., that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" -- we find ourselves stymied by the evil around us, handcuffed by our own enlightenment. To understand and act otherwise will require an orientation of intellect and will that breaks free of the ethic of obedience that nurtured us as children. 2 J. R. Hustwit Claremont Graduate University 2261 Bonita Ave La Verne, CA 91711 phone: (909) 596-1028, (951) 235-6748 e-mail: [email protected] Whiteheadian Contributions to a Hermeneutic of Inter-Religious Dialogue Abstract: The task of interreligious dialogue is a pervasively hermenutical enterprise. By seeking to understand the beliefs, practices, and values of the religious Other, we seek to transcend our own finite conceptual horizon and enrich our own worldview. This transcendence and enrichment occurs by means of interpretation. The philosophical hermeneutic tradition of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur provides the dominant models of how interpreters appropriate religious meaning—whether texts, persons, rituals, symbols, or events. Whitehead’s explicitly metaphysical system, however, raises important challenges to these “dominant” approaches to historical, cultural, and theological interpretation. By investigating Whiteheadian perspectives on the issues of authorial intention, the role of language in experience, human cognitive structures, the nature of meaning, and shared rationality, one finds that Whitehead offers a more optimistic vision of the ability of dialogue partners to understand each other. But at what cost? By examining the divergent philosophical commitments (e.g. among other things, responses to Kant) of the phenomenological-hermeneutical approach and Whitehead’s metaphysical-hermeneutical approach, one illuminates not only the relationship between hermeneutics and speculative metaphysics, but the root of the controversies concerning the feasibility of interreligious understanding. 3 Matthew Lopresti University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu 3273 Kaimuki Ave. Postal Code: 96816 USA phone:(808) 489-0487 e-mail: [email protected] Papal Blinders: Making Sense of Pope Benedict XVIth’s View of Religious Pluralism and its Implications for Interreligious Dialogue Abstract: It behooves those involved in interreligious dialogue to broaden the base of the participants beyond those who are predisposed to it, or to at least to expand their audience beyond the “choir.” In this paper, I argue, first, that an awareness of the interplay between views of religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue can uncover assumptions that may either preclude or foster the possibility for open and genuine interreligious dialogue, and second, that fostering an enriched understanding of religious pluralism has tremendous potential for expanding the audience and participants of interreligious dialogue to include those who were previously closed-off to this discourse. Pope Benedict XVI’s regard for interreligious dialogue as an opportunity to facilitate the conversion of its participants to a Catholic position has been regarded as deceitful and a violation of the necessary trust required for genuine interreligious dialogue to take place. In stark contrast to this, John Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin understand the fruit of genuine interreligious dialogue to be “mutual transformation.” From the perspective of the Pope, however, such transformation may very well be seen as a threat, furthering the project of pluralism and thereby making the very nature of so-called “genuine interreligious dialogue” appear to be an evangelical method of pluralism itself! At this point, the two sides may seem to be at loggerheads. Should 3 then those invested in interreligious dialogue simply accept the exclusion of certain religious practitioners? I answer no. If we are, therefore, to broaden the conversation to include religious leaders like Pope Benedict XVI, if not at least his followers, then we must address their obstacles to genuine interreligious dialogue by facilitating a more sophisticated understanding of the viability of religious pluralism in ways that are not threatening to their basic spiritual beliefs. The two main objections levelled against religious pluralism by Benedict are that it fosters what he calls “religious indifferentism” and that it challenges the unique saving role of Christ. By calling attention to the Whiteheadian-inspired religious pluralism developed by Cobb and Griffin, this paper demonstrates the unfounded nature of the first claim and I argue further for the falsity of the second. By removing these obstacles to Catholic (i.e., Papal) engagement in interreligious dialogue, it now can be seen from their perspective not as an evangelical tool of pluralists seeking to divest Christianity of its uniqueness and relativize religious truths, but rather as a non-threatening logical extension of a pluralistic theology that is arguably compatible with their own. The task, then, of demonstrating the compatibility of the Whiteheadian-inspired religious pluralism of Cobb and Griffin with the spiritual beliefs of additional religious traditions clearly contributes to the expansion of genuine interreligious dialogue by including those who may have been heretofore marginalized by it. 4 Louwrens W. Hessel Dr. Leiden Plantsoen 9 Postal Code: 2311KE Netherlands phone:33715146387 e-mail: [email protected] Whitehead’s Philosophy Opens Perspectives for the Reconciliation of Christianity and Islam Abstract: Christianity and Islam traditionally agree on omnipotence as a defining characteristic of God. In early Christianity and in pre-Hijra Islam this functioned as comfort and support for oppressed people as it reinforced their conviction that there exists an absolute power which will bring an end to the violation of their rights. But as these religions became successful in a worldly way, divine omnipotence was understood as absolute and rightful control of the world by God. To carry out his will became the task of true believers, if necessary by force. Dieu le veut against Allah-u-Akbar. Rebellion, rather than injustice became the major sin, and submission became the primary religious duty. Whitehead once called this development in Christian theology a disaster and he regarded it as a delusion about the character of the Eternal One as revealed by Jesus. “Mahometanism” appeared to him in the same light. Closely related characteristics of this classical image of the God are impassibility and timelessness, bequeathed to both religions by Greek philosophy and by the experience of Roman and Byzantine imperial rule. Process theology transforms and humanises these doctrines. It imagines the Eternal One as not self-sufficient and invulnerable and yet trustworthy and powerful to save. As the imagined character of the Eternal One is reflected in the actions and attitudes of its believers this offers good hope for a reconciliation between Christianity and Islam, that is if their leaders understand that giving up their traditional assertiveness is not a betrayal but a return to the original visions of Jesus and Mohammed. For Christianity it means a return