qatarperegrine | Truth with a capital T

The phrase "All roads lead to the same place" came up in conversation yesterday, and I've been thinking more about it.

I don't, in fact, believe that all roads lead to the same place. The analogy is usually, I think, that the religions of the world are all paths leading up the same mountain, which is to say that they all converge on the same end goal. But is the goal the same in every religion? I don't think even the major religions share a vision of what it means to attain spiritual fulfillment -- becoming a boddhisatva is not quite the same as becoming a saint, or a tirthankara, or a Muslim prophet. I suppose one could say (to use Christian language) that the goal they converge upon is God, but I don't find God-as-object-of-quest to be a satisfying metaphor for religion. And this is ignoring the even further question of whether all religious beliefs and practices even lead towards and not away from what I consider to be holy.

I really don't think you have to believe that all religions are interchangable in order to have a profound respect for other religious traditions. I'm not sure you even have to see them as equal, to use the contested word of the week.

My central image of the relationships of the religions is more like a story I heard from Rev. Ben Silva-Netto at a training for Methodist lay speakers in California. He asked us to imagine a room full of art students circled around a model in the middle of the room. Because they all see the model from a unique perspective, and because they come to the assignment with their own personal background and skills, each of them portrays the model differently. One paints a portrait, one draws a silhouette in charcoal, one sketches the model's hands. At the end of the assignment, when the model has left the room and they start looking at each other's work, they are sure to find areas of disagreement in their portrayals. People sitting in very differerent places are likely not even to be able to recognize that each other's pictures are of the same model. (This was certainly true when I took an art class in college!)

Rev. Silva-Netto used this as an analogy for the theological task. When we start trying to explain how we understand "Truth with a capital T" we are likely to disagree with each other. And if I see my own painting rather than the model itself as the Truth, I am likely to see my neighbors' portrayal of the Truth as wrongheaded. But this is only because my own perspective is limited, and I am failing to recognize that the model itself exists in one more dimension than my version of it. So I see my version and my neighbor's as mutually exclusive, not realizing that our disagreements and contradictions don't have to be resolved, that our observations may both be valid even when they conflict. And, in fact, if I were to try to make the draw-er of the silhouette buy into my vision of the model's hands, I would be asking that person to go against the Truth that was disclosed to her.

Anyway, this metaphor is not entirely a satisfying metaphor for religion either, because I think God/The Truth/The Tao/Whatever is a lot more than a passive model. But for me it IS a more helpful metaphor for the intellectual, theological aspect of faith, because it explains how we can acknowledge and even learn from other people's visions of the Truth even when they disagree with ours, whereas (in my mind, at least) the paths-up-a-mountain metaphor requires that we ignore the very real differences between the religions.

So I hear a question like "Is Jesus divine?" and I wonder if yes/no is the right approach. I think there is truth in the Christian assertion that God is ultimately revealed through the life and death of Jesus. I think there is also truth in the Muslim assertion that the whole Trinity idea is a little weird. And I don't think it's violating the Christian tradition to see the perspective that might be gained from both sides of an issue; the Bible is, after all, full of different and contradictory perspectives. Was Abraham saved by faith or by works? The Bible includes (at least) two contradictory statements on the matter. I think things like that are an acknowledgement that different intellectualizations of an experience can be useful even when they completely contradict one another.

In Buddhist logic, a and not-a are not the only logical alternatives. Both a and not-a and neither a nor not-a are also logical perspectives. I see value in a both a and not-a approach to Truth: Jesus is God, Jesus is not God, there are spiritual insights we can gain from both positions. Or to be more apophatic, the divine mystery cannot be reduced to either "Jesus is God" or "Jesus is not God." Neti, neti, the Hindus would say: Ultimate Reality is neither simply this nor simply that, but always transcends any formulations we use to describe it. The Tao that can be described in words is not the real Tao.

I wanted to talk more about Christian particularism and the question of whether "Jesus is God" even is the central truth claim of Christianity. (Not to mention whether truth claims are the heart of religion in the first place.) But I think I'll have to leave that for another day....

Threaded | Flat

From:

seetarkrun.livejournal.com

Leland sent me to this post, and I thought it was really interesting.

Have you read Life of Pi? It's fantastic, though the complete opposite of the thesis of your argument.
I loved the painting metaphor.

And my compliments on a religious essay that included more than just Christian denominations with an Islam reference thrown in.

Luke 6:46- "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"

From:

nicodemusrat.livejournal.com

Hear hear.

I don't have much of substance to add to your wonderful piece, but I shall try.

Is "Jesus is God" the central claim? How about "There is a God"? I suspect the atheists would like to start there. :)

I also lend some credence to the view that atheism is not necessarily at odds with all religious viewpoints. My atheist side appreciates the beauty of nature and the wonder of the universe itself. Can that not also be God? It is not the God-as-commanding-figure view of Christianity but the God-manifested-in-everything view. Though there's disagreement about whether we term it "God" or "nature", we can both regard existence with wonder.

From:

shmuelisms.livejournal.com

I have two major issues with this metaphor:

It assumes that all religions are "created" by the "viewer", and thus reflect on who and what the viewer is. I do not find this an acceptable assessment of Jewish tradition, which IMHO contains too many "counter-intuitive" elements to be [even mostly] "human based".

It assumes that all "viewers" are actually looking at the same "model". It is pretty clear to me that this is NOT the case, as you yourself pointed out in the beginning of this essay. If they aren't looking at the same thing, then there is absolutely no way to reconcile the differences, or even relate to their "paintings" at all, as there is no common ground. I think, in fact, that this is the case, between MOST world religions.

But I do strongly agree that the post-Roman tendency towards clear-cut "logic" is not generally applicable to anything but computer-science (which is why I can't wait for Yes/Maybe/No Quantum computing).