Letter #98: Can We Talk?
Or Should we get Right to the Holy War?
Oh, worse and worse. Now you’re going to start tolerating other religions. Pretty soon, you’ll be saying things like “God is a mountain that can be climbed on every side.” Then you’ll be telling me that Satanism is a religion like any other. Finally you’ll be committing human sacrifices while dancing naked in the light of a blood red moon. All because you neglected to mock and excoriate people of different faiths.
We have seen enough religious bloodshed to know that kindly toleration in the face of spiritual disagreement is the only way to keep God’s reputation free from the stain of our own small-minded violence. Yet somewhere between restaging the Thirty Years War and putting up a Satan display next to the Christmas tree because that’s only fair, there does have to be some way we can discuss our differences. God, if he exists, has defining qualities like every other existing entity. These are the things that make him God instead of a bicycle or a vast amorphous nothingness. You might say, well, isn’t that putting limitations on God? But this is a meaningless question. Language expresses the mind of man. The mind of man can’t conceive of a nature that can be at once limitless and well-defined. And since we can’t conceive of it, we can’t speak of it, so our language falls short.
Nonetheless, a real God by definition is a God of qualities. There are things he is not — evil, for instance; insane; unreal — even if these things only exist in relation to what he is. And there are things he is — loving, omniscient, transcendent. This means there are things you can say about God that are untrue and things you can say that are less true than some other thing you might have said. So there is nothing inherently wrong in comparing and contrasting one religion with another. In theory, honest discussion and argument should move us closer to knowing what we worship and why.
In theory. And yet…
History shows we are not very good at this. I don’t think religion is the cause of violence. We are the cause of violence and sometimes commit that violence in religion’s name. Still, we all know the bitterness and ferocity with which true believers sometimes defend the tenets of their faiths. People can become incredibly nasty about the orthodoxies, even if the point they’re arguing has no real-life application. Watch a protestant and Catholic debate the perpetual virginity of Mary. It can be brutal. But does either one believe his salvation hinges on this point? Certainly scripture never says so.
So as a follower of Christ and a believer in orthodoxy, my question is this. Setting aside crimes and cruelties — human sacrifices, say, or cruelty to women — is there any reason not to discuss religion with a friendly, flexible and open mind?
Am I missing something?
Love, Dad
Thank you. The references to Luke and Matthew in the post the other day and now this…the soft kisses of humility are soothing… I have been guilty of stridency and it’s not a happy state of mind. Thank you for the invitation to drop my arrogance.
It is the “knowing the one true God which is the difficult part. I wish I were wise enough to understand what God wants of me and to steer clear of the multitude of ways to stray, hence the broad and wide path to perdition and the narrow one to salvation, following Jesus. Not so simple. I spent a year studying Bioethics under the National Catholic Bioethics Center. It draws upon the Judeochristian tradition of moral teaching which stretches back for thousands of years. I had been involved with bioethics for decades, but drawing upon scholars with wisdom and teaching showed me just how little I knew. There is a great deal to learn from the wisdom of others.
I believe that this is what religion is. It is run by man, and therefore is corruptible, but may also be the repository for great wisdom. This is why we must all use our discernment with any teaching and must place it in context with revealed truth (the Bible) as well. This is not “sola scriptural”, but is a great tenet certainly of Roman Catholicism (sorry, the one I know). We talk of Scripture and Tradition as our two great pillars of knowledge. Tradition, with the capital T would be the revelations given and great writings of those wiser and holier than I. Our “doctors of the Church”, such as Augustine and Aquinas, to great recent leaders such as St. Theresa of Calcutta and Pope St. John Paul II. I rely on them and many others, and try to avoid the false voices and false prophets.
I hold no grudges against the Mormons. They are a diligent and hard-working people, and I disagree with their religious tenets, but am happy to know and work with them.
In deference of Klavan the Elder, I will not start any holy wars. I’ll leave the virginity of Mary to another time. Saints do appear in all ages. Boy,do we need them now. We have had the great fortune of being alive for some (JPII, Theresa, to name a few). Approaching any endeavor to commune with the Almighty must be undertaken with humility. I stink at humility. This is why I was given a wife.