Interreligious Dialogue as the Enjoyment of Lived Beauty
Beauty is left as the one aim which by its very nature is self-justifying... The teleology of the universe is directed toward the production of Beauty.
Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas
The Universe Aims at Beauty
Plato speak of three values by which human life can be guided: truth, goodness, and beauty. Some people think that the world's religions, at their best, are aimed at truth or goodness: that is, toward understanding the nature of ultimate reality and discerning how we might live given whatever ultimate reality is.
What is ultimate reality? In "Religious Pluralism" (see below) Matthew LoPresti encourages us to think about three ultimate realities available to, and found in, the religions: Creativity, God, and the world of Actual Occasions. His suggestion, in the spirit of process philosophy, is that we recognize that people of different religions may awaken to, or be centered in, one of the three. As people belonging to different religions enter into dialogue, they might rightly recognize that they have awakened to aspects of different ultimate realities and that the forms of salvation or liberation at which they arrive (or seek to arrive) are likewise different. It's not that the truth is one and the paths are many; rather it's that the truths are many and the paths are many. He believes that this recognition might then help them understand one another better and serve the common good of the world.
The philosophy of Whitehead invites us to imagine them, additionally and perhaps alternatively, that they are also aiming at beauty. Beauty is, for Whitehead, "the one aim which by its very nature is self-justifying...The teleology of the universe is directed toward the production of beauty."
Here beauty is not a quality of attractive objects enjoyed through the senses, but rather a richness of experience as enjoyed in lived experience. All entities anywhere in the universe "experience" their worlds in one way or another and in experiencing they aim at richness of experience, or lived beauty, in their relations with their worlds.
In Whitehead's philosophy beauty consists of two qualities intertwined: harmony and intensity. And it is such beauty, I suggest, that people enjoy when, in meaningful dialogue with one another, they become friends. A certain kind of harmony emerges, namely friendship itself; and in the harmony a surprising intensity arises. They feel more alive.
Amid dialogue they need not decide that their respective religions are "about the same thing." Commonalities can be shared when discovered. But they come to enjoy the differences: different ideas, different customs, different core experiences. They come to appreciate what is "other" for them. Such, I believe, is one of the most important points of LoPresti's book. It is that differences make the whole richer. Below I offer a review.
- Jay McDaniel
Review
"Religious Pluralism: Towards a Comparative Metaphysics of Religion" by Matthew LoPresti will strike readers as profoundly metaphysical at points. But as he makes clear, it is also profoundly practical. Speaking as a philosopher of religion, his aim is to show that interreligious dialogue, informed by deep religious pluralism, can contribute to a more just and sustainable world. LoPresti's practical hope is that if people enter into interreligious dialogue with an openness to multiple ultimates, they might better appreciate the insights of others while avoiding three pitfalls:
Assuming that other religions are completely false unless they parrot truths they find in their own (Absolutism)
Assuming that the truths of other religions are mere variations of truths already apprehended in their own (Inclusivism)
Assuming that all is relative and there are no truths to be discovered (Relativism)
If they avoid these pitfalls and come to understand one another in their differences, they might work together in a spirit of mutual understanding for the sake of a better world. LoPresti is quite influenced by the work of John Cobb and David Ray Griffin in their book "Deep Religious Pluralism" and by process philosophy and theology in general. Along with Cobb, Griffin, and many other process thinkers, LoPresti wants to affirm a plurality of authentic soteriological paths that can, in principle if not also in fact, be centered around different ultimate realities, each ultimate in its own way. His understanding of a metaphysical "ultimate" is based on Whitehead's “Process and Reality.” Such an ultimate is, on one hand, an irreducible category through which the universe is understood and, on the other hand, an irreducible aspect of reality. Understood as a category, an ultimate is a general idea that explains other things but cannot be reduced to other ideas.
Whitehead’s Ultimates
An interesting feature of Whitehead's philosophy is that, on this definition, there are many ultimate realities, none of which can be explained by the others. They include:
Creativity: the formless depths from which all things emerge, expressed in both the spontaneous self-creativity of each finite event and the perishing of immediacy of that entity, resulting in the emergence of successive events (a creative advance into novelty). Whitehead speaks of this as the ultimate reality but does not understand it as a creator or agent in its own right. It has no preferences but is itself expressed anywhere and everywhere.
The Divine Reality: the cosmic mind of the universe, which envisions all that is possible, the compassionate heart of the universe, which feels the feelings of each and all with tender care, the source of creative transformation in the universe, present within each finite entity as a fresh possibility (initial aim) for healing and wholeness, relative to what is possible in the situation at hand.
Actual Occasions: the finite event itself, understood as a moment of experience rather than an enduring substance, which is a subject in its own right, albeit identical to the act of experiencing, and the immediacy of which perishes. The universe is a whole is an evolving network of actual occasions, a totality which is ever new.
The Realm of Pure Potentialities: the entities in the universe which, although lacking agency of their own, are pure potentials for the various forms actual entities and their aggregates can take. Whitehead speaks of two types of “eternal objects,” those which pertain to objectively apprehendable patterns in the world (eternal objects of the objective species) and those pertaining to the emotional responses (subjective forms) by which the world is apprehended. Eternal objects are real as potentialities, not actualities, but they are actualized in the world.
More Ultimates?
Arguably, there are even more ultimate realities in Whitehead’s philosophy. What Whitehead calls the Extensive Continuum (the space-time continuum) has a kind of ultimacy to it, not readily explainable by the other categories. In Part One of Process and Reality he introduces what he calls the Category of the Ultimate (Creativity) and the Categories of Existence (two of which are actual occasions and pure potentials). Interestingly, God is not among the categories. But soon thereafter, almost unexpectedly, he devotes an entire section to the Extensive Continuum as something like a space-time continuum, with multiple dimensions and various “regions,” some of which are occupied by actual entities and some not. It is imaginable that some forms of religious experience are awakenings to this continuum, perceived as ultimate in its way, not as a source of life but as a “place” where everything occurs, reminiscent of the notion of basho in the Zen-influenced philosophy of the Kyoto School.
In light of Whitehead’s later work, “Adventures of Ideas,” it is arguable that Beauty is a kind of ultimate, in that it is, says Whitehead, the only self-justifying value. And it is likewise arguable that Value itself, understood as both the self-enjoyment of an actual occasion and the ideals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are valuable.
It is noteworthy that Andrew Davis, in “Mind, Value, and Cosmos,” speaks of six key ideas in Whitehead’s thought: mind, value, actuality, possibility, God, and World, none of which can be reduced to the others. Thus, we might talk about, as it were, six ultimates. The relevant point here is that the word “ultimate” is relative to the question being asked. If the question is: “What is the ultimate stuff or energy of which all things, even God, are manifestations,” the answer is Creativity. If the question is: “Is there a guiding power in the universe in which I might place my trust?” the answer if God. If the question is: “What is the value around which I might orient my life,” the answer is Beauty. And if the question is: “Where am I?” the answer is the present moment. When understood as categories, different realities may be ultimate relative to the questions asked.
Categories and Experiences
However many ultimates there are, it is important to distinguish ultimates as “categories” conceptually entertained from these ultimates as realities directly experienced in pre-reflective, and sometimes mystical, ways. For example, it is one thing to think about the divine reality as an encompassing compassion and another to feel that compassion existentially; and it is one thing to speak of the “actual occasion” as ultimate and another to awaken to the self-creative yet relational immediacy of a given present moment. The experiential dimension of religious life includes both belief and experience; LoPresti seeks to be sensitive to both.
The Three Ultimates emphasized by LoPresti
For LoPresti, a metaphysical ultimate is not, in itself, religious. One of the claims of this book is that it can help, in interreligious dialogue, to approach matters philosophically rather than religiously, or at least to set the tone. An ultimate reality becomes religiously important when it functions salvifically. Drawing from Cobb and Griffin, LoPresti focuses on three of the above-mentioned ultimates: Creativity, the Divine, and the Actual Occasion. He sees Creativity as aligned with traditions that speak of a creative abyss of which all things are expressions, such as Nirguna Brahman in various forms of Hinduism and Sunyata in various forms of Buddhism; the Divine as aligned with traditions that speak of a personal guiding force in reality, often named God or Amida, and the Actual Occasion as aligned with traditions that find salvation, not in awakening to a formless abyss, or trust in a loving Deity, but rather awakening to the interconnectedness of all things, as might be evident, for example, in various indigenous traditions or Zen Buddhism.
Different Mountains
Imagine an interreligious dialogue amid which sit a Zen Buddhist, an evangelical Christian, and an Advaita Vedanta Hindu. LoPresti’s hope is that they bring to the table of dialogue an outlook on life that will enable them to hear the other on his or her own terms, cognizant of the fact that their respective traditions may have awakened to, or place its trust in, different ultimate realities. They need not assume that the truth is one while the paths are many, or that they are like mountain climbers climbing toward the same peak. Instead, they can be open to the possibility that the truths are many and the paths are many. There may be different mountaintops.
Religions as Aiming at Lived Beauty
Once they realize that they are, as it were, climbing different mountains, still another of Whitehead’s ultimates, Beauty, might be relevant. In Whitehead’s theory of value, as explained by John Cobb, another term for value in lived experience is richness of experience. See “Whitehead’s Theory of Value.” In Whitehead’s view all living beings, not humans alone, seek satisfaction in their day-to-day lives, and the heart of this satisfaction is the richness of experience. People who are religious, no less than others, seek such richness and one meaning of Beauty is indeed “richness of experience” as enjoyed through harmony and intensity. The many religions of the world are, in their ways, paths toward certain kinds of richness, hopeful that the richness enjoyed is not only beautiful but truthful: corresponding in some way to the way things truly are. As partners in interreligious dialogue share with, and learn from one another, they might rightly recognize that, even as they are centered in different ultimates, they are aiming toward beauty. They might recognize that the different forms of salvation that come from their respective awakenings yield different but complementary forms of truthful Beauty. Indeed, as I argue in “Gandhi’s Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to Peace,” religions themselves can be understood as collective acts of yearning for, and experiencing, different forms of beauty, relative to different ultimates. The purpose of adding Beauty to the mix is that it highlights the experiential and affective dimension of truth. Truth is something felt and not merely named.
Whiteheadians speak of two qualities to Beauty: harmony and intensity. We awaken to Beauty when we enjoy certain forms of harmony in relation to other people, the natural world, and whatever forms of ultimacy we encounter. And we awaken to beauty when, amid the harmony, there is a felt intensity of experience. In “Process and Reality,” Whitehead’s focus is on harmonious intensity as the aim of all actual occasions. Relevant to LoPresti’s concerns, the awakenings to, or trust in, the different ultimates yield three forms of harmonious intensity, each with its own unique beauty. Dialogue is not about the intellect alone, but about the whole person: mind, body, and feeling.
When are concerns for ultimacyrelevant?
Still, questions remain. In local settings, when are questions of ultimacy relevant and when not? Such appeals and debates may be important in the confines of the academy, but arguably they are not as important in actual communities. Some argue that, in order to foster mutual understanding so that people can work together for the common good, they are best avoided. It seems to me that philosophers of religion ought to avoid any suggestion that appeals to ultimacy are for some reason closer to “religion” than are appeals to community, or identity, or myth, or ritual. Indeed, some argue that a preoccupation with ultimate realities is itself shortsighted when it comes to understanding religion.
What are religions for?
Throughout his book LoPresti speaks of religion as having three characteristics. It is, in his words in Chapter Six, “a tradition of thought and practice that concerns itself with ultimate reality, problems of the human condition that are informed by that tradition's perception of that reality, and the subsequently prescribed activities…for coping with or overcoming the challenges of the human condition identified by that tradition.” Many years ago, Ninian Smart identified seven characteristics of religion: practical and ritual, experiential and emotional, mythic or narrative, ethical and legal, social and institutional, material, doctrinal, and philosophical. It is arguable for many “religious” people in the world, what is most important is the sense of community and identity the path offers, combined with aspects of experience and story, and that questions of “ultimacy” are less important than the others.
The place of Spiritual Independents
Finally, there is the question of traditions. Increasing numbers of people around the world identify themselves as spiritual independents (spiritually interested but with no affiliation) or participants in multiple traditions (double and triple religious belonging.) LoPresti speaks often of people coming from given traditions with pre-commitments to that tradition, but in fact, the world of interreligious dialogue includes spiritual independents and exemplars of multiple belonging. His pluralistic outlook sets a context in which they may be part of dialogues, too.
Dialogue Itself as a Form of Beauty
Toward the end of his book, LoPresti makes the point that the purpose of interreligious dialogue is dialogue. By this, he means that the transformation that occurs through dialogue, undertaken in a truly pluralistic light, is an end in itself and not simply a means to other ends. Individuals engaged in dialogue are changed through the dialogue because they dwell in a certain kind of harmony with others, which is itself satisfying, and because their own understandings have been transformed and enriched through the dialogue itself.
One of the many reasons LoPresti’s book is so important is that it is evangelical for dialogue itself, at least as done in an open and relational spirit. “Religious Pluralism” is, I believe, an argument for Beauty. There is beauty in dialogue, there is beauty in religion at its best, and, so Whiteheadians believe, there is beauty in a diversity of traditions that add to the beauty of the whole, which is, not different from what they call God. This does not mean that all religions are about God. It means that all religions at their best are about forms of beauty, and that God is enriched by them all.
- Jay McDaniel
Process and Interfaith: A Slideshow
Looking for something to do in your Sunday School class, or your learning circle, or your interfaith group, or your civic club. Or maybe just something to do with friends at a local coffee shop, or with neighbors at a backyard gathering. Try showing the Process and Interfaith slide show below and see where the discussion leads. It's from the Educator's Toolbox offered by the Cobb Institute.
Show one slide at a time on your laptop so that everyone can see, and then invite conversation. Let people critique, refine, or otherwise explore each of fourteen ideas, maybe adding some of their own. Invite them too tell stories which illustrate or challenge the ideas. Let friendships emerge from the discussion, with no one dominating. Make sure to have refreshments. It should be fun.
While you're at it, you may want to introduce a little process philosophy and theology. Try some of the slide shows at the bottom of this page or go to the Cobb Institute Educator's Toolbox for much more. And if you want advice on how to use the slides, contact the folks at the Institute. Click here and they'll respond.