Can Scriptures be Inspired?
An Interfaith Conversation
John Cobb, Farhan Shah,
Jay McDaniel, John Sanders
1. Farhan Shah's letter to John Cobb
2. John Cobb's response to Farhan Shah
3. Jay McDaniel's response to the exchange between Shah and Cobb
4. Farhan Shah's response to John Cobb and Jay McDaniel
5. John Sanders response to Farhan Shah
Explanation: Farhan Shah is a Muslim Process Theologian who works closely with John B. Cobb, Jr. and Jay McDaniel. Cobb and McDaniel have learned, and are learning, much from Shah's emerging perspective. See his A Process Interpretation of Islam and How the Qur'an Reveals God's Becoming. Shah is learning from Cobb and McDaniel as well. The three are engaged in an ongoing interfaith conversation that may be meaningful to others as well.
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Dear John Cobb,
Both Christian and Muslim communities have perpetually faced the conundrums of interpreting their respective scriptures theologically. 1. Do you think that there is one adequate method of interpreting sacred texts such as the Bible and the Qur`an? If yes, does this then imply that sacred scriptures possess an “essence”, an unchanging divinely-inspired content which exegetes – through their interpretative activity – ought to disclose, understand and apply in their own historical contexts? What can be the adequate criteria for safeguarding and disclosing God`s will contained in these scriptures? If the answer is in the negative (scriptures are devoid of any transcendental objectivity and humans are the producers of scriptural meaning), how can we then avert theological relativism and ideological/fundamentalist interpretations of these scriptures? 2. How would a scriptural interpretative model, inspired by Whiteheadian thinking, look like? Dear Farhan, No, Farhan. As I see things, there is no one method for the study of sacred writings. In the first place, some, such as the Buddhist sutras, have never claimed divine authorship. Indeed that sort of view of sacred writings is limited to the Abrahamic traditions. Further, what Christians and Jews work with is a library, with debatable boundaries. Although some Protestants have made extreme claims for those writings that they recognize as canonical, none of the authors make such claims for themselves. It is impossible to persuasively harmonize all that is said in these writings. Indeed, even those Christians who claim that they are all inerrant recognize that they are not all normative for us now. They cannot avoid acknowledging that Jesus and Paul criticized some texts in the Hebrew scriptures. The problems go on and on. Moreover, Jews give primary status to the Torah and lesser authority to the other writings in their canon. They give very similar authority to the subsequent writings in which rabbis discuss the meaning of the earlier ones. The Qu'ran is very different. It is not a library of diverse writings. Its author is not a group of people over time; and its claim is that its author is God, whose words are mediated through Prophet Muhammad, who claims to have received the words through inspiration. It needs to be treated very differently from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Divine Inspiration in Scriptures and in People Nevertheless, the idea of something being divinely inspired may have a general meaning that applies to all of these scriptures and to much else besides. That some people sometimes feel inspired is unquestionably true. Most Jews and Christians would join Muslims in the belief that there is much inspired writing in their scriptures. In some instances, for example in the synoptic gospels, Christians are apt to attribute inspiration more to the person talked about than to the reporters, whose accounts are not entirely consistent with one another. For most Christians, the clearest and strongest locus of inspiration is the person of Jesus and not written records. The written records are, of course, our primary source of knowing Jesus' teachings. My point is twofold. It is (1) that the situation of Christians is quite different from that of Muslims, for whom the text itself is the clearest expression of inspiration, but that (2) a common element of meaning of "inspiration" can be found. An Effortless Flow of Words We often speak of a great poem as "inspired," and the author often agrees. There are, of course, cases of autonomic writing, where the body produces the words without much involvement on the part of the human subject. That is not what we usually mean when we say the poet is inspired. What we mean is that the poet's experience is rather that the flow of words comes to her or to him effortlessly, almost forcing their expression. This can also happen when one is writing prose. Indeed, some sense of giving expression to a wisdom greater than one's own is not uncommon among writers. Or a novelist will tell you that, once he or she has created a character, the novelist does not have complete control over what the character does or says. The character takes on a life of her own. Where does this inspiration come from? Some poets in theistic cultures understand their experience of being used rather than being themselves in control as divine inspiration. Others hesitate to speak of God as the author, and in our secularist world may speak of the unconscious or of archetypes. Where a poet speaks of divine inspiration, or where the reader senses it, we are in the sphere of inspiration that finds expression on many pages of the Christian Bible. The "texts" seem to emerge out of a process amid which the "authors" were inspired. My judgment is that the inspiration of the Qu'ran is an extreme instance of such inspiration, but I speak as an outsider who would make no such claim for his own scriptures. I do not think the New Testament was inspired to this extent. My claim, instead, is that Jesus was remarkably, perhaps uniquely, inspired. To learn what he said and did, I employ a thoroughly secular method of studying the scriptures that are my source of knowledge. I utilize historical and critical approaches to the Bible. The Role of God in Inspiration Although I have not mentioned Whitehead, my formulations are influenced by him. In Whitehead's view God plays a role in every event whatsoever. We could say that every actual occasion is "inspired." In his technical language, every actual occasion comes into being around an "initial phase of the subjective aim" that is God's presence in the occasion. Without this "inspiration" nothing would exist. The initial aim is modified in the course of the self-actualization that it calls for. Typically, in human beings, the final form of the "subjective aim" is different from the "initial aim." The "initial aim" was at the greatest possible achievement of value in that spatio-temporal locus. Frequently, we fall short. The Greek word we translate as "sin" means "miss the mark." The outcome is not apart from God's call, but one cannot read the call from the outcome. Most of the time the focus, even of human actual occasions, is not on ideas or verbal formulations. We are more likely to talk about guidance than inspiration. But the phenomenon is much the same. When one is conceiving a poem, ideas or insights come to one, but one's wandering and confused mind may not yield itself entirely and purely to those ideas and insights. What one writes or says will be affected by the intuitions, but may not express them well. But when one is fully open, what results can come close to expressing the ideal possibility of wording in that time and place. Does that mean that what comes through is in a pure sense the "words of God?" This would misrepresent the nature of God's role in each occasion. The initial aim is to achieve the best possibility in a very specific place and time. If this has to do with a linguistic expression, and the locus is a human mind, then the best possible will be in a language known to the person in question. Furthermore, the limitation is not only linguistic. The categories of thought available to that mind are limited. The information about the world is limited. And so on. The words will be those of the human speaker or writer. They may constitute a breakthrough into new formulations, new insight, new intuitions. But they will not be radically discontinuous with the previous thinking of the person involved. God works creatively with the material available. God does not introduce something that cannot grow organically and creatively out of the material that is given. This remains true even when the recipient of revelation is perfectly mediating it. Of course, such perfection cannot be assumed. Everyone is inclined to cling to beliefs and habits that are not the best possibilities. Even the writings of inspired poets may express elements of resistance. I incline to see Jesus as totally open, but when he cursed a fig tree for not providing him with food, I incline to think this may not express the best that was possible in that moment. Whether Muslims can allow for any such imperfections in the Qu'ran is not for me to consider. My point is rather that a Whiteheadian is open to what I would call a very high doctrine of inspiration, but as a Whiteheadian, I am open to the possibility that any person or any text can sometimes "miss the mark." For a Whiteheadian the belief that something is inspired does not lessen the need for historical "criticism." That is, to understand why what is said is said, and why it is said as it is, always requires an understanding of the situation at that time and place. I have heard Muslims distinguish the Meccan portion of the Qu'ran from the Medinan portion. Some have said that the Meccan portion more directly describes the universal principles. The Medinan portion applies these in the context of making concrete historical decisions. I would judge that this is good historical criticism that shows how inspiration functions differently in different contexts and situations. It does not challenge the authenticity of inspiration in either context. A Whiteheadian would doubt that, even in the Meccan portion, there is complete freedom from historical specificities. But the broad generalization can still hold in a very useful way. For a Whiteheadian, not only do Muhammad's changing context and role throw light on the inspired words, but so also do other aspects of his experience and personal character. His extraordinary receptiveness to revelation, and perhaps his difficulties in being completely receptive, may be of interest. He was a remarkable human being, and he deserves intensive study as such. One may expect that one who was so receptive to inspiration was also receptive to guidance in his personal life. I think this is the usual Islamic view. Please know that I know that comments of a poorly-informed outsider should not be taken too seriously. But for Whiteheadians it is good to hear from many perspectives. I am glad to add mine. John |
Eight Take-Home Points
A Response from Jay McDaniel
As I read John Cobb's response to Farhan Shah, I am led to wonder if a person's reading of sacred scripture (or an inspired passage from scripture) might itself be inspired. Professor Cobb's "Whiteheadian" response suggests this possibility. It suggests that if we bring wisdom and compassion to our reading of scriptures, developed out of our own pasts, this may help us interpret the texts in ways that are divinely inspired to some degree: that is, conformal to God's initial aims in our lives, such that we are more open to those aims than we might otherwise be. We might call this sacred reading or, as it were, sacred interpretation.
The locus of this conformity will be our own minds, and the conformity will never be perfect. It always be relative to the conditions of our lives and the limitations of our minds. Here "mind" includes feeling as well as thinking, along with memories of the past and aspirations toward the future. Mind is the whole person and his or her lived experience, as shaped by myriad circumstances of life; race, social class, economic conditions, intellectual outlook, gender and sexuality, and language. We bring our finite selves to the interpretation, and cannot do otherwise.
The Power of Metaphors
Each of these influences has its gifts and limitations. Consider language. Current studies in cognitive linguistics show that the linguistic sides of our lives are deeply and thoroughly shaped by metaphoric ways of thinking that we learn in childhood and absorb from society. Such metaphoric thinking is part of what we bring to the texts we read; and the outcomes of such thinking are also ingredient in the texts themselves. One of my colleagues, Professor John Sanders, has written an entire book on the role that metaphors play in biblical stories: Theology of the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way we Think about Truth, Morality, and God.
The fact that we think about matters of truth, morality and God through metaphors speaks neither to the truth nor falsehood of the metaphors at issue. Jesus, for example, seems to have felt and articulated his own understanding of God through the metaphor of Abba. Whether or not this metaphor resonates with the reality of God is a metaphysical question, not an epistemological question. John Cobb and other "open horizon" thinkers, including my colleague John Sanders, believe that nurturing metaphors such as these do resonate. The metaphor has truth value. Still, so Sanders emphasizes, the image of God as nurturing parent is a metaphor and in this sense it arises out of human experience. It is, as it were, anthropogenic, building upon and extending (in this instance) human experiences of nurturing parental relations. As it happens, Sanders adds, linguistic expressions that operate in a more literal way - such as the saying "John is a professor" are likewise anthropogenic, in that they emerge out of human experience. Literal and metaphoric language emerge in the human mind as influenced by human experience even as, as Cobb adds, they might also emerge as influenced by divine guidance through initial aims.
Can God speak Metaphorically?
To say that metaphors emerge out of human experience is not to say that God cannot reach us through metaphors. Both Cobb and Sanders believe that God can indeed speak to human beings through metaphors. Cobb turns to the philosophy of Whitehead as an aid in helping make sense of what it might mean for God to speak through metaphors.
The initial aim [from God] is to achieve the best possibility in a very specific place and time. If this has to do with a linguistic expression, and the locus is a human mind, then the best possible will be in a language known to the person in question.
The point is that it is through metaphors, not apart from them, that prophets may receive wisdom and guidance from God, which they share with others through "words of God" that carry sacred truth.
Muslims see Prophet Muhammad as a conduit of this kind of inspiration and the Qur'an as an outcome. Might Muslims simultaneously recognize that the very language that is found in the Qur'an, and that the very medium by which God communicated through him, was itself metaphorical in many ways? I do not know the answer to the question, and I am not qualified to say. But what I know is that Christians can well recognize the metaphoric nature of so much biblical language.
Readers Must Have an Ear for Metaphors
One of the projects of John Sanders is to encourage Christians to read their own texts this way, recognizing that the language of the texts, inspired or otherwise, is thoroughly metaphorical in many ways. Thus, we Christian readers of the Bible must have an ear for metaphors as well. We cannot and should not be literalists. We can speak of God as Abba but we must also recognize that our language is metaphorical: God may literally have agency and care about the world, but God does not have a body or a gender.
John Sanders sees things this way. He proposes that the idea of God as caring agent is best understood literally, but that the idea of God as Abba is metaphorical but, in his view and my own, apt. It reveals something of God's very nature. But Sanders further emphasizes, along with Cobb and many others, that apt metaphors are not indubitable metaphors. Cobb and Sanders and others emphasize that, as we recognize and appreciate the metaphoric nature of biblical thinking and our own, we ought also to recognize the limitations of our thinking, thus avoiding any pretense to having knowledge of God (or other important matters) from a trans-historical and fully divine point of view. God speaks to us through metaphors of our own making, which are themselves extensions of our own finite, human experience. Cobb then adds:
Furthermore, the limitation is not only linguistic. The categories of thought available to that mind are limited. The information about the world is limited. And so on. The words will be those of the human speaker or writer. They may constitute a breakthrough into new formulations, new insight, new intuitions. But they will not be radically discontinuous with the previous thinking of the person involved. God works creatively with the material available. God does not introduce something that cannot grow organically and creatively out of the material that is given.
The Character of the Reader is Critical
What then, might this say about readers of sacred texts? Let us assume, with Cobb and Sanders, that God's aims in our lives are always toward wisdom and compassion, broadly understood. They are for helping bring about states of affairs in this world in which the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven. And let us assume that "the will of God on earth as it is in heaven" entails the building of communities on earth that are creative, compassionate, participatory, inclusive, diverse, and respectful of all life -- with no one left behind. Here I speak as a Christian, hopeful that friends in the Muslim community share this assumption. Farhan Shah certainly does
We may or may not bring this intention to help heal a broken world -- these qualities of wisdom and compassion -- to our reading of an inspired text. If we bring self-centered and hateful hearts to the text, we cannot really hear the text. And, by contrast, if we bring generous and loving hearts to our reading, we may be able to glean fresh possibilities from the texts in our very act of reading those texts. The texts speak to us with help from what we bring to them: namely loving hearts.
In the Christian tradition this idea of sacred reading is sometimes called lectio divina or divine reading. Islam also carries within its traditions the idea that a reading of Qur'an is best done out of a quality of the heart and mind that is in touch with God's mercy and compassion, and that this quality will help a person better understand the texts at issue. Conversely, if a person brings contrary qualities to the reading, the very meanings of the texts will be distorted.
Such sacred readings can be undertaken by groups as well as individuals. What is sorely needed in our time, in Christianity to be sure and perhaps also Islam, are forms of corporate interpretation of texts that includes voices not often enough represented in more traditional readings: voices of women, of the poor and powerless, of people who have otherwise been left out of scriptural reading.
How to Become a Good Reader
From a Whiteheadian perspective a corollary question is: How might we cultivate these wise and compassionate hearts so that we might read the texts in inspired ways? The cultivation never occurs in isolation; it occurs in community with others who help us grow in these ways. We need, as it were, sacred communities to help us read sacred texts with loving hearts. And these communities need to be inspired by rituals that nurture the cultivation: rituals or prayer, meditation, and service. Islam and Christianity and Judaism are replete with just such rituals. Prayer is a complement to sacred reading.
For Christians such as John Cobb, none of this precludes the role of criticism in reading texts. Cobb writes:
For a Whiteheadian the belief that something is inspired does not lessen the need for historical "criticism." That is, to understand why what is said is said, and why it is said as it is, always requires an understanding of the situation at that time and place. I have heard Muslims distinguish the Meccan portion of the Qu'ran from the Medinan portion. Some have said that the Meccan portion more directly describes the universal principles. The Medinan portion applies these in the context of making concrete historical decisions. I would judge that this is good historical criticism that shows how inspiration functions differently in different contexts and situations. It does not challenge the authenticity of inspiration in either context.
For the Christian, this means that a reading of inspired texts can make full use of secular approaches to scripture that take heed of contexts in which texts emerged and, yes, the limitations (and sometimes failings) of those texts to be fully inspired. As Cobb emphasizes, the primary inspiration for the Christian is not the Bible itself, but rather the person of Jesus (including his healing ministry, death, and resurrection) to which the Bible points. Jesus, not the Bible, is the word of God. To absolutize the Bible, and pretend that it cannot be criticized, is to make an idol of the Bible, thus violating the very example and will of God.
The situation may be different for Muslims, for whom the text of the Qur'an is indeed the word of God. Along with John Cobb, I am not qualified to say how Muslims might apply the tools of scriptural interpretation to the Qur'an, but I well know that Islamic scholars have been very sensitive to particular contexts in which saying arose, and to the fact that there are tensions among the texts, such that one text can supersede (or abrogate) another. This suggests to me that Muslim scholars will have their own ways of incorporating historical-critical scholarship to Qur'anic study.
In short, it seems to me that, from a process perspective and from other "open horizon" points of view, there are at least eight take-home points worthy of further reflection:
A Response from Jay McDaniel
As I read John Cobb's response to Farhan Shah, I am led to wonder if a person's reading of sacred scripture (or an inspired passage from scripture) might itself be inspired. Professor Cobb's "Whiteheadian" response suggests this possibility. It suggests that if we bring wisdom and compassion to our reading of scriptures, developed out of our own pasts, this may help us interpret the texts in ways that are divinely inspired to some degree: that is, conformal to God's initial aims in our lives, such that we are more open to those aims than we might otherwise be. We might call this sacred reading or, as it were, sacred interpretation.
The locus of this conformity will be our own minds, and the conformity will never be perfect. It always be relative to the conditions of our lives and the limitations of our minds. Here "mind" includes feeling as well as thinking, along with memories of the past and aspirations toward the future. Mind is the whole person and his or her lived experience, as shaped by myriad circumstances of life; race, social class, economic conditions, intellectual outlook, gender and sexuality, and language. We bring our finite selves to the interpretation, and cannot do otherwise.
The Power of Metaphors
Each of these influences has its gifts and limitations. Consider language. Current studies in cognitive linguistics show that the linguistic sides of our lives are deeply and thoroughly shaped by metaphoric ways of thinking that we learn in childhood and absorb from society. Such metaphoric thinking is part of what we bring to the texts we read; and the outcomes of such thinking are also ingredient in the texts themselves. One of my colleagues, Professor John Sanders, has written an entire book on the role that metaphors play in biblical stories: Theology of the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way we Think about Truth, Morality, and God.
The fact that we think about matters of truth, morality and God through metaphors speaks neither to the truth nor falsehood of the metaphors at issue. Jesus, for example, seems to have felt and articulated his own understanding of God through the metaphor of Abba. Whether or not this metaphor resonates with the reality of God is a metaphysical question, not an epistemological question. John Cobb and other "open horizon" thinkers, including my colleague John Sanders, believe that nurturing metaphors such as these do resonate. The metaphor has truth value. Still, so Sanders emphasizes, the image of God as nurturing parent is a metaphor and in this sense it arises out of human experience. It is, as it were, anthropogenic, building upon and extending (in this instance) human experiences of nurturing parental relations. As it happens, Sanders adds, linguistic expressions that operate in a more literal way - such as the saying "John is a professor" are likewise anthropogenic, in that they emerge out of human experience. Literal and metaphoric language emerge in the human mind as influenced by human experience even as, as Cobb adds, they might also emerge as influenced by divine guidance through initial aims.
Can God speak Metaphorically?
To say that metaphors emerge out of human experience is not to say that God cannot reach us through metaphors. Both Cobb and Sanders believe that God can indeed speak to human beings through metaphors. Cobb turns to the philosophy of Whitehead as an aid in helping make sense of what it might mean for God to speak through metaphors.
The initial aim [from God] is to achieve the best possibility in a very specific place and time. If this has to do with a linguistic expression, and the locus is a human mind, then the best possible will be in a language known to the person in question.
The point is that it is through metaphors, not apart from them, that prophets may receive wisdom and guidance from God, which they share with others through "words of God" that carry sacred truth.
Muslims see Prophet Muhammad as a conduit of this kind of inspiration and the Qur'an as an outcome. Might Muslims simultaneously recognize that the very language that is found in the Qur'an, and that the very medium by which God communicated through him, was itself metaphorical in many ways? I do not know the answer to the question, and I am not qualified to say. But what I know is that Christians can well recognize the metaphoric nature of so much biblical language.
Readers Must Have an Ear for Metaphors
One of the projects of John Sanders is to encourage Christians to read their own texts this way, recognizing that the language of the texts, inspired or otherwise, is thoroughly metaphorical in many ways. Thus, we Christian readers of the Bible must have an ear for metaphors as well. We cannot and should not be literalists. We can speak of God as Abba but we must also recognize that our language is metaphorical: God may literally have agency and care about the world, but God does not have a body or a gender.
John Sanders sees things this way. He proposes that the idea of God as caring agent is best understood literally, but that the idea of God as Abba is metaphorical but, in his view and my own, apt. It reveals something of God's very nature. But Sanders further emphasizes, along with Cobb and many others, that apt metaphors are not indubitable metaphors. Cobb and Sanders and others emphasize that, as we recognize and appreciate the metaphoric nature of biblical thinking and our own, we ought also to recognize the limitations of our thinking, thus avoiding any pretense to having knowledge of God (or other important matters) from a trans-historical and fully divine point of view. God speaks to us through metaphors of our own making, which are themselves extensions of our own finite, human experience. Cobb then adds:
Furthermore, the limitation is not only linguistic. The categories of thought available to that mind are limited. The information about the world is limited. And so on. The words will be those of the human speaker or writer. They may constitute a breakthrough into new formulations, new insight, new intuitions. But they will not be radically discontinuous with the previous thinking of the person involved. God works creatively with the material available. God does not introduce something that cannot grow organically and creatively out of the material that is given.
The Character of the Reader is Critical
What then, might this say about readers of sacred texts? Let us assume, with Cobb and Sanders, that God's aims in our lives are always toward wisdom and compassion, broadly understood. They are for helping bring about states of affairs in this world in which the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven. And let us assume that "the will of God on earth as it is in heaven" entails the building of communities on earth that are creative, compassionate, participatory, inclusive, diverse, and respectful of all life -- with no one left behind. Here I speak as a Christian, hopeful that friends in the Muslim community share this assumption. Farhan Shah certainly does
We may or may not bring this intention to help heal a broken world -- these qualities of wisdom and compassion -- to our reading of an inspired text. If we bring self-centered and hateful hearts to the text, we cannot really hear the text. And, by contrast, if we bring generous and loving hearts to our reading, we may be able to glean fresh possibilities from the texts in our very act of reading those texts. The texts speak to us with help from what we bring to them: namely loving hearts.
In the Christian tradition this idea of sacred reading is sometimes called lectio divina or divine reading. Islam also carries within its traditions the idea that a reading of Qur'an is best done out of a quality of the heart and mind that is in touch with God's mercy and compassion, and that this quality will help a person better understand the texts at issue. Conversely, if a person brings contrary qualities to the reading, the very meanings of the texts will be distorted.
Such sacred readings can be undertaken by groups as well as individuals. What is sorely needed in our time, in Christianity to be sure and perhaps also Islam, are forms of corporate interpretation of texts that includes voices not often enough represented in more traditional readings: voices of women, of the poor and powerless, of people who have otherwise been left out of scriptural reading.
How to Become a Good Reader
From a Whiteheadian perspective a corollary question is: How might we cultivate these wise and compassionate hearts so that we might read the texts in inspired ways? The cultivation never occurs in isolation; it occurs in community with others who help us grow in these ways. We need, as it were, sacred communities to help us read sacred texts with loving hearts. And these communities need to be inspired by rituals that nurture the cultivation: rituals or prayer, meditation, and service. Islam and Christianity and Judaism are replete with just such rituals. Prayer is a complement to sacred reading.
For Christians such as John Cobb, none of this precludes the role of criticism in reading texts. Cobb writes:
For a Whiteheadian the belief that something is inspired does not lessen the need for historical "criticism." That is, to understand why what is said is said, and why it is said as it is, always requires an understanding of the situation at that time and place. I have heard Muslims distinguish the Meccan portion of the Qu'ran from the Medinan portion. Some have said that the Meccan portion more directly describes the universal principles. The Medinan portion applies these in the context of making concrete historical decisions. I would judge that this is good historical criticism that shows how inspiration functions differently in different contexts and situations. It does not challenge the authenticity of inspiration in either context.
For the Christian, this means that a reading of inspired texts can make full use of secular approaches to scripture that take heed of contexts in which texts emerged and, yes, the limitations (and sometimes failings) of those texts to be fully inspired. As Cobb emphasizes, the primary inspiration for the Christian is not the Bible itself, but rather the person of Jesus (including his healing ministry, death, and resurrection) to which the Bible points. Jesus, not the Bible, is the word of God. To absolutize the Bible, and pretend that it cannot be criticized, is to make an idol of the Bible, thus violating the very example and will of God.
The situation may be different for Muslims, for whom the text of the Qur'an is indeed the word of God. Along with John Cobb, I am not qualified to say how Muslims might apply the tools of scriptural interpretation to the Qur'an, but I well know that Islamic scholars have been very sensitive to particular contexts in which saying arose, and to the fact that there are tensions among the texts, such that one text can supersede (or abrogate) another. This suggests to me that Muslim scholars will have their own ways of incorporating historical-critical scholarship to Qur'anic study.
In short, it seems to me that, from a process perspective and from other "open horizon" points of view, there are at least eight take-home points worthy of further reflection:
- we can meaningfully speak of the divine inspiration of sacred texts without making idols of the texts,
- we can simultaneously recognize that an interpretation of the texts requires more than the text, namely the qualities of heart and mind of the interpreter, including humility and an intention to live according to God's call toward love and justice.
- the language of the texts will include metaphor, which can itself be a means by which God communicates,
- that the interpreter needs to have a metaphoric mind -- that is, sensitivity to metaphor itself - along with sensitivity to the social and historical conditions (and thus the limit) of interpretation.
- that no interpretation of a text, however helpful, is "absolute" in the sense of being absolutely true and indubitable, although some can be more "apt" than others.
- that the measure of an "apt" interpretation includes a degree of fidelity to the contents of the text, and also (at least from a Christian perspective but perhaps also from a Muslim perspective) the degree to which it is consistent with aspirations for a more just, sustainable and joyful world -- in which no one is left behind.
- that the process of interpretation can be collective as well as individual.
- that the process is ongoing, such that no generation has the final say.
Response from Farhan Shah
My dear process fellows John B. Cobb and Jay McDaniel,
I appreciate your illuminating reflections around the topical issue of scriptural hermeneutics. Your responses from a Christian process perspective are germane and central to the ongoing intra-Islamically issue and debate on methods of Qur`anic hermeneutics suited the temper and clime of our complex realities. The intra-Islamic belief about Qur`ans Divine nature, that is, the Qur`an is the “word of God”, and not merely “inspired” or “influenced” by God gives the scripture a quality of timelessness and universality, which makes the above-mentioned issue even more delicate. That being said, all revelations are also commentaries on a specific society, addressing a particular audience in a specific language structure and so are part of that socio-historical and linguistic milieu.
Thus, turning the transcendental into the temporal implies a certain level of necessary interpretation. One of the important challenges of Muslim exegetes of today is how to reconcile the categories of invariance and variety, i.e., eternity in the sense of God`s ultimate aims and temporality, i.e., the applications of those Divine aims in a spatio-temporal order of perpetual flux and change. These interpretative endeavors must not only occur amongst individual scholars, but by collective efforts as well. Through open discussions, debates and dialogues, emphasizing epistemic fallibilism, the Muslim communities can accept some interpretations building upon qualities of wisdom, compassion and interconnectedness and discard other readings not conducive to God`s initial aims. That is why your constructive reflections and ideas are much needed in order to devise hermeneutical strategies which also pursue the important issue of temporal causality and with it a historical-critical approach to the “sacred corpus”.
There are also issues of a global scale which requires universal participation. There is a saying from Prophet Muhammad that goes: “We are all travelers of on a ship; if one person pokes a hole in it, all of us will drown”. This tradition is a beautiful allegory which captures the interconnectedness of humanity; we are all cotravelers on a global ship, with non-human communities of life, also. Thus, the sustainability of human communities is dependent upon a fundamental reorientation – both intellectual and practical – toward ecological and organic civilizations.
A religious understanding that is oblivious to our common challenges is not tenable. It is my hope that both Christians and Muslims, whose hearts are receptive to God`s initial aims, will contribute, within their own contexts, to the building of a world in which all life is valued in and for themselves, just as all life is valued and enfolded within the organic whole of God, the great companion.
With love and peace
Farhan Shah
I appreciate your illuminating reflections around the topical issue of scriptural hermeneutics. Your responses from a Christian process perspective are germane and central to the ongoing intra-Islamically issue and debate on methods of Qur`anic hermeneutics suited the temper and clime of our complex realities. The intra-Islamic belief about Qur`ans Divine nature, that is, the Qur`an is the “word of God”, and not merely “inspired” or “influenced” by God gives the scripture a quality of timelessness and universality, which makes the above-mentioned issue even more delicate. That being said, all revelations are also commentaries on a specific society, addressing a particular audience in a specific language structure and so are part of that socio-historical and linguistic milieu.
Thus, turning the transcendental into the temporal implies a certain level of necessary interpretation. One of the important challenges of Muslim exegetes of today is how to reconcile the categories of invariance and variety, i.e., eternity in the sense of God`s ultimate aims and temporality, i.e., the applications of those Divine aims in a spatio-temporal order of perpetual flux and change. These interpretative endeavors must not only occur amongst individual scholars, but by collective efforts as well. Through open discussions, debates and dialogues, emphasizing epistemic fallibilism, the Muslim communities can accept some interpretations building upon qualities of wisdom, compassion and interconnectedness and discard other readings not conducive to God`s initial aims. That is why your constructive reflections and ideas are much needed in order to devise hermeneutical strategies which also pursue the important issue of temporal causality and with it a historical-critical approach to the “sacred corpus”.
There are also issues of a global scale which requires universal participation. There is a saying from Prophet Muhammad that goes: “We are all travelers of on a ship; if one person pokes a hole in it, all of us will drown”. This tradition is a beautiful allegory which captures the interconnectedness of humanity; we are all cotravelers on a global ship, with non-human communities of life, also. Thus, the sustainability of human communities is dependent upon a fundamental reorientation – both intellectual and practical – toward ecological and organic civilizations.
A religious understanding that is oblivious to our common challenges is not tenable. It is my hope that both Christians and Muslims, whose hearts are receptive to God`s initial aims, will contribute, within their own contexts, to the building of a world in which all life is valued in and for themselves, just as all life is valued and enfolded within the organic whole of God, the great companion.
With love and peace
Farhan Shah
Response from John Sanders to Farhan Shah
Farhan said, “all revelations are also commentaries on a specific society, addressing a particular audience in a specific language structure and so are part of that socio-historical and linguistic milieu.” I agree entirely and believe this is crucial to acknowledge. In my book, Theology in the Flesh, I argue that cognitive science shows us that human understanding has access to human ways of knowing that depend upon the particular kinds of bodies we have. All human understanding of anything—from God to atoms—will be “anthropogenic.” Cognitive linguists have done a lot of work identifying the mental tools humans use. These tools include such things as metaphors, metonymy, image schemas, conceptual blends, and frames. Our sacred texts are written by humans so it is no surprise that they use these same tools. For example, young children have the experience of those in authority are “up” (they look up to their care takers). In all cultures and languages examined on this topic thus far, all have the concept of Authority Is Up. No language has the concept that Authority Is Down. Hence, sacred texts speak of God as up or above us. Another example is that humans have the experience of walking on a path in order to reach a destination. Some languages use this experience to understand intimate relationships—“we have come a long way together and overcome many bumps in the road.” Some sacred texts use this metaphor of a journey to understand our relationship to God. Hence, we may talk about the “straight path,” or “following God,” or walking with God” along with the need to “repent” (to turn around on the path). Some religious believers may find this threatening since they think it undermines divine revelation. If God speaks to us, they say, then it will be divine, not human concepts. However, humans only understand human concepts so if God is going to communicate with us, then God will have to make use of human cognitive tools. If a human community God addresses uses an “egocentric” orientation then God could say, for example, that Peter stood on Jesus’ left. However, if the human community uses an allocentric orientation, then God would have to say something like, “Peter stood to the north of Jesus.” This means that God can communicate to us but the ideas will have to be in human cognitive forms so that we are able to understand them. This approach is a more detailed account of the way in which divine revelation and inspiration are dependent upon particular languages and cultural ideas.