Autor: Walsh, David

Buch: The Third Millenium

Titel: The Third Millenium

Stichwort: Toleranz; Leugnung der Möglichkeit der Wahrheit - oder Maßstab am Sein

Kurzinhalt: tolerance of indifference: we fail to recognize it as a cover for the most repressive dogmatism possible; Tolerance can be most fully grounded in the unattainability of Being, not in the unattainability of truth

Textausschnitt: 160a The great enemy to tolerance in this true sense is what can only be characterized as its false alternative. We have already alluded to the tolerance of indifference but now that its true source in the openness of Being has become clear, it is worthwhile to sharpen the contrast. Sham tolerance is by far the most influential attitude toward the relationship between the world religions. It consists of a live-and-let-live magnanimity that reassures us of the irresolvability of the differences between them. The generosity of the disposition is disarming, so much so that we fail to recognize it as a cover for the most repressive dogmatism possible. Toleration in the name of unknowability appears to be a position that welcomes all traditions equally, with prejudice toward none. But the appearance is deceptive. Under the banner of invincible ignorance, all are permitted to speak, but none are permitted to be taken seriously. Not only does it not take a position on behalf of any truth, but it adamantly refuses to admit the possibility of truth. Under the guise of mutual toleration, we are asked to subscribe to a principle that renders the value of toleration moot. What is the purpose of tolerating different viewpoints and permitting their conversation if we have already resolved in advance that they cannot be permitted to reach the truth? The cost of toleration is too high if it requires us to dogmatically consent to a particular view of truth, viz. that truth is nonexistent.1 Besides, the cost of entrance into the paradise of pluralist irrelevance is unnecessary. (Fs) (notabene)

160b Tolerance can be most fully grounded in the unattainability of Being, not in the unattainability of truth. The dogmatic assertion of the latter presumes that Being has been comprehended sufficiently to determine its inapprehensability as truth. Reversing the relationship, we reach not tolerance but its perversion. By contrast, tolerance is most fully grounded in our participation in the openness of Being. The limitless Beyond can be apprehended by us through the medium of finitude, but only sufficiently to recognize its transcendence of all limits. Such a glimpse is possible because of the openness to Being that constitutes each human being as the imago Dei. The tolerance owed the formulations apprehended by each one is due to the capacity to embrace the whole, albeit from the fragmentary perspective of a part. The character of individual participation in Being attaches even more evidently to the great symbolic elaborations in which the perspectival glances are unfolded. Every symbolic form is worthy of respect, not because they are all equally developed, but because they are all equally participative in the whole. While stepping forth as the apprehensions of the parts, they nevertheless are evocations of the whole. The encompassing character of each of the great spiritual traditions is no accidental feature. It arises from their essential trajectory, which is to participate through representation of the whole. (Fs)

161a However, grounding tolerance in the mutuality of truth is no more than a beginning. Trivialization is avoided, but at the same time the stakes are raised considerably. If we are to understand the relationship between the great spiritual traditions as ultimately collaborative, then the quest for truth must eventually lead toward the sharpening of distinctions between them. They cannot all be equally attuned and equally misattuned toward the order of being. Even when each of them evokes the Being that none are capable of adequately encompassing, there are still legitimate distinctions that should be made, albeit from the finite perspective. Equidistance from Being can mean varying perceptions of the equidistance. Even their own self-emergence as distinct traditions involves the articulation of differences from the more inchoate traditions that preceded them. They cannot present themselves as advances in truth and attunement if they insist on the invidiousness of all such claims. Without succumbing to the relativity of all viewpoints, the spiritual traditions cannot maintain their own assertion of truth unless they are prepared to take seriously the rival claims of all others. Distinctions of rank cannot finally be avoided, and they can only be intelligibly made from within the spiritual traditions themselves. (Fs)

162a The task is sufficiently formidable to discourage most serious attempts over the past two millennia. Our situation is different only in the inescapability of articulating their interrelationships. Contact and contiguity between the great spiritual traditions has historically been of a more limited nature. Particular episodes and locales brought the problem of parallel revelations to occasional attention. Never has the contact across traditions been so ubiquitous and constant as the global modern civilization has made it.2 Familiarity with other civilizations has been an accelerating feature of modernity ever since its emergence in the voyages of discovery. Ease of travel, communication, and migration have made us increasingly aware of the diversity of cultural traditions, and the intensifying interdependence of global development has made the promotion of mutual understanding a more pressing requirement. Our present moment, poised at the dawn of the third millennium, raises ever more profoundly the question of the meaning of the convergence that is drawing us together. The challenge for the future is to find the means of spiritual interrelationship to match the increasing practical interpenetration of our world. We have been presented with the opportunity and the necessity of conversation across the great spiritual traditions, but we have yet to find the theoretical shelter within which a meaningful dialogue can be carried on. Indifference concealed by feigned interest is clearly neither a source of toleration or conversation. (Fs)

162b Only a common pursuit of truth is capable of grounding a meaningful exchange. Mutual respect cannot avoid eventual consideration of the character of the differences and judgment of their adequacy or inadequacy for the common reality toward which they point. Distinctions must be acknowledged because it is only on their basis that the inner unity can be explored. From an amorphous relativism, nothing meaningful can be derived. We must take seriously the presence of a common reality in which all human beings participate and by which their experience is rendered communicable, rather than give credence to the fear that there is nothing generative of a bond between us by appealing to a superficial rhetoric of toleration. The harder way is the testing of respective strengths and weaknesses through conversation. Even a robust exchange is appropriate if the issue concerns the truth or falsity of existence. In the process, we will no doubt discover that what still separates us is far less than the reality that unites us in the common quest of being. The need for illusory harmonization fades away as the invincibility of our common humanity comes to the fore. In the process, we discover that the problems so apparently insoluble at the beginning of the exercise, especially the great question of a criterion of truth recognizable by all, assumes more tractable proportions. Conversation itself leads us toward the criterion embedded in the inquiry itself. Our quest for being does not have to await the discovery of the principle by which it is to be guided, since it is already contained in the movement that animates the search. We know of what we are in search before we enter upon it. This simple but profound realization can provide the means of illuminating the interreligious dialogue it already sustains. (Fs)