Monthly Archives: June 2009

#27 Iran and an ethics of yielding

28 Sunday Jun 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Theological Ethics

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dreamstime_5824966There is the world as-it-is, and then there is the world that-could-be. 

In Iran, this is the world as-it-is:  the disputed legitimacy of the recent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad propelled enraged supporters of his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, into the sweltering streets of Teheran.   Ahmadinejad (with the blessing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) pushed back with increasing brutality, deploying riot police and the much-feared, violence-prone, Basij paramilitary forces against unarmed citizens. 

But what if, in a world that-could-be, Ahmadinejad chose, instead, an ethics of yielding?  Yes, an ethics of yielding. 

One must be careful how one draws lessons from the past (thanks to their variety and number, historical events lend themselves too easily to an unscrupulous defense of almost any ideologically-driven claim).  But we can, for the sake of discussing a world that-could-be, draw on the work of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), a French essayist who lived and wrote during a time of bitter wars of religion between Protestants and Catholics, and a time of violent political conflict between rebellious nobles and the crown.  

A heterodox Catholic, Montaigne believed that God leaves us free to work out our lives on human terms.  And in the process of working out his own life on human terms, Montaigne developed a new ethics of accommodation based on shared trust and on shared humanity.  Opposed to the zealotry of the warring parties, Montaigne pleaded for an attitude of yielding both on the part of the victor and of the vanquished.  He even argued that his ethics of passivity was the best way to preserve each side’s desire for respect:  “You can swallow your pride and have it too, provided you learn how to be a good loser” (this quote comes from David Quint‘s Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy).

To return to the topic at hand–in a world that-could-be, if Ahmadinejad followed Montaigne’s recommendations, what effect, practically-speaking, would this have on Iran?  Having defeated the protestors with a massive and intractable show of force, Ahmadinejad could now preserve both his self-respect and that of the protestors by adopting a stance of clemency.  Toward those he formerly pursued, he could adopt a stance of flexibility, of softness.  And by choosing to identify with those he crushed and reduced to weakness, he would demonstrate courage.  Yes, courage–because he would allow his opponents to remain a threat to him and his government.  In the Iran that-is, Ahmadinejad has elevated himself to God-like status.  In the Iran that-could-be, Ahmadinejad would reclaim his humanity.

Montaigne’s ethics of yielding is not reserved for the victor.  The vanquished must also yield.  In the Iran that-could-be, the protestors would choose not to resist.  Instead, they would demonstrate the highest self-respect by acknowledging the power of Ahmadinejad, and by acknowledging the humanity and weakness they share with him.  They would disarm themselves, and trust in their foe.  A recent Newsweek image captured the difficult kind of clemency Montaigne had in mind; it showed a small group of protestors using their own bodies to shield a disarmed riot cop from the rage of their fellow protestors.  They had the courage to be merciful to their captured enemy even though they knew that he would probably try to harm them again on another day.

But even Montaigne, as much a skeptic in his time as most of us are today, dismissed the efficacy of preaching Christian humility.  He resorted, instead, to the ploy of promising the merciful victor an enhanced reputation.  After all, he pointed out, mercy aggrandizes the merciful one and the vanquished testify to the greatness of the one who has spared them. 

So, President Ahmadinejad, if you’re reading this post, will you show mercy, and yield to your countrymen and women’s longing for greater freedom and opportunity? Or will you maintain the course of the Iran-as-it-has-been and rely on fear and oppression to silence your opponents?  You have, after all, been handpicked by Ayatollah Khamenei to implement his dream of creating an Islamic caliphate.

But let’s try one last argument:  President Ahmadinejad, you miscalculated when you resorted to fraud to over-represent the election that you most likely won anyway.  Thanks to your miscalculation, you unleashed the greatest internal threat to Iran’s government since the Shah was toppled and you discovered the depth of your countrymen and women’s yearning for change.  Yield, Mr. Ahmadinejad, or you too might find yourself toppled.  If toppled you are, may your people yield and have mercy on you.

HNFFT:  Every day, we face situations where we have power-over others, or others have power-over us.  What could intentional weakness look like for you in those situations?  How could you practice an ethics of yielding?  

References:  Christopher Dickey, “The Supreme Leader,” 40-45, and Fareed Zakaria, “Theocracy and its Discontents,” 30-39, both in Newsweek, 29 June 2009; David Quaint, Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1998).

#26 No theology, no science–no joke!

18 Thursday Jun 2009

Posted by in God, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Theology

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Science and theology are perceived, by some, as sitting on opposite banks of an abyss.  They assume that the twain never can (or should) meet.  But the separation between science and theology is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the West.  Until the Renaissance, science was barely more than a descriptive discipline, while theology, considered the queen of the sciences, was a richly speculative and complex field of endeavor.  

Fortunately, theology (yes—theology!) came to the rescue of science by providing it with a new understanding of reality.  Theology (yes—theology!) provided science with the intellectual and conceptual tools it needed to get out of a deep rut and push forward with several important discoveries.  These discoveries, in turn, allowed the development of technologies that now seem as essential to us as air or water.  What–life without a computer?  Without Wi-Fi?  A cell phone?  Pleeease! 

This shift in human beings’ way of looking at reality occurred long enough ago that we’ve mostly forgotten that we haven’t always grasped reality the way we do today. Here’s a key illustration:  there was a time when it was “common knowledge” that the earth moved around the sun.  Peoples in the ancient world conceived of reality such that, for them, astral bodies such as the sun and moon rotated in orderly and eternally-static circles around the earth.  Based on simple observation this view of reality made sense.  The things they could see appeared to revolve around them while the ground on which they stood seemed solid and stationary.   Today, of course, we know that while we tend to perceive motion relative to where we ourselves stand, we may, from the perspective of someone else, be moving.

So how did our mindset change?  A 15th theologian by the name of Nicholas de Cusa (1401 – 1464) reached several novel conclusions about perspective.  Some scholars still refuse to count his contributions as scientific because, technically-speaking, he was a theologian.  But others, like philosophy professor, Karsten Harries, the author of Infinity and Perspective, credit him with destroying the belief in the geocentric theory of the cosmos inherited by pre-Renaissance science from the ancient world.

Thanks to Cusa, Harries argues in his book, Copernicus was able to break out of this mindset, a mindset that had persisted millenia.  

So what was Cusa’s insight, exactly?  It underwhelms us moderns but, in the 15th century, his insight was revolutionary.  Cusa had been sent by the Pope to negotiate a reconciliation between the Greek Church and the Roman Church.  On the return sea-voyage, his ship was heading home from Greece when he realized that if he couldn’t see the shore, he wouldn’t have any idea the ship was moving; instead, he would perceive the ship as sitting still in the water.  He also realized that if he were not a passenger but, rather, someone standing on the shoreline watching the ship, he would, from his vantage point on land, perceive the ship as moving.  Two perspectives (the one on the ship, the other on land) led to two experiences of movement. 

In his theological work, On Learned Ignorance, Cusa wrote that the centers “by which we orient ourselves are fictions, created by us” to reflect the standpoint of the observer.  Multiple centers of perspective, he realized, were not only possible but equally valid.  Applying this insight to the universe, he argued that a person standing on Mars or on the moon was just as likely as an earthling to consider his or her piece of rock to be the center of the cosmos.  Cusa concluded that the universe “will have its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, so to speak; for God, who is everywhere and nowhere, is its circumference and center.”

By undermining the idea of a single-center based perspective, Cusa called into question any cosmology based on just one center.  His clarity about the possibility of multiple centers and perspectives took him even further than Copernicus and Kepler would go a century later with their heliocentric cosmology.  His influence was so sweeping and long-lasting that Kepler and Descartes acknowledged him as a precursor.  

The Cusa-Copernicus-Kepler scenario offers more than just intellectual interest.  If Harries is spot-on about Cusa’s contribution to science (historians of science, do you care to weigh in?), then there’s an important lesson to take away from this fascinating chapter in science-theology relations.  The lesson is that if scientists like Copernicus and Kepler had refused to take seriously the theological writings of a pious genius like Cusa, then we might all have had to wait a lot longer for modern science.   

Theologians and scientists live in the same world and, as fellow human beings, they’re charmed by mystery and seized by wonder.  They ask many of the same questions about the world.  They simply turn to different resources in their attempts to answer those questions, resources which need not be labeled incompatible.  But as long as scientists and theologians sit on opposite banks of an abyss (created ex nihilo), no conversation will take place.  Let’s start building a bridge, shall we?

References:  Karsten Harries, Infinity and Perspective (Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 2001); Nicolas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. H. Lawrence Bond, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1997).

#25 Spiritual (But Not Religious)

08 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spirituality, Theology

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dreamstime_9033984Have you ever noticed how some opinions say more about the opiniators themselves than the thing they’re opiniating about?  God would be one such example.  The opinions people have about God often say more about who they are than they do about who God is.  But, uncharacteristically, God is not the topic of this post. 

“Spiritual but not religious” is the topic at hand.  And according to the work of Heinz Streib, a psychologist of religion at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, the ever-more popular phrase, “spiritual but not religious,” mostly reflects ambivalence about organized religion.  

Surprising?  Maybe not.  If you’ve paid attention, folks out there who label themselves “spiritual but not religious” usually add a wave of the hand and a shake of the head to indicate their disapproval of religion in-general and their level-headed decision to embrace ‘spirituality’ instead.

While spiritual and religious are different words, the difference may end there.  At least, that’s what was revealed by a recent study conducted by another psychologist of religion, Peter Hill (as reported by Streib).  Participants in the study identified themselves as either religious or as spiritual but both groups ended up with equivalent scores on a test for ‘religiosity.’  In essence, then, the test-subjects who considered themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ actually qualified as ‘religious.’  Yikes.  Probably not something the ‘spiritual’ types wanted to hear.

But spirituality and religiosity both refer to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences that arise during one’s search for the sacred.  In fact, Streib ended up wondering whether it makes any sense for scholars of religion to spend time studying spirituality in addition to religion.  Better, he concluded, to stick with the single category of ‘religious.’

Too bad, really, that members of organized religions, including non-doctrinal ones like Unitarian Universalism, call themselves ‘spiritual not religious.’  They’re members of organized religions after all; but, instead of claiming, with pride, their chosen faith, they use a label that underscores their ambivalence toward any religion, including their own.  

Sure, they may have trouble putting down the burden (bad memories, anger at clergy, rejected teachings) of their previous religion(s).  But, who knows, reclaiming the word ‘religious’ might just indicate a healthy level of healing.  It would announce that they’ve moved on.  As for those who have always been unchurched, the willingness to call themselves ‘religious,’ in this most pluralistic of times, would announce a desirable respect for religion (with a capital R).

So, “spiritual but not religious” people of the world, here’s a challenge.  Try calling yourselves ‘religious’ for a couple of weeks.  No handwaving or headshaking please.  See how it feels.  You might just discover the label fits after all.