Devadatta
Well-Known Member
One line of division which I’ve noticed coming up again and again is between those who see a particular faith as an ideal essence that only needs to be properly applied, and those who see the same faith as a human activity that must be measured by all of its actual effects.
It all turns on how we read scripture. Let’s take the Koran. Leaving aside the more extreme possible readings, I think most would read this book as having some passages that appear to approve violence and others which would seem to at least mitigate this same violence.
So it’s the perennial matter of interpretation. And the line of division seems pretty clear: essentialists assume an ideal text with a unitary meaning (inerrancy is one expression) that only requires an ideal reading, and which renders contradictions only apparent. The experientialist assumes not an ideal but a multi-sided, non-unitary text, which is therefore not susceptible of an ideal reading, and which affirms that contradictions are real. Further, while essentialists take the text as fully reliable, experientialists treat the text with a dose of suspicion, as no more immune to mixed motives, mere will to power, etc., as any other human text or project.
So an essentialist might say there is an ideal Islam recoverable from the texts, that any falling short of this ideal was a failure of application or foreign contamination. But an experientialist might ask: How is this one ideal located, by whose interpretation? And he or she would point out that from the beginning there have been competing interpretations of Islam, competing ideals, and therefore competing measures of what it means to “fall short”.
But an essentialist might answer: Are you saying that anything anyone does in the name of Islam helps define the faith? So if some nut told you that the Koran commanded that he pee in your corn flakes, would that be in the realm of Islam?
And an experientialist might respond: Well, no. We’re fully free to negotiate the limits of interpretation and commonsense would eliminate the sillier cases. But I maintain that on the core issues, religiously sanctioned violence or suicide bombing, for example, the answers that Islam gives are not as clear and unitary as we would hope, and unfortunately open to abuse.
And here I guess the two sides might offer their contrasting views on how to solve this problem of interpretation. The essentialist might offer some version of divine guidance, that only God can bring us to the correct, “good-guy” interpretation of scripture. The experientialist might first ask: So what’s a “good guy”? But he or she might agree with the concept in general, but suggest we rely not on divine guidance but instead on the spirit of free inquiry as the best method for arriving at this good-guy interpretation.
I guess both sides – excepting those who are in active support of the “bad guys” – can hope that the good guys win in the end.
Shanti, etc.
It all turns on how we read scripture. Let’s take the Koran. Leaving aside the more extreme possible readings, I think most would read this book as having some passages that appear to approve violence and others which would seem to at least mitigate this same violence.
So it’s the perennial matter of interpretation. And the line of division seems pretty clear: essentialists assume an ideal text with a unitary meaning (inerrancy is one expression) that only requires an ideal reading, and which renders contradictions only apparent. The experientialist assumes not an ideal but a multi-sided, non-unitary text, which is therefore not susceptible of an ideal reading, and which affirms that contradictions are real. Further, while essentialists take the text as fully reliable, experientialists treat the text with a dose of suspicion, as no more immune to mixed motives, mere will to power, etc., as any other human text or project.
So an essentialist might say there is an ideal Islam recoverable from the texts, that any falling short of this ideal was a failure of application or foreign contamination. But an experientialist might ask: How is this one ideal located, by whose interpretation? And he or she would point out that from the beginning there have been competing interpretations of Islam, competing ideals, and therefore competing measures of what it means to “fall short”.
But an essentialist might answer: Are you saying that anything anyone does in the name of Islam helps define the faith? So if some nut told you that the Koran commanded that he pee in your corn flakes, would that be in the realm of Islam?
And an experientialist might respond: Well, no. We’re fully free to negotiate the limits of interpretation and commonsense would eliminate the sillier cases. But I maintain that on the core issues, religiously sanctioned violence or suicide bombing, for example, the answers that Islam gives are not as clear and unitary as we would hope, and unfortunately open to abuse.
And here I guess the two sides might offer their contrasting views on how to solve this problem of interpretation. The essentialist might offer some version of divine guidance, that only God can bring us to the correct, “good-guy” interpretation of scripture. The experientialist might first ask: So what’s a “good guy”? But he or she might agree with the concept in general, but suggest we rely not on divine guidance but instead on the spirit of free inquiry as the best method for arriving at this good-guy interpretation.
I guess both sides – excepting those who are in active support of the “bad guys” – can hope that the good guys win in the end.
Shanti, etc.
