RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AS A MIDDLE WAY

Warayuth Sriwarakuel

Dean of the Graduate School of Philosophy and Religions Dr. Warayuth S. speaking at the Open Forum entitled "Religious Pluralism as a Middle Way" in the Multimedia Room.

The middle way as proposed by the Lord Buddha is the way between two extremes. He discovered that both too much strictness and too much looseness would never lead to enlightenment. Like the strings of the guitar, beautiful music is impossible if they are too high-strung or too loose. In this paper I will try to argue that both religious exclusivism and inclusivism are not the appropriate ways to peace, and that only religious pluralism will lead to peace and civil society especially in the Age of Globalization.

We are now in the Age of Globalization. Some people may question what I mean by “we.” What I mean by “we” is not either “the West” or “the rest,” but it refers to all human beings no matter whether they live in the West or in the East, no matter whether they are conscious or unconscious that they are in the Age of Globalization, and no matter whether they are for or against Globalization. In Christian terms, we are all children of God, and in Buddhist terms, we are all fellow travellers who got into the cycle of life. “We” to me includes what Huntington calls “us and them” and what Buber calls “I and thou.” We live in an age where the whole world seems to be a global village. Progresses and improvements in telecommunications and transportation help to facilitate travels and communications among peoples from different parts of the world. However, the world is not a paradise. It has been known as a planet filled with conflicts and violence since the beginning of human history. This new age is no exception. Thus Hun-tington is partly correct when he said, “...the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic, The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural” (Huntington, 1993: 22). Why only partly correct? Because the principal conflicts of this age will occur not only “between nations and groups of different civilizations” but also between man and nature.

If it is true that we need dialogue to avoid the clash of civilizations, then it is also true for us to have dialogue with nature in order to avoid ecological crises. We have had monologue with nature for hundreds of years, and now it is time for us to have dialogue with her. In other words, we have been “talking and doing” unto nature so much since science was born in Western civilization, and now it is time for us to start “listening” to her as before. However, my main concern in this paper is cultural, not ecological even though nature is inevitably relevant. The central problem in my paper is: How ought we to live together in the Age of Globalization?

We were born in different societies and cultures. Each society or culture has language and religion as central elements. Therefore, we have different languages and religions. Our cultures shape and structure us with different paradigms, models, or maps. These different maps make us see nature differently. Therefore, in principle, we cannot and never see nature directly as it is in itself. We need to make a distinction here between “shape” or “structure” at one side and “ make” or “determine” at another. We may say that our cultures and societies “shape” or “structure” our social identities in the sense that they provide necessary conditions for us to develop or create ourselves. Our cultures and societies do not “make” or “determine” who we are as determinists understand. It is our freedom which is a sufficient condition for us to develop, define and redefine who we are. Man is always free to create something new. Dictionaries, for example, are good evidence. Later editions always have more new words and concepts than those earlier ones. Since man is free, man is able to “shape” culture too. Thus men and cultures, we may conclude, have free interactions with each other in terms of the hermeneutical circle, namely, the wholes affect the parts (in fact, smaller-wholes), and vice versa.

What we have to keep in mind is that we need to make a distinction between science and nature, and also between religion and reality. Science is not identical to nature whereas religion is not identical to reality. Obviously, in our life we need both science and religion. Both should go together as Einstein put it : “Science without religion is lame; religion with- out science in blind,” (Einstein, 1993 : 149). What we need to do is to have right attitude towards science and religion. What I mean by right attitude here is the attitude that does not fall into the extremes. Right attitude implies a middle way. To see it clearly,let us look at the following schema.

	Positivism	Probabilism	Relativism
Science	Only one scientific map is true.	All scientific map may be false.	All scientific maps are true.

	Exclusivism	Pluralism	Inclusivism
Religion	Only one religious map si true.	All religious maps may be false.	All religious maps are true.

From the above schema, probabilism and pluralism are considered as right attitudes. In science, why are positivists and relativists considered as holders of wrong attitudes? To answer this question rather satisfactorily, we need more pages than this paper. What I could do here is just to provide a brief rough explanation. According to positivists and logical positivists, only a certain group of people who use “the scientific method” can discover truth. There are at least two main problems with this assumption: the scientific method and the discovery of truth. First, the positivists and logical positivists talk as if there were only one single method of science. In fact, at least throughout the history of Western science there are different scientific methods among different periods or even among different groups of scientists in the same period. Darwin, for example, was criticized by the scientists of his generation that the method he used was not scientific. Second, truth is another main problem for the positivists and logical positivists. These people believe that truth or objective knowledge is reachable or attainable if and only if scientists can rid themselves of their biases. Truth or objective knowledge is something like the land of America waiting for some-one like Columbus to discover it. In fact, it is factually impossible for scientists or all people to have their empirical observation and testing freed ofpreconceptions, presuppositions and prejudices. Columbus himself did not view America with “blank mind.” He did not see America as the land in itself. In fact, he was filled with his presuppositions, and as we all know, he thought that the land he discovered was India. What the positivists and logical positivists could do, in my opinion, is either totally reject or partly adjust their map.

The relativists, on the other hand, go the opposite way from the positivists and logical positivists. Truths for them are nothing but subjective conventions. In other words, truths are made rather than discovered. According to relativism in the extreme sense, all cognitive, ethical and aesthetical beliefs, sensations and experiences are no more than particular tastes. This sounds like sophism in ancient Greece. X can be true, good and beautiful for one person or a group of people, and simultaneously, it can also be false, evil or ugly for another. Like a dish of food, even though it is the same dish, it can be delicious for one person but non-delicious for another. Relativism seems to be a story or narrative of yesterday. In fact, it is a story of today and maybe of tomorrow also.. To the best of my knowledge, no philosophers or scholars ever accept or assert that they are relativists. But it seems to me that there are more and more philosophers and intellectuals whose ideas can be considered as relativism or adherence of relativism.

In regard to religion, both exclusivism as universalism and inclusivism as relativism are based on the same attitude: dogmatism. While exclusivists are absolutely cocksure that only one map is true, inclusivists are extremely dogmatic that all maps are true, according to their own contexts and tastes. This kind of attitude in religions will prevent people from having genuine dialogue with one another, and thus mutual understanding will never occur. Both exclusivists and inclusivists are not well prepared to listen to others, because they believe that their ways are right. They are well prepared only to defend their ways. Pluralists as fallibilists, on the contrary, are always ready to listen to others because they hold and practise the virtue of humbleness in their way. Pluralists believe that all major religions have their own canonical works and traditions, and that people may be wrong in their interpretations. Pluralists argue that since no one absolutely knows whether their map is true or false, it is better to hold that their map may be false rather than that it is true. This kind of attitude in religions will prevent people from arrogance and dogmatism. Arrogance and dogmatism will make people shut the door to self-reflection and reassessment of their maps. If all people in the world, not only Christians, hold and behave themselves with this kind of attitude, they will be ready for genuine dialogue which leads to self-improvement, mutual understanding, peaceful coexistence and fruitful cooperation.

In conclusion, science is not the same as nature whereas religion is not identical with Reality. Since scientific maps are just talks of nature, they may be wrong. Similarly, since religious maps and interpretations are just talks of Reality, they may be wrong and misleading. Thus if we hold this attitude in our hearts, we will be always humble and ready to have dialogue with others.