Ecumenism, "interfaith dialogue", and charity

I've had problems with the way many understand the phrase "interfaith dialogue" ever since high school.  My former teacher from that time is a very intelligent man, but disagrees with me on the foundation of religion.  This reflected itself in a number of ways, which had the effect of making me a rather scrappy character when it comes to discussions of philosophy, theology, and Catholicism in particular -- a scrappiness which only developed moderation in the matter of the prudence of circumstance, and did not diminish in other respects.  I no longer, for example, feel the need to shout at Jesuits.  It would do more harm than good, even when they really deserve it; I suppose I'm developing a sense of romanita after all.

This teacher of mine was very much of the opinion that religion is nothing more than man reaching to God.  He was of the unwavering belief that "truth" (a thing very rarely defined) is found through all religions, which in one sense is mostly correct as far as it goes (inasmuch as religion is a natural thing) but in another sense is a terribly bigoted thing to say.  You see people killing people over the way they believe in God?  The solution is not to assume that there is no reason to fight, but to examine their claims.  If Christ really was God, then saying He was some enlightened guru is an offensive statement; it's sacrilege.  To claim that one shouldn't take offense because others might believe otherwise is also silly.  "Others" used to believe that human sacrifice was okay, that people weren't really "people" because they had different pigmentation, and that genocide was an acceptable political move; some, indeed, still seem to believe as much in each of these.  It is true that tolerance is an important attitude to adopt in a multicultural setting, but you only "tolerate" things that should not be so, and that only when there is a good reason to do so.  I "tolerate" the cold of my house because my money is better spent than on heating bills.

Yet nonetheless this bigoted attitude is present in every single "interfaith initiative" that I have ever seen in organized form.  Every institution of this sort that I have seen (except that of the Vatican, which has been the sole voice for what I think is the non-bigoted understanding) has stated that one must emphasize the similarities between the fundamentals of the religion.  Christians have the Golden Rule; apparently Confucians have something like it too.  (Interestingly, the Christian version is worded positively, while the Confucian one is worded negatively, and these things do not result in the same ethic.)  Therefore, they say, we ought to look for these things in all "world religions."  Lo and behold, at some point Islam said it was important to be nice to people.  Hinduism says something like this too.  The normal conclusion to take from this is either that there is some partial similarity in nature, or some accidental similarity.  The "interfaith dialogue" solution, the only one I have ever seen (and I have seen many attempts) is inevitably to say that all these religions are essentially the same, but differ in expression.

This is preposterous and insulting.  The people who make this claim are inevitably not students of what one would call "metaphysics", but approach the whole phenomenon of religion from a homocentric, hermeneutical, often pseudo-Jungian prejudice that religion is nothing more than what people make up to explain their experiences as ordered and fulfill their needs, whether rationally or irrationally.  The idea that some religion may claim to have something special, namely, God-revealed and in-frangible doctrine from above through a revelation, is dismissed out of hand.  This is most evident in the tendencies in the thought of Bultmann.  Miracles are presumed impossible; therefore in interpreting the Bible, we must presume that Christ never actually performed any, but that all miraculous tales are exaggerations or interpolations of our account of what is reduced, as a conception, to something notionally temporal, the "Christ-event."

Catholics are called to reject this degradation of our religion.  We have something special, a Church established by God Himself, protected by the arms of His Providence, ushered in by miracles which pointed to the greatest miracle of all, His Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection.  Without his death and Resurrection, our faith is in vain, and we may as well stop trying.  This is not a man-made foundation; our foundation is God Himself in the Incarnation.  The Church is not a man-made temple; it is the Mystical Body of Christ.  We do not preach fashionable doctrines to suit the times; we preach Christ Crucified.  Our ethical teaching is not some invented concept, but the concretion of our love of God through the grace given to us, flowing from the wounds He sustained for us.

And in fact, it is more than just Catholics who object to this conception of "interfaith dialogue."  Is a Hindu supposed to sit and be quiet as someone claims to understand his beliefs, in all their complexity, then proceeds to claim that they can, fundamentally, differ only in notion from the beliefs of a Muslim, a Jew, a Zoroastrian, a Jain, a Christian?  Or likewise anyone from one of these groups who takes their particular religion seriously enough to study it and not some other?  This is the pernicious effect, too, of "interfaith dialogue"; it is not based on truth, and encourages the attitude that one only really needs to know a very limited amount about what is really a very complex phenomenon in order to say that it is somehow essentially the same as something else one knows nothing about.  It thus disrespects religion in general, by disrespecting every particular religion.

Now, this is not to say that people shouldn't be civil to those of other religions.  Many will no doubt interpret me as saying this, thus falling victim to the same prejudice as spoken of above.  "He's an Aristotelian, and thinks he knows everything."  "He's a Thomist, and would never trouble himself to read any other theologian." "He went to Thomas Aquinas College, and they are all crunchy neocon DeKoninck groupies inflated with intellectual pride."  But what are these but the same brandings of which one accuses me?  Before one may comment on the mote in my eye, I would request that they look to the beam in their own.  What I am saying here is that interfaith dialogue should not be based on recognizing religious similarities; that is the task of anthropology and the understanding of what is common between men in nature.  It should rather be based on clarifying and illuminating our differences.  It is one thing to say that Islam and Christianity "believe in the same God" (a statement which requires massive theological justification before it can be made); it is another to say that they have the same opinions about Christ, or ethics, or the role of knowledge, or whether one can love God, or how, or the role of the Church, or the Sacraments.  These are the things that make religions unique.  And it is not based on our similarities that two people "dialogue"; such a "dialogue" would be a monologue, which is perhaps why these "interfaith" conventions seem to be composed of a great many people agreeing each other into oblivion.

The basis for our talking to each other is our common humanity.  The basis for our dialogue is our different understanding of God, and his relation to Creation.  One requires both.  But then one must ask how dialogue is to do anything.  "Very well," the Muslim says to the Catholic, "you think Christ is God, and I disagree.  Is this dialogue?  Shouldn't we move somewhere from here?"  And he should rightly ask that, because it's a darn good question.  Even were "interfaith dialogue" able to diagnose how it needs to move about, it still has no conception of where it moves to.  This is because such initiatives have long since abandoned the pursuit of truth in pursuit of harmony, never understanding that harmony without truth is an utter illusion.  The goal of dialogue is not to "agree to disagree", which except in prudential judgements about particular dubious actions is an incredibly retarded way to resolve a discussion.  The goal of dialogue is to agree.  And the goal is not to agree on just anything, but to agree on what is correct, what corresponds to the reality of the thing, what is true.

I'm going to say that again:  The purpose of dialogue is truth.  Anything that claims to be "dialogue" without ultimately seeking a correct understanding is frivolous chatter about one's favorite music.  Have we been so far from Plato for so long, that we have forgotten that the goal of his Dialogues was always and everywhere the obtaining of wisdom?  Why, then, do we yammer on about earthly harmony and those ridiculous "coexist" bumper stickers like fools?  Our job is not to make harmony, but peace, and Christ came not to bring peace, but a sword, the sharp and biting sword of truth in love, through which real peace finally arrives, not by our own power, but His.  And those claiming to be of His Church are the worst offenders, because there is simply no way to speak of "interfaith dialogue" as these men do without letting the little foxes, the heretics, into His vineyard.  Every dialogue, for them, is a homogenization; two religions come into contact with each other and are mutually absorbed.  This cannot be the attitude of Catholics as Catholics.  What we believe, what we preach, what has been handed down to us, is absolutely sacrosanct.  Those who profess against it are by definition heretics, and heresy never ceased to be a sin, though it certainly became fashionable some time ago.

What is the true charity one must show in true dialogue?  Simply, speaking the truth in love, and listening to adopt what is good into our own understanding.  Thus, we listen, we understand, we ruminate, we formulate, we respond, and if something seems wrong, we address it.  This is in marked contrast to the picture we are given, in which if there is a disagreement, both sides must do a sort of dance of hermeneutical self-examination, to find out how closed-minded they must be for daring to disagree on some issue, until one side or the other capitulates, and what results is a homogenous blob of "wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice" religion.  This is not the beatitude of man.  The beatitude of man is to seek, and to find, the Truth in Love.