Religions Challenged by Contingency : Theological and Philosophical Approaches to the Problem of Contingency [1 ed.] 9789047433583, 9789004167490

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Religions Challenged by Contingency

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Studies in Theology and Religion (STAR) Edited on behalf of the Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion (NOSTER) Editor

Jan Willem van Henten Associate Editors

Herman Beck, Meerten ter Borg, Kees van der Kooi, Daniela Müller Assistant

Ingeborg Löwisch Editorial Board

Marcel Sarot, Ruard Ganzevoort, Gerard Wiegers, Henk Vroom, Wim Drees, Ellen van Wolde VOLUME 12

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Religions Challenged by Contingency Theological and Philosophical Approaches to the Problem of Contingency

Edited by

Dirk-Martin Grube Peter Jonkers

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religions challenged by contingency : theological and philosophical approaches to the problem of contingency / edited by Dirk-Martin Grube, Peter Jonkers. p. cm. — (Studies in theology and religion ; 12) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-16749-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Contingency (Philosophy) 2. Religion—Philosophy. I. Grube, Dirk-Martin. II. Jonkers, Peter, 1954- III. Title. IV. Series. BD595.R45 2008 210—dc22 2008018933

ISSN 1566-208X ISBN 978 90 04 16749 0 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

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CONTENTS

Preface.................................................................................................vii Introduction Contingency and Religion—A Philosophical Tour d’Horizon .....................................................................................1 Dirk-Martin Grube (Utrecht University) PART I HISTORICAL CASE-STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter One Universal Religion, Contingency, and Truth in Leibniz ................................................................................................47 Frans P.M. Jespers (Radboud University Nijmegen) Chapter Two Kant on Contingency in Christian Religion ...............67 Donald Loose (Tilburg University) Chapter Three The Lessing/Schumann Controversy. Lessing’s Stance on Contingency Compared to Kant’s Stance ..........................89 Dirk-Martin Grube (Utrecht University) PART II HISTORICAL CASE-STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: MODERN PHILOSOPHY Chapter Four Contingency and Salvation. A Hermeneutics of Christianity from the Perspective of Heidegger and Thomas Aquinas .............................................................................................119 Ben Vedder (Radboud University Nijmegen) Chapter Five Jaspers, Existence, and Contingency. On the Risk of a Loss of Sense for God in Modern Philosophy...................136 Joris Geldhof (Catholic University of Leuven)

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PART III RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: SYSTEMATIC APPROACHES Chapter Six Contingent Religions, Contingent Truths?. A Philosophical Analysis of the Role of Existential Truth in Religious Ways of Life .....................................................................161 Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University) Chapter Seven Religious Truth, Particularity, and Incarnation. A Theological Proposal for a Philosophical Hermeneutics of Religion .............................................................................................182 Lieven Boeve (Catholic University of Leuven) Chapter Eight Can We Be Sure About Contingent Religious Insights? ............................................................................205 Henk Vroom (VU - University Amsterdam) Chapter Nine Our Universe—A Contingent Cosmos? ..................221 Willem B. Drees (Leiden University) Name Index .......................................................................................244 About the Authors .............................................................................247

PREFACE The recent growth of religious plurality in the Western world, and especially the rise of non-Christian religions, not only challenges churches and societies, but also poses new and unexpected questions to systematic theology and philosophy of religion. One of the most important questions is whether religions and secular world views are nothing but contingent systems of belief and practice, solely dependent on cultural, economical, geographical, etc., circumstances. A similar question can be asked concerning the reasons people have for adopting a religion: are they simply the result of a contingent process of socialisation through education and other elements of one’s social environment, receiving their theoretical justification only afterwards? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, what does this mean with regard to the question of truth, which is of vital importance for almost all religions? Do the growing conviction of the contingency of all religions and the experience of a growing religious plurality offer new opportunities for interreligious dialogue or do they confront contemporary, post-modern humans with new, unexpected problems? In this volume, these questions are dealt with both from a historical and systematic perspective. After an extensive introduction, which serves as a general tour d’horizon of the complex notion of contingency and its ramifications, especially with regard to religious truth-claims, the contributions of the historical part concentrate on the relation between religion and contingency as developed by various modern and contemporary philosophers such as Leibniz, Kant, Lessing, Jaspers, and Heidegger. The articles of the systematic part focus on how to deal with the question of contingency in a nuanced way, i.e. without yielding to the reductionist tendency to interpret religion as merely the result of various contingent factors. Specific questions in this context include: is it possible to develop a new idea of religious truth on the basis of the insight that religion is primarily a way of life? What attitude should the Christian religion adopt with regard to other religions that make equally absolute truth-claims? Can religious beliefs still be justified in a context of religious pluralism? If the sciences reduce natural contingency, what are the consequences for existential contingency, which plays a crucial role in religion?

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This volume on religion and contingency is itself part of a larger research-project, fostered by the Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion (Noster) and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Its focus is on orthodoxy and adaptation as conflicting religious identities. The contributions to this book investigate, on a theoretical level, a crucial aspect of this intriguing problem, i.e. a clarification of the idea of religious truth (which is a key-concept for understanding orthodoxy) and its embedding in contingent religious traditions. The editors would like to thank Sarah Allen and Michelle Rochard for their assistance in editing this volume. Thanks to their knowledge of English as native speakers and their philosophical expertise, they made numerous suggestions for improving the readability of this book. We also would like to thank Noster and the Catholic University of Leuven for their generous financial support for this project. Dirk-Martin Grube Peter Jonkers

INTRODUCTION

CONTINGENCY AND RELIGION—A PHILOSOPHICAL TOUR D’HORIZON1 Dirk-Martin Grube (Utrecht University)

This volume focuses on the problem of religion and contingency in its various aspects. However, the notion of contingency is a difficult one. Its meaning is extremely complex and we will see below that different authors use it in different fashions. In this introduction, I will focus on this notion. In particular, I will provide a conceptual roadmap for dealing with it. Thus, the purpose of this introduction goes well beyond summarizing the contributions to this book. I will attempt to tidy-up the use of the notion of contingency by making a distinction between its use in classical philosophy and in modern philosophy. This distinction serves as a classificatory scheme according to which the different uses of the notion by the different authors of this anthology can be grouped. However, I do not mean to provide an exhaustive analysis of this notion nor a detailed historical account of its development.2 In Part I of this introduction, I address classical philosophy’s dealings with contingency. By classical philosophy, I mean the mainstream philosophy from ancient Greece up to the Continental Enlightenment, most notably, Kant and its heirs. Classical philosophy’s characteristic way of dealing with contingency is to avoid it. It attempts to replace contingency by necessity wherever possible.

1 I thank Peter Jonkers for the helpful discussions we had on the subject and, above all, for his very valuable comments on earlier drafts of this introduction. 2 In a discussion of this introduction at the conference on Religion and Contingency in Hoeven, The Netherlands, December 4–5, 2006, Vincent Brümmer, Ingolf Dalferth and Marcel Sarot suggested in various ways that the notion of contingency is more complex than the way it is outlined here. I acknowledge this, but would like to point to the purpose of this introduction: far from being an exhaustive account of the notion of contingency, it is meant to help situate the different uses of this notion presupposed by the different authors of this volume. To this end, it is helpful to draw the (admittedly rather crude) distinction between the use of contingency in classical philosophy and in modern philosophy (see below).

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To be more precise, we should distinguish between classical philosophy in its earlier and later stages. In its earlier stages, say, in Greek philosophy, attempts to replace contingency by necessity dominate. Yet, in its later stages, say, from the time of the German Enlightenment onwards, the way of dealing with the notion of contingency changes somewhat: attempts to replace it by necessity are given up and contingency is tolerated to a limited extent. Yet, what are considered to be its most dangerous consequences are neutralized, for example, by embedding contingency in a transcendentalist framework (see below, section 3). In Part II of this introduction, I take a look at modern philosophy’s dealings with contingency. By modern philosophy, I mean the philosophical tradition from the Anglo-American Enlightenment up to the present, including certain branches of the Continental tradition. Its basic way of dealing with contingency is to accept it in principle. It is only after having accepted it in principle that modern philosophy ponders on how to deal with it constructively. “Dealing with it constructively” can take on different forms, ranging from accepting it “as is,” say, in empiricism (Hume), via the attempt to yield to it without buying into it all the way (e.g. Hilary Putnam), to embracing it emphatically (as in the thought of Richard Rorty and many postmodernists). To give a brief outline of this introduction, Part I is made up of three sections: In section 1, I provide some general characteristics of the term contingency as it is used in classical philosophy. In section 2, I consider its Wirkungsgeschichte, particularly the theological consequences of the distinction between doxa and episteme in Greek philosophy. In section 3, I move on via Leibniz to the German Enlightenment (Kant and Lessing). Part II is made up of five sections: In section 4, I provide some general characteristics of the use of contingency in modern philosophy and contrast this with its use in classical philosophy. In section 5, I deal with examples of the Continental philosophical tradition which are not committed to the classical philosophical impulse to hold contingency at bay (Heidegger and Jaspers). In section 6, I summarize some of the contributions to this volume which approach the issue of contingency from a systematic-philosophical viewpoint. In section 7, I delve into AngloAmerican philosophy. I deal with traditional philosophy of science

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(neo-positivism and Popperianism), analytic philosophy, Richard Rorty and Thomas Kuhn. In section 8, I conclude with some suggestions on how to deal with the issue of contingency in our current situation. Summaries of the contributions to this volume can thus be found in the following sections: In section 3, Jespers on Leibniz, Loose on Kant, and Grube on Lessing; in section 5, Vedder on Heidegger, and Geldhof on Jaspers; in section 6, summaries of the systematic-philosophical contributions by Jonkers, Boeve, Vroom, and Drees. Part I: Classical Philosophy’s Attempt to Hold Contingency at Bay Basic Characterization of Contingency Classically, contingency is contrasted with necessity. This contrast can be cast in philosophical terms in the following fashion: a proposition, p, is contingent if and only if it is neither necessary nor impossible that p. A corollary is that p is contingent if not-p is contingent as well.3 A slightly different way of characterizing the notion of contingency is to combine the above characterization with the issue of truth: p is contingent if p is the case, but it is conceivable that p is not the case. Put in terms of “possible world semantics”: contingent propositions are true in the actual world but not in all possible worlds.4

3

For example, see H.-P. Schütt, “Kontingenz,” RGG 4:1647. In this context, Kripke’s distinction between the epistemological categories “a priori” and “a posteriori,” and between the ontological categories “contingency” and “necessity” could be brought up as well (see Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), 14-15. I will not use the term “ontological,” however, when dealing with the notion of contingency because the uses of this term that I will discuss in the following do not only cover ontological aspects but also epistemological and comparable ones. 4 See also H.-P. Schütt, RGG 4:1647. However, Schütt fails to distinguish this characterization, in which the truth question is decided (“p is true”), from the former (“neither necessary nor impossible that p”), which says nothing about p’s truth. The notions of “possibility” and “impossibility” are complex ones (for example, see Vincent Brümmer’s account of the different senses of “impossibility” in Speaking of a Personal God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 70-83; or below, section 3, Jespers’ account of Leibniz’ “metaphysically loaded” notion of possibility). Here, however, it is simply a means to extensionally represent the notion of contingency, making intuitive use of the notion of possibility as that which is cognitively conceivable, given our current cognitive apparatus.

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The distinctions between contingency and necessity, on the one hand, and truth and falsity, on the other, are thus to be distinguished. “Necessity” is logically stronger than “truth.” That is to say, that p is true does not in and of itself warrant ascribing necessity to p. It could still be true but contingent, say, true in this world but not in others. In other words, the ascription of “necessity” to p requires more than the ascription of the predicate “true” to p. It requires that p is not only zufälligerweise, coincidentally, incidentally or accidentally true. In short, necessity is characterized by the absence of Zufall; contingency is related to it.5 This point is worth mentioning here because it is a crucial presupposition for understanding the ensuing reconstruction of the different philosophical positions regarding contingency. In particular, the evaluations implied at this point, viz. that contingency is a priori inferior to necessity, are important. That is to say, truths which are contingent are (ceteris paribus) inferior to truths which are necessary.6 The philosophical relevance of contingency and its opposite, necessity, comes out best when both are situated next to their philosophical kin. I will now look at three members of both the contingency-family and the necessity-family, as well as their respective children, so to speak, and then relate them to each other. The members of the contingency-family are particularism (local validity), relativity and historicity. Changeability belongs to this family as well, but it is probably not to be located on the same level as the other members, though it is conceptually related to them. If it is not an adult within the contingency-family, it is, at least, one of its children. The a posteriori and the synthetic can be considered to be members of this family as well (see below). The members of the necessity-family are the opposites, so to speak, of those from the contingency-family. They are: universalism as opposed to particularism (local validity), absolutism as opposed to relativity, and a-historicity as opposed to historicity. Further, the child of the necessity-family is non-changeability, as opposed to the contingency5 But see Ingolf U. Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger, “Einleitung: Religion als Kontingenzkultur und die Kontingenz Gottes,” in Vernunft, Kontingenz und Gott (ed. I. U. Dalferth and P. Stoellger; Tübingen: Mohr, 2000), 45, who do not subsume Zufall under contingency, but distinguish the two from each other. 6 Although a philosophical commonplace, this point may still be worth mentioning here because it may appear to be strange in our current Lebenswelt, with its emphasis upon truth rather than necessary truth (see also below, footnote 10).

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family’s child, changeability. As Quine has emphasized, the analytic and the a priori are kin as well.7 They are obviously the opposites of the a posteriori and the synthetic. For reasons of convenience, let me explain these terms by pairing them as opposites and sketching the conceptual links they have with their kin. I begin with the oppositions between absolutism and particularism, and between universality and relativity. That which is necessary is also absolutely valid, and not only locally valid—at least, given a stable context. This is immediately obvious if we fall back on the abovementioned characterization of contingency in terms of possible world semantics: that which is necessary is the case in all possible worlds, i.e. in all possible places at all possible times. Thus, it “is” (“exists,” “has to be postulated,” or however the “is” is to be specified) independently of the existence of particular circumstances; it “is” absolutely. As a corollary, the validity claims implied in that which is necessary are not relative to anything—at least, given a stable context regarding definitions and the like.8 Rather, that which is necessary is universally valid. That which is contingent, however, is only locally valid. The validity claims implied in it are by definition relative. It “is” only under certain given circumstances, and not under other given circumstances.9 Regarding the oppositions between historicity and a-historicity, and between changeability and non-changeability, the links may not be that obvious. This has to do with the fact that these links depend upon particular philosophical presuppositions. Let me clarify. Regarding historicity/a-historicity: the link between historicity and contingency has to do, among other things, with the emergence of the Enlightenment, in particular, the Continental (German) Enlightenment. Just as the German Enlightenment pits Reason (with a capital R) against tradition, it also pits it against history. Whereas Reason is epistemolog7

“Philosophical tradition hints of three nested categories of firm truths: the analytic, the a priori, and the necessary.” Willard van Orman Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1960), 6. 8 I owe this addition of the stable context to Vincent Brümmer, who alerted me to the ambiguity of modal terms. Even logical necessity is relative to a given, stable context (see the reference in footnote 4 and, for example Hilary Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle: Open Court, 1987), 39, on the fundamental subjectivity of the distinction between causes and background conditions). 9 Unlike, say, German or Dutch, English has preserved some of these philosophical connotations. In English, you can say that “x is ‘contingent upon’ y,” meaning that it is dependent on y or relative to y.

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ically and even ontologically linked to the necessary (which often takes on the form of the a priori, see below), the historical is linked to the contingent. Reason, properly understood (say, transcendentally reconstructed), is a-historical by nature. Its claims are universally valid; they stand absolutely in their own right. Reason is not subject to the contingency, changeability, etc. that characterize the historical and historical research. Regarding the opposition between changeability and non-changeability: in philosophies influenced by Greek thinking, the opposition between contingency and necessity is linked with the opposition between changeability and non-changeability. As opposed to empirical reality, the Platonic ideas are necessary. By the same token, they are eternal and universal. They form the realm of Being that is opposed to the realm of Becoming. The proper form of cognition for this realm of knowledge is episteme, aiming at the (Platonic) Forms. Episteme is opposed to doxa, which is concerned with empirical reality. Doxa, however, is not concerned with what is eternal and necessary, but with what is contingent. It is concerned with how things appear to us to be. But since appearances are changeable, doxa is concerned with changeable things. Doxa and the changeable knowledge it delivers are not necessarily mistaken, but are inferior to the non-changeable knowledge episteme delivers. The Wirkungsgeschichte of the Notion of Contingency This last point should be kept in mind. The issue at stake in the distinction between episteme, non-changeability and its kin, on the one hand, and doxa, changeability and its kin, on the other, is not so much the issue of truth as such.10 The problem with changeable knowledge is not that it is incapable of delivering truths. Rather, the issue is that changeable truths are a priori inferior to non-changeable ones. The distinction between changeability and non-changeability thus implies strong evaluative components.11 10 By “truth,” I do not mean the Platonic use of the term here but the current use, i.e. a broadly correspondentist use. 11 Again, this point is worth mentioning because it tends to get lost in our current Lebenswelt. The latter is shaped to such an extent by modern science and Western economic and cultural parameters, all of which presuppose the notion of contingency (see also below, section 8), that the idea that contingency is inferior to necessity is foreign to many of us contemporaries.

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These strong evaluative components are one of the reasons why this distinction has had such an immense Wirkungsgeschichte: most classical mainstream philosophies made it their task to seek the unchangeable, necessary, etc. rather than the changeable, contingent etc. Mainstream philosophy has been under the spell of this search for more than two thousand years. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that one of the most important concerns of mainstream philosophy is the search for the necessary and its kin. We will come across some specimens of this search in what follows. And the Wirkungsgeschichte of this distinction stretches into nonphilosophical realms as well, for instance, into theology: the early Christian Churchfathers had a hard time explaining in their Greek (e.g. neo-Platonic) environment how a God who had become human in his Son could truly be God. They had to defend Christianity against the charge that the Christian concept of God was a changeable one and thus a priori inferior to non-changeable concepts of God. Furthermore, the evaluative component implied in the distinction between changeability, contingency, etc., and non-changeability, necessity, etc., secured the relevance of a very important way of thinking theologically, viz. along the lines of the ontological argument.12 In one form of the argument (Anselm’s second argument),13 the evaluative component plays a crucial role by securing the superiority of a necessary concept of God over a concept which is not necessary: if God is absolutely perfect (and if he weren’t, he would not truly be God), he must exist necessarily.14 The underlying idea is that existing necessarily con-

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I take the ontological argument here to be not only one of a variety of proofs for the existence of God, but, more broadly, to provide a background for a specific way of thinking theologically, as did Anselm and Descartes, for example, and also, in some sense, Karl Barth (see Karl Barth, “Fides Quaerens Intellectum, Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammenhang seines theologischen Programms” (1931), in Karl Barth, Gesamtausgabe (ed. E. Jüngel and I. U. Dalferth; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1981). 13 For example, see John Hick, Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990), 16. 14 Anselm translates this necessity into time categories and comparable categories when asserting about conceiving things other than the highest being that “only those things . . . can be conceived not to be which have a beginning, or an end, or a combination of parts, and . . . which do not exist completely and everywhere and always.” St Anselm, “Proslogion,” in Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion (ed. J. Hick; Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990), 36.

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tains a greater measure of perfection than existing contingently. Thus, absolute perfection implies existing necessarily, not only existing contingently. Contingency Domesticated on the Continent: the German Enlightenment and its Heirs Let us move on to the Enlightenment now, where we should distinguish between the Continental and the Anglo-American Enlightenment regarding the issue of contingency. I will deal with the Anglo-American Enlightenment below and will begin here with the Continental Enlightenment, more specifically, with the German Enlightenment.15 In this section, I will deal with Kant and Lessing as well as the heirs of the Kantian tradition. Before coming to the Continental Enlightenment as such, however, let us pause for a moment with a philosopher who precedes it, viz. Leibniz. Leibniz’ approach, it will be recalled, is often considered to provide one of the last metaphysical syntheses. As such, it is regarded as one of the challenges which gave rise to Kant’s approach: Kant distinguishes his “transcendentalism” sharply from the search for the transcendent in the classical metaphysical tradition, e.g. Leibniz’s search. But we will see below that, on the issue of contingency, Kant, I.Kant cannot simply be contrasted with Leibniz. Let us now delve into Leibniz with the help of Frans Jespers’ account of the construal of “natural theology” in Leibniz. Leibniz Frans Jespers begins his account of the way in which Leibniz deals with the issue of contingency with an analysis of the notion of “pure” or “true” religion. In his Theodicy, Leibniz identifies this notion with sound piety. Piety consists in the love of God, “but a love so enlightened that its fervour is attended by insight.” Revelation and reason do not conflict with each other but, properly understood, support each other. Jespers continues his account by suggesting that Leibniz distinguishes his notion of “natural theology” carefully from a construal pointing towards atheism (such as is common in deism). For Leibniz, “natural 15 When speaking of the “Continental Enlightenment” in the following, I am thinking of the turn the Enlightenment took in Germany.

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theology” is a universal religion for enlightened believers who combine it with their particular religious traditions in order to achieve “sound piety.” Contingent religious events, such as the Eucharist or the incarnation, are important in explaining “natural religion.” As such, “natural religion” is in principle open to all people at all times. Yet, only a few rational thinkers are capable of developing a true “natural theology.” This is because of the widespread tendency towards “outward forms” which undermines the pursuit of “natural theology.” Humanity, however, is on the road of progress, so “natural theology” can be inserted into current religions—a necessary presupposition for the possibility of interreligious dialogue (see below). Proceeding in such a fashion, Leibniz “brackets” contingency, so to speak. Yes, contingency is present in the order of our world. But this order is ultimately a harmonious one, given by God. In his philosophy of possible worlds, Leibniz conceptualises contingency in the following fashion: God compares the possible worlds and chooses to bring the best one into existence. This does not take away contingency completely because it is conceivable that things could have been different in a different world. Yet, it “domesticates” the incidental, zufälligen, aspect in the notion of contingency. Leibniz can also trace the notion of contingency back to the idea of God: God’s choices are not necessary but contingent, although His goodness and wisdom force him to choose the best possible world. Knowledge of the connections between entities provides insight into their pre-established position. Thus knowledge, in particular, scientific knowledge, helps us to understand our contingent lives and provides the way to the City of God. In sum, contingency is aufgehoben, as it were, in Hegel’s sense of the word: it is not denied but inserted into a greater scheme and its development. For Leibniz, contingency is a temporary moment in the development of the best possible order. Although aufgehoben in this sense, the existence of contingent phenomena poses a challenge for further scrutiny. Finally, Jespers extends the consequences of his considerations thus far to the issue of interreligious dialogue. For Leibniz, this is a crucial concern. Although he proposes that the different religions can learn from each other, he is convinced that, eventually, all people will have to convert to Christianity (as he understands it). He considers Judaism and Islam to be an early stage of Christianity.

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Leibniz develops a special interest in Chinese religions, which came to the attention of the West in his day. He regards (early) Confucianism as implying a kind of monotheism. In the so-called rites controversy, he suggests that the Chinese terms can be maintained as descriptions of specific aspects of the Christian and the natural idea of God. So much for Leibniz. As indicated, he attempts to bracket contingency. It is aufgehoben into a greater scheme; it is a moment in the development of the best possible order. Kant Now let us move on to the pursuit of philosophy in the Enlightenment, particularly in its German version. One of the developments crucial for understanding the shift from pre-Enlightenment philosophy to its Enlightenment counterpart is the emergence of subject-philosophy. I mean the well-known “turn to the subject” which I will now consider. This turn implies a shift from being to knowing. In Enlightenment philosophy, “[t]he question of knowing has primacy over the question of being, and epistemology becomes the gateway to the real.”16 This turn to the subject goes hand in hand with a concentration on epistemology rather than ontology. In sum, Enlightenment philosophy concentrates on knowledge claims and considers them to be generated by the subject. That is, it considers the subject to be the final arbiter, vantage point, foundation, or even creator of all knowledge. Yet, this turn to the subject implies a problem regarding the issue at stake here. This turn is difficult to reconcile with what was identified above as an important goal for mainstream philosophy, viz. to domesticate contingency by emphasizing necessity, universal validity, a-historicity, etc. If all knowledge claims are generated by the subject, it is far from sure that they have anything to do with the necessity-family. Knowledge claims generated by the subject are as contingent as the subject itself. The answer to this problem within Enlightenment, i.e. subject-philosophy, parameters is to bolster the generative power of the subject. If all knowledge claims are generated by the subject, then the subject must be qualified in particular ways. That is to say, the subject must in one 16 See Christoph Schwöbel, “Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (ed. J. Webster; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17-36, especially 29.

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way or another be demonstrated to be related to the necessity-family. Transcendentalism is one way of doing this. Probably the most famous transcendentalist approach is Kant’s,17 to which I will now turn. Immediately preceding Kant, empiricism had yielded to contingency by granting the empirical given a constitutive input in theorizing. Hume even reconstructed the notion of causality as a habit. Kant, however, appreciates empiricism to some extent and wishes to maintain it, but objects to the contingency implied in it. In order to avoid this contingency, he devises his “Copernican Revolution”: rather than focussing on the objects of knowledge, we should focus on the human cognition of these objects.18 What is of interest here is that this turn also implies a turn to the a priori. At stake is not just any more or less arbitrary cognition, but the human possibility of cognition as such. Kant seeks out the basic conditions of the possibility of experience (Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Erfahrung).19 These basic conditions are not arbitrary givens but necessary presuppositions for the possibility of cognition as such. They provide its basic foundation. Thus, they are shared by all conscious beings. And in this way, Kant’s transcendental analysis paves the way for the necessary in the guise of the a priori.20 This crude sketch of the Kantian stance on contingency needs to be tested against a detailed historical analysis of Kant’s stance itself. Donald Loose does this by taking up Kant’s discussion of the relation between natural religion and historical religion. Let us now take a look at this analysis.

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Although it is debatable whether he qualifies as a transcendentalist, Descartes could be mentioned in this context as well (see below, section 6, Peter Jonkers’ contribution). 18 “Man versuche es daher einmal, ob wir nicht in den Aufgaben der Metaphysik damit besser fortkommen, daß wir annehmen, die Gegenstände müssen sich nach unserer Erkenntis richten.” Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (ed. Raymund Schmidt, 1781; repr., Leipzig: Reclam, 1979), 22, in the context of drawing an analogy with Copernicus’ revolution (p. 23). 19 See his analyses of the a priori forms of space and time, and the twelve categories of the understanding, for example causality (Immanuel Kant, “Die transzendentale Ästhetik,” in idem, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 92-124, especially 95-102 (space) and 103-112 (time), and idem, “Die transzendentale Analytik,” in idem, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 136-57, especially 147-50). 20 Remember Quine’s abovementioned remarks about the a priori and the necessary as being kin. For a fuller account of Kant, see Donald Loose’s contribution on Kant and my contribution on Lessing in this volume.

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Loose begins his account with the observation that Kant’s concept of a Vernunftreligion, defined exclusively in moral terms, erases all references to historically contingent events in religions. There is only one true rational religion, although the different historical religions are ranked on a progressive scale according to their capacity to establish the principle of the good on earth. Yet, rational religion does not contradict historical religion, and Kant does not suggest substituting natural religion for historical religion. Rather, both form concentric circles: historical religion shares a kernel of truth with rational religion. This kernel is predominantly moral in nature (although Loose emphasizes that it cannot be reduced to morality). Both provide different perspectives on this moral kernel: philosophy considers it to be a self-given law, religion, a divine command. Historical religion serves as a vehicle to natural religion. Methodologically, however, there is a clear ranking of the two approaches: rational religion offers the hermeneutic key for interpreting historical religion. Loose shows this with the help of Kant’s construal of peccatum originale as an innate propensity to evil in the use of freedom rather than as a historical event. Yet, in spite of his attempts to purge rational religion of all contingent elements, these re-emerge in Kant’s moral “proof” for the existence of God: the contingent reality we live in forms a background which needs to be aufgehoben. In other words, the realisation of the summum bonum implies that our contingent empirical reality must somehow be overcome—the line of argument that leads to postulating the idea of God as a synthetic a priori judgement. Kant emphasizes that the problem is not only that reason conflicts with nature and its propensities. Rather, there is a basic conflict in (practical) reason itself: a tendency to “rationalize” our impure, empiricallycontingent motives inheres in reason. There is something ultimately inexplicable about practical reason. A definite solution can only be expected to come from the moral lawgiver. In the meantime, however, we should do what we ought to do. If we compare this analysis of Kant’s stance on natural religion with the above analysis of Leibniz’ stance on natural religion, we see that the two are not as opposed as one might be inclined to assume. Thus, no matter how much truth is implied in the characterization of Kant as the opponent of Leibniz on the issue of metaphysics, comparing them on

INTRODUCTION

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the issue of contingency provides no such opposition. If we situate both on an (admittedly rather crude) pro/contra contingency scale, both fall on the contra side. To be sure, Kant does not domesticate contingency in the same way as Leibniz. He does not embed it in a more comprehensive metaphysical scheme à la Leibniz. Yet, he domesticates it with the help of his transcendental considerations, viz. by characterizing the subject in a particular fashion. To sum up the difference between the two: whereas Leibniz domesticates contingency by embedding it in transcendent considerations (regarding metaphysics), Kant domesticates it by embedding it in transcendental considerations. Yet, both attempt to domesticate contingency. How does the second famous representative of the German Enlightenment, Lessing,21 fare in this regard? Does he attempt to domesticate contingency in the same fashion as Leibniz and Kant? In my own contribution to this volume, I ponder on this question in my analysis of Lessing. I take as my vantage point Lessing’s famous quote “Zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten können der Beweis von notwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten nie werden.” Let us then consider this analysis. Lessing After situating this quote in its proper context, viz. the controversy between Lessing and Schumann (and Reimarus), I interpret it in relation to questions of epistemic entitlement. Lessing argues that historical evidence as provided by Scripture cannot make up for the loss of firsthand experiences of miracles as they were common in earlier ages. His point is not that the Scriptural evidence as such is weak, but rather that it is too weak to support what is at stake here, viz. the provision of grounds for the necessary truths of reason. The consequences of the Lessing/Schumann controversy are then translated into current epistemological parlance in terms of the issue of foundationalism: Lessing contends that historical considerations cannot play the foundationalist role suggested by Schumann. They cannot serve as a sufficient basis for universal validity claims. His point is that

21 Whereas Kant can be seen as the very representative of the German Enlightenment in philosophy proper, Lessing has done much to popularise Enlightenment ideas, in particular, among the educated bourgeoisie in Prussia and neighbouring countries.

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historically-contingent claims are conceptually overburdened when the necessary truths of reason (“notwendige Vernunftwahrheiten” in the above quote) are built upon them. Lessing’s point is thus not anti-theological. And hence, the oft-defended interpretation that he is out to reject Christian dogmatics is mistaken. He is speaking about strictly methodological issues rather than properly theological ones. He rejects the grounding of Schumann’s dogmatic claims, not those claims as such. This interpretation is then put to the service of answering the abovementioned question whether Lessing is another despiser of contingency. I answer this question negatively. Lessing does not despise the contingency of historicity as a matter of principle. The context in which Lessing puts forward his claims about “notwendige Vernunftwahrheiten” makes it clear that his criticism of the use of historical evidence is directed against a foundationalist use of the historical, not against using the historical as such. This view is confirmed by the analysis of another work by Lessing, his Nathan the Wise. Here, Lessing makes constructive use of the limitation of the range of validity implied in historical reasoning. This limitation is a necessary ingredient for the theory of tolerance he promotes in Nathan the Wise. I argue that the German Enlightenment is not as opposed to admitting historicity out of principle as it is often regarded to be. Concerning this issue, there are crucial differences between Kant and Lessing. Finally, Lessing’s stance on historicity is situated between Kant's and Richard Rorty’s: Lessing neither tries to “domesticate” the historical in his theorizing as strongly as Kant, nor does he embrace it as aggressively as Rorty (for Rorty, see below, section 7). Let us wrap up the story on contingency and its kin in the German tradition by analysing what the heirs of the Enlightenment-tradition, in particular, of Kant, think about it in post-Enlightenment times. After idealism had passed its heyday in the second half of the nineteenth century, German philosophy found itself on the defensive. The reason for this was the success of the empirical sciences, the theory of evolution, intellectual movements such as materialism and empiricism, and comparable ideas. Diverse as they were, they all had in common an acceptance or even embracing of a certain amount of contingency.

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This is why these theories were objected to by the Marburg neo-Kantians, who tried to resuscitate Kantian transcendental resources in order to attempt to provide a non-contingent foundation for epistemology. For example, Cohen argues against the Lehre von der Sinnlichkeit (empiricism and comparable movements) that epistemology may not take its vantage point outside of “thinking” (Denken).22 In this fashion, the Marburg neo-Kantians attempted to keep “thinking” or the foundation of epistemology free from all contingent empirical input. The same holds for the discourse ethical approaches of the Frankfurter Schule. Take, for example, Karl Otto Apel’s Transzendentalpragmatik with its emphasis upon the “communicative a priori”: while trying to reconcile the analytic and Continental philosophical traditions, he tries to hold on to “the classical search for philosophical (transcendental) foundations.”23 With Habermas, the issue may be more complex (especially if we take his later writings into account). Yet, on the whole, it is true that “he does not draw the same historicist and relativist conclusions”24 as the more radical critics of the possibility of philosophising. By considering philosophy to be the “guardian of reason,”25 he tries to hold contingency and its kin at bay. As we have just seen, the story on contingency in the German Enlightenment tradition is a complex one. There are interesting examples where contingency and its kin enter into an approach in surprising ways, for instance into the Kantian approach (see above, Loose’s account). And Lessing is less of a despiser of contingency and its kin out of principle than he is often assumed to be.

22 Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis. System der Philosophie, Erster Theil (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1902), 11. 23 After Philosophy. End or Transformation? (ed. K. Baynes, J. Bohman, T. McCarthy; Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1987), 245; see also Karl Otto Apel, “Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft und die Grundlagen der Ethik,” in idem, Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft (vol. 2 of Transformation der Philosophie; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), 358-435. 24 After Philosophy, 291. 25 Ibid. and Jürgen Habermas, Rationality and Rationalization (vol. 1 of The Theory of Communicative Action; Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 1.

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Yet, on the whole, it is true that German Enlightenment thinkers attempt to domesticate contingency and its kin. And the same is true of the post-Enlightenment tradition insofar as it is indebted to the Kantian Enlightenment tradition. It takes up the “classical impulse” to domesticate contingency. Note, however, that not all German philosophers share the “classical impulse.” There are post-Enlightenment philosophers who take a different path regarding contingency, most notably Heidegger. I will turn to this other tradition of German philosophy in section 5. Part II: Modern Philosophy’s Turn to Contingency “Modern” Philosophy’s Use of Contingency as Opposed to Classical Philosophy’s Use of Contingency This second part explores the way in which modern philosophy deals with the issue of contingency. Let me begin by characterizing the notion of “modern philosophy” as I understand it here. In the present context, it is, in the first place, a term referring to the history of philosophy rather than to systematic philosophical issues. As a historical term rather than a systematic one, postmodernist approaches are subsumed under the heading “modern philosophy” (see below, section 7). That is to say, contrary to common practice, I do not contrast the term “modern philosophy” with “postmodern philosophy.” Rather, I contrast it with “classical philosophy.” Nor do I identify “modern philosophy” with Enlightenment philosophy. As indicated above, some parts of Enlightenment philosophy, e.g. the German Enlightenment, were discussed under the heading “classical philosophy.” In short, “modern philosophy” is, in the first instance, a (more or less) value-free term indicating a particular time-span in the history of philosophy: modern philosophy begins after the Enlightenment and reaches into the current era. Out of the philosophers and philosophical movements falling into this time-span, I discuss examples of AngloAmerican philosophies26 (section 7) and examples of Continental philosophies which are not committed to Kantianism (section 5). 26 Note that analytic philosophy is discussed under the heading “modern philosophy.” Although systematically speaking it does not fit under this heading (see the discussion below, section 7), it is nevertheless subsumed under it because it belongs to the time-span indicated by this heading.

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However, this historical term also has some systematic implications. For in the modern era of philosophising, i.e. after the Enlightenment, a different tendency in dealing with the issue of contingency is visible: globally speaking, modern philosophers convey a tendency to accept contingency in unprecedented ways. And as we will see below, accepting contingency in such a fashion entails certain “existential” consequences.27 In sum, the term “modern philosophy” is used in this context as a historical term which has certain systematic consequences. Let me now spell out these systematic consequences more precisely. In the remainder of this section, I will discuss the contrast between the ways classical and modern philosophy respectively deal with the issue of contingency and its kin. As indicated above (see section 1), classical philosophy contrasts the notion of contingency with that of necessity. And both notions entail other important philosophical notions. Both have a “family.” Notions such as particularism (local validity), relativity, historicity, etc. belong to the contingency-family; notions such as universality, absolutism, ahistoricity, etc., to the necessity-family. And all these notions form contrasting pairs. The modern philosophical use of contingency does not disregard this contrast with necessity. Yet, it does not focus on it as strongly as classical philosophy. This is because it is not modern philosophy's main concern to fight contingency in the name of necessity. Rather, it is prone to accepting contingency to some measure. That is to say, many modern philosophers accept some amount of contingency in our knowledge, our patterns of justification, and so forth. Rather than trying to avoid contingency, they are concerned with scrutinizing the consequences of contingency. An important branch of modern philosophy is concerned with the existential consequences (where “existential” is to be understood in the broadest sense of the word) of accepting contingency. In other words, it does not focus so much on whether acknowledging contingency implies

27

That the term “modern philosophy” also has systematic implications is the reason why I discuss certain German post-Enlightenment philosophies in part I, under the heading “classical philosophy” (see section 3). Although historically, they would fall under the heading “modern philosophy,” they are so strongly committed to Kantianism that I decided to discuss them in part I.

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limiting one’s validity claims, or yielding to relativity or historicity. Rather, it draws attention to the question: where does accepting a fair amount of contingency leave us as human beings? The difference between classical philosophy and modern philosophy comes out clearly when we look at their respective “children.” As suggested above (section 1), in the classical philosophical use of contingency, the children of the necessity family are non-changeability, analyticity and the a priori, and the children of the contingency family, changeability, syntheticity and the a posteriori. In the modern use of contingency, these children are not denied. Yet, they do not get as much attention as another particular child, namely, certainty. Certainty and its corollaries receive the most attention. Thus, in the modern use of contingency, questions such as the following are important: what are the consequences of living in a contingent world? Where does it leave the individual or entire cultures if they are deprived of the certainties which classical philosophy promised? That is, how to deal with the loss of absolute certainty and non-changeability, i.e. the loss of stability? How to deal with the loss of the certainty that one’s cognitive, but also ethical claims have been valid and will be valid in all times and places? And some corollary questions: how to deal with the loss of all forms of a shared telos, be it religious or secular? What is the proper response if we have to live our life in the face of permanent uncertainty, if we have to relativize, historicize all our cognitive and ethical claims to our own ethnos (think, for example, of the consequences of such a relativity for the notion of human rights)? Another important sub-question to be raised here has to do with the contingency of our choices: what are the consequences if we have to admit that all our choices are contingent in a sense, that they are relative to our own ethnos, i.e. that they have emerged within a particular ethnos and are valid only within it, but not outside of it? What follows, for instance, if we have to admit that our choices are not rational but simply results of our upbringing? This modern use of contingency has received much attention lately. In philosophy, it is a standard theme in existentialism.28 But its

28 For example, see section 5 and the contributions on Heidegger and Jaspers in this volume.

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Wirkungsgeschichte extends well beyond the realm of philosophy proper. Among other realms, it is important in the realm of religion. A good example of this is the Christian theologian Paul Tillich. He presupposes that human beings search for absolute certainty in their lives. For him, this search necessarily leads into the realm of religion because absolute certainty is only available there. For example, the purpose of his famous phrase “God above God” is to provide the person struck by religious doubts with some kind of ultimate certainty, a certainty that goes beyond the fallible certainties particular religions and their notions of God can deliver.29 The current fashion of approaching the notion of contingency in the context of Kontingenzbewältigung is in certain ways functionally similar to Tillich’s approach. Much like Tillich, proponents of this thesis, e.g. Hermann Lübbe,30 understand religion as having the function of holding contingency at bay. Religion enables the individual to deal with the contingencies of life.31 Yet, if we compare the proponents of Kontingenzbewältigung more closely with Tillich, it turns out that they have different backgrounds as well as aims: the former are mostly sociologists or “sociologicallyminded” philosophers.32 They thus have a different background than Tillich’s existentialist (psychological) one. And their aims are different: the aims of the proponents of Kontingenzbewältigung are mostly descriptive33—they want to explain religion’s function in a more or less neutral way—while Tillich follows an apologetic path by trying to defend religion with the help of his considerations on contingency in relation to necessity.

29 See Dirk-M. Grube, “Paul Tillich: een theologische grensganger,” in Toptheologen (ed. J. Wissink; Tielt: Lannoo, 2006), 134-161, especially 147-153. 30 See Hermann Lübbe, Religion nach der Aufklärung (Graz: Styria, 1986) and Hermann Lübbe “Vollendung der Säkularisierung—Ende der Religion?” in Fortschritt als Orientierungsproblem, Aufklärung in der Gegenwart (Freiburg: Rombach, 1975), 169-81. 31 But see Dalferth and Stoellger, “Einleitung,” 16-7. They criticize that only the negative aspects of contingency are taken into account. 32 Next to Lübbe, Niklas Luhmann, Peter Berger, Thomas Luhmann, etc., should be mentioned here, but also philosophers such as Odo Marquard. 33 Although the considerations of Marquard seem to imply positive evaluations of contingency (see the contribution by Jonkers in this volume).

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There is one aspect of the contingency implied in making choices which deserves particular mention in this context, because it plays an important role in some of the contributions to this volume (see below, section 5): if all our choices are contingent, is our choice of a particular religion then contingent as well? Does it have nothing to do with rational insight, but is rather a result, say, of our upbringing? Are we Christians if we are brought up Christian, and Muslims if we are brought up Muslim? Empirical evidence seems to confirm this and many of our contemporaries seem to view things in this fashion. But let us be aware of the price to be paid for a wholesale admittance that the choice of religion is contingent. If, for example, we take this to imply that the choice of a religion is completely arbitrary, it is difficult to see how we can proceed rationally in the case of conflicting religious claims, say, conflicting moral claims based upon religious convictions. In other words, it is difficult to see in this case how to proceed rationally concerning one of the most urgent problems currently haunting many European countries, viz. how to deal with competing religious claims on truth and morality. If they are all completely arbitrary, it seems to be clear from the start that there are no rational resources left for dealing with competing claims of this sort. Under modern philosophical parameters at least, the antidote is to avoid denying contingency and its kin. Falling back on full-fledged necessity and its kin is not a real option here. The antidote is rather to make distinctions within the notion of contingency. For example, contingency can be distinguished from full-fledged arbitrariness. That something is contingent in the sense of being coincidental, zufällig, does not necessarily imply that it is completely arbitrary. We can have acquired religious beliefs contingently in the sense of zufälligerweise, say, because we happen to be raised in a Christian rather than Muslim environment. Yet, this admission does not necessarily imply that there are no resources left for rational arguments. For example, it is possible to argue that the acquisition of our religious beliefs does not say anything about their legitimacy. In spite of their contingent, zufällige, acquisition, we may be able to legitimise the fact that we stick to particular religious beliefs more or less rationally.34

34

This is the line of argument Henk Vroom suggests below (see section 6).

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The obvious counterargument is that all such legitimations are partial, ethnocentric. Although I acknowledge that there is something to this point, I suggest that it should not be used as a knock-down argument in order to exclude the possibility of all rational discourse on a priori grounds, as is currently fashionable (see below, section 7, the discussion on Rorty). Playing the contingency implied in the notion of ethnocentricity off against the notion of rationality may catch much public attention, but has little to offer when it comes to solving the problems currently haunting many European countries, e.g. the problem of managing the co-existence of different, even opposed, religious truth claims and religiously motivated moralities. We should not fall into the either/or trap Rorty and his followers present to us, viz. either we succeed in defeating contingency and ethnocentricity, or else anything goes. Rather than buying into this either/ or and playing contingency and ethnocentricity off against the notion of rationality, we should proceed in a more nuanced fashion, looking into these issues more closely, piecemeal. We should deal with them, for instance, by making distinctions within them, such as the distinction between Zufall and arbitrariness, and see how far we can get from there. (This point on avoiding the either/or trap will be elaborated more fully in section 8.) Contingency in Branches of the Continental Tradition not under the Spell of the “Classical Impulse” Let us go back now to our story of the development of philosophy with respect to the approaches it has taken to contingency. I will come to the Anglo-American tradition below (see section 7). In this section, however, let us take a look at the Continental tradition insofar as it is not committed to continuing the Kantian quest to domesticate contingency, beginning with its chief proponent of contingency, viz. Heidegger. Heidegger Heidegger’s contribution to the issue of contingency can hardly be overestimated. His well-known criticisms of Western metaphysics as ontotheology as well as of the “rechnendes Denken” of the scientific mind can be read as instances that promote contingency. Take, for example, Heidegger’s emphasis on the ontological difference and, consequently, on a fresh “Seinsdenken” rather than “Seinsvergessenheit.” Here, the

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subject is characterized by a “Gelassenheit.” That is to say, the subject leaves onto-theology and “rechnendes Denken” behind, and opens itself up to “denkendes Denken,” which aims at being (Sein) itself rather than beings (Seiendes). In other words, the subject has the task of making itself susceptible to what the occurrence of being contingently unveils. These general remarks about Heidegger need to be fleshed out in concrete historical terms, and the notion of contingency implied in his thought, obviously pointing strongly in an existential direction, needs to be characterized more precisely. I will do this with the help of Vedder’s account of the way Heidegger interprets Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians. Ben Vedder begins his account by pondering on the notion of contingency implied in his article. For him, it is crucial to approach contingency within the context of participation in a religious context. That is to say, in this article, contingency is considered in the context of Christian theology. Vedder’s point is that, from a Christian perspective, the coming of Christ is utterly contingent because it is unpredictable. Salvation is thus contingent. Vedder compares this contingency to the contingency of death in Heidegger, viz. that the moment of our death is unpredictable as well. Vedder continues by referring to Odo Marquard’s distinction between the “arbitrary accidental” (that which could have been different and can be changed by us) and the “accidental character of fate” (that which could have been different but cannot be changed by us).35 Vedder criticizes the Western tendency to reduce the latter to the former. Our Enlightenment heritage forces us into a Promethean attitude, i.e. an attitude where we take ourselves to be the masters of all things, including our own fate. Religion can be a valuable antidote to this heritage since it does not try to master or neutralize contingency, but develops ways of coping with it. This is why the Kontingenzbewältigung approach to contingency (see above, section 4) is mistaken. Vedder ponders upon Heidegger’s interpretation of Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians. Heidegger shows that, for the early Christians, contingency is crucial. Paul’s letter is to be understood not so much as a message with an objective content, but rather as an appeal to a way of living. Paul opposes the opinion that the coming of Christ can be deter35

See also below, section 6, Jonkers’ use of this distinction.

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mined to take place at a certain moment in time. There is no certainty. Authentic faith does not try to master contingency but tries to develop an attitude of coping with it in productive ways. The Christian way of doing this is to develop an attitude of “as if not.” This “as if not”-attitude breaks with the widespread tendency towards worldliness (theoretical representation). Next, Vedder draws parallels between the Christian way of life in the face of contingency as sketched above and Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of the divine virtues—faith, hope, and love. By distinguishing infused from acquired virtues, Thomas determines human beings as finite. Their final destination, direct knowledge of God, is dependent upon God. As such, it is beyond human control. Considering faith to be a virtue implies that it involves more than holding certain dogmas to be true. It implies an attitude which shapes human life. Furthermore, Thomas distinguishes between divine virtues and moral or intellectual ones. The object of the former is God himself as transcending human reason. Again, these virtues are to be regarded as beyond human control. Vedder holds that the modern ideal of total self-control undermines the concept of the virtues and, by the same token, human vulnerability and finitude. An antidote to this modern ideal is trust. Trusting begins where the certainty of knowledge stops. Referring to Otto Bollnow and Herman De Dijn, Vedder outlines how the notion of trust can be fleshed out such that it becomes compatible with taking contingency seriously (as is the case in Christianity) rather than trying to master it in a Promethean fashion. Let us now look at another specimen of an existentialist account situated in the Continental tradition, viz. Jaspers’ account, by turning to Joris Geldhof’s interpretation of Jaspers’ approach to existence, transcendence, ciphers, and negative theology. Although there are obvious differences in the attitude towards contingency displayed in Geldhof's and Vedder’s contributions, these differences should not be over accentuated. I will thus relativize them in a comparison at the end of my summary of Geldhof’s contribution. My point is that both Heidegger and Jaspers are examples of the Continental tradition which accept, even embrace, contingency.

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Jaspers Joris Geldhof defines contingency not so much as standing in opposition to necessity, but rather as a paradigm arising in modernity which implies a hermeneutics of immanence, historicity, and finitude, and a particular awareness of the difficulties involved in dealing with the absolute. Geldhof begins his account by showing that Jaspers refuses all attempts to define “existence.” It cannot be objectified; it is incomprehensible. Yet, this does not mean that nothing of philosophical interest can be said about it. For example, Jaspers regards “the encompassing” (das Umgreifende) as closely related to existence. “The encompassing” is the ground and origin of all being. Yet, human existence does not coincide with it. There is a rupture between “the encompassing” and existence. Existence is historically particular in that the only way to become aware of it is in concrete historical circumstances. Next, the distinction between existence and “Dasein” is considered. Dasein is the concrete bodily form of existence; it is the locus that realizes a possible appearance of existence in the human self. Historicity is the unifying horizon of Dasein and existence. Geldhof considers Jaspers’ concept of “limit situations” (Grenzsituationen). Since such situations are never completely controllable, human experience is “absolutely historical.” Existence is inextricably connected with contingent historical circumstances. But is Jaspers’ concept of transcendence as contingent as his concept of existence? Insofar as transcendence surpasses the temporal horizon of being, it is not contingent. Yet, paradoxically enough, although it cannot be conceived of adequately in historical terms, we have to apprehend it in such a fashion. This has to do, among other things, with the close connection between transcendence and existence: the only way of cognising transcendence is via existence, thus, whatever contingency is implied in existence “rubs off” on transcendence. Furthermore, Geldhof delves into Jaspers’ use of the term “ciphers.” Through them, transcendence is mediated. They constitute a level of being to be situated between existence and transcendence. But as linked with existence, they are also to be situated within the realm of temporality and contingency.

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Jaspers promotes a negative theology of sorts. Geldhof contends, however, that Jaspers’ sort of negative theology fails to consider its embeddedness in concrete religious practices. Though aware of the contingency implied in his way of pursuing metaphysics, Jaspers ends up deconstructing “God-talk.” Geldhof argues that Jaspers’ negative theology provides nothing more than “an empty insight of knowing nothing.” Regarding the overall question of this volume, Geldhof concludes that Jaspers does not surpass a standpoint of radical contingency. But, he criticises, there are other options available within such a standpoint, i.e. within the realm of contingency. These other options should be considered as well, and ideally Jaspers’ approach should be complemented by them in order to reach true transcendence. In comparison to Vedder, Geldhof has a different context in mind when using the term contingency: Vedder has a kind of existential context in mind when he promotes taking contingency seriously in his criticism of the Promethean attitude that governs much of our current Western world. Geldhof, however, seems to have an epistemological context in mind when he suggests that Jaspers’ approach should be complemented by others in order to achieve transcendence. The fact that both authors take different approaches to the term contingency can also explain further differences: Vedder pleads strongly for taking contingency more seriously than it is currently taken in our Western world. In comparison to this strong plea, Geldhof is more reluctant to acknowledge contingency. He seems to accept it, yet, does not actively embrace it. In any case, the differences between these authors’ viewpoints on the issue of contingency should not blur the fact that both Heidegger and Jaspers accept contingency and its kin. As demonstrated above, Heidegger emphasizes taking contingency more seriously than is currently the case, and Jaspers reconciles himself, to say the least, with accepting contingency on a broad scale (e.g. in his account of existence). Thus, we are faced here with a branch of the Continental philosophical tradition which accepts or even embraces contingency and its kin. Contingency Nuanced: Systematic-Philosophical Aspects of the Problem of Contingency The four systematic-philosophical contributions to this volume distinguish between different aspects of the notion of contingency and ex-

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plore where this leaves them regarding the issues mentioned above. The upshot of their contributions is that the notion of contingency is nuanced; in particular, its consequences are nuanced. I will consider here the contributions of Jonkers, Boeve, Vroom, and Drees. Peter Jonkers Jonkers shows first how Descartes’ methodical doubt is driven by the attempt to suspend traditional opinion and religious conviction. The reasoning behind this is not that they are definitely false, but that they could turn out to be false because they are contingent. Second, Jonkers delves into Odo Marquard’s critique of Descartes’ ideals of complete rational justification and absolute knowledge. Following Marquard, Jonkers holds that these ideals are unattainable and should thus be given up. Holding such lofty ideals prevents us from looking into more down-toearth solutions, tailored to fit the needs we have as mortal and limited human beings. Furthermore, Jonkers takes over Marquard’s distinction between fate-contingency and arbitrary-contingency.36 The latter consists of a set of contingent circumstances which can be changed by us. Fate-contingency, on the other hand, is a set of circumstances which cannot be changed by us (e.g. the language we happen to speak). Fate-contingency prevails in our lives and thus cannot be ignored so easily (if we try to ignore it, we make ourselves ridiculous). According to Jonkers, religious traditions belong to fate-contingency because they determine us to a much greater extent than we determine them. In sum, although religious traditions are contingent, this should not prevent us from embracing them. Next, Jonkers delves into the notion of “existential truth.” This notion provides a third way between sheer (arbitrary-)contingency and absolute truth with respect to complete rational justification. Through an analysis of the implications of the prayer of forgiveness in the “Lord’s Prayer,” he shows that, although embedded in a particularly Christian way of life, its validity claims can rightfully be extended beyond the boundaries of Christianity. It expresses an essential quality of human relations. Thus, whichever contingent circumstances give rise to saying this prayer, the validity claims implied in it do not have to be limited to Christianity. 36

See also below, section 5, Vedder’s use of this distinction.

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Finally, Jonkers distinguishes between making universal validity claims and imposing one’s own religious beliefs on others: the fact that the prayer of forgiveness harbours universal validity claims (in a sense) does not necessarily mean that we have to impose it on others. The antidote to all such forms of absolutism is the idea of transcendence. Knowing that the ultimate truth is transcendent, and thus beyond our reach, implies the recognition of the legitimacy of other, different ways of life as a matter of principle. Jonkers tries in one way or another to neutralize the potentially detrimental consequences of acknowledging contingency in the acquisition or the pursuit of religion. He argues that, in spite of the contingency implied in it, the legitimation or pursuit of religion can still be rational or warranted. Lieven Boeve, however, takes a somewhat different route. Although the issue he addresses is similar to the one addressed by Jonkers, his approach is different in that he leans more strongly than Jonkers towards actively embracing contingency. Out of the authors mentioned, he is closest to the postmodernist approach, as his bold statement that “religious truth cannot be thought of apart from . . . particularity and contingency” conveys (see below). Lieven Boeve Boeve begins his argument by outlining the options of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism as ways of construing the relationship of Christianity to other religions. He finds all three ways to be wanting. Next, he sketches out the conceptual implications of the doctrine of incarnation with respect to the above options: exclusivism and inclusivism take the doctrine of the incarnation to imply universal claims in that the historically-particular, i.e. the human Jesus, becomes the vessel of absolute divine truth. For the same reason, pluralism has difficulty acknowledging the implications of the doctrine of incarnation: the step from historical particularity to universal validity implies totalitarian consequences for the pluralist. Boeve goes on to suggest that Christians do not possess a bird’s-eye view on all religious truth claims. They have adopted a position among the plurality of religious truth claims; they are already situated. Christians should address their dealings with other religions from this situatedness. For Christians, divine truth cannot but be located in concrete events and narratives. “It is only in the all-too-historical, the concrete, the contingent that God . . . becomes manifest” (see below).

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That Boeve leans more strongly towards postmodernism than the authors thus far summarized comes out in the second part of his contribution. There, he analyses thinkers such as Marion, Derrida and Caputo. Against them, Boeve insists that negative theology should not be construed as an escape from the linguistic, and thus contingent, character of religious truth. Rather, it should be used to maximize this character. That is to say, the contingency implied in Christianity’s rootedness in concrete historical events—ultimately, in incarnation—should be emphasized rather than denied. Only by way of referring to histories, concrete traditions and practices, i.e. by way of referring to the particular and the contingent, can Christians enter into an inter-religious dialogue worth its name. Henk Vroom Vroom begins by arguing against naturalistic reductions of religion. He holds that religion cannot be explained sufficiently in terms of natural causes. Although sociological, psychological or cultural causes can explain the phenomenon of religion to some extent, they cannot exhaust it. Next, he explicitly acknowledges that the acquisition of religious beliefs has a contingent element to it. But he insists this admission is not fatal to the pursuit of religion and attempts to legitimise it: distinguishing between the context of discovery and the context of justification, Vroom argues that the contingency implied in the acquisition of religious beliefs belongs to the former but does not necessarily affect the latter. In other words, the admission of contingency does not necessarily discredit religion’s trustworthiness or rationality. It does not necessarily undermine all attempts to legitimise it. Providing causal explanations for the acquisition of religious beliefs has to be distinguished from providing reasons for them. The fact that people can account for their particular religion in a more or less rational fashion shows that, in spite of the contingency implied in the acquisition of religion, its pursuit and legitimation does not necessarily have to be irrational. Vroom provides criteria for accounting for one’s religion (e.g. coherence). He admits that these criteria are different from the criteria used in the sciences, e.g. in laboratory experiments. Yet, this difference does not necessarily discredit the rationality of religious belief in principle. Rather, this rationality can be accounted for with the different ontolog-

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ical characteristics of the domains under scrutiny and the different functions religious beliefs and scientific beliefs fulfil: religious traditions “form” believers in various ways that are different from scientific beliefs and are thus to be located on a different epistemic level. This being the case, the fact that the criteria used in accounting for religion are different from the criteria used in science does not come as a surprise and does not discredit the religious domain. Wim Drees Drees approaches the issue of contingency from a somewhat different angle. He does not target the question of what religion has to do with contingency directly. Rather, he addresses this question indirectly. He begins his account by taking up the issue of whether explanations in science and cosmology reduce contingency. He synthesizes his answer to this question with his questions on religion by considering whether the reduction of contingency via scientific explanations is logically related to providing the feeling of “being at home in the universe.” More precisely speaking, Drees begins his argument by distinguishing between two notions of contingency: “existential contingency” pertains to the feeling of being marginal or irrelevant. The terms “logical contingency” or “natural contingency,” however, pertain to the activity of explaining phenomena along scientific lines. These explanations reduce “logical contingency” or “natural contingency.” Drees’s guiding question is thus whether the reduction of “logical contingency” or “natural contingency” through scientific explanations is logically related to the reduction of “existential contingency.” Put in a different nomenclature, viz. the distinction between “cosmos” and “universe”: “Cosmos” is a value-laden, religious or philosophical term, suggesting that the world or our reality is well-ordered, beautiful, unified, etc. “Universe,” however, is a value-neutral term, describing the object as it is analysed by the sciences. Drees’s guiding question can thus be rephrased in the following fashion: does research related to “universe,” i.e. strictly “scientific” ways of pursuing research, have logical consequences for research related to “cosmos,” i.e. for positively evaluating our world and reality? Nothing less is at stake here than the issue of whether scientific, i.e. value-neutral, descriptions of our universe are logically related to the way in which we evaluate it.

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Drees denies that they are. He shows that scientific explanations can succeed in replacing “natural contingency” by “natural necessity,” but that they re-introduce contingency at another level. Scientific explanations can only reduce “natural contingency,” i.e. the idea that things could have been different. Yet, they do not have any logical bearing on the issue of “existential contingency.” That is to say, scientific explanations of the universe cannot be used to underwrite the idea that the universe is the way it is in order to allow for the emergence of conscious life. However, if we look from a different angle at the question of the relationship between scientific and related explanations in cosmology and the reduction of “existential contingency,” we get a different result. If we look at this question from a point of view going beyond pure logic, we do indeed find links. If we construe the attempt to link scientific and existential concerns as a project of human imagination, it may be of value to us in that it helps us to shape our self-understanding in a fruitful fashion. Construed in this way, this attempt helps us to reduce “existential contingency.” Contingency in the Anglo-American Tradition: Pre-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science, Analytic Philosophy, Neo-Pragmatism (Rorty), and Kuhn Let us turn now to the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. In the following section, I will deal briefly with pre-Kuhnian philosophy of science (neo-positivism and Popperianism). Then I will delve into the philosophical movement that has been dominant in 20th century AngloAmerican philosophy, viz. analytic philosophy. Finally, I will discuss two philosophers who have shaped the development of the AngloAmerican tradition to a significant degree in the last decades, viz. Richard Rorty and Thomas S. Kuhn. My thesis is that, as a rule, the Anglo-American tradition accepts contingency to a great extent. Admittedly, however, there are exceptions to this rule; and analytic philosophy is such an exception. Yet, on the whole, Anglo-American philosophy is much more open, at times even favourable, towards contingency than the Continental tradition.

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Let me begin by analysing a branch of Anglo-American philosophy that, to my mind, is not so much a philosophical tradition of its own as an undercurrent permeating the different philosophical traditions. I am speaking of empiricism. We have seen above that Hume (the empiricist) accepted contingency, for instance, by characterizing the notion of causality as a habit. This acceptance of contingency is intrinsic to empiricism as such. And this has to do with its reliance on empirical data as the basic foundation, constitutive input, etc., of knowledge. Insofar as knowledge is based upon or constitutively formed by empirical data, it is as contingent as the empirical foundation upon which it is based. Since empiricism lacks the means to discipline contingency found in Kantianism, viz. the (transcendental) a priori, it has to accept contingency. The sort of contingency implied in empiricism is what we earlier called “Zufall,” coincidence: empiricism is geared towards the achievement of truth. It is geared towards describing what is the case. But what is the case is not tantamount to what is necessarily the case (think of the abovementioned distinction between doxa and episteme in section 1). What is the case could equally well be conceived not to be the case. Thus, empiricism captures what is the case but is not necessarily the case. And insofar as capturing what is the case, but not necessarily so, is characteristic of truths claims which are contingent (see above section 1), it is fair to say that empiricism accepts contingency. Pre-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science This comes out in a philosophical trend which is heavily influenced by empiricist presuppositions, viz. neo-positivism. The neo-positivist relies heavily on the concept of “protocol sentences.” In particular, where neo-positivism is wedded to a foundationalist methodology, this concept is supposed to provide the building blocks for any theory of knowledge worth its name.37 Insofar as protocol sentences capture what is the case but could equally well be conceived not to be the case, they are contingent in the sense of being coincidental, zufällig. Thus, the knowl37 One should be careful not to subsume all neo-Positivists under the “foundationalism” label. For example, it is possible that O. Neurath is much less foundationalist-minded than other neo-Positivists and, as a consequence, more open towards accommodating contingency. For example, see Wolfhart Pannenberg’s remarks on Neurath and Carnap in this context, in idem, Wissenschaftstheorie und Theologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977), 52-3.

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edge based upon contingent protocol-sentences is as contingent as they are. The contingent element comes out even more clearly in neo-positivism’s successor, Popperianism. Although Popper is not an empiricist but a rationalist, he acknowledges a significant amount of contingency in his theorizing. For example, he acknowledges that his equivalent to protocol sentences—“basic sentences” (Basissätze)—rest upon convention.38 That is to say, they are not only based upon pure perception but also presuppose the conventions, say, of a relevant group of specialists.39 In the absence of further qualifications to such convention, for instance, along the lines of a Peircean or Habermassian consensus, this convention is contingent in the abovementioned sense of being coincidental, zufällig. Thus, a pursuit which is influenced in decisive (falsificationist) ways by convention is as contingent as the convention is. The Popperian Hans Albert directly opposes the insistence on falsificationism as a matter of principle to the classical philosophical quest for certainty: we have to choose between the classical quest for certainty and the attempt to approach truth via falsificationist lines.40 But if we choose for falsifcationism, rather than certainty, we choose for the contingency-family over the necessity-family.41 Since Popperians choose for truth(-likeness) along falsificationist lines, they opt for the contingency-family. Analytic Philosophy Let us now take a look at analytic philosophy. I will begin by scrutinizing how analytic philosophers deal with the issue of historicity. A leading analytic philosopher, the ethicist William K. Frankena, contends

38 It should be noted, however, that the basic sentences play a different conceptual role in Popper’s theorizing than the protocol-sentences play in neo-Positivist theorizing: for neo-Positivists, protocol-sentences serve as a verifying instance. For Popper, on the other hand, basic-sentences serve as a falsifying instance. That is to say, by definition, basic sentences do not fulfil a foundationalist role for Popper insofar as he does not ground his theorizing on them. Nevertheless, these basic sentences still play a crucial role in his theorizing because they serve as a falsifying instance which can decisively undermine a theory. 39 See Carl Raymond Popper, Logik der Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1971), 71. 40 See Dirk-M. Grube, “Hans Albert Christentumskritik,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilophie 44 (2002): 284-306, especially 288. 41 See the above (section 4) remarks on certainty as a “child” of the necessity family.

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that analytic philosophy should stay away from historical analyses. In an analysis of an emotivist view, he asserts: I can, if I have the right conceptual equipment, understand what the view is without seeing it as the result of a historical development . . . I can also assess its status as true or false or rational to believe without seeing it as such an outcome.42

Frankena claims here that the traditional philosophical quests for understanding a phenomenon, and judging its truth and rationality, can be pursued without considering this phenomenon’s historical context. Frankena’s standpoint is characteristic of traditional analytic philosophy. It is deeply a-historical. My thesis is that the same point can be made about contingency: analytic philosophy is as opposed to acknowledging contingency as it is to acknowledging history. Let me demonstrate this by referring to the term “analytic” in the compound “analytic philosophy.” I take this term to refer to the analytic as opposed to the synthetic. It signifies analytic philosophy’s concern with what is “true by virtue of meaning alone”: what is true by “virtue of meaning alone” is true independently of how the world is. It is thus true analytically. The point of insisting on analytic truths of this sort is to relieve the philosopher from having to deal with the world. She can afford to ignore questions about how language, thought, or consciousness relate to objects in the world. She is in the luxurious position of being able to restrict herself to language and its functions. This is, in my opinion, the point of analytic philosophy’s insistence on “conceptual analysis” or “meaning analysis.”43 Viewed in this way, the analytic philosopher’s insistence on analyticity is an attempt to keep philosophy pure. Her insights are true, no matter what the world is like. If her “meaning analysis” is valid in itself, it is valid no matter what reality is like. In other words, these analyses are true independently of the contingencies of the world. Thus, analytic philosophy continues the classical philosophical project of attempting to shun contingency and its kin in favour of necessity and its kin.

42 William K. Frankena, Ethics, quoted in Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, 2nd ed.), 265. 43 For the latter, see, e.g. William K. Frankena, Ethik (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1972), 114.

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Richard Rorty Let us now turn to a philosophical approach which has contributed significantly to undermining analytic philosophy. I mean Rorty and his neo-pragmatist school. Rorty is the Anglo-American philosopher who emphasizes most strongly the importance of acknowledging contingency, historicity, relativity, etc. For him, this acknowledgement entails a philosophical programme.44 Let me explain this through his considerations on morality. Rorty proposes an anti-foundationalism. For him, moral principles have no foundation in the human being, nor anywhere else. They are human constructions. When we realise this, the proper attitude becomes one of irony: we can pursue moral principles, say, freedom, but should do so in an ironic fashion. We should always be aware that these principles are our principles, not universally valid principles. They are valid within our ethnos, not necessarily elsewhere. Thus, they are of local validity only, relative to an ethnos, and developed within particular historical circumstances. Here, we have all the ingredients of the contingency-family in a nutshell: local validity or particularism, relativity, and historicity. Rorty embraces contingency and its kin most emphatically. He does not only tolerate contingency, historicity, particularism, historicism as, say, empiricism does, but he actively embraces and emphasizes them. His is a philosophical approach which systematically reverses the classical philosophical intuition that necessity, a-historicity, and universality are to be preferred over contingency and its kin. Thomas S. Kuhn A comparable approach can be found in the philosophy of science, viz. in Kuhn’s approach. Kuhn is comparable to Rorty because he is as critical of traditional philosophy of science as Rorty is of traditional (analytic) philosophy. And both have succeeded in changing their respective philosophical fields in significant ways: philosophy of science after Kuhn has changed as dramatically as analytic philosophy after Rorty. The reason why Kuhn has attracted so much attention,45 not only within philosophy of science proper but also outside of it, is because of 44 For example, see Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), especially 3-72. 45 To my knowledge, Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (2nd ed.; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970) is the best-selling academic book.

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his notion of “paradigm change.” This notion is often used as a synonym for all changes of a dramatic sort. Yet, its point is more precise: it implies that, in the case of a scientific revolution, the relevant secondorder resources change together with the first-order pursuits. That is to say, a scientific revolution does not only change certain scientific habits, results or other first-order achievements. Rather, it changes the second-order resources, i.e. the values and criteria applied to measure scientific success and progress, the methods used, and even the reference of the terms applied.46 Conceiving the notion of “paradigm change” in this fashion leads directly to the “incommensurability thesis”: its point is not only that different paradigms are different from each other, but rather the philosophically more interesting point that there is in principle no way to adjudicate between them. This is because there are no stable secondorder resources with the help of which one could adjudicate between competing paradigms in a paradigm-transcendent and thus neutral fashion. Instead, each of the competing paradigms has its own evaluation resources. Thus, in the case of a scientific revolution, there is no way to judge neutrally what, for instance, progress, proper reference or truth are. Clearly, such an incommensurabilist understanding of the notion of paradigm-change47 is committed to the contingency-family. It undermines universal validity claims by abrogating the idea of paradigm-neutral resources, such as “objective” criteria to determine progress, and, in a radical interpretation, even the notion of truth. All we have are the resources that are available within a given paradigm. There are no trans46

See Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for example 111. Note that I mean one particular understanding of the notion of paradigmchange. There are other possible understandings—a result of Kuhn’s notorious lack of clarity on this point. For example, in the “postscript to the second edition” of the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he contends that there are criteria with the help of which “an uncommitted observer” can “distinguish the earlier from the more recent theory,” such as “accuracy of prediction, particularly of quantitative prediction, the balance between esoteric and everyday subject matter; and the number of different problems solved” (pp. 205-6). These remarks are not easy to reconcile with the more “radical” understanding of “paradigm-change” as advanced in the main body of the Structure of Scientific Revolutions (for example, see Kuhn’s much-cited remarks on the incommensurability of the scientific tradition after a revolution and before a revolution (p. 103), and on Lavoisier working in a “different world” from Priestley, (p. 118)). Here, however, I cannot delve into the question whether or not Kuhn is consistent on this issue. Let me therefore restrict myself to the reading of Kuhn which has caught so much attention, viz. the more “radical” reading. 47

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paradigmatic resources available. In short, the notion of paradigmchange, understood in this way, is deeply committed to the contingencyfamily. By the same token, Kuhn, read in this fashion, is deeply committed to the contingency-family.48 How to Deal with Contingency and its Kin in our Current Situation? Finally, let us examine where the abovementioned considerations leave us. How should we deal with contingency and its kin in our current situation? I will answer this question by: (A) providing an evaluation of the current situation regarding contingency and its kin; and (B) making a practical suggestion of how to deal with it, given this situation. (A) As indicated above, the issues of contingency, particularism, historicity, and relativity have been very important in the 20th century. Particularly in the second half of this century, these issues have become popular in unprecedented ways. My thesis is that the majority of current philosophers and philosophical movements deal with contingency so extensively, not in order to rebut it, as was the case previously, but rather to accept contingency and its kin in new ways in comparison to the past. Let me flesh out this thesis. We have seen above that most of AngloAmerican philosophy yields to contingency. From its very beginning onwards, i.e. from Hume and his predecessors onwards, it has leaned strongly towards accepting contingency. And we have also seen above that, although the classical impulse to domesticate contingency is preserved in some branches of Continental philosophy, other important Continental trends accept or even actively embrace contingency (see above, section 6)—not to mention the well-known and currently popular postmodernist trends on both sides of the Atlantic which emphatically embrace contingency, relativity, historicity, etc.49 Furthermore, there are two other philosophers who have not yet been mentioned, but who have been very influential in emphasizing the contingent character of our knowledge in their respective philosophical en48 Another example of Kuhn embracing members of the contingency-family are his considerations on the history of the development of science (for example, see Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 52-4), which point in a historicist direction.

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vironments. I am speaking of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Nietzsche has had considerable influence in the Continental philosophical tradition and continues to be influential today, e.g. in Continental postmodernism.50 Take, for instance, his statement that all our so-called “eternal” truths are nothing but cowardly reductions of a chaotic reality, characterized by a contingent multiplicity of “wills to power.” And Wittgenstein’s influence on Anglo-American philosophy—in particular, on philosophy of language—can hardly be overestimated. Take, for example, the emphasis on the notion of contingency in the later Wittgenstein’s focus on “language games” as being embedded in “forms of life.”51 Whatever function you ascribe to the notion of “forms of life,” whether a foundational one or not, it is clear that accepting this notion as somehow playing a basic role in the process of legitimation commits one to accepting a fair amount of contingency—if only for the simple reason that there are no more basic foundations available with which to legitimate these “forms of life.” In short, the above considerations show that many current philosophies on both sides of the Atlantic are open to contingency in one way or another. But what about the case of analytic philosophy discussed above (see section 7)? Is this not a case where an important branch of philosophy continues the classical philosophical impulse to domesticate contingency and its kin? A point worth mentioning in this context is that many of its leading proponents were also very critical of the term “analytic” in the compound “analytic philosophy.” Take the example of Quine. Although some consider him to be the peak of analytic philosophical thinking, he

49 We have already come across the most important Anglo-American form of postmodernism above, in our considerations on Rorty. And Continental postmodernism embraces contingency, relativity, historicity, and particularism as well (see, e.g. its notion that “reference is a lie” or the emphasis upon the demise of all “meta-narratives”). 50 To some extent, Nietzsche has even influenced Anglo-American philosophers such as Rorty (for example, see Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, 96-121). 51 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1982) and the interesting comparison between Wittgenstein, Derrida, Rorty, and Kuhn under the heading “theories which give up any Archimedean point” (Antoon Braeckman, Jos Decorte, Bart Raymaekers and Benjamin Steegen, Fundamentele Wijsbegeerte (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 216; my translation).

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undermined the notion of analyticity significantly.52 His attack on this core-notion of analytic philosophy proved to be a serious critique of the entire analytic project. As demonstrated above (in section 7), by undermining the notion of analyticity, one simultaneously undermines analytic philosophy’s strongest weapon for holding contingency at bay. That is to say, even if one were out to reconstruct analytic philosophy without the notion of analyticity or to moderate it significantly after Quine’s attack, one would not win much in our current context: reconstructed without a robust notion of analyticity, it is not at all clear that analytic philosophy would still display the “classical impulse” to hold contingency at bay. Given such a reconstruction, it might rather be classified as a specimen of modern philosophy with its acceptance of contingency and its kin. Furthermore, analytic philosophy in the traditional sense of the term is on the demise. One reason for this is that it is severely limited in its possibilities for constructive theorizing.53 As much as it can achieve regarding the criticism of other positions, it has little to offer in terms of positive theory-construction. It can criticize arguments as being inconsistent, but has few resources to offer when it comes to grounding knowledge or ethics. Moreover, given its progressive demise, traditional analytic philosophy’s potential to control contingency and its kin is in the process of diminishing as well. Whatever potential analytic philosophy may once have had for domesticating contingency and its kin, this has been diminishing and will continue to do so in the near future. Thus, the point that philosophy currently leans strongly towards contingency still stands. But let us be precise on this point. What, precisely, does it mean to say that philosophy currently leans towards contingency? I do not mean to suggest with these remarks that all current philosophies are as extreme as, say, the philosophies of Rorty, Derrida, or the Yale Deconstructivists. Many current philosophers try to steer a middle course between a radical acceptance of contingency, relativity, historicity, etc., and a falling back on classical necessity, a-historicity, universality, etc. 52 See O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in idem, From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 20-46. 53 For example, see the critique of Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 265-72.

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A good example of such a philosopher is Hilary Putnam, for instance, with his suggestion of an “internal realism” that tries to avoid the Scylla of “externalism,” i.e. the classical, objectivist form of realism, without falling prey at the same time to the Charybdis of an all-out antirealism.54 Yet, when modern philosophers such as Putnam attempt to domesticate contingency, they do so in a fundamentally different fashion than classical philosophers: modern philosophers attempt to domesticate contingency, relativity, historicity, etc., only after having accepted them in the first place. That is to say, they accept (a certain amount of) contingency, relativity, historicity, etc, as unavoidable. And given this point of departure, they see to what extent contingency and its kin can be domesticated. In other words, many current philosophers explicitly or implicitly presuppose contingency and its kin. And given such presuppositions, they try to avoid yielding all the way to contingency and its kin. This is the middle-course they steer between (accepting) contingency and its kin, and necessity and its kin. But such an approach is obviously a far cry from the classical philosophical approach. Classical philosophy tried to stop contingency in its tracks. It did not yield to contingency and its kin in the way that philosophy currently does. In other words, a significant change of points of departure has taken place: whereas classical philosophy did not accept a contingent point of departure at all, much of current philosophy does. And it is only after having accepted this point of departure that it tries to master contingency and its kin, i.e. tries to avoid giving in to it all the way in a postmodernist fashion. (B) In light of the situation we have depicted above, there is no point in trying to completely avoid contingency, relativity, historicity, etc. Trying to return to the classical philosophical impulse to stop contingency and its kin in its tracks is, in my view, a hopeless endeavour at this point in time. And this view is not only based upon philosophical insights, such as the abovementioned ones, but also upon observing the culture we live in: our current culture, at least in the Western world, has a tendency to 54 For example, see Hillary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, repr., 1991), 49-54.

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accept contingency. For example, our Western free market economies are committed to accepting contingency in the sense of Zufall. The basic idea is that the majority of people are better off if we let the economy go whichever way it chooses, rather than regulating it in a socialist fashion. This implies that the distribution of goods within a free market economy is contingent in the sense of being zufällig.55 Furthermore, the current pursuit of science is based upon accepting a fair amount of contingency. The trademark of modern science is that it has emancipated itself from the classical metaphysical, i.e. teleological, essentialist, etc. frameworks in which it used to be embedded before modernity. In other words, it presupposes contingency. Since the principles that underlie the pursuit of modern science and our free market economies “rub off” onto culture at large,56 it is fair to say that our Western culture as such is permeated by contingency. Most often, we have internalised it to such a degree that we do not even think about it anymore. In short, (the acceptance of) contingency dominates our current Western cultures.57 Historicity and relativity may seem to be more complex at first sight. Yet, regarding the former, it would be hard to deny that our historical consciousness has grown steadily and we have become increasingly aware of the historically-contingent character of the context within which phenomena emerge. Relativity is probably most difficult to swallow. Yet, if we look at the ease with which validity claims are relativ-

55 John Rawls can be read as attempting to justify the contingencies implied in an unequal distribution of goods by developing his principle of justice: a society is just in spite of a contingent and uneven distribution of goods as long as people can agree on its basic principles in the “original position,” i.e. under a “veil of ignorance” which makes them incapable of predicting what sorts of goods they will eventually occupy. In other words, the contingency implied in the unequal distribution of goods characteristic of free-market economies is not fatally arbitrary as long as it can be legitimated in the fashion described. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), e.g. 75-83. 56 I do not mean to suggest that the emergence of free market economies and modern science can entirely explain the dominance of contingency in the Western world. There may well exist philosophical reasons why the notion of necessity has fallen into disrepute, for example a dissatisfaction with a strict contradistinction between necessity and contingency in the name of introducing third options. I thank Ingolf Dalferth for this suggestion. 57 See also Marquard’s “These vom zunehmenden Kontingenzbewußtsein” (in Dalferth and Stoellger, “Einleitung,” 1).

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ized according to one’s own ethnos, religion58 or what have you, the impression that even relativity has made serious inroads into our current culture is hard to reject. In short, contingency, historicity, particularism, and even relativity dominate our current culture. My point is not that we should swallow this dominance of contingency and its kin uncritically. Yet, fighting it head-on is not a “life option” either. To fall back on emphasizing the necessary—for example, in teleological schemes à la MacIntyre59—is a hopeless endeavour given the general cultural and philosophical parameters under which we operate. My suggestion is thus that, rather than fighting contingency and its kin head-on, we should accept it to some extent and deal with it in a constructive fashion. Our philosophical heritage is unfortunate in that it has left us without the proper philosophical tools to do this. Mainstream philosophy has left us with the choice between black and white only, between completely accepting contingency and its kin or, alternatively, completely accepting necessity and its kin. That is to say, our (Greek-based) philosophical heritage with its overly sharp contrast between the contingency-family and the necessity-family has left us with an unfortunate either/or. Tertium non datur. But the dominance of tertium non datur in this sense has blinded us to the fact that there are other options available than this either/or, that there are shades between black and white. Tertium datur! The task is now to work out this tertium datur in conceptual terms, i.e. to tease out the shades between completely accepting contingency and its kin, and completely accepting necessity and its kin. We should develop tools to deal with contingency and its kin in a sensitive fashion. For example, we should learn to distinguish between accepting contingency and its family-members piecemeal and accepting them as an unbreakable whole.

58 I am thinking of discussions in the context of pluralism where the validity claims of religion are often relativized without further ado (for example “x is true for Christians only”). Let it be noted in passing that I do not mean to subscribe to such a view. I am not judging this phenomenon here, but simply describing it. 59 See MacIntyre, After Virtue, 244-55.

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Furthermore, we should investigate how much contingency of a particular kind is to be tolerated in a particular realm of reality, thus, in a particular realm of research. It might well be that in certain realms of research, say, in the humanities, certain forms of contingency are to be tolerated more easily60 than in other realms, say, in the natural sciences. In any case, dealing with contingency and its kin in such a sensitive fashion should make clear that accepting them piecemeal does not necessarily commit us to a postmodernist extreme where they are blown out of proportion. Furthermore, dealing with contingency, relativity, historicity, particularism, etc., in such a fashion implies making distinctions. A crucial distinction in this respect is the above-discussed distinction between contingency and sheer arbitrariness (see section 5). Acknowledging that something is contingent is not tantamount to acknowledging that it is arbitrary. It can simply be zufällig, coincidental. And once we have freed ourselves from the spell of the tertium non datur-doctrine and the derogatory view of doxa left to us by Greek philosophy, we can begin to appreciate that being zufällig in this sense is as innocent as can be. Being zufällig is different from being arbitrary. That the belief x is zufällig—say, acquired zufälligerweise because I was raised in a Christian environment—does not by itself make it arbitrary in the sense of incapable of being legitimised as a matter of principle.61 The legitimations that are available once we have freed ourselves from the spell of the tertium non datur doctrine may differ from the legitimations classical philosophy was after. For example, these legitimations may not be capable of justifying absolute knowledge claims or universal validity claims. Or, they may not be available a priori but only a posteriori, say, post-factum, after having delved into a particular religious pursuit and discovered the internal logic that governs it (the move that is called fides quaerens intellectum in Christian theology). But having post-factum legitimations is different from having none at all.

60 I am thinking, for instance, of the human sciences and the notion of freedom they imply. 61 This is the point of Vroom’s account (see above, section 6). Another valuable distinction in this context is the one between fate-contingency and arbitrary-contingency (see above, sections 5 and 6, Vedder’s and Jonkers’ contributions). It should be noted in passing, however, that this distinction is to be located on a different level than my considerations above, viz. on a “meta-level” so to speak according to which contingency is an inescapable aspect of our life.

INTRODUCTION

43

Again, we have to free ourselves from the spell of the tertium non datur trap. Here, this trap is: “Either your legitimations are a priori or they are invalid.” It necessarily leads to scepticism once the failure of absolute legitimations, universal validity claims, a priori arguments, etc., is acknowledged. Like all forms of “either/or,” this leaves us only with the “or,” once the “either” has broken away.62 My suggestion is thus that we should leave the tertium non datur doctrine behind. We should look for third ways, for solutions which enable us to cope with the problem of contingency and its kin in a more sensitive fashion. Moreover, these solutions should be ones which work hic et nunc rather than in the distant future.63 They should enable us to cope with our current problems, say, that of a plurality of different religions with different truth-claims and different moralities. With the above considerations, I have sketched out what a more sensitive way of dealing with contingency and its kin could look like. Most of the contributions to this volume can also be read as trying to provide similar sketches. They will hopefully offer some guidance on how to cope with the problem of acknowledging contingency and its kin in a constructive fashion. The historically-oriented contributions achieve this end in a more indirect fashion: by analysing particular philosophers and their stance on contingency, they provide examples of how to deal with contingency and its kin. The systematically-oriented contributions achieve this end in a more direct fashion: they show how particular aspects of the problem of contingency, for instance the contingency of our religious choices, can be dealt with in a constructive fashion.

62

See above, section 6, Jonkers’ illuminating story on how little Descartes ended up achieving through his ambitious ideals on the legitimation of absolute knowledge. 63 As is the case with the aforementioned ambitious ideals of legitimation etc.: even if they could be made to work at some point, they do not help us at this point in history.

PART I

HISTORICAL CASE-STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER ONE

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH IN LEIBNIZ Frans P.M. Jespers (Radboud University Nijmegen)

At the beginning of Modern Times, in the seventeenth century, some of the many discoveries that were made then led to new perspectives on contingency. The discovery of several continents and cultures brought with it doubts about the uniqueness of Christianity and the superiority of Europe. The discovery of new natural laws in physics and biology was the start of a farewell to medieval cosmology, where God was considered to be not only the Creator of the world, but also the direct cause of many miraculous events in daily life. Along with such discoveries, there arose a quest by physicists for more causal connections or laws, and philosophers sought for secular explanations of the physical and spiritual mechanisms of this world.1 Any appeal to divine intervention was to be avoided as far as that was possible. As a result, the world appeared to be more variegated and yet at the same time more predictable than ever before, and was therefore less dependent on the incomprehensible will of God. Most theologians rejected this modern worldview, which they saw as an attack on the truth revealed by God and on the church. They stuck to medieval, teleological cosmology and its scholastic metaphysics. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians defended their dogmas as being absolutely true, based on divine revelation, with this world as contingent in the double sense of being predetermined by God’s will, while at the same time radically dependent on God’s providence. They accused modern scientists and philosophers of materialism and atheism, since in the modern worldview God would be superfluous. Some physicists and “new philosophers” actually drew rather sceptical and radical conclusions.2 Hobbes and Spinoza, for example, developed an almost mechanical worldview, in which God is identical with 1 See H. Blumenberg, Die Legitimität der Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966), part II. E.J. Dijksterhuis, The mechanization of the world picture (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), part IV.

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nature or with the universe, and the power in everything is material and spiritual. The consequence is a world in which things happen necessarily. In a metaphysical sense, contingency is abolished. Religion is more or less left to ordinary people, who need images and rituals in order to remain virtuous. For this reason, more cautious philosophers such as Descartes or Bayle admitted that the basis of physical and social laws was God’s will. His choices were absolutely free and incomprehensible, but once made, they constituted a predictable world with causal laws, in which God could always intervene. It was in this setting that Leibniz proposed a middle course between these three positions. An example of this can be found in his famous Theodicy, an essay on “natural theology,” published in 1710.3 Here, he presents a pure and universal religion as “sound piety.” This piety consists of virtue built on true knowledge or natural religion.4 Such religious or theological knowledge has two main sources: revelation and reason. In order to comprehend Leibniz’s view on contingency, I will start with an analysis of natural religion with respect to virtue and revelation. Subsequently, I will look at two disciplines which constitute rational theology: first metaphysics, and then logic. In these three steps I will collect Leibniz’s main ideas on contingency and religion. Then I will demonstrate how he applies his ideas in a concrete case, that of Chinese religions. Finally, Leibniz’s middle course can then be assessed. Is his rational theology appropriate for eventually uniting all historical, contingent religions? Does he take the contingency of the world and human life seriously enough? Does he succeed in reconciling classical theologians with modern physicists? Are his ultimate ground and the world order teleological? Is his position, thus, basically scholastic?

2 See J.I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), part II. 3 G. W. Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften, Band VI (ed. C. J. Gerhardt, 1885; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1978) , abridged as G. I quote from the translation of the Theodicy by E. M. Huggard (1951; repr. Chicago: Open Court, 1990). 4 G VI, 25, transl., 49.

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 49 1. Pure and Natural Religion In the preface to his Theodicy, Leibniz explains the essence of religion and its relation to historical religions. True or pure religion is identical with the sound piety (la solide piété) of the opening sentence. It has ever been seen that men in general have resorted to outward forms for the expression of their religion: sound piety, that is to say, light and virtue, has never been the portion of the many.5

Slightly further on, the philosopher confirms that true piety consists “in the love of God, but a love so enlightened that its fervour is attended by insight.”6 Some prophets tried to establish this piety, above all “Jesus Christ, divine founder of the purest and most enlightened religion.”7 True or pure religion is composed of virtue or the love of God, and of knowledge about God’s perfection and the destiny of man. This knowledge can be based on revelation and on reason. In principle, it had always been possible for people to develop a rational or natural religion, but only a few philosophers understood that. It was Jesus who combined rational theology and revelation in his doctrine. I refrain from considering here the other points of the Christian doctrine, and I will show only how Jesus Christ brought about the conversion of natural religion into law, and gained for it the authority of a public dogma.8

The time was ripe to disentangle revelation and reason. If well understood, their truths would conform with each other. I assume that two truths cannot contradict each other; that the object of faith is the truth God has revealed in an extraordinary way; and that reason is the linking together of truths, but especially (when it is compared with faith) of those whereto the human mind can attain naturally without being aided by the light of faith.9

5

G VI, 25, transl., 49. G VI, 27, transl., 51. See E. Naert, “L’idée de religion naturelle selon Leibniz,” in Leibniz. Aspects de l’homme et de l’oeuvre (ed. G. Bastide et al.; Paris: Aubier, 1968), 97-104. 7 G VI, 25, transl., 49. 8 G VI, 27, transl., 51. 9 G VI, 49, transl., 73. 6

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The purpose of the Theodicy is to deliver a rational or natural theology about—according to the subtitle of the book—“the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evil.” The opposite of true religion is the general human inclination to outward forms (formalités). Through this “human weakness,” common people have always turned the religion of their founders or prophets into outward forms. As true piety consists in principles and practice, the outward forms of religion imitate these, and are of two kinds: the one kind consists in ceremonial practices, and the other in the formularies of belief.10

Often, the knowledge of divine truth is reduced to formularies of belief, “obscured by the opinions of men.”11 It took a long time for natural religion to appear. The “pagans” of old times had only their mystery ceremonies, without any sound doctrine.12 Leibniz talks here about tribal religions, e.g. that of the old Teutons and Celts, but also about the polytheism of the Hindus and Buddhists. The Jews were the first monotheists, succeeded in applying the doctrine of monotheism to their laws, and were the first to express natural religion. In those ancient times, Greek philosophers, among others, tried to achieve the same, but they did not succeed in acquiring any following or in rendering their doctrine into law. Finally, Jesus Christ gave a definite view on God’s perfections and the immortality of the human soul; natural religion attained the authority of dogma. Jesus’ followers then changed this pure religion into vague rituals and confusing doctrines. Thus, whereas at its very beginning, Christianity was identical with natural religion, it was later on corrupted. Mohammed, however, stuck to “the great dogmas of natural theology . . . the true doctrine of the unity of God and the immortality of souls.”13 Thus, Jews, Christians and Muslims possess the principles of true virtue and knowledge, but their concrete churches and movements are corrupted by obscure ceremonies and irrational doctrines. Leibniz is quite careful with the use of the concepts of natural religion and natural theology. From 1624 on, Herbert of Cherbury introduced “natural religion” as a rational set of a priori truths, implanted by 10

G VI, 25, transl., 49. G VI, 25, transl., 50. 12 G VI, 25-26, transl., 50. 13 G VI, 27, transl., 51. 11

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 51 God in every human mind, and present in all religions. After him, however, the first English deists, such as Charles Blount and Matthew Tindal, in their books of 1678 and 1706, turned the meaning of natural religion into original religion, which was purportedly perverted by the priests.14 Even in Germany, Johann Georg Wachter offered a similar view in some of his books from 1702 on. From the remotest times, natural religion and philosophical truth had been virtually identical, but priests and prophets preferred exaggerated stories for the common people.15 Wachter explicitly called upon Spinoza, who would have agreed with this idea, but did not use the notion of natural religion.16 Leibniz read these books, and knew that Spinozism generally was considered as atheism. In order to avoid this suspicion of atheism and to maintain Cherbury’s original idea, Leibniz invents the variant of natural theology. As seen above, this theology is purely rational or philosophical. In opposition to the deists and Wachter, Leibniz is convinced that the light necessary for the comprehension of God and immortality will rise gradually in the course of history. He thinks that humanity is ever in progress. Further, we realize that there is a perpetual and a most free progress of the whole universe towards a consummation of the universal beauty and perfection of the works of God, so that it is always advancing towards a greater development.17

Even the concept of natural theology, however, was slightly suspect. The first printer of the Theodicy, Isaac Troyel in Amsterdam, removed this concept from the original title, and Leibniz took the precaution of publishing the book anonymously.18 Leibniz suggests that the time is ripe for natural theology as a metaphysical belief, the universal belief of enlightened people, who can combine this with their particular church or other religion, in order to achieve “sound piety.” Leibniz has no intention of comparing the principles of all historical religions and inducing general ideas as their com14

Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 604 and 620. Ibid., 649. 16 Ibid., 209. 17 G VII, 308. The translation is from G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Works, (ed. G. H. R. Parkinson; London: Dent, 1988), 144. 18 E. C. Hirsch, Der berühmte Herr Leibniz. Eine Biographie (München: Beck, 2000), 460-461. 15

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mon cause. If such were the case, he would have remained entangled in some of the contingencies of the religions. His natural theology, however, is a completely deductive metaphysics. Yet, Leibniz admits that it is precisely in the histories of Judaism and Christianity that some beliefs have been revealed which remain mysteries for the philosopher. He can try to explain them, but it is impossible to prove them or to get to the bottom of them. The holy Trinity, the creation, the incarnation of Christ, and the Eucharist are mysteries which transcend our minds.19 This means that historical events, such as the appearances of prophets or of Jesus, are important for the explanation of the principles of natural religion. Not only these contingent religious events, but scientific discoveries as well (perhaps even more so) can contribute to natural religion. The main forms of this kind of religion are knowledge (not only natural theology, but also natural science and technology) and virtue. “Sound piety” can consist of science, love of God, and charity. Ordinary people need ceremonies, moral commandments, stories of heaven and hell, etc. Such popular forms of religion are very contingent, and subject to the inclination of formalization. Expressions of natural religion are contingent as well, but purer and less vulnerable to corruption. Leibniz has two important reasons for presenting his ideas on natural religion, although he takes some risks as well. The first reason is a political one. During his entire career, he made every effort to unite the Christian churches within Europe, and to bring about a dialogue with Jews, Muslims, and other believers.20 He had not only irenic or idealistic intentions, but more importantly political and economic aims: tolerance and peace form the best base for prosperity. Natural religion can function as a common ground for dialogue, respect, understanding, and eventually cooperation between churches and religions. The second reason is a theological and philosophical one that has already been indicated in my introduction. Leibniz wanted to present his metaphysical middle course as one standing between the three contem-

19

G VI, 59, 64, 80; transl., 83, 88, 103. J. Baruzi, Leibniz et l’organisation religieuse de la terre (Paris: Alcan, 1907). P. Eisenkopf, Leibniz und die Einigung der Christenheit (München: Schöningh, 1975). 20

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 53 porary positions, as I will elaborate in the following sections. Thus, with respect to the contingency of past and present religions, Leibniz presented four important convictions: (1) All people of all times have the capacity for natural or universal religion, and they implicitly possess the truth, but only the (few) rational thinkers can really develop a natural theology and a sound piety. (2) People have a universal inclination to outward forms, not only the common people, but also religious leaders and priests; in all times and countries this tendency undermines natural theology and sound piety. (3) At several special moments in history, God revealed some of His divine mysteries through His prophets; such mysteries remain incomprehensible, but they are useful for natural theology. 4) Mankind is on a general course of progress, so that at present natural theology can be formulated and inserted into current religions and theological and philosophical debate; it can even serve as a basis for rational inter-religious dialogue. These convictions are continually met with in the Theodicy and many other works, wherein Leibniz exposes his knowledge about all kinds of historical religions, all over the (then known) world, and about all the important philosophers and theologians. He also situates these in a general system of progress, the rise of natural theology. The contents of this theology will be shown in the following sections. 2. Metaphysical Contingency: from Coincidences to Pre-Established Monads In most of his metaphysical writings, from the early Confessio philosophi to the late Monadology, Leibniz begins his reflections on contingency rather simply with the idea of coincidence. A few steps later, however, he inevitably arrives at a kind of necessity, nicely disguised as pre-established harmony. The first qualification of many contingent things and events in our world stresses their unexpected character or coincidence. Things are limited, and therefore seem to proceed by chance. “Contingent is, what is not necessary.”21 The contingent is dependent on, and in many ways opposed to the Necessary Being, which is God.22

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JESPERS Necessary is that, of which the opposite is impossible. . . . In this place we call necessary only that which is necessary through itself – that is, which has the reason of its existence and truth within itself.23

Leibniz gives more substantive definitions of God as well, which can be useful for the understanding of contingency. From this it follows that God is absolutely perfect, perfection being nothing but the amount of positive reality taken separately, putting aside the limits or bounds in the things that have them. There is in God power, which is the source of everything, knowledge, which contains the differentiation of the ideas, and finally will, which causes changes and productions according to the principle of what is the best.24

Thus, in contrast with God, created things are imperfect, limited, and dependent on Him. “Contingent is that of which the opposite is possible.”25 By this, Leibniz does not mean an exact opposite, but a variation in properties. He gives the example of animals, which have the property of an even number of legs. We can imagine animals with three or five legs, but actually we see animals with four or two, etc.; both series are possible.26 Contingency is logically related to possibility. From this, it still seems that contingent things or events are only coincidences, unexpected developments, the work of blind fate. Leibniz, however, asserts that, except for God: All other things – which follow when this series of things, that is the harmony of things, is presupposed – are contingent of themselves, and just 21

G. W. Leibniz, Confessio philosophi, in Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, section VI, vol. 3 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1923, etc.), 127. (Akademie-Ausgabe, abbreviated in what follows as A VI 3). 22 See R. M. Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 9-52. P. Stoellger, “Die Vernunft der Kontingenz und die Kontingenz der Vernunft: Leibniz’ theologische Kontingenzverwahrung und Kontingenzsteigerung,” in Vernunft, Kontingenz und Gott (ed. I. Dalferth and P. Stoellger; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 73-116. F. Jespers, De kracht in alles. Het mechanistisch en metafysisch systeem van Leibniz (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997), 58ff. 23 A VI 3, 127. 24 Monadology § 41 and 48 (G VI, 607-623). The translation is taken from N. Rescher, G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology (London: Routledge, 1991), 58-63. 25 Confessio philosophi, A VI 3, 127. 26 Ibid., A VI 3, 128.

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 55 hypothetically necessary, although nothing exists at random, because everything occurs by fate, that is by a certain order of providence.27

Here, contingency is included in the order of our world, which, according to Leibniz, is a harmonious order provided by God. Everything in this order has its fixed place and function, attuned to each other. Therefore, all things seem to be necessary, although not in the strong, logical sense, for they do not exist of themselves, and their opposite remains possible. Leibniz calls this type of necessity hypothetical, because for a contingent event the previous situation is constitutive; this situation must be included at least as its hypothesis or presupposition. Leibniz derives this notion from scholasticism, with Thomas Aquinas as its apparent source.28 Today, it is raining here, because of a depression and other circumstances of yesterday’s weather. This contingency is completely conditioned or pre-established. “Completely” does not only mean that what will happen today is inevitable, taking yesterday’s circumstances as the hypothesis or given situation; it also points back to the presupposition of the situation as it was yesterday, which in its turn inevitably followed the situation of the day before. Eventually, we have to presuppose the complete history of the world, “this series of things,” if we really want to understand what is happening today. In his later philosophy of possible worlds, Leibniz was better able to explain this type of contingency. God has all possibilities in His mind, as ideas or “essences.” In creating the world He does not try out all combinations of all possibilities in order to arrive at the best world, commanded by His goodness. No, God compares the connected series of successive possibilities, the possible worlds, and chooses the best one to bring into existence. By the “best world,” what is meant is the largest multitude of things in the strictest order, according to God’s goodness.29 Within each possible world, everything has its pre-established place and function. All things remain contingent because they could have been slightly different in another world. An existing thing, a, has its pre-established stages a1, a2, etc. In another world, however, nearly the same thing, a’, would have the series a’1, a’2, etc. These are real possibilities which will 27

Ibid., A VI 3, 128. See Summa Theologiae I.19.8 ad 1 et 3. 29 See Monadology § 54-55 and 58. 28

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never occur in our world, but which make our world contingent. Everything in our world always has innumerable alternative possibilities, and only one will be actualised according to the pre-established harmony. The possibilities that are actualised are fixed, from the creation of the world onward, by the order of providence. In this world, today it must rain, and I must write this essay.30 From these metaphysical reflections on God and creatures, Leibniz develops his radical ideas on substances, which he calls monads in his later philosophy. Every creature consists of innumerable substances. They are spiritual, infinite, and completely independent of each other; they only depend on God.31 Each substance has an enormous and unique series of spiritual attributes within itself, of which it has perceptions.32 The ultimate consequence of this metaphysics of completely independent substances within a pre-established harmony is that each substance contains all things and connections of the world spiritually reflected in internal relations. Now this connection or adaptation of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.33

Each phenomenon in this world, consisting of many substances, has a dominant substance or soul (âme), but only the soul of man has consciousness and reaches the level of a spirit (esprit). Moreover, through knowledge this human spirit not only reflects the universe, but also the Creator. In the end, the contingency of the human spirit is more or less similar to divine necessity! But the spirits are also images of divinity himself, or the very Author of nature. They are capable of knowing the system of the universe, and of imitating it to some extent through constructive samples, each spirit being like a minute divinity within its own sphere.34

30

See Discours Métaphysique § 13, G IV, 436, transl. Parkinson, 23. Monadology § 1-7. 32 Ibid., § 8 and 14. 33 Ibid., § 56. 34 Ibid., § 83. 31

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 57 In this metaphysical part of natural theology, Leibniz starts with a humble type of contingency construed as possibility, coincidence, and dependence. This seems rather scholastic and more or less Aristotelian. He ends, however, with an almost divine contingency of pre-established human spirits as a whole. This position is obviously inspired by the neoPlatonism of some Renaissance philosophers such as Mario Nizolio.35 Leibniz refutes voluntarist metaphysicians such as Descartes and Bayle, who say that God decides, creates, and intervenes arbitrarily, so that our contingency becomes coincidental, incomprehensible, and unpredictable. He also counters determinists or “fatalists” (as he calls them), such as Hobbes and Spinoza, because they would reduce God to a kind of impersonal, natural power, and the world to a necessary process. Finally, in discounting such irrationalists as Locke and Boyle, who suggest that God and mankind in the Christian faith cannot be understood at all, Leibniz asserts that God deliberately created our world as the best possible world, so that our world and its events must be comprehensive. In the history of our understanding of God and man, the various religions also have their fixed place in the pre-established progress of pure religion. 3. Epistemological Contingency: from Infinite Analysis to Scientific Insight Leibniz develops a second way of explaining contingency in his logic. He distinguishes two kinds of truth: truths of reasoning and truths of fact. “Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible, while those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible.”36 Both kinds of truth can be understood by analysis. A necessary truth can easily be resolved into simple basic ideas or postulates. Leibniz calls these postulates “primary principles” or eternal truths, not only in mathematics, but also in real life, such as our innate ideas of our self and of God.37 Thus, many truths can be understood by analysis, e.g. the truth of our world as the best possible one. We know this as a formal concept. 35 See C. Mercer, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: its Origins and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), part III. 36 Monadology § 33. 37 Ibid., § 30 and 34.

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Truths of fact, by contrast, are extremely complex. They express something about contingent things, e.g. “today I am writing this essay.” We cannot solve such a truth with the help of normal reasoning, or through the principle of contradiction. We need a more refined instrument, the principle of sufficient reason. This principle states that there must be reasonable grounds for my writing, physical causes as well as spiritual aims, which can be understood in the end. If we wanted to understand a contingent truth, we would have to carry out an infinite analysis. We would end with the complete world, because eventually every mundane thing is connected with every other thing.38 All things and events can only be comprehended through the framework of a complete pre-established harmony. Again, this harmony rests on God as the ultimate sufficient reason.39 It is clear that we cannot complete an infinite analysis; we can merely carry out partial analyses. Yet, the consequence is a positive idea of contingency. It acquires the meaning of being embedded in a harmonious, perhaps even the best possible, world, and of being connected with everything, including the past and the future. For some people, this means a feeling of determination, what Leibniz acknowledges as: everything is determined.40 This idea raises two big problems, that of free will and that of evil, which Leibniz treats in his Theodicy. I cannot go into these problems; I can only indicate the solutions given in this book. We know that our decisions and activities form a fixed part of a preestablished harmony; they are determined. In this case, freedom does not mean arbitrariness of choice, nor choice by passion. We choose by inclination, which is pre-established. Here, free will is found, first, in our active attention or spontaneity, next, in our deliberations on the possibilities and on our inclination, and finally in the confirmation of our decisions.41 Intelligence is, as it were, the soul of freedom, and the rest is as its body and foundation. The free substance is self-determining and that according to the motive of good perceived by the understanding, which inclines it without compelling it.42 38

Ibid., § 56. Ibid., § 38. 40 Theodicy § 36-37 and 58. 41 See Theodicy § 44-49, 133, 288-292, 337-340. 39

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 59 Therefore, freedom rests on knowledge. The wise are the freest people, because they decide on the basis of the best reason. “The wise mind always acts according to principles, always according to rules, and never according to exceptions.”43 For the same reason, the wise and the prophets in all religions were able to reveal divine truths. The supreme wisdom of God is the guarantee that our world is the best possible one. Evil events, such as illness or crime, are nothing more than shadows, which even God cannot avoid permitting, for He creates a world with an immense amount of limited things and human beings. Their limitations and interconnections are the cause of evil, which in itself is nothing more than a mere lack of perfection.44 This somewhat “dark” side of human life is like the shadows in a painting: they are indispensable for discerning things, but in themselves they are just areas with less light.45 In this context, contingency acquires the meaning of moral and metaphysical limitation and imperfection. Yet, we can place our trust in God’s goodness, and be sure that the totality of the good will largely surpass evil.46 Our world is harmonious and reliable, precisely because it is contingent. At the same time, this argument shows two aspects of contingency in God. The first aspect is related to the way He makes choices. His will is absolutely free, because He chooses between possibilities or contingent things. His choice is not necessary, but contingent, although His wisdom and goodness force him morally to choose the best possible world.47 God is able to distinguish this best world with the help of eternal truths, which are valid independently of Him, but have their residence or “region” in His understanding.48 The second aspect is His knowledge of this world and of others. God knows this world in one general view, not in all its details. If He knew every detail or consequence, His choice would predetermine everything. His knowledge is— in a scholastic formula—a scientia media, more or less contingent. Therefore, God’s initial or antecedent choice is just an indication or in42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Ibid., § 288. Ibid., § 337. Ibid., § 118-124, 149, 158, 241. Confessio philosophi A VI, 3, 117. Theodicy § 257-258. Ibid., § 349-351. Ibid., § 121, 199; Monadology § 43.

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clination for our world and for us; only at each “last moment” does God have a complete view over the actual universe, so that He can make a consequent or definite choice.49 Finally, these reflections on contingent truths prove that knowledge is the road both to God and to free will. Through research in history, physics and other sciences, we learn much about the pre-established order of this world, and thereby about its Creator. Moreover, this knowledge provides a great source of deliberation when we stand for choices and feel our inclinations. Knowledge, science, is an excellent form of the love of God. History shows an increase of human knowledge and a general progress within universal harmony, which will find its fulfilment in the City of God. It is this that makes wise and virtuous people work for everything that seems in conformity with the presumptive or antecedent will, and nevertheless content themselves with what God actually brings to pass by his secret, consequent or decisive will. They recognize that, if only we could sufficiently understand the order of the universe, we should find that it surpasses all the desires of the wisest, and that it is impossible to make it any better than it is, not only for the whole generally, but also for ourselves in particular, if we are properly attached to the Author of all, not only as the Architect and efficient cause of our being, but also as our Master and as the final cause, who ought to be the whole aim of our will and who alone can bring us happiness.50

In sum, our contingency in the logical and epistemological sense seems initially to be irretrievable. Furthermore, in the moral sense it is connected with limitation and imperfection. Yet, Leibniz can maintain, through the principle of sufficient reason, that all concrete knowledge of the connections of things provides insight into their pre-established position. Knowledge, especially science, helps us to understand our contingent lives, the advisable direction of our free decisions, and the way to the City of God. Within the religions, the wise and the prophets revealed divine truths. At present, we can add scientific insight to enhance natural religion. The revealed truths of God’s free creation of the world, of His providence, and of our freedom and immortality can now be understood with the help of metaphysical and epistemological insights into the pre-established harmony of our best possible world. 49 50

Theodicy § 38-39, 100, 119, 385. Monadology § 90.

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 61 4. Inter-Religious Dialogue—the Case of China In his lifetime, Leibniz made many theoretical and practical attempts to unite the Christian churches. We saw that he had political reasons for this, but he also had metaphysical grounds that lay in natural religion. In his texts about theological controversies, Leibniz often tried to reach a middle position. His practical proposals were careful and tolerant as well: mutual recognition and respect form an important starting point. There is no need to remove different practices or rituals, for they are just outward forms. The cooperation of churches is enough, the secondary differences can remain. It is in the area of dogmatic principles that consensus remains to be achieved, e.g. regarding transubstantiation. Further rapprochement is a matter for the long term. On the basis of his metaphysical position of natural religion, Leibniz as a believer could stick to a general Christian stance. He often called his position “catholic,” by which he meant Christian in general.51 For political reasons, or simply for the certainty of his job, Leibniz remained outwardly Lutheran. In an analogous sense, he was open to ideas from other religions, always returning to natural religion as his definite position. Moreover, Leibniz was convinced of the profit that could be achieved through exchanging ideas, studying alien texts and practices, etc. Within Europe, Christians could learn from the ideas which were developed in the theologies of the various churches. In the global perspective, Christians could learn from the theologies of Jews, Muslims, Confucians and others. All religions, all theologies were under construction, in progress, so their exchange and cross-fertilization would produce even more understanding. Leibniz admitted that eventually all people should convert to Christianity. For the time being, however, mutual respect and the exchange of ideas and practices would suffice. When the right time had come, the other would participate in enlightenment and Christianity, without constraint, simply on reasonable grounds. Leibniz did not doubt that, until that time, all people of good will would be saved.

51 See Leibniz’s large project Demonstrationes Catholicae (1668-1672), A VI 1, 489-560. He also wrote some “catholic” dissertations in 1680-1686: A VI 4, 22992354.

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JESPERS The objection is made that there has been and still is a countless multitude of men, among civilized peoples and among barbarians, who have never had this knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ which is necessary for those who would tread the wonted paths to salvation. But . . . one may doubt the fact: for how do we know whether they do not receive ordinary or extraordinary succour of kinds unknown to us? . . . And sundry theologians of great authority in the Roman Church itself have taught that a sincere act of the love of God above all things, when the grace of Jesus Christ arouses it, suffices for salvation.52

In Judaism, Islam and Confucianism, much of natural theology and an almost Christian morality could be discerned. In fact, Leibniz often suggested that Jews and Muslims—between which he saw few differences—represented a kind of early stage of Christianity.53 These types of monotheism were compatible with Christianity. Leibniz had a special sympathy for Judaism, because he studied its philosophy and mysticism (Kabbalah), and used its ideas in his monadology.54 However, he passed sharp criticism on Islam because of its doctrine of predestination, which would lead believers to an attitude of fatalism.55 Leibniz had a fascination for China. He collected all kinds of information about the country through books and direct communication; he even published some texts from and about China in 1697, Novissima Sinica.56 Through his contacts with the Jesuits, he managed to receive letters from missionaries in China, and as this was the first time that translations from Chinese entered Europe, this made him one of the first to acquire translations of early and recent Chinese religious and philosophical texts. This fascination could not have had any political motivation, for the German states had no relation with China. Its reason is mainly philosophical and theological; a certain sense of exoticism or orientalism also resounds in Leibniz’s writings on China. He summa-

52

Theodicy § 95. See D. J. Cook, “Leibniz’s Use and Abuse of Judaism and Islam,” in Leibniz and Adam (ed. M. Dascal and El Yakira; Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1993), 283-297. See GP II, 563. 54 See A. P. Coudert, “Leibniz and the Kabbalah,” in Leibniz, Mysticism and Religion (ed. A. P. Coudert, R. H. Popkin, G. M. Weiner; Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), 47-83. 55 See A VI 3, 129; Theodicy § 55. 56 W. Li and H. Poser, Das Neueste über China: G.W. Leibnizens Novissima Sinica von 1697, (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000). 53

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 63 rized these views in his Discourse on the natural theology of the Chinese, an unfinished manuscript written in 1716, the last year of his life.57 In the famous rites controversy, Leibniz develops his own opinion with the help of the concept of natural theology. During the 17th century, Catholic missionary orders and the Vatican became divided on the practice of using Chinese names for the Christian God, as well as on tolerating the worship of ancestors.58 The argument of the strict party (Black Friars and Franciscans) was that the Chinese were materialists who acknowledged neither a spiritual god nor a soul in man. The only way of conversion was to abolish all Chinese ideas and practices, and to impose the pure, Western concepts and rituals. Leibniz, however, recognizes a rigid, Cartesian metaphysics behind this strict party. It is by stressing the contingency of the Chinese religions that he tries to prove their familiarity with spirituality in man and gods. Leibniz intends to interpret the ancient and new authors of China in a positive way, as representations of the universal development of religious and philosophical ideas. He is a careful and even benevolent reader. One should not assure oneself of the fact that the Li of the Chinese is the first matter, or even say that it is God; initially, one should stay in suspense, and see which of the two choices is the most apparent, and whether there even is no third one.59

Leibniz discerns a kind of monotheism in the early period of Confucianism. The oldest emperors and wise men used the binary system of counting (with 0 and 1), which is very useful with religious concepts.60 This binary system proves more or less that the Chinese distinguish matter and spirit, divine and human, etc. The early monotheism was later supplemented with spirits and new gods for the benefit of the ordinary people. The best way to facilitate the conversion of the Chinese would be to engage them in dialogue and to bring them back to their 57

G. W. Leibniz, Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois (ed. Chr. Frémont ; Paris: L’Herne, 1987). See same text, (ed. W. Li and H. Poser; Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2002). 58 See D. E. Mungello, ed., The Chinese Rites Controversy (Nettetal: Steyler, 1994). W. Li, “Cultus religiosus und cultus civilis,” Studia Leibnitiana 36 (2004): 109-127. 59 Leibniz, Discours sur la théologie (ed. Frémont), 85. 60 Ibid., 138-143, 161-162, 188-189.

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original scriptures and monotheism.61 Leibniz also advises that the Chinese be allowed to pray for their ancestors. This is no idolatry, just a local use which has its parallel, in a sense, in Catholic prayers for the dead.62 It is through cultural exchange that the Chinese will be stimulated to leave their multiple gods and return to their original monotheism. In the exchange, we Westerners will learn as well. He writes to father Bouvet that not only can we teach the Chinese many things, We in turn can learn from them in one time a world of new ideas, which we otherwise would not have acquired in many centuries. I believe that, after the propagation of the true faith among the Chinese, the most solid thing is the transplantation of the knowledge and even the objects of the Chinese to us, by taking to us their books, small objects, grains, animals, machines, models, and even by bringing to us some of their scholars.63

In the rites controversy, Leibniz forms his own opinion. He agrees with the Jesuits that missionaries should use a Chinese name for the Christian God. Instead of declaring all Chinese names inadequate for the Christian God, as did the strictest party, Leibniz asserts that these Chinese names have their own function and can indicate a specific aspect of the Christian and of the natural idea of God. “Li” means reason and rule, and Leibniz understands it, from the Chinese texts, as entelechy, the “Spirit of God.”64 “Li” produces “Taikie,” which Leibniz interprets as providence.65 “Xangti” is the Lord of Heaven, who rewards or punishes people. This is the name father Ricci used for the introduction of the Christian God. The wise among the Chinese realized that ordinary people needed images and cults. Confucius, therefore, acknowledged the role of many local spirits.66 Leibniz compares them with the Christian angels. He transposes such Chinese ideas continually into his own natural theology.67 61 See Y.-T. Lai, “Leibniz and Chinese thought,” in Leibniz, Mysticism and Religion (ed. Coudert, Popkin & Weiner), 136-168. 62 Leibniz, Discours sur la théologie, 116. 63 Ibid., 176 and 180. 64 Ibid., 80-83, 89, 93. 65 Ibid., 102-103. 66 Ibid., 106, 114-118. 67 Ibid., 88-89, 93, 95, 117, 126.

UNIVERSAL RELIGION, CONTINGENCY, AND TRUTH 65 In his writings on the Chinese, Leibniz applies his theories to natural religion (my section 1), metaphysics (2), and logic and epistemology (3). He tries to interpret the texts of the ancient wise men, especially of Confucius. Later on, the Chinese added many rituals as outward forms for the benefit of the common people. Later Chinese texts contain odd doctrines as well, from which we get the impression of polytheism and materialism. Their primary metaphysics, however, is monotheistic. For the time being, contingent religious practices may be continued, whereas all religions, even natural religion, are in progress. Many other scientific ideas of the Chinese have to be studied, for our own benefit as well. 5. Conclusion Even in Leibniz’s deliberations on Chinese religions, we consistently discern the combination of historical and metaphysical arguments. The philosopher sees theological controversies, scientific contradictions, and even political tensions, at the same time, in their direct, current differences, and in their possible contribution to world history—and universal religion. In this way, the sharp edges or painful aspects of catastrophes and struggles are omitted, as Voltaire later reproached Leibniz in Candide. For Leibniz, contingencies are always moments of a pre-established order, which is the best possible one. This is a philosophical worldview which presupposes a philosophical concept of God that can be proven in metaphysics and can be expressed in natural theology. This comforting belief, however, is in a sense just formal knowledge. At the same time, there is the challenge to discover the deeper meaning of all kinds of contingent things, in daily life, in the sciences, or in the religions, in order to gain more insight into the pre-established order. No knowledge is ever definite. Even the revelation in Jesus Christ requires further explanation. The goodness of God guarantees that, generally speaking, we always proceed forwards. With this philosophical middle course, Leibniz shifts from the scholastic, theological position to a neo-Platonic view, in which he can include a part of modern, radical physics and philosophy, without giving up the ideas of comprehensibility and teleology.

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For people who do not share such a metaphysics, however, Leibniz does not take contingency seriously enough. Neither is his idea of natural religion of any use without his metaphysics. Voltaire called his worldview naive, and hurtful in relation to victims of all kinds of evil. Leibniz’s view on contingency was unacceptable to modern physicists as well, as is shown in the famous correspondence with Newton’s spokesman Samuel Clarke, from 1715-1716. Yet, Leibniz insists correctly on the connections of causality and a principal coherence and comprehensibility of the world. Even at present, physicists are aware of these connections and coherence; they do not believe in radical contingency in the sense of mere coincidence. The same goes for our current idea of truth, as growing knowledge which presupposes a coherent world. In this respect, Leibniz’s definition of contingent truth as partial knowledge is quite adequate. Finally, in a practical sense, his efforts towards exchange, the collection of knowledge, comparison, and in the end, reasonable choices, prepared the ways which scientists later followed. Most of our present scholars renounce God, metaphysics, or a universal religion, but they share with Leibniz the same hope for universal scientific and ethical progress, and further humanization of the world. In the same way, most modern Westerners act by reflecting on their inclinations, and deliberate reasonably on related rules, just as Leibniz prescribed, but usually without an appeal to God.

CHAPTER TWO

KANT ON CONTINGENCY IN CHRISTIAN RELIGION Donald Loose (Tilburg University)

1. Introduction At first sight, there is a remarkable contradiction in Kant’s philosophical writings on Christian religion. On the one hand, he eliminates all historical arguments for revealed Christian religion.1 On the other hand, the teleological moral proof for the existence of God is based entirely on the credibility of an attainable highest good, one that must have an origin historically and in the empirical world. This leads to the remarkable observation that we cannot try to prove, in an empirical way, that the principle of the good is empirically possible. The victory of the good over the empirical propensity to evil can only be proved—but then quite effectively—by the idea of an always-possible victory of the noumenal order over the empirical. According to § 87 of The Critique of Judgement, the idea of God as moral author of the world and the idea of freedom are, in themselves, sufficient grounds for the credibility of religious hope. Because the proof of the historic-empirical victory of the good cannot be derived from the historic-empirical order itself, Kant systematically eliminates all historical argumentations for a historical religion and the established church (or ecclesiastical religion). He translates the historical argumentations into an argument that applies to reason, in all times and places. The argument for rational religion (Vernunftreligion) is based first and foremost upon the possibility of the practical supremacy of noumenal freedom over the contingency of our empirical tendencies. That which logically takes priority in a practical sense is placed 1 “Alle Religion muß a priori aus der Vernunft entwickelt werden und das Historische dient nur zur Illustration, nicht zur Demonstration.” Vorarbeiten zum Streit der Fakultäten ( XXIII, 437). Page numbers refer to the Akademieausgabe. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (henceforth, Religion) is published in Vol. VI. I also make use of The Cambridge English Edition: Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason (ed. and transl. A. Wood and G. di Giovanni; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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earlier in time by historical religion: humankind was created free; it fell and was, again, set free. Contingency “of religion” is here a genitivus subjectivus: it refers to the contingent aspect of religion. Kant’s rational religious faith, which is defined entirely in moral terms, deems the contingent historicity that characterises the Christian religion (in its historic representations of a paradisiacal beginning, a Fall, a resurrection of its founder—Christ—and His church) irrelevant from an argumentative point of view. The contingent historical content of faith can be translated into philosophical terms, thus making it relevant to the struggle between the predisposition (Anlage) toward the principle of the good and the propensity (Hang) toward evil. I will elaborate this in Part 1. However, the factual desire of human beings for happiness and the representation of the possibility of the highest good in the world form the basis for the subjectively motivated moral proof of the existence of God. The hope justified by reason and which is offered by religion is based upon that contingent element of the subjective motive. The “contingency of religion” is, in this case, a genitivus objectivus: rational faith in itself implies a dimension of contingency. Christianity—even when it corresponds to rational religion and its moral core—is essentially a religion of the contingency of factual moral practical reason. The practice of noumenal freedom is based upon the free acceptance of the contingent empirical motives in the maxims of our practical decisions. The ineluctable symbolism of humankind, which is always already fallen (the propensity to evil), together with its conversion and resurrection to the good implies an inevitable but contingent choice that is given within the phenomenal intricacies of free (noumenal) man. I will elaborate this in Part 2. In Part 3, I will show that the consequences this has for freedom are significant. The factors represented by religion are not only those of reason as opposed to empirical contingency. We have to conceive both freedom and the fall (or original sin) on the level of timeless morality itself. Reversal of the priority of the moral maxim is conceived as belonging to human moral nature. This is the situation of final practical reason, as it factually is. Because of an unavoidable dialectic of freedom and its negation in the noumenal order of practical reason, final practical reason cannot deny its factual, innately (angeboren) evil nature. Moreover, noumenal practical reason cannot do without the rendering of its ideas in terms of the senses (Versinnlichung). It therefore utilises what is represented in religion analogically for morality. I

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conclude Part 4 with some remarks on the aesthetics of the sublime. Holiness, contrasted with natural propensity, and sublimity, offering resistance to nature, are all-determining characteristics of rational religion. Although Kant tends to view both the holiness of the moral law and respect (Achtung) for it as independent moral motives vested in themselves, their manifestation in a contingent aesthetic context (Versinnlichung) as sublime (das Erhabene) is an essential contrast experience for finite practical reason. It is the representation of the meaningfulness of this conflict and of the potentially good outcome of this struggle which religion adds to ethics. The contingent historical expression of Christian religion seems to fulfil the expectations of rational religion. 2. The Critique of Rational Religion Regarding the Contingency of the Historical Aspects of the Christian Religion Kant clearly states that there is only one true (rational) religion, although there may be faiths of several kinds (VI, 104). The second part of the third chapter of Religion ranges various historical religions on a progressive scale in a historical account of the gradual establishment of the principle of the good on earth, as it is figured in different religions. Christianity comes closer to a purely ethical rational religion than Judaism, and Lutheranism more so than Catholicism. He views religion as relevant only to the extent that it has something to offer in respect of human freedom: the ethical duty and the moral need to realise our freedom. He subjects each religion to a hermeneutics which not only brings forward the moral relevance of historical religions as determined by practical reason (VI, 36 and 48), but which also ignores and even negates the elements in religious texts that contradict this moral relevance. Kant states that the basic rules of explanation must always be of a philosophical nature. According to him, because only reason can judge what is meaningful and relevant for us in religious texts or events, the rules governing a hermeneutic of these texts can only be put forward by ideas of practical reason (Vernunft). We cannot base our belief in God on a historical account or on a divine commandment that came to us empirically as historically proven in historically revealed divine laws. The problem is that we must already have a certain idea of God that is justifiable by reason if we are to distinguish His true word from superstition

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or from false prophecies within that same historical testimony. As a philosopher, Kant is interested in the meaning of revealed Christian religion and the text of the Bible, but he stresses the fact that its meaning cannot be found on the basis of its epistemological, empirically verifiable, or historically handed down content. The fact that the Bible says it is God who speaks cannot be an argument for our belief in God. This amounts only to circular reasoning that proves the authority of the text by using what is in the text as a guarantee of its truth. The philosophical theologian must put forward an external argument. He must show what in particular in the Bible bears witness to the true idea of God. When the underlying meaning of a historical account is true in itself, we can use it in a moral sense irrespective of its historical accuracy. Historical cognition that has no intrinsic relation to moral improvement and, in this sense, is valid for everyone, belongs to the “adiaphora” (VI, 44). The philosophical principle of scriptural exegesis runs as follows: if a scriptural text contains certain theoretical teachings that are proclaimed sacred but transcend moral rational concepts, the text may be interpreted in the interests of moral practical reason; but, if a text contains statements that contradict practical reason, it must be interpreted in the interest of practical reason. Ecclesiastical Faith has the pure faith of rational religion (Religionsglaube) as its supreme interpreter (VI, 119). However, Kant does not wish to replace the text of the Bible with philosophy. He does not substitute a ruse of reason in the factual workings of history in place of a theoretically cognizable pattern of the facts. Instead, he shows that history can be interpreted by moral judgment. To this extent, he does not claim his desire to supplant the Biblical text with a more philosophical reading (wegphilosophieren, eine philosophische Auslegung unterschieben, VII, 38) in order to reveal its true theoretical meaning. He only wants to proffer a framework for a meaningful reading of the Bible and he regards historically revealed religion as a historical variant, akin to the aesthetic presentation (Darstellung) of the true moral idea of God. He opposes the idea that he fully reduces the Bible to ethics. He conceives rational religion (Vernunftreligion, Religionsglaube) as an inner circle containing the moral truth of revealed religion, which shares its central area with the religion of the church (Kirchenglaube, Geschichtsglaube, statutarische Religion) (VI, 12). I see as divine commandments all my moral duties (VII, 36 and 64) and, conversely, I can interpret all divine commandments on the basis of my understanding of my moral duties. In this way, divine commandments

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can also be respected in themselves and function as motives. As such, they definitely add something to morality. Religion is not identical with morality, but it is understood as being intrinsically equal (instar) to it. This shared core of rational and historical religion is entirely moral and involves my duties as a human being, which I can also discover solely by reason. A religious commandment does not differ substantially from a moral commandment. The distinction between morality and religion is purely a formal one, to the extent that I see all my moral duties in religion as divine commandments. I then impute to them the reliability of the commandments and moral respect for the lawgiver. As stated in The Conflict of the Faculties, philosophy of religion (which is entirely of a moral nature), and theology are not waging an intrinsic battle over the subject matter of intrinsically different duties. They are not fighting a territorial war. They are looking at the same moral duty in a formally different way: as self-given law, from a philosophical perspective, and as divine commandment, from a theological perspective. The theologian and the philosopher of religion can show one another their shared interest as it is formulated in the Bible and in philosophical religion, respectively. The picture of the two concentric circles, indicating the substantial similarity and the formal difference between rational religion and the religion of the church, implies that philosophy of religion and biblical theology are not closed off from each other, but that each, in its own way, comprise a part of the field which they share. In other words, they see the same thing in different ways. According to Kant, the philosopher formally clarifies, at a meta-level, the intrinsically equal nature of this shared field. He defines the mutual relations between the two doctrines (theology and philosophy of religion). It is philosophy that shows how ethics and religion are related to one another. “Morality leads inevitably to religion” (VI, 8 note). Morality, after all, encounters the issue of the feasibility of moral freedom. In addition to the two intrinsically equal duties, and to the analogous structure in a formal sense of the inner circle of rational religion on the one hand, and the revealed religion of the theologian on the other (to the extent that it coincides with the former), the moral religion of pure reason broadens (erweitert) itself in the specifically religious variant of this doctrine of duty by adding a perspective on the plausibility of morality. This religious perspective shows how moral goals are potentially attainable. In addition, there is still the much broader outer circle, within which both are located, which con-

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tains a great many contingent, ritualistic, and historical commandments and duties of the Kirchenglaube (VI, 12). This area, which entirely exceeds religion within the boundaries of reason alone, represents the purely statutory, and historically determined religious content of the religion of the church. At best, this outer circle is at the service of the shared inner core but, on its own, it may also contain elements that are in opposition to it. An example of this is the naive belief that one can be saved by outward practices alone and without a moral way of life.2 Thus, rational religion offers the hermeneutic principles for the true meaning of historical religion. Original sin, for example, cannot be a sin inherited (Erbsünde) from our first parents in the past. Kant, therefore, prefers the Latin term peccatum originarium to avoid the implication of a historic biological or juridical inheritance. Rather, original sin refers to our original innate propensity (Hang) to evil when, in the use of our freedom, the supreme maxim adopted in the choice of the will (Willkür)3 is one against the law. We must not seek an origin in time of a moral character for which we are to be held accountable (VI, 43). As the question is not what comes first in the use of our free will physically, but morally, the question is where are we to make our start (wovon wir die Anfang machen sollen) in the understanding of our free choice (VI, 118)? Whenever we say “the human being is by nature good or evil,” this only means that he holds within himself a first ground (einen ersten Grund) for the adoption of good or evil maxims and that he holds this ground qua human, universally speaking. Therefore, we can say that his moral (good or evil) character is innate in him (er ist ihm angeboren), although only in the sense that it is posited as the logically supposed ground prior (es wird zum Grunde gelegt) to every use of freedom given in experience (VI, 22). In the same way, the restoration of the original predisposition (Anlage) to the good “cannot be effected through gradual reform [in time] but must rather be effected through a revolution in the [noumenal moral] disposition (Gesinnung).” The “new man” is the result of a kind of unique moral “rebirth” outside of time, “as it were a new creation.” “If by a single and unalterable decision a human being reverses the su2

Michel Despland, Kant on History and Religion (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973), 237-46. 3 The Cambridge English Edition uses “power of choice” as a translation of Willkür but also uses “free will” as the translation of freie Willkür (VI, 118).

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preme ground of his maxims by which he was an evil human being (and thereby puts on “a new man”), he is to this extent, by principle and attitude of mind, a subject receptive to the good.” He is good in principle for God, “who penetrates to the intelligible ground of the heart (den intelligibenen Grund)” (VI, 47–48). The salvation work of the historical Christ should also be understood as the struggle between two principles: moral good and evil.4 Logically, the historical Jesus is preceded by the idea of humanity as archetype (Menschheit als Urbild) in its full moral perfection, an idea that subsequently appears in the historical Jesus as the factual example (Beispiel) of humanity pleasing to God (die Menschheit in ihrer ganzen Vollkommenheit, das Ideal der moralischen Volkommenheit, der allein Gott wohlgefällige Mensch) (VI, 74-5). From a practical point of view, this idea of humanity in its full moral perfection has complete reality within itself. The “Master’s” very death (the death of Jesus) was the ultimate manifestation of the good principle beyond history and the empirical conditions of his moral existence. He was the example of humanity in its moral perfection for everyone to follow. The good principle did not descend from heaven at one particular time but from the very beginning of the human race. The good principle appeared in an actual human being (erschien in einen wirklichen Menschen) as an example for all others. By exemplifying this principle (in the moral idea), this human being only opened the doors of freedom to all who, like him, choose to die to everything that holds them fettered to earthly life to the detriment of morality (VI, 83). The true object of the saving faith and the belief in the historical appearance of the “God-man” is not what in the God-man falls to the senses or can be cognized through experience. The true object of faith is the prototype of freedom lying in our reason, which we recognize in him. Such a faith is the same as the principle of good life conduct. Hence, we do not have two principles that differ in themselves: a historical and a rational, a heteronomous belief in an external salvation and an autonomous duty. The antinomy is only apparent. The actual content of the historical figuration of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection applies as a representation of the moral idea of the victory of the good principle, and must not be understood in a contingent 4 Giovanni B. Sala, “Die Lehre von Jesus Christus in Kants Religionsschrift,” in Kant über Religion (Münchener Philosophische Studien 7; ed. F. Ricken and F. Marty; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1992), 143–155.

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historical sense. This would lead to dogmatic anthropomorphism in religion (miraculous redemption, conversion through pure mercy, belief in divine predestination) and to the superstition of a statutory, purely external, ritually mediated redemption. This language of images is only the vehicle and the figurative instrument (Vehikel und Leitzeug) leading to the true religion of reason. If religion represents the belief and the trust in the triumph of the good in Christ as a sacrifice on the part of God (of His own son) for humanity, then we must realise that this is only an image, a metaphor, for the analogy of the highest sacrifice for the suprasensitive (morality) in ourselves. It is symbolism that applies kath'anthropon in accordance with the human capacity to understand, and not an objective, defining truth about God (VI, 81 note). 3. Contingency as an Essential Dimension of Rational Moral Religion In the same way the moral sense of duty proposes a perfectly moral kingdom of harmonized respectable objectives, so the holiness of man is represented in the perspective of a Kingdom of God on earth based on His commandments.5 The analogy between morality and religion is based upon the idea of the highest good, which is a necessary consequence of moral duty. The question of whether my duty is realisable and credible leads to the question of how welfare and happiness come to be added to virtue. In this sense, “contingency of religion” also refers to a contingent element of rational moral religion itself. In Religion, Kant restricts himself to a footnote in the Foreword to the First Edition to call to mind the only valid proof of the existence of God (VI, 7). The empirically anchored final object of a morally free choice is an essential element of the highest good. “[I]t is one of the inescapable limitations of human beings and of their practical faculty of reason . . . to be concerned in every action with its result, seeking something in it that might serve them as an end.” In this end human beings seek something that they can love. This is the decisive argument for religious belief.6

5 Alfred Hablicher, Reich Gottes als Thema des Denkens bei Kant. Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und systematische Studie zur kantischen Reich-Gottes-Idee (Tübinger Studien zur Theologie und Philosophie 2; Mainz: Matthias-GrünewaldVerlag, 1989).

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Kant takes for granted the argument in § 87 of the Critique of Judgement (V, 450). The moral law obliges us unconditionally. At the same time, the moral law a priori implies a specific final goal: the highest possible good in the world, realised by freedom. This implies that human happiness (Glückseligkeit) presumes the moral dignity to be happy, and conversely that morality implies being worthy of happiness as its end. If we are to think that this end is accessible, then it is necessary for finite reason also to assume a moral author of the world (Weltursache) on subjective grounds, based on the morally justified longing for happiness. After all, the morality to which we are obliged does not, on its own, lead to happiness. But the search for happiness, which is inescapably implied in the desire to achieve our intended goals, is indispensable to our acts, which are subjectively motivated. For this reason, Kant calls linking the prospect of the potential highest good in the world to the idea of God “a synthetic a priori judgement.” It is a priori because it concerns the highest possible goal given unconditionally as a duty within moral law. The highest possible good cannot be deduced a posteriori from our factual empirical desire for happiness. Nor is it an a posteriori, purely hypothetical observation that a moral person can sometimes influence happiness. The highest possible good is given synthetically, and not analytically, with the categorical imperative because moral duty does not necessarily imply that happiness can be attained by it. Neither a highest empirical good, which is only determined by factual contingent expectations, nor the supreme moral good (oberste Gut) are themselves able to realise the highest good (höchste, vollendete Gut) in the world. A union of the metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of freedom is therefore only conceivable if alongside the order of nature and freedom a moral author of the world collaborates as the potential unifier of the two. According to The Critique of Judgement: [W]e are justified in assuming a nature of things harmonizing with such a possibility – for this possibility is subject to a condition which does not lie in our power, and unless nature played into our hands the realization of the final end would be impossible. Hence, we have the moral justification for supposing that where we have a world we have also a final end of creation. (V, 455)

6 Cf. Religion, General Remark III: “The very freedom, when applied to the final object of practical reason (the realisation of the final moral end), is alone what inevitably leads us to holy mysteries” (VI, 138).

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The guarantee of a moral author of the world is—as a guarantee of the possibility of realising the highest good in the world—also the condition that makes possible a historical evolution of humanity in the direction of this goal.7 This is because we cannot imagine in the factual historical and personal empirical circumstances of our existence how the negative impact of the motive of our morally unqualified desire for happiness can be corrected by the purely moral motive. Because of the evil priority of our maxims, which is always a fact due to our natural propensity toward evil, we cannot correct ourselves. Without duty as the intermediary, the desire for happiness is an obstacle to morality. This same obstacle must be corrected by morality, which forms an obstacle to happiness8. Morality itself must remove its obstacle and become an obstacle to its own obstacle. This is the assignment given to finite practical reason, which it can only complete with the aid of a morally intended, omnipotent lawgiver and helper. Only moral religion offers an answer to the question of how the moral law can continue to be realised by finite reason in contingent reality. The idea of God as moral lawgiver answers the question of what can apply unconditionally for us as a moral commandment. The idea of God as moral author of the world answers the question of whether the realisation of the moral law is possible for us. For us, the necessity of the duty and the possibility of its realisation cannot be analytically related. The answer, “you can because you ought to” (du kannst denn du sollst) ends in the question “how can I?” The moral law only shows us the noumenal order of freedom, which always applies. The idea of the highest good, however, links the moral law to the empirical and historical conditions of finite fallen freedom. For this reason, the distinction between the purely rational qualification of the noumenal lawgiving will (Wille) and the concrete, not exclusively rationally motivated choice of the will (Willkür) is of the highest importance. In the introduction to The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant underlines that where Wille refers to the rational determining ground (Bestimmungsgrund) of the choice of the will (Willkür), the latter itself is also affected by non-rational motives, although it is never determined (bestimmt) by them. It is never pure, but 7

Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, “Die Paradoxie in Kants Religionsschrift und die Ansprüche des moralischen Glaubens,” in Kant über Religion, 168–180. 8 Bernard Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987).

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it can always be determined by pure will (VI, 213). To the extent that rational religion offers more than a repetition of the categorical, unconditional duty of the moral law, its content rests entirely on the contingency of the nature and motivation of human beings, and of the historical situation of humanity as a whole, which is determined in part by their contingent experience of radical evil. Nevertheless, Kant does stick to his guns in distinguishing the pure rational will (Wille) from the factual contingent choice of the will (Willkür), a faculty which has temporal manifestations and contingent motives. Willkür can, indeed, always and at any moment make the evil choice in choosing to be determined by the inclinations of its sensible nature. Moreover, Kant introduces in Religion the concept of a general disposition (Gesinnung), i.e., the first subjective ground of the adoption of all maxims. This ground can only be a single one, either good or evil, and it applies to the entire use of freedom (VI, 25). It accounts for the continuous responsibility in the exercise of our free will. It is an enduring pattern of our moral intention. But against the always possible— and, in fact, always applicable—evil disposition, due to the propensity to evil, which also enables us to discern our captivity to the evil principle, Kant also underlines that we can always fight against this disposition. The predisposition (Anlage) to the good and the absolute freedom of the rational will (Wille) always remain unaffected.9 “To look for a temporal origin of free actions as free (as though they were natural effects) is a contradiction; and hence it is also a contradiction to look for the temporal origin of the moral constitution [in general] (moralische Beschaffenheit) of the human being” (VI, 40). This constitution is the intelligible—not empirical—ground of the exercise of freedom (Gebrauch der Freiheit). As a factual exercise, it is contingent; as the ground of the exercise of freedom, however, it is, just like the determining ground of the free power of choice in general, determined by reason alone (VI, 40). Therefore, moral conversion is always possible.

9

Despland, Kant on History and Religion, 189-192; See C. Piché, “L’enracinement du mal dans la subjectivité chez Kant” in Criticisme et religion (ed. M. Castillo; Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004), 49–71. Piché explains convincingly the botanic metaphors as an indication for Kant’s intention to isolate moral practical reason from the principle of evil. It is the choice of the empirically situated free will that accepts the evil maxim but not the morally legislative free will itself.

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Even so, however, both the fall from “original” innocence into evil, and the “return” from radical evil to the good, still presuppose, in all respects, an intimate interaction between the a-temporal world of noumenal freedom and the phenomenal world with respect to the contingent conditions of the free choice of the will in a temporal and at the same time moral world of freedom. The propensity to evil is—just like any propensity—a subjective ground of the possibility of an inclination in so far as the possibility of an inclination is contingent (VI, 29). 4. Finite Practical Reason: a Contingent Internal Conflict in the Rational Domain of Freedom Itself Contingency characterises not only the phenomenal world. Kant continually stresses the fact that our “nature” or our “propensity” is not evil in itself (VI, 35), and that the essence of the conflict with moral practical reason is not to be found in it. This is the view taken by the Stoics, and it is, in fact, a view that is too optimistic. In this case, evil would be eliminated once we silenced the passions and we might therefore assume that we can resist evil, in full confidence, with our reason. But, in Kant’s view, our application of reason itself is perverted, and the guile of reason is to use reasonable arguments to understand the impure motive in which the contingent inclination can act as a morally reasonable maxim. The fallen reasonableness of finite reason implies that reason itself tends to accept the motives that arise from the contingent inclination, and not from reason itself, in a reasonable manner as moral motives. Only the free choice of the will can be responsible for moral goodness or evil. In moral evil, we are confronted with our own free and rational decision not to decide in a purely moral, free, and rational way. We encounter morality as an obligation not just because we are finite— this is the position of the Critique of Practical Reason—but also because we are wicked, that is, disposed to depart from morality for contingent and irrational reasons of our own, which we wilfully judge to be good reasons. The heart is crooked beyond all imagination.10 Indeed, this perverted application of reason cannot be understood as perverted reason. The ground (Grund) for evil cannot be placed in morally legislative reason itself, as if reason could extirpate within itself the 10

Despland, Kant on History and Religion, 192–193.

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dignity of the law and be, itself, corrupted. Our sensuous nature contains too little to provide a ground for evil in the human being; an evil reason (boshafte Vernunft)—an absolutely evil will (schlechthin böser Wille)—would, on the contrary, contain too much (VI, 35). So there is, indeed, a deeply rooted perverted moral rationality, “a perversity of the heart” (VI, 37: böses Herz) on the level of our free and rational moral choice (Willkür) and in the exercise of reason, although moral lawgiving reason itself cannot be perverted.11 As already said, the origin of evil according to reason (Vernunftursprung VI, 39) refers to the effect of evil from its first cause, i.e., from that cause which is not in turn the effect of another cause in time (Zeitursprung). We are not dealing then with its occurrence (Geschehen) but its existence (Dasein). The determination of our free choice in the production of an effect is always also bound to its determining ground, not in time, but merely in the representation of reason as an implication in the determination of the decisive motive in the maxim. In this sense, reason is always involved, even in the underevaluation of reason as the determining ground. Both moral evil and moral good are present at both the phenomenal level of decision-making and the noumenal level of the determination. This implies a more dynamical and more dialectical relationship than the contrast of the noumenal good will and the phenomenal or temporal condition of moral guilt.12 This also means that salvation cannot be found in a purely unconflicted noumenal moral goodness, but only in the idea of an endless—timeless or infinite—progress of the moral disposition (Gesinnung) towards moral perfection. Even transcending the contingency of our empirical conditions, the idea of the moral progress of our moral disposition in immortality, represented as continuous after death throughout an “infinite time,” is postulated as the necessary prerequisite to be counted in God’s sight as perfected holiness. On the other hand, this also opens already a perspective of hope for a well-intended actor in the temporary conditions of life. It also means that although our deeds are every time (jederzeit) and at each instant (in jedem Zeit11

Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom; Piché, “L’enracinement du mal dans la subjectivité chez Kant,” 56. This position is opposed to the suggestion in Jean-Louis Bruch, La philosophie religieuse de Kant (Paris: Aubier, 1968), 18 and Christoph Schulte, Radikal Böse: Die Karriere des Bösen von Kant bis Nietzsche (Munich: Fink, 1988), 100–112. 12 R. M. Adams, introduction to Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason, XX.

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punkte) defective and inadequate to a holy law, the disposition (Gesinnung) from which the deed derives—the intention of the infinite progression—and which transcends the senses, can be considered as a perfect whole as such (überhaupt) (VI, 67). So, the conflict is not purely between noumenal practical reason and phenomenal contingency. The conflict is resumed in the noumenal order of freedom itself as a conflict between innate predisposition and innate propensity by which practical reason becomes entangled with itself in an internal struggle, which at the same time must be deemed to be contingent and not necessary. This is the situation of finite practical reason, which remains inexplicable and inconceivable for reason itself according to Kant. The propensity to evil remains inexplicable (unerforschlich) to us. “There is no conceivable ground (kein begreiflicher Grund) for us, therefore, from which moral evil could first have come in us” (VI, 42–43). Moreover, how it is possible that a naturally evil human being should make himself into a good human being surpasses all of our concepts (VI, 45). How it is possible that the mere idea of conformity to law in general can be a more powerful incentive (Triebfeder) than anything conceivable as deriving from advantages can neither be understood by reason nor verified by examples from experience (VI, 63). The question of how humankind can ever be uplifted again in a purely moral manner to the moral good in the equally inconceivable circumstances of the individual and collective tendency to evil remains a mystery to reason in The Religion. A human being can only hope to achieve this through the cooperation of the moral lawgiver. But he can only appeal to this cooperation in a morally justified manner if he merits it from a moral point of view. Kant struggles throughout the book with the problem of satisfaction and redemption based on our own ability and inability to restore the original good. He struggles with it in the General Remarks at the end of Sections 1 and 3 and calls it, in Section 2, Part VII, a remarkable antinomy of human reason with itself. Either faith in the absolution of the debt we carry will elicit good life conduct, or the true and active disposition of good life conduct will elicit faith in that absolution. The two conditions add up to one faith. They belong together necessarily. The necessity of the connection cannot be seen, however, unless we assume that one faith can be derived from the other. But this is only the reformulation of the antinomy. This conflict cannot be mediated through insight into the causal determination of the freedom of a

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human being (insight into the causes that make a human being become good or bad). It cannot be solved theoretically and it totally surpasses the speculative capacity of our reason. But from the perspective of the practical (moral) interest of reason, there is no hesitation in deciding that we are to make our start from what we ought to do (VI, 117–118). The General Remark at the end of Part 3 opens as follows: Investigation into all forms of faith that relate to religion invariably runs across a mystery behind their inner nature, i.e. something holy, which can indeed be cognized (gekannt) by every individual, yet cannot be professed (bekannt) publicly, i.e. cannot be communicated universally. As something holy it must be a moral object, hence an object of (practical) reason and one capable of being sufficiently recognized (erkannt) internally for practical use; yet as something mysterious, not for theoretical use . . . (VI, 137).

Hence we shall have to look directly into the inner, subjective, part of our moral predisposition in order to see whether any religious mystery can be found in us. As regards the ground of morality (freedom), although this is inscrutable to us, we do not have to count it as a holy mystery. Freedom is, indeed, susceptible and open to public disclosure and communication, even though its cause is not given to us in an empirical way. Thus, freedom is not a mystery, though its cause is. And this very freedom, when applied to the final object (the highest good) is what inevitably also leads to religion and to holy mysteries. Here, the abyss regarding what God may do for us opens up before us (VI, 138–9). Indeed, the acceptance of the mystery of satisfaction—either through our moral behaviour or divine grace—just repeats the antinomy that this satisfaction should and should not be the precondition of our actual moral goodness.13 With the idea of radical evil (situated in freedom itself and collectively widespread and universal), with the issue of whether it is possible to recover that fallen freedom, and with the question of the basis for the attainability of the highest good in these factual conditions of human existence, Kant has definitely entered the realm of problems that no longer concern the grounding of metaphysics of morals as such, but that must manage to maintain the metaphysics of morals in the contingent empirical circumstances of finite practical reason. Whereas the earlier analyses could be satisfied with the development of the idea of freedom as 13

Vossenkuhl, “Die Paradoxie in Kants Religionsschrift,” 177.

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such and the will that wishes to be free in perfected auto-determination, here, consideration must be given to the human being as he factually exists.14 Kant focussed on “religion within the boundaries of mere reason,” and so he was only able to point towards that aspect of religion. What falls beyond the boundaries is inconceivable. And yet, from the inside out, practical reason reflects its own boundaries. We are speaking here of a boundary (Grenze); what can be imagined on the boundary— in contrast to the limits (Schranken) —refers to what lies beyond.15 So we see finite reason once again entangled in a conflict with itself when it wishes to respect the limits of its own capacity and at the same time nevertheless understands these limits to be inadequate. Therefore, final reason feels itself obliged to represent, in an aesthetic (sinnlich) way that fits with the contingent character of the limits of its understanding, the indemonstrable ideas of reason that transcends them. The rendering of moral ideas in terms of sense (Versinnlichung sittlicher Ideen) is based on a certain analogy in our reflection on both the sensible and supersensible (Critique of Judgement, § 57, remark and § 60). This finally leads us to the ultimate inevitability of thinking the infinite preconditions of our finite reason by finite reason itself and to the need for empirical signs to represent the unrepresentable.16 We are in search—although only in an indirect symbolic representation (symbolische Darstellung)—of hints and signals of the attainability of all our moral duties and the credibility of this noumenal idea.

14 E. Weil, Problèmes kantiens (Paris: Vrin, 1970), 153; P. Ricoeur, “Une herméneutique philosophique de la religion: Kant,” in idem, Lectures 3. Aux Frontières de la Philosophie (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 19–40. 15 I. Kant, Prolegomena, § 57–59 (IV, 350-357). 16 H. d’Aviau de Ternay, La Liberté kantienne. Un impératif d’ Exode (Paris: du Cerf, 1992); “Quelques pistes pour une lecture de l’essai de Kant sur la religion à partir de la troisième critique,” in Criticisme et religion, 73–88; H. Bielefeldt, Symbolic Representation in Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); F. Marty, La naissance de la métaphysique chez Kant. Une étude sur la notion kantienne d’analogie (Paris: Beauchesne, 1997); A. Pieper, “Kant und die Methode der Analogie,” in Kant in der Diskussion der Moderne (ed. G. Schönrich and Y. Kato; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1996), 92–112.

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5. Symbolic Representation and the Sublime To apply the noumenal ideas of reason, we must always appeal as well to a representation that has an empirical basis only via a figuration in time. Now the noumenal idea of freedom always had its foundations in our empirical existence via the experience of moral duty. It is this experience of duty that allows an analogous exercise of thought to complete itself concerning the purely philosophical, perfectly noumenal ideas of morality on the one hand, and its empirical figuration via the type (typos) of law on the other. This typos of peremptory law is also expressed in time and in history by revealed religion, which formulates my duties as divine commands and as divine laws of a divine lawgiver. It is impossible for us to experience empirically the perfectly moral will. It appears to us only as duty, as a commandment to be holy, in conflict with our empirical inclination. According to Kant, we must include the idea of a moral legislator—imagined as something other than ourselves—in our moral self-legislation. Hence, we interpret the law as given to us. In a moral respect, this law is given in autonomous self-determination, but it is experienced as peremptory.17 The commandment to be holy is always present, despite our fallen existence, and its realisation is always possible—although only represented as a ceaseless progression. Imagined in this way, the final goal of a highest good and happiness continues to be possible. A historically revealed faith figures these problems as a drama played out in time. It represents the world as resulting from the creation of a moral creator and lawgiver, an omnipotent author who is Himself endowed with the power of reason and with will, and who situates the final goal of creation, based on a moral intention, in the welfare of humanity as obedient to His law. The fact that this same humanity has an ineluctable propensity for evil and must always see itself as having fallen from that goal does not stand in the way of a possible final victory of the principle of good. This is shown by the archetypical person on earth who was pleasing to God, namely, Christ, who came to earth and who, in his total obedience, simultaneously represents the archetype of the possible uplifting of the human being to the supra-sensitive in itself. This ideal is even ultimately propagated as the destination of all human17 Cf. Religion, VI, 2 note. J. Rogozinski, Le don de la loi: Kant et l’énigme de l’éthique (Paris: PUF, 1999).

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ity (VII, 65–66) and in this sense it is an announcement of the coming of a Kingdom of God at the end of time, a Kingdom in which God will become everything in everything. According to Kant, it is the Christian religion that introduces this specific symbolism, which is a form of aesthetic figuration and representation of the moral idea of freedom. Based on a succession in time which is not necessary but is imagined as a contingent chronology of the free choice of the will (Willkür), the contingent, but at the same time ineluctable, destiny of finite freedom is sketched. The ineluctable sequence from free predisposition to good, propensity to evil, and resurrection of the good represents the contingent factual conditions for finite practical reason. According to Despland,18 the implications of the time-bound condition of humankind not only result in the specific themes of Kant’s philosophy of history and his political philosophy, namely, the notion of a progressive realisation of freedom and the actual power of freedom to realise itself in history. They also confront humankind with the problem of factual evil that is the first and foremost obstacle that stands in the way of the realisation of freedom. This main topic of the philosophy of religion unavoidably introduces the usually hidden suspicion that time is more than a form of our sensitivity. It departs from the doctrine that the temporal human being is phenomenal, and that— as a noumenon—it does not participate in time or the senses. The very predisposition to duty, proclaiming as it does a divine origin, has a sublime effect on the mind (Religion,VI, 50). Contrary to Yovel,19 I do not regard Kant’s Religion merely as a treatise with a rhetorical structure that wishes to make religion innocuous, and wishes to retain the sublime aura only as a pedagogical added value for the propagation of his own autonomous moral vision. Yovel points out how Kant always defines religion as the recognition of all our duties as “divine commands” (VII, 34 and 64), not as “commands of God.” In his view, Kant merely wants to retain the sublime religious aura for purposes of instruction. The sublime ultimately becomes self-glorification, thus undermining the desired intention.

18

Despland, Kant on History and Religion, 160. Yirmiyahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 209. 19

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In the Kantian perspective, sublimity does not reside in any of the things of nature but only in our own minds in so far as we may become conscious of our moral superiority over nature within and also outside us. It is only under the presupposition of this moral idea within us, and in relation to it, that we are capable of attaining the idea of the sublimity (Erhabenheit) of that Being—God—which inspires deep respect (Achtung) in us, not by the mere display of His might in nature, but more by the moral faculty which is implanted in us. Athough Kant sketches the sublime as the faculty of estimating ourselves as independent (unabhängig) of nature and discovering a pre-eminence (Überlegenheit) above nature, and as the foundation of self-preservation (Selbsterhaltung) which saves the humanity in our own person from humiliation (unerniedrigt), he also stresses the humility (Demütigung) present in the sublime faculty. We also need this experience of humility in addition to the high estimation of ourselves (Selbstschatsung). This is not submission (Unterwerfung), prostration (Niedergeschlagenheit), utter helplessness (Gefühl der ganzliche Ohnmacht), or fear in the face of God’s omnipotence in nature; rather, it is the admission of our situation of fallen freedom and guilt. What the sublime feeling consists of is that, on the one hand, one manages, from one’s own pure moral intention, fearlessly to judge God’s omnipotence in nature regarding his own estate as exalted above it (über dieselbe erhaben), but, on the other hand, one realizes that in a practical or moral respect one actually always falls short. In this sense, humility, taking the form of an uncompromising judgement of shortcomings, is a sublime temper of the mind (Critique of Judgement, § 28). At the same time, a real confrontation of reason with the limits of its own possibilities, in addition to our moral self-assignment (Selbstbestimming), needs a positive experience in order to trust that assignment. That the realisation of the highest good is possible must, at the ontological level, be evidenced at least in a trace (Spur) or a hint (Wink) of nature (§ 42) in addition to its signals of superior power and chaos. Kant observed that signal most particularly in our interest in the form and the recognition of patterns that are at issue both in beauty and in morality. Subjectively, our disinterested need for tuning in to these patterns is crucial. Beautiful things show us that we fit into the world.20 There seems to be a need for an empirical basis presupposed as a contingent context of meaning and value, prior to the meanings and values that we create in order to be able to consider the reign of moral ends attainable as the

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end of creation.21 The feelings that belong to the pure moral intention, therefore, are not only obedience (Gehorsamkeit) and humility (Demütigung), but also gratitude (Dankbarkeit) (§ 86, remark), to which Kant adds, “Imagine a man at the moment when he is disposed to moral feeling. If, amid beautiful natural surroundings, he is in calm and serene enjoyment of his existence, he feels within him a need of being grateful for it to someone” (§ 86, remark, cf.§ 91, appendix, note). We are dealing here with a reflective aesthetic judgement that always has a contingent character. 6. Conclusion I would argue that for Kant, himself, the essence of religion is not, in the end, morals, but hope, trust, forgiveness, reconciliation, and gratitude in the contingent conditions of mankind. Nevertheless, the risk of a functional recovery of religion still remains as long as religion is only seen as a contiguous extension of a metaphysics of freedom and morality. Kant’s representation of the relationship between ecclesiastical faith and moral faith in the Preface to Religion and in The Conflict of the Faculties as two concentric circles can easily give rise to a false conception of religion. The risk inherent in that model is, on the one hand, the illusion that the kernel of both disciplines is considered to be completely identical, and, on the other hand, that this unique common kernel is ultimately reducible to morality. First of all, these two circles will never overlap completely, as Kant himself emphasises. Moreover, they share a sublime dimension of our existence, which, in itself, is not, and will never be, an undivided experience. There is a split in the experience of duty in morality itself and, furthermore, there is the experience of the given, the grace, the help from outside in religion. The accent on selfdestination in morality and on gratitude for the given in religion is different. That is the reason why the metaphysics of freedom also has to

20 “Die Schöne Dinge zeigen an daß der Mensch in der Welt passe” Refl. 1820a (XVI, 127); cf. I. Kant, Critique of Judgement § 42 and 91, Appendix; B. Recki, Aesthetik der Sitten (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001); P. Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 21 Despland, Kant on History and Religion.

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deal with the contingent aesthetic experience beyond the limits of our moral duty. Morality inevitably leads to religion. It does so because of the contingent character of our factual moral existence. Although Kant goes beyond the historical contingency of the religious truth revealed in Christ, the son of man, in moral and universal rational religion (of which Christ is only an example), his view of religion, contrary to what is popularly claimed, cannot be reduced to timeless and non-historical rational ideas or to the formal lawfulness of timeless practical reason. Kant proves to be somewhat able to appreciate the contingent expression of the Christian religion as Leitzeug and Vehikel of the true rational religion. Revealed religion presents itself explicitly as a drama about the vicissitudes of human freedom over time. Reason seems to need this drama, presented as an occurrence in time, in order to adequately bring up the moral content of rational religion (the original predisposition to good, the propensity to evil, the dominion of the good principle). In this sense the representations and even the rituals of a historical incarnate religion as anchored in the church are quite useful. Prayer and communion in worship, cohesion with the tradition, and the factual assembly of the members are just as many indispensable representational and sensitive means that remind us of our invisible and supra-sensitive destiny (VI, 192). Churches, to the extent that they can be regarded as the outward aspect of the moral community (a community in which all subjects are ruled not by the legalism of outward allegiance to laws but by moral intention), are seen by Kant as the visible forms of the Kingdom of God on earth. They can have a causal influence of their own that contributes to the coming of the Kingdom of God—the internal moral reign. In this sense, the gradual historic evolution towards rational moral religion can be regarded as an objective sign of the historic coming of the Kingdom of God on earth (VI, 122). In the third part of Religion, Kant can therefore correlate this whole drama of freedom— the triumph over the evil principle and the recapturing of good—in two analogous ways: as a “philosophical representation of the victory of the good principle in the founding of a Kingdom of God on earth” (VI, 956) and as a “historical representation of the gradual establishment of the dominion of the good principle on earth” (VI, 124-36). Kant has unnecessarily worked himself into an insoluble dilemma that comes forward clearly in Religion: he wants to prove the empirical realisation of freedom in an unhistorical and non-empirical manner. The only argument for the reality of the idea of God is the moral argument

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that it must be possible to carry out the moral law in the circumstances of our empirical contingent existence. But, in Religion, this specifically religious argument must, time and again, yield to the purely moral requirement. In this way, our faith in the possibility that morality can be realised in a manner that also pays heed to our contingent natural need, and to the fact that the contingency of our nature is not merely a resistance of the moral appeal which is valid in itself, becomes implausible. The requirement of morality in itself also becomes questionable. It would seem that Kant removes the very foundation for his reasoning not only by refusing to accept each and every historical or empirical argument as its foundation but also turning his back on each and every historical indication or representation of its credibility. He could abandon the moral proof of the existence of God, but then the requirement of morality becomes incredible as well. As an alternative, he could give up his suspicions of the empirical and historical indications. He could do the latter without having to reduce his morality to a foundational heteronomous, contingent, and historical dogmatic religious argument. He could suggest the credibility of his autonomous morality with the potential historical realisation of its ideal in a reflective judgement, without taking this as a basis for the validity of morality. Then, merging the autonomy of practical reason with the belief in a moral image of God would no longer constitute an obstacle to linking personal responsibility and grace. The dialectics of finite and infinite reason would necessarily lead to a representation of freedom that cannot simply be reduced to a conflict between noumenon and factual contingency. This conflict, rather, would show that what can be imagined on the boundaries of rational religion is inconceivable for rational religion itself, as Kant himself accepted. At a noumenal level, the conflict becomes a mystery for finite reason. Finally, the ethics of freedom would still lead us, inevitably, to the dimension of the religious sublime, to the realm of the mysterious and the holy.

CHAPTER THREE

THE LESSING/SCHUMANN CONTROVERSY LESSING’S STANCE ON CONTINGENCY COMPARED TO KANT’S STANCE Dirk-Martin Grube (Utrecht University)

Zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten können der Beweis von notwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten nie werden1

This quote is one of the most famous quotes in philosophy (of religion). At least, in the German-speaking context, it is frequently used. It symbolizes a particular problem, namely that there is a difference between what is historically contingent and what is necessary. More precisely, it points to the existence of a logical gap2 between what is historically contingent and what is necessary. It implies that it is impossible to reason from the contingent to the necessary. This quote comes from Lessing. And the problem of the existence of an unbridgeable gap between the historically contingent and the necessary is firmly linked with his name in the literature. To be sure, others have pointed out before Lessing that the truths of faith cannot be derived from history.3 Yet, at least in the German literature on the issue, his name is so firmly linked with this problem that it is sometimes simply called “Lessing’s Problem.”4 In this article, I will focus on analysing the abovementioned quote. It is often held to demonstrate Lessing’s a-historical convictions. I will show that this view is mistaken. Lessing does not despise historical con1 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft,” in Philosophische und Theologische Schriften II (vol 8 of Gesammelte Werke: ed. P. Rilla; Berlin: Aufbau, 1968), 9-16, 12. 2 Lessing refers to this gap as a “garstiger breiter Graben” ( Beweis, 14)—a quote that has become almost as famous as the one on “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten” (see below, section 8). 3 For a collection of examples, see Johannes von Lüpke, Wege der Weisheit: Studien zu Lessings Theologiekritik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 86-7. 4 Lüpke, Wege der Weisheit, 86 [my translation].

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tingency out of principle. Although this quote seems to oppose historicity,5 a closer scrutiny of its context will show that it does not. And by comparing it to Lessing’s view on historicity/contingency in Nathan the Wise, we will see that he can even make constructive use of historicity (see below, section 11). The quote in question comes from Lessing’s Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft (in the following, Beweis). In order to interpret it appropriately, I will carry out an in-depth analysis of Beweis by embedding it in its proper context, viz. the controversy between Lessing and Schumann (sections 1–5). In sections 6–7, I will provide an interpretation of this controversy in terms of the current epistemological discussion. In section 8, I will draw out the consequences of the interpretation suggested with regard to the question of Lessing’s stance on theological issues. In section 9, I will summarize Kant’s stance on contingency. In section 10, I will compare Kant’s stance on contingency to Lessing’s in Beweis, and in section 11, to Lessing’s stance in Nathan the Wise. Finally, in section 12, I will summarize Lessing’s stance on contingency. My point is to demonstrate that he does not abhor contingency and historicity. Thus, it is not true that all German Enlightenment thinkers attempt, like Kant, to avoid contingency and historicity. 1. Background of the Lessing/Schumann Controversy Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) was a well-known professor of oriental languages and a respected citizen of the city of Hamburg. Although he appeared to be an orthodox Christian on the outside, he was not so in his heart: Secretly, he began writing about his doubts concerning Christianity from 1730 onwards and finished a manuscript, Fragments, shortly before he died (1786). In it, he attempts to unmask the biblical miracle stories as based upon lies. He points to internal contradictions of the biblical writings, e.g. in the stories of the resurrection. He even goes so far as to deny the biblical authors all “virtuousness” and

5 When I use historicity in the following, contingency is also implied, even when I do not mention it explicitly (for the link between both terms, see also the introduction to this volume).

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calls them “traitors.”6 He reduces the notion of revelation to the truths of reason, where the latter are understood within Enlightenment boundaries.7 Only a very few close friends knew about Reimarus’ doubts and he did not want his Fragments to be published, neither in his lifetime nor after his death.8 Yet, by chance, Lessing got his hands on them after Reimarus’ death. He received a number of writings from Reimarus’ literary estate, among them the Fragments. Most likely, Reimarus’ children handed them over to Lessing, with whom they were friends.9 A librarian at Wolfenbüttel at that point, Lessing published seven Fragments between 1774 and 1778. The publication of these Fragments, especially of the very last one, triggered a heated controversy. Enlightenment-minded citizens, especially among the educated bourgeoisie, welcomed this criticism of religion. They agreed at least with the general outline of the argument. Doubts about Christianity circulated in enlightened circles anyway, and the Fragments were nothing but a manifestation in writing of these doubts. Other contemporaries, especially conservative Christians, abhorred the Fragments. And we will see below that even a moderate Christian like Schumann rejected them, although he did not offhandedly deny the achievements of the Enlightenment.10 Although Lessing distanced himself in the Gegensätze des Herausgebers from the views of the Fragments, he was soon identified with them. As a consequence, he became the main target of the conservative critique. The authorities, however, feared the social consequences of the controversy. Lessing lived in Wolfenbüttel at that time of his life and

6 See, e.g. Helmut Thielicke, Glauben und Denken in der Neuzeit: Die großen Systeme der Theologie und Religionsphilosphie (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), 93. 7 For the point that Reimarus was a radical deist, see Thielicke, Glauben und Denken, 99-107. 8 See Thielicke’s account of the reasons for Reimarus’ reluctance to have his Fragments published in Glauben und Denken 93-9. 9 See Gerhard Freund, Theologie im Widerspruch. Die Lessing-Goeze-Kontroverse (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1989), 45. 10 See below, section 4, and Freund’s suggestion that Schumann shares certain affiliations with neologism because he contends that Christianity is a restitution of reasonable religion (“vernünftige Religion”) (Theologie im Widerspruch, 198).

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fell under the jurisdiction of Earl Karl of Brunswick (Braunschweig). Karl decided in 1778 that Lessing could henceforth only publish his theological writings under censorship.11 2. Schumann’s Challenge The best-known episode of the drama that took place in the 1770s is probably Lessing’s controversy with Goeze. Yet, for our purposes, viz. the interpretation of the abovementioned quote on “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten,” another controversy is more important, viz. Schumann’s attack against the second Fragment and Lessing’s Gegensätze.12 In response to these, Lessing wrote two treatises: Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft13 and Das Testamentum Johannis.14 I will take a look at Lessing’s position in the following sections and devote the remainder of this section to analysing Schumann’s position. Schumann recognizes that Christian revelation cannot be proven by (historical) reason: Die von Gott freiwillig gegebene Offenbarung aus der Vernunft erweisen wollen, heißt, geschehene und eben deswegen analogischzufällige Dinge in schlechterdings nothwendige umschaffen wollen. Welch ein widersinniges Unternehmen!15

Yet, Schumann distinguishes between two different uses of Vernunft: Although the evidence of the revelation cannot be deduced from reason,16 its truth is still cognisable with reason.17 11 This is the reason why Nathan the Wise took the form of a theatre play—plays were not censored. See Peter von Düffel, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Nathan der Weise. (Erläuterungen und Dokumente 8118; Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998), 101-2. 12 Johann Daniel Schumann, Ueber die Evidenz der Beweise für die Wahrheit der christlichen Religion (Hannover: 1778). 13 In the following, I will focus solely on the first treatise in which the quote on “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten” is mentioned (thus, when I speak of Beweis, I always mean the first treatise). The second treatise Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft has the subtitle Ein zweites Schreiben an den Herrn Direktor Schumann in Hannover and is published in Lessing, Schriften II, 138-42. For our purposes, however, it is not relevant. 14 In Lessing, Schriften II, 17-23. 15 Schumann, Evidenz, 17. 16 It is not “aus der Vernunft, also philosophisch deduzierbar,” (ibid). 17 “[M]it der Vernunft, als mit einem Werkzeuge,” (ibid).

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According to Schumann, Christianity is proven by both the fulfilment of the prophecies and the miracles. Both “facts” provide a measure of certainty that is unmatched by other “facts.”18 This is the “Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft.” Admittedly, both “facts” are of such a nature that they can only be probable. Yet, probability comes in degrees and “can rise to such a measure of “moral” evidence as is to be found in geometry . . . or can even exceed the latter.”19 Behind this argument lurks a particular anthropology according to which we humans are designed “with regard to our most essential needs not for the demonstrative mode of cognition but for the probable one.”20 The latter is related to (our ability to take) action. According to Schumann, in the case of Christianity and its biblical witnesses, the highest degree of probability is achieved. Thus, in this particular case, certainty is achieved. This is Schumann’s position in a nutshell. It needs to be kept in mind because Lessing’s arguments can only be properly appreciated if understood as a reaction to this particular position. Let us now turn to Lessing. 3. Lessing’s Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft In what follows, I will give a detailed account of Lessing’s argument in Beweis. For although this treatise has been analysed frequently, it has left many interpreters puzzled and has quite often been misunderstood.21 In Beweis, the relation between the historically contingent and the necessary is meticulously scrutinized concerning its negative side.22 That is, it is meticulously scrutinized with regard to the impossibility of 18 My translation of: “Die historische Wahrheit der erfüllten Weißagungen und der evangelischen Wunderwerke hat demnach eine solche Gewißheit, als bey keiner anderen Thatsache statt findet,” Schumann, Evidenz, 136. 19 My translation of: “steigt oft bis zu einer solchen moralischen Evidenz, die der geometrischen gleichet, ja in Rücksicht auf subjectivische Fähigkeit, ihr mehrentheils überlegen ist,” (ibid). 20 My translation of: “in Ansehung unsrer wesentlichen Bedürfnisse, nicht für die demonstrative, sondern für die wahrscheinliche Erkenntnisart,” Schumann, Evidenz, 137. 21 For example, see Freund’s remarks on the issue (Theologie im Widerspruch, 200). 22 Regarding the positive side, i.e. the possibility of using historical contingency in conjunction with necessary or absolute claims see below ( section 11).

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deriving necessary or absolute claims from historically contingent ones. In my view, Lessing’s description of the negative connection between necessity and historical contingency is unsurpassed. The arguments are hidden amidst the rhetoric that characterizes all of Lessing’s writings. But once they are freed from their rhetorical shells, they provide valuable insights into the nature of the links between historical contingency and necessity, and common misuses of these links. Lessing begins his argument by pointing to a difference between experiencing the fulfilment of prophecies immediately and coming to know them via mediation: “Ein andres sind erfüllte Weissagungen, die ich selbst erlebe: ein andres erfüllte Weissagungen, von denen ich nur historisch weiß, daß sie andre wollen erlebt haben.”23 This distinction is directed against Schumann’s reference to the fulfilment of the prophecies. And a similar contention is raised against Schumann’s reference to miracles.24 Lessing’s point here is that there is a crucial epistemic difference between experiencing something first-hand and experiencing it only via mediation. Lessing continues by conceding that, had he been contemporaneous with Christ or had he lived in Origen’s time,25 things would have been different. He might have been able to witness Christ performing miracles or the prophecies being fulfilled in him, in which case he would have had sufficient reason to believe in him. Or else, had he witnessed Christians performing miracles or Christian prophecies being fulfilled in his own day, he would have yielded to Schumann’s “Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft.”26 Yet, he is neither contemporaneous with Christ or Origen, nor has he witnessed Christians perform miracles in the 18th century. Thus, he cannot yield to Schumann. Lessing summarizes his argument in the famous quote: Wenn nun dieser Beweis des Beweises itzt gänzlich weggefallen; wenn nun alle historische Gewißheit viel zu schwach ist, diesen weggefallenen augenscheinlichen Beweis des Beweises zu ersetzen: wie ist mir denn zuzumuten, daß ich die nämlichen unbegreiflichen Wahrheiten, welche Leute vor 16 bis 18 hundert Jahren auf die kräftigste Veranlassung glaub23

Lessing, Beweis, 10. See Lessing, Beweis, 10-1. 25 Schumann had referred positively to Origen as a witness to his thesis (see also below, section 7). 26 In the following, I call it “Schumann’s proof.” 24

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ten, auf eine unendlich mindere Veranlassung eben so kräftig glauben soll?27

These remarks hide a well conceived argumentative strategy which is easily overlooked. I will thus spell it out in detail. The clue to understanding it lies in the phrase “Beweis des Beweises” (“proof of the proofs” [my translation]). Let me explain this by distinguishing between proof1 and proofs2. I translate Lessing’s “Beweis des Beweises” as “proof1 of the proofs2.” Proofs2 refers to the “proofs” witnessed in Scripture. Proof1, however, refers to the experiences of miracles and the like that were still available in Origen’s time. Lessing’s point here is that Origen still had sufficient reason to believe in the Scriptural claims (proofs2). He had independent proof of the Scriptural claims by witnessing miracles etc., namely via proof1. Lessing thus argues that Origen had an independent mode, namely proof1, to vindicate the Scriptural claims (proofs2). Hence, the phrase “Beweis des Beweises” has to do with questions of epistemic entitlement. Lessing argues that Origen was epistemically entitled to believe in proofs2, i.e. the Scriptural claims, because he had an independent vindication for them, namely proof1. But, Lessing continues, we contemporaries (of the 18th century) do not have proof in the sense of proof1 any longer. We thus lack the means to verify proofs2, i.e. the Scriptural claims, on independent grounds. Thus, a gap emerges between what is claimed in Scripture and what the subject can rightfully appropriate. We are no longer epistemically entitled to believe in the Scriptural claims. The following step in the argument is Lessing’s contention that the certainty generated on historical grounds cannot bridge this gap. It is not an adequate substitute for the loss of Origen’s mode of vindication (i.e. proof1). Historical grounds cannot verify proofs2, i.e. the Scriptural claims, in the same fashion as proof1 could. This is what Lessing means with the second sentence in the abovementioned quote, viz. that “alle historische Gewißheit viel zu schwach ist, diesen weggefallenen augenscheinlichen Beweis des Beweises zu ersetzen.” It is important to note that Lessing’s point is not that the historical evidence as such is weak, insufficient or something else of that sort. Rather, it is that, given what is at stake, viz. proofs2, we need more than 27

Lessing, Beweis, 11.

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just historical evidence. To be more precise: At stake are not just proofs2, Scriptural claims, as such, but rather those claims as construed by Schumann, viz. as being the ground of “notwendige Vernunftwahrheiten” (“necessary truths of reason”), i.e. as implying universal claims to validity and rationality. Lessing’s point is that arguing for these universal claims via Scripture requires more than historical evidence. In order to do this, we would need something along the lines of proof1. Only if we have an independent vindication as strong as proof1 are we epistemically entitled to believe in the Scriptural claims. In sum, Lessing’s argument here is: (a) that the independent vindication (proof1) Origen still had for believing something on Scriptural grounds is not available any longer; and (b) that whatever historical certainty can be generated from analysing the biblical testimonies cannot make up for this loss, given the universal claims which are at stake. Note that point (b) is a point of principle, i.e. it is independent of the question how strong the historical evidence is. The upshot of this argument is that the gap between something being witnessed in Scripture and the subject being entitled to appropriate it cannot be bridged in the fashion Schumann suggests. Thus, Schumann’s “proof” possesses “weder Geist noch Kraft” but is, at the most, “zu menschlichen Zeugnissen von Geist und Kraft herabgesunken.”28 4. The Lessing/Schumann Controversy: A Question about the Achievements of the Enlightenment In the literature on the issue, the controversy between Lessing and his theological opponents is frequently portrayed in black and white—as if it were a conflict about the achievements of the Enlightenment. Lessing stands for these achievements, his theological opponents for attempts to undermine them. Depending on the author’s personal convictions, Lessing is either praised or rebuked for his defence of Enlightenment values. The advocates of the Enlightenment praise him for his free and unprejudiced search for truth, and criticize his theological opponents for re-

28

Ibid.

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sorting to arguments from authority.29 At least in the German literature on the issue, the discussion frequently becomes rather polemical at this point. But the polemical character of the discussion often obscures the real issues which are at stake in this controversy. I will take up the latter in the following section and devote the remainder of this section to showing that the controversy between Lessing and Schumann is not about the achievements of the Enlightenment. Although things may be different with regard to Goeze’s attack against Lessing, Schumann’s attack is not motivated by an opposition out of principle to the achievements of the Enlightenment. I will demonstrate this by comparing his position to Lessing’s on two items characteristic of the Enlightenment. As indicated above, Lessing contended that there is a gap between coming to know a claim via mediation and coming to know it immediately. A claim appropriated via historical mediation, say, made by a historian, is of a different order than a claim the subject experiences itself, immediately.30 Behind this statement lurks the Enlightenment emphasis upon autonomy: The subject is only epistemically entitled to accept claims, c, which are “einleuchtend” (“reasonable”), to it. It is not entitled to accept c on heteronomous grounds. For example, it is not entitled to accept c solely on the grounds that it is a Scriptural claim. No, the subject is epistemically entitled to hold only those claims which are einleuchtend, reasonable to it, that is, which are appropriated on autonomous grounds. The point to take note of is that there is no difference between Lessing and Schumann on this issue. Schumann does not deny that claims need to einleuchten and that they need to be made plausible to the subject in one way or another. This is precisely the point of his arguments, viz. that, although the biblical claims cannot be demonstrated in a straightforward fashion, they can still be equipped with such a high degree of probability that they match and even exceed the certainty we are acquainted with from other domains (see above, section 2).

29 For example, see Martin Bollacher, Lessing, Vernunft und Geschichte. Untersuchungen zum Problem religiöser Aufklärung in den Spätschriften (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1978), 118. 30 “[I]st . . . was ich bei glaubwürdigen Geschichtschreibern lese, für mich ebenso gewiß, als was ich selbst erfahre? . . . Das wüßte ich nicht, daß es jemals ein Mensch behauptet hätte” (Lessing, Beweis, 11).

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The second item characteristic of the Enlightenment I wish to turn to in this context is a distrust of (religious) traditions. Lessing presupposes in his argument that religious traditions cannot be trusted purely on the grounds that they are religious traditions. They are to be subjected to the standard verification procedures, just like all other traditions. Let me explain: Even in pre-Enlightenment times, traditions could not be trusted as such, i.e. without supporting evidence or something else of the sort. Yet, an exception was made for religious and comparable traditions (biblical claims, etc.). They were considered to be trustworthy and enjoyed a special sort of authority. The Enlightenment breaks with this exception to the rule. Religious claims based upon tradition no longer have any special authority. For example, biblical claims need to be verified in the same sense as other claims based upon tradition need to be verified. Lessing assumes this Enlightenment stance in his argument. He presupposes that religious traditions are not self-verifying but need to be verified in exactly the same sense as other traditions. This is the reason why he insists on an independent mode of vindication, what was called above proof1 (see above, section 3). But again, there is no difference between Lessing and Schumann on this point. Schumann does not argue that the biblical claims are self-verifying or anything else in a similar vein. Rather, he adheres to Enlightenment principles by presupposing that they need to be verified on independent grounds. 5. The Real Difference between Lessing and Schumann Thus, the difference between Lessing and Schumann is not about the achievements of the Enlightenment. Nor is it about the question of the reliability of Scripture as such. No matter how often throughout history Lessing has been identified with Reimarus’ position, this identification is mistaken. Lessing’s arguments are of an entirely different order than Reimarus’. If I may add a personal note here: Lessing’s arguments are philosophically much more interesting than Reimarus’ meticulous but ultimately wooden historical considerations against the reliability of Scripture. For Lessing does not simply point to inconsistencies between biblical witnesses in a Reimarian spirit. Nor does he deny that miracles

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have occurred or that the prophecies have been fulfilled.31 Lessing goes way beyond such platitudes as are to be found in Reimarus’ historical considerations. His concerns are of a more general, methodological nature. This is what makes them epistemically relevant and philosophically interesting even today.32 In order to follow the argument below, it is crucial to note that I think the real issues behind the Lessing/Schumann controversy are methodological in nature (in the broad sense of the word). The controversy is about epistemic issues. It should thus be recalled that Lessing’s arguments are of a principled nature. Let me explain. Lessing points to what, as a matter of principle, can be extracted from Schumann’s line of reasoning. He emphasizes that Schumann exaggerates when he wants to squeeze more out of “historical truths” than they can deliver.33 Whatever merits historical claims of this sort may possess, they are of a different order than what Schumann wants to get out of them, viz. “demonstrierte Wahrheiten.”34 That the real issues in this controversy are of an epistemic nature comes out in Lessing’s following argument. After having acknowledged that the reports of the miracles and fulfilment of the prophecies are as reliable as historical truths can be, Lessing continues to ask provocatively: “Aber nun: wenn sie [the historical claims] nur eben so zuverlässig sind, warum macht man sie bei dem Gebrauche auf einmal unendlich zuverlässiger?”35 Lessing’s point here is that Schumann is inconsistent. On the one hand, he acknowledges the limits of what can be extracted from historical claims when reflecting on them theoretically. Yet, on the other hand, when he uses them in his argument, he ignores these limits and ascribes a greater degree of reliability, certainty, to them than his acknowledgment warrants. 31 “[W]er leugnet es—ich nicht—, daß die Nachrichten von jenen Wundern und Weissagungen eben so zuverlässig sind, als nur immer historische Wahrheiten sein können? ” (Lessing, Beweis, 12). 32 Note that I do not deny that Reimarus’ position may have been daring and revolutionary in his day. Yet, after more than 200 years of Enlightenment thinking have permeated our (Western) culture and positions like Reimarus’ have become commonplaces, they have also become somewhat worn-out. 33 In the following, I will refer to what Lessing calls “historische Wahrheiten” as historical truths or historical claims. 34 Lessing, Beweis, 12. 35 Ibid.

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Lessing’s point is that Schumann wants to build more on the historical claims than they can conceptually carry. He wishes to build “ganz andere und mehrere Dinge auf sie . . . als man auf historisch erwiesene Wahrheiten zu bauen befugt ist.”36 This is the context in which the abovementioned quote emerges: “Zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten können der Beweis von notwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten nie werden.”37 Lessing’s point is thus that Schumann conceptually overburdens historical truths: Being historical in nature, they are contingent. As such, they cannot provide the foundation for claims that go beyond the realm of the contingent, viz. for the necessary “truths of reason” (“notwendige Vernunftwahrheiten”). This is the point Schumann overlooks and this is why his arguments are bound to fail. For Lessing, necessary truths of reason require more than what historically-contingent claims can ever offer, no matter how strong they are. Necessary truths belong to a different category than historicallycontingent claims. They form “eine ganz andre Klasse von Wahrheiten.”38 In this sense, there is no way from the historically-contingent to the necessary. Attempting to follow such a path is “metabasis eis allo genos.”39 6. Schumann’s Foundationalism In this section, I will try to situate the controversy between Schumann and Lessing within the context of the current discussion on epistemological issues. Let me begin by translating the quote on “zufällige

36

Ibid. Ibid. It has been frequently observed that the distinction between “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten” and “notwendige Vernunftwahrheiten” goes back to Leibniz’s distinction between truths of reason and truths of (contingent) facts. The question to what extent Lessing takes over Leibniz’s ideas by taking over this distinction is discussed, for example, in Bollacher, Lessing, 118-20 and Lüpke, Wege der Weisheit, 82-84. (see also the article on Leibniz in this volume). 38 Lessing, Beweis, 14. We will see below (section 11) that Lessing draws the demarcation between historically-contingent and necessary less strictly in a different context. 39 Lessing, Beweis, 14 (Greek letters in the original). 37

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Geschichtswahrheiten” into current parlance. I suggest as a translation: “contingent historical claims cannot be the foundation of necessary claims (truths) of reason.” When Lessing suggests that contingent historical claims cannot serve as a foundation for necessary claims of reason, he has a particular use of the term foundation in mind, viz. Schumann’s use. Schumann uses historical claims as a foundation upon which he constructs his apology of Christian faith. More precisely speaking, he suggests that the historical claims implied in Christianity are sufficient to warrant belief in the latter. In my view, Schumann’s uses the term “foundation” (“Beweis”) in a foundationalist manner. That is to say, he presupposes that this foundation possesses two related features, both of which are characteristic of a foundationalist approach:40 The first is that it implies universal validity claims, the second, that it suffices in and of itself to carry the full weight of the universal validity claims erected upon it. Let me explain both features in turn. Schumann implies universal validity claims in that he assumes that his considerations are valid for believers as well as for unbelievers. That is the point of adding more general considerations on human cognition (that we humans are designed for the “probable mode of cognition,” see above, section 2) to his considerations on the historical claims implied in Christianity. His argument does not consist of the more moderate point that the considerations on the historical claims implied in Christianity are valid for Christian believers who have come to believe on other than historical grounds. No, his point is stronger, viz. that looking at the historical evidence (plus presupposing a certain epistemic apparatus) forces believer and unbeliever alike to acknowledge the veracity of the Christian claims. Thus, Schumann’s claims are, at least in principle, supposed to be universally valid. The second feature implied in Schumann’s claims is closely related to the first. He presupposes that the historical claims implied in Christianity form a sufficient basis to warrant41 belief in it. That is to say, his 40

For a discussion of the basic features of foundationalism, see, e.g.: Dirk-Martin Grube, “Realism, Foundationalism and Constructivism—A Philosopher’s Bermuda Triangle?,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosphie 40 (1998): 107-26, especially 114-7; and idem, Unbegründbarkeit Gottes? Paul Tillichs und Karl Barths Erkenntnistheorien im Horizont der gegenwärtigen Philosophie (Marburg: Elwert, 1998), 173-82.

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argument is not that these historical claims are one among a variety of sources upon which Christian belief is built. Rather, his argument is that these claims form a sufficient basis in and of itself for acknowledging the veracity of the Christian claims. In summary, Schumann uses the term foundation (Beweis) in a foundationalist42 sense by presupposing that the foundation laid is sufficient to build universal claims on it. He assumes that the historical considerations lying at the foundation of his argument can carry the full weight of his apologetic intentions, i.e. that they can “prove” that Christian belief has to be considered as veracious or truthful on universal grounds. 7. Lessing’s Criticism of Schumann’s Foundationalism According to the interpretation suggested here, Lessing targets this foundationalist use of historical evidence. His point is not that historical claims cannot play any role whatsoever in the legitimation of faith. Rather, his point is that they cannot play the role Schumann wants them to play, viz. a foundationalist role. They cannot serve as a sufficient basis, a foundation in the above sketched foundationalist sense of the word. They cannot carry the full weight of the universal pretensions Schumann builds on them. In my view, Lessing is thus not a full-fledged despiser of the historical. For him, there would be nothing wrong with relying on history in a non-foundationalist sense. Historical claims can legitimately function as one among a variety of foundations lying at the basis of Christian beliefs. If a Christian acknowledged having come to believe on a variety of different grounds, historical as well as non-historical ones, historical considerations could legitimately play some role in the process of belief-formation.

41 For this term, see Alvin Plantinga, Warrant. The Current Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) and Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). 42 Let me add here in passing that suggesting that “foundation is used in a foundationalist fashion” is not tautological. For there are different ways of using “foundation”: foundationalist ones and non-foundationalist ones. That is to say, the nonfoundationalist can use “foundation” as well, provided that he does not attribute the far-reaching claims to it that are characteristic of foundationalist approaches.

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This, I take it, is the upshot of Lessing’s insistence on a vindicating instance still available to Origen, but to which we no longer have any access (the abovementioned point, in section 3, that Origen could still witness miracles, but we cannot do so any more). That is to say, Origen was epistemically in his right to believe because he did not ground his belief solely on historical claims, but relied on them in conjunction with other considerations. Thus, Lessing’s criticism is that Schumann errs when he wants to use historical claims in a foundationalist manner. Used for foundationalist purposes, historical claims become conceptually overburdened. As the sole foundation available, they cannot carry universal validity-claims. Put in an image: Lessing’s point is that historical claims construed in a foundationalist sense cannot carry the weight of the apologetic house Schumann wants to erect on them. The apologetic house consists of universal validity-claims. Those claims are so “heavy” (see above, section 5) that they need stronger support than what historical claims have to offer. If useful at all, the historical foundations need to be augmented by other sorts of bases, other foundations (e.g. moral ones), in order to be able to carry such a heavy apologetic house. In my interpretation, this is the point of Lessing’s well-known insistence on quoting Origen in full. Let me explain. Schumann takes a quote from Origen as support for his own contentions (see above, section 2). Yet, Lessing replies that, in the passage that immediately follows this quote, Origen makes clear that he does not believe in Christianity solely on the basis of performed miracles, but for “many other reasons as well.”43 Lessing insists here that Origen contends other sources besides Scripture44 play a role as well. Thus, the miracles witnessed in Scripture are only one among a variety of factors vindicating Christian belief. Lessing’s point in insisting on quoting Origen in full is thus an antifoundationalist one. Lessing criticizes Schumann for erroneously turning Origen into a foundationalist. By neglecting Origen’s contention that he had come to believe for “many other reasons” than scriptural ones alone, Schumann gives the impression that Origen claims scriptural evidence is a sufficient foundation for belief. But, insists Lessing, this is mistaken. Origen does not regard Scriptural claims to be a sufficient foundation for belief. He is not a foundationalist. 43 44

Lessing, Beweis, 11 (Greek letters in the original). Namely, the miracles he could still witness in his own day (ibid).

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Obviously, my intention here is not to question whether or not Lessing interprets Origen correctly on this issue. Rather, it is to demonstrate that Lessing’s insistence on quoting Origen in full renders plausible the interpretation provided above. It confirms that the real issue between Schumann and Lessing is the question of foundationalism versus antifoundationalism. By insisting that Origen was not a foundationalist, Lessing issues a warning against all sorts of foundationalism. Foundationalism is mistaken both as an interpretation of Origen’s intentions and as a current doctrine. Thus, Lessing’s point here is a conceptual one, dressed in a historical gown. In short, via historical considerations on Origen, Lessing undermines Schumann’s foundationalism, and, as a consequence, all kinds of foundationalism. 8. The Theological Consequences of the Interpretation Suggested The abovementioned considerations have made it clear that the real issue between Schumann and Lessing is of a methodological nature. This point has relevance for the much-debated question how Lessing evaluates theology, in particular, hoe he evaluates Christian dogmatic claims. Let me explain. It is frequently assumed that Lessing is out to reject (Christian) dogmatic theorizing. For example, Bollacher suggests that Lessing’s aim consists in rejecting Christian dogmatic claims. He contends that depriving Christianity of its historical basis implies that Christological dogmatic claims can no longer be built upon historical beliefs about Jesus.45 If I understand him correctly, he means to say that Lessing’s aim is to undermine Christian dogmatic theorizing by taking away its historical foundation. But interpretations of this sort are mistaken. Lessing is not out to reject Christian dogmatic claims here. He even explicitly contends in Beweis that he accepts these dogmatic claims.46 Yet, his point is that he accepts these claims for other reasons than Schumann suggests. He accepts them on non-foundationlist grounds whereas Schumann accepts them on foundationalist ones, whereby he conceptually overburdens historical claims. Thus, Lessing’s difference with Schumann and like45 46

See Bollacher, Lessing, 120. Lessing, Beweis, 12.

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minded theologians is not about the question of the plausibility of Christian dogmatic theorizing as such. Rather, it is about the way of legitimating it. In sum, the Schumann/Lessing controversy is not over theological issues but over methodological ones. As a consequence, it is clear that Lessing should not be read atheistically on this point.47 He is often interpreted as attacking Christian belief. But this reading is mistaken. It overlooks the fact that Lessing’s point is not an atheistic one but a methodological one. His concerns are not fuelled by an atheist agenda, but rather by an opposition to the methodology Schumann and like-minded theologians apply. This point comes out clearly in Lessing’s famous remarks on the resurrection of Christ: Wenn ich historisch nichts darwider einzuwenden habe, daß dieser Christus selbst von dem Tode auferstanden; muß ich darum für wahr halten, daß eben dieser auferstandene Christus der Sohn Gottes sei?48

Lessing’s intention here is not to reject the dogmatic theorizing that Christ is God’s Son. He is not out to undermine Christian dogmatic theorizing as such. Rather, his point is once again a methodological one. He argues that historical considerations on the resurrection of Christ cannot warrant dogmatic theorizing on Christ being God’s Son. Note again that Lessing’s argument is an argument out of principle. He does not argue that the historical evidence is too weak in this case to support dogmatic theorizing, but might suffice in other cases. No, he argues that all historical evidence would be too weak for this purpose. No matter how strong the historical evidence is in a given case, it cannot warrant the kind of dogmatic theorizing at stake here.

47 I do not have the space here to argue the case more extensively, but would at least like to point out in passing that the atheist reading of Lessing is mistaken in other instances as well. For example, I have shown that the atheist reading of Nathan the Wise is mistaken in Dirk-Martin Grube, “Justification rather than Truth, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Defence of Positive Religion in the Ring-Parable,” Bijdragen. International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 4/66 (2005): 357-78, 364-5. 48 Lessing, Beweis, 13 (note that the belief in the resurrection of Christ stands for historical beliefs, the belief that the risen Christ is God’s Son, for dogmatic theorizing).

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The reason for this is that dogmatic theorizing is a different sort of theorizing than historical theorizing. Historical theorizing can never be more than probable.49 Yet, dogmatic theorizing goes beyond the realm of the probable. This is what Schumann and like-minded theologians fail to realize: Aber nun mit jener historischen Wahrheit in eine ganz andere Klasse von Wahrheiten herüber springen, und von mir verlangen, daß ich alle meine metaphysischen und moralischen Begriffe darnach umbilden soll . . . wenn das nicht eine metabasis eis allo genos50 ist, so weiß ich nicht, was Aristoteles sonst unter dieser Benennung verstanden.51

Lessing’s point is that historical considerations cannot warrant dogmatic conclusions (e.g. about Christ being God’s Son) on principle. In current parlance, historical considerations “underdetermine”52 dogmatic theorizing. This underdetermination-thesis is the backdrop of his abovementioned quote on the “garstige breite Graben”:53 there is gap between historical considerations and dogmatic conclusions as a matter of principle. And this underdetermination-thesis is also the backdrop of the abovementioned quote on “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten”: Insofar as historical considerations underdetermine that which is necessary, a gap, a “garstiger breiter Graben,” exists between the historical and the necessary. This gap is the reason why “zufällige Geschichtswahrheiten können der Beweis von notwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten nie werden.”

49

See Lessing, Beweis, 13. An illegitimate “jump into a different category” (Greek letters in the original). 51 Lessing, Beweis, 14. 52 This term is borrowed from Quine’s epistemology. For Quine, all theory is underdetermined by experience. I take over this meaning of the term but not the implications Quine associates with it. For Quine, underdetermination is so to speak a “fact of life,” not something to be avoided. For Lessing, however, this underdetermination of dogmatic theorizing by historical evidence is to be avoided. Dogmatic theories should not be built upon historical considerations. At least, they should not be built solely upon historical considerations that underdetermine them. 53 “Das, das ist der garstige breite Graben, über den ich nicht kommen kann, so oft und ernstlich ich auch den Sprung versucht habe: Kann mir jemand hinüber helfen, der tu’ es; ich bitte ihn, ich beschwöre ihn. Er verdient einen Gotteslohn an mir” (Lessing, Beweis, 14). 50

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9. Kant on Contingency Finally, let me summarize the consequences of the interpretation suggested with regard to the question of Lessing’s stance on contingency. I will do this by comparing Lessing’s stance on the issue with that of the other famous German Enlightenment thinker, viz. Kant. In this section, I will deal with Kant. In the following section, I will compare Kant’s stance to Lessing’s in Beweis, and in section 11, to Lessing’s stance in Nathan the Wise. In the final section, I will summarize the stance of Lessing on contingency brought to the fore in this article. Lessing’s background is that of the German54 Enlightenment. He stands in a tradition which conveys a curious ambiguity with regard to the historically-contingent. On the one hand, it emphasizes the importance of historical critique. Consider, for instance, the strenuous attempts of deists, such as Reimarus (see above, section 1), to point out the historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies of the biblical narratives. On the other hand, it is characteristic of the fashion in which the Enlightenment was shaped in Germany that historical contingency must be held at bay.55 At least, the historically-contingent (in the following: historicity) must not be considered to possess constitutive functions in the realm of reason. Reason stands above the historically-contingent: it is ahistorical. That is to say, no matter how strongly we yield to historicity in other realms, when it comes to the realm of reason, of “reine Vernunft,” historical contingency has to be domesticated one way or another. Reason, the realm that really counts, is enthroned high above all the historically-contingent mess. This, I take it, is one of the intentions driving Kant’s theoretical project. His transcendental search is an attempt to domesticate historicity. By domesticate I mean “überhöhen,” “aufheben” in Hegel’s sense. That is to say, historicity is not to be denied, say, in the spirit of a preKantian metaphysics. No, it is admitted in some sense, but at the same time “aufgehoben.” It is admitted but, when it comes to the foundations

54 To be more precise (since Germany did not yet exist as a state at that point): that of Prussia and neighbouring countries. 55 Presumably, this is more characteristic of the Enlightenment tradition in Germany than in other cultures. At least, in the English Enlightenment there was a much greater tolerance with regard to contingency (see below, the comparison between Hume and Kant).

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of all thinking and knowing, it is neutralized. These foundations are not historically contingent. They are the result of a pure thinking which, by its very nature, is a-historical and non-contingent.56 This is at least one way in which Kant’s famous search for the synthetic a priori can be understood: The search for the synthetic came with the philosophical tradition, viz. with Hume’s empiricism. But empiricism cannot hold on to the a priori. Consider, for example, Hume’s struggle to reconstruct the notion of causality in contingent terms, viz. as a “habit” or “custom.” But Kant could not bring himself to be content with such contingent reconstructions. To be sure, there was no way back behind Hume. But it was unthinkable for Kant that the historically-contingent should have the last word. It needed to be transcendentally bolstered. Causality and its peers needed to be demonstrated to be categories of mind,57 and thus, non-contingent postulates rather than contingent ones in a Humean sense. This is the point at which the rationalist tradition comes into play:58 Kant’s famous synthesis between empiricism and rationalism can be interpreted as an attempt to circumvent having to buy into empiricism all the way. In particular, the implication of empiricism that must have been most dreadful for a good, orderly Prussian—a full-fledged acceptance of contingency—could be avoided by amending empiricism with rationalist means. Granted, it was a sign of the time that there was no way to avoid yielding to empiricist insights and all that came with them, for instance, accepting contingency. Yet, there was another way to deal with them: Rather than avoiding them, they could be neutralized in the field where it really counted, namely, the epistemic foundation. This foundation had to be reconstructed such that it would be uninfected by empiricism. Thinking itself had to be reconstructed so as to be uninfected by contingency.

56

See also the article by Donald Loose on Kant in this volume. See Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (ed. Raymund Schmidt, 1781; repr., Leipzig: Reclam, 1979), 92-124, “Die transzendentale Ästhetik,” and 136-57, “Die transzendentale Analytik.” 58 See, e.g. B. Recki, “Kant,” RGG 4:779-84, 780. 57

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Synthesizing empiricism with rationalism allowed Kant to collect the advantages of the former without having to pay the full price that comes with it. The natural sciences could be accounted for theoretically in empiricist terms; yet, by amending empiricism with rationalism, empiricism’s historicist implications could at the same time be held at bay. Thinking or knowing, or, rather, their foundation, is not infected by historical contingency, according to Kant. They are a-historical in nature. Kant’s transcendental analysis thus results in an a priori (in the strict sense of the word) and hence a-historical foundation. This a-historical foundation underlies all thinking and knowing. As such, Kant finds a way to domesticate the historical contingency that comes with empiricism. 10. Lessing’s Stance on Contingency in Beweis How does Lessing fare in comparison with Kant? Does he attempt to domesticate historical contingency in the same way as Kant? Both were contemporaries and lived in roughly the same cultural environment (Lessing spent much of his life in Prussia as well). Thus, the idea that both might have shared the same judgments on issues such as this one is not far-fetched. It has indeed been suggested that Lessing rejects historical contingency.59 However, I am sceptical about claims of this sort. I think that the proponents of these claims tend to overemphasize Lessing’s critique the historical. This is because they fail to take into account the methodological character of his scruples. They turn Lessing mistakenly into a despiser of historicity on principle. The above considerations, however, should have made clear that Lessing is not a despiser of historicity as a matter of principle, nor of the contingency that is implied in it. He does not reject historical contingency as such. His point about the “garstige breite Graben” and the underdetermination of (Christian) doctrine by historical considerations is not that historical claims cannot in principle play a role in the process of legitimating doctrine. Rather, his claim is that this “Graben” cannot be

59 See D. Schellong, “Lessings Frage an die Theologie,” EvT 30 (1970): 426 (in the context of the formation of Christian doctrine).

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bridged in the fashion Schumann and the like suggest. That is to say, it cannot be bridged by historical means alone. As a matter of principle, historical considerations underdetermine that which is necessary. Turning Lessing mistakenly into a despiser of historicity on principle is the consequence of disregarding the particular situation in which he makes his contentions. This situation is characterized by an opposition to Schumann and like-minded theologians. That is to say, his position is characterized by an opposition to attempts to ascribe a foundationalist role to the historical. Contra these foundationalist approaches, Lessing issues a warning against conceptually overburdening the historical. But warning against a foundational use of the historical is different from warning against the use of the historical as such.60 In short, the “antihistorical” position Lessing takes in this discussion is to be explained from within the particular situation he finds himself in. And noting that this particular situation triggers Lessing’s stance on historicity helps us to see that he is not a despiser of the historical as a matter of principle. 11. Lessing’s Stance on Contingency in Nathan The view that Lessing is not a despiser of the historical on principle receives further support from an analysis of Nathan the Wise. Here, Lessing refers to historical contingency in a positive spirit. This is true in particular of the famous Ring-Parable. In this parable, Lessing has Nathan use historical contingency in a constructive fashion. Nathan suggests that religions base “their creeds on history.” And on this suggestion hangs the notion of tolerance Nathan (=Lessing) defends in the Ring-Parable. Let me explain.61 In this parable, Nathan reasons that the three Abrahamitic religions base their claims on history, and history is to be appropriated on trust. But trust is a “family business.” It is natural to trust

60

See also above, section 7, Lessing’s point in quoting Origen in full length. I summarize my point here because I have worked it out extensively in “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Ring Parable: An Enlightenment Voice on Religious Tolerance,” in Faith in the Enlightenment? The Critique of the Enlightenment Revisited (ed. L. Boeve, J. Schrijvers, W. Stoker, H. M. Vroom; Amsterdam: Rodopi), 3950. 61

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our own family most, i.e. the religion we believe in. Thus, there is no reason to give up the religion we believe in. Nor would it be appropriate to expect others to give up their religion.62 Lessing uses a chain of reasoning to reach his goal, viz. to promote tolerance. This chain begins with history and moves, via “trust” and “family business,” to tolerance. Thus, at the heart of this chain lies an acceptance of historical contingency. In other words, Lessing makes constructive use of historicity here. The acceptance of historical contingency lies at the heart of the argument for the tolerance he promotes in this context. The reason why Lessing can make constructive use of historicity in this context is that it possesses non-absolute, “relativistic” consequences. His reasoning is that religions are based upon historical claims and those claims are relative. That is, the range of their validity is by definition relative to “one’s own family.” In other words, the range of validity of the historical claims upon which religions rest is limited to one’s own religion. 62 Against sultan Saladin’s contention that the three religions are distinguishable, Nathan retorts:

except in questions of foundation For base not all their creeds on history, Written or handed down? And history Must be received in faith implicitly. Is’t not so? Then on whom rest we this faith Implicit, doubting, not? Surely on our own? Them from whose blood we spring? Surely on them Who from our childhood gave us proofs of love? Who never have deceived us, saving when ‘Twere happier, safer so to be deceived? How, then, shall I my fathers less believe Than you your own? or in the other case, Can I demand that you should give the lie To your forefathers, that mine be not gainsaid? And, yet again, the same holds of the Christians. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön, Nathan the Wise and Minna von Barnhelm (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1930), 168.

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The point to be grasped is that this limitation of the range of validity implied in historical reasoning is a feature welcomed by Lessing in this context. That is to say, Lessing contends that historical claims are not as absolutely valid as reason (according to standard Enlightenment wisdom). But this is not a feature of historicity to be abhorred. Rather, in this particular context, it is a welcome feature. It is precisely what we need to get a notion of tolerance off the ground. The relativistic, i.e. nonabsolutist, character of historical reasoning is necessary for holding absolutist religious claims in check. Or, in current parlance, the relativity implied in historicity is a welcome antidote that holds all “imperialistic” claims of religion in check. The point where the interpretation suggested here departs from alternative interpretations is that I do not think that Lessing is embarrassed about using historicity in this context. In my view, his point is not that the limitation of the range of validity implied in historical claims is unfortunate. Instead, his point is that the non-absolutist character of historical reasoning is to be evaluated positively in this context. I think that such an explanation succeeds best in explaining why Lessing relies on historicity in this context. Standard interpretations, such as the one that Lessing’s intention here is to show that a proof from history is impossible,63 fail to explain why Lessing relies on historicity in this context. These explanations interpret Lessing’s stance on historicity from the standpoint of his debate with Schumann and fail to see that the situation is different in Nathan the Wise: In this context, Lessing is not addressing all-too-confident theologians who try to erect their dogmatic theorizing on historical considerations and, in so doing, overburden them. Rather, he is opposing attempts to make universal, and thus absolutist, religious claims that would render tolerance impossible. As indicated above, the interpretation suggested—viz. that Lessing values the limitation of the range of validity implied in historicity in this context—can explain best why Lessing relies on historicity here. Reliance on historicity is supposed to limit universal, absolutist validity claims. This is the function it has within the overall argument, viz. to promote tolerance.

63 See Harald Schultze, Lessings Toleranzbegriff (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1969), 74.

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12. Lessing’s Stance on Contingency Summarized The upshot of the interpretation of the Ring-Parable suggested is that there are occasions in which Lessing can rely on historicity in a positive spirit. It plays an important role in the process of legitimising an issue that is of utmost importance to him, viz. that of tolerance. In this context, the relativity implied in historicity is a welcome feature for him. He does not try to domesticate it in a Kantian fashion. He does not try to underpin it with an a-historical basis. Rather, he uses it “as is,” making use of the relativity implied in it in a constructive fashion. This interpretation of the passage from the Ring-Parable ties in with the above suggestions on Beweis. Here, too, Lessing does not reject historicity at all costs. According to the interpretation provided above, he rejects a specific use of it, viz. Schumann’s foundationalist use. But this is a far cry from rejecting historicity on principle. Thus, if Beweis and Nathan the Wise are read together, the standard picture that Lessing abhors historicity needs to be revised. He does not share the somewhat depreciatory view of historicity that is widespread in the German Enlightenment. Rather, he uses the historical character of the attempts to legitimate religion at a crucial point of his theorizing, viz. in the process of legitimating tolerance (Nathan the Wise). And the fact that he is more critical of the use of historical reasoning in Beweis is not the result of a scepticism with regard to the historical as a matter of principle, but is to be explained by the particular circumstances surrounding this text: Against Schumann and others, whom he takes to be overconfident in their reliance on historical reasoning, Lessing issues a warning. Again, this does not imply an abhorrence of historicity on principle. It would be premature to conclude from analysing two of Lessing's works that he opposes the critical view of historicity characteristic of the German Enlightenment. Lessing, it must be remembered, is a situational writer, a Gelegenheitsschreiber. His arguments depend to a great extent on the opponent he is facing at a given moment, rather than on trying to provide us with a coherent system (à la Kant).64 64 In order to come to a comprehensive view of Lessing on this issue, one would have to take into account, above all, his “Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts,” in Lessing, Werke 2, Kritische Schriften (ed. P. Stapf; München: E. Vollmer Verlag, 1965), 975-1000.

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Yet, it is safe to reject opinions which turn Lessing into yet another enlightened despiser of historicity. For example, the contention that Lessing disqualifies the historical65 needs to be qualified. If this is meant to imply that Lessing rejects historicity at all costs, it is mistaken. As shown above, there are occasions in which Lessing makes constructive use of historicity (Nathan the Wise). And even in the work which seems most critical of historicity at the outset, viz. Beweis, closer scrutiny reveals that his position on historicity is more nuanced than it appears to be at first glance. He does not reject historicity as such but only a certain use of it. He does share the Enlightenment view that acknowledging historicity implies rejecting universal validity claims. Yet, he suggests this can come in handy on certain occasions, for instance, when construing a notion of tolerance. I do not have the space here to argue the case extensively. I would at least like to point out, however, by way of conclusion, that such a reading of Lessing’s stance on historicity could have far-reaching consequences for our interpretation of the German Enlightenment. The standard analysis of its stance on historicity might have to be nuanced. Insofar as Lessing is a central figure of the German Enlightenment – which can hardly be denied – it is mistaken to hold that the German Enlightenment is opposed to accepting historicity and contingency. This may be true for some of its proponents, most notably Kant, but it is not true for all of its proponents. For example, Lessing is an exception. To be sure, the German Enlightenment does not accept historicity and contingency as easily as the Anglo-American Enlightenment. It does not accept historicity and contingency as wholeheartedly as the empiricist tradition. Lessing’s stance on historicity and contingency is not Hume’s (see above, section 9). But it is not Kant’s either. Lessing does not try to underpin historicity with an a-historical basis at all costs. Rather, he accepts it “as is” and makes constructive use of the relativity implied in it in certain circumstances (e.g. in Nathan the Wise). Finally, accepting historicity and contingency, and making constructive use of the relativity implied in them is different from embracing contingency in the currently popular postmodernist fashion. That is to say, Lessing’s stance on the issue is different from Richard Rorty’s.66 Lessing does not embrace historicity and contingency at all costs. Nor 65 “Disqualifizierung des Geschichtlichen” (Schultze, Toleranzbegriff, 88, in the context of a comparison with the humanist tradition).

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does he make acknowledging them the basic principle of his approach, as is common in the neo-pragmatist (Rortyan) tradition.67 His basic concern is not to emphasize the importance of contingency to such an extent that traditional epistemology goes by the board. Although Lessing is an agent provocateur à la Rorty, he is not out to challenge traditional philosophy, no matter what. Rather than relying on historicity and contingency as a matter of principle, Lessing uses them piecemeal, whenever it suits his purposes (as it does in Nathan the Wise). In sum, on the issues at stake, Lessing is to be situated somewhere between Kant and Rorty. Neither does he attempt to domesticate historicity and contingency at all costs: He does not try to underpin them with an a-historical basis à la Kant, thereby holding their consequences (e.g. relativity) in check. Nor does he blow them out of proportion in order to appear as a despiser on principle of issues central for traditional philosophy and epistemology à la Rorty. Both positions, Kant’s and Rorty’s, are, after all, only flip sides of the same coin. In both cases, historicity and contingency are of utmost importance. They belong to the forces driving both approaches, positively and negatively. Not so for Lessing. He stays away from this coin. Historicity and contingency are not among the forces driving his approach. Neither does he attempt to avoid them at all costs, nor does he embrace them at all costs. He avoids both extremes, steering a middle course on these issues. And although middle courses usually do not catch as much attention as extremes à la Kant and Rorty, they often turn out to be better alternatives in the long run . . .

66 See, e.g. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Part I, 3-72. 67 For an example of this tradition, see Wesley Robbins, “A Neopragmatist Perspective on Religion and Science,” Zygon 28 (1993): 337-49, or (in a more moderate fashion) Jeffrey Stout, e.g. in Ethics after Babel (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988).

PART II

HISTORICAL CASE-STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: MODERN PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER FOUR

CONTINGENCY AND SALVATION A HERMENEUTICS OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HEIDEGGER AND THOMAS AQUINAS Ben Vedder (Radboud University Nijmegen)

In human life, there is a contingency that humans can neither avoid nor undo. How are we to handle this? In this contribution I propose that religion is a way of responding to the fundamental contingency of life. This contribution is not about the contingency of religion with regard to the absoluteness of truth, but about the way that religion deals with contingency. It will turn out that a certain attitude towards contingency lies at the heart of religion: the aim is not to undo contingency, but to keep it open and live with it. I will show that the ultimate truth of religion seen as salvation is not a doctrine or a dogma, but a way of dealing with life’s contingent character. In order to do this, I will consider how ultimate truth and contingency are connected in the Christian religion. In his The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis connects two elements that seem at first sight to have little in common: contingency and salvation. He writes: “Be ready for it all the time; so live, that death cannot take you unawares. Plenty of people die quite suddenly, without any warning; the Son of Man will appear just when we are not expecting him.”1 Here contingency and ultimate truth are connected. The contingent and unexpected moment of death is connected with the greatest Christian salvation: the meeting with the Son of Man. This meeting is understood as the second coming of Christ. I want to explicate these two aspects by means of a hermeneutics of Christianity. In a first moment, hermeneutics means explicating (unfolding) something in order to attain understanding. A hermeneutics of Christianity therefore means making Christianity understandable, explicating it on a level of understanding that is different from the immediate language of faith. 1 Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. R. Knox and M. Oakley; New York: Sheed & Ward, 1959), Book 1, Chapter 23.

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Against this background, I want to explicate Christianity with the help of the concepts of contingency and salvation. In Christianity one can see that salvation is not at human being’s disposal. I will do this with the help of Heidegger’s interpretation of early Christianity. This interpretation shows that in the letters of Paul to the Christians of Thessalonica, the contingency of Christ’s coming is not neutralized; instead, Paul preaches an appropriate way to become attuned to it.2 Moreover, the contingency of death plays a remarkable role in Heidegger’s later philosophy. It is not the fact that we will die, but the temporal indeterminateness of the moment when we will die, that is decisive for the way Heidegger interprets death in Being and Time. The indeterminableness of the moment of Christ’s coming plays a role for the Thessalonians, whereas the indeterminableness of death is understood by Heidegger in Being and Time as the contingency of the moment in which death finds or comes down to humankind. This entails an attitude in which humankind is exposed to the contingency of death. Usually this contingency is neutralized by a calculative attitude, as is the case in a certain sense with Kant, who assigns salvation to humankind as if God were a divine book-keeper. The attitude that humans develop with regard to salvation is to be related to the question of truth in the Christian religion. To demonstrate this, I will consider the role of the theological virtues. The ultimate truth of Christianity is never an autonomous possession of humans, but a promise from God. Human longing for God as ultimate truth is a gift that comes from God in the theological virtues. The theological virtues teach us that human being does not possess his own salvation. He receives it, instead, as a gift from God, toward whom he can develop a way of relating through the virtues of faith, hope and love. I will interpret this in relation to the doctrine of virtues in Thomas Aquinas, who can certainly not be said to privilege a faith without reason. Salvation always happens or is given to humans contingently. It does not entail the domination or mastering of contingency, but happens through contingency itself. Since the divine virtues concern the praxis of faith, hope and love, these virtues involve an attitude, a habit, or a manner. A common characteristic of the divine virtues is that they do not arise out of the power to act of the human subject, but spring from 2 Martin Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life (trans. M. Fritsch and J. A. Gosetti-Ferencei; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).

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the initiative of God as the Other. Faith, hope and love are virtues that start from the initiative of the other. They are thus ways of living with contingency, and not of mastering it. My interpretation focuses on a certain aspect of contingency, namely, the contingent way in which salvation is given to human being in Christianity, and the attitude or manner of praxis that humans develop with regard to it. This concept of contingency should be understood on the basis of Odo Marquard’s interpretation of contingency as the accidental character of fate.3 With regard to the question of contingency, Marquard makes an interesting distinction between the arbitrary accidental (that which could have been different and can be changed by humans) and the accidental character of fate (that which could have been different but cannot be changed by us). The problem with the accidental character of fate is that it is nowadays repeatedly reduced to the arbitrary accidental, and as such to the human striving for control. We live in a time in which everything is controlled, which leads to the fact that we try as much as possible to neutralize and avoid the contingency of fate. Consequently, contingent matters that seem unchangeable through human action and unavoidable are no longer respected and held in high esteem. Contingency falls on the side of that which does not belong to human domination and calculation. The problem with this kind of contingency is not that it exists, but that it cannot be mastered. My basic position is not so much that religion belongs to this kind of contingency, but that religion is a manner or attitude that seeks to let contingency be, rather than to neutralize or master it. How does it happen then that religion is not a mastery or domination but a manner or attitude with respect to contingency? My interpretation of Christianity concerns the contingent character of human salvation in the Christian religion. Contingency and salvation are connected here. Therefore, Christian faith is not a “Kontingenzbewältigung“as argued by Hermann Lübbe.4 For in religious behaviour, which is inspired by the expectation of the coming of Christ and by the divine virtues, contingency is not neutralized; rather, it is withdrawn from human control and thus continues to exist. 3

Odo Marquard, Apologie des Zufälligen (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986), 128. See also Peter Jonkers’ contribution in this volume. 4 Hermann Lübbe, Religion nach der Aufklärung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1986).

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With this interpretation, I situate myself in the position of a hermeneutic philosopher who wants to unfold and interpret religious behaviour for a broader public which is not itself primarily involved in religious behaviour. 1. Heidegger’s Interpretation of Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians When Heidegger interprets early Christianity, he is not primarily concerned with the contingent moment of human life. His first concern is to develop a philosophical framework for understanding the contingency and historicality of life.5 The reason for this is that the existing philosophical framework does not seem appropriate for capturing contingent historicality; rather, it tends to neutralize it. Especially in his interpretation of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, Heidegger shows that in early Christian life the moment of contingency is important. It is not a mere contingency, but one that indicates the unpredictable and unforeseeable character of the coming of Christ—in other words, of salvation. In an attempt to gain access to this phenomenon, philosophy has to be directed towards factical life. In current philosophy, a lot of attention has been paid to the meaning of life, understood as the fulfilling of a meaningful moment. But Heidegger emphasizes that life is not always directed towards a predictable and foreseeable moment.6 It is especially the contingency of what happens in the future that makes life so unpredictable. Usually, human beings tend to hide from this fact by attributing a more powerful meaning, or by giving their own meaning to what happens. It is important to see here, however, that for authentic faith human beings have to develop a way of living with the contingency of the moment of Christ’s coming. Heidegger shows how the way human beings cope with contingency can be understood on the basis of the parousia, that is, the second coming of Christ. Factical life, for Heidegger, means our daily life insofar as it is constantly filled with unexpected moments that come down to us and make our life unpredictable. Human life is not a mirror of eternal 5

See the lecture course “Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion,” from winter semester 1920-21, published in Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, 3-111. 6 Ibid., 43.

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concepts or ideas, but something that is filled with care, concerns and unforeseeable happenings. This is also the true historicity of life which Heidegger refers to as “historicality.”7 In his interpretation of the letters to the Thessalonians, Heidegger sees the actualisation of historicality in early Christian life. Early Christian life is exemplary because it is oriented toward the actualisation of life as historical. In Christian life, the actualisation of factical life is not to be understood as something that is developed within a coherent meaning or sense. This would be the presupposition of the usual philosophical approach. Yet, here, the essential facticity of factical life becomes visible outside the coherence of our usual orientation towards sense and meaning. Therefore, it is difficult to understand, because understanding itself is oriented toward meaning, which is surveyable and calculable, and not contingent. Paul’s appeal is an appeal to Christian life as a way of living in relation to the unforeseeable moment of Christ’s coming. Paul’s letter is a proclamation (preaching), in the form of an announcement to the Christians of Thessalonica. The important thing, however, is not to see the proclamation as a relation with a content and a message, but as an appeal to a way of living in which an actualisation of factical life is implied. Heidegger’s interpretation of the proclamation in the letters of Paul focuses on the historical sense of the proclamation. This means that what Paul proclaims is not the content of a message that is an object of faith or a dogma, but something that must be done; it is an appeal to a way of living. This approach has a number of important consequences, especially with respect to the way in which the preacher and that which is being preached must be understood. The content of the message must not be understood as a message about a state of affairs, but as an appeal to a way of living. Therefore Heidegger can say that primordial Christian religiosity is an expression of the experience of factical life. It is this experience itself. And factical life experience is historical. Christian experience is the expression of the historical time itself.8 The message is understood within the context of the historical situation out of which it is spoken.

7 8

Ibid., 55. Ibid., 57.

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By this “historical situation,” Heidegger does not mean the biography of the person who speaks, but the situation in which that person speaks. The aim is to explicate the situation and the situation is only understandable from the perspective of those who share the expectation of the coming of Christ. This is what Paul shares with the people from Thessalonica. Paul experiences himself as a fellow sufferer and a member of the community of faith in Thessalonica. This is the situation from which he speaks. In accepting his preaching, the Thessalonians became Christians. Being a Christian is not having an opinion about life; it is a way of behaving, a type of factical life. It concerns the “how” of behaviour. This is what determines the devotion of the Thessalonians to God and their aversion to idols. Paul’s speech is not a theoretical speculation of which he himself is not a part. His destiny is united with the destiny of the community. From this “situation” of solidarity, he speaks to the community. His own place is part of his speaking. Paul speaks in a situation of need. This need is a concern about the coming of Christ. The need out of which Paul speaks, the situation of the preacher, cannot be isolated from the need about which he speaks, the preached content. The need in which Paul finds himself when he speaks and out of which he speaks, namely Christ’s coming, are moments of his preaching. The crucial question now is: how are we to understand the coming of Christ as a moment of his preaching? From the perspective of the content of his message, the coming of Christ is the content of an image referring to something that will happen in the future. Both the coming and that in which the coming will take place—the time—are represented as beings (entities) that are present at hand. In this case the content of the message and what will happen link up perfectly. Thinking, then, means having or creating representations. A representation is filled with a content which refers to something that will happen in the future. However, Paul does not pay attention to this aspect. The entire question for Paul is not a cognitive question, because his concern is not with a coming that will happen at a certain time. Paul writes: “For you know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:2).9 This knowing refers to the unpredictable and unforeseeable nature of the coming, which is an element of the contingency of factical life. Against this background, Paul opposes two groups of people and two ways of life. The first are those who see the coming of Christ as 9

Ibid., 72.

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something that will happen at a certain time. This way of life is one that looks for certainty and peace; it is the life of those living in darkness because they do not have the illumination of authentic faith. They do not believe or do not accept that Christ comes like a thief in the night. The other group is made up of those who “know” about the coming of Christ as something indeterminate and they live in unsteadiness and uncertainty. According to Heidegger, this unsteadiness and uncertainty are moments of the factical historical situation of human being. It is important to understand the coming of Christ as a moment of salvation from the perspective of the historicality of human existence. This is the point where the two opposite ways of living become explicit. The apostates do not accept the truth; they see the coming as something that will happen in the expected future. In a Heideggerian view, this means that they connect the content of the message with a theoretical and calculative point in the future and thus turn away from the facticity and contingency of life. This turning to the content of the world implies a turning away from factical life. The apostates think that they can wait till the coming of Christ. The true Christians, however, are attuned to the uncertainty of the coming of Christ; they understand it as an indication of the way they are supposed to live. This awakens them and opens them to the unexpected. The true Christians give up the coming of Christ as the certain content of a future moment. In this situation, historicality and contingency are not neutralized. Those who do not accept the truth are not able to recognize the anti-Christ, who is clothed in the appearance of the divine. The apostate thinks he can wait until Christ’s coming. Heidegger interprets the coming as an indication of factical and historical existence. Nevertheless, humans can never give up the meaningful and well-ordered world in which they live. There is always a tendency to neutralize historical contingency. Factical life also means being absorbed by the world. Being-absorbed-by means being oriented toward entities that appear meaningful. This does not change in Christian life. Meaningfulness and content do not change; they remain the same as in non-Christian life, but they no longer determine Christian facticity. Facticity and contingency remain hidden because of the orientation towards meaningfulness. But if the perspective of a meaningful content is given up, this “empty content” can indicate the way in which Christians live their life. What is coming is not an expected moment in the future. Christian life is a devotional standing before God which has to be realized again and

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again. Christian life is historical in and by this realization. Christians are those who relate to the world as if they did not.10 On this point, Heidegger quotes from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “What I mean my friends, is this: the time we live in will not last long. While it lasts, married men should be as if they had no wives; mourners should be as if they had nothing to grieve them, the joyful as if they did not rejoice; those who buy should be as if they possessed nothing and those who use the world’s wealth as if they did not have full use of it” (1 Cor 7: 29–31). This as-if-they-did-not does not mean that the Christian has to give up his relations to the world. It belongs to the facticity of life that it is absorbed in the world. It is impossible for the Christian to have otherthan-worldly relations. This as-if-not refers to a way of life that is open to the contingency of salvation. Christian facticity cannot be experienced from the content of a message and as a theoretical dogma. Christian understanding is not to be found in the representation of God or of the coming of Christ, nor does the essence of Christian life lie in preaching a doctrine, dogma or theoretical view. This as-if-not stands for a breaking-through the all-embracing orientation toward worldly entities that is so typical of theoretical representation. As a result of this breaking-through, the contingency of factical life can become visible. But this does not mean that the theoretical approach, as a way of caring, can be eliminated. It is not possible for Christian life to be lived purely in contingent facticity, but the fragility of Christian life becomes visible out of this conversion to God. This fragility is typical of authentic Christianity, which, according to Heidegger, points to the facticity of human existence. Heidegger writes: “Christian life is not straightforward, but is rather broken up.”11 Human’s usual life-orientation is characterized as an orientation toward a meaningful and determinable world. In this situation, the reality of contingent and factical life does not become visible. This implies that humans live indifferently both in relation to the realization of factical life itself, and in relation to his all-embracing absorption in the world. Human being has to remain in meaningfulness: this is and has always been the adagium of everyday life. The same goes for philosophy, theology and science. The statements made in these domains have to be meaningful and correct. In everyday life and in everyday philosophy, 10 11

Ibid., 85. Ibid., 86.

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humans are concerned with correctness. “In a specific situation, I can factically listen to scientific lectures and, in the course of this, then talk about quotidian matters. The situation is essentially the same, except that the content has changed; and yet I do not become conscious of a specific change of attitude.”12 All speaking takes place within an orientation toward a meaningful and surveyable world and a predictable future. In his interpretation of the letters to the Thessalonians, Heidegger tries to understand the coherence between the orientation toward the world of content and the realization of historical life. This coherence between the moments that orient human existence is found in fragility. Whenever this fragility of factical life is misunderstood because of the tendency to objectify, the essence of the facticity of human life is misunderstood. If one wants to do justice to this fragility, then the way of conceptually expressing factical life will have to be transformed. Yet, the dominance of the theoretical orientation leads us to overlook the contingency and historicality of life, and not just with regard to Christian religiosity. To avoid this, philosophy and theology have to withdraw from this absorbing orientation toward content. Is this possible, however, when all one is concerned with is theoretical truth claims? The question of the possibility of philosophy depends on the possibility of finding a place from which the orientation of factical life can be seen and understood. In other words, it is a matter of finding a place where the contingency of salvation becomes visible. As we will see, this occurs in the theological virtues. 2. Human Beings Cannot Realize Their Own Salvation We will see the phenomenon of the contingency of salvation continued in the presuppositions that are at the basis of the divine virtues: faith, hope and love. In my introduction I wrote that all kinds of contingent matters that are not arbitrary are not held in esteem. Contingency belongs to what cannot be reduced to human domination and calculation. The problem of contingency is thus not that it exists, but that it cannot be mastered.

12

Ibid., 10.

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As we saw in Paul’s preaching to the Thessalonians, Christianity is a way of life, an attitude toward the moment of contingency. This accent on a way of life that relates to contingency without mastering and neutralizing it is also present in the divine virtues. These virtues are characterized by the fact that they are not initiated by the human subject, but by the Other, by God. Whether I reach eternal truth does not depend on my capacity, but must be understood as a grace that is given to me. Because grace is handed down or given to me, it must be understood as something contingent. The longing of humans to know their origin and destination does not attain completion from human being’s own power, but from the offer and gift of grace from God. It is not reached by means of philosophical truth-claims.13 In other words, salvation is not found by human power and rational means, but is something that is given or happens to humankind. This goes against the dominant longing for autonomy of modern humans. Modern humans demand that religion be justified before the public eye by scientific reason.14 With this theoretical justification, as we saw already in Heidegger’s interpretation, contingency seems to be neutralized. A further interpretation of the specific nature of religious faith from the foregoing perspective will show that it is not mastered by a rational reason, but that an appropriate way of life has to be developed with regard to the contingency of salvation. This happens with the help of the divine virtues as they are interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. Thomas distinguishes the divine virtues or infused virtues from the moral and intellectual or acquired virtues. The divine virtues are in opposition to the other virtues, and they are especially characterized as directed toward the ultimate salvation of human being. The reason why these virtues are called “infused” is because in the final analysis they are given to human being (STh 1a2ae q. 62 art. 1).15 13

G. van der Leeuw points out the difference between the rational control of the metaphysician and the theologian who is led by obedience. See G. van der Leeuw, Phänomenologie der Religion (2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1956). 14 For the following interpretation I have drawn especially on Friedo Ricken, “Der religiöse Glaube als Tugend,” in Religion – Metaphysik(kritik) – Theologie im Kontext der Moderne/Postmoderne (ed. M. Knapp and Th. Kobusch; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 127-144. 15 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin text and English translation (London: Blackfriars in conjunction with Eyre & Spottiswoode and New York: McGraw – Hill Book Company, 1964-1975).

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But what does it mean that faith is a virtue? And how are the divine virtues related to the other virtues?16 With the distinction between the infused and acquired virtues, Thomas determines human being as a finite being. Human being is not able to accomplish everything that he needs to accomplish. His final destination, namely, seeing the Lord face to face, can only be realized with the external help of God. With the acquired virtues, human being does not attain heavenly salvation. However, he can attain an earthly salvation, like the happiness of contemplation which is the highest good for the philosopher, that is, for human being as rational being. This means that, according to Thomas, as a faithful Christian, earthly virtuousness always remains imperfect.17 Virtue is an attitude to begin with, a condition or state that one is in. However, it is not just a condition; it is an attitude that one can learn and exercise like a habit. Virtue is the completion or perfection of a capacity which leads to an improvement of the act that originates from that capacity.18 Therefore it depends on an exercise that keeps it alive. So virtue is a way of acting and a praxis rather than theoretical contemplation. That faith is a virtue means that it is an attitude which shapes the life of man: it is something different than a seeking truth in metaphysical ideas or dogmas that must be justified before a public reason. An attitude is something that must be learned through practice and that cannot be easily changed in the way that one changes opinions. Above the moral and intellectual virtues, human beings also need the divine virtues, because they are unable to accomplish their salvation with their own power. This is connected to Thomas’s idea of the twofold salvation of man, which we may see as an expression of human fragility or of the conditio humana.19 According to Thomas, there is a difference between what human being desires and what he can reach on his own. This means that there is a wound in human existence. Human being cannot attain his ultimate destiny on his own, except by God’s grace (STh I 12,4 conclusio). The

16

See Ricken, “Der religiöse Glaube,” 128. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed questions on Virtue (trans. R. McInerny; South Bend: St Augustines Press, 1999) Art. 9, ad 5. 18 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.II 55,1-3. 19 Ricken, “Der religiöse Glaube,” 128. 17

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natural image of human being that Aristotle offers indicates a wound for the Christian Thomas Aquinas. His reason, which is activated by his will to look for God, is unable to find God on its own. But is not the act of faith an act of understanding and reason? Faith could be understood as a pre-scientific assumption or hypothesis. Here, however, it is important that we are speaking about religious faith and not about an epistemological act. According to Thomas, this religious faith is the first of all virtues (STh II.II 4,7). Faith is not an isolated cognitive capacity; rather, it is connected with other habits, like hope and love. Religious faith has to be accompanied by love, without which it is not specifically religious. Faith is directed to the object of the will, which is the good. The good is the goal of faith, and ultimate salvation is the object of love. Therefore love is the form of faith insofar as faith is made complete by love and acquires its form from it (STh II.II 4,7). Faith without love is not a complete virtue; in such a case it is unformed faith: “fides informis” (STh II.II 6,2 ad 1). In order to be moved to the ultimate salvation, salvation must be known and desired as an aim. And the longing for this aim requires two things: first, hope to attain this aim; and second, love for this aim, because there is no love without longing. This is why there are the three divine virtues, namely, faith by which we know God from His revelation, hope by which we hope to attain Him, and love by which we love Him (De virt. Art. 12). The interrelation of the divine virtues should be emphasized, because this makes clear the specific character of religious faith as opposed to epistemological belief. Thomas limits rational thinking with the divine virtues, since these virtues are not autonomously acquired, but are infused or given by God and are made known to us as virtues by divine revelation in Holy Scripture (STh I.II 62,1). The Aristotelian virtues are in us by nature, as it were. The divine virtues, on the other hand, are wholly external: “totaliter ab extrinseco” (STh I.II 63,1). The external character of the divine virtues is connected with the external character of their content. Reason cannot gain for human being its ultimate salvation, because salvation transcends all human understanding. Only through revelation can human being receive his ultimate destination. The calculations of human reason have to be conquered by listening to the word of God. Faith is directed towards what is said in faith based on God’s inspiration (STh I 1,1). But that something is revealed by God is again an object of faith, just like the

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revelation of God’s existence. Thomas says that if there is to be an indubitable and certain knowledge of God, then it is necessary that divine things be taught by way of faith (STh II.II 2,4). The gift of salvation therefore is not to be attained by reason. The gift of revealed salvation has primacy; its content cannot be proven by an ontology. Theology can argue philosophically, but these arguments do not prove the faithfulness of faith. One can only believe something about God (credere Deum) if one believes God (credere Deo) (STh II.II 1,1). Moreover, the reason for believing is not situated in the will of human being, as the Pelagians presupposed. According to Thomas, belief is initiated by God. The acceptance of faith, which is the most important act of faith, depends on God, who moves us by his grace (STh II.II 6,1). But what reasons does a believer have for believing that the ultimate salvation will be given by God? Thomas refers for this to the authority of those to whom revelation was made (STh I 1,8 ad 2). And if one asks for the criteria upon which this authority is based, he refers to the miracles and the persuasiveness of the preaching (STh II.II 2,9 ad 3; II.II 6,1). The fact of revelation thus has to be understood and accepted from contingent history. These grounds are insufficient to move the intellect to acceptance; faith remains a more or less accidental gift. Thomas confirms this when he says that “one man believes and another does not, when both have seen the same miracle, heard the same preaching” (STh II.II 6,1). In other words, seen from the perspective of human reason, belief in the ultimate salvation remains contingent. Religious faith is a specific domain that is sui generis. It does not presuppose metaphysics as its basis. This also means that one cannot make an appeal to the conceptual framework of metaphysics for the phenomenological explication of religious faith, since it would lose its contingent character in such a framework.20 A further characteristic of the infused virtues is that they are marked by a fundamental passivity in human beings. Human beings are fundamentally receivers. The given virtues cannot be learned, for this would make man himself the initiator of these virtues. Nevertheless, there are preconditions which make these virtues possible. Human being has to look for the truth and to direct his intellect towards it. In addition, his will must be directed towards the good; he has to long for it (De virt. Art 20

Ibid., 141.

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10,17). Therefore humans who do what is in accordance with their capacities prepare for the love and faith they receive from God (De virt. Art. 11). But whether they are struck and moved by this love remains contingent from a human perspective. Moreover, the infused virtues cannot be passed on by custom or tradition, since this would be to place the initiative for these virtues in humankind by custom. It is not possible from this perspective to say that one believes because of custom or tradition, for this would amount to neglecting God’s grace. But the initiative originates in God: human beings never master these virtues by habit formation. To indicate that there is a non-earthly salvation for humans, Thomas points to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: “things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). This means that the ultimate salvation is not something of human measure and calculation (STh I.II 62,3). 3. Perspectives It is to Josef Pieper’s credit that he made the divine virtues of faith, hope and love into philosophical issues.21 With regard to faith, following Augustine and Thomas, he emphasizes that it is not an intellectual act, but that it is about trust. The believer is moved by the object of his hope as something good. It is not knowing and insight that responds to this good, but the will. The believer does not believe because he agrees with a truth claim, but because he trusts someone who is beyond his control. A rational scientific approach to the religious act of faith fails, since this faith does not belong to the domain of a rational insight upon the basis of which one would agree with rational arguments. In agreement with Thomas, Pieper confirms the place of hope. Humankind is directed to his ultimate salvation by three movements: in faith, God’s revelation appears. Love agrees with the highest good, which is disclosed in faith. Hope is the trustful longing for this good as the ultimate salvation.

21

Josef Pieper, Lieben, Hoffen, Glauben (München: Kösel, 1986).

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That these virtues are a gift to humans is probably best experienced in the love that one human person receives from another person. We see our love for another as originating in and moved by the other. It is hardly conceivable in our times, however, to understand this origination in the other, beyond our own efforts, as grace. The ideal of total self-control is at odds with everything that is not caused by human being. There seems to be a tendency in human being to resist everything that stems from gratuitous and pure love. Yet, in a sense, all love is a free gift insofar as it originates in the other person. It is not possible to earn or to claim this love; nor is there a rational basis for it. Love has the character of a gift that cannot be undone. But it seems as if there was something in humans that resists the gift, something that says “I don’t want something for free.”22 The question is whether this is not also a resistance to human vulnerability and finitude. The divine virtues especially make it possible for human being to go about with the experience of his finitude and to understand his life as finite and contingent.23 The more the ideal of total self-control is achieved, however, the more the divine virtues will be understood as undesirable and unwelcome. Against this background, Bollnow24 points out that the divine virtues are also meaningful outside a specifically religious context. They are important in common profane life. But if the theological—in other words, religious—character of these virtues is neutralized, what remains? Do they belong to the basic structure of human being, or are they a development specific to Christianity? Don’t we have to translate these divine virtues through a hermeneutics of Christianity? Though I will not answer all these questions here, what Bollnow writes about the divine virtues remains worthy of consideration: faith, for instance in the reliability of a person, and hope, as in the hope for a good result, can be understood as basic attitudes with regard to life. Bollnow understands the common character of these virtues as trust. He also points out that our

22

Ibid., 63 Libert van der Kerken, De goede mens en zijn gebreken, een filosofie van de zedelijke grondhoudingen (Antwerpen: Standaard-Boekhandel, 1957), 224-227. 24 Otto Friedrich Bollnow, Wesen und Wandel der Tugenden (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1958), 175-185. 23

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time is marked by a lack of trust. It is a matter of developing a new trust, as much with regard to another person or another culture, as with regard to the strangeness and contingency of life as such. Trust is given to another person who is beyond human calculation, for he or she has a free will which is independent of my control. If I know how someone will act, based on my knowledge, I do not have to trust him; I cannot trust him because I have already left behind the terms and concepts within which we can speak of trust. Trust occurs when I am in contact with someone who is not under my control. Therefore, trust is always a risky enterprise. Where the certainty of knowledge stops, one could move to probabilities, but probabilities as well are objects of calculation. Trust is not based on certainty and probabilities. One trusts only when there is no certainty. In addition, Bollnow points out the gift-character of trust. Trust is a gift that happens to human being, in which case we can talk about a favour or grace. With this, it seems as if we are outside the domain of ethics. How is it possible to demand something from someone that he is not able to achieve on his own, but that has to be given to him? Is it possible to call this a virtue? Bollnow answers this question in the affirmative. It is a virtue because humans can develop an attitude toward life that is open to things that are not under their control. In this sense the quality of trust could be increased by a deeper anchoring of trust in human being. Against the attitude of activism and calculation, this is a plea for devotion and receptivity.25 Thus, I am not speaking here about a mastering or dominating that presupposes control. In trust, vulnerability and contingency are not undone, but rather guarded. Against this same background of the ideal of control as characteristic of modernity, Herman De Dijn develops a philosophy of trust. Abandonment implies that one relates to a dimension that is beyond human control. If it is a matter of trust in another person, one relates to the dimension of the otherness of the other. If it is about self-confidence, one relates to the dimension in oneself that cannot be mastered and through which one is a gift to oneself.26 One lives in acceptance of the vulnerability of life, which may meet its salvation suddenly and unexpectedly. 25

See Ben Vedder “Gabe und Vergebung,” in Le don et la dette (ed. M. M. Olivetti; Cedam: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Filosofia, 2004), 179-190. 26 Herman De Dijn, Hoe overleven wij de vrijheid? Modernisme, postmodernisme en het mystiek lichaam (Kapellen: Pelckmans Kok Agora, 1984), 120.

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If we go back to Thomas à Kempis’s connection between the contingency of death and salvation, we see that we have to be prepared for something we do not control: our salvation. Christians can only be prepared for their salvation if they live according to the divine virtues. But being gifted with the divine virtues is also outside their control; it is a gift which comes to them unexpectedly and suddenly, without reason. The Christian religion shows itself as an expression of an attitude with regard to contingency, such that contingency is not neutralized but remains, even in the sudden moment of death and salvation. So I may conclude that the ultimate truth of religion seen as salvation is not a doctrine or a dogma, but a way of accepting the contingency of life. But what about the truth claims of the dogmas and the doctrines? Are they just an intellectual Gregorian chant? In a certain sense, they are. The doctrine of the ultimate salvation, as I have shown, does not serve primarily as a confession or a theoretical insight about a state of affairs, but aims at an attitude of openness towards the contingency of life.

CHAPTER FIVE

JASPERS, EXISTENCE, AND CONTINGENCY ON THE RISK OF A LOSS OF SENSE FOR GOD IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY Joris Geldhof (Catholic University of Leuven)

1. Introduction In his profound philosophical reflections, the famous German philosopher of existence, Karl Jaspers,1 does not seem to have surpassed the standpoint of contingency. Even more, he appears to have declared a philosophy of radical contingency the only coherent, trustworthy, and veritable system of thought, at least in the context of twentieth century culture. This idea did not prevent him, however, from exploring the boundaries between existence and transcendence. To the contrary, transcendence for Jaspers is one of the key concepts of thought—a firm conviction which he is generally praised for, not only among historians of ideas or traditional metaphysicians, but also by a great number of philosophers of religion and theologians. The question is, of course, what is meant by a “standpoint of radical contingency”? And, in addition: does Jaspers’ philosophy still provide an opening for the reality that was traditionally called “God” or “the absolute”? It is assumed that, in answering these questions, we will come across the basic issues of Jaspersian metaphysics. This contribution, however, does not aim primarily at an analysis of what Jaspers can teach us about contingency. Rather, its focus is the twofold question, whether Jaspers’ philosophy of existence is interpretable as a philosophy of con-

1

Jaspers was not pleased with the label of “existentialist” and its connotations of a provocative lifestyle. Instead he preferred the term “philosopher of existence” (Existenzphilosoph). Karl Jaspers, Philosophie II (München: Piper, 1994), xxiii; Idem, Aneignung und Polemik. Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze zur Geschichte der Philosophie (ed. H. Saner; München: Piper, 1968), 467-504; Hans Saner, Karl Jaspers (Rowohlt Bildmonographien 169; Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1970), 144-145.

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tingency, and whether this peculiar approach does away with a certain sensitivity for the divine that traditionally accompanied philosophical thought? Of course, this question itself relies on a specific understanding of contingency that needs to be elucidated beforehand. In this article, the logical significance of contingent as “that which is not necessary” or “that which does not happen necessarily” does not prevail. Contingency rather denotes a paradigm of thought that, in the history of philosophy, mentality, and culture, arose in the wake of modernity.2 This implies that speaking of contingency brings forth a hermeneutics of immanence, historicity, finitude, and particularity, as well as a thoroughgoing awareness of how difficult it is to deal with the absolute. Concretely, this article first follows Jaspers’ metaphysics with respect to some crucial concepts it employed. I will demonstrate that a strong, even all-determining awareness of contingency permeated Jaspers’ understanding of “existence,” “transcendence,” and the “ciphers” mediating between them. Relying upon this analysis, I will further ask whether the nature of this awareness articulates some intrinsic shortcomings typical of modern philosophy.3 In order to make this point clear, I will draw attention to two topics, both of which prominently figure in Jaspers’ philosophy of religion: “negative theology” and “faith.” 2. Existence in Contingency For Jaspers, existence is not easily describable. Actually, it is quite impossible to catch hold of it and bring it, in some way, before the intellect, so that a satisfactory definition of it can be given. At any rate, existence is not to be identified with “soul,” “human individual,” “self-consciousness,” “mind,” etc., although a preliminary notion of these concepts 2 In line with Blumenberg’s and Marquard’s theses, Ingolf Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger argue that the notional content of contingency has become increasingly important since the modern paradigm shift, so emphatically that it dominates a whole philosophical era and its metaphysical and cultural approach to reality. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger, “Religion als Kontingenzkultur und die Kontingenz Gottes,” in Vernunft, Kontingenz und Gott (Religion in Philosophy and Theology 1; ed. I. U. Dalferth and P. Stoellger; Tübingen: Mohr, 2000), 1-44. 3 I discussed this issue at greater length in my Revelation, Reason and Reality. Theological Encounters with Jaspers, Schelling and Baader (Studies in Philosophical Theology 39; Leuven: Peeters, 2007), esp. 29-51.

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may help to intuit the meaning of existence. It necessarily escapes human capacities of reasoning and the grip of all sciences, because it is always singular, “irrepresentable and irreplaceable.”4 It resists being recuperated by any generalizing or systematizing tendency of thought. Hence, it cannot be made an object about which right or false assertions contribute to clear and justified knowledge. It is never a “thing” and it cannot be observed empirically. Categories of all kinds lose their power and their terseness, as soon as they attempt to enclose existence in their systems or any other interpretative frameworks. In short, “existence itself is incomprehensible.”5 This does not mean, however, that it is impossible to say something philosophically relevant about existence—as is evident from Jaspers’ philosophical project from the very outset. The whole second part of his main work, Philosophie (1932), is dedicated to the clarification of existence (Existenzerhellung). All aspects of it are painstakingly uncovered, and in a variety of ways, Jaspers tries to explain what it means to exist, without, however, fixing existence itself into any scheme or pattern. Also later on, in Vernunft und Existenz (1935), and in his second main work, Von der Wahrheit (1947), Jaspers comes back to the central theme of existence with a view to exploring its variegated significance—which is, according to him, a never-ending process, as well as a serious assignment for all truthful philosophy. Existence is closely related to Jaspers’ understanding of the “encompassing” (das Umgreifende). Due to the specific situation of human beings in the world, which is never one of perfect harmony, the encompassing is divided into the being of everything, that surrounds and transcends us, and the being that we are ourselves.6 As such, the encompassing is the ground and the origin of all being; it literally encompasses the totality of being. But human beings never coincide with it, nor do they embody it without, at the same time (and substantially) differing from it. “Existence” is only understandable from an original on4 Karl Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung (München: Piper, 1962), 118. For all quotations from Jaspers’ oeuvre, reference is made to the original German texts; all translations are mine. 5 Jaspers, Philosophie II, 12. 6 Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 111ff; idem, Einführung in die Philosophie (Zürich: Artemis, 1950), 28ff; idem, Vernunft und Existenz (Bremen: Storm, 1947), 36ff; idem, Von der Wahrheit (München: Piper, 1947), 47ff.

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tological rupture which is what allows human beings to have an intuition of being at all. It marks the difference of the being that we are and the being that we are not, but that we nevertheless need for our own being. A fundamental tear in the horizon of being, the origins of which remain as unexplainable as ultimately mysterious, is responsible for the very fact that human beings are able to have a sense of their existence. This fundamental ontological tear immediately asks for clarification and interpretation. Encroaching upon the continuation of mere being, existence lays bare from within itself its possibilities for being elucidated.7 The sheer existence of “existence” creates the opening through which a start can be made with the explanation of being. “Never becoming an object or a form, existence bears the sense of every shape of the encompassing.”8 This, however, implies references to concrete contexts and requires a profound awareness of historicity. And although this inescapability might at first seem contradictory, for Jaspers, it indeed concerns “the only possible disclosure of the depth of being as historicity.”9 The historical particularity of existence is an issue to which Jaspers has drawn attention repeatedly. This does not mean that existence itself is historical, as it actually escapes temporality. It means that one cannot become aware of existence, except in historically conditioned and therefore concrete historical circumstances. To understand the meaning of historical, Jaspers distinguishes between “historisch” and “geschichtlich.”10 Whereas the former term appeals to the sciences of history and to general knowledge, the latter refers to unique individuals and their irreplaceable embeddings in the continuity of being. The historical consciousness of existence is always concrete, particular, and, indeed, contingent. It is tied up with ever new and unforeseeable situations, which ceaselessly confront the individual with its finite being-in-theworld.

7 This observation seems to be the deepest motivation, in Greisch’s extensive and painstaking discussion of the (emergence of the) philosophy of religion in the last two centuries, for giving Jaspers’ thought a crucial role precisely in the development of a hermeneutic paradigm. Jean Greisch, Vers un paradigme herméneutique (vol. 3 of Le Buisson ardent et les Lumières de la raison: L’invention de la philosophie de la religion. Philosophie & Théologie ; Paris: Cerf, 2004), 337; 432; 487. 8 Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz, 42. 9 Ibid., 42-43. 10 Jaspers, Philosophie II, 118-120; 397-399.

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Jaspers himself expresses the idea of the contingency and particularity of existence by conceptually separating, but at the same time connecting, “Existenz” and “Dasein.”11 Perhaps in contradiction to what one might expect, these two concepts are not identified. Dasein is like the bodily form Existenz takes up; it is the very concrete mode of being thanks to which existence finds a way of positioning itself and self-understanding. Dasein is the “locus” that realizes a possible appearance of Existenz in the human self. Precisely through its being-there and, as such, being in always new historical circumstances, existence is, in a paradoxical fashion, what it is like, but what it never can be fully: something able to be identified or captured from the temporal flow of being. Historicity, for Jaspers, is the unifying horizon of Dasein and Existenz,12 and, singular as it always is, it stubbornly opposes attempts to be generalized, classified, or catalogued. The being-in-situations of Dasein, and through it, of Existenz, is explicitly elaborated in Jaspers’ works.13 His notion and interpretation of limit situations (Grenzsituationen), moreover, was one of the reasons his thought became famous, even outside philosophical circles. Jaspers discerns four of these limit situations: death, suffering, struggle and guilt. But, more interestingly, Jaspers regards the limit situation of “being-bound to the unique situation in the narrowness of my conditions,” or “that, as a Dasein, I [am] always in a certain situation,”14 as the first and principal one. Since situations are never completely governed by the will of the self, and since the self is not the product of totally arbitrary happenings, they can be said to constitute a permanent series of coincidences, an ever changing chain of contexts, as it were, in which people have to live their lives. Jaspers indeed speaks of “an endless coincidence of all that happens,”15 and unambiguously maintains that all human experience is “absolutely historical.”16 From this brief exploration of a fundamental concept in Jaspers’ work, we are reminded that Jaspers conceives of existence as a contingent being. In so far as it exists and in so far as an awareness of it is real, 11 12 13 14 15 16

Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 77-79; Philosophie II, 2. Ibid., 122-124. Ibid., 201-248; Einführung in die Philosophie, 20-21. Ibid., 209. Ibid., 213. Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz, 82.

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it is inextricably connected with, and even steeped in, contingent historical situations. Once these are ignored or neglected, or once one makes abstraction of them, one betrays “the truth of existence” as existing in contingency. 3. Transcendence as Contingency? Perhaps Jaspers’ most telling conviction about transcendence concerns its relation with existence. How intimately he conceives of the alliance between both is evident from numerous passages throughout his entire works. In Von der Wahrheit, Jaspers concisely contends: “In essence, transcendence is only for existence.”17 And elsewhere, in the same book: “Existence is the being of the self, which relates to itself and, in that relationship, to transcendence, by which it knows itself as given, and on which it grounds itself.”18 In the third part of his Philosophie, he is even more bold: “Existence exists only in relation to transcendence or not at all.”19 Undoubtedly, in statements like these, Jaspers expressed the core of his thought about transcendence. The question here is, how, if at all, does his strong awareness of contingency that we met in the context of our discussion of existence also determine his idea of transcendence? In any case, according to Jaspers, it is important that philosophy faces the problem of transcendence. If it does not, it decays into “either an immanent and particular knowledge of objects through [the] sciences, or an intellectual doddle.”20 Jaspers sharply criticized contemporary philosophical currents for not, hardly, or inappropriately pondering over the problem of transcendence. He therefore reacts against the all too narrow “principle of consciousness,” also known as the “principle of immanence,” for which nothing is real unless it is accessible for human consciousness, and unless it appears in the same field of immanence as that in which we ourselves appear. Although this principle

17

Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 631. Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 49; cf. ibid., 110: “Transzendenz zeigt sich allein der Existenz.” 19 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 6. 20 Jaspers, Philosophie I, 39. 18

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might be useful in unmasking myths and superstition, genuine philosophy should ultimately reject it, because it is untenable in light of the total spectrum of human experiences.21 Nevertheless transcendence, in some way or another, has to lay aside its not-of-this-worldliness, in order to be known. If transcendence did not somehow occasion a certain understanding, its sense would escape the horizon of human interpreting, in such a way that it would be impossible to be aware of its reality. This means, concretely, that contact must be made or, phenomenologically speaking, that transcendence has to appear. Jaspers says: “Without the reality of appearance . . . there is no transcendence.”22 The consequences of this statement will indicate how, in Jaspers’ thought, there is indeed a close connection between transcendence and contingency. One cannot maintain, however, that transcendence itself is contingent, as it—like existence, as we have seen—actually surpasses the temporal horizon of being. Jaspers understands transcendence as the carrying ground of our being-in-the-world, to which we can entrust ourselves and to which we owe our existence.23 As such it stands at odds with historicity and the ontological sphere of coincidence which human beings are unable to run away from, even if they would like to—unless they fall into the trap of not taking seriously their transitoriness. It is only at the moment that we hear (something from) transcendence that it enters temporality, and hence, in doing so, it cannot avoid contingency. Or, in Jaspers’ own words: “The paradox of transcendence consists in the fact that one can only apprehend it historically, but that, as historical itself, it cannot be adequately conceived of.”24 In order to explain what transcendence means, Jaspers makes use of the same methodology that enabled him to evoke the radical irreducibility of existence. Transcendence participates in the same “encompassing” reality in which existence came across itself. But it stands on the opposite side, as it were. The encompassing of transcendence appears, not as the being that we are, but as the being that is as it is. In other words, it is “that which, as the mere encompassing, is in such an inexo-

21

Ibid., 49-51; cf. Von der Wahrheit, 632. Jaspers, Philosophie II, 254. 23 Ibid., 75. 24 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 23. 22

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rable way, that it is not seen, and remains unknown.”25 This profound philosophical conviction explains why Jaspers so coherently insists on the essential non-objectivity (Nichtgegenständlichkeit) of transcendence,26 while at the same time reflecting upon the inevitability of transcendence becoming-objective (Gegenständlichwerden).27 This seems to be a contradiction, but it is not. It rather concerns a fundamental, ineradicable, but at the same time, hermeneutically fruitful tension, the deepest grounds of which remain hidden in the mystery that being after all is. For it is from this tension that metaphysical thinking lives. And this, as a pre-eminently human affair, is anything but a collection of timeless and necessary truths. According to Jaspers, metaphysics is seriously misunderstood if it is associated with a clearly delineated system of categories of being, be they fashioned after scientific examples or after traditional religious dogmas. Jaspers, therefore, works with a metaphorical paradigm of metaphysical thought, for which “the metaphysical symbol [hence is] the becoming-objective of something that is in itself unobjective.”28 Only this “method” allows him to keep a necessary openness towards the origins from which any authentic metaphysical thought wells up. Yet there is, in Jaspers’ account of transcendence, an unavoidable, even substantial, involvement on the part of the human subject. Hence, pure transcendence, that is, transcendence as transcendence, exceeds the limits of reason alone.29 For Jaspers, this means that every categorical appropriation of transcendence must, sooner or later, fail (scheitern). This is also the case for the categories of necessity and contingency: “If I want to think of transcendence as necessary, then I 25

Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz, 42. For example, see Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 158ff, where he distinguishes between “ontology” and “periechontology.” Whereas the former treats being as if it were dividable into separate levels and objects, the latter circles around (in) being, letting it speak for itself. Jaspers obviously favours “periechontology”—a term which he, anyway, invented himself—over “ontology.” See also Jaspers, Philosophie III, 161-164, where he formulates the same idea, but does not yet use the term “periechontology.” 27 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 6-8. 28 Ibid., 16. In German it reads “das Gegenständlichwerden eines an sich Ungegenständlichen.” 29 This is by no means an arbitrary allusion to Kant. For, it is generally known how much Jaspers, in theoretical as well as practical philosophical issues, was influenced, even inspired by the famous German Aufklärer. 26

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have to do this in the identity of necessity and coincidence, and again I run aground on an unenforceable identity.”30 If the human interpreter succeeded in rightly conceiving of the identity of necessity and coincidence, Jaspers, argues, he or she would, by the very fact of thinking itself, reduce transcendent being to an object for the self. Jaspers accordingly warns: “Nevertheless, in every true attitude to transcendence, there is an awareness of its being that is independent of me. My historicity does not produce it [i.e. transcendence], but [it produces] me in the way I interiorise it.”31 In sum, the way in which contingency affects transcendence cannot be detached from the fact that we only get a notion of transcendence through existence. It is because existence itself is situated in the bosom of permanently changing contexts, and because transcendence must somehow engraft itself in existence, that contingent temporality constitutes the horizon against which a certain, always deficient, understanding of transcendence is possible. “If existence in its appearance is historical, not general, . . . then the appearance of transcendence as well must become historical for it.”32 It is precisely in this process of Geschichtlichwerden that “ciphers” play a crucial role. 4. Mediating Transcendence to Existence Jaspers spent much time and energy in designing, modifying, and clarifying his theory of “ciphers.” More than a merely linguistic theory of symbols or a simple cultural reflection about the impact of myths and metaphors on people’s lives, it was the core of traditional metaphysics that was at stake here. Jaspers’ theory of ciphers actually deals with the relation between the being that I am and the being that transcends me, the being, so to speak, that—literally—lies “beyond nature” (meta physin). The fact that his last lecture series at university was dedicated to Chiffren der Transzendenz is, in this regard, illuminating.33 For, there

30

Jaspers, Philosophie III, 52. Ibid., 22. 32 Ibid., 19. 33 Karl Jaspers, Chiffren der Transzendenz (ed. H. Saner; München: Piper, 1972). 31

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is little doubt that the specificity of Jaspers’ own metaphysics consists entirely of a reading of ciphers.34 In both his main works, Jaspers concludes with extensive chapters about ciphers.35 It is, however, not until his later study, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, that his theory of ciphers reaches full philosophical completion.36 A permanent insight of Jaspers’ concerning ciphers, is that they form a kind of language through which transcendence “speaks.” In its turn, this conviction must be seen in connection with a communicative theory of truth that permeates Jaspers’ philosophical project as a whole. In communication, there is always mediation and a message. Yet, it is ciphers that mediate the message(s) of transcendence to existence. For Jaspers, ciphers are mediators but not a fixed medium, objectifiers, but not objects,37 illustrators rather than illustrations. Ciphers, moreover, constitute an order or a level of being between existence and transcendence. The being of transcendence must make itself known through the language of ciphers, and existence’s openness to transcendence cannot go beyond the world of ciphers. This being-inbetween of ciphers is essential for their reality status as well as their power of expression. In Jaspers’ own words: “The cipher is the being that brings transcendence to presence, without transcendence becoming being in the sense of an object, and existence, being in the sense of a subject.”38 So ciphers of transcendence never coincide with transcendence itself, because, in that case, we would know nothing of them, and transcendence would not be transcendent anymore. Nor are they identifiable with existence, since they would then have nothing to communicate. Ciphers emerge from the silence and the original mystery of being,

34 Jaspers, Einführung in die Philosophie, 35; Xavier Tilliette, “Sinn, Wert und Grenze der Chiffernlehre,” Studia Philosophica 20 (1960):116. 35 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 128-236; Von der Wahrheit, 1022-1054. 36 In a book review, Xavier Tilliette noticed that the greatest innovations in comparison to Jaspers’ earlier work must be sought precisely in the elaboration of his theory of ciphers. Yet indeed, the fourth and fifth chapters of this book, dealing successively with the essence of ciphers and the struggle in the realm of ciphers, cover—expressed in pages—more than half the entire work. Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 153-428. 37 Cf. Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 1031. 38 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 137.

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in which sheer transcendence and sheer existence wrap themselves. Without ever allowing full entry, they unveil something of the “encompassing.” However, by the very (f)act of their emergence, ciphers set foot in the realm of temporality, transitoriness, or contingency. Again, this idea is due to an inextricable link with existence, and through existence, with concrete forms of Dasein. Jaspers defines existence as the place (Ort) where ciphers are (to be) read.39 Moreover, he regards interpreting ciphers as a typically human activity. Human beings have always found sense in, and given sense to what surrounds them, and they will continue to do so in the future. Therefore, the truth of ciphers “lies in [their] connection with existence,”40 and is thus always to be connected with the sphere of contingency. To the question, what can be(come) a cipher, Jaspers answers, “everything,”41 provided that it is not identified with objective realities as these are accessible to us through the intellect and the sciences. He clearly stipulates “that it does not concern objects, things, facts, realities.”42 For, although in some way “sensory” (sinnlich) and “bodily” (leibhaftig),43 ciphers are actually ungraspable—which Jaspers, throughout his entire oeuvre, emphasizes by way of the metaphor of “hovering” (schweben). The reality of ciphers is loose and flexible; it is just stable enough to enable finite human minds to acquire the infinite symbolicity of the cipher world, which is neither the objective world nor a doubling of any kind that is foreign to external reality. Another chief characteristic of ciphers lies in their historicity: “Ciphers are historical. . . . They talk to us in the concrete form in which they approach us historically, not already by way of abstractions.”44 Ciphers appear out of historically conditioned circumstances, subjugated to the laws of time and place. Finally, ciphers are essentially multiple, ambiguous, and irreducible to one single cipher or one grand unifying

39

Ibid., 150-157. Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 153. 41 Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 1043; Philosophie III, 168. 42 Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 153-154. 43 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 187-188; Von der Wahrheit, 1034; Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 163-169. 44 Ibid., 172. Cf. also Von der Wahrheit, 635-636. 40

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principle. Each in its own particularity, every cipher illuminates an aspect of the encompassing, whether dealing with transcendence, the world (of immanence), or the existential situation of humankind.45 On the basis of our reading of Jaspers’ metaphysics hitherto, we are able to confirm that it is driven forward by a deeply rooted awareness of contingency. According to Jaspers, ciphers, transcendence, and existence, are steeped in a fundamental tension that we can rightly interpret in terms of contingency: If necessity becomes absolute, then it is as intolerable as coincidence. The human being alternately seeks the liberation from the one through the other: from arbitrary coincidence through the idea of necessity, [and] from merciless necessity through the idea of the possibility and chance of coincidence.46

If this limit situation is uncovered as the most fundamental one for human beings’ existence in the world, it is worthwhile to investigate its impact on negative theology and faith. Thus, the scope of this article smoothly moves now from metaphysics into the philosophy of religion and fundamental theology. Its main purpose, however, remains to show how Jaspers embraces contingency. 5. Philosophy and Negative Theology Probably the most significant inspiration and source for Jaspers’ theology is Kant. In this regard, his appropriation of Kant’s philosophical exploration of the supernatural is a telling testimony.47 In Der philosophische Glaube, Jaspers maintains: “The proofs of God’s existence exist. Since Kant it is certain for rational thinking that such proofs are impossible.”48 To ensure oneself of God’s existence is misleading 45 On the basis of these three fields of reality, not accidentally reminiscent of the three constitutive parts of his Philosophie, which, in their turn, remind us of the classical triplet of special metaphysics, Jaspers structures his discussion of the “realm of ciphers.” 46 Jaspers, Philosophie II, 217. 47 Karl Jaspers, Die großen Philosophen (München: Piper, 1989), 506-515; cf. also Kants Ideenlehre, in Aneignung und Polemik, 159-182. It is striking how many elements of Jaspers’ discussion of Kant’s philosophy return in his own account of the question of God. 48 Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 30.

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and impossible on the basis of reasonable thinking. One cannot be cautious enough in distinguishing between God and cognitive contents: “Every objectification of God in a thought makes God himself vanish from thinking.”49 Therefore, Jaspers’ conclusion does not come as a surprise: “In the sense of the reality of being-there God does not exist.”50 The way in which speaking about God can have any sense at all must hence be another one. It is neither the register of reasoning, nor the register of demonstrating and persuasion, but the register of cipher language that gives forth the sound here. According to Jaspers, proofs of God’s existence can indeed make sense, but they cannot be taken seriously as proofs, as if they provided universally valid insights into the essence of being. If they function like ciphers, that is, on the condition that they offer a subjectively meaningful reference towards transcendence in a way that is graspable by an individual existence in a historical condition, only then do they have a right to speak: “The power of the proofs only consists of the existentially fulfilled content of the presence of being, in which transcendence is heard as a cipher.”51 Also the ideas of one God and a personal God need to be interpreted as merely contingent ciphers. Jaspers accepts the possibility of God— he is not an atheist—but only insofar as God is irreducibly concealed: “God is hidden. He does not speak directly. It is possible that, in a historical moment, the human being arrives at a certainty, as if he hears God, [or] feels his reality, without however hearing a real and unequivocal language accessible to everyone, like the one that takes place between two human beings.”52 In Von der Wahrheit, this idea of a radically hidden God is not immediately connected with the theory of ciphers. But in Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, everything Jaspers has to say about God is interwoven within the chapters about ciphers.53 Apparently, Jaspers never leaves behind an existential situation of ambiguity, fundamental tensions, or a “struggle of all ciphers,”54 which might indeed be seen as a universal horizon of contingency. The constituents of this ambiguous situation are a reception of Kant’s episte49

Ibid., 389. Ibid., 257. 51 Jaspers, Philosophie III, 203. 52 Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 643. 50

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mology and a thought which is irresistibly bound to subjectivity. “The consequence is: A free relationship to the One God in his infinite distance is only real in the deepest inwardness, in a proximity which is absolutely historical – in this fate, this situation, this world and reality.”55 Not surprisingly, for Jaspers, “God” is and remains an open question. In this context, it has been noticed that there is a certain evolution in Jaspers’ thinking about God,56 and that Jaspers must have been the first philosopher in the Western tradition, who, in affairs of God, did not automatically take position on the side of the Christian God, but preferred the Jewish God.57 Correspondingly, Jaspers sooner associated the un53 In this latter book, Jaspers outlines some speculative thought patterns dealing with God’s will versus his intellect, God’s omnipotence, and the question of the facticity and the ground of being. Jaspers’ cipher-reading method consists each time of choosing neither of the alternatives discerned. In the context of God’s personality, this implies: “Aroused through the experience of freedom and conscience, philosophical faith transcends beyond the cipher of the personal God to the grounds of reality, which, through tradition, it is inclined to name with the cipher ‘God’” (Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 241). So, on the one hand, the idea of a personal God is only “an effective form, which in the realm of ciphers takes on the relationship with transcendence” (ibid., 219) and a personal God, “as a cipher, neither exists by view of something general in the concept of the person of God, nor by the invention of personal gods, but historically by the ciphers that have been handed down, that have made appeals, and continue to make appeals” (ibid., 222). On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to exclude on a priori grounds the possibility that God is personal. 54 Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 249: “Our real situation only allows us to hear all these ciphers in their power, to mentally struggle along with them, to feel the limitations of all of them, particularly where they attempt to be all-encompassing. We cannot decay into one as the absolute one, and thereby put an end to its being a cipher. . . . In this situation before a real eitheror our only chance is to nourish ourselves from the ground of being through a decision which, as an existential one, is irrevocable.” 55 Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, 693. 56 Before the Second World War, the use of the terms “God” and “transcendence” were often interchangeable. After the War, Jaspers’ references to “God” decreased, and a clearer distinction between both concepts was more carefully drawn (Helmut Pfeiffer, “Erfahrung und Erkenntnis Gottes. Versuch einer theologischen Aneignung der Philosophie Karl Jaspers’,” Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 83 (1974): 369). It has been noticed, too, that the influence of Jaspers’ Jewish wife, Gertrud Mayer, with whom he worked together intimately on the development of his philosophy, significantly contributed to this evolution (Jean-Claude Gens, Karl Jaspers. Biographie (Paris: Bayard, 2003), 291; 294; 300). 57 Hans von Campenhausen, “Die philosophische Kritik des Christentums bei Karl Jaspers,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 48 (1951): 238. It is likely that passages like those in Von der Wahrheit, 896-897, have given rise to these presumptions.

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known and the unknowable aspects of the Old Testament God with the divine, than His appearance in one single man reported in the New Testament. Instead of the Son incarnate, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, or God as Holy Trinity, it is more the mystery of a hidden force or a heavenly ruler that explains his theological biases. Whatever the case may be, Jaspers indeed integrated a central element of Jewish belief and theology into his idea of God, namely the commandment of Exodus 20:4 or Deuteronomy 5:8: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything.” Throughout his work, Jaspers indicates that it is this commandment (Bildverbot) that he holds as the most dignified and veritable religious ideal to strive for. In it, the most indisputable religious truth is being expressed. According to Jaspers, moreover, philosophy is better equipped to do this job than theology: “Perhaps philosophising is . . . the better— because more truthful, albeit negative—theology: it shows how far theology lives from philosophical ideas, of which philosophy does not accept that it be deprived of them.”58 Jaspers’ conception of philosophy as a kind of negative theology, now needs to be examined in some more detail, since it is at this point that, in an exemplary way for modern philosophy,59 the risk of a loss of sense for God can be discerned. Traditionally, negative, or apophatic theology is part of a constellation of thought and religious initiation whereby the elevation of the soul towards God is embedded in a life of prayer, surrender, reflection, worship, and meditation. Negative theology indicates that God is always more than what people say and think about him; God exceeds the boundaries within which human existence is caught up, and always has to be situated “beyond.” However, this negative theological move is understood as only one way (via negativa) in close relationship with two other “ways” towards God: the via affirmativa and the via eminentiae. Apophatic speaking and cataphatic speaking have always belonged together. It is wrong to presume that the via affirmativa can stand on its 58 Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz, 116. This statement involuntarily reminds one of Kant’s famous image for describing the relation between philosophy and theology: if philosophy is at all theology’s handmaid (philosophia ancilla theologiae), then she does not run after her mistress to carry her train, but self-confidently promenades before her with a lantern, to let her see what can be seen. 59 Within the scope of this contribution I can only briefly mention that, in postmodern philosophy, Derrida did something comparable to Jaspers’ philosophical recuperation of negative theology, and further, that his view is highly questionable, for reasons very much akin to those for criticizing Jaspers.

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own, but it is equally wrong to convert the via negativa into an absolute. Or, as Denys Turner holds, in a recent and thought-provoking study: “to postulate an absolutism of the cataphatic is the same error of theological epistemology as that of an absolutism of the apophatic, just the reverse side of the same counterfeit coin.”60 Yet, it is likely that Jaspers postulated an absolutism of the apophatic, as his interpretation of negative theology did not consider its embedding in concrete religious practices. A Jaspersian-like negative theology seems to point to “transdescendence,” whereas traditional Christian negative theology tends towards “transascendence,” or an elevation of the soul. In this way, Jaspers’ philosophy of religion and his metaphysical method of cipher-reading, permeated as they are by an inexorable awareness of contingency, seem to do little more than ultimately deconstruct God-talk. It must, therefore, be asked whether this kind of socalled negative theology detracts from God’s mystery, instead of constituting an encompassing instruction for the real encounter of human beings with God (mystagogy)? In a certain sense, the negative component of Japers’ “negative theology” contents itself with an empty insight of knowing nothing, or at least nothing which we, human interpreters, did not first invent ourselves or agree upon. 6. Philosophical Faith and Contingency In spite of this restricted understanding of apophatic theology, faith is an important issue in Jaspers’ oeuvre. More than once he stated that he did not believe in any revelation or any religious dogma, and yet he was not against “faith” as such. To the contrary, Jaspers developed a concept of faith that, even before it was explicitly called “philosophical,” rested exclusively on philosophical considerations.61 In the preface to his Philosophie he declared: “In philosophising, a faith without revelation expresses itself.”62 This is, at a fundamental level, the same idea he expressed about faith and revelation in his later work: “Whoever philos60

Denys Turner Faith, Reason and the Existence of God. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 50. 61 For a detailed account and critical assessment of Jaspers’ “philosophico-religious ideal,” see my Revelation, Reason and Reality, Ch. 2. 62 Jaspers, Philosophie I, vii.

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ophises believes . . . in transcendence.”63 In view of our discussion of contingency in Jaspers’ philosophy of religion, it is helpful to characterize this peculiar kind of faith. First, philosophical faith functions as a warrant against the fundamental failure of confusing transcendence with particular expressions of it. In a great variety of ways, Jaspers has been reluctant to name transcendence. This does not mean that it is impossible to speak about transcendence, as is obvious through endless constellations of ciphers recognizable in all cultures all over the world. But it means that one cannot identify transcendence as transcendence with only one of its contingent instantiations in a particular myth, image, dogma, or story, let alone in pronouncements decreed by authoritarian structures claiming a privileged access to divine sources. According to Jaspers, all this boils down to the error of mixing up transcendence with particular manifestations of it. Ciphers are spiritual reality in our language, in philosophy, poetry, as well as works of art, but they are never the corporeality of transcendence itself. The becoming-corporeal of the contents of ciphers is, therefore, the fundamental confusion in our dealing with transcendence.64

This is a rather frequent error, since people seem to have a natural inclination towards fastening down transcendent reality, so that they can live with it and give it a genuine place in their lives. Jaspers, however, warns against this fixing, because much disaster has been caused whenever people have believed they had transcendence at their disposal, or have imagined they were following transcendently legitimated orders. Religious faith is bound to concrete signs and presentations of transcendence, whereas philosophical faith lives from a deconstruction of these. Religions, above all those basing themselves on revelatory actions initiated by divine beings, irrevocably narrow the scope and the inherent richness of transcendent reality. Philosophy, on the contrary, keeps an open space for all ciphers referring to transcendence, without privileging an individual one. Philosophical faith guarantees the nonobjectification of all ciphers, because it realizes that truth, in the end, does not depend upon objectified knowledge: “The truth of ciphers

63 64

Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 473. Ibid., 163.

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neither shows itself in knowledge nor in insight, but only in its elucidating power in the existential history of every individual.”65 Of course, ciphers constitute a certain language, languages in their turn require communicability, and communicability asks for participation and representability. But, as soon as the represented content is (once and for all) determined, “then the distortion sets in [namely] that the elucidation of faith is made into an existing object.”66 Therefore, philosophical faith stands at odds with knowledge,67 and it refrains from communicable contents. “The error in the pronouncement of philosophical doctrines of faith begins when they are taken as the communication of a content.”68 “Therefore philosophical faith is unable to confess in doctrines.”69 Because all faith is historical, its truth cannot consist in “a sum of doctrines of faith, but in an origin, which brings itself to appearance in many diverse historical forms.”70 Second, philosophical faith guarantees an approach to reality which rejects the absolutization of any singular being. Since it does not operate with knowable entities, but aims at elucidating existential dimensions of personal being, it must disapprove of interpretations of being that impose themselves to the detriment of others. Philosophical faith is, in this respect—by putting things into perspective—both realistic and critical. It does not involve a particular (religious) approach to reality, because it allows for the probability that there might be other valuable approaches, too. Condensations of truth in particular convictions, narratives, or traditions are, as a consequence, immediately suspicious. It is at this juncture that Jaspers’ polemics against revelation and revelatory faith must be situated. His own view is to be understood as a strictly philosophical “awareness of the reality of transcendence,” which turns itself “against the reality of revelation.”71 Crucial and decisive for Jaspers is a consciousness that, “for philosophical faith, all shapes of the encompassing, in particular, existence in relation to tran-

65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Ibid., 173. Jaspers, Philosophie II, 280. Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 11. Jaspers, Einführung in die Philosophie, 90. Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 21. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 481.

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scendence, are possible and real without revelation.”72 Revelation, as a favoured reality among an infinite chain of ciphers, must therefore be made the object of thoroughgoing philosophical scrutiny and critique. However, despite his prudent reflective exercises, Jaspers’ philosophical faith is not as neutral as he pretends. It resembles much of the Enlightenment critique of miracles and superstition, and it remains unclear whether it is able to give a true account of authentic religiosity. For it is not certain that religious believers, and not only Christians, would easily recognize themselves in Jaspers’ typology of religious faith as opposed to philosophical faith. Jaspers somehow associates faith as religious belonging with medieval circumstances that enlightened people should already have left behind.73 This observation is in line with Jaspers’ conviction that revelatory faith may have played an important role in individual people’s lives and sometimes had an impact on the establishments of civilizations and shared morality,74 but it is nonetheless intrinsically incomprehensible, and ultimately reprehensible. These features of philosophical faith are complementary and mutually dependent: it is because it only deals with ciphers that it contests harsh reality claims, and vice versa. As if it were scared of too deeply engaging in religions and religious traditions, it leaves all options open. For this reason, the idea of a philosophically legitimated faith can pride itself on some popularity among certain thinkers, because it cleverly formulates a philosophy of finitude, along with a plea for equality and tolerance, and a defence of the possibility of transcending differences. In other words, in and through his conception of “philosophical faith,” Jaspers has done something similar with regard to his philosophical appropriation of negative theology: he has actually expressed nothing but a profound awareness of contingency.

72

Ibid.,166 (my emphases). Although he respects people like, for example, Anselm and Cusanus for their faith, their thought, and the life they lived, when it comes to their fidelity towards the Christian tradition, Jaspers deliberately takes a distance. See Joseph Koterski s.j., “Jaspers on Philosophy of Religion: His Treatment of Anselm and Cusa,” in Karl Jaspers on Philosophy of History and History of Philosophy (ed. J. Koterski s.j. and R. J. Langley; New York: Humanity Books, 2003), 130-140. 74 Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 35: “Why must revelatory faith be taken seriously, also by the one to whom this faith has not been given? Already because of its powerful effect in history, and because of the high moral level of many people who believe in revelation.” 73

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7. Conclusion Without doubt there is great consistency and continuity in Jaspers’ philosophy: his metaphysics and his philosophy of religion point in the same direction. Based upon an analysis of human existence, it never leaves the perspective of subjectivity. But neither does it question this point of departure. If it is true that Jaspers’ thought does not have a philosophy of religion, but that it is a philosophy of religion—something which Jaspers said himself,75 and which rightly emphasizes the importance of the religious phenomenon for his reflections—it is all in all a typically modern philosophy, in the sense that it radically positions itself within finitude and that an awareness of contingency pervades its whole sense of reality.76 That it hence has strained relations with religions, and with Christianity in particular, might not come as a surprise.77 It even seems that it has lost a sense for God, which it may not be necessary for philosophy to lose. Let us therefore, by way of conclusion, formulate four critical comments, and show that Jaspers’ reading of contingency is not the only one. A religious one also makes sense, even philosophically. First, the indissoluble connection between existence and transcendence, as Jaspers comprehends it, restricts the possibility and the plausibility of alternative meanings for transcendence. Jaspers overemphasizes the constitutive role of existence by insisting on its active interpreting abilities. For there might also be something like a receptive interpreting capacity that generates something other than a clarifying of its own existential situation. In every case, Jaspers’ philosophy of existence is unable to come to terms with transcendence as an otherness that takes an initiative before I have the chance to welcome it, that is, a form of transcendence that does not only encompass me, but 75 Karl Jaspers, “Antwort,” in Karl Jaspers (Philosophen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts; ed. P. A. Schilpp; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957), 775-776. 76 We again refer here to Ingolf U. Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger, “Religion als Kontingenzkultur und die Kontingenz Gottes.” 77 For recent theological assessments of Jaspers, see David R. Law, “Jaspers and Theology,” The Heythrop Journal 46 (2005): 334-351, and two articles of my own: Joris Geldhof, “Die Relevanz der theologischen Jasperskritik für die heutige fundamentaltheologische Reflexion,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 80 (2004): 5-33, and idem, “‘Oude wijn in nieuwe zakken’. Karl Jaspers’ openbaringskritiek en de pluralistische theologie van de godsdiensten,” Bijdragen 65 (2004): 144-169. In these, I refer to ample secondary literature on this topic.

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that makes an appeal to me, that surprises me, that makes demands on me and condemns me, but that eventually forgives me, too. Freedom might not only be a feature of existence; it might also be an essential characteristic of transcendence. Second, Jaspers’ theory of ciphers falls short of giving a true phenomenological description of people’s lived relation to transcendence. His account of cipher-reading explores only one possibility. Ciphers do not only provide contact with transcendence; they do more than mediate meaningful contents. To a certain degree, Jaspers’ metaphysical reflections do not escape a certain kind of intellectualism, against which he nonetheless wants to react. For there are other language games than the ones of representing, informing, and illuminating; ciphers also encourage, disrupt, question, and appeal to desire and the imagination, besides addressing the knowing and interpreting capacities of human beings. There is not only a plurality of cipher contents, but also a plurality of expressive qualities of ciphers. Ricoeur, at any rate, rightly understood that Jesus Christ is not an example but the “antithesis”78 of all ciphers. Closely connected with this observation is another aspect of cipher theory. Jaspers knows that ciphers are and have to be somehow materialized. But he underestimates the fact that not only their concrete appearances but also their meanings take on bodily forms. Jaspers to a certain extent spiritualises the meanings of ciphers, because all of them refer to “something more” or “something beyond.” Reducing all ciphers to one, vague transcendence, however, does not do justice to their materiality and ignores the affective attachment of people to their symbols, rites, stories, and ideas. It also seems that Jaspers here, like much modern philosophy before and after him, did not approach the “attachedness” of human beings to things sensitively (enough). Third, the reasons why philosophical faith is proclaimed as the adequate alternative to religious faith remain ambiguous. It is difficult to understand why Jaspers held on to a separation between philosophy and religion, given the fact that, according to him, philosophy is able to penetrate deeply into the religious realm, and it is even able to affect the sense and the essence of religion. Where does a philosophy of religion

78 Paul Ricoeur, “Philosophie und Religion bei Karl Jaspers,” in Karl Jaspers (Philosophen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts; ed. P. A. Schilpp, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957), 617.

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end, and where does a religious philosophy begin?79 What would be wrong with a philosophy of existence that is, indeed, existentially involved in a particular religion? In fact, it is hard to see why, in the end, Jaspers’ philosophy is not more open towards the Christian idea of God, a God who really speaks and acts within the contingent history of humankind. Fourth, there seems to be an unevenness in Jaspers’ account of contingency, particularly when one compares the contingency of existence and the contingency of particular religions. We have seen that Jaspers fully recognizes the contingent nature of existing, and that he gives it its due in all respects. When it comes to the recognition of the contingency of religious expressions and convictions, however, Jaspers actually opines that contingency must be overcome. It does not come as a surprise then that he hence must misunderstand, or at least lose a sense for, a religion which worships a God that spoke through a particular man at a particular place and time, and which continuously carries this message through the history of humankind in spite of all its ambiguities and contingencies. Finally, to conclude, the question must be raised where this critical analysis of Jaspers’ philosophy of existence has led us. First of all, the double question posed at the beginning of this contribution can be unambiguously answered. Jaspers’ scope does not surpass a standpoint of radical contingency, but, within the precinct of our temporary condition, Jaspers shows himself to be a realistic and reliable guide. Furthermore, it is this very scope which impedes a fine-tuned sensitivity for who “God” may be. And the point is that one does not have to leave the realm of contingency (how could we?) to have an impression of God, but that a more thoroughgoing exploration of our being-in-this-world could and should open alternative perspectives. So Jaspers’ guidance through the realm of contingency should preferably be complemented by other perspectives, so that the real Other can be encountered.

79

Cf. Greisch, Vers un paradigme herméneutique, 495-496.

PART III

RELIGION AND CONTINGENCY: SYSTEMATIC APPROACHES

CHAPTER SIX

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF EXISTENTIAL TRUTH IN RELIGIOUS WAYS OF LIFE Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University)

1. Introduction Currently, there is a growing awareness of the contingency of religions and philosophies or visions of life. In particular, relatively new factors, such as migration and individualization, have considerably contributed to the fact that people give more diverging answers to the question of the meaning of life than they did before. Although the European religious landscape has never been a monolithic unity, its shape has changed dramatically since the second half of the twentieth century. In the first place, the number of non-Christian communities of faith, as well as the number of their members, has increased considerably, mainly as a consequence of the influx of non-European citizens; the rise of Islam in Western Europe is the most striking example of this development. Secondly and more importantly, the processes of individualization and “detraditionalisation” have fundamentally changed the religious landscape in the Western world: a growing number of people “construct” their own, individual religion or philosophy of life by taking various elements from heterogeneous religious and philosophical traditions and reassembling them into new, highly personal views of life. Concrete examples of this are the growing interest in New Age, esotericism etc. By and large, people perceive religions more and more as contingent social or personal constructs; consequently, they consider the legitimacy of religious truth claims as completely void or at least as limited in time and place to the group of their respective adherents. Moreover, this conclusion is reinforced by the research results of the social sciences and the history of religions, highlighting the contingent origins and history of all religions, as well as the contingency of the psychological and social factors that determine religious views of life.

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Ever since their origin, all religions have adapted themselves to various personal, cultural, political, and socio-economic circumstances. In sum, the more religions are being considered as contingent socio-cultural constructs, and the more all kinds of contingent, unconscious motives are discovered in the biographies of religious people, the more their truth claims are taken as void. To some extent, this situation resembles the one in ancient Athens: on the Acropolis, in the Pantheon, the Athenians erected altars devoted to all gods, even to an unknown one. Discussing this situation of sheer religious contingency with some Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, and introduced by them as a babbler, preaching of foreign divinities, the apostle Paul did not content himself with proclaiming the name of this unknown god, thus simply adding yet another altar to the contingent multiplicity of already existing ones. Instead, he tried to convince his discussion partners that the Christian God is the only true one, the Lord of heaven and earth, thereby proclaiming all other gods to be superfluous. As Acts tells us, Paul had but little success amidst his audience with his claim to religious truth: some mocked him, others invited him to tell them about these issues “some other time,” while only a few accepted his religious truth claim and joined him.1 In order to discuss the relation between religious contingency and truth, I will examine it from an existential point of view. This means that I will treat religion not so much as a set of propositions about the existence of God, his essential attributes, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, etc., whose truth can be discussed objectively by science and philosophy, but as a particular way of life. Christian religion includes all kinds of contingent, i.e. historical and cultural, elements, but also presupposes the personal acceptance of the substantial truth of this specific way of life. Defining (Christian) religion in this way is a shortcut for saying that Christians orient their lives by placing them under the sign of the risen Christ. Through their personal and community lives, they testify to the fundamental truth of this orientation. It expresses itself in a variety of concrete experiences, behaviours and ways of thinking. Although this orientation is particular, as it is typical for the Christian way of life, and although its concrete expressions may be quite contingent, nevertheless, Christians are deeply convinced of the truth of their way of life and are existentially committed to it. 1

Acts 17:19-34.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 163 But is the fact that we have deep (religious) convictions and existential commitments a sufficient reason for saying that they are also true? What if they are but purely subjective, immediate certainties, which, as such, are incommunicable? What kind of truth are we talking about when using the expression “existential truth”? To put things clearly right from the start, it is by no means my intention to show that the idea of religious truth does not make sense. On the contrary, giving up this idea and going with the flow of our times by reducing truth to an expression of one’s purely subjective consent would make every exchange of views about existential matters, both from a religious and a secular perspective, meaningless and a waste of time. But, again, these noble intentions do not answer the vital question: what kind of truth are we talking about? How can existential truth be thought? In order to examine the relation between contingency and religious truth, I will start by analysing the bifurcation between scientific knowledge, which seems to have the exclusive right to truth, and religious convictions, which seemingly belong to the sphere of contingent opinions. Originating in the philosophy of Descartes, this bifurcation can be interpreted as an attempt to safeguard both the autonomy of science, as the only authority that can legitimately lay claim to truth, and the essential role of religion in helping humans to deal with practical, existential questions. Next, I will show that some influential trends in contemporary philosophy still hold this view on religion, viz. that it should withdraw from the domain of truth and be confined to the sphere of contingency. In the section thereafter, I query this view by discussing the relation between substantial attachments and contingent ways of life: even if one accepts that religion is primarily a way of life, this does not mean at all that the idea of religious truth would not make sense. This insight leads to the idea of existential truth, which I will discuss in the final section. I will propose this notion as a promising alternative for the traditional bifurcation between scientific truth and religious contingency. 2. The Bifurcation between True Knowledge and Contingent Convictions One of the goals of the project of modern philosophy is to rule out traditional, contingent opinions and convictions as much as possible by

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systematically suspending them or by interpreting them as something that will gradually disappear as reason gains ground. I will show this by analysing the Cartesian separation between reason and faith, for it is especially this separation that set the agenda for the philosophical debate about religious truth that followed Descartes. In the next section, I will comment on this point by discussing some publications of Marquard and Rorty on this issue. In the first part of his Discourse on Method, Descartes starts by discussing several traditional sciences, including theology, the traditions of various countries and times, and their literary production. Because the truths they claim to generate are contingent through lack of solid foundation and seem to contradict each other, he compares them with towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud.2 Religious truths, represented by traditional, scholastic theology, belong to a different category. They show us the way to heaven, but as revealed truths they are beyond our comprehension. Thus, as they do not rest on a solid, rational ground and cannot be demonstrated, they are, from a philosophical perspective, just as contingent as all kinds of traditional opinions.3 Their persuasiveness is no guarantee at all for their truth. As it is Descartes’ “most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed in it with confidence,”4 he takes the decision to doubt everything that does not rest on an unshakable foundation. Thus, all traditional opinions and religious convictions are suspended: I thought that I could not do better than resolve at once to sweep them [those opinions] wholly away, that I might afterwards be in a position to admit either others more correct, or even perhaps the same when they had undergone the scrutiny of reason. I firmly believed that in this way I should much better succeed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only

2

René Descartes, Discours de la méthode et essais (vol. 6 of Œuvres de Descartes ; ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery; repr., Paris: Vrin, 1996), 8. 3 Descartes clearly distinguishes between the useless teachings of traditional, scholastic theology, presenting unfounded truths about human’s destiny and moral behaviour, and his own philosophical theology, as developed in his Meditations, in which—according to the title of the first edition—the existence of God and the immortality of the soul is demonstrated. Cf. Gilson’s commentary on this passage in: René Descartes, Discours de la méthode. Texte et commentaire par E. Gilson (Paris: Vrin, 1976), 133-4. 4 Descartes, Discours de la méthode, 10.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 165 upon old foundations, and leaned upon principles which, in my youth, I had taken upon trust.5

The point Descartes wants to make here is twofold. First, the reason for suspending all traditional opinions and religious convictions is not that they are actually false, but that they lack a solid, rational foundation, and therefore might be false. Moreover, he does not want to invent new truths, but only to examine which ones are contingent and which ones rest on solid, indubitable foundations. Secondly, the suspension of traditional opinions is not inspired by a kind of scepticism, and certainly not by some existential despair. On the contrary, his aim is to apply the mathematical method to all subjects of knowledge (the so-called “mathesis universalis”) in order to lay a solid foundation for the conduct of our lives. Thus, Descartes’ personal decision to rid himself of all (traditional) opinions is a strictly methodic doubt in view of putting an end once and for all to the contingency of our opinions and convictions.6 However, Descartes’ attitude with regard to traditional and religious truths is more balanced than it seems at first sight. Since we cannot suspend the course of life, we usually cannot wait till we know which opinions are absolutely certain before we act. Every moment of our lives, we have to take all kinds of practical decisions, even though they still may lack an unshakable rational foundation. Descartes compares this situation with the process of completely rebuilding a house: if we want to rebuild it, we should be provided in the meantime with some other house in which we can live commodiously during the operations. This temporary house is the provisory code of morals, consisting of three or four maxims. The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, adhering firmly to the faith in which, by the grace of God, I had been educated from my childhood and regulating my conduct in every other matter according to the most moderate opinions, and the farthest removed from extremes, which should happen to be adopted in practice with general consent of the most judicious of those among whom I might be living.7

5

Ibid., 13-4. René Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia (vol. 7 of Œuvres de Descartes; ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery; repr., Paris: Vrin, 1996), 17. 7 Descartes, Discours de la méthode, 23. 6

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How do these contingent moral maxims relate to the search for a truth that we can be absolutely certain of, so that we can reach the central goal of methodic doubt? First of all, the provisory code of morals implies a sharp distinction between the order of the good and the order of the true, the will and the intellect, faith and reason, the transience and contingency of life and the eternity and absoluteness of truth. From the perspective of speculative reason, in contemplating eternal truth, there is no problem with doubting the existence of God or the exact nature of the good. However, from the perspective of faith, which aims at offering the best practical solution for humankind’s striving after the good in a concrete situation, this is not an option. Since it aims at orienting human’s lives, faith cannot remain indecisive as long as the opinions about the good life have not yet been demonstrated by reason to be beyond all doubt. It has to take a position in practical matters; it has to take decisions in a situation of rational contingency. This means that the provisory code of morals in general, and religious truths in particular, are not rationally demonstrated truths, and, therefore, have no theoretical value. But they do have a (practical) validity, as they provide humans practically speaking with the most chances for meeting with the good, even if they do not know the good with certainty or are completely ignorant of it.8 Descartes never succeeded in developing a definitive code of morals which would be able to provide humans once and for all with (meta)physically based, true answers to all vital questions. But although his code of morals remained provisory, he was nevertheless convinced that it would be able to lead humans not only to empirical happiness, but also to the highest good and to perfect bliss.9 In sum, the Cartesian separation between reason and faith, (scientific) truth and the good life, confronts us with a complex question: can we simply settle for clinging to the traditions we are familiar with, although we are well aware of their contingency and possible falsity? If the truth of all our ways of life, be they religious or not, cannot be decided, because it is not (yet) warranted by the scientific method, one ends up in a kind of traditionalism, as the example of the provisory code of morals proves. This is the paradoxical result of the Cartesian philosophical 8 Cf. Gilson’s commentary in Descartes, Discours de la méthode. Texte et commentaire par E. Gilson, 232-6. 9 René Descartes, “Lettre à Elisabeth,” in Correspondance, Avril 1622—Février 1638 (vol. 4 of Oeuvres de Descartes; ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery; repr., Paris: Vrin, 1996), 265-6.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 167 project: in a time when the stability of (religious) traditions and philosophies of life was eroding faster than ever before, due to the disintegration of the traditional religious homogeneity and the emergence of a new world view, its explicit goal was to lay once and for all a solid foundation for the true conduct of our lives. But its actual outcome was nothing more than some traditionalist, common sense observations, which were incapable of meeting the standards for indubitable truth. 3. Clinging to Contingent Traditions: the Contemporary Debate In an article entitled “Apologia of the Coincidental,” the German philosopher Odo Marquard shows in a similar way the impasse in which the Cartesian methodic doubt with regard to contingent traditions and philosophies of life results. This is all the more important given that influential contemporary philosophers like Apel and Habermas still carry on this project, in particular in their discourse ethics. In Marquard’s view, this project is doomed to break down when faced with the unavoidability of human finiteness: Everything that cannot (by a consensus, resulting from a non-oppressive discourse) be demonstrated as being absolutely good, could for that reason be evil (including all the orientations at our disposal for our acting). Therefore it should be treated as if it were really evil, until it is (by absolute discourse) consensually justified as something good. As long as this is not the case, every acting that is guided by conventions has to be suspended and even treated as suspicious.10

A concrete example of this approach is the endless discussions among youth about the basic principles of a new, just society during the sixties and seventies of the last century. In their eagerness to set up a new, nonoppressive society, they started by rejecting all conventions and traditions, as they were not rationally justified and were therefore oppressive. They were convinced that, through a consensus resulting from non-oppressive discourse, they could lay the foundations of a new society that could meet the criteria of rational justification. Meanwhile, they expected that the affluent society they were actually living in would enable them to refrain from real life as long as their discussions about the 10 Odo Marquard, “Apologie des Zufälligen. Philosophische Überlegungen zum Menschen,” in idem, Zukunft braucht Herkunft. Philosophische Essays (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2003), 151-2.

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ins and outs of the new, rational society had not yet reached the desired general consensus. In fact, this methodic suspicion of a conventional way of life is a radicalisation of Descartes’ philosophical project, since it even refuses a provisory code of morals. It results in a kind of philosophy which refuses what is given, what has been handed down through the ages, i.e. all kinds of traditional truths, including religious ones, because of their contingency. It eventually comes down to a refusal of every way of life as long as it isn’t rationally justified: as long as a particular, contingent way of life hasn’t proven itself as rationally justified, the best option is to refrain from living at all. Of course, this conclusion is absurd, since it is in fact a ban on starting to live before life has come to an end. Marquard’s analysis of Apel’s and Habermas’ discourse ethics shows in the first place that the Cartesian project, in a less foundationalist, but simultaneously more suspicious fashion with regard to all ways of life, is still popular in our times. Secondly, just like Descartes’ project to develop a definitive code of morals, discourse ethics fails on the same grounds. Both projects are founded on the same abstract idea of rationality and human society: they presuppose that humans are intellects, freely floating in a neutral space, and that new ways of life can be developed from scratch, accepting only what has passed the test of rational foundation or justification. In doing so, they abstract from the fact that human rationality is always embodied in life, as well as from the insight that traditions are often incarnations of existential truths. Thus, we seem to find ourselves in a deadlock with regard to the issue of contingency and truth. The ideal of modern philosophy, aiming at a complete rational justification of (the truth of) our ways of life, and therefore suspending all kinds of traditional, contingent knowledge, has proven to be unattainable. Human life is simply too short to wait for the conclusive answers which remove all doubt concerning the orientations given to our ways of life by scientifically determining their truth. The pursuit of this modern ideal of complete rational justification and truth leads to a philosophy of life after death, thus leaving the vital questions of life before death unanswered.11 But what we really need is a philosophical reflection on life before death. Only with the help of this type of reflection may we be able to understand why we should obey the laws and customs of our country, and why we should adhere to the faith of 11

Marquard, “Apologie des Zufälligen,” 153.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 169 our childhood. In other words, we need a type of philosophical reflection that can critically examine the existential truth of what is contingently given. A post-modern philosopher like Rorty also deals with the question of the truth or contingency of (religious) traditions. He paradoxically gives a similar answer to this question as Descartes did, although he is a critic of the modern philosophical project. He shows that the modern search for absolute truth has obviously led to nothing; its hope of giving an indubitable foundation to the truth of our (religious) convictions has proven to be in vain. Consequently, all (religious) convictions are but contingent “final vocabularies”; their truth can only be demonstrated with circular arguments whose strength does not reach beyond the persons or communities using this vocabulary. Through lack of a common, neutral “meta-vocabulary,” humans are unable to weigh the truth claims of different vocabularies against each other. This situation inevitably leads to an attitude of irony: ironists are “never quite able to take themselves seriously because always aware that the terms in which they describe themselves are subject to change, always aware of the contingency and fragility of their final vocabularies, and thus of their selves.”12 They put this into practice by continually re-describing themselves, society, and the world in ever new ways, by constantly re-creating themselves without referring to any normative eternal examples, like God, the Absolute, reason, truth etc. Consequently, the ironist dismisses any reasonable discussion about (religious) ways of life, because they are purely contingent, subjective preferences. Therefore, their truth claims do not make any sense at all. However, according to Rorty, the ironist is a pathological figure, since he is constantly in doubt as to whether he hasn’t been raised in the “wrong” language-game, and inclined to give up his vocabulary in favour of another. Because all vocabularies are equally contingent, there is no end to this search, so that the ironist never finds peace in any vocabulary. Consequently, the ironist runs the risk of not belonging to anything anymore, of completely loosing his identity. He can only avoid this risk by devoting himself to the vocabulary he is familiar with, and, consequently, he simply declares that there are limits to what he can take seriously. In sum, we are fully entitled to be attached to (religious) 12 Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 73-4.

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traditions, although we are at the same time aware of the fact that they are completely contingent. Therefore, ethnocentrism is the inevitable consequence of Rorty’s postmodernism, just as the Cartesian project led to traditionalism. Marquard, who defends a sceptical position, also thinks that the Cartesian project of methodically suspending given traditions does not make sense, as we have seen above. His own position is in this respect similar to Rorty’s: although traditions are contingent, we simply cannot live without them. But Marquard is able to explain far better than Rorty why the ironist’s practice of hopping from one vocabulary to another makes him insane. He calls traditions expressions of fate-contingency, and distinguishes them clearly from arbitrary-contingency. Arbitrarycontingency can be described as something that could have been otherwise, and can be changed by us (e.g. the contingent choice between cheese and ham as sandwich filling). Rorty’s ironic “tradition-hopper” is a clear example of this arbitrary-contingency; he thinks he can arbitrarily re-describe his own life and the world he is living in. Fate-contingency, on the other hand, is something that could have been otherwise, but cannot be changed by us (e.g. the fact that we were born in a certain time and place, that we speak our native language). In fact, fate-contingency prevails in determining our lives, since it confronts us with the strength of natural and historical particulars.13 From this perspective, the self-important presumptuousness with which we make our plans or take decisions often makes us look ridiculous. (Religious) traditions, just like all other kinds of final vocabularies, obviously belong to fate-contingency, since they determine us far more than that we determine them. We humans are much more our own fate-contingencies than our own choices.14 In sum, although traditions are contingent, this is no reason for not being attached to them; on the contrary, life would be impossible without them.

13 14

Marquard, “Apologie des Zufälligen,” 157-8. Ibid., 160.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 171 4. The Paradox of Substantial Attachments to Contingent Traditions In the previous sections, I have shown that various modern and contemporary philosophers explicitly recognize the importance of (religious) traditions, either because we need them, at least for the time being, as an orientation for the conduct of our lives (Descartes), or because there is a limit to the number of final vocabularies that we can take seriously (Rorty), or because they are simply part of our human condition (Marquard). But this explicitly proclaimed attachment to (religious) ways of life does not prevent them from being contingent. This contingency concerns both the personal, historical, and cultural backgrounds of our attachment, and its content, i.e. a given (religious) way of life. Therefore, according to these authors, our substantial attachment to a way of life doesn’t have any implication at all as to its truth. It is only determined by psychological and cultural factors, and thus basically a matter of time and place. This implies that, if it makes sense at all to claim its truth, this claim does not reach any further than the people who are already committed to this or that (religious) way of life, and, thus, convinced of its truth. However important it is for the already converted to clarify and meditate these truths, there is no generally accepted concept of rationality or a neutral “meta-vocabulary” which could serve as a kind of judicial authority (to use a famous expression of Kant) for weighing the truth claims of the various ways of life against each other. In this context, being convinced of the truth of a way of life only has the psychological meaning of subjectively expressing the substantial nature of one’s attachment to it or the final character of the vocabulary used. But, essentially, these expressions of support do not make these ways of life look less contingent for outsiders. Thus, humans seem to be substantially committed to a given tradition, to which they only contingently belong, and which, as such, is also contingent. In this and the following section I will examine this paradoxical result further, as it seriously challenges the idea of truth in religious traditions. To start with, we often experience that many of our substantial attachments concern contingent matters. Most of our daily habits, from the kind of food we prefer to our morning or evening rituals, belong to this category. We usually perform them unconsciously, and we only realize the substantial character of our attachment to them when we have to forego them for some time. This is one of the reasons why people are usually glad to return home from their holidays abroad. The substantial

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character of some of our attachments becomes even clearer if we look at our attachment to our native language. As the word native already indicates, it is the language we are most familiar with in the sense that it enables us to express and share our deepest thoughts and emotions. We experience the substantial character of this attachment most clearly when we are abroad and want to communicate with others on a deeper level than sharing the usual “airport information.” In such situations, we always feel somewhat hampered, because we often cannot find the right words to express our thoughts and feelings, or understand the exact meaning and connotation of the words of our conversation partners. Immigrants and people belonging to a linguistic minority are also painfully aware of this handicap in everyday life, and of the social and economic discrimination resulting from it. On the other hand, however, our native language is something contingent, since it depends upon the contingency of the language of our parents; it is a mother tongue. In sum, a native language is a typical example of what Marquard calls fate-contingency: although it is completely contingent, our native language determines our symbolic access to the world and to other people, whereas we cannot determine it. Nobody can choose his or her native language. When reflecting upon our substantial attachments, most people realize that many of them concern all kinds of contingent matters, such as our daily habits or our native language. Therefore, nobody seriously wants to lay claim to their truth. Although we are attached to our native language in a substantial way, this does not mean at all that it is more “true” or superior in comparison to other languages. On the contrary, all attempts to upgrade our substantial attachment in such a way lead to oppressing those who have other substantial attachments. Heidegger’s conviction that German is, after ancient Greek, the best language to speak about philosophical issues, shows the problematic character of his attachment to his native language, especially if one looks at his political positions during the Nazi period. Moreover, it is an insult to all nonGerman philosophers. The same can be said about the ancient Greeks, who underscored their pretension to “linguistic superiority” by calling foreigners barbarians, thereby disqualifying the language of these foreigners as jabber. These examples clearly show how essential it is to realize that the objects of many of our substantial attachments are contingent, and have to remain so. It prevents us from imposing them on others, since this would imply an illegitimate violation of their personal integrity. Only for practical reasons is it sometimes necessary to

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 173 impose them, as in the case of the necessity to proclaim the native language(s) of the inhabitants of a country to be the official language(s). Such a proclamation is not at all meant to express any superiority of the official language over the languages of immigrants, and it does not prevent them from using these languages in unofficial circumstances The question is whether this reasoning holds true for our attachment to (religious) ways of life as well. Are religions as contingent as our daily habits and native language, implying that it makes no sense to speak about their truth? Are believers, in expressing the truth of their religion, simply expressing their personal attachment to a contingent religious way of life, or are they, by contrast, saying that their religion is really true? And if so, can they legitimately impose their religious way of life on other people, or would they then become guilty of oppression and tyranny? As we all know, church history is full of tragic examples of oppressing heterodox movements and religious minorities, also among the Christian churches, in the name of the one and only true religion. The distinction between natural and supernatural or revealed religion, as proposed by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, was an attempt to put an end to these kinds of religious oppression. According to this line of reasoning, natural religion contained all the essential religious truths common to all (Christian) religions, such as the existence of God and his attributes, the immortality of the soul, the obligation to lead a moral life, and the reward or punishment for it in the hereafter. These truths, and accordingly, also natural religion as such, could be demonstrated philosophically, although humans in fact knew them through revelation as well. On the other hand, revealed religion was thought to contain all kinds of contingent elements of particular religions, such as the belief in miracles, saints etc., which were considered as unessential for human salvation. This distinction helped to appease the religious wars in early modern Europe, since natural religion served as a kind of generally accepted “meta-vocabulary” with the help of which the essence of religious truth could be discussed and determined objectively. But it also contributed to confining religion and religious truth within the borders of reason alone, which lead to a rationalistic reduction of religious truth. Although nobody can seriously want to return to the religious fanaticism of early modernity, the issue of religious contingency versus its truth is still, or perhaps again, very relevant because of the important shifts in contemporary society and philosophy. Besides the above mentioned factors of detraditionalisation and the rise of non-Christian com-

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munities of faith, which make it almost impossible to set a generally accepted standard of religious truth on a practical level, contemporary philosophers like Rorty and Marquard query the project of religious truth as such. As we have seen in the previous section, Rorty considers truth as a contingent social construction, especially as far as religions and philosophies of life are concerned, although this should not prevent humans from being substantially attached to them. The crucial question in this respect is: Is an individual able to perform the “mental acrobatics” necessary for being substantially committed in the private domain to a (religious) way of life, while, at the same time, recognizing its sheer contingency in the public domain? In order to examine this, let us start (again) from the example of Christian faith as a way of life. Until recently, the majority of Europeans has imbibed Christianity with their mother’s milk, which usually is seen as an indication of the contingent origin of their attachment; from this perspective, it is a clear example of fate-contingency. But although it is correct to stress, from a sociological point of view, the role of education and other forms of socialisation in this process, and although it is clear that all religions contain many contingent elements, this doesn’t alter the fact that, at a certain moment in their lives, people have to take the personal decision whether or not they want to be Christian. This is all the more true in contemporary, pluralist society, in which people are confronted with a vast variety of life-choices from which they can choose and in which a Christian way of life is all but self-evident. From a religious perspective, it is the result of a personal conversion. The personal character of this decision for a religious way of life diminishes its fate-contingent character, but it does not at all mean that it is a kind of arbitrary-contingency (like the choice between cheese and ham as sandwich filling). On the contrary, taking the personal decision to be Christian rests on the basic conviction that Christ is our Saviour, since he is the way, the truth, and the life;15 this implies a promise of salvation that not only counts for me, but is true for all people. In order to clarify this crucial point, let us compare it with non-religious ways of life. Insofar as being a European citizen stands for a way of life, it refers to a substantial attachment to all kinds of values and practices, such as democratic decision-making procedures, social security, individual freedom, non-violent practices in settling the conflicts 15

John 14:6.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 175 between states, common cultural, intellectual and religious roots etc. Again, both the origins and the content of these European values and our commitment to them contain many contingent aspects. But when confronted with people who reject these values or even attack them, many Europeans experience that not only is their attachment to them substantial, but also their basic content, and they therefore deserve to be defended publicly. They don’t experience the substantial content of their European way of life as just one of the many final vocabularies, and simultaneously as the only one they can take seriously, but as an interpretation of what it truly means to be human and what a just society should be. The concrete codification of these claims about truth and justice is the universal declaration of human rights. Although it was originally developed by European intellectuals, and therefore contingent, and although its content needs constant refinement and adaptation in a globalised world, it is nevertheless an expression of how the relations between states and their citizens should truly be. Therefore the word “universal” is used here to express the non-contingent, true character of this declaration, as well as its need for recognition in the public domain. In contexts of both religious and secular ways of life we use words like “true” and “universal” in order to express something essential, something that is not just true for the individual who expresses it or for a small group of like-minded people. In order to make this concrete, we communicate our substantial commitments with others in the public domain, asking others to recognize them as an expression of something essential, in other words, to recognize their existential truth. This striving for recognition does not mean that others have to adopt our substantial commitments for the orientation of their own lives. This would be a denial of the inevitable dissemination of our lives, and consequently of the real divergence of our substantial commitments as they are embodied in the contingency of our concrete existence as finite human beings. It is an illusion to expect that this real divergence of substantial (religious) commitments can eventually be superseded by a peaceful dialogue between (religious) ways of life or by waiting for their eschatological fusion. On the contrary, the striving for recognition of the truth of diverging ways of life often appears as a painful confrontation of irreconcilable practices. But nevertheless, the process of striving for recognition shows that there is something essential at stake: others ask us to recognize that their substantial commitments to their ways of life are attempts to express something essential and of equal value to our own ex-

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pressions of our substantial commitments, although we may not share their commitments and they may even fill us with repulsion. The process of recognition can only take place against the background of conflicting substantial meanings, because only then can all partners in this process become aware of the fact that there is something essential at stake. Therefore, we feel deeply frustrated when others don’t want to take these meanings seriously, and reduce them to contingent, private opinions whose acceptance does not rest upon their substance, but merely upon their private character, and on their not causing too much of a fuss. What matters to me here is not so much the actual process of recognition and its social and political implications, but the fact that, while striving for recognition, we reach out towards something essential, towards an existential truth which is beyond our subjective, contingent self. In the end, we don’t want to be left alone with our contingent convictions and practices, nor are we prepared to leave others alone with theirs. We humans are too finite to be left alone with our own finitude, too dependent on the recognition of our substantial meanings by others to seriously consider ourselves as the only creators of truth and meaning in a meaningless world. This implies that the above mentioned “mental acrobatics” that is required to be a full member of the (post) modern circus of life-styles, bidding for the public’s favour, falls short of expectations. We cannot live with the idea that all our private substantial attachments, without which life would be impossible (as Descartes, Rorty and Marquard have rightly demonstrated), are, in the public domain, completely contingent. 5. The Notion of Existential Truth in Religion Given this result, the crucial question is: while we are communicating our substantial attachment to a given (religious) way of life with others, are we also able to express the substance of our attachment, its existential truth, so that it can be recognized by others who do not belong to the same (religious) community? The key-idea of “existential truth” serves here as a way to discover the essential in the contingent. In this fashion, I am trying to raise a (religious) way of life above the sheer contingency of its history and concrete embodiment, but without laying it on the Procrustean bed of scientific truth and rational justification. Thus, the no-

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 177 tion of existential truth is an attempt to discover, in the contingency which inevitably characterizes our (religious) ways of life, the substantially true. Just because this kind of truth is always embodied in concrete ways of life, it differs from the Cartesian bifurcation between scientific truth and contingent opinions (e.g. his provisory code of morals). In particular, the idea of existential truth implies that truth is not primarily something that can be demonstrated scientifically or philosophically, the expression of an objective state of affairs, but a personal commitment to something essentially worthwhile, which reveals itself primarily in and through life, and in an intellectual reflection upon it. Secondly, this kind of truth cannot be put to the test by the usual scientific methods, i.e. by trying to find counterexamples which falsify the (predicted) state of affairs, but only in those situations where the commitment to one’s (way of) life is at stake. Thirdly, existential truth tries to overcome the classical opposition between subjectivity and objectivity, particularity and universality, contingency and absoluteness, by disclosing the essentially true in concrete contingent (religious) ways of life. In order to examine this idea of existential truth more closely, I will start from the prayer for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer as a concrete example of a religious truth which is firmly embedded in the Christian way of life: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Christians are substantially and personally committed to this prayer, not only because it is taught by Christ himself, but also because it expresses a personal involvement with regard to this aspect of the existential truth of the Christian way of life: forgiveness essentially qualifies both the vertical relation of God towards humans, and the horizontal relation of humans towards their neighbours. This prayer cannot be “secularised” by transforming it into a moral commandment to forgive those who have trespassed against us, since it essentially rests on the experience of God’s merciful forgiveness of our trespasses against him, which are infinitely more. The secular moral commandment that we have to forgive our neighbours runs the risk of remaining a dead letter if it does not rest on the beneficial experience that my existence, however sinful and full of shortcomings it may be, is basically accepted by God’s grace. Morality, as a working negativity, is only effective as long as it is supported by existential experiences of the good, i.e. of being accepted by God.16

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In order to show that the prayer for forgiveness is an example of an existential religious truth, let us see whether the three aspects of this kind of truth, mentioned above, apply to this prayer. First of all, this prayer clearly is not a rendering of an objective state of affairs, nor can its truth be determined objectively by comparing the cases in which this approach works with those in which it doesn’t. It is made true by living, since it expresses a personal, radical commitment: if we commit ourselves to a Christian way of life, we thereby also commit ourselves to forgive those who trespass against us, because we experience God’s merciful forgiveness of our own trespasses. This double, but asymmetrical relation towards God, on the one hand, and towards our neighbours, on the other, leads us to the second aspect of existential truth. Although there are lots of counterexamples of people refusing to forgive each other, and even of God refusing forgiveness to his people (e.g. when God punishes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their indecent behaviour), they don’t falsify the existential truth of our commitment in the usual, scientific sense of the word. However, the truth of this commitment can be put to the test existentially, i.e. when our Christian way of life is at stake. I once heard a story of someone who returned from a concentration camp after the Second World War. Even after his return, he was unable to pray the Lord’s Prayer, especially the prayer for forgiveness, no matter how hard he tried. He was overwhelmed with bitterness and hatred. Apparently, his Christian way of life, implying the faith in a merciful God who forgives our trespasses and asks us to do the same to our neighbours, had been so deeply put to the test that he could not forgive the Nazis for their terrible atrocities, and thus could not commit himself anymore to forgiving his neighbours after the war. Suddenly, a woman rushed into the man’s house, crying out that fellow-villagers were going to burry her son alive for having collaborated with the Nazis. “You are the only person, who can save my child,” she begged. The man stood up, went to the scene where the burial was taking place, and said to the executioners: “If you go on burying this boy alive, I will jump into the hole to be buried with him.” They looked at him, wondering whether he really meant it, and stopped throwing sand on the boy’s body. And so the man saved the .

16 I develop this issue further in: Peter Jonkers, “Crying in the Desert? Speaking About God in Our Time,” in In Quest of Humanity in a Globalizing World. Dutch Contributions to the Jubilee of Universities in Rome 2000 (ed. W. Derkse, J. Van der Lans, and S. Waanders; Leende: Damon, 2000), 132-3.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 179 boy’s life and regained his faith. This story shows how an existential religious truth can be put to the test. For the man in question, the experience of the war served as a dramatic counterexample of the truth of his faith, in particular his capability to forgive those who had committed atrocities during the war. Nevertheless, if we examine this putting to the test of religious truth more closely, it turns out that its personal nature differs considerably from the neutrality and objectivity of scientific procedures of falsification. Therefore, it is not so that faith, unlike science, would be so irrationally blind that it could resist all counterexamples as a matter of principle, but the nature of these counterexamples differ because of the personal involvement faith presupposes. Similarly, the man did not regain his faith as a result of some theological exposé about whether God was or wasn’t present in Auschwitz, but because of an existential experience where, by saving someone else’s life by forgiving him, he also saved his own life. Thus, an existential truth can be put to the test, just like theoretical truths, but only in a different way. Thirdly, does the prayer for forgiveness show us a way to overcome the classical opposition between particularity and universality, contingency and absoluteness? Although the origin of this prayer is particular to the Christian way of life, it claims to have a universal meaning: even if the world were full of hatred, Christians are nevertheless convinced that they would have to forgive anyhow. Moreover, they are convinced that, if everybody accepted the existential truth of forgiveness by putting it into practice, the world would be a far better place to live in. This is the basic reason why they strive for the recognition of this existential truth in the public domain. So, the particularity of the Christian way of life does not put an end to its claim that forgiving those who trespass against us is really true, but makes us realize the existential nature of this truth. Christ, who was its incarnation par excellence, was but a single person, and the initial group of his followers was totally insignificant. But in spite of this particularity, the prayer for forgiveness, taught by Christ, shows something essential about human relations. In sum, the prayer for forgiveness is by no means a contingent conviction whose truth does not reach further than the Christian community of faith, but claims to express an existential truth which not only regards the essence of the Christian way of life, but also expresses an essential quality of human relations as such, as well as of their asymmetrical structure. However contingent the circumstances in which people say this prayer may be, and however contingent the biographical reasons for

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belonging to the Christian community of faith, these contingencies do not affect the rightness of their striving for this prayer to be recognized as expressing a universal, existential truth. 6. Conclusion What does the foregoing tell us about the issue of the relation between religious contingency and truth? First of all, it shows that it is incorrect to presume that all our substantial attachments concern only contingent matters. Examples of these, such as our substantial attachment to private hobbies or personal tastes, and even to our contingent native language, cannot be carried further to all contents we are committed to. Even in the former cases, something that really, substantially matters is involved as well. Although our native language is contingent, our capability to speak and to converse as such is essential, since it concerns the substance of our human life; it belongs to the very nature of what it means to be human. The same holds true for the essence of a Christian way of life. Taking an attitude of forgiveness is for Christians all but a contingent option. On the contrary, they not only see it as belonging to their way of life, but also as an essential element of every human way of life as such. Somehow, they consider unforgiving people as missing an essential characteristic of what it means to be human. Therefore, they try to convince others of this existential truth, or, at least, ask for its recognition in the public domain. Although one cannot deny that (religious) people consider the essence of their attachment to a (religious) way of life as existentially true, this does not mean that every single aspect of it is therefore true. Such a person would end up being the counterpart of Rorty’s insane ironist: instead of declaring all final vocabularies as contingent social constructions, he or she would declare one of them, including all its particular aspects, as absolute. Essentially, this is the attitude of the fundamentalists, be they religious or secular. So, the question is how to discover in the contingent (biographical, cultural etc.) aspects of a (religious) way of life its non-contingent existential truth, without falling back into the modern distinction between natural and revealed religion, which has proven to be problematic because of its reduction of the existential character of religious truth to a rationalistic construct.

CONTINGENT RELIGIONS, CONTINGENT TRUTHS? 181 It is impossible to separate the essential and the contingent aspects of religion a priori, since they are intertwined and embodied in a concrete way of life. So, in order to make such a distinction, we need to start from concrete examples of religious ways of life. In order to discover and explain their existential truth, we need a hermeneutics of the religious way of life, as I have tried to show briefly in my example of the practice of Christian forgiveness. Although the story of the man who returned unforgiving from the concentration camp and learned to forgive again is full of contingent biographical elements, the hermeneutics of this story lays bare the existential truth of forgiving other people, not only for Christians, but also for human society as such. Although forgiveness always occurs in concrete settings and is therefore contingent, Christians, by testifying to this virtue by putting it into practice, express an existential truth and strive for its recognition in the public domain. In the second place, however strong the conviction of the truth of the practice of forgiveness may be, it needs to go hand in hand with an awareness of transcendence. As finite human beings, whose existential truths are always embedded in all kinds of contingencies, we do not hold the truth on leash. Even from a Christian perspective, we have to be aware of the eschatological reservation which qualifies all our convictions and practices. This means we have to accept the idea that there are other ways of life than the Christian one that claim with the same right to embody existential truth. The idea of transcendence should prevent us from absolutizing our way of life and imposing its truth on others. In sum, we are just like the people in Plato’s cave, dialoguing with each other about the true character of forgiveness or so many other (religious) truths. Although this idea is transcendent, implying that nobody can legitimately claim to possess it and use it to judge others, nobody really wants to turn his back on it, because we are too committed to it as something essential. On the contrary, the idea of (religious) truth stimulates us to see the contingencies of our way of life, as well as its failures and shortcomings, and to learn from other, equally contingent ways of life its unexpected, but essential dimensions.

CHAPTER SEVEN

RELIGIOUS TRUTH, PARTICULARITY, AND INCARNATION A THEOLOGICAL PROPOSAL FOR A PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS OF RELIGION Lieven Boeve (Catholic University of Leuven)

1. Introduction: The Truth of the Incarnation and the Incarnation of the Truth Concerning the discussion of religion and contingency, one can hardly offer a more theological answer to the question about the nature of religious truth than by linking the latter to the incarnation, the core Christian doctrine. In this contribution, however, we would like to highlight how a theological insight may assist a philosophical reflection on religious truth and, in so doing, a philosophical hermeneutics of religion. In order to achieve this, we will suggest a replacement of the and in the title of this introduction with an is, reading, “the truth of the incarnation is the incarnation of the truth,” and the other way around, “the incarnation of the truth is the truth of the incarnation.” In what follows, we will elaborate on this point in two parts. First, we will show how, from a theological-epistemological perspective, religious truth cannot be thought of apart from, or without an irreducible link to, particularity and contingency. As the starting point of our reflection, we will engage the current situation of religious plurality and the challenges it puts forward for the truth claims of Christianity. We will evaluate three classical answers to this question, and reflect on their inherent weaknesses to treat both the indissoluble plurality of religious truth claims, and the irreducible seriousness of one’s own theological truth claim. Then we will trace how the doctrine of the incarnation functions in these models (and at what price), and, consequently, attempt to overcome the diagnosed weaknesses. In order to achieve this, we will elaborate how this doctrine intrinsically relates questions about theological truth to the very particularity and contingency of history and its interpretation.

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In a shorter second part, we will engage the contemporary philosophical discussion regarding the hermeneutics of religion in continental phenomenology, deconstructionism and hermeneutics. For a lot of leading continental philosophers, it would seem that, in a hermeneutics of religion, language, and thus particularity, is conceived of as contamination; thinking religious truth involves a radical hermeneutics which ultimately strives to reach beyond language—although for some this is an impossible enterprise. It is here that the fundamental-theological adagio that the incarnation of truth is the truth of the incarnation could be of help in coming to a more adequate philosophical hermeneutics of religion. 2. Incarnation and the Nature of Christian-Theological Truth Claims Secularisation did not succeed in expelling religion from modern society. The so-called secularisation hypothesis—more modernisation means less religion, and more religion implies a lesser degree of modernisation—has not substantiated itself in the facts.1 In addition, a multitude of fundamental life options and religions has filled the vacuum left by the ousting of the Christian religion and not simply an overall secular culture. All of this has significant consequences for those who reflect on Christianity today. It is no longer primarily the secular, modern culture of science and emancipation that challenges Christians to renew their understanding of what it means to believe in Jesus Christ, but rather the encounter with the diversity of religions and fundamental life options that forces them to reflect on their faith. When we endeavour to address these questions, it becomes clear that the encounter or confrontation with other (world) religions presents Christians with a twofold challenge. In the first instance, questions arise with respect to the relationship between the Christian faith and the other (world) religions. In the last decennia, three now classical theological models of thought were devel1

It is better to speak of detraditionalization in this regard; classical religions and traditions (including organised humanism) are no longer capable of passing themselves on from generation to generation in the West, although this need not imply the end of the religion in question. See my “Religion after Detraditionalization: Christian Faith in a Post-Secular Europe,” in Irish Theological Quarterly 70 (2005): 99122.

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oped to deal with this first challenge: exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. We will investigate the problems surrounding the discussion of these three models in the following paragraph. Suffice it to say, for the time being, that none of the three conceptual strategies appear to be subtle enough to formulate an adequate and plausible answer to the question, given the fact that a delicate balance is required in maintaining the Christian identity and truth claim, on the one hand, and establishing a fundamental respect for other religions, including their own truth claims, on the other. Secondly, the confrontation with (someone adhering to) a different religion forces Christian men and women to reflect on their own identity: what does being Christian mean exactly? What distinguishes Christians from those of different faiths? What does the Christian truth claim consist of and what does it mean in practice? How can we justify this claim against the background of religious diversity, and more concretely, in inter-religious communication? The Pitfalls of Exclusivism, Inclusivism and Pluralism We alluded to the three classical theological strategies to conceptualise the relationship between the Christian faith and other (world) religions: exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. We now present a brief sketch of each strategy according to its primary features.2 (a) Exclusivism, with extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“there is no salvation outside the church”) as its motto, maintains that there is no truth or salvation to be found outside the Christian faith, outside the Christian faith community. Those who do not accept Christianity as the way to salvation are not saved. Those who adhere to a different religion should convert to the true faith, when they have come into contact with Christianity. This strategy bears witness to both a deep sense of trust in the redemptive truth of the Christian faith and, at the same time, a recognition of the gravity of the Christian truth claim. God’s universal salvific will is strictly bound to the saving mediation of Jesus Christ and the salvific necessity of the church. The strategy is not quite as rigid as it

2 For an extensive and paradigmatic overview, see: Paul F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002).

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might seem, however: those who adhere to a different belief system, yet desire implicitly to be baptised and thus to belong to the church, can still be saved. (b) Inclusivism argues that while the Christian faith is the true religion, this does not exclude the possibility that an element of truth and salvation may be found in the other religions. As a matter of fact, God’s salvific will extends to all people. All those who seek God and live according to their own conscience can be saved. Some theologians, notably Karl Rahner, speak in this regard of “anonymous Christians.” The fragments of truth and salvation apparent in such men and women, however, only acquire their fullest significance and ultimate completion in the light of the gospels. The Christian understanding of truth and salvation provides the key to the appreciation and evaluation of the elements of truth and salvation present in other religions. Religions that encourage their adherents to charity in their interaction with others, especially with respect to the poor and the alienated, ultimately lead their adherents to implicit Christian discipleship. The fullest significance and scope of such behaviour only become explicitly manifest in the Christian faith. The Second Vatican Council thus stated that the church “did not reject anything true and sacred found in other religions,” even though “the fullness of religious life is to be found in Christ.”3 (c) A pluralistic perspective maintains grosso modo that all religions are to be considered particularisations or concrete cases of a universal religion or religiosity, distinct witnesses to a universal religious experience or different historical-contextual representations of one and the same religious desire. Taken together the many religions give form to (often complementary) perspectives on a truth that is richer than anything that can be contained by one single religion. The salvation promised in Jesus Christ, therefore, cannot be presented as unique, irreducible or complete, because the Christian perspective constitutes only one single part of a more inclusive religious truth. Other religious geniuses and figures such as Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Shiva etc. reveal an equal measure of worthy aspects of this ultimate reality. Religions are facets, as it were, of one and the same diamond, which no one is able to see in its entirety.

3 Nostra Aetate, 2—see Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington (D.C.): Georgetown University Press, 1990).

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It is primarily this third conceptual strategy that tends to weaken the constitutive character of the Christological confession for the Christian faith. Each in their own fashion and in their own historical context, every religion and every religious leader (Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed . . .) has opened a pathway towards the fulfilment of religious desire, which is a universally human phenomenon. Pluralistic Christian thinkers endeavour to give expression to this reality in theological terms. They mostly begin with the presupposition that God is, in principle, unknowable and that Christians cannot claim to have privileged access to such knowledge. Such a perspective calls, in the first instance, for a review of the central role of Jesus Christ, the man in whom Christians confess God has been revealed. Some do so by designating the incarnation as a myth or a metaphor, or by describing Jesus as one of the many faces of God. Others separate the second and third persons of the Trinity, the Son/the Word and the Spirit, from the concrete figure of Jesus Christ and ascribe to them a more elaborate salvific role remote from Christ. Other religious figures likewise refer to the second person of the Trinity or are inspired by the third. As a consequence, the revelation of God in Jesus, and thus also his salvific role, is considered to be limited, incomplete or imperfect. In short, in order to ascribe a role to other religions, the theologians in question radically relativize the Christian truth claim. At most, Jesus Christ represents God but he does not incarnate God. Jesus is a human example of God, but no longer God made flesh. The awareness of religious plurality thus leads to relativistic pluralism, whereby it becomes difficult to take particular religious truth claims and identity seriously, let alone uphold them. If everything has the same truth value then nothing is ultimately true.4 The question remains, of course, whether one would be better off with the other two conceptual strategies. Exclusivism tends to have totalitarian features, and has enormous difficulty in ascribing a place to 4 Cf. e.g. John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion. Human Responses to the Transcendent (London: Macmillan Press, 1989); Paul F. Knitter, One Earth Many Religions. Multifaith Dialogue & Global Responsibility (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), and esp. The Myth of God Incarnate (ed. J. Hick; London: SCM, 1977); John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate (London: SCM, 1993). These same criticisms have been expressed against pluralist theologies in Dominus Iesus, the declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the unique and salvific universality of Jesus Christ (and the Church), August 6, 2000 [cited 31 August 2007]. Online: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/ rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html).

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the good things that take place outside Christianity. Incarnation, as God’s concrete intervention in history, is both absolute and limiting at one and the same time: since salvation is complete in Jesus Christ, there is no room for salvation from elsewhere. The step towards Christian fundamentalism is but a short one, especially in an inimical environment that lacks any level of sensitivity towards the Christian confession. Moreover, such an exclusivistic approach is problematic at a time in which the encounter with believers of other faiths teaches Christians that religious identity, profound spirituality, authentic praxis, and a rituality that is rooted in reality are not the monopoly of Christians. When it comes to respecting the seriousness of other religions, inclusivism is much better placed. It allows for the presence of truth and salvation outside Christianity, albeit always in a fragmentary form that can only achieve completion within Christianity. The incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is ultimately the deepest realisation of the traces or fragments of salvation and truth to be found in other religions. Upon closer inspection, however, inclusivism does not succeed in ascribing a worthy place to other religions, including their truth claims, in relation to the Christian faith. Whichever way one looks at it, Christianity is always more true, better, more authentic. Such a latent sense of superiority has the seeming capacity to undermine every form of inter-religious communication in advance, because it remains in essence just as totalitarian as exclusivism (although not quite as much in practice!).5 In sum, each of the three classical strategies for conceptualising the relationship between Christianity and other religions inevitably comes face-to-face with its own limitations. Pluralism fails to maintain the identity and gravity of the Christian truth claim; exclusivism and inclusivism find it difficult to ascribe a satisfactory place to other religions and their truth claims. In order to engage inter-religious dialogue, pluralism requires one to relinquish in advance a core element of the Christian confession of faith. Exclusivism and inclusivism, on the other hand, take the sole veracity of their own truth claims as their point of departure and leave little if any room for any kind of otherness that challenges these truth claims. How then do we move forward?

5

Cf. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 103 and following.

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Incarnation between Universalization and Pluralization All things considered, the three conceptual strategies can be reduced to two ways of resolving the question of the relationship between the Christian faith and other religions. In the first instance—with respect to the positions of exclusivism and inclusivism—Christianity is universalised: the Christian faith is the one and only truth, for all times and places and peoples. It is thus from the perspective of this truth that Christians perceive other religions as either completely lacking in truth or sharing in a part thereof. The person of Jesus Christ is considered primarily from the perspective of his divinity. The fact that Jesus Christ is God incarnate makes the Christian faith superior to or at least more comprehensive than other religions. In the second instance—with respect to pluralism—Christianity is particularised: the Christian faith is (only) one perspective on or part of a greater truth. It is one specific (particular) truth that is contained in or surpassed by a higher (universal) truth. The divinity of Jesus Christ becomes relative in the incarnation. Jesus was certainly an extraordinary human being, characterised by a profound relationship with God, capable of inspiring people and leading them to a better knowledge of God, but he is not the incarnation of God, qualitatively incomparable, unique and definitive. In a best case scenario, Jesus is certainly a representative of God, but not necessarily the only one.6 If it is fair to claim that, whereas exclusivism and inclusivism uphold the confession of Christ in general terms, and are thereby inclined to deny the religious truth claims of other religions or force them to fit within the Christian truth claim, pluralism relates the confession of Christ to a transcendent, more comprehensive truth, to which other religions also contribute as partial truths or perspectives on the truth. In more technical terms: in the first instance, the historical-contingent particularity of Christian revelation is immediately positioned within a virtually meta-historical Christian frame of interpretation. Concrete narratives and contingent histories, people and events are taken up into an all-inclusive vision of history; they are integrated in the truth, the his6 For a philosophical theological elaboration of this dynamics of universalisation and particularisation, see my “The Particularity of Religious Truth Claims. How to Deal with it in a So-called Postmodern Context,” in Truth: Interdisciplinary Dialogues for a Pluralist Age (Studies in Philosophical Theology 22; ed. K. De Troyer and C. Helmer; Leuven: Peeters Press, 2003), 181-195.

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tory of salvation, and are thereby deprived in principle of their historical accidentality. In the second instance, the Christian truth claim is relativized in the service of a more general religious truth, precisely because it is merely a product of an overly historical-particular and contingent history of tradition. Precisely because it is rooted in an accidental convergence of circumstances, an historical conglomeration of narratives, events and rituals, Christianity cannot lay claim to the fullness of truth. The concrete particularity of the Christian faith narrative is thus used as an argument in support of relativizing Christianity’s truth claim: the particular can never be identified with the truth. In both instances, incarnation is understood as the absorption of the historical-particular into the universal or the reduction thereof in the name of the universal. Religious truth thus comes to equal universality. This also explains the way in which the strategies in question evaluate incarnation: for exclusivism and inclusivism, incarnation is the cornerstone of the truth claim that universalises Christian particularity—the human Jesus becomes the vessel of a universal, all-embracing divine truth. For the same reason, by contrast, incarnation is the stumbling block par excellence for pluralism. Precisely because the doctrine of the incarnation universalises the historical-particular Christian truth claim, thus making it totalitarian, a respectful approach to other religions becomes impossible. It is only when the fullness of truth is not identified with the Christian faith that it becomes possible to recognise truth claims of other religions (however partial). The truth in both instances is not to be found in the specific particularity of the Christian faith but rather in either a universalised Christian faith or a universal religion, of which particular Christianity is but one single form. If truth exists then it does so in spite of particularity. It remains a question whether the truth of a religion (understood as the truth one lives by rather than scientific truth) is best conceptualised in general, universal terms to which concrete religious traditions are related in so far as they are particular, concrete, historical and contingent. Do we not do an injustice to the specificity of theological truth by capturing it in an asymmetrical opposition between particularity and universality?7 Furthermore, is it not possible to understand incarnation in the opposite sense, namely by insisting that, if truth exists, it is to be found in the concrete, the historical and the particular? Is this not the ultimate meaning of incarnation: that the “all-too-human” speaks for God, without, in the process, either diminishing God or assimilating human-

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ity into God? In order to complete our line of inquiry we now return once again to the theological reflection on inter-religious communication. Theological Truth and Inter-Religious Communication We already noted above that contact and confrontation with other religions not only forces Christians to reflect on the relationship between Christianity and the religions in question, but also to think about the Christian faith itself and the truth claims for which it stands. An encounter with a Muslim or participation in a Hindu ritual can confront Christians with questions with respect to what they themselves stand for, how they experience their faith. In contrast to pluralism, which maintains that one’s own truth claims and one’s own identity have to be relativized in order to engage in inter-religious communication, the dynamic is precisely the reverse: in one’s contact with other religions and the dialogue that ensues therefrom, potential points of mutual kinship can emerge side by side with the reciprocal difference and uniqueness of the dialogue partners. A discussion between Christians and Buddhists on the topic of mysticism and contemplation, one suspects, would reveal significant points of agreement while simultaneously clarifying points of difference. It truly makes a difference if one contemplates the mystery of reality as love or as emptiness.8 For the Christian believer, the ultimate truth of reality was definitively revealed in Jesus Christ as the mystery of love. Living one’s life according to this reality makes one a Christian and ultimately serves as the measure of one’s Christianity. It is thus rooted in such an identity—which is not acquired automatically—that Christians approach the plurality of other religions and enter into communication with them. Their endeavour to follow Christ in their lives, not only leads Christians on a path that brings them into contact with others, it also forms the background and interpretative key of the way in which they 7

As a matter of fact, this idea is the governing hypothesis of a interdisciplinary research project at K. U. Leuven, run by Church historians and systematic theologians, investigating the nature of theological truth and the way in which theological truth is determined in the Church and theology: “Orthodoxy: Process and Product” [cited 31 August 2007]. Online: http://www.theo.kuleuven.ac.be/goa/. 8 For example, see, the biographical reflections of Joseph-Marie Verlinde in L’expérience interdite (Versailles: Editions Saint-Paul, 1998), chapter 9.

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engage such contacts. For Christians, the recognition of goodness and truth in other religions happens of necessity in reference to Jesus Christ, precisely because they engage in contact with others as Christians. Does this mean that Christians necessarily enter into every communication in an inclusivistic way? In a certain sense: yes! How then do we deal with the objection that inclusivism leans in the direction of totalitarianism? Perhaps we are dealing with a different type of inclusivism in such instances, an inclusivism that does not bear the universalising tendencies we noted above. Indeed, inter-religious communication teaches us in practice that there is no neutral place or neutral language in which to speak about the multiplicity of religions, and that the Christian language game also consists of a highly specific grammar and vocabulary rooted in its own background and traditions. This Christian language cannot simply be translated into the language games of other religions and vice versa. Non-Christian communication partners are often unable to recognise themselves in the language employed by pluralistic theologians, for example, to conceptualise the multiplicity of religions (because it often contains a significant residue of the Christian language game). There is no such thing as a religious Esperanto into which every religion can be translated. We have no standard religious language at our disposal that allows us to make the uniqueness of every religion, as it is sensed from within, transparent and understandable to all. We do not possess a conceptual framework in which a sort of unified religion can be designated or constructed of which the various religions of the world are concrete representations. Christians engage in communication with people of other beliefs and other fundamental life options as participants with their own background and horizon, side by side with other participants. As a matter of fact, inter-religious communication itself confronts inclusivistic theologians with their own particular points of departure and makes them aware that they participate in such communication from a Christian perspective. Christians are already located, that is, have already adopted a position in the plural domain of inter-religious communication, and it is from this position, in the midst of other positions, that they should assess their necessarily inclusivistic dealings with others. Christians do not have a bird’s eye view that allows them to survey religious plurality as detached observers and grant it a place in light of its own truth. Indeed, Christianity’s own place in the midst of plurality is part of the picture. The “different inclusivism” to which we refer is conscious of the particularity of the Christian faith and brings it into the

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communication, not in order to relativize its own position but rather to determine it in the plural inter-religious world. In the context of interreligious communication, Christians will ultimately be confronted with their own specific way of speaking about reality. Unable to distance themselves from their particular options, presuppositions, terminology and conceptual schemes, Christians ultimately approach others with their own “baggage.” An example is the universal salvific will of God, which explains why Christians tend to be so highly motivated in their engagement in inter-religious dialogue. It is possible that the (modern/rational) notion that Christian believers can abstract themselves from their concrete rootedness in a tradition lies hidden behind the vision of certain theological pluralists, that Christians can adopt the position of detached observers, allowing them to make statements above and beyond the plural religious reality to which they then adapt their theology. In such a scenario, the truth of the Christian faith becomes dependent on a coordinating rational scheme that is able to locate all religions. Incidentally, an atheistic variant of such pluralism also exists. A number of atheistic scholars in religious studies, certainly those still profoundly impregnated with scientist ideals, likewise see themselves as observers located at a meta-level, elevated above the plurality of religions which they maintain they are free to judge. They forget, however, that as self-declared children of the Enlightenment they are a part of the plurality over which they judge and their atheistic position does not grant them the right to pretend otherwise.9 We can use an image to explain what we mean. Some present the various religions as a variety of different paths that lead to the same mountain-top engulfed in clouds. How can we verify such a hypothesis, however, if we only follow one of the said paths, namely the Christian one? Without a bird’s eye perspective on the religious reality it is impossible to legitimate the image. The experience of religious plurality and inter-religious communication reveal that the observer’s position is in fact unsustainable. We are all participants. We all follow our own path. We are aware that other paths exist that cross our own from time to time or run parallel with our path for a while only to go off in their own direction further down the line. We cannot confirm, however, that 9 Cf. Rik Pinxten, “De atheist in het godsdienstige koor,” in God ondergronds. Opstellen voor een theologisch vrijdenker (FS G. De Schrijver) (ed. L. Boeve and J. Haers; Averbode: Altiora, 2001), 279-292.

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all these paths actually lead to the same mountain-top. Indeed, it is equally possible that a path that disappears beyond the horizon and into the clouds leads to a different mountain-top. It is impossible to confirm this from the perspective of our own path and likewise impossible to deny it. We simply do not know. Nevertheless, we climb the mountain using our own path as mountain climbers and from time to time other paths cross our own. It is thus as mountain climbers that we enter into communication and as such we are able to exchange thoughts and customs, joys and concerns with others, rooted in our experience of the journey. A particular role is set aside in this endeavour for the imagination. Aware of the fact that we are participants, and learning about others in contact with the other, we are capable, to a degree, of changing our perspective, without revoking the irreducible otherness of the other in the process. An inclusivistic perspective is thus—epistomologically speaking— unavoidable. The question posed by pluralistic theologians with respect to the relationship between Christian truth claims and the other religions remains a pressing one: how do we couple Christian identity to a fundamental respect for other religions? The practice of inter-religious communication would appear to have room for both, but how can we conceptualise this reality in theological terms? Is a sort of “pluralistic” inclusivism possible? In contrast to the classical inclusivistic position, this would imply that Christians must approach religious plurality from the perspective of participants. For them, the mystery of Christ constitutes the perspective from which they speak about religious salvation and truth, because they live in and from this truth. At the same time, the universal salvific will of God, which is revealed to them in Christ, provides the Christian point of cross-reference that inspires them to seek traces of goodness and truth in other religions. They can only follow one path at a time—trusting that all humanity is ultimately saved in Christ. The Truth of the Incarnation is the Incarnation of the Truth We noted above that the incarnation might signify more than the idea that truth is revealed in the particular, or in other words that the particular is the vessel of the universal. The truth of the incarnation indicates, rather, that the particular is constitutive of the truth by principle and is as such indispensable. The very particularity of the Christian tradition,

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fruit of contingent histories and their interpretations, is not a contra-indication for its truth. Truth is concrete, incarnate, and can only be grasped as such. This means that when we speak of Jesus Christ, God’s Son made flesh, we cannot simply make a distinction between the divinity and humanity of Jesus, even though they do not coincide. God’s revelation is unthinkable without the human Jesus; the human Jesus is constitutive of what we know of Jesus as Christ, of Christian faith in him. It is in Jesus, in his concrete humanity, that God is revealed among human beings, the Jew from Nazareth who proclaimed the Kingdom of God in the language and narratives of his own day and put it into practice until he died on the Cross outside Jerusalem. It is of this same Jesus that his disciples confessed after his death that he had risen, that he was the Christ, God’s Son, in his humanity and not in spite of it. The one who desires to know God must look at Jesus. The first disciples expressed the results of their faith-inspired observation of Jesus in the New Testament, in the language and stories of their days—just as the faith communities that would follow them would be inspired time after time by these words. Moreover, Jesus Christ reveals God and God’s desire for human beings thanks to his humanity. Classical theology tends to explain this point in soteriological terms. Only if God has really become human, it is stated, can the human person really become God; it is only because God shared humanity to the full with us that we human beings are saved. At this juncture, however, we are emphasising the epistemological perspective, so the question is: what does it say about the truth unfolded in Christ? As we have already affirmed: the person who desires to know God must look to Jesus Christ, who, as a human person, definitively revealed God in history. At the same time, divine truth for Christians is also to be located in concrete events and narratives. It is only in the alltoo-historical, the concrete, the contingent that God can become manifest, that God becomes manifest. This does not mean that God coincides with the concrete and the contingent, but that the concrete and the contingent make the manifestation of God possible; this manifestation is not in spite of but rather thanks to the concrete and the contingent. Every concrete encounter, no matter how accidental, every particular and contingent event, is the potential location of God’s manifestation. For Christians, God’s manifestation in Jesus Christ forms the hermeneutical key in this regard.

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This is what the Christological doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon —Jesus Christ is at the same time both God and human—can mean for us today: God is manifest in Jesus Christ, not without Jesus’ humanity but in and through it; Jesus reveals God as a human person without thereby giving up his humanity. Jesus’ concrete words and deeds reveal God historically situated in a very specific context. Every actual statement about this God and this revelation must comply with the same rules of the game. Even today, it is only possible to give expression to God’s involvement in history and the world in all-too-human terms. Jesus’ particular humanity, concrete history and the events, narratives and conceptual frameworks thereof, do not represent a stumbling block on our journey to God; they represent the very possibility of the journey.10 What we just have said, is in fact true of every human engagement with the Christian faith. It is only in the particular word, narrative, ritual and practice that the profound significance of the Christian faith can be revealed. Incarnation thus demands—formulated once again in technical terms—an ongoing radical hermeneutics in which the particular as possibility of divine revelation is taken seriously and at the same time relativized, since the particular never coincides with God, in the same way as God and humanity are united in a single person, undivided and undiluted. This is the core around which the Christian tradition turns: the tradition cannot be substituted nor can it be absolutized. It speaks of God—and without it there can be no talk about God—but it is not God. Where tradition is absolutized, it is precisely Godself who interrupts such rigidity and fosters recontextualization.11 There is no such thing as a core of truth that stands at our disposal, free of every form of media10

For an elaboration, see my: “Christus Postmodernus: an Attempt at Apophatic Christology,” in The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology (BETL 152; ed. T. Merrigan and J. Haers; Leuven: Peeters Press, 2000), 577-593. 11 For the concept of recontextualization, see my, Interrupting Tradition. An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context (Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs 30; Leuven: Peeters/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) chapter 1; for further reflections on the interruptive God, see for example my, “God Interrupts History: Apocalyptism as an Indispensable Theological Conceptual Strategy,” Louvain Studies 26 (2001): 195-216; “The Sacramental Interruption of Rituals of Life,” Heythrop Journal 44 (2003): 401-417; “The Shortest Definition of Religion: Interruption,” Communio viatorum 46 (2004): 299-322; and “Theology and the Interruption of Experience,” in Religious Experience and Contemporary Theological Epistemology (BETL 188; ed. L. Boeve, Y. De Maeseneer and S. Van den Bossche; Leuven: Peeters Press, 2005), 11-40.

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tion, which is given expression in ever-changing historical frameworks, as many classical hermeneutic theologians have argued. Every truth is constituted in part by the all-too-human, by concrete history and context. This does not do an injustice to such truth, since it is only thus, through time and history, that we can speak about God. It is likewise through this tradition that God speaks to Christians, embedded in the historical context of today, whereby the said tradition perpetuates and renews itself. In conclusion: Christology, the theological understanding of Jesus Christ, is the cornerstone of all Christian theology and necessary for a clear understanding of what, in theological terms, is the truth. The alltoo-human does not obstruct genuine Christian discourse about God and with God, it is the precondition thereof. 3. The Incarnation of Truth and the Hermeneutics of Religion In this second part, we investigate in what way such a concept of theological truth, implying a radical theological hermeneutics, may assist a philosophical reflection about a contemporary hermeneutics of religion. Indeed, a wide range of philosophers belonging to the phenomenological and/or hermeneutical tradition—denoted as “continental philosophy” across the Atlantic—have placed the theme of religion on the philosophical agenda again, often in relation to their attempts to overcome ontotheology. Here, we briefly present some of the key thinkers engaged in this discussion, and subsequently contrast their philosophical hermeneutics of religion with the kind of radical hermeneutics which does not disregard the irreducible importance of particularity— the kind which resulted from our former fundamental-theological reflection on the epistemological relevance of incarnation in conceiving of theological truth in the midst of a plurality of religious truth claims. Religious Hermeneutics and the Contamination of Language Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness,12 for instance, takes as its point of departure the saturated phenomenon. Marion considers 12 Cf. Jean-Luc Marion, Etant donné: essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (Paris: PUF, 1997).

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the saturated phenomenon to be the prime instance, the paradigm, for speaking of reality as a whole—reality phenomenologically reduced then to “that which appears” as always and already given, as a gift. In phenomenological language, this implies that, for the subject in relation to what appears, the intuition is always greater than the intention, and supersedes the intentional dynamic of the knowing subject towards the phenomenon. The subject is bedazzled in and through the overwhelming intuition, and is therefore incapable of giving a clear and precise signification to the phenomenon. The subject is disarmed precisely with regard to his or her power to interpret and systematise the phenomenon. Instead of the nominative case, in which the subject’s mastery is acknowledged with regard to the interpretation and signification of the phenomenon, the subject is turned into the dative case. Therefore, the human response is always and already secondary, and consists in nothing more than this responding to the reception of oneself from givenness. This structure of appeal and response is, according to Marion, (a) given, and therefore prior to language and hermeneutics. Because of the dynamics of the appeal and the response, language looses its descriptive function and is reduced to its pragmatic function, merely pointing to an, in the end, ineffable givenness. For Marion, this dynamics of appeal and response also structures the nature of divine revelation, and the role of religious language. Therefore, it is not so much a hermeneutical approach to religion and religious language that teaches us how to understand (Christian) religion and religious truth, as a radicalised phenomenological approach: i.e., a phenomenology that serves as a heuristic, that is able to reduce particularity and language to its essential structure (“autant de reduction, autant de donation”—the more reduction the more givenness).13 Only insofar as a particular religious discourse expresses this universal structure is it discovered to be meaningful. The concrete discourse of this particular tradition is merely pragmatic and performative: what is being said is ultimately of no importance; what is essential is that language as a whole expresses this universal structure of appeal and response.

13 Cf. Jean-Luc Marion, “‘Christian Philosophy’: Hermeneutic or Heuristic?,” in The Question of Christian Philosophy Today (ed. F. Ambrosio; New York: Fordham University, 1999), 247-264.

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Jean-Luc Marion’s position, which can be summarised as phenomenology before hermeneutics has been criticised by deconstructionist thinkers, such as Jacques Derrida and John Caputo, advocating a “radical hermeneutics of pure religion.” They contend that the reduction of reality to givenness cannot claim to be a thinking that itself would be exempted from the structure of language. The universal logic of being given (étant donné) is itself situated within discourse. Marion does not and cannot reach “beyond the text” and would therefore seem to fall prey to the onto-theological schemes he wants to overcome. In order words, Marion’s attempt to overcome linguistic positioning is itself positioned. Derrida, on the other hand, tries to radicalise the hermeneutical turn of philosophy. For him, only a hermeneutics that deconstructs all signification to an originary differential space (différance), which is presupposed by and makes possible all discourse, is sufficiently radical.14 The later Derrida, emphatically accompanied by Caputo and others, expresses the dynamics of deconstruction, and the corresponding critical consciousness, in explicitly religious vocabularies. This results in a socalled radical hermeneutics of religion that seeks to determine the religious in terms of religion without religion which reduces religion to a universal structure of religious desire, conceived of as at the unreachable “other side” of language. As another way of expressing this structure of religious desire, Derrida and Caputo indicate the “messianic structure” recognised in, but at the same time distinguished from the various particular messianisms. As a matter of fact, this radical hermeneutics results—at least in Caputo’s reception—in a kind of (philosophical) negative theology that expresses, beyond concrete discourse and particularity, a “religiously being related to” that which lies at the “origin” of every particular religious discourse, but is betrayed in every attempt to name it.15 Religion is reduced to a structure which “precedes” 14

Cf. Jacques Derrida, L’écriture et la différance (Paris: Seuil, 1967). Relevant literature: Jacques Derrida, “Comment ne pas parler. Dénégations,” in, idem, Psychè. Inventions de l’autre (Paris: Galilée, 1987), 535-595; idem, Sauf le nom (Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1993); idem, “Foi et savoir. Les deux sources de la «religion» aux limites de la simple raison,” in La religion. Séminaire de Capri sous la direction de Jacques Derrida et Gianni Vattimo (ed. J. Derrida and G. Vattimo; Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1996), 9-86; John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida. Religion without Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); idem More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000); idem On Religion. Thinking in Action (London: Routledge, 2001). 15

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and is “beyond” particularity, thus becoming a “religion without religion”: “pure religion”—although impossible—before or beyond the contamination of language.16 It is Richard Kearney, an author who has difficulties deciding between a hermeneutical, phenomenological or deconstructionist approach, who has criticised the tendencies in Marion and Derrida/Caputo to conquer onto-theology with philosophical negative theology. In agreement with Paul Ricoeur, Kearney attempts to resist the “short-cut” approaches of both phenomenology and deconstruction, and their respective negative-theological outcome. This outcome reduces the narrative thickness of religious reality to the rather meagre result of an unknowable and untouchable transcendence (which according to him might be divine as well as monstrous17) in describing the depth-structure of religious realities. Kearney explicitly relates the constitution of signification to the long “detour” of a hermeneutic of texts and, in so doing, points to the hermeneutical presuppositions of the short-cut approaches.18 On the other hand, differing from Ricoeur and relying on Caputo and Derrida, Kearney is more aware that his account is situated in a particular discourse and that his hermeneutic of religious texts, i.e., texts from the Jewish-Christian tradition, therefore entails a certain “wager.”19 16 Despite this passion, however, Caputo is also aware of the fact that neither Derrida nor he himself escapes from linguistic contamination. In the end, he avows that the distinction between the “messianic” and the diverse messianisms “cannot be rigorously maintained . . . We are always involved with structures whose historical pedigree we can trace if we read them carefully enough. . . . That is no less true of deconstruction itself. . . . If we search it carefully enough, we discover that it, too, is another concrete messianism, which is the only thing liveable.” As for his own position, Caputo would concede that he practices a Christian deconstruction, but one “which is very closely tied to Jesus the Jew, the Judaism of Jesus”—before its integration in Christianity—cf. John D. Caputo, interviewed by B. Keith Putt, “What Do I Love when I Love my God? An Interview with John D. Caputo,” in Religion With/ out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo (ed. J.H. Olthuis; London: Routledge, 2001), 150-179, 165. 17 Cf. Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (London: Routledge, 2003). 18 Cf. Richard Kearney, On Stories (London: Routledge, 2002). 19 In The God Who May Be Kearney indeed develops what he coins, a “phenomenological-hermeneutical retrieval” and points at the importance of the “metaphorizing role of hermeneutic mediation” in understanding (Christian?) religion. To come to such an understanding, he engages in a reading of key texts from the biblical tradition, such as the “burning bush” episode, the transfiguration narrative, etc. Cf. Richard Kearney, The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutic of Religion (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001).

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But, surprisingly enough, Kearney as well ultimately seems to consider this narrativity to be a contamination of “pure” religious desire, as does deconstruction, and still presupposes an underlying “quasi-universal” religious-ethical anthropology, i.e. a kind of messianism without incarnation, as the goal of the hermeneutics of religion.20 It would seem to follow that for Kearney religious traditions, in one way or another, share the “same” caring for justice and peace, for human wholeness and fulfilment, and that they all convey narrative wisdom in order to realise this fulfilment. An exchange of readings of the different religious traditions, framed within a hermeneutics of religious toleration (i.e., a hermeneutic of tolerant and pluralist interpretations) may result in “suggestive intersections between the different wisdom traditions, given the insights of so many of the great spiritual mystics that God is ultimately one even as the ways to God are many.”21 Therefore, inter-religious communication should lead beyond differences in languages and histories (although not without them) to a communal understanding of the transcendent and a peaceful and tolerant living together. This is the reason why Kearney opposes the too explicit “confessionally partisan”22 truth claims of religions. Thus, in the end, language and narrativity differentiate and divide again. Religious truth is finally to be situated in what is radically beyond language, beyond narrativity, and hermeneutics becomes a tool to evoke and point at this beyond. Language risks contaminating the quasi-universal purity of an ethico-eschatological religious desire. The Incarnation of Truth is the Truth of the Incarnation It is not so much the fact that prominent philosophers still—or better yet, again— speak of God that matters to us here—although it surely is 20 I developed this at length in my: “God, Particularity and Hermeneutics. A Critical Theological Dialogue with Richard Kearney on Continental Philosophy’s Turn (in)to Religion,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 81 (2005): 305-333. 21 Richard Kearney, “Interreligious Discourse – War or Peace?,” (lecture delivered at the Fifteenth Inter-American Congress of Philosophy and the Second IberoAmerican Congress of Philosophy on Toleration, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, 12-16 January 2004), 3 [cited 8 May 2007]. Online: http:// www.pucp.edu.pe/eventos/congresos/filosofia/programa_general/miercoles/plenariamatutina/KearneyRichard.pdf. 22 Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters, 41. For Kearney, the uniqueness and definitiveness of the fullness of God’s revelation in the Incarnation in Jesus Christ would qualify to be such a claim.

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consonant with the revival of “the religious” in contemporary Western societies.23 It is rather the manner in which they speak of God that is of importance to the theological reflection we undertake here. Although all, of course in their own voice, display a specific hermeneutical sensibility for particularity, they all also tend in practice to place the basic structure of religious truth claims outside or beyond particularity. In Marion’s case, this is quite evident: it is not the what of religious language, but the that which is essential. And contrary to appearances, the same thing is very much present in the works of Derrida and Caputo: religious truth appears to be entertained at the expense of, and certainly not thanks to, its rootedness in a particular discourse. It is above all the extent to which their accounts of religion remain dependent upon negative theology that is symptomatic. All of these philosophical negative theologies display a formal messianic structure that necessarily has to be kept open. Moreover, because of its incurable predicative nature, language is considered as a contamination, even as a betrayal of a kind of original religious purity. In concrete prayers, the purity of the religious address at work in “pure” prayer cannot be maintained. Because of the fall of language, and into language, religious truth must be beyond language—even though both Caputo and Derrida would be the first to avow that, on the epistemological level, there is no “beyond language.” Kearney, at least, would also stress the latter and propose a phenomenological-hermeneutical retrieval of religious texts to understand what religion is about. But in his case as well, hermeneutics ultimately leads away from particularity and the specific truth claims ventured in it. However, is it legitimate to equate language with contamination? Since language seems to be our condition, does the irreducible particularity of religion contaminate the striving for religious purity? Is religious truth as such therefore impossible—or, to put it in the appropriate philosophical jargon: does religious truth essentially have to do with clinging “onto the impossibility of its possibility”? At least these questions challenge, from a fundamental theological perspective, the importance of the incarnation as the theological-epistemological category par excellence for naming God and thinking about religious truth. From this

23 For a reflection on this situation and the epistemological consequences for a theology of culture, see my: God Interrupts History. Theology in a Time of Upheaval (New York: Continuum, 2007), chapter 7.

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perspective, the question is then: is Christianity, with its christocentric and thus incarnational approach, not doomed to be always too particular, too contingent, too historical, too positive? Nevertheless, it also works the other way around, challenging current philosophical hermeneutics of religion to reflect on a hermeneutics in which religious truth is resolutely thought of from its irreducible bond to language and particularity. The truth of the incarnation is that language is not a contamination of religious truth but its very condition. Without language there is no religion, and no religious truth. At the same time, as we have seen in the first part, conceiving of religious truth (and its irreducible link to the particularity of language) in terms of incarnation, forces a contemporary philosophical approach to religion to take into account a dynamic and radical hermeneutics which qualifies, from the very outset, each religious truth claim. As a theological and epistemological concept, incarnation supposes a radical and never-ending hermeneutics which deals with the very particularity of religious language, religious traditions and their ongoing interpretations, and which does not aspire to overcome particularity, whether one succeeds in such an attempt (Marion), or not (Derrida). As a matter of fact, in their own way, all of the philosophers we have discussed have presented a (in theological terms) pluralist hermeneutics of religion. Such a position, as we have analysed, does not succeed in respecting the truth claims of particular religions. A radical hermeneutics which starts with particularity, then, would seem to be able to avoid both universalism without particularity, and closed particularism. In conclusion, (philosophical) negative theology should not constitute an attempt to escape from the linguistic character of religious truth, but assist in taking it maximally into account. 4. Conclusion Christians today are being challenged by religious plurality. In the context of inter-religious communication, they are being called upon to simultaneously respect their own truth claims together with the truth claims of others. Rooted in their own Christian background, they involve themselves as participants in a dialogue that need not necessarily lead to greater unity—the conceptualisation and understanding of points of difference is already a major step in the right direction. As con-

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scious participants, Christians are well advised not to misjudge the particularity of their own position as something that is necessarily surpassed by the truth claim of Christianity, nor as something that discredits this truth claim in advance, but rather as irreducibly constitutive of the truth of the Christian faith. Neither the inclination to universalise the truth claim (exclusivism and inclusivism) nor the pluralistic negation thereof (pluralism) are of much use in this respect. It is precisely in the combination of maintaining both their particularity and their truth claim that Christians are able to enter into inter-religious dialogue, looking forward to the moment when Jesus Christ reveals himself in such dialogue, as he continues to do so “in the least of these . . .”. Moreover, from such a concept of truth in terms of incarnation, they are able to position themselves in the philosophical debate about religion. At the same time, they can question too facile usages of negative theology which are called upon in this debate. For religious truth does not lead us beyond particularity, but is constituted by it: the truth of the incarnation is the incarnation of the truth. Indeed, from the confrontation with religious diversity, theology can rediscover the pertinence of this thesis. In considering the question of religious truth from a theological perspective, one cannot deny the epistemological consequences of the incarnation in Jesus Christ: it is in this concrete human being that God is revealed definitively, not without, but thanks to his being a human being. The consciousness of this dynamics leads to a radical theological hermeneutics which takes into account this historical-contingent particularity: although God as such never coincides with this particularity, God can no longer be thought of without this particular history. On the other hand: the incarnation of the truth is also the truth of the incarnation. It is here that a theological concept of religious truth may contribute to the turn to religion in contemporary continental philosophy. The linguistic character of religious truth then does not constitute a fall or a contamination, which in the end renders religious truth impossible and leads the philosophical hermeneutics of religious particularity in the direction of an untenable “moment of pure religion.” On the contrary, a hermeneutics of religion does not lead beyond language, but to language itself: to the contingent histories, practices, texts, to concrete traditions and their interpretations. It is there that religious believers discover the reason and content of their religious truth claims, and it is

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thanks to the consciousness of this particularity that they, as participants, can introduce these claims in ongoing inter-religious conversations.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CAN WE BE SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? Henk Vroom (VU - University Amsterdam)

1. Introduction In this contribution I will discuss the questions whether beliefs that we acquire contingently can be reasonable and whether we can be sure about them. In the background of this paper is the common argument, against the truth of beliefs and the certainty of religious faith, that religious affiliation and beliefs are contingent, caused by historical, social and psychological factors. Contingent belief cannot be proven to be true. Now the presupposition of this objection—only non-contingent beliefs can be true—implies that only necessary propositions can be true, which is obviously not the case. Isn’t it right that, for example, the periodical table was contingently discovered and built over the centuries by human interpretations of natural, “chemical,” “realities,” but is nevertheless true—true in the sense that it is, for the time being, the best scientific description of chemical “atoms” in nature and the way in which they are composed. Therefore, the fact that insights into nature or life have been discovered in a process that could have taken other directions—the names of the elements are entirely contingent—or possibly could not have taken place at all, does not count against their truth. Contingent insights can be true. The names of the elements may be contingent but their composition is not. Behind them lie “hard facts” on which scholars agree. However, the situation is different in the case of religion. In this case, there are no “hard facts” to agree upon. Rather, religious beliefs concern the whole of life, and religious truths cannot be proven outside their lifecontext. Therefore, the crucial point about the contingency of beliefs in secular and religious worldviews is not that they have been formed in historical, cultural processes that could have taken other directions. It is rather that their truth cannot be established on the basis of empirical evidence, and that there is no agreement about religious beliefs. Because

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religious insights are interwoven with life and are related to faith-communities (in whatever form they may take), religious views seem to be contingent in the sense of being arbitrary: we could have learned to see things differently, and perhaps we will come to do so in the future. The question now is, of course, whether this contingency renders religious beliefs non-rational. If they were caused, they would not refer to a religious reality, but have other, non-religious, grounds. Therefore I will start this discussion by analysing whether causal explanations of religious beliefs are successful in conclusively explaining religion in terms of psychological, sociological or other comparable causes. If this were the case, the issue of religion would be settled. Religious beliefs could effectively be “explained away” naturalistically. Yet, if causal explanations are not successful, as I will argue, we have to look beyond causality—as I will discuss in a short exposition of a Buddhist epistemology that reaches beyond facts which can be neutrally established. In the next section, I will describe the process of acquiring religious insights in its relation to traditions. In the last section, I will draw conclusions in relation to the possibility of giving an account for one’s beliefs and the issues of entitlement and certainty: how far is it justified to believe and to feel sure in one’s faith? In this contribution I will introduce two distinctions: one concerning the meaning of contingency, and another concerning the nature of religious insights. We can distinguish between three ideas of contingency: causality, determined by a multitude of causes (“we do not know exactly how our beliefs are caused but they have their origin in socio-economic, psychological and cultural factors”); arbitrariness (“there are no grounds for having some religious beliefs and not others”); and accidentality (“in the process of belief-formation accidental happenings do play a role”). The arguments pro and contra religious truth depend heavily upon presuppositions concerning the nature of religious insight. I will distinguish between basic religious insights, their formulations as beliefs, and reflections upon these beliefs. In what follows, I will discuss the objections against religious truth and certainty on the basis of both distinctions, which I will develop bit by bit.

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 207 2. Can Religious Insights be Explained Naturalistically in Terms of Causes? The contingency of religious affiliation and beliefs can be understood in various ways. Most often, they are accounted for by mentioning causes that are supposed to explain why one person is a Buddhist and another a Marxist. In a way, this explanation does not render religious beliefs and worldviews arbitrary in the strict sense but, quite the opposite, explains them by various causes. Differences between religious beliefs and affiliations are contingent in the sense that they are caused and that other causes would have lead to another result: for instance, person A has been brought to religion S by its set of causes and person B to religion T by other causes. The choice of faith is not a real choice and a real leap of faith or conversion but a process steered by causes. Because we are determined by many causes, it is, in a sense, contingent which faith we confess. Let me mention two examples of converts. Prince Siddhartha, for example, went out of the palace and met on his walk through the city an old person, a sick person and a dead body. He was faced with another reality than the one he had known before, so he could not continue to live on in his previous, artificial, reality. He thus left his home to adapt to this truer reality and find peace of mind. In the process, he went through many trials till he found, in the end, the middle way that brought him Enlightenment beyond a world of suffering and attachments. A second example: as a journalist of the Rheinische Zeitung Karl Marx, was confronted with the suffering of the poor, who could no longer warm themselves and their children with wood from the grounds of landowners, as has been usual since time immemorial. This opened his eyes to the power structures behind the human laws made by those in power and taught him that resignation with respect to poverty was a sign of estrangement of human beings.1 Different circumstances and causes lead to different cognitive and moral insights and feelings, and such differing insights are formulated in differently developed beliefs. In a sense, this “religious” affiliation is causally contingent, because—so seems to be the argument—other 1 Cf. Arend Th. van Leeuwen, Critique of Earth (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), chapter 2; idem, Critique of Heaven (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), chapter 8. In the Dutch translation: Kritiek van hemel en aarde (Deventer: van Loghum Slaterus, 1972), I, 161 and II, ch. 2.

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causes would have led to other results. Siddhartha would have succeeded his father as a king, and Marx would have made a career as an esteemed bourgeois professor of philosophy. A further point I would like to stress is how Siddhartha and Karl Marx were struck by a reality that was qualitatively different from the politically correct view of their day. Both found another way of looking at well-known facts, and could not get rid of their new insight. These experiences reached deeper levels of their existence than experiences of concrete happenings; they became formative of their view on life. Therefore we could call them basic experiences and insights, because they were basic for their lives and worldview. Such basic insights are those insights that we try to formulate and explain to other people. They are not propositions or theories, and they are not pure cognitions (whatever those may be) because they are also basic in the sense that they reach deeper than cognition alone; basic insights integrate aesthetic and moral feelings and cognition in a lived unity.2 We must now see, then, whether such basic religious insights can be fully explained by causes, and are thus contingent in this sense. These causes can be either sociological, or psychological, or cultural. What religion you belong to depends upon a plausibility structure, and hence upon the group to which you belong or which you oppose— such is the sociological explanation of religious belonging. Beliefs are explained by sociological causes, and are therefore not true, although they may serve community life. If born in India, statistically speaking, most people will be Hindus, if born in Arabia, Muslims, and if born in Virginia or Texas, born again Christians. This point is made by one of the first modern Western philosophers of religion who took religious pluralism serious, John Hick, in his God has Many Names.3 I think that this argument—taken in a strict sense—should be applied to secular worldviews as well, because the causal explanation cannot differentiate between worldviews with and without an idea of God. This explains why in Western and Northern European culture, it is more plausible for 2 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1962), par. 33 and 34, on the difference between what people say to each other and propositions. I have been using the expressions “basic experiences” and “basic insights” since my Religion and the Truth (trans. J. Rebel; Amsterdam: Rodopi and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989); most recently in my A Spectrum of World Views (trans. M. and A. Greidanus; Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 11-17. 3 John Hick, God has Many Names (London: Macmillan, 1980).

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 209 people to explain religion through sociological and psychological causes than it would be in a North or South American or African context.4 Although this approach can be used to explain many religious phenomena, as a comprehensive explanation it is self-defeating because it presupposes what is to be proven, namely that all forms of religious belonging and belief are brought about by sociological causes. An interesting case, from this perspective, of the formation of beliefs by the community to which one belongs, is the phenomenon in India and Pakistan of those who cannot change their religion for societal reasons. Hindu women, who bring their children to churches to be secretly baptized on a week-day without appointment, cannot convert to Christianity because they would thus break up their family ties or be rejected. In this case the sociological argument points in two different directions: if a sociological reason can be given why these people would like to become Christian, another sociological motif explains why they cannot join the Christian community. This ambiguity proves that such causal explanations are not conclusive. In pluralistic societies, sociological causes cannot fully explain that somebody who is conscious of religious and secular alternatives really confesses, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” or prays “Om mani padme hum.”5 Sociological considerations have to be complemented by other considerations. They can find support in psychological motives. For a long time now, it has no longer been true that being born in New York guarantees that one will be a protestant; one could just as easily be Jewish or Latino-Catholic. Next to causal factors, such as the denomination in which one is born, come psychological motives. People change their denomination for various reasons. They may feel more at home in another congregation, think that what the minister says is more convincing, find more friends and people they like to converse with and feel that it better corresponds to what they think to be basic in life. Religious participation relates to basic insights. People may partake in different ways in a tradition or, better, in one of its sub-currents. Conversions are deter4

See Grace Davie, Europe, the Exceptional Case (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002); idem, “Secularisation: The European Experience,” in Religions Today. Their Challenge to the Ecumenical Movement (ed. J. de Santa Ana; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2005), 210-217, for other roots of secularisation in parts of Europe. 5 Sanskrit: “OM, Jewel in the Lotus, Hum”; see Stephan Stuhlmacher and Gert Woerner, Lexikon der ostlichen Weisheitslehren (Bern: Scherz Verlag, 1987), 271-2.

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mined both sociologically and psychologically. In free and open societies, the motivation to go to church, join a zendo, follow a guru, etc., is for many people, in the first place, personal. Who will doubt that social and psychological motives play a role? Faith could not be personal if such motives were not present. Moreover, social and psychological motives are not independent from insights that people experience as basic.6 This is valid not only for religious affiliation but for secular worldviews as well. Just as people can have a psychological need for some aspects of religious beliefs and rituals, people can feel glad to free themselves from archaic religious beliefs and moralities. Our thoughts and moods are also culturally determined. The success of the Christian mission in the non-Western world can be explained by the attractiveness of Western culture, its goods and medical knowledge, and the critique of the Western Christian mission, in its turn, by the cultural and economic crisis of poor countries, the difficulties in accepting the globalisation of the economy, and an anti-colonial thrust. A remarkable example of the consequences of an inclusive culture is the so-called multiple participation in religions in Japan. One’s first obligation is to follow the rules of conduct, be polite and search for harmony; religious exclusiveness is felt to be offensive and participation in rituals of various religions to be polite and perhaps even helpful. Many “use” Buddhist rituals for death and cremation, but Shinto or Christian rituals in marriage ceremonies.7 Many Buddhist monks and Christians understand the often-applauded Japanese openness to multiple participation in various religious traditions as superficial. This example is revealing because it shows how social and psychological causes of rituals and beliefs are imbedded in a cultural framework that itself changes over time through economic, ecological and further developments, and should not be understood as an unchanging essence! Additionally, the Japanese example makes clear how cultures differ and have different value-“systems,” although they have a more or less comparable technical and economic “system.”

6 In passing I note that basic experiences can become platitudes in the sense that they can be taken for granted. 7 These Christian wedding services for non-Christians are organized by the managers of big hotels that have more or less “real” chapels and hire a sort of protestant “minister.”

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 211 We can safely say that sociological, psychological, and cultural characteristics of groups, persons, and cultures partly determine religious participation. They influence beliefs and practices. I have already stated that, because of the basic nature of the central religious insights, it would be unlikely that cultural, social and psychological motives did not play a role. The question at stake is not whether social, psychological, and cultural motives play a role, but whether the beliefs people have and the practices in which they partake are random (contingent in the sense of arbitrary) and/or completely caused (contingent in the sense of determined by contingent causes). The central question, thus, is whether they determine religious convictions, practices and forms of participation in an exhaustive fashion. Let us suppose for a moment that it is the case that worldviews are determined fully by social, economic, psychological and cultural causes, and let us call this the naturalist explanation. We are not able to predict people’s religious future because it is occasioned by a contingent convergence of a great variety of causes. That someone’s religious or irreligious choices are caused means, as mentioned above, that they are not contingent at all, but are occasioned by the configuration of a variety of causes. Beliefs are not true but helpful, and practices are useful. This argument suffers from severe weaknesses. Inevitably, choices that people make are grounded in motives. If we formulate motives for a choice or backgrounds for opinions, we give reasons. Different people weigh various motives differently. The naturalist position presupposes that the weighing of the validity of motives follows from determining factors or causes. Of course, this naturalist view not only applies to religious views but to ideas such as the equality of human beings, democracy, the abolishment of slavery, and even naturalism itself. An explanation of beliefs and value judgments from determining causes only is not convincing because it neglects human deliberations, the inner dialogue of a person with him- or herself, the conversations about life between people, and new insights—very basic insights into life that turn somebody’s world view upside down. People may correct themselves, enrich each other and grow in insight and understanding. Amidst the influences of character, bias, interest, comrades, etc., people can come to discern truth. Many religious traditions tell people to purify their faith by overcoming inconsistent influences that stem from other sources. That our judgments can be influenced, and are so by many fac-

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tors, shows the need for a purification of the mind and openness to experience. In other words, our beliefs have developed indeed historically and contingently. 3. Beyond Contingency What is needed for worldviews to make truth-claims is for religious insights to be grounded in experiences that are not determined by causes irrelevant to the ideas about life as a whole of these same worldviews. The most intriguing example of a religious epistemology that I know of is to be found in some Buddhist schools which claim that all our ideas are indeed brought forward by causes, but that this leaves room for the possibility of a totally different kind of experience beyond all contingencies. This tradition goes deeper than a naturalism or behaviourism that treats all human thoughts as epiphenomena accompanying physical and psychological causal systems. In Buddhist thought, all beings are interrelated in billions of ways: pratitya samutpada.8 Nothing stays out of this web of causal connections. In this sense, everything is empty (of independent being) and, consequently, everything is dynamic and changing in a developing constellation. In this process of the co-arising of everything that is, there are no fixed entities, no essences, no eternal souls, no eternal god or gods, no independently existing ideas—all things are empty of permanence and lasting identity. From moment to moment, they just are what they are. All our ideas are interwoven with our biological, climatological, socio-economical, psychological, and cultural outfit. “Made” by all these influences, we are the people that we are and our beliefs are what they are in an accidental and causally conditioned fashion. Buddhists say that Enlightenment is possible; it has been realised by the Buddha himself and a number of his disciples and followers. For most people, Enlightenment does not come without effort; it requires meditation, a sober life, that one avoids boisterous talking and exuberant festivities, speaks the truth, respects other people and learns not to be attached to food, things, warmth or cold, or even friends. It requires one to “see” one’s thoughts, pleasures, and pains from another level. Most people do not reach this 8

6.3.

See for introductions to Buddhist thought my A Spectrum of World Views, ch.

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 213 stage in one or even many lives, but, according to some Buddhist schools, a few people reach this freedom and insight suddenly, as if without effort. This other experience, awareness of things in their suchness, is free from the chain of causal relations. Normal human theories are caused. They are interwoven with other ideas. They are called conventional or relative truths (samvrti satya). These are useful in practical life but contingent and ultimately not true. They are not arbitrary because they are part of the co-dependent, co-arising whole of all that exists. The real truth is ultimate truth (paramartha satya).9 This truth is neither arbitrary, contingent, nor causal, because it is a kind of identity between the knower and the known.10 If we think of a total receptivity in which nothing interferes with experience, an experience beyond contingency arises that is not determined by other elements than the things as they are. This can be called both real freedom and full determination.11 In this Buddhist framework, contingency is not the real problem, nor is it in conflict with determination. Conventional truth is arbitrary and contingent: things would look very different if you had lived in another culture. Worldviews—conditioned as they are—are relative truths.12 Ultimate truth is not arbitrary and accidental but determined by awareness of the things as they are in their interrelatedness.13 To reach this “standpoint of shunyata” (emptiness) requires a deep change in the way we usually experience reality.

9 For an explanation of this Mahayana epistemology, see, e.g. my Religions and the Truth, 172-176. 10 Kitaro Nishida, Last Writings. Nothingness and the Religious Worldview (trans. D. A. Dilworth; Honolulu: Hawai University Press, 1987), 84. 11 For Kitaro Nishida the will that is really free is nothing but letting oneself be caught by the subject of one's attention; cf. Kitaro Nishida, Inquiry into the Good (trans. M. Abe and C. Ives; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 1st chapter: “Pure Experience.” 12 See Masao Abe, “‘There is No Common Denominator for World Religions’: The Positive Meaning of this Negative Statement,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26 (1989): 72-81, for his view of other religious traditions. Cf. my “Interreligious Relations: Incongruent Relations and Rationalities,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 16 (2006): 66-7. 13 It is important to note the deep difference between pratitya samutpada and modern Western ideas of causality; understandings of causality and interrelatedness of all things vary; cf. my Spectrum of World Views, 78-86.

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It is a common characteristic of religious (and some secular) worldview traditions to require people to overcome old habits, drop popular views, and convert to a clearer view of reality and more appropriate way of life. The classical religious traditions have in common the teaching that people need to be properly educated about reality, and to free themselves from different kinds of bondage that, from a religious point of view, can be called contingent in the broadest sense of the term; for they are caused by attachments or vices to which people are subjected as long as they have not freed themselves.14 These insights and ways of life are taught by traditions. 4. Traditions and Increasing Insight Hence, we have to overcome the arbitrariness of religious choices, not by scrutinizing beliefs and analysing whether they are consistent, can be verified empirically, etc., but by changing ourselves in order to overcome arbitrary and biased beliefs that do not rest on a free experience of life and things as they are. The objection to this is that the truth would thus be dependent upon a way of life, and the decision to try to adapt your way of life would be arbitrary. You have to believe that the way the guru tells you to live is right, or that meditation will disclose reality for you, or that the Koran helps you to find the way and see the truth . . . In fact, people decide on reasonable grounds to become better acquainted with a tradition, and perhaps to start to meditate. They discover that what they are told about attachments and biases reveals part of their lives. They see that some believers are good and wise people who are truly open to the feelings and needs of their fellow creatures. They are impressed by what students of some meditation masters tell them about their way of life. All these are reasons to try to prepare for better insight: reasons, that is, and not causes. Let me explain this a bit more. If people are free to improve their openness to insights, they are not determined, but free. Their views of life are not caused by irrelevant causes but by an open perception, which they can point out. The process of increasing insight is characterized by the development of understanding and confirmed by a way of life that people acknowledge as good. They thus learn to trust the main teachings of a tradition in the forms in which they 14

See my Religions and the Truth, 305-307.

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 215 become acquainted with it. The way in which people prepare themselves for religious experience relates to the content of the experience. Therefore, people have reasons to become involved in a certain tradition and a motivation for acquiring the insights about which their tradition has told them. They can talk about the way they see the world and how these insights disclose a truthful way of life. If people appropriate basic insights, they discern parts of reality that disclose the meaning of reality as such—be it Buddha nature, God’s creation, samsara, or other views of reality. If the exposition of the tradition is confirmed during their lives, people will feel entitled to accept the resulting experiences as authentic and the insights reached as basic, trustworthy and truthful. If they explain their insights, they give reasons and do not just repeat sentences they have been conditioned to say.15 It is not right to characterize such a process as arbitrary. Of course, some people will follow religious leaders just by chance or whim, but those who have the potential to give an account of their faith and beliefs can give reasons, and describe the process of truth-finding and the way in which their insights have been formed, developed and deepened. This process cannot be called arbitrary or random. Nevertheless, there is an accidental, contingent aspect in such a process. If they had wrestled with other problems, lived in another context and met with other people, had not heard about a particular guru or found an inspiring preacher, etc., their lives could very well have taken another course and perhaps ended in another world view tradition. However, accidental is not the same as arbitrary. Of course, the way in which we learn to see a thing has causes that brought us to see it that way, but if we think that an insight is true, we have reasons (although a contingent process has brought us to see it as we think it is). On this point, we may refer to Carl Hempel’s use of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification.16 He gives the example of the chemist Kekulé who discovered a chemical formula. Kekulé was gazing into the fire, resting from endless reflection on how to explain the chemical formula of benzene, when a flame bent and circled to merge with itself. He realized then that the benzene molecule has the structure of a circle, which explains why it has fewer atoms than it 15 See William J. Wainwright, “Worldviews, Criteria, and Epistemic Circularity,” in Interreligious Models and Criteria (ed. J. Kellenberger; New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1993), especially 95-97, on the point that a reconsidered belief does not rest on a circular argument.

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would have otherwise had. Hempel’s point is that the truth of his insight is independent from the way in which it was reached. Of course, as a scientific insight, it had to be proven. My point here is that insights might be found, in a sense, accidentally. Of course, religious insights do not arise in the same way, and the context of discovery (some acquaintance with a tradition) is not left behind, but the fact that religious beliefs are reached along a certain track does not speak against them. The relation between religious insight and a way of life makes neutral verification impossible. Although not every scholar has the expertise to control findings in chemistry, in principle, all chemists could verify findings in chemistry or at least in their own fields. This is not the case with religious knowledge. Nevertheless, such insights are handed down in traditions and are discussed and corrected within their institutions, which have, over the centuries, brought forward a great variety of critical thinkers. The path to religious insights has accidental elements to it and requires openness for the directions given by a religious tradition, but this is not a decisive objection against the truth of religious insights. Although personal elements are involved, this does not make these insights arbitrary. Their nature excludes experiments and purely neutral argumentation—their subject is existence as such, which cannot be experimentally examined. Worldview traditions hand down insights into life, practices, moral rules and advice on how to cope with a large range of situations, both bright and dark. Living traditions are dynamic and contextual. They deliver stories, ways of life, rituals, and introductions into their beliefs. The spiritual leaders of a tradition will try to help people understand their tradition, realize its central insights and participate in a meaningful way in their rituals. These central insights become basic for people’s ways of life. Traditions hand down truths about the world and help people to cope with life. They are like spotlights that highlight some aspects of life and explain to people that these aspects are the way that leads to a real understanding of life. 16 See Carl G. Hempel, Filosofie van de natuurwetenschappen (Philosophy of natural science, 1966) (transl. F. van Zetten Utrecht: Prisma, 1973), 33-4; Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Wissenschatfstheiorie und Theologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973), 323-4.; and my critical discussion of Pannenberg’s appropriation of the distinction which brings him to the idea that the meaning of theological propositions should be established exactly in order to verify them, De Schrift alleen? (2nd ed.; Kampen: Kok, 1979), 202-210.

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 217 Basic ideas are insights into human nature, the world and the divine. Through stories and rituals, religious traditions “form” people, direct their attention to central aspects of life, preach moral codes, and help them overcome weaknesses and deal with failures. They are not necessarily true, nor are they theories that can be tested in a laboratory. But that does not make them arbitrary. They have been developed in history and in this sense they are contingent, but because they are related to characteristics of human existence in general, and can be discussed and corrected, they are not arbitrary. These insights are ways in which life can be interpreted, and has been interpreted in classical traditions for hundreds of years. Traditions are critical in themselves—although believers are free to make their own blend out of a tradition according to their own taste, be it serious or superficial.17 5. Accountability In this area of human experience and insight there are no definitive proofs for the truth of statements.18 Religious insights always remain “hidden” in their formulations; insights are what we try to formulate, and, vice versa, by analysing and formulating them, we sometimes refine our basic insights themselves. We cannot prove them, but we can give an account. This accounting may take various forms: monks give accounts differently than people responsible for social care from a Buddhist order, or Hindu samyassin who are active in the peace movement. The accounting for a tradition comprises much more than intellectual analyses and debates. Because a worldview tradition teaches ways of life, the lives of people who really live out their religion can be impressive and convincing. On the philosophical level, accounting for faith can take the form of dialogues between thinkers of various worldview traditions, be they secular or religious. Such dialogues presuppose many descriptive studies and the facts that people derive from them: facts about early Buddhism, the interpretation of the Tenack, the Koran, and 17 The possibility of superficial religious and secular worldviews and misuse of religion should not be used as an indication that a critical scrutiny of religion is not worthwhile, but, on the contrary, that it is an urgent task. 18 See my Religions and the Truth on ideas of truth and rationality in five classical traditions; on the truth of doctrine, 356.

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the Bible, the Bhagavadgita, and Tipikata, as well as results from anthropological research, religious studies and studies in sociology and psychology. I cannot go into the criteria for religious truth extensively, but let me just mention here four criteria for true knowledge that are widely acknowledged among religious thinkers: a relation with experience, the valid implications thereof, consistency, and witness. As we have seen, in this case experiences are not repeatable experiments in a laboratory but wider and more personal experiences that are communicated in stories. Theories are not coherent theorems but formulations of insights derived from those experiences which are analysed in relation to their coherence, consistency and contradictoriness. In religion, witness is a widely accepted pramana (means of knowledge) because special experiences of gifted or other exceptional people or reports about historical happenings belong to the founding “facts” of religions.19 Because of these common criteria, religious beliefs can be discussed, although it takes much effort to become acquainted with their actual meaning in a living tradition. From a Western perspective, people can ask Asian thinkers about the meaning of moksha (liberation from karmic earthly existence), the relation between rebirth and an-atman, the relation between karma and someone’s place in society, and the meaning of the hierarchical order in society. From an Asian or African perspective, people can ask questions about human autonomy, the emphasis on rights over duties, on justice over wisdom, and the concepts of revelation and eternal life.20 These discussions are a continuation of the usual discussions in Western philosophy, but now on a global scale. Western philosophers will discover that Asian and African philosophies are often deeply religious. Of course, it could be said that such a philosophical stance evidences a parti pris, but is it really the case that Plato’s view of the state, Marx’s longing for an equal and decent society, Nietzsche’s Wille zur Macht, Heidegger’s listening to the Sprache des Seins, and Rorty’s retreat to the inspiration of the poets, are not parti pris and can 19

Cf. my Spectrum of World Views, 66-70; more extensively in my Religions and the Truth, 361-370. More extensively on dialogue and philosophy of religion in a pluralistic perspective, Spectrum of World Views, 290-298. 20 Instructive for the differences between the paradigms in which religions “view” other traditions are the contributions in Religions View Religions. Explorations in Pursuit of Understanding (ed. J. D. Gort, H. Jansen, and H. M. Vroom; Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006).

SURE ABOUT CONTINGENT RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS? 219 be proven to be fully rational, coherent and precise? If believers retreat into the acceptance of a blind obedience to any person or scripture, then their faith is indeed not reasonable, but a great many thinkers in the classical world religions have practiced “Faith Searching for Understanding” and discussed many ideas from alternative world view traditions, often in a reasonable way. In bringing this contribution to an end, I would like to add a few remarks on the consequences of the contingency of our beliefs and religious pluralism for the question whether we are justified in being sure of our beliefs. We have to acknowledge the fact that sensible people can have respectable ideas about the world that differ from our own and are incompatible with them. Some philosophers say that this should have serious consequences for the way in which we can be sure about our faith. Are we still entitled to stick to religious convictions that cannot be proven nor find general consent? It has been defended that this acknowledgement “should affect the strength with which we hold on to our belief at least in such a way that we realize that there is a real chance that we actually could be wrong.”21 Are we entitled to be sure in religion? I think that we had better distinguish here between three spheres: the political, the civil-public and the private.22 In the political sphere, we can acknowledge the freedom of religion and therefore, in principle, respect the religious or secular world views of other people without trying to force people into conducts that they reject—as long as they stay within the borderlines of the law. In the public-civil sphere, we should take care not to offend other people, but we had better discuss religious views, rather than hide them. In the private sphere, we can be sure in our faith. A nice expression has been used by a former Oxford philosopher of religion, Ian T. Ramsey, as the title of a small book: On Being Sure in Religion and Tentative in Theology.23 Because basic insights lie below or behind our formulations and theological-philosophical thoughts, our formulations and thoughts are more correctible than the insights themselves. Who can say what the “image of God” really means? Who can explain the being and essence of God? The acknowledgement that 21 So Mark Standmark, “Exclusivism, Tolerance and Interreligious Dialogue,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 16 (2006): 111. 22 Religion cannot be removed from the public, nor even from the political domain, just because it is a way of life. 23 I.T. Ramsey, On Being Sure in Religion and Tentative in Theology (London: 1963).

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other people can be convinced of the truth of their tradition does not need to diminish our trust in ours. It is entirely possible to respect them, ask them questions of clarification, and conclude that we have different opinions, and at the same time be sure about central insights of our tradition. However, on the political and civil level, we want other people to be treated like ourselves and respected in their convictions, whether secular or religious. The distinction between basic insights, on the one hand, and formulations and reflections, on the other, gives us space for certainty in religion and a bit more relativity in our formulations. This openness makes interreligious dialogue possible. We can realize that our religious affiliation is contingent (accidental) in the sense that the course of our life has played a role in the formation of our beliefs, without thus making these beliefs arbitrary.

CHAPTER NINE

OUR UNIVERSE—A CONTINGENT COSMOS?1 Willem B. Drees (Leiden University)

In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams describes the “Total Perspective Vortex,” a machine that destroys the soul. It makes one see the whole infinity of creation and oneself in relation to it. The effectiveness of this machine shows that life cannot afford to have a sense of proportion.2 Our contingency turns out to be frightening; we are not “at home in the universe.” The more we know of the vast universe, the more we become aware of the enormous incongruity of our own existence and the universe as a whole. In this essay, contingency will be used to speak of two different issues, namely, existential contingency in the sense of being marginal and irrelevant (as with the Total Perspective Vortex machine) and, especially in the first two sections, logical and natural contingency as the alternative to logical and natural necessity. The “anthropic principles” discussed below can be seen as seeking to connect the two issues. Their advocates claim that we are not marginal by arguing that our kind of existence is not logically contingent but rather to be expected. In this contribution, I will argue that any scientific understanding of the universe harbours certain assumptions. Thus, even though scientific explanations remove some natural contingencies by giving natural explanations, they do not make such contingencies disappear but rather relocate them. Secondly, I will contend that arguments seeking to reduce existential contingency by arguing against natural contingency with re1 The following paper is to a large extent based on a presentation prepared for the conference Unifying Nature Past and Present, Gainesville, Florida, Sept. 21-23, 2001, and makes liberal use of Willem B. Drees, Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God (La Salle: Open Court, 1990) and Willem B. Drees, “A Case Against Temporal Critical Realism? Consequences of Quantum Cosmology for Theology,” in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (ed. R. J. Russell, N. Murphy, and C.J. Isham; Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory & Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993). 2 Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (New York: Crowne Publishers, 1980; repr. New York: Pocket Books, 1985), 71.

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spect to human existence (e.g., by arguing that somehow the universe was made such that we had to come into existence) don’t hold water. Thirdly, I will offer some suggestions for reducing our sense of existential contingency not via science but with the help of human imagination. The title of this essay has its ambiguities, and not only in the multifaceted term contingency. Adding “our” to “universe” seems superfluous—as if there could be more than one universe. By evoking homelike ideas regarding the universe, “our” is potentially misleading. And “cosmos” is a synonym for “universe,” isn’t it? Nonetheless, for the purpose of this paper, I want to use the terms “universe” and “cosmos” in such a way that it is not superfluous to ask whether our universe is the universe, and whether the universe is a cosmos. The notion cosmos suggests something well ordered, beautiful, unified, intended. The term has a teleological or aesthetic connotation. By speaking of a cosmos we go beyond scientific language, which aspires to be devoid of any such value judgments. Cosmos evokes religious or philosophical views positively appreciating the reality thus referred to. The term universe will be used to refer to the object as studied by the sciences—the collection of phenomena observable (and partly observed), describable (and partly described) in the language of physics, and partly already explained in causal and structural terms. Among these phenomena are bacteria and books, and hence, in principle, biology and social sciences should be considered to be branches of cosmology (the discipline which could have been labelled “universology”). However, usually we limit cosmology to the astrophysical study of the universe (with excursions into planetary sciences, astrochemistry and exobiology, but certainly not including the social sciences). We speak of a universe. If we consider equivalent terms in related languages, we not only find variants of the Latin “universum,” with its association to unity, but also versions of “all,” e.g. in German (All) and Dutch (Heelal). These terms stress the all-encompassing nature of the universe; universe emphasizes coherence: the all is a whole rather than a mere aggregate of entities. Adding “our” before “universe,” or capitalizing “Universe” as if it were the name of a particular entity (just like Mars, Venus, the Sun, Earth, the Solar System, or the Galaxy) suggests that there could be a plurality of universes—even though there is perhaps only one. This use of language somewhat resembles various Old Testament passages where the option of a multiplicity of gods is still open, though denied in

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favour of one God. Is the domain we observe and call “the universe” only one universe among others? Is it part of an even larger whole? We will come back to this when considering different explanatory approaches in cosmology, where the possibility of a “plurality of worlds” is repeatedly asserted, to be absorbed again and again under one larger umbrella which then becomes “the universe.” Anyhow, “our universe” evokes the question of our current best understanding of the reality we are a part of, and thus, of the relation between the observable universe and the universe “as it really is.” “Our universe—a contingent cosmos?” is about the connection—if and how there is one—between a scientific understanding of the universe and the philosophical themes associated with contingency and cosmos. We will begin with modern cosmology, followed by philosophical remarks on explanation and contingency. 1. Observations on our Current Understanding of the Universe When seeking to understand a particular process, we tend to distinguish between two clusters of aspects: contingent features that need a natural explanation, that come to be explained in their particularity as a consequence of initial conditions or boundary conditions, and the general rules and conditions that are assumed in this explanatory process, themselves not at that moment in need of further explanation or justification, and thus not treated as naturally contingent. This second cluster includes the laws of physics, the applicability of mathematics, and the existence of matter—in general, aspects of reality assumed to be permanent, unchanging. At some point, especially when the explanatory efficacy of the scheme breaks down and adaptations in the particular initial conditions do not resolve the anomalies, the interests of some scientists may shift to the underlying rules, which themselves come to be treated as contingent, as they are questioned and considered to be in need of explanation. Cosmology is to a large extent a regular discipline nowadays: the attempt to understand the natural history of our universe, drawing on the repertoire of established physics, developing hypotheses regarding the conditions in the early universe, and testing these against a variety of precise observational data. However, in cosmology some also question the basic concepts, especially when they push on and ask “the big ques-

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tions,” such as those regarding the very beginning of reality and of time. For the purposes of this paper, let me distinguish between normal cosmology and speculative cosmology. In “normal cosmology,” the issue is to understand the universe as we observe it, applying the rules and concepts of physics in a regular way, as we have them (including, for instance, the notion of time), whereas in “speculative cosmology” the rules themselves are in dispute. Normal Cosmology is a Branch of “Natural History” The present, contingent state of the universe is now understood to be the result of a long historical-causal process. In modern science since Newton, space-time was the given container within which processes happened, the permanent context for processes. This fixed theatre has disappeared; everything seems to be in flux. Due to the fact that stellar timescales surpass those of humans, we may have the illusion of eternal, unchanging heavens against an earthly realm of change—the setting of decay, evolution, or emergence—but this is appearance, not reality. Normal cosmology has become a branch of natural history, with the Earth sciences and evolutionary biology, rather than a branch of physics. Let me explore the difference between “history” and “physics” in somewhat more depth. To understand a crystal of salt (NaCl), one needs no history; salt is an optimal configuration of sodium and chlorine. To understand haemoglobin or chlorophyll, one needs history; the chemical structure is formed with a recipe shaped by previous stages. Each salt crystal is a new invention, whereas haemoglobin has been invented once, and has since led to multiple descendents; it is not likely to be invented anew. The universe is somewhere in between. There is no carrier of information such as DNA; each time a star or planetary system forms, it is invented anew. However, the conditions are historical in kind; later generations of stars and planets are different from earlier ones, due to the fact that the interstellar material has been enriched by previous generations. Understanding stars and galaxies, the cosmic background radiation and the abundances of the lighter elements, we primarily use historical-causal explanations in cosmology, as is typical of natural his-

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tory, rather than a-historical causal explanations, as is typical of physics and chemistry. Cosmologists use current observations as clues regarding the past, while relying upon established theories of physics. In tracing back current features to earlier conditions, cosmology in the twentieth century seemed to have a limiting point zero, the Big Bang. Whereas apparent contingencies at later times could be traced back to earlier conditions, this explanatory quest came to a halt at the Big Bang, thus making this the ultimate natural contingency. In the 1960s, with the singularity theorems of Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, it became clear that the presence of such a singularity was not an artefact of simplifying assumptions in the models, but a feature that followed from the underlying theory (General Relativity) and some very general assumptions regarding matter/energy. Thus, it seemed as if normal cosmology could not be complete, as one needed to address conditions at this zero point of time (with infinite density and temperature) which were way beyond the realm where the physics was established. The other development in the 1960s, aside from the singularity theorems, was empirical. It revealed the widespread underestimation of the reality of unified cosmological models.3 In 1948, the physicists Alpher, Bethe and Gamov had calculated that the conditions in the early universe might have been such that nuclear fusion took place, leaving an afterglow, which due to the expansion would have cooled down to a temperature of 5 Kelvin. No one seems to have followed up on this casual remark. It was not until 1965, when the radio engineers Wilson and Penzias were trying to reduce a persistent noise in their receiver by removing “a white dielectric substance” left by pigeons and carefully tracing other sources of error, that this background radiation was discovered and interpreted as such. The temperature turned out to be close to 3 Kelvin, not that far off the predicted value. In the late 1960s, the Big Bang model won over the field, both observationally and theoretically. Another major development in cosmology can be illustrated well by referring to the popular book by Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (1977). Weinberg was primarily an expert in particle physics; he was one of the architects of the Standard Model of weak and electromagnetic interactions. What nowadays is obvious to all involved was brought home very forcefully by Weinberg’s popular book: when we 3 Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (New York: Basic Books, 1977), chapter VI.

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discuss the early universe, we need particle physics, and when we want to test particle physics, we need to look at the early universe. The earlier a miniscule event in the history of the universe takes place, the larger the scale of its effects in the later universe. To understand the largest scale of the universe (even beyond our current observational horizon), we need to go to the extreme end of high-energy physics. Nowadays, cosmology and fundamental physics are to a large extent unified; theories about the fundamental nature of matter are immediately explored for their cosmological consequences. This is, in light of the distinction introduced above, no longer the domain of “normal cosmology” (with underlying laws assumed to be known); rather, it is the area of “speculative cosmology,” where cosmological research coincides with the quest for an as yet unknown physics. Limitations of Normal Cosmology Let me briefly indicate three clusters of limitations which have arisen in normal cosmology. (1) Contingency and inflation. The Big Bang model has become an extremely fruitful framework for research, well supported by evidence. Within its domain, which extends to well within the first second (counted according to the model), it seems highly adequate. There are, however, some challenges. The model has contingent elements, not explained but adjusted to fit the observations. Among the observed features, such as the cosmic background radiation, one such phenomenon is its remarkable uniformity, whereas the theory has a great potential for regional differences. This has come to be known as the horizon problem, where realms that seem to have been beyond each other’s horizon and hence out of touch with each other (excluding a causal explanation of uniformity) are nonetheless quite similar. This horizon problem, and similar problems regarding flatness, the absence of monopoles and other topological oddities, was resolved in the early 1980s in inflationary models, which suggested that within the first second (around 10-35 seconds after “0”) the universe underwent an extreme exponential expansion (dubbed “inflation”); regions that seem to have always been beyond each others causal horizon were once well within reach of each other.

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Though inflationary models resolve some of the arbitrariness of Big Bang models, they too require specific conditions, and thereby, natural contingency is relocated rather than removed. Besides, the contingency resides not only in special initial conditions, but also in various “constants of nature,” which define the basic masses and coupling strengths of various particles and fields. (2) The disunity of physics. A second limitation of normal cosmology, which shows up when pushed back to “the very early universe,” is due to disunity in physics. Cosmology uses General Relativity as its theory about space, time, and gravity, while it uses quantum theories to describe the behaviour of matter and radiation. The two theories stand side by side. This works well, as long as the problems discussed (calculated, etc.) are clearly problems for which one set of tools is adequate and not the other. However, when we come to discuss the very early universe, the separation into two classes of problems seems to break down. Thus, it is widely held that a new theory, dubbed “quantum gravity,” is needed that integrates quantum physics and general relativity, at the price of modifying at least one of these theories. This new theory would be needed for events that take place at scales defined by certain fundamental constants: the Planck length (10-35 m), the Planck time (10-42 sec) and the Planck mass or energy (1022 MeV)—the latter being quite sizable, and even more so when imagined as concentrated in a sphere defined by the Planck length. Even if normal cosmology incorporates an inflationary phase, it runs against a horizon defined by the Planck time (of the order of 10–43 seconds). Before this horizon, there is no justification for extrapolating on the basis of the basic theories of normal cosmology. A quantum theory of gravity may be expected to have consequences that are relevant at distances and timescales indicated by the Planck length and time. However, there may be consequences which show up at more accessible length-scales. Such consequences of a quantum theory of gravity may resolve some issues that are assumed rather than explained in contemporary theories (e.g., masses and coupling strengths) or point to undetected but detectable phenomena. Aside from such testable consequences, the apparent need for a quantum theory of gravity raises a conceptual issue, or, to say it differently, an issue of ontology. As the theory may well have significant consequences for our understanding of space and time, it may also modify any ontology.

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(3) The conceptual problem of “the beginning of time.” Last but not least, a naïve extrapolation of normal cosmology back beyond the Planck horizon suggests an initial moment, “t = 0” (t for time), of infinite density and temperature. How can one envisage this “0”? Basically, we seem to face two alternatives—to treat it as a beginning of the universe in time, or as the beginning of time. The first alternative is more like any beginning—of my life, of a work of art, a city, or what have you. Somewhere on the timeline, my life begins, this piece of art, this city began. It may be hard to define a precise moment (e.g. for a city), but the basic idea remains that beginnings can be located on a pre-existent continuum. And hence, one may ask what went on before: my parents met, and longer ago, my grandparents, or the artist had a certain idea, inspired by an experience, and so on. If that is how one tries to envisage the beginning of the universe in time, the suggestion of a before arises, and hence questions about the origin of this before. A regressum ad infinitum may arise; contingency is relocated to earlier and earlier stages in time. Some cosmological models have tried to embed the Big Bang model in a larger picture of successive phases of the universe, whether cyclical (each phase ending in a dense state like the beginning) or as a two-phase event, contracting since past infinity and expanding for all future times. One disadvantage of such an approach is that time again becomes the container, the given background, and thus, such models go against the mood of General Relativity theory (see above). Another variant is to assume that there was no universe before “t = 0”; the universe began in time (and hence, time preceded the universe), but the show had not started yet. This too results in a similar objection that the flow of time becomes a given rather than a feature of the world. It also makes it hard to imagine any reason why the universe in fact started at that particular moment in time, rather than any earlier one, and hence, given the infinity of earlier times, why we don’t have multiple universes, each with its own beginning. A similar problem was raised by Augustine in his Confessiones, as he contemplated creation.4 What was God doing all that time before He created the world? Augustine first says he is not making the joke that God was creating hell for those who ask such questions. His serious answer is that the question is wrongly posed; time is bound up with move4

Augustine, Confessiones, Bk XI.

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ment and change, and hence with the created order—when there was no creation, there was no before, and hence no reason to ask what God was doing before He created the world. Time came into being with the created order (creatio cum tempore, rather than creatio in tempore). Whether this is a solution or a cop-out is not clear, but it indicates one potentially powerful way to re-envisage the issue of “t=0,” namely, by avoiding the idea that time is a container from past infinity to future infinity. Perhaps we have to think of the beginning of the universe as the beginning of time. And, so some theoreticians hope, perhaps the correct quantum theory of gravity implies a quantum cosmology that does this job well. In this sense, the scientific quest for understanding fundamental physics is intertwined with the one for understanding the very beginning of our universe. If one accepts this idea of a beginning with time the contingency of a beginning at some apparently arbitrary moment of time is avoided. Of course, it may well be that some features of the universe that arises are still contingent rather than explained by the theory—and the theory itself may not be the only possible one. Thus, forms of explanatory (natural or logical) contingency may remain. Speculative Cosmology Offers Multiple, Conflicting Views Normal cosmology is very successful, but neither complete nor completable. The Big Bang theory is a very successful scientific theory on the evolution of the universe, yet it does not deal with the Big Bang itself, which becomes the ultimate contingency, but with the evolution of the universe thereafter, and especially after the Planck time. We seem to need a new physics in order to push the explanatory quest in cosmology further. Success in this explanatory quest seems to be the main ground where such a new physics might prove its potential. Though all science is to some extent a human construct, certain results are so well corroborated and used in so many different ways (e.g. the Periodic Table of atomic elements) that the constructed nature of such knowledge does not diminish its claim to truth, understood realistically, at least for the domain or scale of resolution where atoms are an adequate model; uncertainty creeps in when one moves on to finer scales and starts speaking of quarks and gluons, and even further down, of superstrings. This serves to introduce the pluralism of research programs that is inherent in speculative cosmology. Observations and theories at higher levels are not necessarily consistent with only one model

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of the underlying reality. Within cosmology there is underdetermination of theories (or, as they often are, outlines of theories) by the data. For instance, when we consider the issue of the beginning of time, the approach formulated by Hartle and Hawking is quite different from the ones chosen by Vilenkin and by Penrose, and again different from the ones by Linde and by Smolin.5 Let me briefly characterize these three versions, as they provide a good illustration of the remarks in the next section. For Stephen Hawking (and similarly for Julian Barbour, more recently), deep down, reality is timeless. Time is just a parameter which may have a finite past, but there is nothing extraordinary to be said about “t=0,” except that for a certain choice of parameters it is a boundary— but other states of affairs would be the boundary if time were defined differently. For Alexander Vilenkin and for Roger Penrose, there is something remarkable about the initial state, which is in need of an adequate description in the physics. They come up with particular proposals on the Weyl curvature (Penrose) and on the boundary conditions for the wave function of the Universe (Vilenkin) which seek to articulate this “observation” as a consequence of a fundamental rule specifying the structure of reality. Others put more stress on the role of dissipative processes that would wipe out specifics of any initial state, and thus they conclude to the irrelevance of particular initial conditions. Andrei Linde and, somewhat differently, Lee Smolin, give time an even more prominent role by arguing that the specific features of the early universe are not a consequence of a fundamental rule, but rather of a preceding process; it is history, not law. Smolin has suggested a cosmic Darwinism in which universes may have daughters (and granddaughters, and so on), with the universe that has the best conditions for generating such daughters becoming the most frequent member of the whole set of universes, and thus the most likely one to be found as our universe. This brief survey indicates what Jeremy Butterfield and Christopher Isham wrote about theory construction in quantum gravity: In this predicament, theory-construction inevitably becomes much more strongly influenced by broad theoretical considerations, than in main5 See Drees, Beyond the Big Bang, chapter 2, and Drees, “A Case Against Temporal Critical Realism?”

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stream areas of physics. More precisely, it tends to be based on various prima facie views about what the theory should look like – these being grounded partly on the philosophical prejudices of the researcher concerned, and partly on the existence of mathematical techniques that have been successful in what are deemed (perhaps erroneously) to be closely related areas of theoretical physics, such as non-abelian gauge theories. In such circumstances, the goal of a research programme tends towards the construction of abstract theoretical schemes that are compatible with some preconceived conceptual framework, and are internally consistent in a mathematical sense. The situation . . . tends to produce schemes based on a wide range of philosophical motivations, which (since they are rarely articulated) might be presumed to be unconscious projections of the chtonic psyche of the individual researcher – and might be dismissed as such! Indeed, practitioners of a given research programme frequently have difficulty in understanding, or ascribing validity to, what members of a rival programme are trying to do. This is one reason why it is important to uncover as many as possible of the assumptions that lie behind each approach: one person’s “deep” problem may seem irrelevant to another, simply because the starting positions are so different.6

2. Explaining that which Seems Contingent What Counts as Explanation Given the interest in natural and logical contingency (and thus in what is not explained but arbitrary) let us take some time for a more general discussion of explanation as understood in contemporary philosophy of science. Explanation is one of the notoriously difficult concepts.7 The “classic” view is the covering law model of explanation, which explains an event on the basis of a general law and one or more conditions.8 6 Jeremy Butterfield and Christopher Isham, “Spacetime and the philosophical challenge of quantum gravity,” in Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale: Contemporary Theories in Quantum Gravity (ed. C. Callender and N. Huggett; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 38. 7 See, for instance: P. Gasper, “Causation and Explanation,” in The Philosophy of Science (ed. R. Boyd, P. Gasper, and J.D. Trout; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 289-298; and Scientific Explanation, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. XIII (ed. P. Kitcher and W. Salmon; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), of which one essay has been republished independently as W.C. Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990).

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Upon this view, an explanation is similar in structure to a prediction from initial conditions and a law. However, the notion of laws is more adequate to the physical sciences than to other natural sciences. Besides, the connection between explanation and causation is absent in many cases. For instance, the height of a flagpole is calculated (and hence, according to the covering law model, explained) on the basis of the laws of optics, the position of the Sun and the length of the shadow—but it is not caused by these, and we would hesitate to say that its height was explained by the lengths of its shadow, even though our knowledge of the height was thus explained. Given problems with the covering-law model, contemporary philosophers have offered other views of explanation. They seek to give accounts of explanation that incorporate not only predictive power, but also some other features which make for successful explanations and justify the move from explanatory power to approximate truth. There seem to be two kinds of conception of explanation, epistemic ones and ontic ones. For instance, Philip Kitcher stresses unifying power9 while Richard Boyd emphasizes a realist view of causes.10 Kitcher fits into an epistemic approach, setting the phenomena in a wider theoretical framework. Boyd seeks an ontic approach, a quest for the causes or mechanisms involved. Such ontic and epistemic approaches “are not mutually exclusive, but, rather, complementary.”11 So far we have not made an explicit distinction between explanations of particular facts or events and the explanation of laws. However, this distinction is relevant in our context. Most accounts of explanation, including the traditional “covering law” model, are primarily concerned with the explanation of contingent facts, assuming a framework (laws, mechanisms, or the like). By offering an explanation, the fact is no longer contingent in the sense of natural processes, but rather has become unavoidable given the initial conditions and laws. However, such an ex8 C. Hempel and P. Oppenheim, “Studies in the logic of explanation,” Philosophy of Science 15 (1948): 135-175. 9 P. Kitcher, “Explanatory unification,” Philosophy of Science 48 (1981): 507531, reprinted in The Philosophy of Science. 10 R. Boyd, “Observations, Explanatory Power, and Simplicity: Toward a nonHumean account,” in Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science (ed. P. Achinstein and O. Hannaway; Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985); repr. in The Philosophy of Science. 11 Salmon, Four Decades, x.

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planation may introduce initial conditions that are contingent. To some extent, the laws assumed can be considered as a fact explainable in a wider framework, as Ohm’s law on electrical currents can be explained in the context of a more general theory of electromagnetism in combination with some solid state physics. There are sequences of explanations. The chemist refers to the astrophysicist for the explanation of his elements and to the quantum physicist for the explanation of bonds between atoms. Somehow, these sequences converge: various questions about the structure of reality are passed on till they end up on the desk of fundamental physicists (dealing with quantum theory, superstrings, etc.) and questions about the history of reality end up on the desk of the cosmologist. The physicist and the cosmologist may well say, “Only God knows.”12 This particular position of physicists and cosmologists in the quest for explanations may explain to some extent why they are drawn into philosophical and theological disputes foreign to geologists, biologists, or chemists. There are limit questions to the scientific enterprise where the explanatory contingency of reality and its laws seems to be unavoidable. These limit questions show up most clearly in physics and cosmology. Complete Theories: No Contingency Left? “The only way of explaining the creation is to show that the creator had absolutely no job at all to do, and so might as well not have existed.”13 Let me consider one example for arguing that science might offer a complete and unified explanation which would do away with all natural and logical contingency. As Atkins writes, if there are no explanatory gaps to fill, there would be no need for a creator beyond or behind the creative processes described by science. Atkins, an eloquent defender of the view that science leaves nothing to be explained, puts great weight on reduction to simplicity: beings such as elephants and humans arise through an evolutionary process, given sufficient time and atoms. At12 The image of handing questions from one desk to another is taken from C.W. Misner, “Cosmology and Theology,” in Cosmology, History, and Theology (ed. W. Yourgrau and A.D. Breck; New York: Plenum Press, 1977). See Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 242. It may be that the distinction between structural and historical questions breaks down in quantum cosmology, but this makes no difference for the argument (see Isham, “Quantum theories of the creation of the universe,” in Quantum Cosmologies). 13 P.W. Atkins, The Creation (Oxford: Freeman, 1981), 17.

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oms arise given even more simple constituents. Perhaps the only ultimate unit to be explained is, as Atkins suggests, space-time, particles being specific configurations, knots of space-time points. A major component in his argument is chance: through fluctuations, nothingness separates into +1 and –1. With such dualities, time and space come into existence. The +1 and –1 may merge again into nothingness. However, by chance, a stable configuration may come into existence—for instance, our space-time with three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Atkins’ idea is based on a notion considered almost half a century ago: “pregeometry,” promoted by John A. Wheeler. However, the fundamental issue has not changed significantly. For example, Hartle and Hawking wrote in their first article on the “no-boundary” cosmology that the wave function provides “the probability for the universe to appear from Nothing.”14 I would like to suggest that such claims face at least three kinds of problems. (1) Testability. There is a plurality of fundamental research programs in cosmology. Experimental tests and observations may well be insufficient to decide among the more able contenders. Aesthetic judgments are, at least partly, decisive in opting for a specific scheme. However, what one considers elegant, another may reject.15 (2) Exhaustiveness. Could a single and relatively simple complete theory be fair to the complexity of the world? Or, as Mary Hesse suggests, is it the case that for “the explanation of everything there must in a sense be a conservation of complexity, in other words a trade-off between the simplicity and unity of the theory, and the multiplicity of interpretations of a few general theoretical concepts into many particular objects, properties and relations.”16 It seems that any simple unified theory will leave something unexplained, referred to as the product of chance and thus naturally contingent.

14 J.B. Hartle and S.W. Hawking, “Wavefunction of the Universe,” Physical Review D 28 (1983): 2960-2975; 2961. 15 W.R. Stoeger, “Contemporary Cosmology and its Implications for the Science-Religion Dialogue,” in Physics, Philosophy and Theology (ed. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne; Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1988), 229; J. D. Barrow, The World Within the World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 373. 16 Mary Hesse, “Physics, Philosophy, and Myth,” in Physics, Philosophy and Theology, 197.

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(3) A vacuum is not nothing. Those conservation laws that are believed to be valid for the universe as a whole conserve a total quantity which may be zero. Take, for example, electric charge. Negative charges of electrons are matched by positive charges of protons. Atoms are electrically neutral. And so is, it seems, the observable universe. Similar arguments can be made about other properties: either it is possible for them to total up to zero or they are not conserved. The Universe may have arisen “out of nothing,” at least without a source of material. The Universe might be equivalent to a vacuum.17 However, the equivalence of the Universe to “nothing” only holds net. It is like someone borrowing a million euros and buying stock for that amount. That person would be as wealthy, fiscally speaking, as someone without any debts and without properties. However, the first would be of more significance on the financial market than the second. The first strategy also assumes more than the second: the financial system is taken for granted. Though as far as the conservation laws are concerned, the universe might come from a “vacuum,” such a vacuum is not nothing. The vacuum discussed here in the context of creation in time is a vacuum that behaves according to the quantum laws which allow for the fluctuations to happen, just as the apparent millionaire only can get started once there are concepts of money, of borrowing. Similar assumptions are in the background of schemes regarding the creation of time. To conclude, perhaps scientific explanations may achieve a lot, but they do not explain without a remainder. Many forms of apparent contingency may be explained and thus replaced by natural necessity, but such explanations introduce contingency at other levels, such as general laws and existence. Could the remainder, such as the existence and the laws of the vacuum, be in need of a religious explanation, or at least support the plausibility of such a view? The position that all phenomena can be explained in a framework that would be “incomplete” only with respect to questions about the basic structure and the whole, is naturalistic. Lightning, superconductors, planets, bacteria, and humans with their emotions and moral judgements: all events, processes and entities are manifestations of reality. This does not degrade humans to the level of mere matter, but rather upgrades our view of matter, since it is capa17 See E.P. Tryon, “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?,” Nature 246 (1973): 396-7, reprinted in Physical Cosmology and Philosophy (ed. J. Leslie; New York: Macmillan, 1990).

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ble of all these forms of behaviour. Such a naturalistic view of reality fits well with contemporary science and contemporary philosophical reflections on the concept of explanation. It is at odds with the quest for openness to divine action in natural processes, including complex, chaotic and quantum processes. However, such a naturalistic view does not exclude all theological options. There may still be speculative theological answers to questions about the framework, the laws and initial conditions, or whatever else is assumed. Religious explanations of the Universe, its existence and laws, seem to need assumptions about disembodied persons or values which are at least as problematic as the unexplained existence of the Universe or its laws. Not being able to accept the finality of a scientific or a religious explanation, I think one does best in joining the more agnostic statement by the physicist Charles Misner: “To say that God created the Universe does not explain either God or the Universe, but it keeps our consciousness alive to mysteries of awesome majesty that we might otherwise ignore.”18 3. Our Universe a Cosmos? Traditionally, views of the universe have been closely related to our own existence. The archetypical example in astronomy is the geocentric assumption that was so basic to Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. Geocentrism need not be understood as self-elevation, as the Christian understanding of the geocentric universe made the Earthly realm the farthest removed from God and Heaven (and closest to Hell). One of the major steps in the rise of modern cosmology has been the widespread adoption of “Copernican” assumptions, against any privileged situation for us as humans. Not only has the earth been removed from the centre of the system of sun, moon and planets, but the solar system is seen as one among many such systems, and so too for the galaxy. The earliest relativistic cosmological models explicitly assumed homogeneity and isotropy. Such strong assumptions have been relaxed somewhat, but the general tenor continues to be a denial of any privileged position for human observers. 18 C.W. Misner, “Cosmology and Theology,” in Cosmology, History and Theology, 95.

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A counter movement in modern cosmology has been the appeal to principles.”19 Rather than seeing human significance in terms of a prominent position in space (the geocentric universe), the argument has shifted to the properties of our universe relative to a wider class of possible universes. Would this be a way to appropriate the particularity of the properties of the universe, which would be contingent in relation to natural explanations, in an argument that seeks to overcome the marginality (and in this sense, contingency) of our own existence? The universe is enormous in size when compared to human dimensions, even when compared with the human enterprise that reaches farthest: space-travel. And the age of the universe is more than a million times the typical age of a human civilization. However, other things being equal, the age and size of the universe might be related to our existence. We need certain types of atoms, like carbon and oxygen. These atoms are produced by nuclear processes in stars and distributed by supernova-explosions. Our kind of life only became possible after the interstellar gas had been enriched sufficiently with heavier elements produced and distributed by these processes. Biological evolution took another couple of billion years to produce complex, intelligent and amiable beings observing the universe—us. Turning this description upside down, it is argued that intelligent observation by natural beings is only possible after a couple of billion years, say ten billion years. Thus, biological beings can only observe a universe that is at least ten billion years old. Along this line, the weak anthropic principle (WAP) explains the observed age of the Universe. Such a universe then must also have a size of ten billion light years in all directions; hence the size is also necessary for our existence. Our existence implies, and thus explains, that we observe a liveable universe. As I see it, the Weak Anthropic Principle is in itself true but devoid of relevance. Assume that we know that life depends on liquid water. We observe the existence of life, for instance ourselves. WAP then predicts that our environment, our planet, will have a surface temperature between zero and a hundred degrees centigrade. This explains the temperature on our planet. But this is not an explanation. It is the common “anthropic

19 The anthropic principle was introduced in its modern form by Robert H. Dicke in 1961, though John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) point to many similar ideas in earlier ages as well as in the twentieth century.

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use of evidence: we observe A (life), we know that A and B go together (life needs liquid water), and hence B (there must be liquid water). This does not explain why A and B are there, i.e., why there are living beings and planets with the right temperatures, nor does it explain why A and B go together. There is nothing wrong with the argument, but neither is it significant. The explanation of an event is in general something different from the explanation one offers when asked, “How do you know?” From the existence of this article, you, as a reader, can infer the existence of its author. You can show the article when challenged by someone else to explain how you know about that person. However, the article does not explain the existence of the author. It only provides the grounds for your belief in his existence. Retrograde reasoning justifies beliefs, but it does not explain why the situation was that way. The metaphysical issue of theological significance in the discussions around the Weak Anthropic Principle is not so much whether the principle of selective observation is valid and useful but rather the relation between the actual and the possible. Both Linde and Hawking take it that all possibilities of a theory are realized (plenitude), and then a weak anthropic selection rule explains certain features of our observations as typical for regions in which observers can exist. The strong anthropic principles (SAP) state that any possible universe must have the properties for life (or intelligent and observing life). This is a statement not only about the observable universe but about the class of all possible universes. This leads to an explanation of properties of the universe in terms of purpose: a property that is necessary for life is necessary for the universe. Such teleological approaches have a long history, but they are not widely accepted in contemporary science. Strong anthropic arguments have some disadvantages. They cannot rely on testable consequences about the class of possible universes, as we do not have empirical knowledge about universes that are merely possible. Furthermore, these arguments assume that we know what life and consciousness need in terms of the universe, whereas other forms of life might be possible in other possible universes. Last but not least, SAP explanations are also vulnerable to the future development of scientific theories. Subsequent theories have, in general, fewer and fewer unexplained parameters (constants, boundary conditions).

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If applied on a small scale, say, as “planets must have the properties which allow for the development of life in some stage of their history,” a strong anthropic principle is surely false. But the example shows the nature of the SAP. The SAP is like the old teleological arguments: everything must have a function, and therefore the Moon must be populated, as the ancient philosopher Plutarch argued.20 Although we are no longer able to maintain that the Moon is populated, it is still possible to maintain that the Moon has a function for life, for instance in the development of life on Earth through tidal effects. A teleological view of the universe is not something that follows from science. It is a metaphysical view, which fits well with belief in a Creator who likes living beings and therefore created one or more “universes.” Plenitude and teleology are metaphysical principles. Not that they therefore must be wrong, but they do not come from science. Rather, they reduce the contingency that science leaves when features of our universe are considered as given. Thus, they address our marginality, but not on the basis of science. 4. Towards a Contemporary Creation Story—Kontingenzbewältigung? If we cannot prove the universe to be a cosmos, a world in which we are at home, can we at least imagine it to be one? The myths of the Stone Age and their embodiment in Stonehenge and elsewhere may be attractive to some modern day pagans, appropriating these while cutely misunderstanding them. However, might there not be more contemporary versions of myth which may be adequate to scientific knowledge while at the same time offering us a sense of “being at home in the universe”? Let me consider briefly two versions. There is an educational video entitled “Powers of Ten.” The initial scene is a homely one—a couple, picnicking on Soldiers Field in Chicago, on the shore of Lake Michigan. The camera zooms out—as if moving back our point of observation—by a factor of ten in a fixed amount of time. And again by a factor ten. And so on. We recognize at some point our home, “planet Earth,” and a few steps later, our Galaxy. Though this sequence of images may be interpreted as relativizing our significance—we are nothing but a speck of dust in a huge universe—it 20

P. Raingard, Le peri tou prosopou de Plutarque (Chartres, 1934).

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may also achieve the opposite: even though we may not always notice it, due to the scale of observation, we are there, in the centre of the picture. We are at home in the universe. A similar sense of “home” may be evoked by the pictures of Earth, rising above the horizon of the moon, of the “pale blue dot” (Sagan) that is our home.21 The difficulty addressed with the visualization of “Powers of Ten” is that our stone-age minds are not well suited to handling logarithmic (or exponential) scales. We may understand the mathematical trick, but we aren’t as familiar with the images thus presented as we are with distances understood along linear scales. Thus, it may be an interesting challenge for educationalists and artists to convey this sense of distance and of our place in it, and thereby to induce a sense of awe and reverence for the majestic universe we are a part of, as well as of responsibility for the tiny part that is our more immediate home. Traditional myths also locate us in history. Here too, we may wonder whether there are attempts to re-imagine our existence in relation to our scientific understanding. An articulation of this can be found in “the evolutionary epic”; by speaking of an epic, an evolutionary account of our history becomes more than just a sequence of events. Such “epic” presentations of our world may well serve to induce in us a sense of reverence and wonder, an awareness of our dependence on what and who has gone before us (“ancestors”), and a sense of responsibility for the web of life, just as traditional creation myths were meant to support moral and religious attitudes.22 But grand visions and epics need not induce such responses. We are not used to time scales that transcend our horizon of a few human generations, nor are we used to distances that are way beyond what we can travel ourselves. Not only are we not psychologically prepared, but the elements mixed in myths are philosophically problematic as well. Has there at any time been a satisfactory connection between the descriptive 21 “Powers of Ten” goes back to an idea of the Dutch educationalist Kees Boeke, Wij in het heelal – het heelal in ons, translated into English as Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps (New York: John Day, 1957), which inspired Philip and Phylis Morrison to write their Powers of Ten, which in turn inspired the brothers Charles and Ray Eames to make the film “Powers of Ten,” (1977). A more recent discussion of artistic imagination as providing us with a sense of place can be found in the artist Thomas Rockwell's “Visual Technologies, Cosmographies, and Our Sense of Place in the Universe,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 37.3 (September 2002): 605-621. “Pale blue dot” alludes to Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (New York: Random House, 1994).

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and the prescriptive elements of myths? Any transition from facts to values, from “is” to “ought,” has been deemed a naturalistic fallacy, and rightly so. The practice of science seems at its best when we seek to free it from unwarranted anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism in attitudes and explanations. 5. Conclusions in Brief (1) Any scientific understanding of the universe assumes certain elements, such as particular laws of nature, a mathematical intelligibility of the universe, and the existence of reality. Thus, even though scientific explanations remove certain logical and natural contingencies (in the sense of “could have been different”) by showing the present as the necessary consequence of the past, they do not make such contingency disappear, but rather relocate it. (2) Explanations that seek to reduce the contingent (i.e., here, marginal, insignificant) character of our existence by claiming that the universe is the way it is in order to somehow allow for the emergence of human life, are not scientific explanations but rather based on metaphysical assumptions. Unifying scientific and existential concerns— seeing our universe as a cosmos—is not warranted in scientific or logical terms. (3) However, as a project of human imagination, unifying scientific and existential concerns may well be of value to us, shaping our selfunderstanding in a helpful way, and thereby addressing our existential contingency. This last remark raises issues about what is of value to humans, and about the nature of scientific and religious views. One’s assessment of such a project, the development of an existentially interesting view of 22 As examples of authors who use an “evolutionary epic,” a term that seems to have originated with E.O. Wilson, to reflect upon our place in the scheme of things, one may consider, among others: Connie Barlow, Green Space, Green Time: The Way of Science (New York: Springer, 1997); Willem B. Drees, Creation: From Nothing until Now (London: Routledge, 2003); Brian Swimme, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). The general idea that creation myths relate to morality is well presented in Cosmogony and Ethical Order: New Studies in Comparative Ethics (ed. Robin Lovin and Frank Reynolds; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

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our universe, will depend on the status accorded to science; the more science is understood realistically, the more this project becomes optional, but not significant. And vice versa. The English philosopher of science Mary Hesse has emphasized the limited scope of theories and the role of the pragmatic, instrumentalist criterion. This has negative implications for the universal ontological and cosmological consequences that have sometimes been held to derive from natural science. There has been a constant tendency for the prestige of instrumental success to flow back into temporary ontologies and analogies, and to infect social and metaphysical thought about the nature and destiny of man and the universe.23

Thus, “no truths about the substance of nature which are relevant to metaphysics or theology can be logically derived from physics.” “No substantial consequences about the world can be drawn from this game [science] except what were put into it.”24 The use of science in theology might be apologetic, a matter of communication and status. It would be a mistake now, as it was then, to build the details of such models of causality too firmly into our doctrine of God. They may provide useful analogies for apologetics and a useful liberation from too constrained a notion of God, but they are not essential to central theological beliefs, nor can they logically disprove such beliefs.25 In any case, it is unprofitable in an antimetaphysical age to seek to make the world safe for religion by metaphysics. Such a procedure is anachronistic and intellectually barren for believers and unbelievers alike. But there is no need for it. In relation to the Christian religion, at least, there are no intellectual foundations for belief except in the continuing tradition of practice, theology, and changing historical experience, which are all rooted in the Great Schema itself.26

Rather than looking for scientific contributions to a metaphysical theology of nature in the traditional sense, by pointing out logical or natural contingencies that require an explanation, it may be more fruitful to regard these contributions as “debates about an appropriate language for theology, and a source of appropriate models.”27 Hence, the issue is 23

301. 24

Mary Hesse, The Structure of Scientific Inference (London: Macmillan, 1974),

Hesse, “Physics, Philosophy and Myth,” 189, 198. Idem., 191. 26 Michael A. Arbib and Mary Hesse, The Construction of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 243. 25

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how theological concepts “may be expressed in a language accessible to those nurtured in the scientific framework.” Science and theology “meet on the ground of different but comparable social symbolisms rather than of common subject matter or of method.”28 Rather than arguing from natural and logical contingency towards a Divine explanation, we can use images and understandings nourished by the sciences to envisage our own modest place among the wide variety of living beings, and thereby learn to live with our existential contingency.

27

Mary Hesse, “Retrospect,” in The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century (ed. A. R. Peacocke; Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981), 287. 28 Hesse, “Retrospect,” 287, 282.

NAME INDEX

Abe, M., 213 Adams, D., 221 Adams, R. M., 54, 79 Albert, H., 32 Allen, S., viii Alpher, R., 225 Anselm of C., 7 Apel, K. O., 15, 167–168 Aquinas, T., 55, 119–135 Arbib, M. A., 242 Atkins, P. W., 233–234 Augustine of H., 228 Aviau de Ternay, H. d’, 82 Barbour, J., 230 Barlow, C., 241 Barrow, J. D., 234, 237 Barth, K., 7, 10, 101 Baruzi, J., 52 Bayle, B., 48, 57 Baynes, K., 15 Berger, P., 19 Bethe, H., 225 Bielefeldt, H., 82 Blount, C., 51 Blumenberg, H., 47, 137 Boeke, K., 240 Boeve, L., 3, 27–28, 195, 201 Bohman, J., 15 Bollacher, 104 Bollacher, M., 97, 100, 104 Bollnow, O. F., 23, 133–134 Boyd, R., 232 Boyle, R., 57 Brümmer, V., 1, 3, 5 Butterfield, J., 230–231 Campenhausen, H. von, 149 Caputo, J., 28, 198–199, 201 Carnap, R., 31 Carnois, B., 76, 79 Cherbury, H. of, 50–51 Clarke, S., 66 Cohen, H., 15

Cook, D. J., 62 Coudert, A. P., 62 Dalferth, I., 1, 4, 19, 137, 155 Davie, G., 209 Derrida, J., 28, 37–38, 150, 198–202 Descartes, R., 26, 43, 48, 57, 163–171, 176 Despland, M., 72, 77–78, 84, 86 Dicke, R., 237 Dijksterhuis, E. J., 47 Dijn, H. De, 23, 134 Drees, W., 3, 29, 221, 230, 241 Düffel, P. von, 92 Eisenkopf, P., 52 Frankena, W. K., 32–33 Freund, G., 91, 93 Gamov, G., 225 Gasper, P., 231 Geldhof, J., 3, 23–25, 155 Gens, J.-G., 149 Gilson, E., 166 Goeze, J. M., 92, 97 Gort, J. D., 218 Greisch, J., 139, 157 Grube, D.-M., 3, 19, 32, 105 Guyer, P., 86 Habermas, J., 15, 167–168 Hablicher, A., 74 Hartle, J. B., 230, 234 Hawking, S., 225, 230, 234, 238 Hegel, G. W. F., 9, 107 Heidegger, M., vii, 3, 16, 21–23, 25, 119– 135, 172, 208, 218 Hempel, C., 215–216, 232 Hesse, M., 234, 242–243 Hick, J., 7, 186, 208 Hirsch, E. C., 51 Hobbes, T., 47, 57 Hume, D., 2, 11, 31, 36, 108, 114

NAME INDEX Isham, C., 230–231 Israel, J. I., 48, 51 Jansen, H., 218 Jaspers, K., vii, 3, 23–25, 136–157 Jespers, F., 3, 8–9, 47 Jonkers, P., 1, 3, 11, 19, 22, 26–27, 43, 178 Kant, I., vii, 1–3, 8, 10–14, 67–88, 90, 107–109, 114–115, 120, 147 Karl of Brunswick, 92 Kearney, R., 199–201 Kekulé, F., 215 Kempis, T. à, 119, 135 Kerken, L. van der, 133 Kitcher, P., 232 Knitter, P. F., 184, 187 Koterski, J. s.j., 154 Kripke, S., 3 Kuhn, T., 3, 30, 34–37 Lai, Y.-T., 64 Langley, R. J., 154 Law, D. R., 155 Leeuw, G. van der, 128 Leeuwen, A. Th. van, 207 Leibniz, G.-W., vii, 2–3, 8–10, 12–13, 47–66 Lessing, G.-E., vii, 2–3, 8, 11, 13–15, 89– 115 Li, W., 62 Linde, A., 230, 238 Locke, J., 57 Loose, D., 3, 11–12, 15, 108 Lübbe, H., 19, 121 Luhmann, N., 19 Luhmann, T., 19 Lüpke, J. von, 89 MacIntyre, A., 33, 38, 41 Marion, J.-L., 28, 196–199, 201–202 Marquard, O., 19, 22, 26, 40, 121, 137, 164–176 Marty, F., 82 Marx, K., 207–208, 218 McCarthy, T., 15 Mercer, C., 57 Misner, C. W., 233, 236 Morrison, P., 240

245

Mungello, D. E., 63 Naert, E., 49 Neurath, O., 31 Newton, I., 66 Nietzsche, F., 37 Nishida, K., 213 Nizolio, M., 57 Oppenheim, P., 232 Origen, 94–96, 103 Pannenberg, W., 31, 216 Penrose, R., 225, 230 Penzias, A., 225 Pfeiffer, H., 149 Piché, C., 77, 79 Pieper, A., 82 Pieper, J., 132 Pinxten, R., 192 Plantinga, A., 102 Popper, C. R., 32 Poser, H., 62 Putnam, H., 2, 5, 39 Putt, K., 199 Quine, W. v. O., 5, 11, 37–38, 106 Rahner, K., 185 Raingard, P., 239 Ramsey, I. T., 219 Rawls, J., 40 Recki, B., 86, 108 Reimarus, H. S., 13, 90–91, 98–99, 107 Rescher, N., 54 Ricken, F., 128–129 Ricoeur, P., 82, 156, 199 Robbins, W., 115 Rochard, M., viii Rockwell, T., 240 Rogozinski, J., 83 Rorty, R., 2–3, 14, 21, 30–38, 114–115, 164, 169–171, 174, 176, 218 Sagan, C., 240 Sala, G. B., 73 Salmon, W., 232 Saner, H., 136 Sarot, M., 1 Schellong, D., 109

246 Schilpp, P. A., 155 Schmidt, R., 11 Schulte, C., 79 Schultze, H., 112, 114 Schumann, J. D., 13–14, 89–115 Schütt, H.-P., 3 Schwöbel, C., 10 Smolin, L., 230 Spinoza, B. de, 47, 51, 57 Standmark, M., 219 Stoeger, W. R., 234 Stoellger, P., 4, 19, 54, 137, 155 Stout, J., 115 Stuhlmacher, S., 209 Swimme, B., 241 Tanner, N. P., 185 Thielicke, H., 91 Tillich, P., 19, 101 Tilliette, X., 145 Tindal, M., 51 Tipler, F. J., 237

NAME INDEX Tryon, E. P., 235 Turner, D., 151 Vedder, B., 3, 22–26, 134 Verlinde, J.-M., 190 Vilenkin, A., 230 Voltaire, F.-M., 66 Vossenkuhl, W., 76, 81 Vroom, H., 3, 20, 28, 42, 208, 212–214, 217–218 Wachter, J. G., 51 Wainwright, W. J., 215 Weil, E., 82 Weinberg, S., 225, 233 Wheeler, J. A., 234 Wilson, E. O., 225, 241 Wittgenstein, L., 37 Woerner, G., 209 Yovel, Y., 84

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Lieven Boeve (1966) is professor of fundamental theology at the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven, and the co-ordinator of the Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context (http:// www.theo.kuleuven.ac.be/ogtpc/). His research concerns theological epistemology, religious experience, truth in faith and theology, tradition development and hermeneutics. e-mail: [email protected] Willem B. Drees (1954) is professor of philosophy of religion and ethics in Leiden University and dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies. In his research he addresses various facets of the interactions of religious convictions and the natural sciences, from the abstract and metaphysical to the technological and moral. He also serves as president of the European Society for the Study of Science And Theology, ESSSAT. e-mail: [email protected] Joris Geldhof (1976) is associate professor of sacramentology and liturgical studies and postdoctoral research fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO-Vlaanderen) at the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven. His main fields of research are 19th and 20th century fundamental theology, and the tension between modernity and Christianity. e-mail: [email protected] Dirk-Martin Grube (1959) is professor of philosophy of religion and ethics at the Department of Theology, Utrecht University. His main fields of teaching and research include theory of knowledge, fundamental theology, theory of revelation, theory of science, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Reformed Epistemology,Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and William James. e-mail: [email protected] Frans P.M. Jespers (1951) is associate professor of religious studies and philosophy of religion at the Faculty of Religious Studies of the Radboud University Nijmegen. He has published several books and articles

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

on Leibniz. Currently, his fields of research and education include also New Religious Movements, recent religious aesthetic expressions, and (post-)modern religiosity. e-mail: [email protected] Peter Jonkers (1954) is professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of Tilburg University. He teaches systematic philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of culture. His fields of research include the philosophy of Hegel and his contemporaries, contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of culture. e-mail: [email protected] Donald Loose (1949), teaches philosophy at the Department of Religious Studies and Theology of Tilburg University, and has a Radboudchair in “Philosophy in relation to Christianity” at the Faculty of Philosophy of Erasmus University Rotterdam. His main research topics are: fundamental ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of religion in Modernity, especially Kant and the kantian tradition. e-mail: [email protected] Ben Vedder (1948) is professor at the Philosophy Department of the Radboud University Nijmegen. His fields of teaching and research are metaphysics, hermeneutics and philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of Heidegger. e-mail: [email protected] Hendrik M. Vroom (1945) is professor of the philosophy of religion at the Faculties of Theology and Philosophy of the VU-University Amsterdam. He is specialised in hermeneutics and the study of religious pluralism in relation to anthropology, and in the idea of truth. e-mail: [email protected]