Repairing Eden : Humility, Mysticism, and the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity [1 ed.] 9780773573031, 9780773529366

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REPAIRING EDEN

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Repairing Eden Humility, Mysticism, and the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity MARK S. M c L E O D - H A R R I S O N

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen's University Press 2005 ISBN 0-7735-2.936-5 Legal deposit fourth quarter zoo 5 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book has been published with the help of a grant from George Fox University. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication McLeod-Harrison, Mark S., 1956Repairing Eden: humility, mysticism, and the existential problem of religious diversity / Mark S. McLeod-Harrison. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1936-5 i. Christianity and other religions, z. Humility-Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. Mysticism. 4. Religious pluralism. I. Title. BRIOO.M2.2. 2OO5

261.2.

Typeset in Sabon 10.5/13 by Infoscan Collette Quebec, Quebec City

€2,005-904052.-!

for Jo Anne Harrison, the practical Buddhist

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Contents

Foreword Preface

ix xiii

Introduction

xv

i Reality and Religion: Identifying the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity 3 2, An Epistemic Basis of Religious Diversity 3 Idolatry and the Testing of One's Faith 4 An Analysis of Humility

18 45

70

5 The Humility of Jesus and the Christian Tradition

86

6 Humility, Mysticism, and the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity 107 Appendix: The Challenge of Religious Diversity, Again? Notes

131

Bibliography Index

143

139

129

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Foreword

We live in a world where religious beliefs have great force and where these beliefs diverge and, in many cases, conflict. A Hindu believes in reincarnation, while a Christian believes in resurrection; a Buddhist is not a theist, while a Muslim is a strict monotheist, and so on. The fact of multiple religions generates the theoretical and the existential problem of religious diversity. The theoretical approach takes the detached, philosophical point of view and attempts to consolidate the epistemological and metaphysical implications of religious diversity. The existential approach, on the other hand, assumes a particular religious position and develops a response to the fact of religious diversity from inside the doctrinal enclosure. Mark McLeodHarrison takes the latter approach and works out a Christian response to the problem of religious diversity. I am writing from outside the Christian tradition as a Hindu, more cultural than religious, with pluralist sympathies motivated in part by philosophical considerations that are consistent with certain aspects of Hinduism. The question I ask in this foreword is simply this: what can a pluralist, committed to a dialogic vision of religious diversity, learn from McLeod-Harrison's efforts? I define pluralism here as the view that different religions have varying phenomenal features but are unified at the absolute salvific plane. There is a negative, though entirely appropriate, way of conceptualizing the relation between McLeod-Harrison's internalist (Christian) account of religious diversity and the pluralisms agenda. Such an account would maintain that if McLeod-Harrison's realist account and its consequent implications for religious diversity are right, the pluralist will have to exclude Christianity from the forum of dialogic

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encounters. An inward-looking view of humility that negates the salvific value of the other religion, such an account would state, cannot share the normative motivation of dialogic encounter. There is, however, a positive, philosophically interesting way in which the existential approach of McLeod-Harrison connects with the conceptual underpinnings of inter-religious dialogue. I say this without being inconsistent with an implicit and here undefended claim that only the pluralist can make conceptual sense of dialogue across religious traditions. An important theme of inter-religious dialogue, that is often missed, concerns the question of how each religion understands its relation with other religions. The concern seems to be in important respects fundamental because dialogue essentially concerns the negotiation of unity and difference in the context of alterity. From the pluralisms perspective, the issue of how each tradition considers the other is enclosed within the non-exhaustive but immensely important realm of phenomenal difference across religions. A realist position like the one McLeod-Harrison describes may not have any existential urgency in dialogic encounters with other religions, but the pluralist has to take his position seriously precisely because it is a sophisticated rendering of a Christian response to the issue of religious diversity. Apart from the internal importance of the work, here lies the external salience of the position crafted by McLeod-Harrison. The field of religious studies, and to a lesser extent philosophy of religion, will benefit immensely from internalist responses to the problem of religious diversity essayed from the perspective of the great religious traditions of the world. McLeod-Harrison's book, providing us with an original and sophisticated account of a realistChristian's response to the problem of religious diversity, has taken welcome strides in that direction. I hope that the themes and arguments inaugurated by this book will be debated among McLeodHarrison's fellow Christian thinkers to further the cause of settling on Christianity's proper response to religious diversity. Perhaps John Hick's type of pluralism can be rendered consistent with the doctrinal dimensions of Christianity, or perhaps exclusivism as developed by McLeod-Harrison here or by Alvin Plantinga elsewhere is the proper response to the problem of religious diversity. These are questions internal to Christianity, and it is important for a pluralist thinking externally to consider these internal debates. Indeed, the task of the dialogic pluralist cannot proceed without the hermeneutical

Foreword

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work within traditions. More such philosophical responses informed by doctrinal resources will be welcome additions to the repertoire of material that can be opened up to dialogic encounters. The pluralist is faced with a paradox. Pluralism respects the salvific truths of all traditions but, in respecting the exclusivist's position, it undermines itself. Thus philosophical pluralism, receiving its defense on independent grounds, can only advance the hope that all religions can be internally interpreted on pluralist grounds. Such pluralist readings, which I endorse, perhaps must take humility to be outer-directed rather than inner-directed as McLeod-Harrison argues in the service of Christian exclusivism. However, McLeodHarrison's hermeneutic use of the notion of humility to provide existential succour to the Christian theist losing her faith in the face of diversity, by way of a particular internally construed existential response to religious alterity, is indeed a stunning display of philosophical craftsmanship. McLeod-Harrison's work emerges, then, as a deep challenge not only for the Christian (internal) pluralist but also for the pluralist (like me) external to the tradition. I have learned much from the themes and arguments of McLeodHarrison's book. I am convinced that a range of thinkers in the fields of religious studies, philosophy of religion, and theology will learn much, just as I have, from this philosophically informed and highly original work. Saranindranath Tagore Department of Philosophy National University of Singapore 21 March 2005

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Preface

A book with "humility" and "mysticism" in its title is best, perhaps, left with the author anonymous. Many of us think one should claim neither humility nor mysticism for oneself. I agree, certainly, about humility. I agree, too, about mystical experience, at least in part. When shared publicly, a report of a mystical experience may help others - where would we be without the great mystics of the past but mystical experiences put on parade for the sake of the parade undermine both the purpose of the experiences and the humility that should attend them. I do not mean to claim in what follows either a humble or a mystical life, but I do intend to claim responsibility for any errors on these pages. Yet I hope there are some true things in what follows and I want to recognize people who have contributed to any goodness in the book. Saranindra Nath "Bappa" Tagore, now of the National University of Singapore; Mark Bernstein, of Purdue University; and Phillip Smith, of George Fox University; each provided comments and thoughts on various parts of the work and much encouragement along the way. I want to thank Charlie Kamilos for his perseverance as a spiritual director, and for helping me by modeling humility, a fact he would blush to recognize. Susan J. McLeod-Harrison came into my life after most of the writing of this work was complete. She is a spouse par excellence. I want to thank her for loving me through the long, and sometimes painful, process of finding a publisher, and for standing - and sometimes kneeling - with me through many of the other struggles of my life, which only she knows well. Marriage at its best combines

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the mystical and the practical into a sacrament. Having seen me at my worst, she knows how much I need the sacraments. In regard to the publication of the work, I want to thank Philip Cercone of McGill-Queen's University Press for taking the project on and believing in it. My thanks go to Kate Merriman as well, whose work went beyond fine editing to helpful suggestions about content. George Fox University, through Provost Robin Baker's office, provided a generous grant to enable the work finally to come to print. Missy Terry, executive secretary in the Provost's office, deserves special thanks for dealing with the many demands of faculty and others who sometimes overlook how important she is. The University of Texas, San Antonio, provided a summer research grant in 1998, and George Fox University also afforded a grant leading to a course release in the Fall term of 2000. The time and support allowed me to write unimpeded. I also want to thank International Journal for Philosophy of Religion for permission to publish parts of "The Limits of Theistic Experience" in chapter 2, and Faith and Philosophy for permission to publish parts of "Religious Pluralism and Realist Christianity: Idolatry and the Testing of One's Faith" in chapter 3.

Introduction

Religious diversity is a mammoth theme. It becomes no less formidable when one adds humility and mysticism alongside for consideration. What is to be said about a book that notes humility, mysticism, and religious diversity in its title? Surely its topics are too broad for such a relatively short work. I admit the truth of this judgment. The subjects are broad, and deeply rooted in our cultural histories, no matter our culture, our religion, or our personal stories. Such a book needs a context, an explanation, a bit of intellectual autobiography - a "placing" in its author's own history. This is especially true given the existential nature of this work. Through my high-school and undergraduate days, I was quite skeptical of religious experience as a ground for the rationality of religious belief, especially as my own religious experiences seemed to come and go rather randomly. By the time I wrote my first book, Rationality and Theistic Belief, a book about "Reformed epistemology," I had become convinced that theistic beliefs are largely rooted in experience and that such grounding is epistemically quite legitimate. The idea for the current work grew out of my earlier reflections on Reformed epistemology, specifically the work of Alvin Plantinga and William Alston. In the course of those reflections, and in my own spiritual journey, I became convinced of two things. First, epistemology is best done within a holistic model and, second, experience really is the fundamental root, both epistemically and in genesis, of religious belief. The material developed as chapter 2 reflects those biographical connections, as it was published in an earlier form in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. The material worked out

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in chapter 3, published in an earlier form in Faith and Philosophy, began as reflections on the problem of religious diversity. However, I wanted to write something dealing directly with personal issues of faith and not merely abstract ones. There I owe a large debt to Marilyn McCord Adams for her essays on the problem of evil written, presented, and published in the early eighties through the early nineties, culminating in 1999 with her book, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Her commitment to dealing with evil in a personal, philosophical cum pastoral, manner was formative for me philosophically and personally. But I was left unsettled both intellectually and existentially with the results of my own thinking when the earlier version of chapter 3 was published. First, they seemed terribly fideistic, like a kind of intellectual fundamentalism. Second, to say that one ought to be faithful in action and acceptance still does little for the person who is simply losing her or his faith in the midst of the problem of religious diversity. This is best illustrated by a personal experience. My friend and former colleague Saranindra Nath Tagore and I were together in a grocery market check-out line in San Antonio, Texas, when a student of ours from the University of Texas at San Antonio called across several check-out stands. She said, "Professor Tagore, I want to thank you for teaching that World Religions class. Thank you for showing me the truth. I'm no longer a Christian and I don't believe in God either. Thank you." This student was quite serious and sincere, and appeared truly grateful. She represented the existential problem of religious diversity perfectly. But I think what moved me more directly was Tagore's response to me as we left the market. With horror in his voice, he said, "This is terrible. The last thing I want to do in that class is to take away other people's religious commitments." As a pluralist Hindu, he was not interested in people becoming secularized. Tagore's concern for the spiritual well-being of that student left me wondering how I could encourage people to move through doubt to deeper, fuller, commitment. As I worked on the ontology of humility, and through my reading of the mystics and my own spiritual experience, I realized there might be a path, albeit not a strictly philosophical or intellectual one. Hence this book. Even though I became convinced that religious belief is rooted in experience, I continued to believe that experience alone is not enough to ground as true one particular set of religious beliefs over against

Introduction

xvii

another. As Rationality and Theistic Belief was being written, I moved from one teaching situation to another. It was in this new teaching situation that I encountered Tagore. We became fast friends and from him I learned something about the richness and depth of Hinduism. Later, when I again changed schools, I returned to teaching students who were, for the most part, Christians. In the course of this history, I became more deeply committed to my Christian faith, and eventually became a priest and then an abbot of a small Christian community. This is a book written by a Christian philosopher who is fortunate to number among his friends a philosopher who is a Hindu. To be even more specific, it is a book written by a Christian philosopher who is also a priest and an abbot who spends a good deal of his time working with Christian students, many of whom, for the first time, are discovering claims to religious truth other than those of the Christian faith. Just as their professor does, these students sometimes feel the tug of the rationality of beliefs other than the Christian faith. As they get to know religions other than Christianity, and more importantly, as they get to know people who live those other faiths, the challenge to their own faith becomes more salient. I believe that philosophy should make sense of our lives as lived. To treat philosophy as some sort of intellectual diversion is tragic in the fullest sense of the word. While there are many tragedies in life, perhaps one of the greatest in terms of Western cultural history is the contemporary trivialization of philosophy to mere theory without existential reality. I believe, in short, that philosophy ought to make a difference in how we live. At the very least I believe no one can, in the final analysis, deny that one's philosophical work is deeply influenced by one's own autobiography. Even someone doing philosophy of mathematics or logic leans toward platonism or nominalism for some reason tied to experience. Nor do I believe that anyone can deny the importance of religion in philosophy, both as subject and as formative influence. I wrote this book with these beliefs explicitly in mind. The essay takes on an extraordinarily difficult existential problem, a problem my students often face, and which, therefore, I face as a professor and priest. It is therefore an integrated approach to problems priestly and philosophical. Sometimes there is little difference. Existential problems call for existential solutions. This book aims to place sign posts along the path to an existential solution. As such,

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other philosophers, Christian or not, may find the book somewhat wanting in the typical philosophical analytical argumentation, at least in places. That, I think, is to be expected, given the nature of the subject. But as Aristotle noted, we should not expect more analytical rigour than the subject permits. The book points toward a path of humility and, finally, the possibility of a mystical solution to the problem explored. Nevertheless, the author has written with the goal of being as analytical as the subjects allow. Both McGill-Queen's anonymous reviewers wondered if the solution to the question of religious diversity proposed here would apply equally well to all challenges to Christian faithfulness. Although I suspect that humility, among other virtues, plays an important role in our knowledge, I do not think I would have arrived at the suggestions developed here without going through the issue of religious diversity. It was important to connect it to the issue of idolatry in the particular way developed below and to note the contrasting senses of idolatry between worshipping other gods and worshipping oneself. The question about whether the solution proposed in the following pages might find application in many sorts of challenges to Christian faithfulness has, I think, a positive reply. But I doubt I would have discovered the role of humility and the mystic path in potential solutions to those challenges had I not done so through the problem of religious diversity. The role of humility in providing a solution to the idolatry issue is perhaps logically prior to, but is certainly historically helpful in, dealing with the problem of religious diversity. It may likewise take the same role in dealing with the problem of evil, naturalism, or other challenges to Christian faithfulness. In regard to the place of humility in all these challenges to Christian faithfulness, it is perhaps helpful to be a little more specific about Marilyn McCord Adams's distinction between philosophical problems and philosophical puzzles. She writes: When, in philosophy, a number of prima facie plausible premisses seem to generate a problematic conclusion, the resultant argument can be said to formulate a problem, and that problem can be dealt with in various ways. One can simply accept the argument as sound and its surprising conclusion as true. Alternatively, one may remain confident that the conclusion is false but see the argument as creating a difficulty for anyone who rejects it: that of explaining how the prima facie plausible premisses are not all so acceptable, the inferences not so evident, as they seem. To

Introduction

xix

respond the latter way is to take the argument aporetically, as generating a puzzle. What is important to note is that the same argument can be taken in both directions.1

The confidence with which one holds one's philosophical or religious beliefs influences whether one views a challenge as a problem or a puzzle. One firmly committed to theism will not respond to the challenge of evil by rejecting her belief in God but rather suggest that, since there is a God, there must be a solution to the challenge of evil. But confidence, of course, can be falsely placed, and that is why taking up the path of humility, the path of the cross, is potentially so important in a Christian context. The mystic isn't just feeling confident today - her feeling of confidence may wax and wane with belief. Instead, she is certain in the metaphysical sense to be developed in the last chapter. Suddenly confidence as a feeling is a whole lot less important. And the talk of a puzzle begins to sound a little bit too intellectual. Does the term "paradox" come closer, perhaps Yes, but "mystery" might be closer still to the sense the mystic might have about evil or other challenges to the faith.2 Humble certainty does not rule out the mystery found in the world and in God, and in how the two are related. In a sense, the mystery is only increased. But it comes with a love of the mystery that is God that transforms the mind, the heart, and the soul of the humble servant in such a way that the philosophical problems do not - indeed cannot - undermine the faith of the mystic. In this sense, then, what has been developed here can be applied to all existential problems raised by the challenges to living the Christian faith set forth by life or philosophy.

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REPAIRING EDEN

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CHAPTER

ONE

Reality and Religion: Identifying the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity The problems surrounding religious diversity are many, complex, and difficult. In this first chapter, my goals are to identify the particular problem of religious diversity on which this work focuses and to explain the commitment vis-a-vis reality held by certain Christians. Section i briefly explains what is at stake in various kinds of theories of reality. Section 2, continues by defining how I use the term "religion" and specifying a certain kind of exclusivism. Section 3 spells out what I call the "existential problem of religious diversity," while section 4 provides a map for the remainder of the book. I

T H E O R I E S OF THE REAL

Reality is, at best, difficult to describe; providing a theory of reality is perhaps even more difficult. Since this is not a book on the theory of reality, I hope to avoid most of the thorny questions surrounding various theories by providing a brief description of the issues involved in three basic kinds of theory about reality and thereby quickly identifying the theory I am working with in the following pages. I do not intend to describe any particular theory in detail, let alone defend one theory over against another. Yet, in order to be clear about the kind of Christian believer I am concerned with, it is necessary to identify the believer's position on reality. The first kind of theory deals with reference. One holds a realist referential theory if one provides an account of how language refers to things, when it does, in such a way that the thing referred to is actually "picked out" by the language used. So, for example, on a direct-reference theory1, one can refer to a thing in the world

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realistically, even if one's descriptions of the thing fail to be accurate. This essay does not concern itself with realist reference theories or with any theories of reference at all. I raise the issue only because some philosophers use realist referential theories to deal with a certain kind of problem posed by the diversity found among religions. Since that problem is not the one of concern here, realist theories of reference can be passed over quickly. The second kind of theory of reality might be called an existential theory. On such a theory, one is concerned to account for what kinds of things are real, if any. However such a theory might go, it clearly must account for such things as quarks, atoms, rocks, trees, persons, unicorns, and ultimate reality. This last might be exemplified by the gods or God, or the Hindu Brahman. Here things get a little difficult, as the discussion soon slips over into the third kind of theory. The third kind of theory deals with description. In this case, the point is not reference, because a description might be quite inaccurate and yet refer. The issue is, rather, the accurate description of reality. On the one hand, one might hold that no description can accurately describe reality. Such a view might be held because one takes a Kantian position and is forced, thereby, to conclude that, although we can describe the phenomenal world, we cannot describe the noumenal world - the world as it really is. Alternatively, one might hold that no description to which we humans have access is completely accurate because of human limitations. This latter position is not the Kantian view, for it does not deny that there is a description in theory but only in practice. A person who takes this position might still be what I'll call a "descriptive realist." A descriptive realist holds that there is a true description of reality (including ultimate reality). Furthermore, a descriptive realist will hold that there is only one true description. Here the existential and the descriptive theories of reality overlap. An illustration of this overlap is found in at least one "account" of Brahman, the account provided by Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. According to the Advaita Vedantist, Brahman is not describable in language (note the scare quotes around "account"). Hence, one who holds this position cannot be a descriptive realist. Yet, since the Hindu takes Brahman to be the ultimate reality, Brahman is, in some sense, (existentially) real.z The statement, then, that Brahman is real is a description. Is it descriptively true, at least, that Brahman exists,

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even if no other description is applicable to Brahman? Its existence, like that of Kant's noumenal world, seems important, even if it is not clear how to make any claims about it, including that it exists. So, I'm not sure there is a completely coherent answer to the question "Is it descriptively true that Brahman exists?" although I am sure that various Advaita Vedantists have worked on the issue. I am going to take the following position: existence claims are descriptive claims at least in the sense that part of a complete description of reality will include affirmations and denials of existence claims. This position, I believe, is the one held by a good many lay people, if not by philosophers and theologians. And while I recognize that it ultimately needs some defence, that is not my point here. Although the Advaita Vendantist is unwilling to affirm or deny any propositions about Brahman, the refusal to affirm or deny anything of Brahman is itself a type of affirmation (unless, perhaps, one remains completely silent on the issue). What can be said of Brahman? If one says that nothing can be said of Brahman, then one says something. And surely saying that nothing can be said denies something, and by denying something, we are asserting something. Therefore, an Advaita Vedantist could be a descriptive realist. "Brahman exists, that is all, and nothing else can be truly affirmed or denied." This statement is the Advaita Vedantist's one description of ultimate reality. But of course the statement has implications, should it be true, for other religious views such as traditional Christianity, which holds that God not only exists but is the ultimate reality and is knowable and describable (at least to some extent). Should the Advaita Vendantists be correct, and my reading of their view accurate, the traditional Christian must be ultimately descriptively wrong in her belief that God is and that God is knowable and describable. At best, descriptions of God would be one of the (many) phenomenal accounts of ultimate reality (Brahman), but such accounts are not true. I have spent some time here on Advaita Vedanta in order to illustrate a point about positions we take on ultimate reality, not to provide a definitive interpretation of this school of Hinduism. I believe it is difficult for us not to hold, or at least imply, descriptions of reality. So I conclude that all religious views take some position or other on ultimate reality, even Zen Buddhism in its denial of reality.

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Repairing Eden 2.

R E L I G I O N AND

EXCLUSIVISM

Religion can be defined as the set of practices and beliefs by which humans believe they can obtain salvation, where by "salvation" is meant the development of a proper relationship to (the) ultimate reality. Ultimate reality, of course, is described in many different ways by the various religions. While it is possible to group some religions by similar teachings, it is not, apparently, possible with others. For example, in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, there is one God, humans stand in a somewhat precarious relationship to God (salvifically), God provides a set of laws for human conduct, and so forth. On the other hand, there are religions that cannot be so classified. In some forms of Buddhism, not only is there no God, but there is no self. Indeed, there is nothing at all. Other forms of Buddhism suggest that there are many gods but one's path to enlightenment cannot rely on the gods. Within the Hindu world, there are many religious views, and one can choose the way of devotion (to one or other of the gods) or the way of knowledge (where one dedicates oneself to the study of the various philosophical schools within Hinduism). Among the many philosophical schools, one can hold a theistic or a nontheistic and/or a dualistic or monistic account of Brahman. Yet in general, as I have suggested, the religions (or various accounts within the religions) hold that ultimate reality exists, however complex or far beyond human understanding that ultimate reality may be. Some religions, such as Vedantic Hinduism, hold that there are many phenomenal accounts of human experience, none of which portrays ultimate reality itself. Ignorance, then, is a mark of humanity, and the true nature of reality slips away from us. According to the Vedantist, since Christians have one of the many mythical descriptions of reality, they may well be on the path to ultimate salvation (liberation). In Vedantic Hinduism, all paths, it is believed, (can) lead to the proper relationship to the ultimate reality. Thus, according to some religious accounts, there are many paths to salvation, and it does not ultimately matter which path one takes. In contrast, other religions hold that there is one and only one path to salvation and that salvation can be obtained only by following that path. Some central streams within Islamic traditions suggest a singular, and narrow, path. So, that there are many religious faiths or paths, each claiming to be true, seems obvious enough. That there are actually conflicting

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truth claims is perhaps less obvious, but not entirely opaque, as I suggested in section i. I now turn to an examination of Christianity in relation to claims about truth and salvation. For the Christian in particular, the exclusivistic claims of the faith are lit up in bright neon: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6). Among the apparent implications of these biblical claims by and about Christ is that at least some of the beliefs of all other religious and, for that matter, secular worldviews are false. On an exclusivist reading, even if God is understood as saving people of other faiths through the work of Christ, though they are unaware of such grace, the task of the Christian includes preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers as the fullest account of salvific truth. A Christian fails in this task only at the peril of the eternal salvation of others. As well, and most important for this study, the Christian must be faithful to the gospel "to the end." Since the gospel is, in the fullest sense, the truth, the Christian wanders away from that truth with its exclusivistic claims, only at the peril of his or her own salvation. The salvific claims of Christianity are often taken to be exclusivistic in a dual sense. First, they are exclusivistic in the metaphysically realist sense, that is, there is only one true description of salvific reality and no other description, save the Christian one, is true. Let's call this exclusivistic position "descriptive-realist Christianity." Second, Christianity's claims are exclusivistic in that those who do not come to faith in Christ are believed not to be among the redeemed and, furthermore, Christians who are not faithful to the path of Christ, are not saved. Let's call this exclusivistic view "one-path Christianity."3 These two exclusivisms, the descriptive-realist and the one-path, can be taken together. We can call this the one-path realist version of Christianity. The one-path realist version is one reading, if not the one most widely held, of the Christian tradition. Certainly fundamentalist Christians, most evangelical Protestant Christians, and many conservative Roman Catholics and Orthodox hold to something very close to the exclusivist position just described. While some Christians find this a difficult position, others find it morally repugnant. It is, nevertheless, quite surely the majority position held by Christians historically and it continues to be held by many currently. William Alston notes that most Christians are pre-Kantian about their faith. I think he is right about this, especially if it implies

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at least a descriptive-realist position. And many descriptive-realist Christians take Christianity to teach a one-path version of the faith. I wish to call attention briefly to an important, if common, misunderstanding of the exclusivist position. It is a misunderstanding that is part, although not the whole, of why some Christians (as well as others) find the position morally repugnant. Although this descriptive-realist, one-path reading of Christianity may, in fact, be the mainstream among "conservative" Christians, many who hold this interpretation are not, perhaps, consistent. Such Christians ought to take their Scriptures seriously, and one who is paying attention to those texts cannot miss that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament instruct believers not to judge the ultimate state of another individual's soul. That there is one path and one truth does not necessarily imply that I, even if a Christian, know how God will deal with other individuals qua individuals. This instruction, however, does not alleviate the Christian believer from his or her responsibility to preach the gospel, which includes the exclusivistic descriptions of salvation's path. That one's salvation rests on "getting things right with God" may be true for all individuals. However, this does not imply that I know whether or not you have gotten things right with God. However, it is my responsibility to evangelize, that is, to share the good news of Christ. There is no call for a judgmental attitude in sharing the gospel, but there is a call to love others and to care about them and their eternal and temporal state. In short, one-path realist Christianity does not imply that Christians are to condemn others. Rather, Christians are to love others. Unfortunately, the gospel is not always shared with love and some people, therefore, are morally repulsed by the one-path reading of Christianity. That this misunderstanding prevails is unfortunate, since it is neither taught nor implied by one-path realist Christianity. This clarification made, note that the one-path realist kind of exclusivism is not the only possibility for Christians. There are inclusivist readings of Christianity. These too may be descriptiverealist positions, at least so far as they claim that there is only one true description of reality.4 But an inclusivistic Christian is willing to admit that salvation comes to those adhering to other religions and practices, even though their salvation ultimately (or metaphysically, perhaps) rests on the work of Christ. So far forth, other religious views might be inclusivistic in a parallel way, holding that their description or account of ultimate reality is the true one, that

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salvation comes through reality so-described, but that one need not explicitly believe or practice according to their description of ultimate reality in order to obtain salvation. Since both inclusivists and one-path realist Christians share in common descriptive realism, many of the issues regarding the diversity of religions facing the latter will also face the former. Insofar as the issues do overlap, I think that by cracking the harder nut, we can also crack the softer. But some importance attaches to explaining why one nut is softer than the other and what is at stake in inclusivism when it comes to descriptive realism. What linkages are there between one path-realist and inclusivistic Christianity? First, as already noted, inclusivists certainly can be, and I suggest, mostly are, descriptive realists about the faith. If this were not the case, then there would seem little point in the inclusivist remaining inclusivist rather than moving to a pluralist position (to be described below). That the Bible, historic documents and creeds of the Church, the teaching of the Apostles and Fathers, etc., contain the truth about ultimate reality is central for both onepath realists and inclusivists alike. Not only that, but the means to, and the ontological source of, salvation is the same for both inclusivists and one-path realists - the work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the power and movement of the Holy Spirit. This is where referential realist theories can play a role in the general discussion of religious diversity. It is possible that the Hindu, for example, refers to the work of Christ on the cross when she talks about Brahman and is thereby saved through the work of Jesus rather than through a process of liberation. The difference is in how those means and that source are accessed. The inclusivist allows that Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Moslems, etc., will (or can) be saved because of the work of Christ on the cross, but the inclusivist Christian still claims a priority for the Christian account of reality. What that account describes, after all, provides salvation. In contrast, onepath realist Christians claim that access to salvation is through belief, but belief of a certain sort and in a certain set of descriptions and the ontological realities those descriptions reflect. To some degree - perhaps in large measure - the difference between these two positions is an "in-house" issue dealing with various texts, traditions and interpretations thereof. To try to resolve these issues would require another book and more historical and biblical expertise than this author possesses. In fact, I find myself frequently

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of two minds on this matter, and therefore do not feel the need to defend the one-path realist position over inclusivism, even though the primary framework of this essay is one-path realist. Nevertheless, there is something important for the inclusivist to gain from this discussion. Jesus told his disciples to go, preach the Gospel, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Granting for the moment that some version or other of inclusivism is accurate about the means to, and ontological source of, salvation, we are still left with this comment of Jesus: Go, evangelize! The inclusivist might be tempted to say that the preaching of the Gospel to those who aren't Christians isn't necessary - they will be saved anyway - but it seems that Jesus thought otherwise. In some sense, inclusivism lets the Christian "off the hook" evangelistically, for God can save those outside the Christian faith even if they don't "get it right" in terms of Christian belief. Yet the inclusivist may need to think again. Perhaps God does save those "outside the fold." But would they not be better off with the fullness of the faith? For example, in terms of spiritual formation and growth, isn't knowing the truth in its fullness better than not knowing it? Certain spiritual disciplines may be more successful with a richer, fuller understanding of God, the role of the Trinity, etc. Perhaps, therefore, even the inclusivist is under spiritual and moral obligations to "speak the truth in love." Doesn't the faithfulness of the inclusivist Christian entail that she preach the Gospel to those who have not heard? Granted, this is a much less pressing matter perhaps than the salvation of others who have not heard the Gospel. Yet the inclusivist, as faithful Christian, is not freed from the implications of being a descriptive-realist, even if not bound to those of the one-path realist. The inclusivist might suggest that if God can save someone outside the Christian faith and practice, spiritual maturity can occur that way too. While that is possible, it is nevertheless worth remembering our more general epistemic values as humans, one of which is that truth is worth having just because it is truth, even if it is not necessary for salvific or sanctifying ends. We would rather have truth than not. So the inclusivist Christian, although not feeling the strong existential concern of the one-path realist Christian, may want more certainty about her faith than she has, and therefore, she may find something of value in this essay as well. Although the inclusivist position is softer than that of the one-path realist, it

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still needs to be considered, and I believe that the analyses and explorations of this work can help. This returns us to the third possibility, namely, that of the pluralist Christian. These Christians are less likely to be realist in the fullblooded descriptive sense of the exclusivist. A pluralist Christian, such as John Hick, may be more closely aligned with a view like that of the Advaita Vedantic Hindu, viz., ultimate reality is not describable in terms that are descriptively true (except, as noted, the existence claims). Nevertheless, there are many religiously viable phenomenal "worlds" that point to the (more or less complex) ultimate religious reality. As an alternative to this Vedanta-like position, there are realisms that are not descriptive in nature but still allow for a pluralist position. As noted above, in a Kripke-style direct reference realism it could be claimed that certain terms in religious language refer to an actual, transcendent being or reality, even if none of the descriptions are accurate. That none of the descriptions are accurate would signal the difference between an inclusivist use of direct reference realism and a pluralist. In the former, one description is accurate (the Christian one) while in the latter none are accurate. Salvation rests in something beyond our ken, perhaps. So, like inclusivists, a Christian pluralist might be a realist so far as reference is concerned. But since I concentrate on the position of the Christian who holds both the descriptive-realist and the one-path exclusivist views developed above, the realism of concern is not one of reference but of description. The one-path realist Christian thus holds that there is only one true description of salvific reality, that the description is contained in the Scriptures and traditions of the Church, that those who do not come to faith in Christ are not among the saved, and that those who are Christians may lose their salvation if they leave the path. For simplicity's sake, I'll call one who holds to one-path realist Christianity a Christian. I'll use the expanded locutions - one-path realist, inclusivist, pluralist, and so forth - if I need to refer to other kinds of Christian believers, or for clarity or emphasis. The relationship between the claim that there is only one true description of salvific reality and the claim that only those are saved who come to faith in Christ is not a simple one. Christians have always walked a difficult line between the two. Exactly what it means to have faith in Christ (which in turn is the gateway to salvation) is at best problematic. What does having faith mean?

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What beliefs does one (have to) hold? Does it mean having all one's theological ducks in a row? Surely not, for who can tell which of the many competing theological ducks is the correct one, and even if one could tell, is it possible to get all the feathers properly preened? On the other hand, simply having faith in Christ seems to imply belief in at least some important propositions. Can one have faith in Christ without also believing some particular set of propositions about Christ? One can put this issue in a number of ways. One way is to ask what the relationship is between orthodox beliefs and a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Surely there is no clear list of beliefs one must hold about Christ in order to be saved. Neither the New Testament writers nor Jesus himself ever says, "hold these five propositions to be true and you will be saved," or anything of the sort. One might hold many orthodox beliefs without those beliefs affecting one's actual life at all. On the other hand, one might live a superlatively Christian life without holding many orthodox beliefs. So the relationship between faith in Christ and holding the "right" descriptive beliefs is at best difficult to clarify. Suppose, for example, I were to believe that Jesus was a perfect human, that he died on the cross for my sins, and that he was resurrected on the third day. Suppose I fail to believe, however, that he was born of a virgin, or what is probably more problematic, that he was God. Would my salvation be impossible? I'm not suggesting that one's salvation depends upon being orthodox, even from the one-path realist Christian point of view. Yet having faith in Christ seems to imply a particular set of beliefs. Orthodoxy is important, and has always been important, but from the point of view of salvation, at any rate, it is difficult to say exactly why. Be all that as it may, I suggest that, for the one-path realist Christian, there is an important connection between orthodoxy and salvation and that, because of this relationship, there is a problem with religious diversity. Straightforwardly stated, there is a problem, for the Christian, simply with the existence of other religions and their truth claims. I want to spend the next section attempting to describe this problem. 3 THE EXISTENTIAL PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

For the Christian, there is a problem posed by religious diversity, that is, by the existence of other religions and their truth claims.

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But what, exactly, is the problem? We can draw a parallel between the problem of religious diversity and the problem of evil to help us clarify the issue. Some philosophers distinguish between philosophical and existential problems of evil. Philosophical problems of evil are, it is supposed, amenable to rational analysis; hence a good, clear discussion of the logical problem of evil can (perhaps) show the atheologian that a rational defence of theism's central claims is possible. But such a defence is little comfort to the parent who is angry at God when her young child is stricken with a debilitating disease, or when someone is overwhelmed by the sheer horror of evil. It is often suggested that problems of this latter, existential variety require pastoral rather than philosophical counselling. Parallel to this, one can think of the problem of religious diversity as having two aspects, or perhaps as being two problems, one philosophical and one existential. The former concerns epistemic issues, the central question of which is this: Doesn't the existence of other, competing sets of, presumably justified, (religious) beliefs challenge the epistemic status of one's own religious beliefs, and thus, isn't one's own Christian belief, so far forth, irrational or at least in some way less strongly justified than one's commitment to those beliefs? William Alston, Alvin Plantinga and others reply to this question when they argue that the existence of religions whose truth claims conflict, and therefore compete, with the claims of Christianity does not remove all epistemic justification or warrant from one's Christian beliefs. The existence of these religions may, however, act as undercutting defeaters of one's Christian commitment, as Plantinga puts it, or lower the strength of rationality of one's engaging in the Christian epistemic practice, as Alston puts it.5 On the strength of this point, and to some degree, one can understand how a Christian who is aware of competing religious truth claims may have less confidence than otherwise about her Christian beliefs. Or perhaps, as Plantinga suggests, the believer may have learned about the myriad of other religions but may not know some of the central claims of the faith-once-delivered, even though the beliefs remain rational for her. Still, such a person's beliefs may be justified or warranted. The philosophical problem is thus thought to be solved, at least for the most part, by thinkers such as Alston and Plantinga. But the epistemic results put forth by Plantinga and Alston do not help us to understand why some people find the fact of religious diversity so damaging to their faith. And here the Christian faces the existential problem of religious diversity. Of course, not every

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Christian agrees that moving away from the exclusivistic claims of Christianity to a more inclusive or pluralistic understanding of religious faith is a bad thing. Yet from the point of view of more "conservative" or more "traditional" understandings of Christian belief, such a move is not consonant with either the teachings of Scripture or the tradition of the Church. Perhaps more importantly, some people who face the problem of religious diversity find themselves with no religious, let alone Christian, beliefs at all. The eroding away of Christian beliefs in the face of religious diversity happens, even though the Alston-Plantinga platform suggests no sufficient reason in the fact of the diversity alone. In a parallel way, even if the philosophical problem of evil is "solved" by the freewill defence, some Irenaean account of evil, or in another way, the existential problem of evil, may erode away or destroy the theistic beliefs of someone who is moved, psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually, by the evil in the world. So the existential problem of religious diversity is simply that, because of the claims of other religions, some Christians find themselves believing the claims of the Christian faith less strongly, and hence explaining away the apparently exclusivistic nature of those claims, or, in other cases, not believing Christian claims at all. This is a particularly vexing problem for the one-path realist Christian, for what one risks losing, upon losing one's belief that Christ is the only true way, is one's eternal salvation. The problem thus has two nearly inseparable sides, the epistemic and the salvific. For the serious Christian, one's Christian beliefs organize or influence (or should, at least) all one's other beliefs and, in large measure, should determine how one ought to live and act. As well, one's beliefs are connected to the One who brings life, healing, and salvation. Without one's Christian beliefs and commitments, one's whole existential bearing in the world, including one's bearing toward salvation, will be lost. Such is the deep and profound role of one's Christian belief and commitment. The Christian life, well-lived, is one of integration and wholeness. For one's core beliefs to begin to fray and break is serious indeed. My goal is to explore how the Christian is to understand and overcome the inclination to untie the tie that binds, to loosen his or her attachment to the claims of Christianity, as he or she comes to know about other religious worldviews. Another remark needs to be made. Since the essay concentrates, for the most part, on the

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existential problem of religious diversity rather than the philosophical one, shouldn't we be seeking pastoral advice rather than philosophical analysis? Again, we can turn to discussions of the problem of evil for precedent. Not everyone believes that the philosophical and existential problems of evil should be dealt with separately. Marilyn McCord Adams argues that viewing the problem of evil as a puzzle (rather than an atheological argument) can lead to understanding connections between the philosophical and existential problems of evil. This requires, she suggests, drawing heavily on the Christian theological traditions, and this leads to what some would call a blurring of the line between theology and philosophy. Adams does not believe that the lines are being blurred and engages in what is, in the best sense, Christian philosophy.6 As to the problem of religious diversity, neither do I believe that the philosophical and existential problems should be dealt with separately. With Adams's suggestions as motivation, I propose that viewing the problem of religious diversity as a puzzle, rather than an atheological argument, can lead to understanding connections between the philosophical and existential problems of religious diversity. Like Adams's discussion of the problem of evil, this discussion of religious diversity appeals to the Christian tradition itself, both its theology and its spirituality, since part of the goal is to help Christians understand how they are called to respond in the face of religious diversity. 4

AN I N T R O D U C T O R Y MAP

The problem I have tried to describe here is not new. It is a serious and longstanding problem for Christians, at least for those aware of other religious traditions. How is it to be handled? What does the Christian do? Existential problems demand existential solutions. In the following pages, I hope to provide just that: an existential solution to an existential problem. Of course, existential solutions are lived solutions, and I cannot live the reader's life. Yet we are all helped along our journeys by others who point the way. I hope this essay provides a signpost. It is intended to be a practical book, or at least as practical as philosophy can get. While it is not a manual on mysticism and humility, its goal is to engage Christians, and others as well, in thinking about who Christians are, and what position they hold among the various religions in the world.

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But the reader needs signposts for reading this book as well. I have already indicated that the book will take Christian theology seriously. What kind of theology? Theology can be either theoretical or practical. While the essay concerns itself with theoretical issues, it also pays attention to what is sometimes called "spiritual theology." And it is worth mentioning that the approach to both kinds of theology is explanatory rather than argumentative, and hence perhaps more freewheeling than philosophical readers might expect. So the essay pays attention to certain biblical passages, and tries to be sensitive to larger issues of Christian living. But this is also a philosophical essay. More specifically, it is an analytical philosophy essay. Analytical philosophy is characterized by a rigorous methodology. So I give fair warning to analytic philosophers reading this essay. As Aristotle so well-noted, one should expect no more rigour than a subject is able to bear. While the essay overall attempts to remain philosophical, and analytically so, it does not rely exclusively on rigorous argument throughout but becomes more interpretive and suggestive toward the concluding chapters. On the other hand, those readers not inclined to enjoy the niceties of analytic philosophy should consider moving directly to chapter 3, as chapter 2, is the most analytically detailed of the book and can safely be returned to later. So here is a map reflecting content and a hint toward the standard of rigour. The second chapter reads like a standard analytical philosophy essay, and it attempts to explain why there are certain kinds of religious diversity in terms of the experiential roots of the various religions. The third chapter delves into theological and biblical perspectives on idolatry and, while it is also philosophical, it moves into areas that call attention to the unity of theological and philosophical concerns for Christians. Furthermore, since I am not a biblical scholar, readers ought not to expect the kind of scholarship found among those for whom the biblical languages and other tools of that trade are the norm. The fourth chapter contains a philosophical analysis of humility, while chapter five returns to some reflections on humility in biblical passages and the writing of Thomas a Kempis. The final chapter presents and develops a partial account of the epistemology of mystical experience. I attempt to remain as close to what is reported by the mystics themselves as I can, so while I have provided some organization to their claims, I make no attempt to develop or criticize that epistemology. Instead, I connect the mystics' own claims

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to the understanding of humility developed in chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 6 also provides some speculative ways of thinking about the certainty of the mystics. So the solution I propose for the existential problem of religious diversity is not a traditional, philosophical solution. In fact, I hope it is plain in what follows that such a solution is not possible, for both philosophical and theological reasons. I am attempting to provide what I'll call "philosophically pastoral" advice to those who read. To provide the final bit of directional guidance, let me state, in outline form, the thesis of the book. First, as I have already noted, the problem of religious diversity is not only a theoretical one but also an existential one. As such, the existential problem of religious diversity must be construed internally to Christianity. Second, the solution to the existential problem, therefore, must be an internal one. Third, the existential problem is created for Christians by a lack of humility. Fourth, the solution, therefore, lies down the path of humility. Fifth, humility is central to knowing God (more) fully. Sixth, the path of the mystics is cognizant of the role of humility and, therefore, Christians seeking a solution to the existential problem of religious diversity ought to tread the path of the mystics. Finally, the first step toward the mystic path is simply a recognition that our reasoning about the matter of religious diversity itself requires humility. Indeed, taking the path of the mystics requires embracing a kind of humility that makes one taking that path seem less like a philosopher with questions and more like a fideist Christian. Nevertheless, the resulting "fideism" is not, I trust, fundamentalist, but learned, both philosophically and spiritually.

CHAPTER TWO

An Epistemic Basis of Religious Diversity The purpose of this chapter is to clarify why the various religions, especially the various theistic religions, exist. Of course, there are cultural and historical explanations, and ultimately theological or religious explanations, should at least one of the religions be true, but I want to look at the genesis of religions in the (religious) experience of the founders and their followers. My purpose in this chapter, then, is not to deal with the problem of diversity as an historical or cultural or even religious issue but as an epistemic one. I seek to explain why competing religions exist, especially the theistic religions, from an epistemic, experiential point of view. The philosophical work done here mirrors some of the theological work done in the next chapter. As I mentioned earlier, this chapter can be safely passed over by those wanting to avoid bogging down in the niceties of analytic philosophy. Sections i and z set out some definitions and directions for the chapter. Section 3 explains the objectification of experience into belief. How concepts are applied to experience is laid out in section 4. Section 5 deals with the identification of individuals. The formation of beliefs about persons and God is discussed in section 6. The final two sections explain theistic and nontheistic diversity. I

DEFINITIONS AND

DIRECTIONS

As noted in the previous chapter, there are many religions with competing truth claims. These religions differ on the issue of whether ultimate reality is personal, that is, whether there is a God. We shall call religions that hold to a personal God "theistic." I

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concentrate here on the diversity found among theistic religions. We shall call this diversity "theistic diversity." There are, of course, other kinds of diversity among religions, such as the diversity that consists of theistic vs. nontheistic descriptions of the ultimate reality. I say something more, if only briefly, on the nontheistic below. One primary manner in which theistic religions differ from one another is in regard to exactly who the ultimate reality is. Is this being Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu, or the Father of Jesus Christ? And the problem is, which being, if any, should one worship? As noted in chapter i, it is popular to suggest that all theists worship the same being by different names, but this doesn't directly touch on the existential problem of theistic diversity. I take the problem of theistic diversity to be one of identification and accurate description. Description is important, as we saw in chapter i, if not for reasons of one's ultimate salvation, then at least for reasons of orthodoxy. There are competing descriptions of God, and each of these descriptions appears equally justified from an epistemic point of view. But at least some of these descriptions, or the traditions in which they are embedded, involve the claim that the God thus described is the only means to salvation or, stated less existentially, the only true description of ultimate reality. How then should one decide between these accounts of the ultimate reality or, perhaps better, on what epistemic basis should one engage in one theistic religion rather than another? It is not clear that there is any justified basis. I will argue that the problem of theistic diversity is generated because theistic belief finds its source in experience but experience alone is not enough to justify what I call "doctrinal accounts" of the supernatural in an exclusive way. I'll use the term "justified" and its cognates to cover all notions of positive epistemic status, such as rational, warrant, and so forth. If more specificity is needed, the more exact terms will be used. By "doctrinal accounts" I mean simply those descriptions of the supernatural that differentiate one supernatural being from another. For example, whereas both Allah and Yahweh are believed to have all the "omni" properties, only one is described as the Father of Jesus and co-essential with Jesus and the Holy Spirit while only the other is described as having revealed himself to and through Muhammad. Insofar as the theistic traditions overlap in their descriptions of the ultimate reality one might suppose that there is no problem with

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diversity, since what I call "doctrinal accounts" may simply pick out features adventitious from the point of view of salvation, orthodoxy, or even truth (supposing such details to be "mythical" rather than "literal"). But, of course, it is the doctrinal accounts of the ultimate reality that often express the central salvific truth within a religion, at least according to the religions themselves. And doctrinally, orthodoxy often has to do with descriptive details. Of course, for the Christian, descriptive details are of great importance. If one wants to know the truth, then one wants to know it all, at least insofar as one's salvation rests on the truth. Contrast the Christian charge to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" with Allah's command to pray to him toward Mecca five times each day. One cannot do both, at least not with true allegiance to one being rather than the other, since both systems of belief claim that the other is false precisely on these doctrinal points. Thus, the central issue here is whether one ends up with a true description, on the doctrinal level, of the ultimate being. 2

SOME FURTHER CLARIFYING

NOTES

Further notes are in order. I do not argue, but rather assume, that theistic belief has its primary source in experience, if not for us then for the founders of the various theistic religions. This is to be understood in two ways. The first is in terms of the genesis of belief. The second is in terms of the epistemic justification of belief. These two are typically connected by a number of contemporary epistemologists of religion. In particular I have in mind Alvin Plantinga and William P. Alston, although others take a similar approach. Neither Plantinga nor Alston claims that experience is the only means by which theistic beliefs are or may be justified. Plantinga, for example, defends the ontological argument. But regardless of the admission that nonexperiential approaches may play a role in justifying theistic belief, the problem to which I wish to call attention is not solved by such an appeal. I won't take the time to argue the point in detail here, but it seems that neither natural theology nor historical evidence gives us final or unique justification for doctrinal details. The former perhaps gives us general accounts of God - that God is the creator, has the "omni" properties, and the like. But I believe theistic experience provides the general characteristics typically attributable to

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God and thus we are little better off, so far as doctrinal details go, with natural theological arguments than without (albeit, the epistemic justification for general, as opposed to doctrinally detailed, beliefs may be stronger with, than without, natural theology) The point remains, however, that even if, as Aquinas says at the end of the five ways, "and this everyone calls God,"1 it won't do to conclude that this God is the "Father of Jesus Christ." Natural theology can only take us so far and it doesn't take us to doctrinal details. On the other hand, historical arguments can give us details about how certain religiously important persons acted while living among us and perhaps give us an account of doctrinal teachings of those historical persons. But how are we to connect those teachings with the divinity itself; how are we to know that these doctrines apply to God? Lessing's ditch between the accidental truths of history and the necessary truths of metaphysics still yawns, broad and ugly, before us.2 Historical arguments may point to divine interaction in history, but historical arguments for the deity of Jesus, for example, are less than conclusive. Even if history points to Jesus' accomplishing miracles, or to the resurrection of Jesus, it still does not follow that Jesus is God. Here the distinction between natural and revealed theology is important. We can grant that natural theology gives us general accounts of the deity while maintaining that the salvific doctrinal details are revealed. To generate an argument for the truth of the doctrinal details of Christianity, let's say, we would ultimately have to defend the truth of the Christian revelation. There seem to be two basic approaches to this issue. One is the direct, historical approach, viz., taking the historical claims of the New Testament and applying the tools of the historical trade to them. This approach shows some promise, perhaps, but Lessing's broad, ugly ditch is still filled with some pretty dirty water. It is difficult to get a rich ontology out of historical claims, even if one could show the historical claims accurate where they touch on the miraculous. Historical methodology can describe what people believed about the divine. It cannot easily show that what they believed about God and the miraculous is true. The second approach to the revelatory claims is that of Richard Swinburne. In Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, he claims that "if there is other evidence which makes it quite likely that there is a God, all powerful and all good, who made the Earth and its

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inhabitants, then perhaps it becomes to some extent likely that he would intervene in human history to reveal things to them; and claims that he has done so require a lot less in the way of historical evidence than they would do otherwise."3 Swinburne, of course, believes there is other evidence for a good, powerful God and that, therefore, revelation is to some extent probable. He goes on in some detail about what kind of revelation we might expect to find, adding a number of tests for the truth of revelation. The most important of these, I think, is the miraculous. But as I have noted already, that an event is believed to be miraculous is not the issue. It is moving from a believed miraculous event, a resurrection, say, to its being done by God that is the issue. Ontology is not easily drawn from history and yet it is the ontological details wherein rests the uniqueness of salvation history. Ultimately, without a direct experiential basis for doctrinal details, each religion seems to have its own internal, rational structure supporting its claims to truth. What, then, is to be said? I think it is necessary to say that we need something in our theistic experience to give us those doctrinal details. Now, while I believe experience can (and does) give, and justify, those details - the connection between history and ontology - I also believe that experience gives us too much. That, unfortunately, is where the problem lies. In order to show this, I assume that experience is the source of theistic belief, both in genesis and in justification, and I explore how far such an assumption will take us, realizing that I have skated far too lightly over the slippery territory of natural theology and history. Because of my assumption about the role of experience in the generation and justification of religious beliefs, I discuss and extend William Alston's views on experientially based belief formation. Insofar as one takes the source of a belief to play a role in the epistemic justification of the belief, reflection on the generation of beliefs is reflection on the epistemic status of the belief. It is thus natural to take a discussion of an experiential generation of theistic belief to be a discussion of an epistemic basis of theistic diversity. I begin with Alston's reflections because of my assumption that theistic belief is, at least at some point in its historical development, rooted in experience. Since Alston provides what I take to be the strongest account of experientially based theistic belief formation, any problem with his account, vis-a-vis diversity, will be a problem for weaker accounts.

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In brief, I argue that if experience justifies our belief that the object of our experience has certain characteristics uniquely identifying that object, then there must be enough detail in the experience to allow for the justification. When it comes to God, even allowing that experience may generate our doctrinal descriptions, doctrinal descriptions need something beyond experience to justify or ground them. While there is one thing (possibly) given in experience that allows us to describe our experience in such a way that the description applies to only one being, that one thing requires something outside the experience to justify the belief generated by the experience. There is, thus, a special role for either background information or authority, so far as doctrinal descriptions go.4 When it comes to the background information, there must be some (other) source not common to all religions, or at least not providing a common description of God. If we are to use that information to justify (or be justified in) a belief about the unique God, then the background information itself needs justification. On the other hand, relying on authority to justify our beliefs has its own difficulties. We thus end up with theistic diversity of the type specified and the problem arising out of it, i.e., many of the competing accounts of God seem to be on the same epistemic footing. Two more issues need exploration before we get to the main discussion. While one can overstate the real conflicts between religions, conflicts remain. Alston points out, rightly, that the number of real conflicts may be far fewer than first appear. It is therefore important to ask, he suggests, in what way theistic beliefs are incompatible.5 Assuming that the apparently incompatible beliefs are singular, subject/predicate statements, and that they attribute to the subject some putatively experienced attribute or activity, then there are two questions to ask. First, is the subject the same? Second, are the predicates incompatible? We can take these in order. Although there are cases where the subjects of the apparently incompatible beliefs are (taken to be) the same (such when a Muslim takes Allah to be the God who revealed himself to Moses and Jesus), this is not always the case. The beliefs the Christian has about God are quite different from those held by the theistic Hindu, and although different beliefs about an object do not entail that the objects truly are different, there seems to be good reason to think that they are. So in these cases, even if the predicates attributable to theistic beings

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are incompatible, it doesn't follow that the beliefs are incompatible unless it can be shown that the objects are the same. However, on the predicate side, much of the apparent contradiction is due, not to the positive content of the beliefs, but rather to what Alston calls "implicit denials," Attributing to God the message that Jesus is his Son is not incompatible with Muhammad being God's prophet unless the former message also contains a rider claiming that Jesus' work is the only way to salvation. Alston reports that even Thomas Aquinas thought that mystical claims of God's being an undifferentiated unity (such as are found in Vedanta or Yoga mystical literature) are not incompatible with claims that God is personal. There must be a denial of the identity between God-asundifferentiated-unity and God-as-personal assumed by the one who holds the former. At the very least, says Alston, caution is called for here. Seeming contradictions are not always what they appear. I quite agree with Alston on these points, but would add the following. A lot of hard work needs to be done to sort out exactly where the conflicts among theistic beliefs rest. But once that hard work has been done, one suspects that conflicts will be discovered, in particular among doctrinal accounts, and hence among salvific accounts as well. It is on these doctrinal cum salvific conflicts that I wish to concentrate. But the conflicts can arise not just where the subject of the believed claim is one and the same but even if there is more than one God. Suppose, first, that there is one God described differently and contradictorily, at least on the doctrinal level, by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Suppose, further, that there is an implicit denial that the God described by one is not identical to the God described by the other. But also suppose that there is another, separate God, Vishnu, described in other ways by certain Hindus. The descriptions of the first God need not conflict with the descriptions of the second, since the subject is not the same. True enough. But implicit denials (say within Judaism, Christianity or Islam) not only claim that Vishnu is a different God from theirs, but that Vishnu doesn't exist. For the descriptive-realist (whether onepath or inclusivist) Christian, Jew, or Muslim to admit otherwise would be to deny a central doctrinal claim of her own religion, viz., that God is the one and only God. Perhaps one of the other supernatural beings whose existence is allowed for, say, within the Christian tradition - angels or demons - is the "God" who appears

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experientially to Hindus.6 But then insofar as descriptions attached to Vishnu ascribe some salvific role to Vishnu, the descriptions are mistaken. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and none other plays that role, according to Christianity. So even with more than one supernatural being who is referred to by the subject of theistic claims, there may be conflicts among the claims, construed as being embedded in a larger tradition. Furthermore, as can be seen from what follows, the existence of more than one God only complicates matters, since then we have more than one being to be mistaken about, more than one being described in multiple ways. To keep the discussion relatively simple, I will assume that there is only one supernatural being, one God, who is described doctrinally in many ways by proponents of various theistic religions. My central objective is to attempt to explain one reason for this proliferation of descriptions. What I have to say by way of explanation in this easier case will, I believe, apply to the harder case, viz. if there is more than one supernatural being. The final clarifying point is that we need to be careful to separate phenomenological from epistemological issues. In Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, Nelson Pike gives a very careful analysis of the phenomenology of mystical experiences, arguing against the suggestion that God cannot be the phenomenological subject of experience. I believe an experience can be, phenomenologically, of God, as Pike argues. I believe furthermore that Pike is right that much more can be "given" in an experience, phenomenologically, than some philosophers writing on mysticism believe. But in this chapter, I am not discussing simply what can be phenomenologically given but how we can use that information epistemologically, a question from which Pike steps aside. It is the epistemological issue that is central for the existential problem of religious diversity. 3

THE O B J E C T I F I C A T I O N OF

EXPERIENCE

Many epistemologists describe noninferential belief formation in such a way as to leave us with a bifurcation between the psychological datum on the one hand and an explanation on the other. To avoid skeptical questions such a bifurcation leads to, one can take Alston's strategy, wherein he describes the formation of a belief as an objectification of an experience via a conceptual framework into

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language appropriate to that experience.7 We neither infer, Alston suggests, the existence of the object we experience nor do we explain the psychological datum in terms of the existence of an object. Rather we take ourselves to have direct awareness of the object. Such belief formations are immediate and noninferential. We can call the experiences that are at the root of such belief formations "direct experiences." The easiest cases to consider here are belief formations whose deliverances contain a perceptual verb such as "I see a tree" or, more broadly, "I am aware of X" where X is some perceivable object. However, I believe what I say also applies to cases of experientially based belief formation where the belief does not contain such a verb, for example, "The tree is green." Alston compares the perception of physical objects and the perception of God. On the one hand he says that we use the physical-object conceptual scheme to specify what we experience when we see a tree and, on the other hand, that Christians objectify their theistic experience into Christian theological language.8 I wish to call attention to certain aspects of these objectifications and in particular to certain differences between the generation of, first, beliefs where some general feature, characteristic, attribute, or kind-sortal term is thought to be truly predicated of the experienced object and, second, beliefs where some very specific feature or set of features is thought to be true of the experienced object, thereby allowing us to pick out that object as epistemically unique. By "epistemically unique" I mean not simply that the object has properties or characteristics true only of that object but that those properties or characteristics allow us epistemically to identify and describe that object in enough detail to distinguish it from others and, thereby, pick it out as the unique thing it is. For our purposes, we do not need all the details as to how Alstonian objectifications work. We need only know that when one directly experiences an object - say a tree - certain features of that object allow one to apply the concept - in this case "tree" - to that object. Of course, what these features are, exactly, is hard to say in any given instance. In fact we typically do not spell out these features but leave the description of the experience at a very general level, such as "it appears to be a tree." We may give a partially detailed account by making reference to branches, leaves, and so forth, but we do not, typically, go beyond that (and appeal to patches of greenishness, appearing in certain patterns, and the like).

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Let us call these features "manifest characteristics" of the object of the experience. Manifest characteristics allow for the application of a given concept to the experience. Of course, the manifest characteristics cannot always be spelled out by the one having the experience, but they are such that their true predication to an object of experience allows for the accurate objectification of that experience into belief. In theistic experience and belief formation, given Alston's strategy, one expects there to be a certain range of experience that is objectified, via the religious conceptual scheme, into the religious object language. If there is a range of experiences picked out by the term "Christian experience," one might expect to find a link similar to that found in nonreligious cases. When I have a direct experience of God's providing me guidance and I form the belief "God wants me to work on philosophical theology," there should be certain features of the object of the experience that allow the appropriate concepts to be applied. There should, in short, be a set of manifest characteristics of the object of the experience whose true predication to the object of the experience permits the accurate objectification into belief. Alston's suggestion seems to imply that direct experiential belief formation, whether rooted in perceptions of physical objects or God, requires such manifest characteristics. There must be something to control the accuracy of the objectifications. My thesis is that when it comes to God, there are, generally, no manifest characteristics that allow for detailed identificatory descriptions to be applied to him in an epistemically unique way, and thus there is, typically, no basis in experience for doctrinally detailed descriptions. There is one exception to this, something that can be given in the experience that seems to uniquely identify the being we are experiencing, but I will argue that this exception, while generating doctrinally detailed beliefs, cannot justify the belief without going outside what is given phenomenologically in the experience or by relying on authority. So, while experience can justify beliefs about a "generic" God, experience alone cannot justify beliefs about an epistemically unique God. 4

THE A P P L I C A T I O N OF C O N C E P T S TO E X P E R I E N C E

On the account of belief generation suggested thus far, one immediately objectifies one's experience through a conceptual scheme into

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language appropriate to that experience. One immediately objectifies one's experience of a tree through the physical-object conceptual scheme (and the concept "tree") into language about the tree. There is a sort of immediate "reading" of experience through concepts. How immediate is this reading? Concepts can be more or less broad. The concept "tree" is quite broad, the concept "pine tree" less so, the concept "Scotch pine" even less so, and the concept "the-pine-tree-with-the-trunk-twisted-into-the-shape-of-Sir John A. Macdonald's-head" is less so again. Suppose I look off in a certain direction and form the belief that I am looking at a tree. Is this simply a reading of my experience through a set of general concepts? Certainly the aspect of the belief generation that applies the general concept of "tree" to my experience is immediate. I don't think about it discursively, reasoning that the object of my experience has such and such manifest characteristics and therefore that I can apply the concept "tree" to it. I may not even be consciously aware of the manifest characteristics that makes the application of "tree" appropriate. It is true, however, that even though I am applying a fairly general concept, it is applied to a particular object that is the focus of my experience, viz., this particular tree. When I read off my experience that I am seeing a tree I am of course not emphasizing the particular object but rather that the particular object is a tree. My experience of this particular object is an experience to which I immediately apply the general concept "tree." Likewise with the application of the more narrow concept "pine tree." When asked on what kind of tree I am focusing my attention, I might form the belief that it is a pine tree that I see or, even more narrowly, that it is a Scotch pine that I see. In each of these instances, I can be said to be immediately reading the experience through a general concept, but a concept that could apply equally well to many things of the same kind. Let us call such belief formations "conceptual belief formations." In such belief formations, the manifest characteristics tie the experienced object to the formed belief and there appears to be no need for anything beyond the experience, the appropriate (general) concepts, and the mechanism for generating the conceptually formed belief. But what of the narrow concept "the-pine-tree-with-the-trunktwisted-into-the-shape-of-Macdonald's-head?" Such concepts are so narrow that they seem to apply to only one object and not to many. And so we typically take them. Let's call such narrow concepts

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"definite-descriptive concepts." My question is how definitedescriptive concepts are applied to experiences so as to generate beliefs about the unique objects of the experiences. Unlike the general or broad concepts discussed above, where many things might have the same manifest characteristics so the same concept is applicable to those many things, definite-descriptive concepts must rely for their application to experience on a set of manifest characteristics that is true of no other object, save this unique one. There must be a unique set of manifest characteristics of the object of the experience that picks out and allows us to identify that object from among others we might experience. Otherwise the corresponding concept is not the concept of a unique object. What might these manifest characteristics be? There are, at first glance, only two possibilities. They might be characteristics the experienced object itself has (e.g., the peculiar twist of the trunk of the tree) or else some experienced characteristics of the thing's unique relationship to things around it (e.g., it is the tree closest to my window). I will argue that the former brings with it difficulties surrounding possible duplications and that when it comes to God, the latter simply doesn't apply. In order to show this more easily than by directly tackling theistic experience, let me explore the claim that no set of characteristics is true of a given human in a way that allows for the objectification of one's experience of that person into beliefs about that person qua identifiably unique person. If this is so, then the application of definite-descriptive concepts to experience is problematic in the case of humans and, hence, in some instances where the application of definite-descriptive concepts is needed for objectification, there is a significant role for background information other than the concepts and the information provided by the experience. But this requires explanation.9 It seems that, as a practical issue, we do use what we take to be unique features of an experienced object to be sufficient for the application of definite-descriptive concepts. We assume that of all the trees in my front yard there is only one whose twisted trunk looks like Sir John A. Macdonald. But when such features are thought about in theoretical (and sometimes not so theoretical) contexts, one quickly runs into the problem of possible duplication of even definitedescriptive features. The problem of possible duplication of features is easily seen when one thinks about conceptual belief formation rather than belief formations involving definite-descriptive concepts.

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We typically don't pay sufficient attention to the things around us to notice enough of their detailed features to enable us to identify them by look alone. I don't identify a given pine tree among the many in my front yard by its features alone, unless there is some extraordinary feature about it. So far as my perceptual experience is concerned, the features of the tree itself will not pick that tree out from the others. The reason in this case, however, is not that there are no uniquely identifying features but that I'm not paying enough attention to them. I know that this tree is a pine by the needles and shape, but I don't pay attention to the number of its needles or to any other distinguishing features. In such cases, I would, however, typically appeal to spatial-temporal relations between the tree in question and other objects in my yard if there were a need to pick it out as a unique tree. There may just be too many other things in my yard to which the concept "pine tree" applies for me to have paid attention to unique features that identify the tree as the unique one it is. But what of where I have a definite-descriptive concept of the tree, such as when I have the concept of the tree shaped like Macdonald's head? Even here, where attention is being paid to details of the experience of the tree itself, there is a potential problem with duplication. Two trees, even those with such odd features as having a trunk shaped like Macdonald's head, could look so much alike that the naked eye could not tell them apart. Since for the application of definite-descriptive concepts the object of the experience must have unique features, one must wonder about whether there is sufficient experiential ground to allow for their application. Since there is potential for duplication of manifest characteristics in experienced objects themselves, how could one legitimately apply a definitedescriptive concept to any one experience? This is where a significant role for the relationship of the object of experience to objects surrounding it comes into play. The spatial/ temporal matrix plays a central role in the application of definitedescriptive concepts to experience, as well as in conceptual belief formations. Where two trees look indistinguishable, we can further spell out the concept that applies to the one tree and not the other by appealing to spatial/temporal relations. Relatively stationary objects such as trees do not shift in position, and no two trees can be at the same place at the same time. So even if two trees have the same apparent physical features in themselves, there may nonetheless

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be an appeal to other relational features that will enable one to apply a definite-descriptive concept to one's experience in order to generate a belief about its unique object. Such an approach overcomes problems with the possibility of duplicated physical features. So concepts of identifiably unique physical objects can be applied to experience and used to objectify one's experience, given that the definite-descriptive concept makes references to, and the corresponding manifest characteristics of the object include, spatial/ temporal relations. In other words, with much of our experience of more-or-less fixed objects, the position of the object in the spatialtemporal web is part of the definite-descriptive concept. What of cases where the spatial/temporal grid is not so easily applied or not applicable at all? Such cases suggest a role for background information that is neither contained in the concept nor given as one of the manifest characteristics of the experienced object, whether those manifest characteristics are of the object itself or of its spatial-temporal relationships to things around it. In other words, there appear to be some cases where background information is always required to move from experience through concepts to (justified) belief. The clearest illustrations are those involving humans. For example, if I see one of two identically twin brothers, and I am sufficiently unaware of the subtle physical differences between the twins, there is nothing in my phenomenological experience and its manifest characteristics or in my conceptual scheme that tells me that it is Tom rather than Tim Tibbetts that I see.10 So here the formation of the belief "I see Tom" relies not simply on conceptual information to objectify the experience into a belief about Tom, but also upon a substantive belief, e.g., that Tim is out of town visiting his girlfriend. Such a belief is not given as part of the experience of Tom. Even in cases where Tim and Tom stand side by side, their spatial relationship to one another cannot help me pick Tom out, unless, of course, Tim always stands on Tom's left or something equally unlikely. The point is that in some cases there is the theoretical possibility of experiential look-alikes who cannot be picked out by reference to spatial/temporal relationships. Furthermore, if there are characteristics of the object of the experience that are uniquely true of the object, they are not open to be experienced. For example, consider the characteristic "having the property of being Tom Tibbetts." Although true of the object of my experience, it is not given in the experience. What of the

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characteristic of "having the property of being my neighbour to the north of my home at 3013 Lomita during 1987"? Again, while true of the object of my experience, it is not a characteristic that is true in virtue of features I can experience. They are both, in short, not manifest characteristics. To summarize the position thus far, any experienced features that are true of the object of my experience are open to potential duplication and hence seem not to allow for the application of a definitedescriptive concept to the experience. And any characteristic that is uniquely true of the object of the experience is not one that can be experienced. Thus, the linking characteristics are problematic for objectification when the focus of the belief is a person qua uniquely identifiable individual. Now most duplications are only potential. We assume that the vast majority of people we meet do not have experiential duplicates in the neighbourhood, or at all. Nevertheless, when we lack information from the spatial-temporal web and there are experiential duplicates, the problem is a lot less theoretical. I once had a student named Paul. He had an identical twin brother, Peter. I believed I'd never met Peter, although I may have. Paul and I ate lunch together one day, and on leaving the restaurant he was spoken to by a woman who discussed a party that the two had, supposedly, attended together. Paul participated in this conversation in a very general way and upon our leaving the woman behind, he reported to me that he had never met the woman before, and certainly had not attended a party with her. She had mistaken Paul for Peter. Paul did not inform the woman of her error. I then wondered, whenever I talked to Paul, if he hadn't sent Peter to provide a good counterexample for his epistemology professor to use in class! There is, then, at least a small class of objects to which the problem of duplication extends - identical twins, triplets, and so forth.11 Such cases seem to require that we have further information about the objects of our experience to help us identify them and hence objectify the experiences into belief. Let us call such belief formations "informational belief formations." How these belief formations work in detail I will pass over in discreet silence except to say that one need not spell out how we use background information in the generation of beliefs anymore than one need spell out how we apply concepts to experience. The central point is simply that we do, as a matter of fact, sometimes use substantive information in noninferential belief formations.

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R E C O G N I T I O N - AND AUTO-IDENTIFICATIONS

But surely something important has been left out. While it is true that there is nothing in its "look" that uniquely identifies something (without the addition of spatial-temporal references or extraexperiential background information), the object of the experience can simply tell you who it is. Jerome Gellman points this out when he discusses two ways of identifying a thing, recognition-identification and auto-identification. I will present his claims about both, making a critical remark about the former and using the latter to extend the present discussion. Of recognition-identification Gellman writes: Recognition-identification of physical objects is no doubt a combination of instinctive processing and a practice. As an instinctive processing it is shared with other animals, and involves the processing of present and past images ... by the brain to "decide" just what is confronting the organism at the present moment. This is a complex procedure which enables us to recognize one and the same object in widely different contexts, from different angles, under different lighting, and in different conditions of the sensing organism. As a rule, the organism that makes the identification is not aware of this processing, in virtue of which it is justified in taking what it experiences as the object it is ... As a practice, recognition-identification of physical objects involves what is more like a human "convention" of taking experiences, each of some object, and gathering them together as experiences of one object. The practice regards certain kinds of features of our experience as sufficient to justify gathering a present experience together with previous experiences, as experiences of one object, referred to by name or description. As a practice, recognition-identification goes beyond what is instinctively known, in the service of human pursuits, curiosity, and knowledge which are far richer than what is available to other animals [italics his].12 Gellman also notes that the perceiver may not be (and typically is not) aware of how this all works. In fact, this kind of recognition does not require the identifier to be able to articulate the grounds of the identification in order to know that she is justified in the identification. Much of what Gellman says applies to what I have called conceptual belief formations and informational belief formations.

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Furthermore, it applies to belief formations using general concepts as well as to belief formations involving definite-descriptive concepts. I have attempted to give a partial analysis of these kinds of identifications above. The conclusion reached there is that there must be something in the manifest characteristics of the experience that enables us to identify things (even if we cannot always point to what that is). Yet in a few cases, such as identical twins, this doesn't seem to work. Gellman is cognizant of the issue and writes: The practice of recognition-identification requires us to go only so far in taking care to make justified identifications. There is a point beyond which we are not required to go. For example, we make momentous identifications of individuals in some cases without having to bother to ask ourselves if they might not have phenomenal twins. The degree of care we must take is at least partly a function both of what would be at stake in taking more care and what would be at stake in not bothering to do so, both of these context-dependent matters. The practice of recognitionidentification, then, is geared to practical needs and human limitations. How does this apply to identifying God? Gellman continues: The recognition-identification of God as God should be understood by way of analogy with the recognition-identification of physical objects. Given that there is a (putative) nonsensory mode of perceptual cognition of God, we may assume there to be instinctive processing going on in the brain, analogous to what transpires in sensory processing for recognition. Whether we share this mode of (putative) cognition with other animals, we do not know. And by analogy with the practice of sensory recognition, (putatively) one can be aided in recognizing God by reference to the conditions under which God might be expected to appear and not appear ... to what locations or range of locations God might be expected to appear and not appear at ..., and to the relative plausibilities of what one is now perceiving being God rather than some other being [italics his]. Furthermore, he writes, As in sensory recognition, there is a point beyond which one is not ordinarily obliged to go (e.g., relative at least to some phenomenal content, can't God have a phenomenal twin?). And as in sensory recognition, the subject

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may not be able to say much in the way of describing the basis of identification [italics his].13

I believe Gellman is right, as far as he goes. But he is not dealing with the issue of theistic diversity at this point. He is not attempting to provide an account of identification that extends beyond the more or less generic notion of God. So, for our purposes here, I do not believe it will do simply to state that "there is a point beyond which we are not required to go." What is that point? True, as I admitted, there is typically no reason to worry about experiential duplicates. But sometimes there are reasons to worry. And when it comes to God, and doctrinal cum salvific descriptions, these reasons leap out. Gellman's goal is to provide an argument for the existence of God from theistic experience, and it would be unfair to press my demands on him. He does have his own set of problems with religious diversity, viz., that the diversity of accounts generated out of experience seems to count against his argument. Gellman deals with his own difficulties elsewhere in his book. For our purposes, however, it is simply worth noting that while his account of recognition-identification is acceptable for his general goals, it will not do for ours and, in fact, falls exactly prey to the kind of analysis provided here. What Gellman says about auto-identification, however, is directly relevant to my argument. He writes: In auto-identification an object identifies itself to the perceiver. Instead of the perceiver having to make a judgment of recognition, the perceiver is informed of the identity of the object by the object itself. If a person tells you who he is, and you are impressed by his sincerity and have no reason to doubt him, then you learn who he is without having to recognize him. In the same way, God can be identified, at least putatively, because God informs a subject that He is God. And a subject can identify the one presently appearing as the same one who appeared to others when the subject is told as much by the being presently appearing to him. The most obvious form of auto-identification occurs when an object identifies itself by speaking to the perceiver, or by otherwise expressing or conveying the thought. God could convey His identity to a person in some such way as this. But we should not be too hasty to suppose that this is the only means of auto-identification available to God. To be sure, it's hard to imagine what other ways of auto-identification would be like. However, mystical

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experiences of God are so strange to ordinary sense perception that we should not rule out the possibility that there is, in at least some mystical experiences, what amount to an auto-identification of God by means nonmystics cannot begin to imagine. If there are such ways, then a person could identify God as God simply by having the experience she has, without having to recognize God as God [italics his].14

I believe Gellman is right about auto-identification. Surely it could be part of the phenomenal content of a theistic experience that God simply communicates his identity to the recipient. Before I comment on this, let me illustrate the difficulty with nonreligious examples, viz., with potential duplicates among humans. Besides the identical twin Paul, I had a student named Dave. The first time Dave and I met, he held out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Dave." Henceforth, I recognized Dave as Dave by his "Davish" looks. I have continued to recognize Dave by Gellman's recognition-identification, but I first identified him by auto-identification. The same, in fact, is true with the identical twin Paul. When we first met, I did not recognize him, but identified him by his telling me his name. And I didn't worry about whether I was properly identifying Paul as the unique person he is, until his conversation with the woman in the restaurant. So, if I trust the sincerity of the person speaking, and I have no reason not to, than a person's identifying him- or herself as X is enough for me to take further experiences with X's phenomenal "feel" to be experiences of X. But once I know of Paul's identical twin, I'm not so sure of beliefs about Paul, generated out of my "Paulish" experiences. So what do I do when both Paul and Peter show up in my office? I am forced to rely, again, on auto-identification. Paul telling me that he is Paul is enough to identify him as the unique person he is, and not his perceptual look-alike, Peter. And under most circumstances, I do trust that Paul is telling me the truth. 6

BELIEF FORMATION ABOUT PERSONS AND GODS

What has all this to do with theistic belief? Alston suggests that there is a Christian epistemic practice by which Christians objectify experiences of God, via Christian theological concepts, into beliefs about God. Since it is beliefs about God that this practice supposedly

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generates, and since the God of Christianity is a unique person, one has to wonder about the relationship between the experience of God and the concept of God. Which kind of concept is "God"? Is it a general concept such that it applies to many beings? One suspects not, at least so far as the context of Christian belief allows. The Christian God is the God and Father of Jesus Christ and not Allah or Vishnu. The concept "God" that Christians use is a definite-descriptive concept, much like the concept "Tom Tibbetts."15 Christians would not, generally, be happy saying that they worship the generic God of all the theistic religions, anymore than Tom Tibbetts's mother would be happy making someone her heir simply as long as the person claiming to be her first-born son looks (exactly) like Tom. Let me recap my suggestion that there are characteristics linking an experience and a belief generated out of it. The belief "I see a tree" is linked to the experience that generates it by certain characteristics of the experienced object. These characteristics are not, for the most part, uniquely applicable to this particular tree but are applicable to many. When it becomes important to emphasize this tree, then one either references the tree's spatial-temporal location or one shifts from using general concepts to definite-descriptive concepts. But even in the shift to definite-descriptive concepts one might have to appeal to spatial-temporal information given in the experience, for there is a problem with possible duplication. As I have argued, then, in both belief generations involving general concepts and belief generations involving definite-descriptive concepts, there is sometimes a role for information about the object's location in the spatial-temporal web, where that information is received experientially. In all these cases, the belief is immediately generated through the objectification of the experience (including spatial-temporal data) into language appropriate to the experience. The experience serves as a basis for the belief generation and, by extension, as a basis for its justification. What happens when the spatial-temporal information given in the experience will not overcome the problem of potential duplication? So far as an Alston-style objectification of experience is concerned, the definite-descriptive concept of the identical twin "Tom Tibbetts" cannot always be spelled out in terms that are applicable only to this particular object on experiential grounds alone. There is nothing in the phenomenological aspects of experience - whether the experience

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is simply of Tom or of his spatial-temporal relationship to other objects - that enables one to apply the definite-descriptive concept to the experience, without some sort of recourse to other background information. This is so because any set of characteristics of the experienced object is either potentially applicable to others or not capable of being known by experience alone. The one exception to this is, as the last section notes, auto-identification. If my phenomenal experience of Tom Tibbetts includes him telling me his name, then I'll objectify that into belief as well. And not as "this person told me he was Tom Tibbetts" but, simply, as "He's Tom Tibbetts." As it is with Tom Tibbetts, so it seems with the gods of the various theistic religions. Consider the Christian God. There is, I've argued, nothing in an experience of God that allows us to identify the object of the experience as the Father of Jesus Christ, anymore than there is anything in an experience of Tom Tibbetts that allows us to identify the object of the experience as Tom Tibbetts when I know (or suspect) there is a twin. The possibility of duplicate features among the gods seems to be a live one, and no unique set of characteristics lends itself to being discovered experientially. One could try characteristics such as "being the creator of heaven and earth," but even if they could be given in the experience, they do not clearly pick out features of one god as opposed to the other. I suppose, for example, that Jews, generally, would be unwilling to say that Christians worship the same God, (I've heard some Jews, at least, suggest that Christians are tri-theists) and yet both gods are described as being "the creator of heaven and earth." That is rather like confusing Tim for Tom on the basis of skin tone, facial hair, and so forth, that is, features both could share phenomenally. There appears to be nothing in an experience of the God and Father of Jesus Christ that allows us to objectify the experience of him, via definite-descriptive concepts, into beliefs about the unique being who is the God of Christianity, save, perhaps, for information given via auto-identification. Of course, in our day-to-day lives, we don't worry about possible duplication of definite-descriptive characteristics, even when it comes to those attached to humans. In the vast majority of cases, there are apparently identifying features that enable us to pick out Tom vs. Mary vs. Sue. Even with identical twins there are, typically, certain features true of one but not of the other. And, with twins, one can always ask again which one is which, and receive the needed information via auto-identification.

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But here's the rub. With God, at least as conceived by a number of theistic religions, Christianity included, there are not supposed to be other duplicates. There is only one God, and he is supposed to be truly described by the doctrinal details of the religion in question. Why, then, do we have competing descriptions of God? The answer, as my discussion suggests, is that there is nothing in the experience of God to ground epistemically the doctrinal descriptions. Yes, there may be enough to tell us that the object of the experience is powerful or good or knowledgeable, but not that he is the Father of Jesus Christ or the source of Muhammad's revelation. And we come back to the one exception: auto-identification. Suppose it is given in the experience that the person is the God and Father of Jesus Christ by an audible sound, much like one's experience of Tom Tibbetts when he gives his name as Tom. Or, in God's case, it need not be audible, but God could impress this information on us in, as Gellman says, a way "the nonmystic cannot begin to imagine." Or perhaps these ways are not so mysterious. For example, God might provide as part of a theistic experience something parallel to the experience attached to the discovery of self-evident truths. As Alvin Plantinga suggests, there is a luminous quality to such truths by which we are attracted to them. Perhaps God could, for the occasion of one's experience, attach such a luminous quality to the proposition, "This is an experience of a person of which it is truly said, 'I am the God of Abraham'" or whatever parallel proposition is given. Would this suffice for us to describe the object of the experience in the doctrinally detailed way with which I've been working? Perhaps, but there are two issues here. First, presumably, most religious people do not have such experiences. A few, perhaps, and in particular the founders of religions. What are the rest of us to do? Second, even were we to solve the first problem, the solution still doesn't deal with the fact that people from other religious traditions could (and do) have parallel experiences in which Yahweh says he is the God of Abraham or Allah says Muhammad is his prophet, etc. If there is only one God, why the diversity? Some of the diversity, I believe, rests in the fact that people bring the doctrinal information to the experience rather than reading that information off the experience. In these cases, the people in question are forming beliefs via informational belief formations, rather than conceptual belief formations, that is, they are using substantive

4O

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background beliefs as part of the epistemic base for the formation of the belief. If this occurs in a belief formation, then it is not truly a case of auto-identification and conceptual belief formation. As I have argued elsewhere, when such a thing happens, the background information needs its own justification.16 However, I do not think this is always the case. There are, in other words, cases of autoidentification in theistic experiences. Saint Teresa of Avila apparently had such an experience. She writes: One day when I was at prayer - it was the feast day of the glorious St. Peter - I saw Christ at my side - or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for I saw nothing with the eyes of the body or the eyes of the soul [the senses or the imagination]. He seemed quite close to me, and I saw that it was He. As I thought, He was speaking to me. Being completely ignorant that such visions were possible, I was very much afraid at first, and could do nothing but weep, though as soon as He spoke His first word of assurance to me, I regained my usual calm, and became cheerful and free from fear. All the time Jesus Christ seemed to be at my side, but as this was not an imaginary vision I could not see in what form. But I most clearly felt that He was all the time on my right, and was a witness of everything that I was doing. Each time I became a little recollected, or was not entirely distracted, I could not but be aware that He was beside me. In great trouble, I went at once to my confessor to tell him about this. He asked me in what form I had seen Him, and I replied that I had not seen Him. He asked me how I knew it was Christ, and I replied that I did not know how, but that I could not help being aware that He was beside me, that I had plainly seen and felt it, and that when I prayed my soul was now much more deeply and continuously recollected. Then my confessor asked me: "Who said it was Jesus Christ?" "He often tells me so Himself," I answered, "but before ever He said it, it was impressed on my understanding that it was He, and even before that He used to tell me He was there when I could not see Him."17

Apparently, Christ simply identified himself to Teresa. Sometimes he "spoke," but since she denies that this was a sensory or an imaged vision, the sense of "spoke" might best be taken to be (at least analogous to) my suggestion above wherein certain propositions seem to have a luminous quality attached to them, something like, in this case, "This is an experience of Christ" or simply, "I am Jesus." But Teresa also suggests that she knew it was Christ even

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before he spoke to her. It was, she says, "impressed on my understanding that it was He." Perhaps this is one of Gellman's "ways that nonmystics cannot understand." So auto-identification apparently happens. And Saint Teresa is not alone. Many a mystic reports similar experiences about his or her God. Does auto-identification help with the problem I've been trying to explain? Does experience really give us something to objectify that is uniquely attributable to one God rather than another? Yes and no. Phenomenologically, since God's name and other doctrinal information is given in the experience, there is no reason why we cannot objectify it into beliefs. But is the corresponding belief justified? In the normal case of auto-identification, say with Tom or Paul, I must have sufficient trust in them so as to take the supplied information as accurate. Can I do this with God, the Father of Jesus Christ? Yes, but so can everyone else trust his or her God. There is nothing in the experience, as least as analyzed thus far, that tells us to do otherwise. And as I've already noted, there is the rub. If Peter shows up and tricks me into thinking he is Paul, I have no way to tell, without appealing to background beliefs, since his auto-identification contains a falsehood. But at least I believe that Paul has a twin brother, Peter, and have some reason to appeal to the background information. But God is not supposed to have a twin, at least according to the doctrinal cum salvific beliefs of the one-path realist Christian (Jew, Muslim, and so forth). So, assuming (this) God is telling me the truth, I should not have to worry about other people's experiences and the beliefs generated out of them. But why not? Are they not justified in the same way I am? 7

THEISTIC DIVERSITY

Where does this leave us? It appears that one's theistic experience may be objectified into language appropriate to the experience, but the resulting beliefs will only be justified insofar as they are beliefs about some (supernatural) being or other who is creative, powerful, knowledgeable, and so forth. There will perhaps be an object of the experience, but it need not be the God who is accurately described as the Father of Jesus Christ or the God of Abraham or the God of Muhammad. Just as the concept "pine tree" applies to many trees, so the generic concept "God" could apply to many Gods. Our knowledge that the being who is the object of my experience is the

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being of whom any given set of doctrinally detailed things are true cannot be a result of experience and conceptual scheme alone. But I have left open the door for informational belief formations and for auto-identifications. In addition to an experiential base, the former require substantive information - beyond general or even (many) definite-descriptive concepts - about the object of one's experience. In the case of forming beliefs about unique humans, we get our information, ultimately, from authority, via auto-identification. That this person in front of us is Tom rather than Tim Tibbetts comes to us from Tom or from someone else. So it is, I suggest, with theistic belief. The information that the object of my experience is the Father of Jesus Christ is received from others. Where I have only the experience, without auto-identification included, and without information provided for me through the religious community, it seems unlikely that I would understand the experience to be an experience of the Father of Jesus, First Person of the Trinity, or anything else included in the doctrinal account of Christianity. And so the information is passed generation to generation, family to family, church to church. What is the ultimate source of such information? From where do the founders of the various theistic religions receive it? From autoidentifications given in the experiences. But the religious beliefs of everyone else seem similarly rooted. One could be skeptical here and suppose that at least some of the founders fancifully made it up. But from the point of view of one's own religious commitment, this will do only for everyone else's case, and not one's own. One's own, of course, is the true one. But taking Christianity as an example, where did its founder get his information? Christians must take his word for it, and that word is that God himself made the maturing Jesus aware that he was God. And this is passed down to each successive generation of Christians. But outside the circle of belief of the faithful, is there any independent source of epistemic warrant? History, revelation, and natural theology cannot help us here. There is no independent source of epistemic warrant, and so it appears that a Christian must take the unique, salvific claims of her belief ultimately on God's authority. But then theists of all stripes will claim the same authority for their doctrinal accounts - Yahweh speaks to Moses, Allah to Muhammad. It looks as though the doctrinal accounts are all on the same epistemic footing, and hence the problem of theistic diversity is with us.

An Epistemic Basis of Religious Diversity 8

43

NONTHEISTIC R E L I G I O N S AND DIVERSITY

I have attempted to explain why the problem of theistic diversity exists from an epistemic point of view, based on the position that we, and the founders of the various theistic religions, derive our beliefs about the various gods from experience. What of the nontheistic religions? That there is a problem of religious diversity extending beyond that of theistic diversity cannot be doubted. That its source can be explained via experience alone is less clear. Certainly those religions that have an experiential base, such as Buddhism with its enlightenment experiences and Hinduism with its moksha (liberation) experiences, can be analyzed along the lines presented above. Yet what (positive) content is there in these experiences? There is, of course, much intrareligious dialogue about this. In both Buddhism and Hinduism there are theistic schools. Insofar as these religions are theistic, I suppose the above analysis applies. What of the nontheistic schools? In Zen Buddhism, for example, the experiences are (putatively) of Nothing; in Vedantic Hinduism, of Brahman, of which nothing can be (truly) said. In these nontheistic cases, it is not that there is something (potentially) in common with the theistic religions and that each differs on doctrinal details about God. The issue is, rather, that the whole account of ultimate reality differs from that found among the theistic religions. Jainism, for example, is a dualistic religion, with commitments to both matter and soul. Soul is life, eternal and valuable; matter is lifeless and evil, at least insofar as it encases soul and keeps it from being free. If one lives an ascetic life, keeping matter in control, then one may reach moksha, and be freed from the wheel of rebirth. Only the individual can accomplish this. If there are any gods, they are irrelevant to the quest for individual freedom from matter. Here there is no God with whom to stand in proper relationship. Ultimate reality is simply the dualistic world wherein one tries to gain freedom from the cycle of life, death, and rebirth by setting one's soul free from matter. So the theistic analysis provided in this chapter will not help. Nevertheless, one suspects that the founders of all religions had experiences which they and their followers then placed into context and for which they provided an interpretation. Unlike the theistic experiences that have some "given" content that led the founders

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to theistic belief, (some) nontheistic experiences apparently lack the positive content. The Zen Buddhist experiences Nothing, coming to "recognize" the unreality of everything. The Vedantic Hindu experiences union with Brahman, of which nothing can be (truly) predicated linguistically. Perhaps these experiences are "of" reality beyond the gods, experiences of the gods being nothing more (or less!) than mythical frameworks for us to use as stepping stones to higher reality. Or perhaps theistic experiences are the ultimately real, and the nontheistic experiences are "incomplete" in some way. For example, some Christian writers on mysticism suggest that at some point in contemplative, meditative practice, the seeker reaches a place where there is nothing, or emptiness. This is a dangerous point in the quest, for the temptation is to reassert one's own ego into the nothingness rather than wait for God. Could the Zen Buddhist be at this point in the meditational path and be taught not only to wait, but to put any further experience out of his or her mind, thus having an "incomplete" experience? The Christian will say that she does not know the answer to these questions, except as found within her own tradition. Likewise with the other traditions. The pluralist Hindu will certainly take her experiences to be of "the Real" but in such a way that other paths may lead a seeker to moksha as well. What is the truth here? That is, of course, the problem of religious diversity, viz., that all the religions seem to be, more or less, on the same epistemic footing. And the existential problem of religious diversity arises for those who hold to a descriptive-realist, one-path version of their religion. Many Christians are one-path descriptive realists. It is to the Christian tradition that I wish to turn in the remainder of the essay.

CHAPTER THREE

Idolatry and the Testing of One's Faith That there is a problem for the one-path realist Christian is difficult to deny. That the problem has epistemic roots is explicable, given that religious beliefs are, by and large, generated in, and justified by, religious experiences. In this chapter, I begin to develop a Christian solution to the problem, a solution that takes the biblical witness seriously, yet also keeps an eye on the epistemic roots of the issue. Section i briefly revisits the issue of religious diversity. Section 2, develops an epistemic interpretation of the Garden of Eden. Sin and diversity are considered together in section 3. Section 4 identifies the sin of idolatry and relates it to the Garden story. Section 5 explains why the problem of diversity is a problem internal to Christianity. Finally, section 6 provides a parable to help explain the existential issue of religious diversity and to point toward a path for the Christian to tread in response. I

EPISTEMIC

LIMITATIONS AND THE SOURCE

OF RELIGIOUS

DIVERSITY

Earlier I explored one source of what I call "theistic diversity," made some comments about religious diversity in general, and suggested that nonexperiential ways of deciding among the truth claims of various doctrinal descriptions have little chance of success. My skepticism about both experiential and nonexperiential epistemic approaches is rooted in a much larger suspicion about limitations on our epistemic practices. One such general limitation is that there is no procedure or method external to our basic epistemic practices in virtue of which we can check a given practice's reliability and

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hence provide what we might call epistemic certainty - some sort of truth guarantee of our beliefs. Of course it is common to recognize that certainty is not within our reach, or perhaps that psychological certitude is the best we can hope for. But in a case where one's eternal destination is at stake, at least some of us would like much more certainty than we apparently can have. We do not have what William Alston calls "full reflective justification" - where we not only can show p to be justified but can also show all the beliefs used in the justification of p to be justified. It therefore seems unlikely that we can ever have the kind of certainty we would like. Perhaps we couldn't have certainty even if we had full reflective justification, since justification is not the same thing as, nor sufficient for, certainty. To recognize these limits is to recognize the humble state of our epistemic situation.1 And so I propose that we have the religious diversity we do because our epistemic abilities operate under these and other, more or less severe, shortcomings. I suggest further that this shortcoming is an implication of the Christian worldview and that the various religious traditions arose because of human epistemic finitude. Below, I explore some aspects of the Christian worldview in order to shed light on the problem of religious diversity. The chapter concludes with suggestions as to how the Christian facing the existential problem of religious diversity could respond. These suggestions are a prelude to remaining suggestions found in chapters 4 through 6. 2.

AN

EPISTEMICALLY LIMITED GARDEN

The assumption that the source of religious diversity is a limitation (or set thereof) on our epistemic practices is not a surprising one, given the Christian tradition. Consider the following passage, Genesis 2, and 3 (NRSV). It is the second account presented of the creation of humans. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up - for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground - then the

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LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who

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was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis 2:4-9, 15-3:11)

In this central story of the tradition, Adam (the man) is told that he is free to eat of the fruit of any tree in the Garden save one; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve is not yet created, but she does know something of the command after she is. When the serpent asks his craftily deceptive question of her, her reply is only partly right. She in fact gives more information in her description of the command than that given in the command to Adam. Her description includes that they are not to touch the fruit. Where does she get this additional information? There are a limited number of options. Perhaps God tells her, and adds something to what Adam was told. But there seems to be little reason to hold this view, since there is no textual evidence that God spoke directly to Eve with a command. He spoke to Adam. Or possibly Adam tells Eve what God had told him, and he adds something to the command by accident, exaggeration, or intention. Or possibly Eve is told by Adam or God but adds something on her own, either by mistake, exaggeration, or intention. I do not intend to imply that these events are historical in our modern sense. As is well-known, many biblical scholars - including conservative scholars - do not take these events to be historical. For the purposes here, I need not delve into that issue. While some Christians do take the story to be historical, and those who do would tend to fall into the one-path realist camp, not all one-path realists are committed to taking the story historically. The point here can be made even if the story is not historical. The issue of original sin and how it is communicated to each person or generation is quite complex theologically. Does it hinge on the historicity of Adam and Eve? Is it an ontic issue, a moral

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issue, a social issue? It seems to me that the ontic-epistemic view put forward in the following pages certainly will work given a historical Fall but does not, in fact, require one. Indeed, it may be easier to see original sin in each of us if it is understood ontically and epistemically from the start, rather than historically. That is, rather than a sinful nature being generated by a historic Adam and then passed on biologically (or some other way) from him, we simply have human nature - in its ontic-epistemic limitations being what it is. Humans qua humans are finite in their created nature (whether historic or evolved or whatever) and as such the Fall is not passed on but ontically is in each human person. The issue of Adam and Eve's historicity is therefore moot in regard to the ontic-epistemic notion of the Fall explained below. I believe the best way to read this story is that Adam communicated the information to Eve and got it wrong himself by mishearing or exaggerating it or that Eve got it wrong by mishearing or exaggerating it. There is some reason to think that Adam got it right and the problem comes later in the epistemic chain. That the serpent speaks to Eve and tries to deceive her, rather than Adam, even though Adam is with her, is some evidence that the serpent knew that Eve was working with faulty information whereas Adam was not. This finds further evidence in the fact that Adam is clearly told by God himself whereas, apparently, Eve is not. Eve is thus a better target for the serpent's guile. This interpretation is backed up theologically by the New Testament which typically "blames" Adam, rather than Eve, for the Fall. Adam knew the rule and understood it, whereas Eve did not. She is not culpable, therefore, but he is. It is arguable that it is only in the post-New Testament era that the Church begins to blame Eve. Be that as it may, the point I wish to note from this analysis is simply that Eve is, perhaps, ignorant in a way that Adam is not. She is in an epistemically inferior position to Adam. So although it is common to find the blame laid on Eve, the true responsibility is, according to this account, Adam's, since he got the information directly from God and he, apparently, understood the rule. But the epistemic difficulties run deeper than this and extend not just to Eve but to Adam as well, even if for different reasons. It is important to notice that it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and not just the tree of good and evil, for on at least one common understanding of the events leading up to the Fall,

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God is testing the obedience or faithfulness of his created images. In what sense can they be tested, however, if they do not yet know good and evil? Since Adam and Eve do not know good and evil, the command from God must be what I'll call a "raw" command. A raw command is one that is given by an authority to someone who understands and is capable of following the command, yet does not (fully) comprehend the results of not obeying the command. For example, a raw command is given when a parent simply commands a very young child not to cross the street without holding the parent's hand. The child simply does not understand the danger nor is she capable of understanding it. However, the child does understand the command. The command from the parent is, therefore, a raw command. The command is understood in the sense that the child knows how to obey, but it is not understood by the child except insofar as the child trusts the parent and his or her knowledge. Nevertheless, even though the child does not understand the consequences, the child ought to obey. But this "ought" cannot be read morally. How could it be, if the child has no moral categories yet? So it is not surprising, from a Christian point of view, that there are limits on what we humans know. Adam knows the command (even if Eve does not) and knows how to obey it. But he does not know the results of disobedience. This epistemic limitation is a result of, among other things, the fact that there are things we cannot know. And this follows from the even more basic fact that humans are finite. Thus, it should not be surprising that there are limits to what we can know or rationally believe. In fact, it is arguable that the issue of epistemic/ontological limitations is what is really at stake in the story of the Garden. The test God puts before Adam (and Eve?)2 is not simply an arbitrary one. The point is not just a show of brute power on God's part. God allows Adam and Eve to live as they were designed to live, viz., within the boundaries God made, both epistemic and ontic. In the chapter that follows, I explore some of these boundaries in more detail. Here I simply wish to introduce the issues and provide a sense of direction. One of the boundaries God established, whether by design or by necessity, is the recognition that Adam and Eve do not know certain things. In particular, they do not know good and evil. So they know something: that there is something they do not know. But because of what they do not know, viz., good and evil, they cannot know

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the ultimate results of taking the fruit. But unlike (perhaps) the child who does not yet recognize the limits of her epistemic apparatus, it is arguable that Adam and Eve do recognize their limitations, at least in an important way. The majority of the Christian tradition takes the first sin to be the sin of pride. But how can Adam commit a sin, if he does not know good and evil, if he does not know that thinking better of himself than he ought is wrong? Pride, just as much as any immorality, seems to require that the person engaging in it knows that he is engaging in it and that he is wrong for engaging in it. Pride, in other words, seems to require that those engaging in it somehow know that they think more highly of themselves than they ought, or if they do not know that they think more highly of themselves than they ought, they ought to know. Pride, at first blush, seems to involve the unfounded belief that I am better than I actually am, ontologically.3 In the case of Adam and Eve (whether or not Eve was in a worse epistemological state than Adam), pride involves the belief that they are ontologically capable of knowing and bearing the results of what God knows, viz., good and evil. In taking the fruit, it is both their ontological and epistemological limitations that they attempt to overcome. "You will be like God" says the serpent. As they find out, human finite being is not capable of bearing the knowledge of good and evil without getting entangled in good and evil. One presumes, on God's part, that his infinite nature does not lead to this entanglement. So it is in ignorance that Adam and Eve attempt to move into God's territory, since they do not, apparently, know what will result from putting themselves forward as God's equals. And yet surely they know that they seek knowledge that they are not supposed to have. Here, of course, Eve has been deceived, for the serpent convinces her that eating the fruit will make her like God, knowing good and evil. The biblical passage continues by noting not only that she saw that the fruit was pleasant to look at and good for food, but that it was "also desirable for gaining wisdom." But what has she been deceived about? She has been deceived about the consequences of taking the fruit - "you'll not die," says the serpent, "for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The serpent lies to her about dying and, apparently, she believes the serpent. Whether or not the serpent speaks falsely when he says that one who eats of the tree

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will become like God is less clear. In some ways, Adam and Eve do become like God, but not completely. However, they do know, before they eat, that they are not like God and that is the hook that the serpent uses to convince Eve, and by extension Adam, that eating the fruit is a good, and not a life-threatening, thing. I'll provide an analysis in the following chapters to the effect that in fact Adam and Eve did not become like God, at least not in the way they might have had they not fallen into sin. So they know, apparently, that they are not like God; they know their finitude, their lack of knowledge in at least one important area. They also know that they are not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they (come to) believe that disobeying the command will make them like God. Eve, at least, believes that eating the fruit will make them wise. So they know something of their ontological and epistemological limitations. But they are rather like Richard Nixon when he said that he would take the responsibility but not the blame. Why then is this "sin" of pride a sin, since it breaks no moral rule? I'll come back to this question in the next section. To complete this section, let's move back to the issue of religious diversity. I link these epistemic limitations to religious diversity because it is here that part of the Christian story can help explain why the existence of competing religious truth claims is sometimes difficult for the believer. Humans have limits, and at the core of the Christian story is our failure to live within our limits, and in particular, our ontological cum epistemological limits. Just as the test God puts before Adam and Eve is one in which he says, "trust me; be faithful," so God says to the contemporary Christian who faces the plethora of religious truth claims, "trust me; be faithful." The existence of other competing truth claims is, in short, a test of the Christian's faith. The Christian who comes face to face with the competing claims is, in fact, coming face to face with the limits of human epistemic practices, and those who are not pleased to dwell within such limits sometimes fall into sin. 3

SIN AND

DIVERSITY

I want to emphasize that such a sin - the sin of not living within one's epistemic and ontic limitations - does not involve immorality. Indeed, I suggest that sin is primarily a religious concept and not a

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moral one. I am inclined to agree with Marilyn McCord Adams in her supposition that the root of sin is pre-moral and hence ontological. She proposes, in a paper where she tries to "lend vivacity and plausibility to" the idea, that sin is some sort of impropriety between God and creatures and that "the fundamental obstacle to Divine-human relations lies in the very incommensuration of Divine and created natures."4 I think McCord Adams does lend vivacity and plausibility to the idea, and thus I take it that the things that normally count as sins or sinful - choices, actions, habits, and character traits - are results of the Divine-human incommensuration. McCord Adams suggests that we humans are, in virtue of our lowly ontological state, unclean and hence separated from God. God's attempts with ancient Israel to keep them separate from the world around them were in fact attempts to point out to Israel ontological unclarities - examples of uncleanness - of which they were to have no part. To be separate is to be holy, and just as God was separate from humanity - the unclean, the sinners - so humans were to be separate from certain animals (among other things) - the unclean.5 If McCord Adams is right, then sin, at its root, is not voluntaristic or moral. It is ontological. And our ontological status has epistemic import. What we are limits what we can know. It is not, of course, that we know nothing. Some things we know, others we do not or cannot. In fact, it is the odd mixture of knowledge and the lack thereof that can entangle us in sin. In the Garden we knew our boundary - it was over on that hill in the centre of the Garden, where the fruit of that tree was hanging down low - but we didn't know what crossing the boundary would mean, and in our finitude we ate the fruit. It was a kind of epistemic misjudgment, but one based on something we thought was valuable. Having more knowledge and being like the one who made us - becoming wise, as Genesis says - seem like valuable things. Indeed, they are, but only for those who are mature enough to deal with them. Just as we do not explain the details of sex to young children because they cannot, by their stature in life, understand them, so God withheld certain things from Adam and Eve. We sometimes put or allow little children to be in situations where they can live well, so long as they live within their bounds. Yet stepping out of those bounds can be quite dangerous. God put Adam and Eve in such a setting. And we knew what we weren't supposed to do - eat the fruit of that one tree. There was,

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however, no moral ought behind the command. We were incapable of understanding a moral ought, having no knowledge of good and evil. Yet we, because of our immaturity and finitude, believed we could be like God, knowing good and evil. We also believed we were ready for it. The serpent told us so. It was, in part, ignorance that led to the early harvesting, and so the test of our faithfulness in the Garden was a test of our ability to live within the bounds of our own nature. God created and cared for us. He told us our limits. And we used those limits to be unfaithful, unleashing moral havoc into the world. Pride thus turns out be more ontological than moral. For now, it is helpful to call attention to a principle that McCord Adams introduces. It seems clear, she says, that "an individual human being's capacity to produce (or be a salient member in a causal chain leading to) suffering (horrendous or otherwise) exceeds his/her ability to experience it." She continues: "This is obvious quantity-wise: Adam suffered one individual's worth of ignorance and difficulty, but his sin brought it to many; Hitler organized a holocaust of millions; small numbers of government leaders, scientists, and military personnel brought about the atomic explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is probably true quality-wise, both trivially, in that each person's suffering is unique, and significantly (e.g., can a childless male soldier experience anything like enough to the suffering of a mother whose child is murdered before her eyes?)"6 This principle is relevant to the problem of evil in that created agents could not bear primary moral responsibility or blame for the origin of evil. Nevertheless, their actions in the Garden unleashed powerful evil into the world. There is a connection to the problem of diversity in that at the core of the act leading to moral evils, including the evils that may result from religious diversity (lack of redemption), is a lack of knowledge, or a limit on knowledge, that was true of Adam and Eve simply in virtue of their finitude. Adam and Eve could not, in failing to know good and evil (that is, having no experience of it), be morally responsible for the evils that befell them or the rest of the world. This understanding of the Garden story makes it possible to see the test in the Garden as one slice of the problem of evil. Why should God, being all good, test us in our ontological and epistemic weakness, especially when the test's failure would lead to such evil? Why should sin be traceable to finitude? Doesn't that get us off but hang God on the hook? Perhaps it gets us off the moral hook, and

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so, as McCord Adams suggests, there may be theodicy without blame. But sin is not simply immorality.7 It is a failure to live within the bounds of our own existence, a failure to live as we were created. Sin is ontological. To illustrate, consider the following. When my son was two and a half years old he knew he was not to jump or stand on the couch. If you asked him, he would (often, at least) tell you the rule. Occasionally he jumped anyway, especially when I was on the couch beside him, and he could catch my eye with his best mischievous look. Once he had been warned, he would, sometimes, still jump. He was, then, the recipient of discipline. On occasion, after this ritual, he would say, "lan's bad." But was he? And in what sense? Was he morally bad? I don't think so, but he had failed to live within his ontological and physical capabilities. It is not that he wasn't perfect. Precisely the opposite. It is that he was imperfect but refused to admit it. He had failed to recognize that his parents, in this case, knew best. So he had done something worthy of discipline and correction. It was needful for him to learn to act in a manner that was within his capability - to act, in this case, safely. The only way for him to have done so (at that age, at least) was for him to learn obedience and trust, but also to learn that trust through committing the "wrong" act. He sometimes jumped on the couch when his parents were not within reach, and he sometimes hurt himself. He knew he was not to jump but it was not clear that he knew the potential consequences of jumping. A few jumps ending in only minor hurts enabled him to trust his parents as more knowledgeable than he. So in some sense, his knowing his parents was a good - a sort of metaphysical good, since we were his guides for safe and hence good behaviour. We did know what jumping on the couch can lead to, but simply explaining it to him was not enough. Like this, except in unfathomably greater ways, knowing God is a good - an unsurpassable good. This good, as McCord Adams suggests, following the medieval philosophers, is a metaphysical good. God is the Supremely Valuable Object, and knowing him is enough to "engulf" the horrendous evils that happen to individuals. Furthermore, God may insist on "making horrors meaningful through defeat,"8 which may be accomplished by our identifying with Christ through suffering or by giving us some insight into the inner life of God.

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The connection of the foregoing to the problem of religious diversity is just this. The problem of evil construed through an ontological understanding of sin has an ontological solution, viz., God himself. Likewise, the fact of religious diversity (knowledge) resulting from our epistemic limitations (lack of knowledge) tempts us away from trusting God, just as our knowledge/lack of knowledge tempted us away from trusting God in the Garden. Expecting God to provide us with sure epistemic access to himself in our immature state is rather like expecting God to have given Adam and Eve epistemic access to good and evil when they were unprepared to have it. And again parallel to the problem of evil, the solution to the problem of diversity is ontological, but with an epistemic and practical twist, viz., recognizing and living with our finitude now, with the expectation of awareness of God's greater Being later, an awareness in which we shall be overwhelmed by God's Being, and never turn away from him again. There will, at the point of the Beatific Vision of God, be no epistemic shortfallings. 4

I D O L A T R Y AND THE GARDEN

Therefore, falling into disbelief because of religious diversity can be construed as a sin. But what sin? I suggest it is the sin of idolatry, but idolatry of a special kind. It is not just a matter of following gods other than the (true) God. It is a matter of following ourselves. Pride and idolatry go hand in hand. When Yahweh led the children of Israel out of Egypt he commanded them: You shall have no other gods before me. But if Christianity is true, there are no other gods. This is contrary, on one reading, to what the first commandment implies, for if the Israelites were to have no other gods before Yahweh, there must have been other gods. So if Christianity is correct in its claim that there is only one God, Israel's constant temptation to worship some other god was founded on a falsehood - that there are other gods - rather than on the existence of a pantheon of gods, of whom Yahweh was the greatest. The Hebrew Scripture's picture of Israel's temptation to idolatry is often that of unfaithfulness rather than that of simply believing a falsehood. The other gods seemed real, I suspect, to the ancient Israelites - they believed in them and, in some cases, worshipped them. To use William James's language, the worship of the other

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gods was a live option for the Israelites. Thus the problem of religious diversity was, for them, not merely an abstract problem as to whether the existence of competing religious beliefs affected the epistemic status of their belief in Yahweh. It was very much like the temptation of a person to cheat on his or her spouse, which is far more existential than abstract. Nevertheless, I suspect the temptation to adultery with the other members of the pantheon was rooted in epistemic concerns. Would Yahweh really provide for good crops? Would he answer their prayers? Could they really trust Yahweh to take them to the promised land? It is, after all, so much easier to worship what you can see - a golden calf, for instance. But, of course, the list century Western Christian's temptation is not, often at least, to leave the worship of God for some other, but to worship no God at all.9 The ancient Israelite's epistemic problem was to sort out which God was the most powerful. Ours is to sort out whether there is any God at all. So, in some ways, both the philosophical and existential problems of diversity are peculiarly modern, and they do not result in a temptation to idolatry understood as putting some other god before the God and Father of Jesus Christ. But that makes our challenge more akin to the one faced by Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve did not move away from God to worship some other God. They simply wanted to be like God, to be on his level, perhaps even to be God. They moved away from a trusting relationship with God to trusting themselves. Similarly, our challenge is to avoid moving away from a trusting relationship with God to trusting ourselves and our self-constructed visions of reality in which we humans are the centrepiece. But if idolatry is not simply the temptation to follow some other god, but includes putting ourselves in pride of place, then the temptation to cease believing in God in the face of religious diversity is indeed a temptation to idolatry, perhaps of the worst kind. In Romans i: 18-25 (NRSV), Paul wrote the following: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they

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became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. (Romans i: 18-25)

This passage is important in a number of ways. First, Paul here links epistemic concerns, pride, idolatry, and "ontologically gapped" beings into his theological account of human responsibility to God for sin. Although humans knew God as God (read "eternally powerful, with a divine nature"), they did not glorify him or thank him, but their thinking became futile! They suppressed the truth by their wickedness. They exchanged the glory of God for created glory, in themselves and in other non-human animals. And then comes what appears to be a very curious connection to sexual impurity. Beside all the Hebrew Scripture's legal strictures involved with sex and reproduction, e.g., bodily fluids, including semen (Lev. 22:4) and menstrual blood (Lev. 12:1, Lev. 15) rendered one unclean (again a symbol of the ontological gap between humans and God), faithful marriage and the marriage bed are central symbols of God's faithfulness to his people. Apparently Paul thought that because of our turning away from God to other idols, God gave us over to unfaithfulness in our sexual relationships as well, rounding out the symbol. The second way in which this passage is important is that one of the paths by which humans become idolaters is by making images of themselves. This returns us to the theme of the nature of idolatry. In the Garden, Adam and Eve raised themselves to the level of God, inappropriately taking cuts in the ontological lineup. They were not guilty of idolatry in the literal sense of putting some other god before Yahweh. But they were guilty of worshipping the created order, viz., themselves, rather than God. It is precisely this that Paul identifies as idolatry. It is thus arguable that when modern Christians fall prey to the problem of religious diversity, existential or otherwise, they fall prey to idolatry. They put themselves forward as epistemic arbiters of salvific theological truth, something that, within the Christian tradition, is sinful. It is a kind of spiritual adultery, where in this case we cheat on God with ourselves as the extramarital lover.

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Again, I do not see that this involves immorality. Nor is it clear to me that adultery, in itself, is immoral. There is much more to be said here, but at least the following should be noted. There are, it seems to me, immoralities involved in adultery, or at least there typically are. For example, if in one's marital vows one promises to be faithful, then adultery will turn out to involve breaking a promise. There is also a great deal of hurt caused by adultery. But what I mean to suggest is that in its primary nature, either as an act committed or as one prohibited, adultery is religiously wrong. One could have a marriage in which, I presume, no vows are exchanged and the couple is psychologically or emotionally immune to certain kinds of hurt. One supposes that so-called "open marriages" are intended to be more or less like this. In such cases, there would be no immorality involved in adultery. But to say adultery is not inherently immoral is not to deny its harmfulness. It is wrong, yes. But not immoral. Adultery is religiously or, more specifically, Christianly wrong, for it breaks the symbol for our relationship to God, viz., faithfulness. We are to be faithful to God and therefore a person is to be faithful to his or her spouse. Being unfaithful maritally is symbolic of being unfaithful religiously. In ancient Israel's time, the turn was away from Yahweh, the spouse, to some other god. In our time, and perhaps, oddly enough, in the story of the Garden, the turning away is from Yahweh to ourselves - a kind of masturbation that detracts from one's faithfulness to one's spouse. It is putting our own ontological status on the same level as God's. One other note before leaving this section. Because our contemporary temptation when facing diversity is to turn away from religious commitment altogether, it may turn out that the sins of idolatry committed by the ancient Israelites are less serious than ours. At least the Israelites believed they were worshipping beings who were divine, whereas we simply give up on the divine altogether, or at least some of us do. One of the differences between our contemporary situation and the story of Adam and Eve is that they were tempted to put themselves on the level of God and yet still recognized that God existed. We think ourselves ontologically and epistemically beyond what we really are. There is, we think, no divine. So the temptation to give up one's faith because of religious diversity is the temptation to idolatry understood through the symbolism of adultery.

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THE E X I S T E N T I A L P R O B L E M AS AN INTERNAL P R O B L E M

Before we move on to the beginnings of a solution, it is important to note the following. I have been working here with the notion that the problem of religious diversity is a subproblem of the problem of evil. In an earlier publication, I stated even more strongly that that is how we should think of the problem of religious diversity.10 My position was that from the point of view of the one-path realist Christian, the mere existence of competing religious truth claims is an evil, in that their existence can lead one away from the true faith. I am less sanguine about, although not totally unhappy with, that approach now. Here's why. When my Hindu friend and colleague, Professor Saranindra Nath Tagore, read the manuscript of my earlier essay, he reacted with, I now think, an appropriately negative response. He found what I was saying offensive. It was as if he thought I shouldn't even be discussing the issue, as if anyone who held a view such as one-path, realist Christianity was rather like a racist. Who would be interested in giving an account of how a racist could continue in his or her beliefs? At the time, I thought he had misread the piece, suggested to him as much, and left the essay untouched. No one else in the largely Christian audience seemed bothered by the issues that concerned Tagore. I think now that Tagore was right, at least in part. He was reacting, correctly, if perhaps somewhat inchoately, to the following. Identifying the problem of diversity with the problem of evil appears to make the mere existence of other religions inherently evil. And on this interpretation the one-path realist Christian does indeed risk offending all other religious believers. Let me identify more specifically the problem to which I believe Tagore reacted, and why someone outside Christianity might react the way he did, whereas a Christian audience might not even notice. The main issue seems to be this. Evil can be thought of in two ways, and the Christian will look at the "evil" of other religions one way while outsiders will look at it the other way. I overlooked this issue earlier because of my identification of the problem of religious diversity as a subproblem of the problem of evil and my tendency, as a Christian, to see the problem of evil existentially, whereas the nontheist tends, perhaps, to see the problem more as a theoretical difficulty.

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In the philosophical or theoretical problem of evil, evil is evil. That is, if one's response to the problem of evil is to give up one's faith, evil does not all of a sudden change. What was evil before remains evil after. On the other hand, in the problem of religious diversity described here, if one responds to the difficulty by moving to a less exclusivistic Christian position, or no Christian position at all, what once seemed problematic (or evil) ceases to be problematic (or evil). So, the logic of the problem of evil is different from that of the problem of religious diversity. The existence of other religious challenges is evil only so long as one holds the exclusivistic views of the one-path, realist Christian. Although Tagore never put the issue this way, it seems his response to the earlier paper was that I had produced a kind of reductio ad absurdum against one-path, realist Christianity, for any view that understands other religions as evils must obviously be false and should be rejected out of hand. He was led to this, I believe, by the fact that I had identified the existential problem of religious diversity with the problem of evil. In the problem of evil, evil remains evil. Since I had said the problem of diversity was a kind of problem of evil, I had, so far as Tagore could tell, categorized all religions other than Christianity as evil, and inherently so. However, I think Tagore was mistaken, although understandably so. I now see that it is vital to understand the difference between existential versions of the problem of evil and philosophical or theoretical versions. Several things need to be said. First, I believe there is a reductio here only if the one-path realist is wrong. The logic of the situation is that if the one-path position is true, then, as a matter of fact, other religious worldviews are, insofar as they present false information about salvation, leading people (potentially) into eternal damnation. As noted above, this claim does not allow the Christian to make judgments about whether this person or that person is saved - only God can do that. Still, a Hindu or Buddhist might surely be offended by Christians saying that only Christianity is the path to salvation and, by extension, that all other religions are evil, so far as they take people away from the truth. And I think this surely is offensive. Surely Christianity could be true and yet other religions not evil. Perhaps holders of the other religions are just misguided through no fault of their own. The offensiveness may lie, then, not in the claim that the other religions are false and therefore evil - lots of true claims turn out to be hard to swallow,

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emotionally hurtful (at least in the short run), or offensive. The offensiveness arguably lies in our apparently weak epistemic position vis-a-vis knowing which religion is true but yet barging ahead, claiming to know better than others that Christianity is true while all other comers are not. The Hindu and the Christian simply disagree as to which religion is true and there is no easy, clear way to tell who is right. The best approach, it might then be suggested, is not to make too large a claim to truth for one's own religion, at least publicly. Still, whether or not the one-path realist Christian really is being offensive in the long run lies, in large measure, with the issue of who is right. The Christian is offensive if he is wrong but not offensive (in the long run) if right.11 There is another way to look at this. The Christian is offensive, even if he or she is right, since it is painful or offensive to be told (or to discover?) that one might be (or is) wrong. But the response to this view is simply to note that although the truth may hurt, it is better to have the truth with its apparent offensiveness, than not to have truth simply in order to avoid offense. To return to the question of the relationship between the problem of evil and the existential problem of religious diversity, I noted the following earlier. Were the existential problem of religious diversity resolved by simply moving toward a less exclusivistic view, not only does the problem disappear, but the suggested evil of the other religions does as well. No such solution to the problem of evil has that much power! That is why it is not clear that the existential problem of religious diversity is a subproblem of the problem of evil. The logics of the two problems seem to be clearly distinct. Looked at from outside the Christian faith, the problem of evil must remain theoretical and detached. It cannot be existential. Thus, when looked at externally, when I identified the existential problem of religious diversity with the problem of evil, someone outside the Christian faith, as Tagore is, will see only the following. Just as evil remains evil "after" the problem of evil is considered, even if one ceases to be a theist because of the problem, so it is with the problem of religious diversity. Other non-Christian religions remain evil, even if one ceases to take a one-path, realist Christian stance. If this is all non-Christians can see, it is difficult for them not to be offended by the identification of the existential problem of religious diversity with the problem of evil.

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One implication of the observations made in the above paragraph is that existential problems are internal problems, felt only by those inside. This extends, I think, to the existential problem of evil, as well as to the existential problem of religious diversity. The outsider rejects theism on the grounds of theoretical problems with evil and God's nature and existence. Only the insider will reject God because of the existential problem. The outsider has no commitment with which to feel the existential issue. Tagore's response to my suggestions in the earlier paper is explicable, then, as the appropriate response for an outsider, given the minimal amount I had stated in the earlier essay. I trust what is said here is less offensive, because more understandable and more clear about whose problem the existential problem of religious diversity is. For the insider, from the perspective internal to Christianity, other religions are evil not inherently but because of their tendency to lead one away from one's own faith. Even if one can see and understand the theoretical problem, perhaps even if one can solve the theoretical problem, the existential problem may not disappear. Plantinga and Alston's responses to the theoretical problem of religious diversity are all well and good. But there remains the emotional, psychological, and spiritual issue of why one should remain faithful. Simply recognizing a lower epistemic status for one's faith commitments won't keep one's faith alive, existentially. The problem is not primarily a problem of epistemic issues, in the sense that there is not enough evidence for one to be rational in one's Christian belief. It is not primarily a problem of another's eternal salvation. It is a problem of one's own emotional and spiritual insecurity and one's own salvation. Why does the existence of other religions, let's say those equally epistemically justified with Christianity, challenge the Christian believer existentially? In some clear sense, it is not the mere existence of the other religions that is evil. So say those outside Christianity. It is following those other religions that is problematic from the point of view of the one-path, realist Christian. In large measure, the problem described here, the existential problem of religious diversity, is not a problem for those outside the faith. The problem is internal to one-path realist Christianity and the person who holds this view. The problem is the Christian believer's. How am I to hold onto my faith, when other religions challenge it? Other religions certainly seem evil from that point of view.

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So, is the existential problem of religious diversity a subproblem of the problem of evil? Yes and no. No, if one looks strictly at the logic of the problem. The evil of the problem of evil doesn't disappear as one comes to believe that God doesn't exist, whereas the evil of the existential problem of religious diversity does go away as one comes to believe that the one-path realist version of Christianity isn't accurate. On the other hand, yes, if one views the existential problem of religious diversity as being truly existential. It is a problem only from inside the faith, where Christianity is true and yet God lets other religions exist and flourish and have equally strong epistemic status with Christianity. So I will continue to speak of the existential problem of religious plurality as a subproblem of the problem of evil, but it is an insider's problem, and its logic is different from the problem of evil taken as a whole. 6

A P A R A B LE

What, then, is the proper response of a Christian to the fact of religious diversity? Minimally I believe it is faithfulness amidst a great deal of humility, and I present here the first steps in developing a response to the existential problem of religious diversity. In the remaining chapters, I explore what I believe is the natural extension of these first steps - the path of the mystics. But since that extension is not, perhaps, available to all, it seems prudent, and I trust helpful, to provide a description of at least the beginning steps. A parable may help us think through the issue. During a great war, the enemy invades all the countries of the world. The enemy is very evil. Resistance movements develop in each country. In a certain country one evening, a member of the resistance meets a Stranger. The partisan immediately admires the Stranger, and the two spend the remainder of the evening and most of the night describing their childhoods, telling jokes, talking about each other's families, and sharing intimate thoughts about life. Toward the end of their time together, the Stranger tells the partisan that the Stranger is on the side of the resistance, in fact, that she is the lynchpin of the plan to overthrow the enemy in all the countries in which the great war is being waged. It is vital, the Stranger says, that everyone trust in her as the leader. The partisan is impressed, indeed, overwhelmed by the Stranger. He believes her with all his

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heart and commits himself to live as she wants him to live in order that her cause may be advanced. The war wears on. The partisan and the Stranger meet on many occasions - sometimes more regularly than others but always frequently. The partisan's faith in the Stranger as the lynchpin of the movement grows. And he meets many others who believe likewise. The partisan and his peers - in fact most everyone he knows in the resistance - take the Stranger at her word. She is the leader of the resistance. After many years of struggle, the partisan hears rumours of the Others - members of the resistance in other countries, or citizens of those countries, who do not believe as the partisan and his friends do. Some of the Others believe that the Stranger is not the leader of the resistance - another person holds the role. Some believe that there is no leader of the resistance at all. The remaining Others hold that there is no resistance, and perhaps no need for a resistance. A few even disbelieve the war. The partisan meets some of the Others. And he reads serious studies of the Others' thought. Slowly, he comes to believe that many of the Others are justified in their beliefs, just as the partisan is, so far as he can tell. Although at first the partisan finds the existence of the Others' beliefs troubling, he does not know why. When the partisan asks the Stranger about this, he gets no reply, except an appeal to his past experience and those of the Strangerbelieving community. At first, the partisan holds to his faith in the Stranger. Later, as he gives the problem more thought, he modifies his belief so that somehow both the Stranger and her competitors turn out to be leaders. But there are just too many problems, for he is a realist. And so, one morning over coffee, he loses his faith in the Stranger. He believes no more.12 The Christian is tempted by the existential problem of diversity as the partisan is. But the partisan has good evidence that the Stranger is the one, true leader of the resistance. He has met her, often and with some regularity. The fact that the Others have not met her, or have met someone else, does not, if the Alston-Plantinga platform is correct, remove the partisan's justification or warrant (although it may lower it somewhat). But it would be hard to put complete trust in the Stranger, especially given the lack of response from the Stranger when she is asked for clarification. Still, the partisan has no reason

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to believe in one of the other candidates for leader, nor yet to believe that there is no leader at all. And he has cast his lot in with the Stranger. In this case, contrary to the way the parable ends, shouldn't the partisan stay with his belief and commitments? Let me hasten to add that the partisan loses his faith. The parable ends the way it does because beliefs are not, generally, in our voluntary control. However, let's assume, for a moment, that beliefs are in our control. It is easier to see, then, that the partisan faces a test. Perhaps it is a sort of accidental test. But we can modify the parable to make the temptation more than accidental. Let us continue. The Stranger has picked the partisan for a special role in the new government to be set up after the war. Receiving this role is, however, contingent upon the partisan's being faithful to the Stranger during the war. Or perhaps the very continuation of the partisan's life after the war depends on his being faithful to the Stranger. The partisan knows this. In fact, the Stranger herself tells the partisan. These modifications make the parable more analogous to the case of the Christian and the existential problem of diversity. What should the partisan do? Should he be faithful in his beliefs and commitments or should he become the follower of another "leader"? Or should he give up belief and commitment altogether? The rational thing, it seems, is to keep believing. But here we come up against our assumption that beliefs are within our control. We cannot always control our beliefs, even when the case for keeping them is a good one, epistemically and practically. Even with the stronger case, the partisan may still lose his belief over coffee one morning. What then? Plantinga makes a helpful distinction between beliefs and acceptances. He writes: .

Consider a Christian beset by doubts. He has a hard time believing certain crucial Christian claims - perhaps the teaching that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Upon calling that belief to mind, he finds it cold, lifeless, without warmth or attractiveness. Nonetheless he is committed to this belief; it is his position; if you ask him what he thinks about it, he will unhesitatingly endorse it. He has, so to speak, thrown in his lot with it. Let us say that he accepts this proposition, even though when he is assailed by doubt, he may fail to believe it - at any rate explicitly - to any appreciable degree. His commitment to this proposition may be much stronger than his explicit and occurrent belief in it; so these two - that is acceptance and belief - must be distinguished.13

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Plantinga says little else about this distinction. Nevertheless, we can extract from his example that beliefs have warmth, attractiveness, and liveliness whereas acceptances do not. One can also, apparently, doubt that p is true and yet accept it, but (employing the same notion of doubt) one cannot doubt p and yet believe it. Armed with this distinction, the partisan may continue on with his work for the Stranger, by acting on his acceptances rather than his beliefs. And so can the Christian who faces the existential problem of religious diversity continue in faithfulness to God by working on the basis of his acceptances rather than his beliefs. In "The Virtue of Faith,"14 Robert Adams suggests that the core of faith is trust. Trust, however, is a gift. So far forth, faith is not within our voluntary control. In a response to Adams, James Muyskens argues that it is not because of trust but because of fidelity that faith is a virtue. Fidelity is voluntary, whereas trust, as a gift, is not.15 I would like to suggest that trust and fidelity are parallel to belief and acceptance. It is in virtue of the latter from each of these pairs that one can hold onto one's commitment to God. It is often suggested that the nature of theistic belief is more complicated than our more ordinary beliefs in propositions. The biblical symbols, as noted above, connect theistic belief to marital relationships. The analogy between marital faithfulness and spiritual faithfulness is worth exploring, not only with regard to belief, but also with regard to acceptance. I believe in my wife, much in the same way that I believe in God. I love her, I react to (what I take to be) her wants and desires, I listen to her, and so forth. I do likewise with God. I love him, I move on (what I take to be ) his wants and desires, I listen to him, and so forth. But with my wife I also evaluate my actions and thoughts through her concerns. This is not always conscious. Neither is it always done with passionate belief. There are things, for example, that I simply accept about my wife, and that I do not necessarily believe, at least occurrently. I accept that she will act in certain ways toward me, I accept that her character will be more or less consistent over a period of time, and so forth. Now it seems to me that I have not always accepted these things. Prior to my having come to accept them, I believed them. It was much more important to me, in the relative immaturity of our early relationship, to have these things before my mind's eye as things to which I was attracted, as things that I found warm. But it was when

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I moved from explicitly believing these things to accepting them that the beginnings of real maturity in my marriage became possible. It was by my very acceptance of them that I began to recognize my deep commitment to them and, by extension, to her. This is not, of course, to say that I never have the prepositional attitude of belief toward these things. It is only to say that often I do not and that the lack of belief does not adversely affect the good relationship I have with my wife, and, in fact, sometimes allows for an increase in the maturity of the relationship. Likewise with belief in God. The mature believer accepts certain things about God, his nature, his character, and so forth. He or she need not believe them in the explicit, conscious sense to which Plantinga makes reference. This is why in Plantinga's example of the doubting Christian, the doubter has not lost his faith. He accepts the problematic proposition; he has thrown in his lot with it.16 Some might think of acceptance as a less important prepositional attitude than belief. This, I suggest, is not the case, at least not for all acceptances. That there is a material world, that there are other persons, that we have some principles by which knowledge can advance, are acceptances of which we are largely not conscious; our prepositional attitude toward them is not as explicit as belief is.17 Yet we do not treat them lightly when they are challenged. The religious believer in Plantinga's example still accepts, although doubts, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Belief may come and go; it waxes and wanes with the times. But acceptances do not, or at least need not. And so the Christian facing the truth claims of other religions may accept, though doubt, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only path to the Father. This is fidelity to one's commitments, and hence to God. But of course, one's beliefs may return as well. Plantinga suggests that a "fresh or heightened awareness of the facts of religious diversity could bring about a reappraisal of one's religious life, a reawakening, a new or renewed and deepened grasp and apprehension of" the central truths of Christianity/8 And so it may. But to turn away from God in infidelity is, I have suggested, the sin of idolatry, rooted in our finitude. Such idolatry is a religious, rather than a moral, break with God. The appropriate Christian response to the temptation is simply faithfulness, even where belief may be lacking.

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And here my thesis sounds rather fideistic. So be it. But it is, in fact, more complicated than a fundamentalistic fideism. It is, I hope, a learned, mature fideism. The critic may add to this charge that surely there must be more. Simply accepting the faith is no guarantee of a renewed, vivacious believing in the faith. This, I admit, is true. Faith (and by extension, belief) has long been understood as a theological virtue, a virtue that is given by God rather than generated by me. I don't think it is a surprise to find oneself at least slightly disappointed with the result. But there is more which I shall develop in the remaining chapters, as we approach the issue of humility and, ultimately, the hope of knowing God more intimately through mysticism.

CHAPTER FOUR

An Analysis of Humility

Humility plays a central and important role in a Christian relationship to God. Both scripture and experience lend credibility to this centrality. The Garden story portrays humanity as falling from a state of innocence into a state of knowledge of good and evil because of a lack of humility. As I argued in chapter three, this knowledge was too much for us to handle; it was knowledge beyond our ontological capacity. Knowledge itself is not bad, either ontically or ethically. But knowledge that we cannot handle - either qua human or qua the unique human that I am - is bad, for such knowledge leads us either to do evil ourselves or to unleash (further) evil into the world. So, seeking for (further) knowledge of which religion is the true one may be bad, once one is a Christian and from within the Christian point of view, because the attempt puts us in the role of epistemic judge over matters that we ought not (because we cannot) judge or know. I have argued on this basis that the appropriate response for the Christian to the lack of decisive evidence for any given religion, and the concomitant existential problem of religious diversity, is to continue in humility in faithfulness to God. To accept the reality of God's grace and all that goes with this characterization of our relationship to God is something within our control. Belief may wander, acceptance need not. But there is a key word here, humility. What is humility and what role does it play? Virtually every mystic who has written on experiencing God notes the essential role humility plays in preparing oneself for the experience of God. My purpose in this chapter and the next is to provide an analysis of humility as a backdrop for the

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account of mystical experience in chapter 6. I hope these two chapters also shed some light on the claims and suggestions of the foregoing chapters. This chapter contains three sections. Section i briefly explains the relationship between humility and self-esteem. Section z considers the view that humility is a low opinion of oneself. Section 3 explains both a Greek and a Christian understanding of humility. I

HUMILITY AND SELF-ESTEEM

Norvin Richards has provided one (and perhaps the only) extended recent account of humility. I will take his comments and argument as a starting place, adding discussions of Richard Taylor's position on pride as is appropriate.1 In a chapter entitled "Is Humility a Virtue?,"2 Richards is concerned to rescue humility from what he sees as a nest of problems surrounding the view that humility is something like "having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits." This latter description reflects how a good many people do, in fact, think of humility and is a typical account, definition, or analysis of humility. It is particularly well-represented among Christian thinkers. Reflecting on what I'll call the "Christian analysis," Richards writes: "But if humility is low self-esteem, where does that leave the rather splendid among us, those in whom such a view of oneself would seem to display quite astonishing ignorance, if not extensive self-deception?"3 I suggest that Richards is not nearly careful enough from the beginning. Having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits is not equivalent to having low self-esteem. This is no mere quibble on my part. Richards's failure to make this distinction leads to problems with his understanding of a number of Christian writers whose general view he uses as a foil. Let's distinguish self-esteem from selfopinion. In general, one who suffers from low self-esteem faces psychological or emotional challenges and not necessarily moral ones. In other words, "self-esteem" is a psychological term, not a value term. Although one certainly could stipulatively define selfesteem in value terms rather than psychological ones, Richards is at best not clear about his use of the phrase. Low self-esteem is something akin to an attitude or feeling about, or emotional response to, one's (beliefs about one's) general worth. It is not a belief (explicit or otherwise) about oneself.4 Low self-esteem

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can, as it turns out, exist alongside a lack of humility or, more specifically, arrogance. In fact, arrogance may simply be the result of low self-esteem. Someone with low self-esteem may, in an effort to overcome his psychological attitude or feeling, come to believe that he is better than he is, or better than other people in a certain regard. Because he lacks good self-esteem, his psychological defence mechanisms kick in, and he simply generates the belief that he is superior to his actual nature or superior to others. We are sometimes told, for example, that bullies do what they do because they don't feel good about themselves. Thus, low self-esteem is consistent with arrogance. And since arrogance is inconsistent with humility, humility cannot be low self-esteem. Alternatively, one who has good, even excellent, self-esteem may very well have a low opinion of herself, at least so far as some aspects of her character go. For example, she could have good self-esteem and know that she is simply not any good at basketball or that she has a moral weakness when it comes to truth-telling. Although the relationships among self-esteem, self-opinion, and morality are complex, it seems minimally true that low self-esteem is not just having a low opinion of oneself. In fact, having an accurate opinion of oneself may very well require good self-esteem. For Richards thus to characterize the Christian position as holding that to have humility is to have low self-esteem is a mistake. The somewhat questionable use of this term, I believe, leads Richards into too quick a rejection of the Christian position. Of course, this does not entail that the Christian position is correct. 2

H U M I L I T Y AND LOW O P I N I O N

Nevertheless, perhaps Richards is right when he critiques the notion that humility is "having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits." Even when low opinion is not confused with low self-esteem, if humility is having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits, then the "rather splendid" among us do seem to be forced into self-deception or at least ignorance. And this, as Richards supposes, indicates that the Christian analysis of humility cannot be the correct one. Does Richards's observation really show this? I suggest not. There are at least two ways to read the statement "having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits." Call the first one, "Richards's reading." Richards's reading suggests that one can have a low opinion of oneself or one's merits and it turn out to be a false opinion. That

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is, one can falsely judge that one has a worth of, let's say, D- because, in fact, one is truly worth B (when the best or most worth is A). This supposes that humans or their merits can be compared and judged on some sort of scale or standard of worth. One can make a mistake and judge oneself or one's merit to be worth less than is actually the case. Or one can even intentionally judge oneself or one's merit to be worth less than they are. Hence such judgment or belief suggests self-deception, ignorance (about oneself), or false humility. Richards interprets the phrase in question in this way and argues that on such a view, humility would be impossible for the splendid person because for the splendid person to think herself lowly would be an error, either of self-deception or ignorance. Such a self-opinion simply would not be true, so such a person could not ever be humble. Of course, it is equally true on Richards's view that my low opinion of myself need not be a false opinion. It might turn out that I really am only a D- and the judgment that I am a D- is, therefore, true. Thus, it could turn out that having a low opinion of oneself is the proper account of oneself and then one would be appropriately humble. But surely, Richards might say, this would not be true of many people. Leaving aside the "truly splendid" among us, most of us would be worth more than D-. Perhaps most of us would be around the middle of the scale, say a C. Richards's view implies that one's value as a human, at least in terms of merit, is not universal but particular. One's value can be different from the value of another and, one supposes, different from oneself from one time to the next. Thus goes Richards's view. In response, and pace Richards, what if my "worth status" is not particular but essential, and thus universally shared by all humans? This brings us to the second reading of "having a low opinion of oneself." What if it turns out that no human is more than a D-, or even an F? Then having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits is what humility is. On this account, anyone who has a high (or even moderate) opinion of himself is wrong and does not have humility (or is not humble). Let's call this the "Christian reading" of the line in question. I want to suggest that whether Richards's interpretation or the Christian interpretation turns out to be more adequate turns on what the actual metaphysics of the human condition is. Richards is cognizant of the metaphysical issues involved, and he explicitly rejects the metaphysic involved in the Christian reading. He claims, furthermore, that his analysis of humility does not

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commit him to any metaphysics of worth at all. He says of humility that it "requires not that you take no pride at all in what you have done, but only that you be no more proud than your accomplishments merit."5 He continues: "we should think of ... [humility] as an inclination to keep one's accomplishments, traits, and so on in unexaggerated perspective, even if stimulated to exaggerate."6 At face value, there appears to be nothing metaphysical in-Richards's account of humility. Nevertheless, I believe his analysis of humility does imply a metaphysic of human worth. The Christian view is that humility is simply having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits and accomplishments. Attached to this claim is a metaphysic wherein all humans are, in fact, lowly. One who holds these two claims taken as a package is one who holds an accurate opinion of himself and hence is not prone to exaggerate his worth. Richards's view appears to claim only that humility is not holding a higher opinion of oneself, one's merits, or one's accomplishments than is warranted. But to suggest that we should take no more pride in ourselves than our accomplishments or traits allow and that one can be too low in one's assessment of one's status, assumes that our accomplishments, traits, or characteristics are of such a nature as potentially to merit pride. This view, no less than the Christian one Richards rejects, implies a metaphysic of worth, for it is a substantial denial of the metaphysics of Christianity. On the Christian view humans are, in themselves, worth nothing. Humans are not the kinds of thing nor do they accomplish the kinds of thing (on their own) that are worthy of pride. On Richards's view, in contrast, humans are the kinds of thing or can do the kinds of thing that are worthy of pride, and this implies a metaphysic of human value. In fact, if we detach Richards's view from any metaphysic of human value, it might then be consistent with the Christian reading and, indeed, with the Christian analysis itself. But then Richards's analysis becomes redundant, for to say that humility is thinking of oneself as lowly is to think of oneself properly, that is, to think of oneself no more highly than one should. Richards implies as much himself, but apparently misses the point that in order to do so, he must reject the implied stance he takes to the metaphysics of human value.

3

RICHARDS'S FOIL

Let's take a closer look at the Christian view to which Richards reacts. What is the view of Richards's foil? Bernard of Clairvaux,

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Paul, Augustine, and Martin Luther all share the view that there are no splendid humans. In fact, humans have no worth (of their own). As Bernard writes: "if you examine yourself inwardly by the light of truth and without dissimulation, and judge yourself without flattery; no doubt you will be humbled in your own eyes, becoming contemptible in your own sight as a result of this true knowledge of yourself."7 When you have true knowledge of yourself, one supposes, you recognize what you truly are: without worth. On the basis of this description, one is "humbled in one's own eyes." We are, in short, worthless. It may strike the ears as challenging to hear that we humans have no worth at all. Thus, it is not surprising that Richards, too, reacts so negatively to the Christian view that humans are worthless. He claims that when making a judgment about oneself or one's merits, there is more than one standard by which to estimate, and what is satisfying when judged by one of these may seem paltry, at best, when judged by another ... Some of these comparisons [of one's own worth or the worth of one's merits to the various standards] will be deflating - "humbling" as we sometimes say. What then is a proper humility about your accomplishment? What would it be to keep the thing in perspective? On one view, since what you have done is nothing when compared to something truly magnificent, to keep your accomplishment in perspective would be to treat it as nothing. You should take no pride in your accomplishment at all but treat it as trivial, even be a little embarrassed at any inclination to be proud of it. Perhaps something like this underlies the thinking about humility of Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and Martin Luther: that is, because God and his works are so magnificent, whatever you are or have done is trivial by comparison, and your human pride in who you are or what you have done is laughable.8

It is at this point that Richards says, contrary to Paul and company, that it is not that we should take no pride at all, but rather that we should take no more pride than is appropriate. But this assumes, as I have suggested, a metaphysic of worth for humans, if a very general one, viz. that humans or their accomplishments are of such a nature as (possibly) to merit judgments of positive worth. Is this not what Paul and his followers deny? How might such a denial make sense? Let's distinguish between two notions. First, independent value is the value that a person has when understood to be self-sufficient. By "self-sufficient" I mean,

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roughly, that one's decisions and therefore one's accomplishments (whether external in terms of things brought about in the world or internal, namely, one's character) are due completely to one's own power. In contrast, dependent value is the value that a person has when understood as non-self-sufficient; that is, one's accomplishments (whether external or internal) are not due completely to one's own power.9 Minimally, then, Paul and his friends believe in dependent value only, and they reject independent value. Thus to say one is worthless in the Christian context is to say that one's value is dependent. This is a metaphysical issue and not merely a contrastive one. Humility deals not just with a comparison of the divine to the human, so that human accomplishments compared to God's are "laughable." Rather, humility implies understanding one's metaphysical source and nature. One's value must be understood not in terms of self-sufficiency but in terms of one's ultimate source, one's dependent value, and thus one's lacking self-sufficiency. Richards's view seems to imply self-sufficiency. The Christian view rejects it. So, Richards is perhaps correct about humility, if his reading of "having a low opinion of oneself or one's merits" and his actual analysis of humility are stripped of their faulty ontology. At least so says the Christian. If the only value truly assignable to humans is a low one, that is, one that recognizes one's ultimate dependence on the divine, then Richards's account of humility, viz., that we ought not think better of ourselves then we are entitled, may still be true. But in a sense, if the Christian is correct, one can never underestimate one's worth, not because our worthlessness has no bottom and no matter what we say, we are worse than our opinion, but because ontically we are simply not worth anything (in ourselves) at all. To say we have no independent worth is a true description of ourselves. So, one can only ever have an accurate opinion or have an exaggerated one; it is not possible to have an "under" opinion. One cannot be worth less than worthless. On Richards's reading, in contrast, one can be mistaken about having a low opinion. Hence Richards is right to point out the incongruities from his point of view in the analysis of humility given by Christians. On the Christian reading, however, it turns out to be impossible to be wrong about one's opinion of oneself, so long as it recognizes human worthlessness in itself. Which of these readings is the correct one? Richards rejects the Christian reading because it has too low a view of humans and

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because he thinks there is no need for a metaphysic in the analysis of humility. He clearly says that his analysis does not involve a theory of worth. I have argued that he is wrong about this. In order to make accurate judgments about oneself, in terms of approbation, one must pay attention to the context of the judgments. If one is self-sufficient, then one is to be praised for one's accomplishments and rightly so. If one is not self-sufficient, then at least some credit is due to the source of one's being, which is not one's self. But the situation is more complicated than this. Even if one's metaphysical source is something other than one's self, it remains that, once created, one does make decisions of one's own. Shouldn't one be praised or blamed for those? Yes, of course. But such judgments are surely relative to others with the same gifts and skills. Here one can make comparative judgments and it makes perfectly good sense to say that one is better at some thing or task, or that one has accomplished more than another. It is essential here to have an accurate self-understanding and self-opinion. But this isn't all there is to humility. Humility requires us to have not only the right view of decisions and accomplishments but the right view of our true source. So suggests the Christian. The right view of ourselves is, according to Christian thought, that what we are is created by God - given by God, if you will. Our ability even to choose one thing over another is a gift - a gift everyone is given. Of course, we are given many other gifts too, unevenly distributed in quantity, quality, and order. But our ability to use those "randomly" distributed gifts lies, in essence, in the universal gift of freedom. Freedom, thus, should be viewed as something of which we cannot be proud. Pride requires us to be responsible, and we are not responsible for the fact of our free will, even if we are responsible for how we use it. But then can we ultimately be proud (that is, should we be proud) of the things we do with our freedom? Perhaps in the sense that we can judge that we do something better than others, or better than we did earlier in our lives. But this is not pride in the arrogant sense. Arrogance is a kind of "over" belief, that is, thinking better of oneself and one's accomplishments than is accurate. But pride, understood as having an accurate view of oneself, is really, and ironically, just humility about oneself - within the context of free will and in comparison to others of similar abilities. Insofar as Richards's account fails to include a metaphysics of worth, his analysis is incomplete. For even if one can "take pride"

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or "be humble" in comparison to others with the same (randomly distributed) abilities, a total account of humility must say something about the metaphysical source of freedom and, ultimately, the metaphysical source of the self. One must, finally, take a position on the dependence or independence of human value. Richards, I think unknowingly, buys into a classical Greek view of human beings, namely, the position of independent value, while the Christian view takes the position of dependent value. Richards, although he claims to have an analysis of humility free of ontological commitment, not only rejects the Christian ontology but still needs to explain the source of freedom. If it is not God, then whence our ability to choose? Richards does not delve into this question at all from the Greek side, but nevertheless attempts a rejection of the Christian view. Yet even though he clearly rejects the metaphysical view of Bernard, Paul, Augustine, and Luther, he does not reject it on good grounds or, in fact, on any grounds at all, so far as I can see. Toward the end of his chapter, Richards suggests that someone might, like Bernard, take humility simply to consist in having a low opinion of oneself. In effect, someone might take the position of the Christian. Such a person could resist the temptations to raise his opinion of himself, when others are singing his praises, by constantly recalling that no earthly accomplishment is of any importance at all. Understood in this way, however, Richards says that it is hard to see why someone who is not a Christian should hold this view. In fact, he seems disparaging of the position. He writes: I do not take this approach to the topic, myself, for several reasons. A major one is that, as this other approach has things, when Bernard of Clairvaux and his ilk admired humility, they were admiring low selfesteem. But why say this? Why not say that they admired a person's retaining what they considered to be an accurate conception of himself, especially in the face of temptations to value earthly achievements and human praise more highly than they thought such things should be valued? Why think Bernard and the others as impressed by thinking badly of oneself as such, that is? What would that ever have to be said for it? Nothing at all, so far as I can see. So this view makes the early Christian thinkers mysteriously perverse in their admiration of humility. It is a little like imagining a people who value nasty sensations, not because they think these are deserved punishment or a test of courage or some such thing, but for the unpleasant way the sensations feel to them. It puts such people

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beyond our ken, and any view that makes other human beings this alien should be regarded with suspicion. It seems much more plausible to take it that Bernard and the others valued understanding oneself aright and just differed about what such understanding would reveal [italics his].10

Richards's argument falters here. What exactly is the Christian view he rejects? Is it the one based on low self-esteem or the one based on low self-opinion? Richards describes the Christian view of humility as including the view that having a right opinion of him- or herself is valuable and that one should think no more highly of oneself than is legitimate. Yet he says he rejects the view of the Christian because it suggests having low self-esteem to be a good thing. In effect, Richards says that no one would plausibly hold the view that low self-esteem is an admirable quality. And surely Richards is right about this. But Richards seems to confuse low self-esteem (a psychological attitude, feeling, or emotion) with having a low opinion (a belief or judgment more or less accurately portraying the individual). But I submit that Bernard and the others never held up low self-esteem as something valuable. If they did not, which Richards himself indicates in the last few lines of the last quotation, then there is nothing wrong with the Christian view of humility, supposing its metaphysic of human worth is accurate. But Richards gives no explicit reason to reject the metaphysic. He never gives a reason to reject the low-opinion position, but only states that the low selfesteem position is too perverse. He even concludes himself that Christians did not hold the low self-esteem view. So what view did they hold? Perhaps the same one as Richards except they added the low self-opinion metaphysic. Nevertheless, he writes: "Fortunately, Bernard's depressing view is not obviously correct. In fact, it is difficult to see a reason to hold such a view, apart from the sort that would have satisfied Martin Luther, for example. Luther believed that we are all so corrupted by Adam's original sin as to be beyond redemption by any apparent virtue."11 This is exactly right. Luther and many other Christian thinkers hold that nothing we do can redeem us. But Richards fails to note something of great importance here. Redemption is a theological term not a moral one. No virtue, whether apparent or not, can redeem us. One supposes that not even low self-esteem or low selfopinion can redeem us. To be fallen is more than just to be immoral. It is to be a sinner. But Bernard, Luther, Paul, and Augustine are

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not suggesting that we should not have good or high self-esteem. Supposing that these thinkers speak for God, God would surely himself be perverse were he to demand that of us. Furthermore, having good self-esteem may help us to be humble in the sense of having a low attitude toward ourselves. Bernard and friends are suggesting that we should recognize what we are, in fact, before God - sinners. To do that may require (some) good self-esteem. Conversely, recognizing the fact of our sinfulness may, indeed, be the first step toward healthy self-esteem, based in God's grace rather than human achievement alone. So true humility and good selfesteem may go hand-in-hand. I believe, then, that the real issue is not to provide a metaphysically neutral account of humility but rather to be explicit about the metaphysics to which that account must, at some point, be attached. The two cannot be separated in the way Richards suggests. The implications of "be no more proud than your accomplishment merits" and the corresponding notion that humility is "an inclination to keep one's accomplishments, traits, and so on in unexaggerated perspective" must be unpacked in the context of a metaphysic in order to provide a full analysis of humility. Without the metaphysical anchor, one cannot tell what humility will look like or how it affects the kinds of things Richards goes on to explore in his book, such as mistreatment, compassion, envy, jealousy, paternalism, and arrogance. I suggest that a Christian analysis of these notions would be quite different from Richards's. So Richards does, if the argument here is correct, have a metaphysic of worth, even if not clearly developed. I suggest that his view be called the "Greek view" as opposed to the "Christian view." I call it Greek because it can be (loosely) traced back to the ancient Greek view of humanity. In Aristotle's ethics, one comes across the paragon of human virtue who, as Richards puts it, "shines in every virtue and is perfectly aware of this glorious fact."12 Such a person does not have the Christian virtue of humility. It is of note that the ancient Greeks had, apparently, no philosophical notion of humility in the sense of "low opinion." One could, I suppose, be humiliated, but that is not humility and is to be avoided. As Aristotle says about tragedy in the Poetics, a good person must not be portrayed as falling too far. And, for the Greeks, one could think too highly of oneself, so hubris was considered a vice. But the notion of "thinking lowly of oneself" as a virtue seems quite foreign, and such a state

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is certainly not something to be cherished or valued positively. If the Greeks did have a notion of humility (in contrast to hubris) it was, like Richards's view, having beliefs about oneself that were accurate or true. But the Greeks, too, had a metaphysic, and because of that metaphysic, humility is not listed among the virtues of the Greeks. What Richards calls humility is a contemporary extension, one could say, of the Greek sense of the self and its glory; the perfectible, if not perfected, human. Now Richards does not suggest that we are perfectible, let alone perfected. But he does have at the centre of his position a metaphysic that suggests, perhaps even demands, that what I do as a human is to my credit and perhaps, even, that what traits I have (not all within my control) are traits of which I should think no more highly than is legitimate. This Richards shares with the Greeks. Little could be more foreign to the Christian view of humility than the Greek view. What I do, in terms of virtue, good acts, and so forth, is of no value when it comes to redemption. Redemption is, indeed, God's job. Sin cannot be overcome or forgiven on the basis of good deeds, a good life, or any other thing that I do. Furthermore, although humans can freely "improve" themselves morally and otherwise, ultimately these improvements are gifts from God, at least in the sense that God gives us freedom in the first place. The right attitude toward one's achievements, then, is humility - a certain gratefulness, a thankfulness, toward God for the gifts given, an appropriate "being no more proud than your accomplishments allow." This attitude has to be rooted in the proper ontology, an ontology of the created order of gifts. Humility, like sin, is not simply a moral category but an ontological one. It may be instructive here to call attention to Richard Taylor's work on pride. He explicitly contrasts the Christian view of pride (a sin) with the ancient Greek view of pride (a virtue). First, Taylor notes that some people are better as human beings than others.13 The good (in the sense of personal excellence rather than benevolence) "are entitled to take pride in themselves, for pride is the justified love of oneself."14 This concept of pride, Taylor writes, "was so important in the social life and thought of the ancient Greeks, the true fathers of our secular and scientific culture, that they thought of it as underlying all the other virtues. The corruption began when the religious culture born in the Middle East began to overwhelm the heritage of the Greeks. Indeed, pride came to be, in

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teachings of Christians, the first of the deadly sins, and to this day people are not sure whether it is a sin or a virtue. Proud people are both lauded and scorned, as the meaning of the term shifts back and forth, and the original meaning ... becomes quite lost to view."15 I think Taylor is right to contrast the Greek and Christian view of pride, just as I have contrasted the Greek and Christian view of humility. But there is more to be said here. Taylor writes that "Christians ... declared each and every human being, even the despised, to be a creature of God, to be in some sense God's very image from which it follows that no one can be any better a person than any other (italics his)."16 He then goes on to say that obviously not everyone is equal (although he is careful to declare that equal rights are a pragmatic necessity!). Christianity's claims about equality are, in fact, much more complicated than this. From the point of view of original sin, we are equally in need of redemption. From the point of view of what the New Testament refers to as fruits - that is, good character some people are better than others. From the point of view of theistic ontology, none of us has any independent worth. From the point of view of gifts given to us by God, none of us deserves the gifts, nor should we take pride in them, for they are gifts. Taylor, too, comments on human giftedness. He writes, "the proud rise above ordinary people, and are quite literally superior to them; but their superiority rests not on class, power, or wealth, but on being gifted in some way and then applying those gifts to personal achievement."17 Further, "The reward of personal excellence is not fame, but pride. You are proud ... because of what you genuinely are provided, of course, that you are gifted in some significant way and that you do something with that gift."18 Elsewhere Taylor writes: "The very word gifts implies much about them; namely, that they are precious, and that they are not the result of the kind of effort and practice that anyone with the requisite energy and determination might have. Gifts of this kind are neither earned, deserved, nor labored for, nor is there any giver of them. They are simply abilities that in whatever way set one apart from and above the ordinary run of humankind. Such things as clumsiness, dullness, and stupidity are never described as gifts. They are quite literally faults or defects, qualities which, to the extent that they set their possessors apart from others, also set them beneath them."19

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Taylor's comments provide a good springboard for the remainder of our conversation. He says that pride rests in true superiority, but that superiority requires both a gift and the use of that gift for achievement. Working from an extra-Christian point of view, the gifts have no giver. Neither are they earned, deserved, nor laboured for (although one can labour with them). Christians, too, affirm that the gifts we have are not earned, deserved, or laboured for. But whether one is a Christian or not, why be proud of the gifts? Taylor does not say we should be. But he does say we can justifiably love ourselves (be proud) because we are gifted, when we use those gifts to develop personal excellence. Now, we have no control over these gifts in terms of whether we have them - we either have them or we do not. It is obvious, then, that Taylor is right not to say that we should be proud of the gifts themselves. But we can and should be proud of the gifts-as-usedfor-personal-excellence. It is what we make of our gifted selves that supports pride. But the free-will decision to make something of our gifted selves is rooted in freedom understood as a capacity. And the capacity for freedom is itself a gift - one universally shared, but still a gift. Indeed, human life itself is a gift. Taylor's Greek model assumes that our ability to make something of ourselves (that is, freedom itself) and/or our other gifts are things in which we should take pride. But how can that be? They are neither earned, deserved, nor laboured for, nor ultimately received from a giver. Taking the first three of these points, it seems that our actually choosing to make something of ourselves is rooted in something that is given to us - the capacity to choose. How, then, can that be a source of pride? The case only gets worse, if one is a Christian, for then one knows the source of the gift - God. And God is not only our source but, in comparison to us, much greater. Either way, ultimately, pride seems to have no legitimate place. Unless, of course, one thinks that one is responsible for one's gifts - unless, that is, one sees oneself as a sort of god. So in some sense I am responsible for what I do with my life, and hence it makes sense to talk about pride and taking no more pride in one's accomplishments than is appropriate. In another sense, however, and in a very general way, the right attitude to take toward one's accomplishments is to treat them all as gifts - and undeserved ones at that.

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We can say that on the Greek account, we humans (or our deeds) are viewed as being of some worth because we perform these deeds. Of course, to say of something that / did it is not to say that it is of ultimate or infinite worth. We can possibly compare our character or achievements to some value much greater than ourselves (God, perhaps) and then we or our deeds will look paltry. But Richards and Taylor both seem to think that there is no reason to make this comparison. I suppose this is true because either there is no God, or God's existence does not require the comparison of us. One can surmise that on the Greek view, since neither our worth nor the worth of the things that we do depend on God, then if humans are to be worth something, they must have independent worth or, at least, be capable of having an attribute (say being pleasured or happy or acting freely) that is of independent worth. For the Greek view, if we humans are not of independent worth (as implied by Taylor's "gift" language), and God plays no role in our worth, whence comes our value?20 Furthermore, when one holds a metaphysic of independent human worth, one is, I believe, necessarily committed to the view that our character and deeds are to be judged strictly by the standard of that of which humans themselves are capable. Although one could compare oneself to God, there would be no point to such a comparison. Our worth is our own and we should be praised (or blamed) for what we do. And even a Christian could say that humans are capable of much. One might even say that from the human point of view - on a human scale - Jane and her accomplishments are worthy of more praise (or a higher opinion) than John and his accomplishments. But what will the Christian say of this admission? It is true, but ultimately irrelevant. The human scale is not the right scale. Humans are not worth anything independently, and neither is any other created thing. Any true worth we have is ultimately derived from God. So the worth of our character or deeds is at best dependent. This is (part of) the reason that our deeds or character cannot redeem us. Redemption cannot occur on the basis of something we do that is of independent value, for the value is not ours but, ultimately, God's. The Garden story expresses precisely this insight. We want to be God, taking credit for something we did not do (in and of ourselves). How, then, do we decide what humility is? Which is right, the Greek or the Christian view? I am not going to answer that question

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directly, since the essay assumes a Christian framework. Instead I will turn to a further analysis of the Christian view, at least as seen through the eyes of some Christian writers. However, I will try to explain along the way where, on the Christian scheme of things, aspects of the Greek view might find some backing, even if, ultimately, that view is to be rejected. Before going further, let me summarize the findings thus far. Humility cannot be analyzed without some reference to a metaphysic of human worth. When Richards suggests that the worth one attaches to some achievement or other depends upon what it is being compared to, he is correct, so far as he goes. But here comparison is not enough. To give an account of humility one must, I believe, make the metaphysics clear. So, an analysis of humility has two aspects, the account and the metaphysic. How the account is to be understood cannot be separated from the metaphysic. Thus the Christian analysis of humility has two aspects. One is an ontological feature of humans - it is a metaphysical fact about us that we are not independently worthy of any praise. Our dependence, however, can be overlooked or even rejected and replaced with another metaphysical view. This is arguably what happens in the Greek view. On the Greek view, we have independent value. The other aspect of humility is the attitudinal aspect. When we do overlook or reject our ontic humility, we become arrogant, puffed up, or prideful. We take ourselves to be of independent worth. So we cannot, on the Christian view, become humble. We already are. In another sense, however, we can recognize ourselves to be what we are. So one might distinguish between being humble and having a humble attitude. The former is an ontic state of our being, the latter is the result of an (accurate) epistemic description.

CHAPTER

FIVE

The Humility of Jesus and the Christian Tradition The preceding chapter has shown that freedom turns out to be essential for humility, both in terms of understanding humility as well as in terms of being humble. What role does freedom play? Since we are concerned in particular with Christian humility, we shall consider the example of Jesus as well as the account of one other Christian thinker. Thus, the humility of Jesus is considered in section i. Section 2, explores Thomas a Kempis on humility. I

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OF J E S U S

Let it be said at the outset that the view discussed in chapter four is only partly correct. I suggest in the following that a real ontic change occurs when a person humbles herself. To humble oneself, that is, involves more than simply coming to hold an accurate portrayal of oneself, whether in terms of one's ontic status or in terms of accomplishments. At least that seems to be the Christian view of humility. With that in mind we can ask, what is Christian humility? We have already seen that humility has both an ontological and an attitudinal aspect. Furthermore, our reading of the Genesis story has shown that humility requires us to trust God, even when we do not, and perhaps cannot, understand. Some knowledge is beyond our ontic and moral ken. But I want to set aside the connection between humility and knowledge until the next chapter. Here, I want to consider one salient biblical passage and some comments from Thomas a Kempis as a way to understand the issues of the ontic and the attitudinal in the Christian context.

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There are, of course, many biblical references to humility, but perhaps none so central as Philippians 2: 5-11, the New Testament's self-emptying passage. This passage is typically taken as the ultimate statement about Christ's humility. I want to quote a slightly longer passage, Philippians 2.: 1-13. If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians z: 1-13)

This is a notoriously difficult passage for theologians and biblical scholars to interpret. What is this "self-emptying" of God? What is the ontology of the Trinity and the supposed dual nature of Christ? I will not make forays into those jungles any more than I must in order to give an account of humility as suggested by this passage. First, it is important to note that Paul tells the Philippians that their attitude should be the same as that of Jesus (be of the same mind, as the NKJV puts it). This is, then, a didactic passage whose purpose is to teach about the attitude of humility. Nevertheless, it has implications for the ontology of humility as well. What attitude is referred to here? Jesus was of the very nature of God. This implies that Jesus was metaphysically of the highest worth. Nevertheless, this metaphysical worth was not taken by him

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to be something he had to keep; he does not, as it were, cling to it. His attitude was not to consider equality with God something to grasp, something to hold on to. But Jesus did not merely believe himself to be worth less than he was, that is, to think more lowly of himself than he actually was. In Jesus' case, he became (ontically) less. Of course, this is where theologians working on the notion of the Trinity and the dual nature of Jesus run into problems. Let me propose that in his decision to humble himself, his ontic nature changed, at least in some way. Since I am attempting to work within orthodox structures, however, the way in which Jesus changes cannot empty him of his divinity. On the other hand, neither can his humbling himself come to no more than simply believing he was no longer divine. That would leave Christians with a disingenuous God. The passage says that Jesus made himself nothing, becoming a servant. Now we do not normally take servants to be worth nothing, so what is being suggested here? Perhaps Paul intends to draw a contrast between the nature of God and the nature of humans. Ontically, humans are "nothing" compared to God and, furthermore, literally nothing without God. In fact, they are what they are only because of God, even in their very "nothingness." Of course, compared to each other, humans can be more or less good or valuable. And here we should take the analogy Paul suggests quite seriously. What a servant does and is, qua servant, is all for the master. What a servant of God does and is, qua servant of God, is all for God. But a servant is a human, and humans compared to other humans are all worth something. But human qua servant compared to human qua master is, indeed, nothing were it not for the master. Servants do not exist qua servants independent of their masters.1 So humans, qua servants of God, are nothing, save for God. But they are still human and, one supposes, valuable. However, as servants of a master, humans are ontologically nothing. They would have no existence at all without their master. When Jesus became human, he became a servant. In so doing, he decided not to grasp after his real nature. Did he give up his real, divine nature to become something less? Well, does a human give up his or her nature as human when he or she becomes a servant? No. And neither, one can say, did Jesus give up his divine nature when he became human. No, because, for Christ, to be a human is to be a servant. What Paul is teaching here is that when we humans give up grasping after our own human nature as something

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important (that is, when we give up our view of ourselves as gods) and realize that we are rightly servants of God, then we have taken on the attitude of humility. Has a real ontological change taken place? One can hear Aristotle say that tailors do not beget tailors, but humans do beget humans, so surely the ontology of servants, no less than the ontology of tailors, is derivative from humans. Humans are the real or primary ontic entities whereas servants are not. So if Jesus is divine but becomes a human (servant), then his humanness is not truly what he is. The analysis just given, then, only describes the attitudinal aspect of humility and not the ontic. No real ontological change occurs, either with Jesus becoming human or with humans becoming servants (of God). Furthermore, if Jesus' becoming a human (servant) is ontically equivalent to a human becoming a servant, then this view is less than orthodox. Jesus is only "playing" human, he isn't really human. I wish to focus on two questions. First, what is the real nature of humans to begin with? Second, is there a real change in human nature when we do humble ourselves (before God)? These two questions are obviously connected and they are very large and difficult. Perhaps they are as difficult for theologians as giving an account of the "self-emptying" of God. Maybe humans have a nature that they must "lose" in order to be redeemed, parallel to God having to "lose" his nature in order to do the redeeming. But the notion of something losing its nature to become something else is at best a difficult one, at least if one is speaking of one's essential nature. It is particularly difficult in this case because it is hard to see how one thing can become a totally different kind of thing and still have (moral or personal) continuity. And orthodox teaching says that Jesus is co-essential with the Father, so Jesus is God, even when he "loses" his divine nature as he becomes human. Since we are working with the orthodox view of Christianity, we can see why this Philippians passage is so difficult for theologians. How can Jesus be fully human and fully divine and yet become "nothing" as he becomes human? As noted, this can't just be a matter of one believing oneself to be different than one truly is. Jesus cannot "humble" himself simply by believing he is human when he is not. And neither can a human "humble" himself by believing he is worth less than he actually his, let's say by believing he is nothing when he is something more. To

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do so would be, as Richards suggests, either self-deception, ignorance, or simply a lie, whether for us or for Jesus. And that is not what the passage says Jesus does. It says he had the nature of God but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Of course, he makes himself nothing because he decides to do so. Jesus is not forced to become human and to die on the cross. When he is a human, he humbles himself (again?) and dies - even dies on the cross!, the passage says. The will, then, is of central importance. When Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane immediately before he is arrested, he asks God, "if you are willing, let the cup (of suffering and death) pass by me." But, Jesus says, "I want to follow your will, not mine." And God's will was that Christ die on the cross. This passage points toward difficult issues in accounting for the doctrine of the Trinity. One supposes that God's nature includes his will. But then Jesus never ceases to be God. Nevertheless, his plea suggests that his will is not identical to God's will. So perhaps it is best to think that Jesus is both human and divine, and that his human nature also has a will, and that his human will struggles with "submitting" to the divine will. The three gospel references that speak of this prayer of Jesus are virtually identical, and none of them indicates that Jesus has no (human) will. Rather, they seem to indicate that he is setting his (human) will aside, or perhaps willing to do God's will, so God can do what he wills. It seems clear enough that had Jesus, in his human will, not assented to God's will, God would not have sent him to the cross. Jesus' will, in other words, could interfere with God's will. But there is much to be asked about the will. For example, is the will part of one's nature, whether one is divine or human, or are the will and the nature two separate things? Or are they two aspects of the same thing? Now it is not part of my plan to develop a fully fleshed out theory of the will. My goal is rather to provide a possible, albeit rough, account of the human will and its relationship to one's nature that makes sense of both Jesus' humility and human humility. In brief, here is what I am suggesting. First, the term "will" has protean meanings and uses. The first of the two on which I focus is the will as the capacity to choose, and I include within the range of its powers the capacity to choose not just how to act, but also to choose what kind of character to be. The second meaning of "will" is that which I desire or want. In this sense, the will is

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not a capacity nor need it even involve a choice. It may just be the (natural) wants and desires of a person. Given these two notions, it makes sense to say that "one wills to do one's will" without it being a tautology. Furthermore, I am going to assume a broadly libertarian notion of the will so that the will is not simply the ability to follow one's wants and desires but, on occasion at least, one can choose among wants and desires, ordering them in terms of which should be followed first. In other words, I reject the notion that our wants and desires just come willy-nilly to us, and we must follow whichever want or desire is the strongest. One can, instead, choose among those wants and desires, according to other choices one may have made about what kind of character one wants to be. Let me also note that in understanding the will as a capacity, I intend to leave open the question of what sort of "thing" it is. But I do need to say something about how the will may be related to the rest of the person. Let us say that humans (as a species) share in common a nature. That nature includes the capacity for emotions, thought, action, and so forth. The will is one of those capacities. But unlike the other capacities, the will can contribute positively to the remaining "parts" of the nature. For example, one can will, to some degree, how one responds to certain emotions. For example, if one is discouraged, one can turn to uplifting literature to help get through the discouragement. Or one can contribute to one's capacity for thought, for example, by choosing to attend school and to work hard. And so forth. Now of course, how the will chooses is accomplished in the context of the rest of one's nature. For example, if one does not have the physical ability to high jump six feet, willing to jump six feet will not enable one to do it. Or perhaps one decides to become a person of honesty. Nevertheless, one finds oneself on occasion stretching the truth in order to promote one's own well-being. Indeed, one might find oneself simply incapable (at least so it seems) of always being honest. Thus, the will can be thwarted by the other capacities one has. Still, the will is unique in its influence over the non-will parts of human nature, for the will is creative in ways that the non-will parts are not. Let's say that the will can contribute positively to human nature whereas human nature can only contribute negatively (by limiting whether the will's choices can be implemented). Now I'm afraid all this is too neat a description of a very messy set of issues. It is not as if we can divide human nature up as I have

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just suggested. For example, I may not be able even to will certain character changes because of choices I made earlier in my life. Or perhaps some of us are self-deceived and believe we are willing one thing while in reality our actions tell another story. But for the purposes of explaining humility in Jesus and in us, perhaps the reader can indulge the fantasy that we have gotten things boxed up neatly, and allow a (perhaps large) measure of looseness in the remaining discussion. The will turns out be central in analyzing humility. I propose that the will is so important that it is the one thing that can interfere with God's will. Here we need the distinctions noted above between the will as capacity and the will as desire. Insofar as I can, I will try to reserve the term "will" for capacity and use the term "desire" to capture the other aspect. Also, based on my earlier suggestions, we can note that not only can our human wills contribute to our finite beings by choosing the desires, plans, goals, and projects of our finite beings, but some of the desires, plans, goals, and projects we can will are God's desires. Furthermore, God's will can be understood both as capacity and plan. In God's case, his divine will as capacity may not be so ontically distinct from his will as plan, desires, etc. That is, perhaps God's will and his desires are so rooted in his being that the idea of God having some set of desires other than the ones he in fact has is inconceivable. Given these remarks and those of the last chapter, let us explore the suggestion that the human will, once created and set free by God is, indeed, completely self-determining, even if not independently valuable. Yet the selfdetermining will turns out to be valuable in such a way that God will not (or cannot morally) suppress or destroy it. The will defines us in a way that nothing else does. The will is essential to our nature as human, and indeed essential to our natures qua individual humans. That we are free makes us human. That I use my freedom to self-determine in ways unique to me makes me the individual that I am. It is true that, comparatively speaking, my being is a created being and, like all created being, belongs to God, and he is therefore within his "rights" in destroying us. But the will makes us unique, and insofar as it contributes to my being the way I am (including my desires), it puts me beyond God's control. So humans are in some sense different from other created things in that we have, to some degree, self-determining value.

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Now it can be argued that many other things are valuable too. But not, I suggest, in the way that humans are. Let's assume for the moment that (some) paintings are valuable. Suppose that I paint such a painting with my own tools, time, effort, and materials, under no commission from anyone else. The painting, we might say, belongs to me. Now someone else - my friend, for example ought not destroy the painting, and that for two reasons. First, the painting is valuable. Second, the painting is my property. But from my perspective as the artist, I should be able to destroy the painting, even if it has value. The reason is that the painting belongs to me. One might think that the same reasoning applies to God and his creation. And we might admit that it does for everything excluding humans.2 God makes the world. Let's grant that it is valuable. But it is God's property, and therefore he can destroy it without impunity, just as I, as the painter, can destroy my painting without impunity. When it conies to humans, however, the logic is a little different. While it is true that God makes us, he does not completely make us. He gives us freedom, and in using that freedom, we contribute to our own being and (individual) essence. That puts God in a role rather like the painter's friend above. Another person cannot (or should not) destroy the painting because it isn't his. When God gives us our wills, he gives us something that belongs to us and is, ultimately, only ours to use. This is reflected in the Greek view of humility, for therein, what makes what we do important is that we do it. We have a will that is, indeed, self-determining in large measure, even if not independently valuable. And it is because of this self-determining nature that God respects our ability and right to decide how to live. So, in that sense, not even God can make us do what we do not choose to do. If our wills are selfdetermining, then God will not destroy them even though they are dependency valuable. Indeed, the actual use of our wills may be the only thing that ultimately belongs to us. Again, I have no problem with the notion that God can destroy the valuable thing, if it belongs to him. But I think he will not (cannot morally) destroy the self-determiningly but dependently valuable thing that belongs to someone else. This is borne out by the analogy of the gift. A gift, although created or purchased by the giver, ceases to be in the control of the giver, once given, because it ceases to belong to the giver, once given.

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Now the critic might say that God should not destroy anything of value, at least when those things belong to some individual other than God. For example, since I own a valuable painting, God cannot destroy it. But I think there is a difference between the ownership involved in an individual's relationship to a material object and that same individual's relationship to himself. The latter, being more intimate and less easily divisible from itself, has a special status. The will is what makes me self-determiningly valuable. It is what makes me (in the sense of creature) human qua human - the will as capacity - and what makes (in the sense of my own creativity) me qua me the individual I am - the will as used. So while God could remove a painting from my ownership, he should not remove me from my ownership. Insofar as my will essentially makes me what I am (both as human qua human and as the maker of some of the characteristics that make me Mark McLeod-Harrison), my will is more than owned by me; it is my defining characteristic. We can call this special relationship between the human self and his or her will "essential ownership." This special status is, indeed, what I am relying on here. So although God could, theoretically, destroy anything of value - he has, one supposes, the power to do so - in the case of humans he will not. A thing of self-determining value owned essentially by someone other than God is something God cannot, by his own set of values, destroy. To destroy the essentially owned, human will would be, at the very least, an unhappy thing for God to do, if not an outright wrongful thing to do. For all this, it does not follow from the suggested self-determining yet dependent value of the human will that the will is infinite, or even infinitely powerful, as Descartes suggests. God has the power, but not the value structure, that allows the destruction of, or interference with, the human will. In the Garden of Eden, Adam has this kind of will. He is given an opportunity to use it in one of two ways, for obedience and, in the long run, growth to maturity, or for disobedience and hence sin and death. And God does not interfere. The created and derivative human being has self-determining value in the way described above. The will is dependent, but essentially owned and self-determiningly valuable. In the Garden, we used our will to step beyond our ontological bounds, to desire things our finite beings could not handle. God intended us to use our wills for obedience, just as Jesus did. Had we, the world would be very different. But we did not.

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What, then, happened in the Fall? I suggest that in the very act of disobedience, our dependently but self-determiningly valuable wills were "fused" or "alloyed" to our finite natures and desires rather than to God's infinite nature and his desires. We, so to speak, made a choice with ontological implications. We put our finite, and to some degree ignorant, desires, plans, goals, and projects ahead of God's. Our wills were fused with our finite goals and desires. This fusion was not what God had in mind. When we look at the rest of the Garden story, we find at the end that God removes Adam and Eve from the Garden so they will not eat of the tree of eternal life and live forever in their fallen, finite state. So, in the Garden we used our will to create the somewhat paradoxical state of limiting our possibilities by making ourselves (like) gods. We made ourselves like God in choosing to act on our own desires, but unlike God in that we were now limited to our own finite nature and power. Our essentially owned wills were fused to our finite natures and desires in such a way that our ability to choose became completely limited to the finite, so long as we act on our own. We used our wills to bring it about that we never gave ourselves the opportunity to develop properly, that is, to use our wills under the direction of God, as God designed them to be used. Instead, we made ourselves gods by choosing our own finite powers and being over against God's infinite power and being. Perhaps what is suggested in the Philippians passage is an analogy to what could have happened in the Garden of Eden, had we used our wills properly. When Jesus seeks not to grasp his divine nature, he "gives up" his will as alloyed with God's infinite nature and it is replaced by his self-determiningly valuable but unalloyed human will (thereby making himself "nothing"). So Christ takes on human nature (he has both will and finite nature) but in a pre-Fall state.3 Unlike post-Fall humans, Jesus' will is not yet fused with a finite nature. Jesus faces the temptations of Adam but makes the right choices rather than the wrong ones. When God made us, He made us in his image, He made us with a will. God's will, when alloyed with His infinite nature, is able to know the good and to do it. When the will is created in humans, it is put alongside a finite nature and merely attended by the guidance of God. We, unfortunately, let our wills get out of hand, rejecting God's direction. Jesus did not. Jesus is a human who willed a perfect human life - that is, one conformed to the divine will - into being because he used his will

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as was appropriate, as God wanted him to. Adam, in contrast, willed an imperfect human life into being. Certainly there is little more important about us as humans than our will. Our will, in large measure, enables what we are and what we become as humans. Without our will, we would not be human. What happens, then, when the Christian sets aside her plans, goals, and desires qua fallen human in order to be Christ-like? Does she cease to be human? No more than Jesus did when he set his human desires, goals, etc. aside to follow God. The Christian, in fact, would say just the reverse, viz., that she only becomes fully human as she was designed to be when the will is alloyed with God's. So a human does not cease to be human when she becomes a Christian. The will is not crushed, but by an act of the will, the goals, desires, etc. are transformed. But we must note that the will also changes. It becomes "more divine" in becoming more alloyed, and therefore allied, with God's purposes. As the Christian matures into humility, then, God's desires become more inseparable from the will. The human will becomes more alloyed with God's desires. The suggestion is that, when Jesus became human, he took on a human but unfallen will and, in taking on this will, he must have taken on the spiritual and moral approach of a human. Since Jesus was not fallen, his approach to the desires of God was that of a human without pride, a human whose finitude did not get the best of him. A human without pride might be somewhat like Adam in the Garden, before the fruit was eaten. He simply did what God told him to do and lived as God directed. But as Jesus grew, so did his ability to rely on God's direction and desires. That is not to say that he did not struggle with following his own human desires; that he was not tempted to go the finite way of the rest of us. Otherwise we would not have the garden of Gethsemane story, or it would be some sort of sham. But Jesus never asserted his own desires over God's. Rather, his human desires were changed and converted, and thereby fused or alloyed with God's desires; he willed the desires of God so that his desire as a human simply became the desires of God. Jesus' human will aligned with God's desires, and he was able to carry God's desires through because of this. So humility is, for Jesus, not only not asserting his will inappropriately, but letting God transform it, and by extension him, into something good and holy. His humanity is divinized or sanctified.

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Recall our two questions from earlier. First, what is the real nature of humans, and second, is there a real change in human nature when we do humble ourselves (before God)? Where do we stand on these questions, given our discussion? God created human nature, in an unfallen state, as a finite nature with an essentially owned, self-determiningly but dependently valuable will. The will, being essentially owned, is not something God would destroy. However, we use that will to reach for our finite desires, and our wills are alloyed with our finitude. So God cannot destroy us, even in our fallen state, since by an act of the will we create an alloy of essentially owned will and the rest of our finite nature. We thwart God's ability. What happens when we become servants of God? Is there a real change in human nature when we do humble ourselves (before God)? Well, we do not lose our nature qua humanly valuable when we become servants of God (when we become "divine" by taking on God's desires), any more than Jesus lost his divinity when he became human. Jesus refused to use his divine will and all its unlimited, infinite access to the Father. Jesus thus limits himself to his human will. And it is the human will - both in the human Jesus and in humans in general - that reaches out to God. Likewise, but in the opposite direction, in the Garden we chose to extend our wills into an area where we were told not to and thereby created a new kind of creature - a fallen one. Just as Jesus (by his own choosing) had to learn obedience to God and his desires, so should Adam have chosen. If we had relied on God as Jesus did, we would have had access to God's power - to God's very nature - to thwart evil. Instead we used our own finite power. In Jesus' choice to follow God's desires, he in effect gains his divine will back as he becomes a fully mature human and properly exercises his unfallen nature. His will (both as capacity and desire) and God's will (at least as desire, and eventually, one can suppose, as capacity too) become one, similar to our will and our finitude becoming one. Let me suggest that perhaps if we follow God now - even in our fallen state - rather than chasing after the finite desires and goals we have created ourselves, our human will can be raised to a higher ontological status. It may not be to the level of Jesus himself - that is why the Philippians passage is only an analogy to the Garden. Jesus was, after all, both divine being and an unfallen human. But our potential with this higher status could enable us to handle the

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knowledge of good and evil and not get tangled up in it. In short, we do not lose ourselves and our control over our being and desires. Ultimately, we gain a new, higher ontological status, with access to God's will as desire and as capacity. We are sanctified or divinized; we are changed into what we should have been all along, we fulfill God's desire for us. In summary, our true nature as pre-Fall humans comprised our essentially owned, self-determiningly but dependently valuable will and the rest of our finite being (to which we could contribute). Similarly, Jesus as God is a wilful being plus the rest of his, in his case infinite, being. He gave up - that is, chose not to exercise the infinite, non-will part of his being in order to struggle with his human will (both as capacity and desire) as an otherwise finite being. He was able to separate his will from his finite temptations and, therefore, to be obedient to God. And as his will fused with the divine desire, he moved "back" to his divine relationship where his (human) will is fully God's will (both as desire and as capacity). Of course, humans never have the completely or fully divine nature Jesus has, being co-essential with the Father and the Spirit. But our relationship to God certainly has more potential than when we try to do things on our own. So, the true nature of humans is an essentially owned and self-determiningly although dependently valuable will, as well as the potential to be servants of God who have chosen to live obedient lives. God creates us with a will to self-determination. This will is powerful enough and free enough that we can even reject the truth about our own wills, namely, that they are to be aligned with God's desires. This freedom is exercised in the Garden when Adam and Eve take on, illegitimately, God's role as arbiters of good and evil. So our will is human, and valuable, even to the point of being able to deny God. God allows us to determine ourselves. He even allows us to be gods of our own making. When we make that choice, we lock ourselves into being only finitely valuable. But as such we can even face down God. In so doing, however, we limit our value to the finite. We can never, on our own, be anything but fallen humans. We certainly cannot redeem ourselves. The alternative, however, is that we can make our wills conform to God's desires; we can allow God to alloy his will (as capacity) to ours, transforming us into new creatures. We can let our human worth be transformed into servant worth. To do so, we must recognize that although we are of self-determining worth, we should

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not hold this as ultimately important. We can decide not to cling to our self-determining, but finite, worth, just as Jesus does not cling to his divine nature. To do so, however, we have to will ourselves not to act on our own desire. This paradox, of course, is exactly why the Greek view seems right. We have made ourselves valuable by our wills, instead of letting God make us valuable by his. By asserting our self-determining value, we block what God can do for us. But the loss is ours, for even though our will's capacity is enormous, we are now limited by our choice to our finitude. If we had followed God in the Garden, who knows what we would have become? Thus humility is both attitudinal and ontic. We have a selfdeterminingly valuable will. That is the way God made us. This is what the Greek view clings to. But because of its nature, the will can be used in ignorance and (raw) disobedience. When it is used in that way, it is fused or alloyed to the finite and, as such, is limited. We are, thus, ontically limited in everything but our wills (in a preFallen state, at least) and our wills then overextend our knowledge and we become nothing when compared to God. What I have called the Greek notion of humility is the natural extension of our pride in the Garden. We still have value, but we used that very value to destroy our possibilities. The Christian notion of humility, then, calls on us to return to the Garden and to recognize that we are overextended. But we find the gates of the Garden locked until we decide not to exercise our will toward ourselves. Then God can step in and we can be changed by him. Only we can choose to give up our value as something to be grasped after, because the value itself lies in the ability to choose, which in turn belongs to each of us as individual humans. One might say, then, that the only value we would have, upon giving ourselves to God, would be external, depending utterly on God's sustenance, will, and love. We always retain the potential, however, to reassert our will. That much is essential to us, and not even God can do anything about that, now that we are created. Is it then a true description of humans to say that they are nothing? What happens to Richards's description of humility as having an accurate assessment of yourself and, therefore, not thinking more highly of yourself than that? Won't Christians be forced into lying about their nature? The holder of the Greek view of humility might say: "I have a self-determining value, and I am, therefore, important,

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but God wants me to deny it!?!" In response, it seems, first of all, that the "nothing" language of the Christians must be metaphorical exaggeration. "Lowly" is more accurate. And there is nothing in my suggested explanation that is incompatible with the Christian's claim to be lowly. One chooses to be lowly, it is within one's prerogative to be lowly. But just how powerful is our will? Can we will ourselves into nothingness? Well, we can certainly take our own lives, literally. Would we be nothing then? If there is no afterlife, then yes, we can will ourselves into nothingness. But if our wills are essentially owned and self-determiningly valuable and my suggestions about God's unwillingness to destroy such a value are correct, perhaps we have an argument here for our immortality. As such, we cannot will ourselves to be literally nothing. Our wills are what they are and will always be. We are, in fact, capable of much more than we believe ourselves to be and our selfdetermining wills are capable of being truly great, but only when attached to God. When attached to God, however, we may certainly seem to be nothing, for then a true metaphysical comparison is possible. We know God could destroy us. It is only by his goodness that he does not. When our wills are not fused with God's will, and we are not practicing humility, we are, compared to God, still lowly or "nothing." But we can't see it, we are blinded by our pride. And paradoxically, only when we practice humility and our wills are fused with God, do we become great. Thus Jesus' saying that the lowest among us is the greatest in the Kingdom of God. So the Christian is not speaking or believing falsely when he says "I am lowly." By an assertion of the will, the Christian changes his status, just as we changed our status in the Garden from potentially attached to God to actually attached to the finite. Even the value of our will is "nothing" when compared to what it could have been, had we not asserted it and tried to be gods on our own finite basis. Jesus decides to become lowly and give up his nature as divine. Just so, we can decide to be lowly and give up our desires to be human in the self-determining sense. When we do, however, we gain our wills back with something more than our finite natures as they exist on earth - we will live forever, death is conquered, and we are transformed. And perhaps just as the details of how Jesus is both human and divine remain a mystery, so it is a mystery as to how humans are both self-determiningly valuable beings and lowly, externally valuable (that is, dependent), God-directed beings.

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Christians do know that they have to be willing to die for Jesus to take up their crosses and follow him. In "denying" (that is, choosing against) our wilful value, we gain something greater. Jesus shows us the path back, so to speak, in his own humility. Not grasping to his nature as God but giving it up, he shows what we should do in the Garden. So we, as people with wills capable of thwarting God, should not grasp to our self-determining natures but give them up. In so doing, we are open once again to God's will. Let's return, briefly, to the context of the self-emptying passage in Philippians since it lends credence to other things I've said here. Before he launches into the discourse on self-emptying, Paul writes a long conditional. He says that if the Philippians have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from Christ's love, if any fellowship with his Spirit, then make his (Paul's) joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. What does this conditional say? In brief, if you have experienced any of Christ's love, fellowship, and unity, then have that love, fellowship, and unity. But how can one move from experiencing that love to having it? By humility. It is the humility described above that allows God's Spirit and will to be present to us in the alloyed way that brings God's love to us. As long as we are wilful, we can hold God at bay. After the self-emptying passage, Paul gives the instruction to be obedient. Obedient to what? Paul doesn't say. One supposes he means being obedient to God's will and, in fact, he continues by noting that they (the Philippians) should work out their salvation, for it is God in them. How can they work out their salvation when it is God who works his will in them? That is, indeed, what I have just tried to describe. Our will must recognize that the human will needs to be alloyed with God's. Our good character and deeds cannot do it alone or perhaps even at all. Why is the Greek way so attractive then? It is the way of the selfdetermining will, something we are and, in some sense, can be proud of. But it will not redeem us. What we admire about humility, even along Richards's model, is not putting ourselves forward, even when people are trying to praise us. We know, I suppose, that even if we have done something good, others could do it too, and there is, therefore, nothing special about us. The greater (on a human scale) the person is, the more we admire her humility. But all of that still misses the point from the perspective of the ontology of

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God. None of our features are ours, save our free will. And even that God ultimately gives us as capacity. Even if a humanly great person is full of (Greek) humility, it will not transform him into what God wants him to be. 2,

THOMAS

A K E M P I S ON

HUMILITY

The Christian tradition has returned time and again to the theme of humility - the humility of Christ, the self-emptying passage of Philippians, the idea of human will in choosing (or rejecting) the way of humility. Thomas a Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, writes as clearly as any classic Christian writer on humility. We need to remember, however, that he is not analyzing humility per se but encouraging his reader to a deeper relationship to Christ. However, when we draw out his analysis of humility we find, I believe, that it is compatible with, and firmly within the tradition of, humility and the will developed in the previous section. In the section on personal humility a Kempis states: "A man who truly knows himself realizes his own worthlessness, and takes no pleasure in the praises of men." "A true understanding and humble estimate of oneself is the highest and most valuable of all lessons. To take no account of oneself, but always to think well and highly of others is the highest wisdom and perfection." And in the section on the teaching of truth: "A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences." "He is truly great, who is great in the love of God. He is truly great, who is humble in mind, and regards earth's highest honors as nothing. He is truly wise who counts all earthly things as dung, in order that he may win Christ."5 One can see from these few quotations why the Greek view of humility is opposed to the Christian view. "I do know myself," says the Greek thinker, "and I am not worthless." But focusing only on those phrases of a Kempis that call attention to human worthlessness fails to give the whole view, a Kempis takes humility to be a true description of humanity when he ties it to understanding. He takes humility to be a virtue when he says it is a perfection. And he also says, as does scripture, that he is greatest who is the least. How can the greatest be the least? The least, if the suggestions of the last section are correct, is one whose will is alloyed with God's. What can be greater than for a humble human to be alloyed with

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God's will? We also find in these comments both the ontic and the attitudinal aspects of humility. Not only are we nothing but we are to view ourselves ("all earthly things") as dung. But the attitude is to be taken in order to gain Christ. In the part of the book given over to the inward consolations, a Kempis writes alternately in the voice of Christ and the voice of the disciple. He writes, with the disciple speaking: I will presume to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. If I esteem myself to be anything more, You confront me, and my sins bear a true witness against me, that I cannot contradict. But if I humble myself and acknowledge my nothingness; if I cast away all my self-esteem and reduce myself to the dust that I really am, then Your grace will come to me, and Your light will enter my heart; thus will the last trace of selfesteem be engulfed in the depth of my own nothingness, and perish for ever. Thus You show me my true self, what I am, what I have been, and what I have become; for I am nothing, and did not know it. By myself I am nothing, and am all weakness. But if for a moment You look on me, I become strong once again, and am filled with new joy. It amazes me how speedily You raise and enfold me with Your grace, who of myself ever fall into depths. It is Your love that achieves this, freely guiding and supporting me in my many needs, guarding me from grievous perils, and, as I may truthfully confess, rescuing me from evils without number. And whereas by perverse self-love I had lost myself, now by lovingly seeking You alone, I have found both myself and You; for by that love I have humbled myself to utter nothingness. Dearest Lord, You deal with me above my deserts, and above all I dare hope and pray for.6

He continues later in the voice of Christ, in answer to the question "what more have I to learn?": Now you must frame your desires in accordance with My good pleasure, and be not a lover of self, but an earnest follower of My will. Desires often inflame you and drive you violently onwards; but consider whether it be My honor or self-interest that moves you most. If I Myself be the cause, you will be content with whatever I shall determine; but if selfinterest is your hidden motive, this will be a hindrance and burden to you.7

There is much to comment on here. I'll highlight only a few things. When a Kempis says he is nothing, it is surely a comparative

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statement. One cannot be literally nothing as well as dung, dust, or ashes. So there is something of value, and I would suggest that it is the self-determining will. He does say that "by myself I am nothing," which indicates an external view of value. When Christ looks at him in his nothingness, he becomes strong. On the other hand, he says that it is by his perverse self-love that he loses himself, and to lose oneself, there must be something to lose. At any rate, his own self-opinion (self-esteem, he calls it) is engulfed in his nothingness and perishes forever when he humbles himself and recognizes his nothingness. Christ's light enters his heart and his selfopinion is engulfed in his nothingness. And there is an epistemic aspect of this too, for he says, "I am nothing and did not know it." Humility brings with it new knowledge. It is, says a Kempis, God's love that accomplishes this transformation of the self from self-love, to nothing, to strength again. What does he find? Not a loss of self, but himself and Christ. This is all accomplished by Christ's love enabling the disciple to humble himself to nothing. The last quotation deals with the issue of lining up the disciple's desires with God's. Being moved by Christ's honour brings contentedness. Self-interest is, therefore, a hindrance to what the disciple truly wants. The Greek point of view miscasts the Christian point of view. Richards rejects the Christian view because, he claims, Christianity does not recognize the value we have. On the contrary, Christianity not only recognizes the value we have but says that by humbling ourselves - making ourselves by choice "nothing" - we in fact gain back not only ourselves, but Christ. Our wills, alloyed with God rather than the finite, become God's will. On the analysis suggested in the previous section, we are what we are as individuals because we make ourselves to be that way. So far forth, humility should be understood as thinking no more highly of myself than I actually make myself. But all that is dust ("nothing") when compared to what God can make of me when I "unmake" myself and become God's servant rather than my own god. In unmaking myself by becoming God's servant, it ceases to be true of me that I am of value in and of myself, for I reject my own value as the only person who is able to do this. I then can more fully recognize myself as only being of value because of God. Someone might object that this gives too much weight to the human will. How could God make something he cannot control?

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Surely God could destroy us once made. But perhaps not. As suggested earlier, there may be an argument for eternal life rooted in this line of thought. As well, the nature of the will might make sense of the doctrine of hell. The door to hell is, it's been suggested, locked from the inside. Humans in hell don't want to get out. They stay there because they value their own will, their own autonomy, more highly than they value a relationship with God. They recognize God's existence and his claim over them. But they simply refuse to obey. And the reason God keeps hell in existence is simply that he cannot destroy the wills therein. He loves them. So God is not to blame for hell, anymore than he is to blame for other evils "created" by human free will. Perhaps hell is an ontological requirement of wilfully disobedient creatures. Where are we? First, humility has both an ontic and an attitudinal aspect. The latter deals with taking the appropriate response to our ontic situation. However, our ontic situation is influenced by our attitude. Our nature as will cum finitude is a result of our wilfully asserting our importance and ability. In so doing, we fuse our will to our finitude. However, we can also will to live within God's parameters - to humble ourselves - and thereby to (begin to) recognize our nature as dependent upon God. On that basis, our will is alloyed with, and therefore moulded or transformed into, God's will. We can recognize our real value only if we begin accurately to perceive our nature as limited. The way up is down. Our ontic state is low in comparison to God, but God's love can transform us into something far greater than we are able to see while we are clouded by our own pride. However, our pride in our abilities or accomplishments is an extension of the will God gave us. We can thwart God's plan with our will, even if our will is fallen. So the Greek way of viewing ourselves is not false: it is a creation of our own, an exertion of our own will. But the importance of the view pales in comparison to what we can become and to what God is. The move from viewing ourselves as essentially owned and therefore valuable does not involve false belief, false humility, selfdeception, or ignorance. The move is a creation of our wills that actually changes our nature from one to the other, without denying the reality of self-determination. This is parallel to Jesus' selfemptying. Just as Jesus does not cease to be divine when he humbles himself to become human, just as he retains his will, so do we in humility. Jesus decided not to exercise his own will so he could

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follow God's will. We can decide not to exercise our own wills so that we can follow God's will. True humility, then, occurs when we stop seeking what we can do and start seeking what God can do. As such, the Greek view is not false but it is faulty. It is the wrong path, so to speak. To speak of humility as a way of recognizing our value is not unreasonable, but there is a better way, the way of the cross: not to cling to our finite ontic selves is to lose ourselves. But it also is to gain ourselves and God.

C H A P T E R S IX

Humility, Mysticism, and the Existential Problem of Religious Diversity I have suggested that, for the Christian, one appropriate response to the existential problem of religious diversity is faithfulness and continued acceptance of the faith. These are within our control, unlike belief, which may wax and wane outside our control. In the last two chapters I argued that attitudinal humility is likewise something within our control and that free will is powerful - powerful enough to thwart God. However, we can use our free will to gain humility and its true account of the self, and thus to open new possibilities for ourselves. In this final chapter, I want to consider and attempt to explain a number of comments by Christian mystics as they describe their experiences of the (direct) presence of God or as they comment on prayer. The purpose here is to draw together a number of issues raised in this essay. In the life of prayer, humility is connected with knowing. It is this kind of knowing that overcomes the existential problem of religious diversity. As I stated in chapter one, the point of this exploration is to encourage Christians who are plagued by doubts about their own commitments as they face the vast diversity of religious worldviews. I wish to conclude by describing the path of moving from belief to acceptance to certainty. This path is the path of the mystics, the way of the cross. It is the way to a deeper or transformed faith as a means to overcome the doubts attached to the existential challenge of religious diversity. The more explicit goals of the chapter are to describe how the mystics view the epistemology of their experiences and to give some rational account of what they say and, by extension, of their experiences and epistemic states. So, section i describes mystic experience through exploring a number of quotations from classical mystical

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sources. Section 2. summarizes the epistemology and metaphysics of the Christian mystic's experience of certainty. I

MYSTIC

EXPERIENCE

There is, of course, a huge primary literature as well as a huge philosophical literature on the subject of mystical experiences, much more than could possibly be dealt with here. I do not try. Instead I have selected a number of passages wherein the mystics make various epistemic references or describe issues relevant to epistemic concerns. Nelson Pike notes that there are three basic states of mystical "infused contemplation": the Prayer of Quiet, the Prayer of Full Union, and Rapture.1 Each of these has its own characteristics, and one's (apparent) relationship to God is somewhat different in each. While Pike's focus is the phenomenological account of mystical experience, mine is the epistemic. I will not attempt to cover Pike's ground but rather focus on other issues.21 will use Pike's categories, however, and deal with some of the same material, since he is developing what the mystics themselves say. On the Prayer of Quiet Teresa writes: This is a supernatural state, and, however hard we try, we cannot reach it for ourselves; for it is a state in which the soul enters into peace, or, rather, in which the Lord gives it peace through His presence, as He did that just man Simeon. In this state, all the faculties are stilled. The soul, in a way which has nothing to do with the outward senses, realizes that it is now very close to God, and that, if it were but a little closer, it would become one with Him through union. This is not because it sees Him either with its bodily or with its spiritual eyes. The just man Simeon saw no more than the glorious Infant - a poor Child, Who, to judge from the swaddling-clothes in which He was wrapped and from the small number of the people whom He had as a retinue to take Him up to the Temple, might well have been the son of these poor people rather than the Son of his Heavenly Father. But the Child Himself revealed to him Who He was. Just so, though less clearly, does the soul know Who He is. It cannot understand how it knows Him, yet it sees that it is in the Kingdom (or at least is near the King Who will give it the Kingdom), and it feels such reverence that it dares ask for nothing. It is, as it were, in a swoon, both inwardly and outwardly, so that the outward man (let me call it the "body," and then you will understand me better) does not wish to move,

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but rests, like one who has almost reached the end of his journey, so that it may the better start again upon its way, with redoubled strength for its task.3

What do we learn here about the epistemology of the state of the prayer of quiet? Strictly speaking, we learn that Teresa thinks that when in this state of prayer of quiet, the faculties are stilled, i.e., that the information given in the experience is not delivered through the outward senses. She repeats that the information is not delivered through the bodily eyes and then adds that it is not delivered with the "spiritual eyes" either. Pike takes the latter to be a reference to what we might call imaginative visual imagery or the mind's eye. I think Pike is correct, but would add that phenomenally and epistemically there is a difference between imagining something as one "conjures" it up oneself (as when one might imagine oneself at the beach), and simply having the image "pop" into one's imagination. Among some charismatic Christian groups today, for example, a distinction is made between imagining Jesus coming to you and waiting for Jesus to come to you in prayer. In fact, in some circles, the former is accepted as a genuine and legitimate way to pray, while in other circles it is not. The reason for the rejection of the former is, roughly, that if one simply uses one's imagination to "see" Jesus, then one is risking inserting one's own self and desires into the prayer, whereas if one waits for Jesus to come into one's imagination, one is more sure that Jesus is communicating to you what he wants or wishes rather than your own desires. In short, although both involve an image in one's mind's eye, the former is self-generated whereas the latter is divinely generated. Be that as it may, Teresa indicates that the imagination is not involved in prayer-ofquiet experiences. To give an analogy for prayer-of-quiet experiences in which the bodily sensations are not in play, Teresa points to the story of Simeon, the just man at the temple. God had promised him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. When Joseph and Mary, the earthly parents, brought Jesus to be dedicated, Teresa says, Simeon saw nothing more than the infant Jesus, but the infant Jesus revealed to Simeon that he was the Son of God. I take it that Teresa's point here is that even though Simeon saw the baby with his physical eyes and perhaps heard the baby cry and so forth, the baby did not speak to him through the typical, physical means. Rather, Simeon just "knew" that the baby was the Son of God. The

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information was simply given to him, it was communicated directly as part of his experience. Teresa continues by saying that, in the prayer of quiet, the soul knows who the object of the experience is and knows that the soul is close to God, but cannot understand how it knows these things. What is this like, to be "given" information not received through the five senses or seen with the mind's eye? At the very least, the information cannot be self-generated, any more than a vision of Jesus is (supposed to be) self-generated. Teresa says that the state is a supernatural one. The information, one presumes, is simply put into our consciousness by God. Perhaps the best analogy to how this "feels" phenomenally is the feeling that attends our particularly creative moments, when a new idea or approach "appears" to us. Suddenly, I know how to solve the problem, I see how it goes. But this analogy will give us only a partial sense of the phenomenal "feel" because these creative ideas are still coming from our own minds, whereas in the mystical experience the idea comes from God. Furthermore, as we'll see as we continue to explore the mystics' comments, the knowledge is of a special, stronger kind than we typically have. It is not just "another idea." There is, in short, a different phenomenal "feel" to this kind of experience. So much for Teresa's strictly epistemological comments. I want to cast the net a little wider, however, as I believe other things she says have important implications for understanding the epistemology of mystical experiences. I have already noted Teresa's claim that the state of prayer of quiet is supernatural, that we cannot reach it ourselves. It is a state in which the soul enters peace but where that peace is given by the Lord. It is not something the soul brings about. Further on Teresa says that the soul "feels such reverence that it dares ask for nothing." This indicates a view of oneself that is consonant with the Christian view of humility presented in chapter four. When in God's presence, when God gives one this peace, one dare not ask for more, for one is not worthy. More on this below. The mystics make a distinction between "God in his divinity" and "God in his humanity." Teresa says that the soul is in contact with God in his divinity. It is God in his spirituality rather than his physicality (Jesus) that is the object of the experience. This is further evidence that, when she denies any imaginary content for this experience, Teresa is denying any image whatsoever. But while this may be true of "infused" experiences, the focus of Pike's study, it need

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not be true of all mystical experiences. Pike notes in the preface of his book that there are other kinds of mystical experiences - visions, for example. He writes that "mystic apprehensions [visions, auditory experiences, etc.] ... are usually classified as 'gratuitous graces,' indicating that they are special or (as is said) 'extraordinary' gifts tailored to meet the particular needs of particular individuals at particular times and are not to be thought of as regular parts of the contemplative life."4 In visions, one can suppose, one does not see with one's physical eyes, but one still sees images. I have touched on this very briefly above when I noted the distinction between images that are self-generated and images that are not. In Teresa's case, however, it seems clear enough that there is no image, whether self-generated or not. Furthermore, there are certain other events that come with the experience. The physical manifestation that comes with this state is that the body "swoons" so that the body does not wish to move. The inward soul likewise swoons. Teresa says little in this passage about the inward soul. Pike notes a distinction that runs through Teresa's writings between the soul as the dwelling place and soul as the essential self. Whether Teresa means here that the dwelling place or the essential self or both "swoon" is not clearly stated, although perhaps she is simply stating that our normal epistemological abilities, some of which can be described as "inward," cease to function normally. This is consonant with the faculties not coming into play. On the other hand, Teresa may be suggesting that the soul "relaxes" as if to prepare for the rest of its journey (just as she says of the bodily swooning). This would indicate that the result of (if not part of the purpose of) these experiences is to prepare one to return to the journey. There is, this might suggest, a clear outcome of the experience that helps one on the way. But what journey? I believe she means the journey into God. The swooning makes the remaining journey possible. She also says that the journey is near the end. Does she imply that the remainder of the journey is particularly difficult, so one has to prepare in some special way? Or does she mean perhaps that these experiences of God's presence are as close to heaven as one can get in this life? Or is one nearer the truth, perhaps? In fact, I suggest, she means all three. I will attempt to develop these three alternatives in the remainder of the section.

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On the Prayer of Full Union Teresa writes: Here is this soul which God has made, as it were, completely foolish in order the better to impress upon it true wisdom. For as long as such a soul is in this state, it can neither see nor hear nor understand: the period is always short and seems to the soul even shorter than it really is. God implants Himself in the interior of that soul in such a way that, when it returns to itself, it cannot possibly doubt that God has been in it and it has been in God; so firmly does this truth remain within it that, although for years God may never grant it that favor again, it can neither forget it nor doubt that it has received it (and this quite apart from the effects which remain within it, and of which I will speak later). This certainty of the soul is very material.5

As to the epistemological references here, Teresa says, again, that the soul cannot see or hear. But she adds that the soul cannot understand. In the earlier passage it is said that the soul cannot understand how it knows. Here Teresa simply says the soul cannot understand. That this soul cannot see or hear is consonant with her remarks earlier quoted, viz., that the faculties have no place, or play no role in, the experience. She does not see or hear God. But what does Teresa mean when she says that the soul does not understand? She continues by claiming that God makes the soul foolish to impress true wisdom upon it. Is Teresa saying that, in addition to the empirical senses playing no role, reason plays no role either? I believe so, and evidence is provided in other passages cited below. But how can the soul, which does not understand, whose understanding or reason is not working, come to be wise with "true wisdom?" And not only does one become wise, but there is no doubt either. Apparently, upon having this experience, the soul cannot possibly doubt that God has been with the soul and the soul with God. This certainty remains, Teresa says, for years, even if there is no other experience like this one. Finally, the certainty of the soul, she says, is very material. So, when neither one's senses nor one's understanding is in play, wisdom and certainty are given. This paradox is heightened when Teresa says the certainty is material. What does this come to? One suggestion can be made on the basis of some of the other less directly epistemic claims made by Teresa. These ancillary epistemic references are explained by Pike as he considers references

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by other mystics. They say things such as God penetrates the soul, the soul is immersed in God, God wounds the soul, and God burns the soul. Pike takes these glosses to explain Teresa's reference to God being within the soul and the soul within God - what Pike calls "a sort of double-inclusion experience." The phenomenology of the experience is, in short, one of "infusion" of God into the soul and the soul into God. Based on Pike's suggestion, one might suppose that just as one knows the "feel" of one's own body, or perhaps the "feel" of being in one's body, so a person having an experience of full union with God knows the "feel" of God in himself and himself in God. It is immediate and unquestionable in a way not unlike the feel of being in one's own body. • Pike makes no reference, however, to the closing comment in the quotation from Teresa, namely, that the certainty of the soul is very material. This is, indeed, an odd remark after all the effort Teresa goes through to say that the epistemology of these experiences does not derive from the body and its senses. Here are three ways this comment might be construed. First, Teresa may have meant that the certainty has material results in how one lives one's life. There are, the passage says, other effects in the soul. I take these to include an improved spiritual and moral attitude and action. But if these were Teresa's concern, one would think she would be more explicit. These, after all, can be discussed fairly straightforwardly, whereas the experiential phenomenon is not so easily discussed. No, I believe she is after some phenomenon given in the experience. Another alternative would be to refer to the comments from other mystics. If God "burns, penetrates, or wounds" the soul, then a scar or mark would be left, evidence one could not overlook that would call attention to the experience. But this is still not material, in any literal way. What is indicated by these very physical metaphors, however, is the importance of some change occurring in the soul. This change, in fact, is one that is left after the experience has occurred, at least on the burn or wound metaphors. I think the notion that something is left over after the experience, some change in the soul, is important and needs to be explained, at least to the extent possible. As an alternative or additional reading, or perhaps simply as an extension of the last reading, it could be that Teresa is referring to something that is commonly reported by mystics, namely, that they are more certain of their mystical experience than they ever were

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of their empirical experiences. So to say that the certainty is very material is just to say that it is more real than other certainties we might experience. This is, perhaps, where the analogy to knowing the feel of being in one's own body comes in. This is very material, but not "received" through the five senses or through reason. My awareness of my body or, better, of my being in my body, is a very "lively" belief. It is true and certain, if anything is, that I seem to be in my body. My consciousness, my self, is in my body but not exactly identical to it. And what could be more certain than that I seem to be in my body? As Descartes notes, even if it turns out that there are, in fact, no bodies, I still have the feeling of being in my body. But this feeling is extremely difficult to describe. My self is not exactly located somewhere, as it is not exactly material. But it certainly seems to be in my body, if it is anywhere.6 This is consonant with some of the things Teresa says when she discusses the experience she had on the Feast of St. Peter. I have already quoted Teresa's description of the experience in chapter 2, so I won't repeat it. In this experience, Teresa is aware of the presence of Christ "at my side" and "on my right," although she is not aware of these things through her five senses. She draws analogy between this awareness and the awareness of someone being in a dark room with you - that sense of the presence of another but where one cannot "localize" the empirical sense from which this awareness comes. But in the mystic experience, there is no sense faculty being used. Nevertheless, Teresa is aware of the palpable presence of Christ. The presence is localized at one point in her physical environment. Perhaps this is analogous to the experience of union here being discussed where one has a "feeling" of God inside one's soul. This is not in space exactly but rather like the "feeling" of being in one's body. It is concrete or material and yet not delivered by the five senses. And just as I know that I seem to be in my body - something I am more certain of, or that is more immediate, than, say that there is an object in my visual range - the mystic "knows" that God is in his or her soul, present to it in a material and yet nonempirical way. Thus the certainty attached to this experience is parallel to the certainty of seeming to be in one's body. Let's go on to Teresa on Rapture. Teresa writes: But as we are giving Him thanks for this great blessing and doing our utmost to draw near to Him in a practical way, the Lord gathers up the

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soul just (we might say) as a cloud gathers up the vapors from the earth, and raises it up till it is right out of itself (I have heard that it is in this way that the clouds or the sun gather up the vapors) and the cloud rises to Heaven and takes the soul with it, and begins to reveal to it things concerning the Kingdom that He has prepared for it. I do not know if the comparison is an exact one, but that is the way it actually happens. In these raptures the soul seems no longer to animate the body, and thus the natural heat of the body is felt to be very sensibly diminished: it gradually becomes colder, though conscious of the greatest sweetness and delight. No means of resistance is possible, whereas in union, where we are on our own home ground, such a means exists: resistance may be painful and violent but it can almost always be effected. But with rapture, as a rule, there is no such possibility: often it comes like a strong, swift impulse, before your thought can forewarn you of it or you can do anything to help yourself; you see and feel this cloud, or this powerful eagle, rising and bearing you up with it on its wings.7

Let me note about this passage that it refers to an "out-of-body" experience and that Teresa says no resistance is possible (whereas in the other experiences, resistance is possible). She gives two reasons. First, the soul is no longer on its home ground. Second, the experience happens quickly so no thought can forewarn you. Perhaps these are the same thing. That is, one cannot resist because one's home ground - one's reason - has been taken away. However, I am inclined to think that one cannot resist, not simply because of a lack of reason, but also because of a lack of will. One has given it up, so to speak, to God. One cannot resist because one told God that one would not. This makes sense given the notion of humility developed earlier. One steps out of the way to let God have his will. In the context of these Rapture experiences, "can't resist" does not necessarily mean that it is not in your control. As I have argued, God made us in control. But this is the third stage of mystical experience. This is the end of the journey, as near to heaven on earth as one can attain, as close to truth as one can come while still attached to one's finite body. To get here requires complete humility - all pretense and claim to control is gone by one's own choice. God can finally do as he wills. So Rapture cannot be resisted because one's will is now God's. One cannot resist one's own will, and one's will is God's will, so one cannot resist God's will. Of course, this is a marked change from our fallen, sinful, arrogant state.

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To fill out some details on Rapture experience, Pike quotes Marina Escobar's The Divine Darkness. I'll not quote the entire passage but note the following. Escobar writes that her soul was cast into "this vast sea of the divine obscurity and of the essence of the unknown and incomprehensible God." She continues: "no language can describe the secret marvels that are there wrought between God and the soul." Several times Escobar writes that there is nothing corporeal nor any material image. At the most profound level of the experience, she writes, "I was in even greater danger, as it seemed to me, of losing my life, if God had not upheld me." Finally, Escobar notes: "When I had come to myself again, I felt great weakness. I was seized with admiration, and while conforming to the will of God, I raised my eyes toward the angels [who had cast her soul into the sea of God] with great grief at finding myself in this exile."8 From these comments we see that God is unknown and incomprehensible. Unknown and incomprehensible to whom? We can suppose to the empirical, rational self. Escobar says that our language cannot describe what is wrought between God and the soul. Does God do things to the soul while it is "swooned" in sense and reason so that the soul's epistemic state and abilities are modified? Is that where the certainty comes from? I believe so. Escobar furthermore states that the experience is, or seems to be, life-threatening. This, I suggest again, deals with humility. One recognizes one's "nothingness" before God. If God had not upheld her, she would have died. And finally, once the experience is over, Escobar says she is willing to be without the (full?) presence of God but feels in exile. She is in concert with God's will that she be back on earth rather than with God in heaven. But she longs to be in God's presence permanently. Again, we see the careful submission to God's will. At the pinnacle of Rapture experiences, which, apparently, few mystics reach, is something referred to as "the union without distinction." St Bernard of Clairvaux writes: When will flesh and blood, this vessel of clay, this earthly dwelling grasp this? When will it experience this kind of love, so that the mind, drunk with divine love and forgetting itself, making itself like a broken vessel, throw itself wholly on God and clinging to God, become one with him in spirit ...? I should call him blessed and holy to whom it is given to experience even for a single instant something which is so rare indeed in

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this life. To lose yourself as though you did not exist and to have no sense of yourself, to be emptied out of yourself and almost annihilated, belongs to heavenly not to human love.9

Here I am forced to comment on the content of the experience and not on any straightforwardly epistemological issues. In this experience, one loses oneself as though one did not exist, one has no sense of oneself, one is emptied of oneself, and one is almost annihilated. Clearly Bernard is struggling with the "union without distinction" notion. How can a soul be one with God and yet not be God? Bernard is cautious here. One is almost annihilated, it's as though one did not exist. Why not simply say one is God? Why not say that the mystic's soul disappears ontically and becomes ontically one with God? Because, says Bernard, that is not possible, for such a view is not orthodox. This explains why Bernard makes the comments about being drunk with God's love. Perhaps God is quite simply fooling the mystic so the mystic makes an epistemological mistake; an error in judgment. The error is one that suggests to the mystic that she or he is ontically one with God, although this is not actually the case. Our finitude seems to disappear. In a way, this drunkenness may be necessary to countermand the difficulties that took root in the Garden of Eden, viz., that we, because of our wills, had the capacity to be like God. God counters our self-created "illusion" with an illusion of his own. Why the illusion? Because in this life, at least, we still cannot bear the whole truth. To understand God completely, as Father and Son understand each other, is more than our finitude can bear. God makes us drunk so we can "feel" what it's like to be God - like God, not our illusory image of self-made godhood. What would it seem like to have God's will and yet not be God himself? Here it is important to recall the distinction between will as capacity and will as desires, plans, goals, or projects. The former chooses the latter. When we choose God's desires over against our own, we make a move toward God. Recall my suggestion that God's will as capacity is not distinct from his will as desire. If this is true, and when the mystic is drunk with God's love, perhaps the mystic cannot tell his desires (identical to God's) from his will which is now just God's will (as capacity). At least that is the phenomenal feel (hence the necessity for the "drunk" language). But then wouldn't it seem to the mystic like being God? To love with a love

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deeper and richer than any love we can generate in our finitude such a love, even without the final power or knowledge to put it into practice, would seem to make us God, or as near like him as possible. So, the sense of oneness with God is a result of an overload of divine love. God loves the mystic as much as God loves himself in the deep bonds of the Trinity. This overload occurs when the mind is drunk with divine love, when one makes oneself like a broken vessel, when one throws oneself wholly onto God and thus becomes one with him in spirit. The senses and reason are drunk, at rest, not operating properly. And thus one thinks one is God, that God's being is one's own. Of course, this is only partly true. Human finite being cannot be divine infinite being. Bernard continues: If you consider the matter, their difference in unity is indicated by the words unum and unus, for unus, one person, cannot be applied to the Father and to the Son, nor unum, one substance, to man and to God. The Father and Son cannot be said to be one person, because the Father is one and the Son is one. Yet they are said to be, and they are, one, because they have and are one substance, since they have not each separate substance. On the contrary, since God and man do not share the same nature or substance, they cannot be said to be a unity, yet they are with complete truth and accuracy said to be one spirit, if they cohere with the bond of love. But that unity is caused not so much by the identity of essences as by the concurrence of wills.10

The unity is one of will, not of substance. The union of the human will with God's will is possible only if the human attains to Christian humility as described in the previous chapter. In such a state the state of union without distinction - one's will is completely alloyed to God's will. Phenomenally, however, this feels to our finite beings as if we are God. But we are only drunk, fooled by God's love. But it is enough, I suggest, so that one realizes how foolish were one's frail human attempts at godhood. When one comes back to one's senses, as Marina Escobar puts it, one is "seized with admiration and while conforming to the will of God, [one raises one's] ... eyes toward the angels with great grief at finding [oneself] in this exile." One who has such an experience will not doubt. One who has seen the way God sees, loved the way God loves, cannot but see that everything else pales in significance. God's will is now

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your will and your life and thinking are forever changed. God has "repaired" one's epistemic structure so as to see the world anew, without question, without doubt. We can continue to explore some of the metaphors by considering St. John of the Cross as he writes: If the window is in any way stained or misty, the sun's ray will be unable to illumine it and transform it into its own light, totally, as it would if it were clean of all these things, and pure ... [However, if the window] be wholly pure and clean, the ray of sunlight will transform it and illumine it in such wise that it will itself seem to be a ray and will give the same light as the ray. Although in reality the window has a nature distinct from that of the ray itself, however much it may resemble it, yet we may say that the window is a ray of the sun or is light by participation. And the soul is like this window, whereupon is ever beating ... this Divine light of the Being of God ... In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul ... is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being in such wise that it appears to be God Himself and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favor, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before, even as the window has likewise a nature distinct from that of the ray, though the ray gives it brightness.11 Here we see again that the soul appears to be God, but isn't. And the references to being clean glass I take to be references to humility rather than sinlessness. Remember, we cannot clean ourselves of sin. In fact, John says "In thus allowing God to work" indicating that humility is the key. These themes are brought together in a quotation from Blosius. He writes: For when, through love, the soul goes beyond all work of the intellect and all images in the mind, and is rapt above itself (a favor only God can bestow), utterly leaving itself, it flows into God: then is God its peace and fullness. In this peace of mind the soul can rightly sing: In pace, in idipsum, dormiam et requiescam - In peace, in the self-same, I will sleep and I will rest. The loving soul, as I have said, flows out of itself, and completely swoons away; and, as if brought to nothing, it sinks down into the abyss

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of divine love, where, dead to itself, it lives in God, knowing nothing, feeling nothing, save only the love that it experiences. It loses itself in the infinite solitude and darkness of the godhead; but so to lose itself is rather to find itself. Then, putting off whatever is human and putting on what is divine, it is, as it were, transformed and changed into God, as iron placed in fire receives the form of fire, and is changed into fire. Just as the iron thus glowing with fire does not cease to be iron, so the soul, as it were, deified, does not change its nature and still remain itself. The soul, therefore, remains itself; but whereas it was cold before, now it burns; whereas it was dark before, now it shines with light; whereas it was hard before, now it has become soft. The essence of God has so flowed into its essence, that we may say that the soul has, as it were, the same tint or color. Burnt up with the fire of divine love, and entirely liquefied, the soul passes into God, is united with him without any medium, and becomes with him one spirit, even as gold and brass are welded into one mass of metal.IZ

What is new here, and in Bernard, is the emphasis on love. The key is divine love. Love takes the mystic beyond the intellect and images, beyond even the mystic him- or herself. But while the soul swoons away it does not cease to be, it does not disappear in reality. Rather it rests at the centre of God's being, at the centre of love where it neither knows nor feels anything but God's love. The soul puts off the human and puts on the divine - as an iron becomes fire without losing itself. But we know that iron does not essentially become fire. The iron is not fire, but the iron, like the fire, becomes hot. Parallel to this, the soul does not become essentially God. The soul is not God, but the soul, like God, becomes His will. It is transformed into God without losing itself. This is possible not on the level of being but on the level of will. The soul loses itself in humility to find itself sharing God's very will. Z

THE E P I S T E M O L O G Y OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

What have we gathered from this last section? Let me list the epistemic points. 1 The sense faculties are stilled. 2 The imagination (both self-generated and not) is stilled.

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3 The understanding does not know how it knows. 4 The understanding itself is stilled. 5 The information given in the experience is external to the soul, that is, it is given rather than generated. 6 Doubts cease while certainty is given about the (reality of the) experience. 7 One cannot resist the experience. 8 God makes the mystic "drunk" so as to convince the mystic of his or her own "ontic union" with God, when there is in actuality only a union of wills. These epistemic features do not all occur in each of the three stages, but the higher up the mystic's ladder, the more of these features are added. The same is true of the following nonepistemic features. i The mystic states are supernatural states - God does the work, the mystic is passive. 2, They are peaceful (but also frightening). 3 They are states of humility. 4 The body swoons (and in Rapture, the soul "leaves" the body). 5 The inward soul swoons. 6 There is an interpenetration of God and the soul. 7 One's will becomes one with God's will and love and hence is transformed and seems to be ontically made one with God. In chapter 3, I interpreted the story of the Garden of Eden in such a way that we (Adam and Eve) overstepped our ontological and epistemological bounds, thus letting sin enter the world. In chapters 4 and 5 I argued that the Greek version of humility is a natural result of viewing the world with fallen eyes, whereas the Christian version, in effect, corrects the mistakes in the Garden. I think what we have learned from the mystics fleshes out this interpretation of Genesis and instead of leading us down the Garden path, leads us up the path to God himself. For the mystics, humility is a prerequisite for, but not a guarantee of (again there is a need for humility in waiting for God), experiencing God in these powerful ways. In the Garden, we asserted ourselves in our will and detached ourselves from God's will. In the mystic experience - at least in its highest form, union without distinction - one's will becomes again united with God's through the "glue" of love. But

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in order to get there, in order for us to have such a direct contact with God, our selves must disappear - our sense, our imaginations, our understanding, and our wills. When God appears to the mystic, a certainty of his presence replaces any doubt that was there before. But what is this certainty? Here I'm going to climb way out on a speculative branch and suggest what is perhaps a somewhat less metaphorical account of what it means to have God burn or wound one's soul. It is, as I have said, speculative, but I believe it is also a helpful interpretive tool. To be wounded or burned in one's soul is, I believe, to be epistemically transformed because one is ontically transformed. The first part of my suggestion is, then, that God simply rewires our epistemic faculties. I don't know how, of course. But I know that we don't have certainty about much, especially about things supernatural. Yet mystic after mystic claims to have a certainty about these experiences that he or she does not have about anything else. If this "rewiring" suggestion is correct, it may turn out that terms such as knowledge and belief (and perhaps even certainty itself) are just not applicable. So let me climb out on another limb and give the second part of my suggestion. If the phenomenological reports of the mystics are accurate, then God really does enter the soul of the mystic in such a way that he or she is what I'll call "metaphysically aware" (rather than simply epistemically aware) of God. Thus, one's epistemic mechanisms are changed because one's ontology is changed. But all this needs explaining. Before I move toward an explanation, however, let me say a few words about certainty. Certainty (and here I am not talking merely about psychological certitude but epistemic certainty) requires, in a special way, and unlike mere knowledge, that one cannot be mistaken. While it is true that if I know p, then p is true, it does not follow that I cannot be mistaken, for as we are aware from various versions of the Gettier problem, it is possible that p is true, that I be justified or warranted in believing p, and yet that I not know p.13 There is a gap between the justification and the truth. With certainty, however, if I am certain that p, not only is p true, but I cannot be mistaken about p's truth. My justification (if it should be so called) guarantees the truth. I have certainty, then, if the justification cannot go awry without thereby making the belief held false. But how can this be, that justification cannot go awry? One thing we have learned from the history of epistemology is that justification and all its cognates

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and near relatives never bring us to certainty, at least certainty about the way things are "out there." While we may have certainty, because of "privileged access," about our own mental states, such as that I am in pain, or that I am having a putative perception of redness, I cannot have certainty that there is a knife stuck into my arm or that there is a red ball in front of me. Indeed, if William Alston is right, our epistemic practices all standardly fall short not just of certainty, but even of what he calls "full, reflective justification" - justification where one can, so to speak, step outside the practice and have justification for all one's justifiers. Epistemic circularity is involved in our doxastic practices in such a manner that at best we have a weaker kind of justification than we might prefer, and most surely than would be required for certainty. While all this does not demand skepticism, it does make certainty about things "out there" less likely. So how is certainty possible for the mystics, if at all? First let me say that when one has "metaphysical" awareness rather than "epistemic" awareness, one has moved from the realm of justified belief or rationality or knowledge to the realm of certainty. Certainty, thus, is not an epistemological notion, at least not in the sense of there being a (potentially) skeptical gap between what is known and how it is known. So long as we have justification (which is about having reasons or evidence or grounds, etc.) that is only "truth-conducive," we cannot have certainty. To have certainty, the being true must somehow not be separable from the awareness of the truth, even in terms of "justification." One's belief cannot be justified by something else. Perhaps the solution lies in being clear about what one is certain about, if anything. It is often suggested that one cannot be certain about anything except what is "inside" one's mind. Since what is inside one's mind is subjective, and there are no completely reliable ways of moving from what is subjective to what is objective, certainty about external reality is not forthcoming. But this confuses a number of issues. The difficulty is not in moving from the so-called subjective to the objective, where the latter is some sort of synonym for the external world. It is just as much an objective fact about the world that Susie is in pain (when she is) as that there is a tree fifteen feet from the front of the house (when there is). One straightforward meaning of "objective" is simply "true." The difference between the Susie case and the tree

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case, then, is not their objectivity (their truth) but the kind of state of affairs that makes the descriptions true. In the first case, "Susie is in pain" is true because of some mental state Susie is in, something which would not and indeed could not be the case if Susie were not aware of her mental states in general and, in this case, specifically the state of being in pain. In the tree case, no one's mental state need be involved in order for "there is a tree fifteen feet from the front of the house" to be true. Susie's being in pain is no less objective than the tree's being fifteen feet from the house, even though her pain is accessible only to her (directly). Now of course there is some sense in which the former, but not the latter, is subjective. "Subjective" then means that what makes it true that Susie is in pain is that Susie is in a certain mental state, a state we recognize as obtaining internally to Susie. Because of that subjectivity, our means of accessing the truth about Susie's pain is different from our means of accessing the truth about external objects. Our means of accessing the truth about the so-called external world is via some complicated set of doxastic practices in virtue of which our minds are put into some effective (causal) contact with things that are not in any way dependent upon our minds. In contrast, our means of accessing the truth about our inner states is immediate. There is no need for a causal chain from outside to inside, for the thing one is put into effective contact with is already inside. This privileged access is not, as I've already stated, strictly epistemic. Rather, it is ontic. Perhaps what I mean here is best illustrated by example. Take the pain in my left leg. What is the difference between my seeming to have pain and my having a pain? The epistemic language of how things seem to me just is a description of the pain itself. Even if I am having a "phantom pain" in my now amputated left leg, the pain is no less real, since it seems to me that I have it. The pain is objectively (truly) there, because it is subjectively (internally) felt. Another example. Suppose I'm thinking about my wife. What I am in effective contact with is not, of course, my wife, but my thought about her. Simply to have the thought of my wife is what makes it true that I'm having the thought of her. I cannot be mistaken about having the thought. So here again, the thought is objectively (truly) there and I cannot be mistaken about it. Whatever else one might think about Descartes' cogito, his was an attempt to link the ontological structure of the world with a

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certain result. My mere thinking is enough, he concluded, ontically to guarantee that I, in fact, am. I cannot think that I do not exist without thinking, and the thinking is enough to guarantee that I exist. The ontology guarantees the truth. One is tempted to say that "I am" is true because I think it is. But that isn't quite right, for that makes it sound as if there is some sort of causal relationship between my thinking p and p's being the case. But the relationship is not one of causality, at least in the direction from my thoughts to the world.14 And, of course, one standard criticism of Descartes is that he cannot move from mental events to a substantival ontology. At best, one gets direct access to one's thoughts, so certainty is limited to beliefs about one's own mental events or perhaps reports of one's psychological states. The move from these "internal" events or states (one's thoughts) to some truth "external" to the mind (my being) is where skepticism slips in its invidious blade. But notice that in my examples above, I don't move from thought to "external" reality. I only claim that certainty is had about internal facts. Nevertheless, skepticism does its filleting work where there is some metaphysical "gap" between the interiority of the knower and the exteriority of the thing known. To have certainty, there should be no gap, no place for doubt to enter. As Descartes himself wondered, one's knowledge of one's own body might exceed what we can really know, let alone the rest of the so-called external world. And as the standard criticism of Descartes has it, one can't even get to the substantival notion of the self, for it too is external to thought. So perhaps all we are left with is thoughts. Enter a type of solipsism. Whereas solipsism as typically understood as a theory claiming that all that is are me and my thoughts, this more truncated brand of solipsism says that all there is are (my) thoughts. I see this solipsism as the ultimate in skepticism, as well as the ultimate in narcissism. And if the theses of this book are correct, the two go hand in hand. If I use my own standards of epistemic access to understand the world, I will be left with this brand of solipsism. But that very solipsism is my narcissism, my weighting myself above all others in terms of what is knowable, my constant gaze at my own value. This, as we have seen, is contrary to Chris.tian humility. Yet it is also the key to the certainty God gives. But this solipsism can also be understood as a grand metaphysical thesis. It isn't that I only know (my) thoughts, but that (my) thoughts are all that is.

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To return to our biblical themes from earlier, one might suggest that in the Garden, Adam (and/or Eve) became the first solipsist, creating his own world out of his thought. As such, his knowability and the world's ontology are identical and so he is certain about his own thinking, but little more. Beyond that, skepticism creeps in. If Descartes is correct, even Adam's experience of himself in his own body, which I have used as an analogy for the mystic's experience, is questionable, since the existence of his body is questionable. But Descartes can only take us so far. One should emphasize not the existence of one's own body, but the experience of one's own body. It seems that Descartes is too much a rationalist and not enough an empiricist, resulting in his strong dualism. His radical separation of the soul from the body is more than is required metaphysically and, in fact, is just not part of our general experience. Aristotle is closer to the truth in his claim that we are ensouled bodies, and that to separate one from the other is, indeed, impossible, at least practically. Furthermore, I am going to suggest that we cannot think without thinking "through" a body. Kant is right when he begins with space and time. To be finite is to have a spatial/ temporal location and framework. I might add that, in certain ways, the Bible's account of human nature is closer to Aristotle's than it is to Descartes'. God takes earth and breathes into it and then Adam becomes a "living soul." So humans are not soul plus body making a human. Rather it is earth plus God's breath that makes a living soul. But we needn't worry about the details of that issue here, for even if Descartes is right about his dualist ontology of humans, it remains that, from an experiential point of view, it feels to us individually as if I am myself-in-my-body and it is the phenomenal "feeling" we are certain about. I cannot be mistaken about the fact that this is how my experience in the world is, whatever the world actually is. Adam's experience of himself, as a being in his own (even if only phenomenal) body, was as certain for him as it is for us. Likewise for Descartes. But thus far we have only solipsism - my thoughts. How is God to overcome this hubristic tendency in humans? How is God to make his own, "exterior" existence certain for us? We first must take a look at whether or not our wilful states belong in the category of objective (true), yet subjective (inner) certainties. I will to write this book. I will to pick up a pen. I will to do the right thing on this occasion, when I've so often done the wrong thing in the

Humility, Mysticism, and Religious Diversity

12.7

past. The willing state is a psychological state about which I am certain in the ontic sense I've described above. Just as being in pain and seeming to be in pain are ontically identical, so willing to do X and seeming to will X are ontically the same. Willing is a psychological state about which I cannot be mistaken. Just as it makes little sense to say to a person who seems to herself to be in pain that she is not, so it makes little sense to say to a person who seems to herself to will to do X that she does not, actually, will X. So our wilful states are certainties. But how is God to make his presence certain? Isn't God external to us, and rather more like the tree fifteen feet from the house than like the pain I feel? But the mystic does not understand God to be exterior in that sense. Rather, God himself enters into the soul of the human person, replacing the human will with God's own will. On the level of the will, there is no distinction between God and the mystic. And as we've seen, God's will is infinite and infinitely greater than any human will, and thus it seems to the mystic as if he or she were God himself. Just as I am in my body (where, phenomenally, I cannot be mistaken), so the mystic is in God (or at least God's will). It is not only that God is present to the mystic; this leaves God as external only. Rather, the mystic is present in God, just as he or she is present in him- or herself (that is, in the phenomenal body, not just the body). But the contrary is true as well. God is present in the mystic, just as the mystic's soul is present in the phenomenal body. This reflects the ontology of the "double inclusion" phenomena referred to by Nelson Pike as he explains the mystic's claims. God is in the mystic and the mystic is in God. But both feel like "myself-in-my(phenomenal)-body." But here we encounter a difficulty. The mystics often claim that their knowledge of God is more certain than anything else. How can anything be more certain than the certainty we have of our own being-in-my-body? Recall the suggestion in chapter five that humans are a will plus a (finite) nature. In our fallen state, our wills are united to our finite beings. In humility, we detach our wills from our finite beings, letting God's will replace our will. As such, God's will becomes alloyed with us. Because of this, our (relative) certainty about ourselves pales in significance to the certainty of God's being, for our finitude is replaced by something of much greater, indeed, infinite magnitude.

128

Repairing Eden

So how is certainty possible? It is not, if one attempts to reach certainty about purely "exterior" things. But God is not purely exterior, if the mystics are right. God is interior in the same way that my own will is in the normal course of life. Since I can be certain about my own will, then when God's will replaces mine, I can be certain of His will. Now of course there are some problems here. What does it mean to say that God's will replaces mine? Isn't this some sort of metaphor that needs further analysis? But why say that? If the phenomenal reports of the mystics can be taken at face value, as I think William Alston and Nelson Pike have shown, then their phenomenal reports must be accepted as certain for them, just as if they were reporting on their own psychological states or thoughts. This won't, obviously, have any bearing on whether you or I should accept the mystic's reports as certain for us. But that, surely, would be to expect too much of certainty. Since we began looking for an existential solution to an existential problem, one should be neither surprised, nor disappointed, by a result that is very existential indeed. To sum up, then, it has been argued that the existential problem of religious diversity is rooted in the Christian story itself as understood through a certain view of the Fall and our epistemic limitations. For someone who is called into a relationship with God, but finds herself not believing, a partial answer is found within the Christian story itself. One should be faithful in accepting the "faith once delivered." But there is more. When one looks at the humility of the mystics, and how their humility is tied to their experiences of God, one discovers just how important humility is. It mirrors in reverse -the original problem of existential religious diversity. The response to the existential problem of religious diversity, as the problem is generated by us in the first place, is to solve it ourselves by humbling ourselves before God, and trusting him to answer our questions. As genuine Christian humility is understood and practiced, it opens the door to the presence of God in a way that nothing else does, a way that opens me up to certainty about God that cannot come about unless I have willed the will of God. Thus the solution to the existential problem of religious diversity is to live a life committed to humility before the God who made us, and ask to bear the cross of him who died and rose again for us. For it is only in willing what he wills that we can truly be certain of him.

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A few final observations about certainty, tentativeness, tolerance, and love. First, it is worth noting that the certainty generated in a Christian mystical encounter often makes the mystic more radically orthodox in belief. There are plenty of exceptions to this - perhaps Meister Eckhart is a good example here. But this new certainty, this new radically orthodox commitment, often is, and really should be, tempered by love. When certainty and love work together one gets a gentle tentativeness - an openness. But this is not openness or tentativeness of belief (at least about orthodoxy) but an openness of love - the tentativeness of a lover who is sure of her love, but wants to win her lover over with subtlety, This is, I believe, an openness when it comes to tolerance of other people's beliefs, religious or otherwise. It is an openness rooted in truth, a truth which ultimately is not distinguishable from love. To be tolerant of another's beliefs does not require tentativeness about one's own, especially when it comes to salvific issues - issues arising when faith, deep faith, are urged in the Christian. The certainty I've described here does not overrule tolerance, because tolerance in no way requires one to change one's mind. Certainty is a gift to the believer, as is the experience of the presence of God itself. As a gift of love, it is to be passed to others. But others are primarily loved into the Kingdom of God, and the truth (of which the humble mystic is certain) is to be spoken in love. Truth spoken in love, even if disagreeable truth, is true tolerance. "Here is what I believe. I believe it with all my heart. I believe it is a truth everyone needs. Think about it, pray about it, and I'll try to answer your questions." There need be no hint of tentativeness. But there does need to be a great deal of love and concern for the other. Tentativeness is not a repetitive requirement. Tentativeness may generate tolerance for the other's differing beliefs, but perhaps ultimately, only at the cost of losing one's own salvific commitment. Certainty, then, is an appropriate response to the existential problem of religious diversity. Short of that, fidelity. But in either case, only with love.

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APPENDIX

The Challenge of Religious Diversity, Again?

One anonymous reader of the manuscript wrote: The final chapter argues that an alignment of one's will with that of God, as humility demands, can lead to a certainty that banishes the doubts the one-path Christian may be living with. This is clearly not an intellectual demonstration but a lived assurance that seems like an identification with God to those who have tried to describe it. I have a difficulty here that is not a result of any reservation about the account McLeod-Harrison offers, but is of a more general kind. The existential solution is based on a realignment of the will that comes from the ontological realization that one is (as) nothing. I cannot help noticing that the path from partial understanding through denial of the self to experienced assurance and certainty is paralleled in Buddhism, where the initial teachings that draw one to the Path are confirmed in mystic experience, and where one of the key truths one lives, through the abandonment by wilful denial of it, is the ultimate unreality of the self. McLeod-Harrison's analysis of humility is closely parallel to the anatta doctrine, the acceptance of which is a key to the victory over desire. A place, perhaps, where the Christian might see the Spirit at work elsewhere?

And further, an even more troublesome thought (if the above comment is right) - can't one see the path McLeod-Harrison recommends as one which, though indeed possible^ can be duplicated in another tradition, thereby raising the problem of diversity all over again?

132,

Appendix

I have several comments to make in response. First, the anatta doctrine, although certainly dealing with humility, and thus paralleling some of what I've written, differs in at least one important way. The result of the Buddhist doctrine is not a return, so to speak, of the self, but a denial of the self and ultimately, a recognition that the self is unreal. What one realizes, as the Buddhists have it, is not certainty but victory over desire and, indeed, this is accomplished not because one becomes desireless per se, but because there is no one - that is, no self. In Christianity, the self is neither destroyed nor understood as unreal. It is divinized, but not made identical to the Divine. The two religions have substantially different results. As to the evidence that the "Spirit is working elsewhere," both the exclusivist and the inclusivist could admit so - even celebrate the fact - the former by saying that God is preparing the heart and mind of the Buddhist to ultimately hear and be redeemed by the Gospel, the latter by saying that the Holy Spirit is working through Buddhism but on the basis of the work of Christ, in order to bring the Buddhist to the Kingdom of God. Finally, although there is an emphasis on humility in many of the great religions, the details of Christianity differ sufficiently from those of the other religions, especially the nontheistic versions, that the diversity issue won't, I think, arise in a new way, as the reader suggests it might. The original problem was that the evidence for the various religions, especially that of religious experience, tends toward a tie for epistemic viability. It is not clear that the same issue would arise here, that is, that the religions would tie for epistemic viability. The structures of the religions differ enough, especially on the source and nature of the self, that I suspect the epistemic situation will differ substantially among the religions. But even if this isn't true, the logic of the solution to the existential problem of religious diversity will not be much affected. It is an internal problem, a personal problem, a lived, existential problem. If the Christian matures sufficiently to receive (or is graced by) a mystical experience of God generating certainty, then she or he has the needed solution. What happens to others in their religious context won't affect the Christian believer vis-a-vis the existential problem of religious diversity.

Notes

INTRODUCTION

i McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. 2, I originally intended to use the work of Thomas Merton as illustrative of some of the ideas developed in the book, but didn't. Nevertheless, let me recommend to the reader, perhaps as a beginning few steps toward the mystic path, three sources. The first is Thomas Merton's Contemplative Prayer and the second is Gabriel Marcel's "On the Ontological Mystery" (in The Philosophy of Existentialism}. I've found these two essays not only to mesh together (Merton read Marcel) but to be of powerful significance in my own spiritual and philosophical journey. The third I read just as I was finishing a draft of this work. It is Karl Jasper's Way to Wisdom. I found a good deal of what he says there to parallel the suggestions here, but rather like a cousin than a sister. CHAPTER

ONE

i See Saul Kripke, "Naming and Necessity" in Semantics of Natural Language. 2, In contrast to Zen Buddhism, Advaita Vendanta Hinduism does not teach that nothing is real. That is, it is no part of the latter's teaching that everything is illusory. 3 The last part of one-path Christianity may be controversial among Calvinists, since they believe that once on the path, one cannot fall off. But then it seems that once on the path, one necessarily must

134

Notes to pages 8-23

stay on it, so none ever fall off who are to be on, and the consequent is denied and any criticism is mute. 4 Schubert Ogden calls exclusivist and inclusivist "monistic" and contrasts monism with pluralism. See Schubert M. Ogden, Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many? 5 See William P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, chapter 7, and Alvin Plantinga, "A Defense of Religious Exclusivism" in Philosophy of Religion, 530. I discuss this issue at some length in Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology. 6 See Marilyn McCord Adams, "Problems of Evil: More Advice to Christian Philosophers," 121-43. CHAPTER TWO

1 2 3 4

Thomas Aquinas, A Summary of Philosophy, 4-5. See Eessing's Theological Writings, 54-5. Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, 69. Alston will not necessarily disagree with what I have just said about background information. In Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, he is careful to describe what he means by perceptual beliefs and he in no way thinks that every belief that, say, the Christian has about God is derived through perception of God. In fact, he says that "one's conception of God (the Ultimate) enters to a greater or lesser degree, into a particular subject's identification of the perceived object as God (Brahman ... ). When I take God to be present to me I will, if I am a Christian, but not if I am Moslem or a Hindu, most likely take it that He who became man in the person of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins is present to me. Indeed, it is generally true that we make use of what we believe about perceived objects when we perceptually identify them." 258. Insofar as Alston allows, then, that not all our information about God is experientially rooted, my suggestions here should not be construed as showing the limits of this experientially rooted approach. The limits are implicit in Alston's own work. Instead, we can take my suggestions here as explaining why there are the limits that, in fact, there are 5 What follows is based on Alston, Perceiving God, chapter 7. Alston's main focus is the apparent incompatibility of various

Notes to pages 2,5-50

6

7

8 9

10

11

iz 13 14 15 16 17

135

religious-belief forming and justifying practices, but I have limited my concern to incompatible theistic beliefs. This was suggested by an anonymous reviewer of the essay which was the basis for this chapter. See my "The Limits of Theistic Experience: An Epistemic Basis of Theistic Pluralism," 79-94. See Alston, "Christian Experience and Christian Belief," in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, and also Perceiving God. Ibid., 109. For an extended consideration of various kinds of epistemic practices and the role of background beliefs, see my Rationality and Theistic Belief. Here I am indebted, although through a rather convoluted route, to J. William Forgie's "Theistic Experience and the Doctrine of Unanimity." Forgie is arguing against the possibility of having an experience that is, phenomenologically, of God. I disagree with Forgie on this issue, as does Nelson Pike in Mystic Union. Nevertheless, Forgie's challenge has epistemic implications worth considering. There may be, ultimately, no problem here, for even identical twins can be distinguished phenomenologically by those who know them well. Nevertheless, the case illustrates the point, and it can help us see what is at issue with cases of experiences of God. Jerome Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, 37. Ibid., 38, 39. Ibid., 40-1. See Gellman for an interesting discussion on naming God, 20-36. See my Rationality and Theistic Belief. Teresa of Avila, The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, trans., 187-9. CHAPTER

THREE

i See Alston, "Epistemic Circularity." 2, I'm torn here between my inclination to get Eve off the hook because she was deceived and to put her on the hook because I want to treat her as fully "responsible" as the man. The former perhaps corrects a long-standing, sexist tradition of blaming Eve (the woman) for sin, whereas the latter makes her neither ignorant

136

3

4 5 6 7

8 9

Notes to pages 51-7 nor more stupid than the man. She turns out at least equal to the man in -being a free-will agent. I have more to say on pride and humility in the next two chapters. In fact, it is far more complicated than this brief presentation admits. McCord Adams, "Sin as Uncleanness," 3. See also her Horrendous Evils and the God of Love. Ibid., 9. A connection between epistemic limits and the Fall is also made by John Hick in Evil and the God of Love, 280-91. McCord Adams, "Theodicy Without Blame," 224-5. It may get God off the moral hook as well, at least in the instance of any evil resulting from religious diversity. Some Christians distinguish between God's testing humans and God's tempting humans, adding that God tests but does not tempt. The idea is that a test is not a test unto evil whereas a temptation is a temptation unto evil. God is not, of course, interested in tempting us to evil. But a test is good, since it can lead to greater maturity. However, what happens if we fail a test from God? According to the sketch drawn here, we sin. Such sin may or may not involve moral evil. When it does, as apparently happened in the Garden, then is God tempting Adam and Eve to moral evil, putting God on the hook? It might be suggested that, in a curious sort of way, whether God is testing us or tempting us turns on our response and whether that response leads to moral evil. It we pass the test, it is just a test. If we fail, and it leads to moral evil, then it is a temptation. Is the test of religious diversity a test from God for our maturity, or a temptation to evil? If we fail the test, evil results. Yet it is not clearly moral evil. But if the one-path realist Christian is right, the evil that results is the loss of one's salvation. But this isn't moral evil. It is religious or ontological, an unwillingness to live within our created natures, our finitude. So once again, God is not tempting us to moral evil, but simply testing us in our nature. God is not, then, responsible for moral evil, if we lose our salvation. We simply reap the natural, ontological rewards of finitude. This is, I believe, consonant with McCord Adams's suggestions in the articles I've discussed. McCord Adams, "Theodicy Without Blame," 236. Professor Mike McClymond pointed out to me that many Christians do not leave their faith for atheism or agnosticism but, nowadays, for some set of New Age commitments. I would add to this that some leave the faith for what might be described as a

Notes to pages 60-74

10 11

12

13 14 15 16

17 18

T

37

nebulous set of "spiritual" beliefs. This is, no doubt, true. However, I suspect that naturalism, agnosticism, or atheism still have the strongest pull among college-educated people. And these certainly have been the positions with the strongest attractions for me, after Christianity. See my "Religious Plurality, Idolatry, and the Testing of One's Faith," 224-41. Of course, there are many ways of being offensive with what one says. Here I'm concerned only with whether the claim itself is offensive, as opposed to the attitude with which it is said, the tone of voice, etc. Unfortunately, many one-path Christians are deeply offensive in this latter way, when it is not only uncalled for, but unnecessary. The parable is, obviously, greatly indebted to the one given by Basil Mitchell in his contribution to "Theology and Falsification," in Neu> Essays in Philosophical Theology. Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God," 37. Robert M. Adams, "The Virtue of Faith," 3-15. James Muyskens, "What Is Virtuous about Faith?" 43-52. There are some other possibilities here. One might, for example, have dispositional beliefs about God which, although not conscious, exclude doubt. But again, these beliefs may not be within our control whereas acceptances are. See my Rationality and Theistic Belief, chapter 12 for a fuller discussion of belief vs. acceptance. Plantinga, "A Defense of Religious Exclusivism." CHAPTER FOUR

1 Norvin Richards, Humility, and Richard Taylor, Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of our Age. 2 Richards, Humility, 1-20. 3 Ibid., i. 4 It is interesting to note that Richard Taylor's account of pride - "the justifiable love of oneself" (25) - is counterbalanced by his claim that "Genuine pride is not merely a feeling that you have about yourself. It is a belief that some, but not all, persons have about themselves which is true'" (italics his) 32. 5 Richards, Humility, 7. 6 Ibid., 8.

138 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Notes to pages 75-108 Bernard of Clairvaux, The Steps of Humility, i. Richards, Humility, 6-j. I thank Susan J. McLeod-Harrison for suggesting these terms. Richards, Humility, 19-20. Ibid., 1-2. Ibid., xi. Taylor, Restoring Pride, 15. Ibid. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 31 Ibid., 16 Ibid., 16-17. Ibid., 38-9. If not God, then perhaps some other ultimate reality would do the trick. But one suspects that Richards's Greek view would not be any happier with an alternative view than with the Christian one. CHAPTER FIVE

1 There is a question here of the status of the master without the servant as well. Isn't the master qua master only what he or she is because of the servant? But while there is a sense in which this is true, the servant's "inferior" nature seems to make the servant dependent on the master in a way the master isn't on the servant. 2 And any other free, created beings, non-human animals, perhaps. 3 I'm striving to remain orthodox with Christ being fully human and fully divine. He is the former with human will and finite human being, and the latter with fully divine nature, but with no access to it, via his free-will choice to humble himself. 4 Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. 5 Ibid., 28, 29, 31, and 32. 6 Ibid., 103-4. 7 Ibid., 107. CHAPTER SIX

1 See Nelson Pike, Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, i. 2 Let me note that philosophers working on mysticism owe Pike a huge debt of gratitude for the work he has done in pulling together and organizing the mystics' claims.

Notes to pages 109-25 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

139

Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 200-1. Pike, p. ix. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, 101. One of my students says he senses himself behind his eyes. I suspect that is due to the pervasive nature of visual input. Would a blind person sense herself "behind" her ears? Teresa of Avila, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, 190. Marina Escobar quoted in Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer, 2.75. Bernard of Clairvaux, "Treatise on Loving God," 195. Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, 54. John of the Cross, Assent of Mount Carmel, 181-2.. Ludovious Blosius, A Book of Spiritual Instruction, 84-5. See Edmund Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" and Robert K. Shope, The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy.

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Bibliography

Adams, Robert. "The Virtue of Faith." Faith and Philosophy i (January 1984): 3-15. Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. - "Christian Experience and Christian Belief." In Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 103-34. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. - "Epistemic Circularity." Philosophical Studies 47 (1986): 1-28. Aquinas, Thomas. A Summary of Philosophy, edited by Richard J. Regan. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2.003. Bernard of Clairvaux. On the Song of Songs IV. Translated by Irene Edmonds with an introduction by Jean Leclercq. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980. - The Steps of Humility. Translated by George Bosworth Burch. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. - "Treatise on Loving God." In Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works. Translated by G.R. Evans, 173-206. New York: Paulist Press, 1987. Blosius, Ludovicus. A Book of Spiritual Instruction. Translated by Bertrand A. Wilberforce, edited by a Benedictine of Stanbrook Abbey. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1955. Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1979. Forgie, J. William. "Theistic Experience and the Doctrine of Unanimity." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (1985): 97-118. Gellman, Jerome. Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

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Gettier, Edmund. "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis 2.3 (1963): 12.1-3. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love, revised edition. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Jasper, Karl. Way to Wisdom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954. John of the Cross. Ascent of Mount Carmel. Translated and edited by E. Allison Peers. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Image Books, 1958. a Kempis, Thomas. The Imitation of Christ. Translated by Leo SherleyPrice. New York: Penguin Books, 1952.. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Lessing's Theological Writings, edited by Henry Chadwick. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1957. Marcel, Gabriel. "On the Ontological Mystery." In Philosophy of Existentialism, 9-46. New York: Citadel Press, 1956. McCord Adams, Marilyn. Horrendous Evils and the God of Love. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. - "Problems of Evil: More Advice for Christian Philosophers." Faith and Philosophy 5 (April 1988): 121-43. - "Sin and Uncleanness." In Philosophical Perspectives 5, Philosophy of Religion, edited by James Tomberlin, 1-27. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing, 1992.. - "Theodicy Without Blame." Philosophical Topics (1988): 515-45. McLeod-Harrison, Mark. Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. - "Religious Plurality, Idolatry, and the Testing of One's Faith." Faith and Philosophy n (1994): 224-41. - "The Limits of Theistic Experience: An Epistemic Basis of Theistic Pluralism." International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 34 (1992): 79-94Merton, Thomas. Contemplative Prayer. New York: Doubleday, Image, 1969. Mitchell, Basil. "Theology and Falsification." In New Essays in Philosophical Theology, edited by Anthony Flew and Alasdair Maclntyre, 96-108. New York: Macmillan, 1955. Muyskens, James. "What is Virtuous about Faith?" Faith and Philosophy 2 (January 1985): 43-52Ogden, Schubert. Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many? Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1992. Pike, Nelson. Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.

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Index

acceptances vs. beliefs, 66-8 Adam, 48, 95; and pride, 51 Adams, Robert, 67 adultery, 59 Advaita Vendata Hinduism. See Hinduism a Kempis, Thomas, 102-6 Allah, 19, 20, 23, 37, 39, 41 Alston, William P., xv, 13, 20, 257, 123, 128; and experiential basis of belief, 22; and full reflective justification, 46; and implicit denials, 24; and pre-Kantian faith, 7; strategy, 25 anatta doctrine. See Buddhism angels, 24 Apostles and Fathers, 9 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 21, 24 Aristotle, xviii, 26, 80, 89 Augustine, Saint, 75, 78 auto-identification, 33-6, 38; and informational belief formations, 42; and St. Teresa, 41 background information, 23 belief formation: and concepts, 28; as conceptual, 28; and direct

experience, 26; as informational, 32; and persons and God, 36-41 Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 74, 78, 79, 116 Bible, 9 Blosius, Ludovious, I2oni2 Brahman, 4, 5, 6, 9, 43, 44 Buddhism, 5, 6, 9, 43, 61, 132; and anatta doctrine, 130 Calvinists, 7n3 certainty, 46, 122-3, 12,7-8 charismatic Christianity. See Christianity Christ, 40 Christian epistemic practice, 36 Christian experience, 27 Christian faith and orthodoxy, 12 Christian God, 38 Christianity, 24; as charismatic, 109; as descriptively realist, 7; as exclusive, 7; and gifts, 83; as inclusive, 8; as metaphysically exclusive, 7; as one-path, 7; as salvifically exclusive, 7. See also inclusivism and exclusivism

146

Christian philosophy, 15; as existential, 15; as theoretical, 16 Christian reading of humility, 73, 74, 76 Christians, 24; as conservative, 8, 14

Christian view of humility. See humility concepts: definite descriptive, 29; and duplication, 30; general and narrow, 28 conceptual belief formation, 2.8, 33 confidence, xix conflicts: salvific and doctrinal, 24 Creeds, 9 definite descriptive concepts, 2,9; and God, 37. See also concepts demons, 24 dependent value, 76 Descartes, Rene, 114, 124-5, I2 ^ direct experiences, 2,6 direct reference theory. See reality, theories of diversity: religious, 52; and internal vs. external viewpoints, 60-4; nontheistic, 19, 43-4; theistic, 18, 19, 41-2. See also religious diversity doctrinal accounts/details, 19-20, 21; and background beliefs, 23 drunk with love, 117 duplications, 29; and God, 39; potential and actual, 32 epistemic practices and limitations of, 45, 46, 51 epistemic uniqueness, 26-7; and doctrinal details, 27 epistemology of mystical experience, 120-8 equality, 82 Escobar, Marina, 116, 118 essential ownership, 94 evangelization, 10; and judgmental attitude, 8; and love, 8 Eve, 48, 49, 95; and pride, 51

Index exclusivism, 7; and Christianity, 8; and moral repugnance, 8; as offensive, 61-2; and salvific claims, 7. See also Christianity existential problem of religious diversity, 13-15; illustration of, xvii; and logic of, 60-4 faith vs. fidelity, 67 Father of Jesus Christ, 19, 38, 39, 41 fideism, xvi, 17, 69 Forgie, William, 3inio founders of religion, 39, 41 Garden of Eden, 46-8, 94 Garden of Gethsemane, 90 Gellman, Jerome, 33-6, 39 Genesis, 46-8; historicity of, 48 giftedness, 82; and pride, 83 gifts: Christianity on, 83 God, 6; and definite descriptive concepts, 37; and descriptions of, 19, 20; as self-emptying, 87; as supremely valuable, 55; and will as capacity and desire, 92 Greek view of humility. See humility hell, 105 Hick, John, 5 in5; and Advaita Vedanta, 10 Hinduism, 9, 23, 43, 61, 62; Advaita Vedanta, xvi-xvii, 4-6, 43, 44 Hindus, 24, 25 historical evidence, 20, 21 human nature, 87, 89, 98; and will, 90-2, 96 humility, 71-85; as attitudinal, 99; Christian view of, 81, 99-100, 102, 105; and gifts, 77; Greek view of, 99, 101, 102, 105; and Greek view of humans, 78, 80-1; and low opinion, 72-4; as nothingness, 104; as ontic, 99; and ontology, 74, 76, 80; and other challenges to faith, xviii, xix; and self-esteem, 71-2; as worthlessness, 75, 76

Index

147

idolatry, 56; as adultery, 57-8; as self-worship, 57-8; and sex, 58 inclusivism, 8; and Christianity, 8; as descriptively real, 9; and descriptive realism, 8; and evangelism, 9; and other religions, 8; and relationship with exclusivism, 9; and truth, 9. See also Christianity independent value, 75 informational belief formations, 32, 33, 42intellectual autobiography, xv Islam, 6, 9, 23, 24

Muyskens, James, on faith vs. fidelity, 67 mystical experience: and analogy of awareness of one's body, 114; and certainty, 113-14, 122; and double inclusion, 113; epistemic features of, izi; epistemology of, 120-8; and faculties, 109; and humility, 115; and illusion, 117; and love, 120; and the mind's eye, 109-10; nonepistemic features of, 121; phenomenology of, 108-20; and the understanding, 112; and the will, 115, 118, 127

Jainism, 9, 43 James, Williams, 56 Jaspers, Karl, xixnz Jesus: and attitudinal humility, 88-9; as human, 96; humility of, 86-102; as nothing, 88; as servant, 88; and will as alloyed, 95 Jews, 38 John, Gospel of, 7 John of the Cross, Saint, 119 Judaism, 6, 23, 24

natural theology. See theology, natural nontheistic diversity. See diversity

Kant, Immanuel, 4 Kripke, Saul, n Lessing, Gotthold, 21 Luther, Martin, 75, 78, 79 manifest characteristics, 27-9 Marcel, Gabriel, I33n2 masturbation, 59 McClymond, Michael, I36n8 McCord Adams, Marilyn, xviii; and Christian philosophy, 15; and problems vs. puzzles, xviii, 15 Merton, Thomas, I33n2 metaphysical awareness, 123 miracles, 22 Mitchell, Basil, I37ni2 Muhammad, 24, 39 Muslims, 24

objectification of experience, 25 Ogden, Schubert, I34n4 one-path Christianity, 7, 41 ontology and history, 22 original sin, 48-9, 82; and knowledge, 50; and ontic status, 51; as pride, 51 Orthodox Church, 7 orthodoxy, 12, 19, 20 parable of the Stranger, 64-6 pastoral concerns, xvi pastoral philosophy, xvii, 17 path of the mystics, 107 Paul, Saint, 57, 75, 76, 78, 88, 101 phenomenology of mystical experience, 108-20 Philippians, 87, 95, 97, 101 philosophy: as existential, xvii; as lived, xvii Pike, Nelson, 25, 108, no, in, 113, 128 Plantinga, Alvin, xv, 13, 20; on acceptances vs. beliefs, 66, 68 pluralism, and direct reference realism, 10 prayer: of full union, 112; of quiet, 108; of rapture, 114

148 preaching the gospel. See evangelization pride, 54, 81; Greek vs. Christian view of, 81-2 Protestantism, 7 psychological datum, 26 puzzles. See McCord Adams raw commands, 50 reality, theories of, 3-5; descriptive, 4, 5; direct reference, 3, 4, n; existential, 4; referential, 3 recognition-identification, 3 3-6 redemption: and humility, 81, 82, 98; as not moral 79; as theological, 79 Reformed epistemology, xv religion: definition of, 6 religious belief, 20; epistemic basis of, 20; genesis of, 20 religious diversity: and autoidentifications, 42.; as epistemically rooted, 18; and evil, 54, 55; as existential, 13, 14; and implicit denials, 2,4, 25; and inclusivism, 14; as internal to Christianity, 60, 63; problem of, 13-15; and problem of evil, 13, 54-6, 60-4; and real conflicts, 23; and sin, 54; as subproblem of evil, 62; as theoretical, 13 religious experience, 20; and doctrinal details, xvi; as ground of rational religious belief, xv religious knowledge: limitations on, 20-3, 5° resurrection, 22 revealed theology. See theology Richards, Norvin, 71; rejection of Christian view, 78-9 Richards's reading of humility, 72,

74, 76

Roman Catholicism, 7 Romans, 57-9

Index salvation, 6 salvific beliefs, 41 Scripture, 8, 14 self-determining value, 94 self-esteem, 71 servanthood and humility, 88-9 Simeon, 109 sin: as ontological, 52, 53, 55; as uncleanness, 53, 58 skepticism, 125 solipsism, 125; and Adam, 126; overcoming and the will, 126 spatial/temporal matrix, 30-1; and persons, 37 spiritual theology. See theology subjectivity and objectivity, 123 Swinburne, Richard, 21-2 swooning: of the body, in; of the self, in Tagore, Saranindra Nath, ix-xi, 60, 61, 62, 63 Taylor, Richard, 81-4; on giftedness, 82 Teresa of Avila, Saint, 40, 108 theistic belief: source in experience, 19 theistic diversity. See diversity theology: natural, 20-1; revealed, 21; spiritual, 16 tree of knowledge of good and evil, 49 trust vs. faith, 67 ultimate reality: and descriptions of, 6 Vishnu, 19, 24, 25, 37 will, 90; as alloyed, 95; as capacity, 90-1; as desire, 90-1; as essentially owned, 94; as essential to humans, 92; and the Fall, 95, 97; as gift, 77; as self-determining, 93; as thwarting God, 92; and the value of humans, 93 Yahweh, 19, 39, 41 Zen Buddhism, 5, 43, 44