Subject: Impressions from the Haverford Conference: Interpretation Matters by Wolf Hass To: VIEWS@LISTSERV.METANEXUS.NET Metanexus: Views. 2002.10.17. 4099 words "For me," declares today's columnist Wolf Hass, "religions are the fossils of the once living spiritual insights. The histories, the rituals, the quotations, the propagandas of proof, the cherry picking of evidence and the claims to superiority over other religions can cause us to completely miss the fundamental insights behind those religions. We also sometimes get trapped into worshipping the messenger instead of being inspired by the wisdom of the message. In my opinion, there are ultimately no final experts, no gurus, and no masters for these types of insights: only guides. In a sense, we are always beginners to be dynamically 'baptized' over and over again with the living waters of spirituality." Moreover, he adds that "the dilemma of religious interpretation can be concretely illustrated with a verse from the Christian New Testament John 14:16: 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' This statement is often a proselytizing tool used by fundamentalists to supposedly show the unique superiority of Christianity over other religions. The 'I' is literally referring to Jesus with this interpretation. Yet it could be argued that this is not a statement unique to Christianity but a common utterance in mystical literature; especially, Eastern mysticism." What is implied about any statement if its interpretation can be so varied? Well, one of the first implications that can be drawn is that interpretation matters, and that it matters very much indeed. To this end, the Metanexus Institute held a conference this past June on that very subject: Interpretation Matters. And, in today's column, Wolf Hass conveys his own interpretation of that conference. To read more about the conference in general, please refer to Metanexus: Views (2002.05.24). Currently, today's author, Wolf Hass, works as an independent computer consultant for wholesale distribution businesses but regularly schedules time to keep abreast of the trends in science, religion and the fringe scenes. Wolf strongly believes our current religions are inadequate in the face of the knowledge and insights gleaned from the scientific explosion of the last century and this century to come but doesn't want to embrace much of what he sees as renewed superstitions in the new age movement. Yet he does recognize a core of wisdom in the major religions and the new age movement and has a sense for what some might call the ineffable. He is writing an inspirational book titled "The Cosmic Journey" in which he outlines the proverbial spiritual journey in a modern context and also articulates the dynamic core of the dawn of a new living religious vision that doesn't just encompass humanity but all of life in the cosmos. And he has been a member of the World Future Society since 1992. -- Stacey E. Ake =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Impressions from the Haverford Interpretation Matters Conference From: Wolf Hass Email: Introduction As I peered out through the dirty cab window at the imposing buildings of downtown Philadelphia, I came to the conclusion that the driver had no inkling of how to get to Haverford. I had been locked in the back seat and barred in by Plexiglas for the last forty-five minutes like a criminal in a cop car. Not only had the driver fibbed to me at the airport about knowing the way but he also had not consulted a map to help him with directions. Nor had he bothered to phone or radio anyone for assistance. There had been the driver's beginning noble lie. Now there was my hermeneutical final word: I demanded to be released and dropped off at the nearest taxi stand. With the next cab driver I insisted that he show me the way to Haverford on a map before driving off. When I finally reached the 'promised land', where even the weeds looked good, I over-tipped the second driver with a triumphant gratitude. But later in the evening while walking alone, I realized I had taken the wrong turnoff from a road of a far different nature: the inner road of the 'promised land' of the heart. The journey on this dynamic, living road has no final goal, no final answers. Couldn't I have handled the situation with the first driver with a greater sense of humor and compassion in a way that we could have both been winners instead of being temporarily overwhelmed by a strange city in a claustrophobic cab obsessed with reaching a destination? So it is when turning to interpretations of religion where we can easily be lead astray by the claustrophobic cubbyholes of our preconceived notions. We try to freeze-frame life through our interpretive 'nanoscopes' and call it truth. We can make the destination more important than the journey; we can lose our sense of humor and compassion; and we can lose our sense of awe and the appreciation for the gift or our lives and the world around us. For me, religions are the fossils of the once living spiritual insights. The histories, the rituals, the quotations, the propagandas of proof, the cherry picking of evidence and the claims to superiority over other religions can cause us to completely miss the fundamental insights behind those religions. We also sometimes get trapped into worshipping the messenger instead of being inspired by the wisdom of the message. In my opinion, there are ultimately no final experts, no gurus, and no masters for these types of insights: only guides. In a sense, we are always beginners to be dynamically 'baptized' over and over again with the living waters of spirituality. I think the dilemma of religious interpretation can be concretely illustrated with a verse from the Christian New Testament John 14:16: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." This statement is often a proselytizing tool used by fundamentalists to supposedly show the unique superiority of Christianity over other religions. The 'I' is literally referring to Jesus with this interpretation. Yet it could be argued that this is not a statement unique to Christianity but a common utterance in mystical literature; especially, Eastern mysticism. My bias is that this mystical statement is one of the common spiritual 'truths' behind all religions. Here's my interpretation of the essence of this verse where the 'I' is interpreted as the divine in each person: "You can search and travel outwardly to every corner of the globe and every niche of the cosmos for that matter, and you can submit to and follow a million different gurus, cults or religions but the only way to reach and connect with that unfathomable intelligence that some call God is through the same divine spark you clearly see manifested within me, the same divine spark that is also within you if you would just truly open yourselves to it like the innocence of a child. For the kingdom of that unfathomable intelligence is not be found outwardly but inwardly within you. You need no outward intermediaries to find it. The only way is already hidden deep within you." At the crossroads of science and religion, I'm astounded by some apologists who can fully grasp difficult concepts in modern science yet schizophrenically in the next breath claim a literal belief in a religious mythological metaphor. How do they do it? With the tremendous advancements in the sciences; in particular in cosmology, shouldn't we articulate a new vision for humanity and not scurry back into the groundhog holes of our childhood belief systems? This does not mean abandoning the collective wisdom of our religions but on the contrary means leaving us open to expanding that wisdom. So it is through these distorted interpretive lenses of mine that I invite you to look in on some of the presenters and participants at the "Interpretation Matters: Science and Religion at the Crossroads' conference held in Haverford Pennsylvania last June 15-20. General Impressions The Haverford College campus with its luxuriant trees was an inspiring setting for the conference. When I arrived a very warm enthusiastic staff greeted me. Having had combined the conference with a personal holiday, I was a little shocked when I was sweetly presented with a thick, overwhelming booklet of daily course readings. I'll wager though that no one attending did all their 'homework', including those there on grants. I'm still trying to comb my way through these articles, but I have enjoyed the process. In contrast to a typical New Age conference, the men seemed to outnumber the women here. Though the public was welcome, the participants were predominantly academics, which created an unintentional intellectual atmosphere of aloofness and a subtle unappreciation towards what might be perceived as flaky ideas, one's own views of course exempted. Most of the participants represented the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Eastern religions were under represented. There was also a smattering of agnostic and atheistic views. At every conference it helps to become conversant with the lingo: Hermeneutics, kenosis, process theology, postmodernism, emergence, pantheism, panentheism, existentialism, reductionism, ontology, etc. were some of the words that might have helped to be part of your vocabulary here. What really made this conference worth it for me were the incredibly stimulating discussions one could have at every turn with the other participants during the lunch breaks, on the bus trips, on evening walks or when sipping coffee at Starbucks. The discussions ranged from the basic tenets behind the religions, the problems of interpretation, to the problems of modern cosmology. I didn't find any answers but I certainly uncovered a lot of questions. I felt though that the prevailing flavor of the conference was to rationalize established religious belief systems with science, to preserve the status quo, not to explore new visions or anything perceived as the fringe scene. I think this hinders a truly open exploration. I had the good fortune though of having the delightful Sehdev Kumar from the University of Toronto as a dorm mate to help act as a counterpoint to that perception. Some memorable comments and observations from participants that I recall are: Sehdev Kumar stressed the importance of forgiveness and compassion. One Jewish participant pointed out to me that for him one of the differences between Judaism and Christianity was that Judaism is an observance while Christianity is a faith. Norbert Samuelson challenged my notion of us living in extraordinary times. When I asked Robert Mann, the chairman of physics at the University of Waterloo, how he rationalized his Christian views with modern physics, he responded, "Physics makes God look good." On a bus trip Jeff Dahms argued there had to be either one universe or an infinite number: not two or three. On one occasion, Menachem Fisch was explaining at a dinner table that even Moses challenged and was disobedient to instructions from God on moral grounds. I then impishly asked, "And was Moses right?" Fisch replied, "Yes, and God told him so!" - much to the delight of the kibitzers at the table. Although everyone tried to practice an air of inclusiveness, real sentiments would occasionally bubble to the surface. I had to chuckle while watching the play, "Missing Link", when one member of the audience whispered to his friend beside me, "Who wrote this s**t?" I found the remark refreshingly honest. At times during the conference when the vocabulary thickened I wondered, "How is the person on the street supposed to grapple with these issues?" Of the presenters, ironically I found the postmodernist one by John Caputo of Villanova University the most inspiring. Though I'm fairly conversant in science; especially physics, I found some of the paper presentations given from a scientific point of view the least satisfying. They would begin with a very credible demonstration of scientific principles typically showing some form of highly improbable coincidences and then the proverbial quantum leap would be made to God. Implied of course was that therefore the belief in the presenter's version of God, typically a Christian one, was true. Humorously, when a participant in one of the paper presentations asked the presenter for more details on how he had made the leap, the presenter innocently responded, "But then I would have to reveal my suppositions." Of course that's precisely where all the problems of interpretation lie between science and religion. Here are some comments on a few of the key presenters at the conference to illustrate the high caliber of the speakers. The paper presenters were also of a very high quality. Philip Clayton Philip Clayton gave the first keynote address to the conference called "The Fall from Objectivity". I liked him. He mixed in a playful sense of humor with his hermeneutical lingo. I jokingly like to call him a convenient supervenient emergence theorist. (I'll let you do the interpretation.) Clayton began with the questions: "Does the ubiquity of interpretation mean an identity of science and religion if it's true that knowledge in both areas is saturated with interpretive assumptions and imprisoned within the hermeneutical circle? Or does some distinction remain? And if so, what is it?" (Clayton's voice had a playful lilt while posing these questions. He didn't sound as ponderous as it appears here in print stripped of his personality.) Clayton outlined the rise and fall of science as science first being the sole arbiter of objective truth by first negating the interpretive disciplines (primarily theology) and then itself becoming an eventual 'victim' of hermeneutization. This according to him has put religion on an equal footing with science even though its subjectivity is the polar opposite of scientific objectivity. Postmodern and hermeneutical thinkers stress that science like religion is a social activity and some even claim it is as hard to justify a scientific theory as it is to test a religious hypothesis. However Clayton cautioned us with the question: "Does this mean science and religion have become epistemically identical?" Clayton then tried to explain what hermeneutics really is. (I discovered afterwards that many in the audience really hadn't known what hermeneutics was either, much to my relief.) In a nutshell, hermeneutics is the study of the principles that deal with interpretation. Clayton related that the word has its roots in the Greek myth of Hermes, a messenger whose task it was to transmit and thus to interpret the wishes of the gods to us humans. (Ironically Hermes is also considered one of the world's trickster figures!) He outlined the evolution of modern hermeneutics from Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger to the present day's radical identity theory of G.B Madison. It was Madison who stated, "Facts are precisely what a cultural, conversational community agrees they are... Like it or not interpretation is the only game in town." Or as Clayton says Derrida said, "There is no 'outside' the text'. Clayton brought up the incident of the spoof postmodernist article submitted by the physicist, Sokal to the journal "Social Text" and published. Sokal then published his deception in the journal "Lingua Franca". Sokal's point was that the scientific method was as a way for human beings to obtain reliable albeit imperfect and tentative knowledge of physical laws by using 'objective' procedures; that an external world does exist independent of any human being including humanity as a whole. This incident punched a large hole in the identity theory. As Clayton stated, "Not all fields of knowledge are equally hermeneutical, or are hermeneutical in the same sense. Interpretation matters, but it matters in a more differentiated sense that the Identity Theorist might assume." Clayton proposed four tiers of interpretation and said we ignore them at our peril. He claimed much of the confusion is due to lumping these four together; for example, sociologists who debunk the claims of physics based on the theoretical basis of sociology. (I would add: Or creationists who debunk evolution based on literal interpretations of biblical text.). The four tiers according to Clayton are: - the natural sciences, the social sciences, literary criticism and interpretations of art and religion. Clayton ended his address with the conclusion that even though the natural sciences are also hermeneutical, it doesn't follow that there is an identity between all interpreting disciplines. In his final statement he exhorted his audience when hearing arguments in support of the claim that interpretation matters to always ask: "Which interpretation? Which hermeneutics? Which Science?" "For things may be more complex, and the conclusions less certain than they might appear at hermeneutical first blush!" Menachem Fisch Menachem Fisch was the presenter whose presence I was most consistently aware of at the conference. He not only gave a powerful presentation himself but also asked poignant questions as a participant in almost every lecture. He particularly amused me by a question he asked after the performance of the play "Missing Link" of the author Seth Rozin. To paraphrase he asked: "If you were not constrained by the two hour limit that a play presents how would you have developed the characters further?" Once one knew Fisch's style, one realized that Fisch was criticizing Rozin for creating religious caricatures in his play. He was just too diplomatic to state it so baldly. I discovered that this criticism of the play was shared by most of the Jewish members in the audience. Menachem Fisch's presentation was on "Humble Reasoners: Science and the Jewish Covenants of Learning". In it he made the argument that Judaism offers a radically different view of the revelatory nature of its sacred texts, which he argued comes intriguingly close to our current understanding of science. He explored the role it might play alongside science with its confrontational yet humble religiosity and offered it as an alternative to a world caught between dogmatism and radical relativism. Fisch first began by exploring the history of the influence of Christianity on the rise of enlightenment science. He pointed out that the Puritanism and science thesis would not suffice as an explanation. Peter Harrison's book, "The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science" was quoted to show that modern science owed more to the Protestant rise in Bible study than to Puritanism. Protestantism made Holy Scriptures an open book that followers were encouraged to discover for themselves rather than requiring a clerical intermediary. Using the so-called "two-books" metaphor, "book of words: scripture" and "book of works: nature", the reformation came to mean that the literal study of scripture would become a model for studying nature: truth was grounded on the immediacy of factual experience. But Fisch made an important point by elaborating upon Harrison. He suggested that the Catholic Counter Reformation was responsible for the equally confident rise in early-modern scientific rationalism with its special emphasis on mathematical physics. Fisch indicated the idea came from Stephen Toulman's book, "Cosmopolis". The Counter Reformation had a different perspective on the two books metaphor: truth was grounded in the a priori certitude of the mathematical ideas by which the facts were read. In other words, the Reformation had a 'literalist' approach of reading out whereas the Counter-Reformation had a doctrinal approach of reading in. Both were equally influential 'identity theories' in that they were both versions of the argument that the ability to fathom the true meaning of scripture could be transferred to a similar success in the quest for scientific truth. However Fisch pointed out that both of these 'identity' approaches on the two-book metaphor crumbled in the face of the modern enlightenment period to cause a schism between science and religion. But the 'identity' theories were to come full circle again in the 20th century through the efforts of the postmodernists. Then Fisch turned to Judaism borrowing much of his thought from the works of Rabbi Berlin of the 19th century. Berlin implied that the both science and the study of Torah lacked the means of determining either conclusiveness or truth. This perpetual doubtfulness was not viewed as an impediment but was actually the reason for their great vitality and growth. Fisch pointed out that the Christian idea of there being a single true, humanly discernible reading of scripture was foreign to the Jewish exegetical tradition. In fact he suggested that the Bible's sanctity is attested to by the lavish abundance of conflicting readings it is given. Yet it's not a case of anything goes. Fisch stated that the Jewish orthodox community would certainly offer some objections to his thesis. But he offered support by giving an example of Moses challenging and disobeying a decree from God based on moral grounds. God apparently accepted Moses' superior moral judgment and the Torah was happily improved. (I would add that this view is in line with process theology.) In other words the rabbinical voice has little patience with religious yesmanship according to Fisch. None of the sacred texts are collectively treated as final. On science Fisch noted that the identity theories on the two books analogy eventually had to be abandoned for both the Reformation and Counter Reformation versions. Religion came to be identified with belief. Science came to be identified with its system of knowledge which in contrast to religion allowed its tentative claims to truth to be constantly questioned. Eventually religion was viewed as not merely different from science, but downright irrational. But yet today rationality has become far less a matter of proven confidence in what we know, as of a humble, self-doubting, yet constructive awareness of our tendency to err. Fisch conceded that modern science owes much of its origins exclusively to early-modern Christian sensibilities. But he openly wondered how modernity would have developed under differing circumstances in terms of the science religion relationship. In his conclusion he once again offered us to look at Rabbi Berlin's text in which science and religion are viewed as both being constructively skeptical, modestly assertive and genuinely pluralistic. He felt it was a voice much needed to act in opposition to the irrationality of a world caught between uncritical dogmatism and uncritical relativism. S. Nomanul Haq S. Nomanul Haq's presentation was called "Constructing the Universe: Imagination, Reality and Metaphor." I didn't take analytical notes on his presentation but I did note the following points: Haq's approach is that you can't understand the Islamic world today until you have an appreciation for its historical underpinnings. The average person often considers the Islamic world as an Oriental Eastern world but as Haq noted, both Latin Christendom and the Islamic world inherited the classical tradition from the Greeks. That tradition had differing effects on the two worlds. In fact at one point Islamic culture cultivated the Greek culture, transformed it and then transmitted it. There would have been no algebra without Islam. There would have been no Renaissance without the translation of Arabic documents into Latin. According to Haq, Islam has no clergy, no church institution, no ordained priests to hammer out an accepted truth, no division between the sacred and the profane. In Islam there is no talk of the fall as in Christendom. Instead there is talk of re-ascending from diversity to unity. Elsewhere Haq had noted that in contrast to the Greeks, in Islam exploring nature is meaningless without the transcendental anchorage provided from the Qu'ran: The environment is subservient to God through natural law, which in religious terms, is not the law of human beings. John Caputo I found the final wrap-up presentation "Radical Hermeneutics Matters-All the Way Down" by Caputo to be ironically the most inspiring. There's a very seductive quality to postmodernism, which like nihilism can at times be hard to refute. Some of the points Caputo made that I noted from his presentation were: A context free content is a misunderstanding. There is nothing outside the context. Asking for context free content is like asking for how many facts are there in the audience. Some interpretations are better than others but there is no single grand interpretation. The one hermeneutic rule: There are no rules for the rules. This does not mean anything goes. Humility is the first hermeneutical principle. Interpretation is an example of humility. There are just competing truths; not 'The Truth'. One is not given some big secret. The secret is that there is no secret. People who make claims to absolute truth are dangerous. The charge of relativism when challenging absolutism is a red herring. Absolute understanding means understanding with no conditions. Fundamentalisms are a form of idolatry. Hermeneutics is a critique of idolatry. There are no facts; only evidences. The world is God's gift. Love trumps knowledge. The kenotic approach is the same as the humble approach. Caputo concluded with the statement: "There is no final word". =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This publication is hosted by Metanexus Online . The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Metanexus or its sponsors. To comment on this message, go to the browser-based forum at the bottom of all postings in the magazine section of our web site. Metanexus welcomes submissions between 1000 to 3000 words of essays and book reviews that seek to explore and interpret science and religion in original and insightful ways for a general educated audience. Previous columns give a good indication of the topical range and tone for acceptable essays. Please send all inquiries and submissions to Dr. Stacey Ake, Associate Editor of Metanexus at . Copyright notice: Columns may be forwarded, quoted, or republished in full with attribution to the author of the column and "Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science ". Republication for commercial purposes in print or electronic format requires the permission of the author. Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 by William Grassie.