The Ocean of God

Roland Faber

Description

The first book to systematically explore the concept of transreligious discourse

‘The Ocean of God’conveys the proposition that the future of religions, if they will not want to contribute to the destruction of humanity, will become transreligious. Based on the assumption that the spiritual impulse of humanity cannot simply be eradicated, religiosity will persist in transreligious forms, as secularizations, naturalizations and transhumanist dreams only envision such transformations, but fall short in their ability to replace the force of spirituality to further civilized peace of human existence on Earth and its future in evolutionary, ecological and cosmological dimensions. In relating the contributions of religious pluralism to the concept of the unity of religions, which have arisen in this “new axial age” for overcoming the checkered history of religions in furthering peace, the program of a polyphilic pluralism with its transreligious discourse, based on the insight of the fundamental relativity of (religious) truth and the special contributions of process philosophy and theology as well as the Bahá'í universe of thought, analyses and projects a new religiosity or spirit enabling religions to overcome their deepest motives of strife and warfare.

Introduction; PART ONE: PARADIGMS OF UNITY AND PLURALITY; 1. Unity or Plurality of Religions?; 2. The Healing and Poisonous Fruits of the Unity of Religions; 3. The Synthesis and Aporia of Religious Pluralism; 4. The Promise of Mysticism; 5. Polyphilic Pluralism; PART TWO: NEGOTIATIONS OF MULTIPLICITY; 6. Convergences and Divergences: Juncture or Bifurcation?; 7. Pluralism of Pluralisms?; 8. Horizontal and Vertical Pluralism; 9. An Experiment in Incompatibilities: Green Acre; 10. The Mystery of Distinction and Unity; PART THREE: TRANSRELIGIOUS HORIZONS; 11. The Transreligious Discourse; 12. Other Religions: From Coinherence to Coinhabitation; 13. The Earth and Other Worlds: A Story of Cosmic Magnitude; 14. The Future of Religions; 15. One with All Religion; Glossary; References; Index.

Sujets

• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Bahaísmo
• Reference
• Bahá'í Faith
• Bahaïsme

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 29 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783089871
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Ocean of God
The Ocean of God
On the Transreligious Future of Religions
Roland Faber
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2019
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
© Roland Faber 2019
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Faber, Roland, 1960– author.
Title: The ocean of God : on the transreligious future of religions / Roland Faber.
Description: New York: Anthem Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019020790 | ISBN 9781783089857 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Religion – Philosophy. | Religions.
Classification: LCC BL51.F2954 2019 | DDC 201/.5–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020790
ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-985-7 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-985-7 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
And so does the spirit become separated from
The greater spirit to move in the world of matter
And pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
And the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
And return whence it come.
To the ocean of Love and Beauty […] and God.
—Khalil Gibran, A Tear and a Smile
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I Paradigms of Unity and Plurality
Chapter One Unity or Plurality of Religions?
Chapter Two The Healing and Poisonous Fruits of the Unity of Religions
Chapter Three The Synthesis and Aporia of Religious Pluralism
Chapter Four The Promise of Mysticism
Chapter Five Polyphilic Pluralism
Part II Negotiations of Multiplicity
Chapter Six Convergences and Divergences: Juncture or Bifurcation?
Chapter Seven Pluralism of Pluralisms?
Chapter Eight Horizontal and Vertical Pluralism
Chapter Nine An Experiment in Incompatibilities: Green Acre
Chapter Ten The Mystery of Distinction and Unity
Part III Transreligious Horizons
Chapter Eleven The Transreligious Discourse
Chapter Twelve Other Religions: From Coinherence to Coinhabitation
Chapter Thirteen The Earth and Other Worlds: A Story of Cosmic Magnitude
Chapter Fourteen The Future of Religions
Chapter Fifteen One with All Religions
Glossary
References
Index
INTRODUCTION

Would ye hasten towards a mere pond, whilst the Most Great Ocean is stretched out before your eyes? 1
—Bahá’u’lláh
To ask, in the current global context, the question whether and how religions could relate peacefully to one another and to humanity as a whole and, even more, by spiritually enriching our common humanity, is inevitable, but not new. What is new in the current situation is the fact that without the ability to answer this question (or rather the complex of related questions) in an amicable way, the world is in danger of undergoing a regression into states of warfare that, if not initiated or at least fueled by religious fanaticism and strife, mutual condemnation and collective aggression, might bring the seed of its antagonistic instinct to ultimate fruition, in its outcome indistinguishable from ecological death, atomic destruction or any other extinction-level event—at least for humanity. 2 Yet the motivation for asking questions of religious (and nonreligious) mutuality in a sympathic and constructive, and neither only tolerant or merely critical, nor solely academic or cunningly apologetic, way is deeper than dispelling fear. It is about the very nature and essence of human existence, the identity of humanity as a whole on this planet Earth and in a potentially infinite cosmos. It is about the meaning of human existence and its very destiny.
As the quests of religions are ultimately about the human appearance in the world and its ultimate meaning as well as the meaning of existence as such, we need not wonder that the motley picture that the religious history of humanity displays is bewildering, to say the least. But our global perspective today (and maybe so already for a long time) has made it even more unavoidable to ask how the claim of religious existence to convey universal meaning and the obvious inability to embody such a meaning for the whole of humanity (by any of such claims) can be thought together without immediately obliterating either side: that either the messy plurality of religions is not only a sign, but rather a proof of their ultimate meaninglessness (and, hence, the falsity of their claim to meaning altogether), or that no such meaning, at least not in anything less than a common human consciousness, has arisen yet but only remains a faint hope.
Two concepts and ways of thinking have countered the potential simplifications of this paradox, seeking a way out of the aporia that lingers in its intricacies: the healing prescription of religious pluralism, on the one hand, and that of the unity of religions, on the other. Both, of course, overlap, and it is in no way already clear that they are different or identical, compatible or incompatible. Both approaches reflect on unity and diversity of religions in sophisticated ways and in the awareness of the necessity to clear the planes of mutual encounters from unreflected presuppositions that, as history abundantly demonstrates, often incline us toward clashes, distrust and feelings of danger. Instead, their discourses want to instill mutual trust while not excluding questions of truth, meaning and the humanization of humanity—viewed in light of a common future of humanity that would not be perpetuating the pitfalls of mutual exclusions of the religious (and nonreligious) other from such a future. What is more, these concepts and agendas want to create spaces of shared meaning, which eventually would appear as an (as of yet hidden) implication of the healing truth of religions themselves.
Such attempts to think and practice a new kind of relationality between religions (and beyond, with humanity as a whole) are not uncontested by both nonreligious and religious worldviews, some of which work with great energy against such harmonizations, but in the name of the good of the future of humanity. 3 Yet it is in the face of the conflicts that have given rise to such contestation, in the first place, that such new ways of discussing religious multiplicity and unity situate themselves differently and in new ways within these dynamics of refusal, retreat or abandonment of religiosity (or even spiritual reality itself) so as to become means for a creative transformation.
The following considerations will also take into account that approaches to religious pluralism and the potential or actual (even if not yet recognized) unity of religions cannot escape that which the famous Anglo-American polymath, mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead has so aptly called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” 4 Indeed, if such ideas and discourses only happen in an abstract space beyond concrete life-forms of religious diversity from which these approaches inherit their questions (even if they can be reflected from a philosophical plane that is not identical, but always interfering with religious particularities), 5 they have lost their primary field of meaning for, and relevance to, religious particularity. In order to escape such generalizations, aloof over the religious landscape they engage, I will situate the discussions of this book within concrete philosophical and religious perspectives, yet not by excluding their own interaction with one another and other such regional enterprises.
For two related reasons I have chosen a process approach based on the philosophy of A. N. Whitehead and the religious and intellectual universe of the Bahá’í religion, 6 in conjunction with that of the “Big Five” (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) in which the discussions often have taken recess (with now growing, but still sparse expansions, for instance, by Zoroastrianism, Sikhism or Jainism). 7 First, both the philosophical and the religious example are minority voices that, if pluralism is correct, must be heard in their unique potential to contribute to the field in order to avoid the discursive closure of generalized philosophical and religious sweeps. Second, both universes of discourse have, in their own way, but not unrelated in their heritage, uniquely and substantially contributed to the character of, and alternatives to, the current understanding of religious pluralism and the unity of religions. Whitehead’s philosophy, from its inception, generated a multiplicity of pluralistic approaches, reaching from engagements with both kindred and seemingly foreign philosophical patterns, from the ancient process tradition in the wake of Heraclitus to poststructuralism, and to long-standing interreligious dialogues. 8 It has proven itself to be a contact theory that can bridge religious identities, as it has generated arguments for reli