Transcendent Truth (Jesus, ritual, moral, gospel, Kingdom)

[lunamoth]

Is a transcendent foundation for truth, as is found in religions, necessary for peace?

Even if we can't agree on what that truth is, is it important that we have faith in a good that is higher than any human institution can be?

If there is no good based upon a Transcendent Absolute, does that mean that the highest good is determined by power, rather than by truth?

Religious faith is characterized by non-violence:

Originally Posted by Rowan Williams

The first point I want to make is about the very nature of religious language. To believe in an absolute religious truth is to believe that the object of my belief is not vulnerable to the contingencies of human history: God’s mind and character cannot be changed by what happens here in the world. And the logic of this is that an apparent defeat in the world for my belief cannot be the end of the story; God does not fail because I fail to persuade others or because my community fails to win some kind of power. Now if I believe for a moment that my failure or our failure is a failure or defeat for God, then my temptation will be to seek for any means possible to avoid such an outcome; and that way lies terrorism and religious war and persecution. The idea that any action, however extreme or disruptive or even murderous, is justified if it averts failure or defeat for my belief is not really consistent with the conviction that my failure is not God’s. Indeed, it reveals a fundamental lack of conviction in the eternity and sufficiency of the object of faith. In plain English, religious violence suggests religious insecurity. When different communities have the same sort of conviction of the absolute truth of their perspective, there is certainly an intellectual and spiritual challenge to be met; but the logic of belief ought to make it plain that there is no defence for the sort of violent contest in which any means, however inhuman, can be justified by appeal to divine sanction. The divine cannot need protection by human violence. It is a point uniquely captured in the words of Jesus before the Roman governor: ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight’ (Jn 19.36).


So the rather paradoxical conclusion appears that the more religious people are utterly serious about the truth of their convictions, the less they will sanction all-out violence; they will have a trust that what truly is will remain, whatever the vicissitudes of society and history. And they will be aware that compelling religious allegiance by violence is tantamount to replacing divine power with human; hence the Quranic insistence that there can be no compulsion in matters of religious faith. It is crucial to faith in a really existing and absolute transcendent agency that it should be understood to be what it is independently of any lesser power: the most disturbing form of secularisation is when this is forgotten or misunderstood. And the difficult fact is that it has been so forgotten or misunderstood in so many contexts over the millennia. It has regularly been confused with cultural or national integrity, with structures of social control, with class and regional identities, with empire; and it has been imposed in the interest of all these and other forms of power. Despite Jesus’ words in John’s gospel, Christianity has been promoted and defended at the point of the sword and legally supported by extreme sanctions; despite the Quranic axiom, Islam has been supported in the same way, with extreme penalties for abandoning it and civil disabilities for those outside the faith. There is no religious tradition whose history is exempt from such temptation and such failure.

Lack of trust in a transcendent truth can lead to 'might makes right:'

Originally Posted by Rowan Williams

But the enlightenment dream of a universal rationality proved in the event as vulnerable and questionable as any religious project. It became entangled in theories and discourses of racial superiority (supported by a particular reading of evolutionary biology) and the economic determinism of capitalist theory and practice; it developed a complex and unhealthy relationship with nationalism, which was, increasingly, seen as the practical vehicle for emancipation and rationalisation; and its own account of universal reason was undermined first by Marxian and Freudian theories, then by the structuralist and postmodernist revolutions. European rationality – and its American manifestations in the Declaration of Independence and the political philosophy flowing from that – came to seem as local and arbitrary as any other creed; in the world of global politics, it depended on force as much as argument. And if you come to believe that the values of a certain culture – whether Western democracy or any other – are absolute and impossible for rational people to argue about, then, when some groups resist or disagree, you have a theory that licenses to suppress them; what is more, because you have no transcendent foundation for holding to these values, you may come to believe that any and all methods are justified in promoting or defending them, since they will not necessarily survive your failure or defeat.


Thus the Enlightenment hope of universal harmony on the grounds of reason can become a sophisticated version of the priority of force over everything else, a journey back towards the position that Plato exerted all his energy to refute in the Republic. If the power of argument proves not be universal after all, sooner or later we are back with coercion; and when that happens it becomes harder and harder to hold firm to the classical liberal principles that are at the heart of the Enlightenment vision, harder and harder – for example – to maintain that torture or the deliberate killing of the innocent in order to protect the values of society can never in any circumstances be right. It is one of the great moral conundrums posed by the experience of recent years: what if the preserving of civil liberties and the preserving of the security of a liberal society turn out not always to be compatible?

[atomic47]

we need to have faith in mankind. then it wouldn't matter if there is a higher power or not.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by atomic47

we need to have faith in mankind. then it wouldn't matter if there is a higher power or not.

What do you mean by faith in mankind? Faith about what?

[Buttercup]

It's a wonderful idea and in theory it could work. However, there are too many wacko fundamentalists who skewer their religious teachings into something they are not. I wonder what Fred Phelps would think of this idea?

Do you think a world leader could bring this harmony about somehow?

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Buttercup

Do you think a world leader could bring this harmony about somehow?

I think the idea is that no, a world leader can't bring about harmony. We can't and won't all agree on one truth. The practical response is that we live in a pluralistic world and it's important that all voices be heard. We don't agree on absolute truth and that's OK. It's still important that we find some common ground to address practical matters, but you can't impose what you think is truth on anyone. In fact, the mark of faith in your truth is to not try to win at all costs and impose your truth on others by any means.

It's out of the clash of opinions that we can best approach something like justice, and peace. As soon as we start squashing the voices of others, there's no peaceful way to assert our own voice.

[Buttercup]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

It's out of the clash of opinions that we can best approach something like justice, and peace. As soon as we start squashing the voices of others, there's no peaceful way to assert our own voice.

I agree of course. However, I just don't see long lasting peace being feasible...too many enormous cultural differences.

[atomic47]

Faith about what we can do. We can solve most of the worlds problems, we can all live in peace, in harmony, with freedom. We don't need an outside force to get us there. We already have what we need right here and now. Don't wait on god to do it for us. I don't even believe in a human-likeness god, but there might be forces which we don't understand (mostly nature and energies) so I believe it is up to us to improve.

[atomic47]

A world leader? No, I don't think that would work. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. A leader sometimes means authority, and Myself, like many others, questions every facet of authority every chance I get. Guidance on the other hand, would be a noble change.