Postmodernity, as a complex matrix of social and cultural systems, has posed a number of complexing issues and challenges to world cultures, politics, and relationships. A challenge and opportunity that has arisen in many contemporary discourses in light of Postmodernity is interfaith dialogue and the relationships between various faith communities. The trends marked by the projects of Modernity’s failings have been aided through the language and critiques afforded through both Poststructuralism and Postcolonialism but there are yet opportunities often uncovered through these philosophical stances. Poststructuralism, in its questioning and critique of essences and technoscientific categories and assumptions has opened language, history, and methodologies of inquiry, to powerful subversions of normative power hierarchies. Postcolonialism, in its examination of cultural oppressions and social powers has created avenues for the marginalized and subaltern. However, in these projects there have been tendencies to overlook the influence of religious worldviews and the positive inroads towards furthering justice.
Beyond merely evaluating the effects of religion and theology upon cultures in Postmodernity, there is opportunity to engage religion intentionally towards non-violence, justice, compassion, and sustainability. Interfaith dialogue and ecumenism are examples of employing religions and philosophies sympathetic to religion towards the values cited in Postmodernism. While dialogues and ecumenical councils are revealing results, there is still room for the encouragement of interfaith community building. This would be represented by undertaking mutual projects of political solidarity, environmental stewardship, and justice making.
A posture that would progress the values and goals of deep and meaningful interfaith communities would be one of practicing egolessness as a discipline. This discipline may be called Kenotic Wisdom. While not adhering to historical Christian dogmas of Christ’s kenosis, this posture borrows its name to the intimations and meaning of the Christian use of the Greek kenosis meaning ‘empty’, or ‘self-emptying’. It carries the sense of humility, compassion, discarding political power, and ego dissipation towards unity with others, nature, and reality. Kenotic Wisdom as a discipline of interfaith community is used intentionally rather than Kenotic theology to welcome religiously empathetic skeptics, secularists, and atheists who may be averse to god language. Kenotic Wisdom primarily is founded in the reevaluation of ego and its Western associations. The isolative and discrete ego that is stable and essentialized which has been encouraged by the Cartesian cogito and implied in Western ontotheological tradition is what this essay’s Kenotic Wisdom seeks to counter. Through an evaluation of various religious expressions of Kenotic Wisdom and the practical effects of Kenotic Wisdom in community, this essay will establish how it is an avenue for Postmodern dialogue and community.
Interfaith dialogue and community needs not assume any one stance or set of propositions. There are many ways to knit peoples together and there is no shortage of current religious expressions or yet-to-be created expressions that will guide towards these ends. However, Kenotic Wisdom appeals to a stream of thought which broadly may be referred to, as John Hick does, as ‘the impersonae of the Real’. Hick, in his description of the Impersonae uncovers the language of diverse religious traditions that speak to the truest sense of truth, divinity, Reality, or God as that which is void of distinction or division. Systems of strict monotheism or monism and philosophies such as Buddhism are shown to affirm that ‘this’ and ‘that’ are contradictory or illusory and that all simply ‘is’.[1] The Real is thus ineffable and is pointed to in the statement ‘the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao’. As formless, it means that god is absent of characteristic, and only ‘no-thingness’ can point to what is meant. Above form, the impersonae is unblemished by the form of thought which are in reality only anthropomorphisms of the human mind extending and projecting themselves. In Lurianic Kabbalah, this can be said to be the Ein Sof which is not to be confused with the derivative God. It can be said to be ‘the matrix’ or womb of the world, the truth of the matter beyond existence or non-existence. Any knowledge or wisdom pointing towards the Real is already derivative and informed which necessitates the discipline of Kenosis to empty again. Sufism expresses this by stating ‘Allah is the ultimate negation’.
In contradistinction to the ‘impersonae’, Hick describes another expression of religion he calls the ‘personae’. This is the realm of names, where thought and form carve out titles such as God, Indra, Brahman, Buddha, or the ‘expressed Tao’. One example of this is in supernatural theism which portrays god as a personlike being who is exterior to oneself, removed from others and the world and having capacities of will and emotion. The personae reveals where culture and truth meet, for it places in the bounds of language, time, and social conventions the boundless. While framing the impersonae and personae in opposition, the latter can be misconstrued as being less valuable than the former. The personae however, can be shown to be a ‘shuttle’ or method and discipline just as valid as the formless impersonae. As embodied individuals it is also wholly natural and to be nonjudgmentally celebrated. It also is valuable in directing interfaith relating past dialogue and towards community. Interfaith dialogue as has been largely undertaken privileges the intellect and language. These containers of form if left only to dialogue restrict the ability to engage in the impersonae. However, when the discipline of Kenotic Wisdom is exercised in interfaith community, the impersonae is pointed towards in silence, labor, suffering, ecstasy, and the mundanity of everydayness.
True compassion and justice making cannot exist outside of intimacy, vulnerability and shared lives in struggle. With experience of the impersonae of the Real found in community rather than just dialogue alone, the intellect and its trappings are avoided. The ancillary effects of dialogue and its appeal to the intellect include an academic jargon that speaks to the sufferings of the subaltern but because of its objective and removed position has greater potential to continue oppression. It also can devolve into polemics where argumentation and pragmaticism have inordinate presence. To the arguments steeped in cultural language and divisiveness, the Qur’an says, “God is our Lord and your Lord…There is no dispute between you and us. God will gather us all together.”[2]
D.T. Suzuki writes of the triumph over human intellect that occurs in moments of experiencing the impersonae as that which would be missed in most interfaith dialogues. He writes that it is first irrational and that detached reason and philosophical musing give way to human desire, the will, and inexpressible aesthetic appeal. It also rises above polemics, argument, judgment and peacefully speaks to an intuition of oneself, nature, others and objects for their illusory sensate characteristics.[3] These human experiences must be facilitated beyond dialogue into realms of day-to-day living where art, play, sport, labor, and worship comingle. In shared living, various religions are able to overlap, interact in vulnerability in the face of limited resources without fear or judgment. They also have the power to reveal their own depth and richness of Kenotic Wisdom.
Islam brings a long history of thought and practice that expresses the heart of Kenotic Wisdom. It brings in its most esoteric teachings a perspective where alterity is troubled and the individualized ego is annulled. The Sufis have said that Allah is the ultimate negation and egolessness is given as a deep and mystical truth to be experienced. The sense of Kenotic Wisdom in Islam, as in many religious traditions is at times esoteric and not immediately recognizable at its popular representations. In Islam, the triad of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan exhibits the difficult truth of kenosis. The first, Islam or religion (ilm), is the arena of doctrine and creed. This is where the five pillars of Islam including the confession of faith, alms giving, Hajj, fasting, and prayers is generally located. Secondly is the perspective of Iman, faith or belief. This speaks to the underlying and animating spirit of sincerity that infuses the pillars and teachings of Islam. Sufis will speak of the Tariqa meaning method or path being ‘narrow and dangerous’ but infinite. There are, it is said, as many paths as there are breaths. This implies that the inspirational moments of enlightenment may occur variously from moment to moment and draw an aspirant onward towards truth, occurring in any number of situations or faith traditions. Lastly, is the realm of Ihsan. This is where one meets the egoless nature of reality in an unveiling (mukashifa). In this realization, one rests in perpetual inspiration as one travels with and in God. Mystical truth surpasses limitations of time, language, and culture and God is never revealed the same way twice.
In religion (ilm), or the first level of understanding, unbelief (kufr) is dictated by dogmatic belief. An unbeliever (kafir) is more easily determined by dogma and affiliation. This is appealing to the intellect and the level of poor interfaith exchanges. Many in the public sphere are never able to extend themselves beyond this level and literalism, polemics, and discord reign. In the second level, brute knowledge is replaced by mar’ifa or subtle interior knowledge and is inspired by faith. It leads beyond culturally decided moral codes to an examination of spiritual excellence. Unbelief in the second of the triad is seen as a veil, a partition or illusion that may or may not exist in any religious worldview. Lastly in Ihsan, there is no kufr or unbelief. There occurs an unveiling mukashifa which reveals the illusion of the veil itself. This truth is spoken to by the Prophet Muhammad when he said that everyone in truth is already submitted to God. Ihsan will affirm that each person’s center is in God and the individual who exists in this state enjoys being one with oneness, which is the truth that had always been.
Kenotic Wisdom brings a level of humility that Modernity primarily does not allow to egoistic knowledge. Enlightenment confidence of the intellect’s capacity has in the West often carried over even into the knowledge of God and religion which has bred the privileging of some experiences and cultures over others. Within the Christian tradition, Pseudo-Dionysius offers a language to Kenotic Wisdom that counters the Positivist’s assurance of language and practical reason to lead to the knowledge of God. The fifth century Christian mystic and pseudonymous theologian is not unique in his theology of God in the Christian tradition when he states that God transcends the intellect. In the fourth century Gregory of Nyssa had said that God is “incapable of being grasped by any term, or any idea, or any other device of our apprehension…unthinkable, unutterable, above all expression in words.”[4] So too much later in the thirteenth century did Aquinas write, “the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches.”[5] Pseudo-Dionysius, however, goes further on to articulate how an ego-emptying Christian theology also affirms widely diverse religious communities. He illuminates the tendency of Christian theology to give credence to the truth of God being transcendent of the intellect and language yet still hold some names or descriptions of God as more correct. There is a cultural and anthropocentric privileging that can occur when regal metaphors or images of light and splendor are more readily assigned to God. Pseudo-Dionysius will remind of the idolatrous tendencies that occur in these ‘proper’ metaphors of God. The negations of the privileged names of God are also to be negated; God both is and is not and the via negativa is confounded. Language and thought, which are necessarily culturally situated and finite heightens one’s humility of their cultural and religious traditions. Yet while traditions may be questioned, humanity is bereft of shared foundation with others and trapped in a solipsist world. Connectivity is shared in human experience of the absolute. Using Moses’ heirophany upon Mount Sinai as exemplary, he writes of the union Moses experiences there in the shrouded darkness. The ineffable experience that Moses experienced is open to and experienced by all and is marked by darkness and silence. Pseudo-Dionysius will also emphasize the availability of this experience to all through his respectful referencing of other traditions’ imagery and the use of everyday objects and situations rather than purely scriptural to explain his experiences. Within his system where cultures and their respective powers and privileges are questioned while the individual and their mutual but unshared experience of truth is given an egoless discipline is maintained.
Buddhism too is amenable to the themes raised above. The tenets consonant with Kenotic Wisdom that can avail interfaith dialogue and community are derived primarily from its strict nihilism. Nihilism has in many contexts been taken in a pejorative sense, however, the ‘no-thing’ that is asserted in Buddhism is without judgment or value connotation. It is an emptiness that is yet not vacuous for all is contained in it. Norms, while useful to the human experience, are ultimately swept away in nihilism. An individual’s ideals and priorities, which are often weapons of the ego are called to be reined in to where one may achieve thought without words, image, or judgment. In this state, one would simply be awake to the reality that phenomenon spring from. In this state of kenosis one’s ego is beyond being defenseless, it is dissolved.
Buddhism offers an egoless perspective of religions that recalls Islamic language of many paths being valid vehicles of truth. Of doctrinal and creedal formulations, the Buddha used the imagery of a raft which would carry one over a river. The raft serves its function and its a practical matter with its intended results. However, says the Buddha, one does not then place the raft on one’s shoulders and carry it once they have reached the opposite shore. So also does it echo the illumination of Ihsan. Writes Heinrich Zimmer, “not the raft only, but the stream too, becomes void of reality for the one who has attained the other shore…Moreover, there is no Buddhism-no boat, sine there are neither shores nor waters between.”[6]
Nihilism establishes the non-reality of Buddhism and has other effects. An individual who had viewed themselves and others in categories of ‘right and wrong’ are shown to be caught in an arbitrary trap of cultural contexts. Even if one makes a moral judgment made on the best criteria at their disposal, another ‘judge’ of expectation and value will be posited by the culture. For example, when a nation is at war, one may kill many innocents and be respected however, if they were to return home and kill a wicked man, they would be punished. At another level, the self is also revealed to be a culturally invented and conditioned phenomenon. One of the three seals of Dharma is the truth of non-self, or anatta. This is opposed to the imperishable and essential soul or atman of some philosophies. The non-self is spoken of as occurrences of changing phenomena both physical and psychical. An ego under the perspective of anatta will begin a process of deconstruction, a phenomenology of the appearances of self and trace back through the causes of its arising. Defenselessness and vulnerability are the outcomes of such a process. While it leads to a hermeneutics of suspicion towards one’s self, towards other beings, a hermeneutics of compassionate retrieval is encouraged since all are on their path towards truth and truth may be revealed in any guise.
The Modern era was marked by rampant colonialism, government overseen slavery, and the diminishment of peoples’ dignity throughout the world. Where it would be a mistake to say that these repugnant movements by world powers were the effects of religion, it can be said that some expressions of theologies were more accessible to their being misused. It can be seen that often the worldviews and philosophies that encourage egoism are those who are utilized for the ends of those who would oppress others and destroy their environment. One such example of a discipline exists in Christianity, but is opposed by another alongside it though they both can be found within the plurality of Biblical voices.
Marcus J. Borg has called the two Biblical traditions Elite and Prophetic theologies. Elite theology lauds cultural norms of the Temple and its rigorous care by the approved familial caste of priests and the monarchical king. In this theology, geography, despotic rule and blessed bloodlines are granted nearly divine status. Hierarchies of power are concretized through the sanctifying of obedience and especially obedience to the king who is God’s representative on earth and spoken of as “God’s son”.[7]
Elite theology is supported by partnering presuppositions and perspectives one of which being individualism. Out of interest to maintain hegemonic structures of the status quo, unity must be avoided. The many egoistic and individualistic categories of separation, including race, gender, class, nation, and religion also appeal to the interests of the elite. Pious and impious are segregated by culturally dictated boundaries, which sets individuals in a defensive stance against other foreign cultures and beliefs. Individualism is joined often by market and economic systems in contemporary societies which retains the theologies of the elite for wealth is amassed and withheld in grossly disproportionate levels with the richest one percent. Yet, Elite theology is self supporting and a theistic God is often credited with having blessed the rich and the poor are accused of unbelief. In such a system, whether in politics, dialogue, or community; egos are idolatrously obedient the class above and oppositional to those below.
A critique of Elite theology exists within the same scriptures and is called by Borg the Prophetic. Instead of the individualized ego and economic greed being central, compassion is the primary tenet. The Hebrew prophets of this tradition spoke to the powers within the court and temple system in the spirit of compassion, justice, and unity with all people. Rather than the focus upon the male monarch as “God’s son”, the Prophetic tradition speaks to the poor as being “God’s people”. To aid the poor in a spirit of solidarity, the Prophetic does not rely on individualism but systems and structures. Central in this tradition, says Borg is the Jewish prophet Jesus who “rejected the sharp social boundaries of the established social order and challenged the institutions that legitimated it.”[8]
Jesus’ role as social prophet whose message is one of relieving oppression and justice making has its own merit and impact of Kenotic Wisdom, and this has been taken even further by the theological imaginations of some including first century Christians. Burton L. Mack describes the development of the diverse early Christ myths and includes how one myth was taken from the surrounding culture and employed towards Jesus. The myth created was that Jesus was a heavenly ruler who declined his status to become empty of ego and power to serve his kingly subjects. This was the origin of the kenosis dogma in Christianity. At the time of its development, the wider culture had adopted the story of an ideal king who would by his own volition decline his power, albeit briefly, to be among the people. It was not uncommon for rulers of the time to enact this ritually, donning the garb of a slave and gracing the masses with their presence if only for a short and ritualized period.[9]
Although this myth arose no doubt in part out of sympathy for the Prophetic rather than Elite model, it nevertheless supports the latter. It continues to allow a egoistic separation of God and individuals in its frame, where God is distant and removed and had to condescend to ‘live among’ humanity. It appeals to a monarchial model where God as Father sends “his son” in the type of the idealized self-humbling king. The monarchical trope has a number of consequences all of which can be seen to be antithetical to interfaith dialogue and community. Although a myth of kenosis implicitly supports the monarchical model, it is largely devoid of Kenotic Wisdom.
The consequences are multiple, the first being towards human constructions of gender. The king motif supports masculinist powers and patriarchal societies. A gendered ‘chain of command’ is divinely sanctioned where a male god sends a male son into a culture dominated my males at the level of governance and family structure and in dealings of the home, society, and religion, women are deferred. The gendering of humanity as the ‘first difference’ makes women to be the ultimate other or symbol of alterity and from this essentialized category other systems of oppression fall into place based on color, physical ability, and class among others. What the Prophetic theology needs to achieve its vision is not only where kings, divine or otherwise, cease ascending after their humiliation but where there are no kings at all. Once instantiated, it would make easier the mystic’s vision of unity with all more tangible and able to effect political and social change. The Hindu’s insight of ‘thou art that’ would cover over all alterity and humanity would exchange not only dialogue but their lives in shared justice making and mutual labor.
A political arrangement that can avoid the pitfalls of monarchial worldviews influencing the civic arena is when Kenotic Wisdom is availed the opportunity to speak prophetically to political leaders. In Islam, this role has been historically fallen to the Ulama, or division of religious authority, composed of the learned and wise. Standing apart from the political fray, particularly in the Sunni tradition which emphasizes the division of political and religious power, the Ulama is able to see above short term solutions that may be influenced by greed, varying markets, and swinging public opinion. Above the self-concern of politicians whose self-interest can lead to nepotism, bribery, and fear-mongering for votes, the Ulama as a religious community of servants seeks to guide through timeless wisdom. One example of this dynamic interaction was during the seventh and eighth centuries when the Abbasid Caliphate, in attempts to consolidate influence amidst Shia and Persian schismatics, claimed the Qur’an’s interpretation to be under their authority.
Two examples of how Kenotic Wisdom has been active in public discourse has been in environmental sustainability and LGBTQ rights. In the literature genre known as ‘mirror for princes’, there is a long history of prophetic language which condemns the monarchical and egoistic use of and relation to the environment. The eleventh century Turko-Islamic mirror for princes Wisdom of Royal Glory, Kutadgu Bilig, creates a discourse of wisdom given to political leaders on many subjects including environmental sustainability. It states, “all are slaughtered equally in the beat…Your falcons let the flying things fly no more, your panthers and hounds no more let the walking thing walk. The father is left fatherless and alone, the mothered motherless and orphaned…Today it is our turn to dine at this table. How long do you suppose it will provide our sustenance?”[10] In a number of ways, the character of the prophetic ascetic Wide Awake speaks to the King the need to consider the future generations and how to humbly interact with the land and to be a caretaker of it.
In many contemporary cultures, the Cartesian ego characterized by an essential nature and knowable to science has proven to not only be false, but oppressive. Together, with science and reason, prophetic voices are beginning to speak against the tyranny of philosophies which would place humanity into categories and hierarchies. This has been pronounced in the area of human ethics regarding sexuality, gender, desire, and relationships. Generally spoken of as LGBTQ rights, voices from many religious traditions have begun to break down the barriers of dogmas founded in religions or outdated science. With wisdom from Buddhism we can see humanity as ever changing and the ‘self’ as fluid, changing, and largely free from the strict dictates of any particular culture. From Islam we can look to the writings of Rumi to find the importance and primacy of love and the mystical connection between lovers that glories in the unity with each other and the Absolute. Regarding issues of how one interacts with the environment, or views love, a discipline that empties the ego is beneficial.
Kenotic Wisdom frees individuals from the isolations, oppressions, and social inheritances that accompany ego centric worldviews. With expressions found in philosophical sources and religions, it is a widely accessible discipline that can become the engine that drives interfaith dialogue and community. It takes seriously the social privileges and hierarchies that can explicitly or implicitly enshrined in cultures around the world and offers practical political, relational, and sustainable solutions. In an age where exclusivism has proven to often slide into intolerance, radicalism, and dehumanization Kenotic Wisdom stands to temper worldviews with what might be called dogma bleed, where constructions of the divine and metaphysical are seen as equally vehicles of truth and impediments. This is summarized in the sentiment of “the Tao is not the Tao that is named” which points to religious affirmations to be self annulling.
[1] John Hick
An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1989), p. 252-278.
[2] Qur’an Ahmed Ali trans. (New York: Quality Paperback Book Club. 1992), p. 413.
[3] D.T. Suzuki “The Nature of Zen” Issues in Religion Second Edition Allie M. Frazier ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth. 1975), p. 192.
[4] Gregory of Nyssa “Against Eunomius” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series 2, Vol. V, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1956), p. 99.
[5] St. Thomas “In librum De Causis” Quoted in Aquinas by F.C. Coplestone (Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1955), pp. 131-2.
[6] Heinrich Zimmer “Buddhist Nirvana” Issues in Religion Second Edition Allie M. Frazier ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth. 1975), p. 237.
[7] Marcus J. Borg The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins. 1997), p. 138.
[8] Marcus J. Borg The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins. 1997), p. 142.
[9] Burton L. Mack Who Wrote the New Testament?The Making of the Christian Myth (San Francisco: HarperCollins. 1995), p. 93.
[10] Yusuf Khass Hajib, Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes Robert Dankoff trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1983), p. 213-4.
