Comparative Philosophy Blog #4
BUILDING BRIDGES, NOT WALLS:
Constructing the Proper Attitude Towards the Mysterious
(photo from: https://www.pexels.com/search/sky/)
The search for transcendence has led humanity to many distinct paths. The Western tradition, with their intense rational and logical explications, found a Transcendent that is interpreted differently by those in the religious spheres and by those in the academe. On the other hand, the Eastern tradition, with their mysticism and spiritual explications, has a distinct notion of Transcendence which blurs or even disintegrates the line between religion and philosophy. Despite these differences, one thing seems certain: the Transcendent is a mystery. Its vastness and inexhaustibility make it so mysterious that even the word mysterious falls short to describe it.
With the Mysterious before us, we cannot seem to reconcile our finitude with it. Limited as we are, our grasp of the Mysterious is also limited. In our frail attempt at grasping the Mysterious, we realize that what we have is but a scratch of its surface, and our finitude could only let us see a facet of it. Each facet, I believe, reveals itself to us in our different frameworks and modes of knowing because, after all, quid quid recipitur ad modum recipientes recipitur: “what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.” That is why different religions have been born. I may refer to the Mysterious as God, and others as Yahweh, Brahman, Geist, etc. Given the fact that each of us only see a particular facet of it, so we can say that no one has the monopoly of the Mysterious. No one has the monopoly of faith. Hence, why should we live (and die) as dogmatist wall-builders? Why don’t we exhaust our effort to become bridge-builders especially in today’s era where there is an increasing awareness of religious tolerance and acceptance?
We must destroy the enormous walls which fundamentalists and dogmatists alike have built in the name of “defending the faith.” We can see in our history the atrocities done by people who wanted to maintain such walls. In destroying the walls, we have to cross the borders and build bridges towards a meaningful inter-faith dialogue. Maybe one day all the bridges we made will converge into one, and we can finally see the Mysterious will all its facets forming one beautiful image. All discord will be replaced with harmony. But I do not think that this utopian ideal vision will happen—not in this lifetime, at least. Well, I still pray for this utopia to become a reality in the here and now.