So, why does the imposition of 'artificial unity upon divinely created diversity' matter? Sacks in chapter 3 of 'The Dignity of Difference' makes several points and I summarise a few of them here.
Biblical monotheism is not the idea that there is one God and therefore one gateway to His presence. To the contrary, it is to the idea that the unity of God is to be found in the diversity of creation. (Page 53, Sacks' emphases.)
What we cannot do is place ourselves outside the particularities of language to arrive at a truth, a way of understanding and responding to the world that applies to everyone at all time. That is not the essence of humanity but an attempt to escape from humanity. (Page 54)
God is God of all humanity, but between Babel and the end of days no single faith is the faith of all humanity. (Page 55, Sacks' emphases.)
(Love) is what separates science (the search for universals) from poetry (the love of particulars). It is also what distinguishes the God of the philosophers from the God of the Hebrew Bible. (Page 56)
It was through reading Sacks that I found an articulation of something I had tried to voice long before I became involved with formal ecumenism. I remember arguments with my father, who was a Unitarian Zen Buddhist, about the unity of God or the Universe. I struggled with my understanding of yes, one universe, but one very diverse universe. If it were not for diversity how could we have the argument?
I suppose this is what the Doctrine of the Trinity is about. There needs to be some diversity (even in the Godhead) for love to be expressed. Christians place diversity within the Godhead and Jews do not but perhaps both seek to express the same thing. The philosophers see God as a thing, people of faith see God as a relationship.
The problem atheists have is not their lack of belief in God but their belief that there is one story to be told about the universe. This is a problem with all fundamentalisms; the belief that there is only one story to be told.
Many Christians will struggle with the idea that no single faith is the faith of all humanity. Is this a liberal belief that all faiths are equal? I would support Sacks; he has to be right. But this is not the end of the argument. This is the start of a new and fascinating journey for Christians; a journey abruptly curtailed for those who seek to impose their truth upon others. I'm not sure how far I can follow this trail but I promise to return to it at a later date.
Comments