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World Affairs
Dialogue of Faiths: Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Atheism
Johan Galtung
Drawing a religious map of the world can help us to perceive the points of agreement and the differences between the major spiritual traditions. A systematic comparative analysis highlights the problems and the misunderstandings, making them easier to clarify and resolve.
The Four Mentalities: Mono, Poly, Pan, A
Let us approach this key issue in a somewhat roundabout way. When asked to make a drawing of monotheism, most people draw a pointed pyramid with a single god on top or above. Light, power, causality radiate downward from the top. Another bottom-up pyramid of monosatanism with the forces of darkness radiating upward, may fight the forces of divine light over the human souls located at the base. Monotheism and monosatanism go together.
How about polytheism? A blunted pyramid with space at the top for a pantheon, where each God is in command of a segment of the pyramid, like the Hindu trinity of creation, destruction, preservation, and like the Nordic, Greek and Roman Gods engaged in turf quarrels. Like that singular god they are personified.
How about pantheism? As a substance connecting human beings like rims and spokes connect points. Nothing below, nothing above.
And atheism? Like unconnected points, neither steered vertically nor connected horizontally. Mutually isolated.
In the world of faiths these figures represent Abrahamitic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism/Daoism/Shintoism, and secularism. In the world of politics they represent hegemony, the oligarchy of a political class, democracy, and anarchy. In the world of theory they represent a singular theory, multiple theories, a principle (like gravity, life), and no theory at all, flat empiricism.
We are talking about the four mentalities with deep implications. If that singular God has universalist claims we may even talk about world hegemony based on one theory. Like Christian USA ending history with world hegemony and US style democracy/market.
The Abrahamitic Religions: Hard and Soft
In this there is a rejection of the symmetric ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis. Only the mentalities of the Abrahamitic religions (and secular derivatives like marxism) predispose for world hegemony, and among them are the two universalistic religions, Christianity and Islam. Judaism is particularist, "for Jews only". The other two evangelise and convert. Judaic mentality would point to Middle East rather than world hegemony. Another matter is the current alliance between (US) Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, and the secular power of many US Jews.
But our focus is on religions in general and the religions of the book, kitab, the Old Testament, with Yahweh’s revelations to Abraham. This Judaism became the basis for Jesus and the Apostles to create Christianity, in turn a basis for Mohammed to create Islam, as revealed to them by God and Allah respectively.
Given this the three Abrahamitic/Semitic religions have basic similarities expressed in a soft and a hard quote from each:
| Judaism | Christianity | Islam | |
| Soft |
And he shall judge among the nations - and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation
|
How blest are the peacemakers God shall call them his sons. (Matt. 5:9) |
And whoever saved a human life, should be regarded as though he had saved all mankind. (Quran 5:32) |
| Hard | For in the cities within the boundaries of the Promised Land you are to save no one; destroy every living thing. (Deut. 21:16) Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them (Deut. 7:2) |
Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. No, rather, a sword (Matt.10:34) |
Fight for the sake of Allah those that fight against you but do not attack them first (Quran 2:190) |
The hard quotes are gospels for hardline fundamentalists.
To describe the Abrahamitic religions using only one of these lines would be unjust, however. We need a better way of structuring the religious landscape, the religioscape. In the first section of this article, a panorama from Occident to Orient, from monotheism vis polytheism to pantheism and then back to atheism in the Occident is offered. No doubt atheism was a reaction to the absurdities, the straitjacket of monotheism and of mono in general; going full circle around the world. Two factors predispose for aggressive violence when built into the nucleus of the religious faith.
First, the idea of being a ‘Chosen People’, which could instil in believers a very high level of self-righteousness and in turn may lead to concepts of holy war, or at least just war. But chosen peopleism, when enacted, will not necessarily take the form of direct violence. It could also take the form of withdrawal from the rest of the world because the ‘Chosen People’ is too good for a world too barbarian to be worthy of being attacked, penetrated and/or dominated. The Chinese tradition has much of this.
Moreover, how about a possible reinterpretation of chosenness as being chosen for peace, by peaceful means? Imagine a force of 1.5 billion Christians and 1.3 billion Muslims interpreting their special relation to the Almighty that way! For this to happen the soft aspects have to prevail over the hard because the soft are more inclusive, global, and the hard aspects more exclusive, national/regional. In this there is a major promise for peace.
The archetypal ‘Chosen People’ are the Jews with carry-over effects from Judaism into Christianity and Islam. And in the Orient the Japanese when they build their faith on a monotheistic reading of Shinto (the way of God) with the Sun Goddess on top. But Japanese chosenness is isolated, and possibly dying.
The Chinese seem to entertain a general superiority complex relative to all others, the various kinds of barbarians. But they are not universally aggressive, like the Occident in its universalising religious and secular manifestations; Christianity and Islam, and marxism and liberalism. The Chinese belong more to the withdrawal variety, leading to defensive rather than offensive strategies politically and militarily in what the Chinese historically seem to consider their pocket in the world, surrounded by the sea, the mountains, the desert and the tundra. We are talking about a region, not the world.
The second dimension would be aggressive missionarism, living under a divine command to evangelise, even through the skilful use of carrot and stick. The occidental religions Christianity and Islam clearly fall in this category; Judaism less so. The missionary command is the logical consequence of singularism cum universalism, as expressed in Matthew, 28:18-20, and Mark, 16:15.
The monotheism of these religions instils in the adherents a vertical archetype, the pyramid with an apex pointing to a distant God. The archetype is easily projected on the world as a model of centralised, even imperialist, world politics. And, as mentioned above: the figures of mono, poly, pan and a are general deep cultures, also open to secular interpretations. Thus, mono could spell world hegemony, poly a world divided into regions and pan a world illuminated from within by human rights, democracy and soft global governance; a confederate more than unitary world.
But ‘chosen for peace’ are only Buddhists and smaller groups and individuals; relative to the big numbers chosen for holy war, just war and withdrawal. So we need at least a second map, building on hard and soft, to identify more forces for peace.
Religions in general: Hard and Soft
In the second map let us conceive of the varieties of religious experiences as a circular field divided into sectors, one for each religious discourse; Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Shintoism (which have mono-, poly- and pantheistic features). The number of sub-divisions is infinite.
What matters is the religious temperature in the religioscape with maximum intensity of religio, the mystic union with all life, all humans, with the Almighty, regardless of religious discourse, beyond any language, culture and tradition, just oneness, in the centre. The oneness of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans.
Imagine all the sectors emanating from this centre of the religioscape, in all directions. And then imagine two concentric circles around the centre: one close to the centre, the other further away from that mysterium, with the religious temperature falling as we move away from the centre of intense union with the transpersonal, however it is conceived of in the religious idioms known to humankind. To the less religious love is the mysterium.
Inside the inner circle is soft religion. The sense of unity is still there, but in everyday life, not as mystic experience. Religion is warm, compassionate, reaching out to everybody, all life, the whole world, without reservations and exceptions. Everybody, everything is brother and sister, as St. Francis had seen it. The lines demarcating religious sectors carry no connotation of near or distant, good or bad; they are merely convenient etiquettes. Like people talking different languages, yet sharing the message.
True, it may cost little to love all of humanity and feel their closeness even if in fact they are very distant. Active nonviolence, peace action, do not come automatically. And it costs even less to hate even when in fact they are very close; giving in to a sense of chosenness: my religion is right, yours is wrong, the world would be better without you!
On the other side of that inner circle is hard religion, meaning the hard aspects of any religion, not that some religions are only soft and gentle, and others are only hard and rough. There is no sharp borderline between the soft and hard aspects of a religion. But as we move away from the heat of the epicentre that melts hardened souls, the religioscape changes dramatically.
The demarcation lines between faiths and subfaiths become ever more clear cut, sharp, stark. And as we move still further out the temperature falls dramatically. Hearts get frozen, love can no longer come forth; all that people see is what divides, not what unites, includes others, all others. Exclusiveness is built into their minds through axiomatic, watertight dogma, and into their behaviour through vertical religious organisations. Dogma, and the organisation of temple/synagogue/church/mosque take on their own lives far away from the key message of union, uniting, ligare; feeding on the cold, on the frozen souls. Hatred, violence and war easily sprout where love has died. Contradictions are built into minds and behaviour. They take on their own lives, feeding on cold, frozen souls. Hatred sprouts where love has died.
As we move still further out we come to the very border of humanity, the edge. What is on the other side of the outer circle? The animal kingdom? How dare we insinuate that animals are on the other end, extrapolating from the evils practiced in the name of hard religion! Or, atheism, ideology, humanism? No, we would rather see that as another idiom, with intense union solidarity in its centre, and then inclusion, and then exclusion.
An image. Let us return to the analytical mode and ask the key question: what characteristics of religions are correlated with this distance from the core, with this soft-hard, unite-divide, include-exclude dichotomy? Here are some hypotheses, mainly relating to the content of the religious discourse: the nature of God, the existence of Satan, the pantheon, the nature of reality – and relation to other religions and to the state.
| Hard | Soft |
| - God is transcendent, above | God is immanent, inside |
| - God has Chosen People | People have Chosen Gods |
| - There is a Satan, below | There is no Satan |
| - Satan has Chosen people | People have Chosen Satans |
| - Monotheism | Polytheism- unitarian- trinitarian, quaternarian |
| - Dualism | Monism |
| - Universalism/singularism | Particularism/pluralism |
| - State has Chosen Religion | Religion has no Chosen State |
All these dimensions are problematic. But the total picture may nevertheless give concrete meaning to hard-soft.
Thus, a transcendent God is outside human beings, as a father-sky for instance, and becomes a metaphor for vertical distance in spite of any assurance of his love for us all. If in addition he is choosey, preferring some people to others ("all humans are His children, but some more than others"), then there is not only divisiveness but also ranking, a hierarchy, like
— humans above the rest of nature (speciesism)
— men above women (sexism)
— adults against children (ageism)
— whites against non-whites (racism)
— upper classes against lower classes (classism)
— own nation against other nations (nationalism)
— own country against other countries (patriotism)
Hard religion will not remain neutral and relative to these seven faultlines in the human condition. The faultlines will serve to cut the world in two, seeing one as good and the other as evil, and for the last two images a final battle: the DMA syndrome of Dualism/Manicheism/Armageddon of Abrahamitic fundamentalists.
But all religions also talk soft, about love and compassion? This is where the dualism enters as an epistemological and moral solution. Reality is dualistic. There is an ideal world, perhaps only in the Kingdom of Heaven, where all those rules apply and are meaningful. But there is also the real world, the one we inhabit, the world of homo homini lupus, of bellum omnium contra omnes, however much we may deplore this state of affairs. In this world harder approaches are needed to protect God’s own people. That will all change when His teachings have come to the end of the world and ‘true religion’ is no longer threatened because His people are firmly in command. But that time has not yet come, hence soft religion for the transcendental existence next to a transcendent God, and hard religion for the tough realities of this world.
The counterpart of this is found in conventional ingroup vs outgroup divides: soft inward, hard outward; idealism inward and hard realism outward, "violence is the only language he understands", the doctrine of hard international politics.
Soft logic is the opposite; but the indicators are yin/yang and less aristotelian/cartesian, soft rather than hard. Borders are porous, osmotic, not iron-clad. Immanence places God-sacred, Otto’s mysterium, inside us as a homo res sacra hominibus. God is less a subject and more like a substance lifting us.
But just as a person may be closer or further away from God, he or she may also have more or less of that-of-God. A God in the sky, could, like a TV satellite, radiate to the world; gods closer to the ground do not have that reach. They are more local, vernacular and reside only in the tribe, the clan, the in-group. The god-substance may be evenly distributed in the in-group. But immanence is particularistic, excluding the out-group. All to the in-group.
Only a transcendent God can define all humans as His children. But what if that family follows the hard logic of the ‘chosen people’, monotheism with dualism? Like a dictatorial world government run by a group like G7+ or WB/IMF/WTO? Marx said: "You Christians have vested interest in unjust structures, which create victims to whom you can pour out your hearts in charity."
We have to pursue soft logic further. When people choose their own gods, as is more the case in the Orient, pluralism not only takes the form of diversity among people, but of eclecticism within individuals. They may choose something also chosen in an out-group, like a Buddhist Japanese who is also a Christian. This is ruled out by singularism: there is one and only one faith.
Polytheism, which has more gods within one religion, has a flexibility different from pluralism, faith in more than one religion. The particularity of Christianity, the familia sagrada, is singled out for attention in the indicator list, whether at three (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit) or at four (with the Mother, Mary).
With more gods some may be harder, some softer; like God and Mary in Catholicism or Thor and Baldur in Nordic religion. Under polytheism holy war should be less likely; as would holy peace. Except on the other side, in the afterlife, under the logic of dualism. Here comes the strength of monism, forcing the adherents to work out how a logic of peace could be practiced on this earth, not providing the easy escape of die zwei Regimenten.
This gives a cruel choice between a transcendent, punishing, fundamentalist God-Father-Sky claiming universal validity and demanding undivided faith; and immanent gods-as-substance permeating us all, but only for one particular group. Evidently, the soft side must be strengthened. The problem is, how?
How to Strengthen the Softer Aspects
The answers can be divided into two parts: organisation and content, sociology and theology. Would "moderates of the world unite, you have only your fundamentalists to lose!" be possible?
The sociological aspect is relatively obvious: cooperation among those who identify themselves with the soft, non-dividing aspects of religion and belittle or de-emphasise harder aspects. They can be found in all religions. Since by definition the union in or through God is basic to their orientation the idiom, the concrete religious discourse, matters less, or is at least not scrutinised for theological controversies. What matters is what we all have in common. To seek together, standing up for the softer aspects in religious practice, clothing thought in action. But that also applies to the hard religionists even when they do not seek together. They are also practising what they believe in: that faiths are contradictory, irreconcilable: it is either your faith or mine, and it better be mine!
That gives a great advantage to the softer varieties. To use a metaphor not to be carried too far: it is like employees always associating with each other whereas employers hate each other so much because of competition that they prefer not to meet. In reality the opposite is probably more often the case. A Buddhist, a Sufi, a Quaker, a Baha’i may look and talk very differently, and yet their messages are similar. But take religious leaders in ex-Yugoslavia. They are probably more apart than most of their adherents. But they are very strong since they often produce and reproduce state ideology. The polarising emphasis would certainly be on what divides, not on what unites. Better for peace if hard-hard do not meet?
The main theological dialogue between hard and soft has to be carried out within each religion. But why should not a soft Buddhist challenge a hard Christian? Are we not all parts of one humankind desperately searching for alternatives to war and violence, imperialism and poverty, environmental degradation and social disorganisation? And maybe the harder, even the hardest will listen more to other religions than to softer countertrends? Relating more easily to pagans than to dissidents?
But the main theme of the theological dialogue is relatively clear: how can the religious messages be understood so as to be maximally peace productive? Can hardened religionists be convinced that the ‘package’ transcendence-chosenness-monotheism-dualism with universalism-singularism will never be peace productive except under conditions such as universal church/world government that they in themselves, or the way to them, may not be peace productive? And what happens when he (it is usually a he) responds, maybe, but revealed truth is more important than peace.
Of course, the two can go separate ways, meaning that there is probably more difference between hard and soft within the same religion than among the religions. This is not necessarily a tragedy. Possibly, hard, highly divisive churches, often attached to state power, will increasingly recede into the background as relics of the past. But the current wave of fundamentalism, here interpreted as privileging the harder aspects and options in all religions, points in the opposite direction. Hence, there is no alternative to dialogue without self-righteousness, in addition to soft and hard transforming hardened conflicts together.
Conclusion: soft-soft dialogue and cooperation around the globe. Second priority: soft-hard dialogue within each religion.
Inter-Religious Conflict: Four Approaches
There are generally four approaches to multiculturalism. The first approach is intolerance, taking the extreme form of killing biologically or socially (marginalisation) other cultures; or imprinting on them the culture of the invader/coloniser/empire builder. Nothing compares to Western imperialism in its extreme asymmetry, imposing language, body language and religion, barely assimilating some spices and dishes into their own culture. The idea of possessing the only valid faith, as in the Papal Bull of May 4, 1493, Inter Caetera, set the tone; handing over territories discovered (and to be discovered) to the Spanish Kings.
The second approach is tolerance, better than intolerance, but only a passive peaceful coexistence, essentially signalling that "I am so generous that I tolerate that you exist". This opens for a world of (dominant) nation states that tolerate each other; better than imperialism with a cultural component. And it opens for human rights inside the states, protecting ‘minorities’. The formula facilitates a transition from a multicultural world to multicultural societies. But not good enough in a world where different cultures will have ever broader and deeper contact.
If intolerance leads to being denied, then obviously the latter prevails. The dominant culture has won. Some compromises may be carved out as small niches for one’s own culture.
Under tolerance that compromise is complete: all cultures are equal. But only one country, Switzerland has arrived at that stage by dividing the country into four cultural regions (German, French, Italian and Rhetoromanisch-speaking); each part monocultural.
But conflict theory has two more outcomes to offer: negative and positive transcendence. Negative transcendence, ‘neither-nor’ means that something else, like secularism or another religion drives out bitter conflicts between Catholics and Protestants.
And positive transcendence, the ‘both-and’? That would be the ‘transcend’ approach, using the third approach below as a process aiming at the fourth approach as a transcending outcome.
The third approach is dialogue, based on mutual respect and curiosity like "how wonderful that you are different from me, then we can learn from each other and maybe develop something new!" This is not a debate, which is a form of warfare with verbal means, to show that the other side is false/wrong/bad/ugly/profane. A major step forward for a multicultural society is with the parts seeing each other as sources of mutual enrichment. Not frequent. But this active peaceful coexistence is clearly a jump forward.
And yet there is a fourth stage opening for a transition from a multicultural society to multicultural persons. Clearly this means the active coexistence of more than one culture inside one person, not only inside a society. A person might say:
From Christianity I take:
— the distinction between peccato and peccatore, sin and sinner;
— the principle of forgiveness and love over rejection and hatred;
— the individual responsibility, not hiding behind others.
And from Islam I take:
- zakat, give to those in dire need;
— Quran 8:61: if the enemy incline toward peace, do thou also
— Salaam - Islam - Muslim: submission to peace.
The idea that being eclectic is forbidden is rejected. The guardians of this purist monopolism were protected for a long time by two criteria of mental disorder: the failure to recognise contradiction as an error (like in "I am a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim etc.") and the failure to draw borders around oneself (like in "I am in you and you in me because God is in us both").
But I can move beyond that. Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve, not only from Christianity and Islam, like:
From Judaism: that truth is not a declaration of faith but a process through dialogue with no end, like in the Talmud.
From Protestant Christianity: the Lutheran hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders, here I am, I have no alternative; the significance of individual conscience and responsibility; and equality in the face of the Creator.
From Catholic Christianity: the distinction between peccato and peccatore, between sin and sinners, of a stand against the sin but at the same time pardoning, forgiving the sinner.
From Orthodox Christianity: the optimism of Sunday Christianity as opposed to the necrophilic Friday Christianities of the other two: Christ has arisen, He is among us.
From Islam: the truth of sura 8:61, when the other shows an inclination toward peace then so do you; peace breeds peace. And the truth of zakat, of sharing with the poor.
From Hinduism: the trinitarian construction of the world, as creation, preservation and destruction. Applied to conflict this means: pursuing creation by seeing conflict as a challenge to be creative, preserving the parties, avoiding destruction.
From Buddhism/Jainism: nonviolence, ahimsa of course, but then to all life, bringing in the whole earth, not only the human part, and the earth-human interface. And as a part of this what in Japanese Buddhism is known as engi, that everything hangs together, causation is co-dependent, no beginning, no end; nobody is totally guilty or totally innocent, we all share responsibility in reducing dukkha, suffering and increasing sukha, fulfilment, liberation for all, including ourselves.
From Confucianism: the principle of isomorphic harmony, harmony inside ourselves, inner peace, in the family, at school, at work, in society, in the country and the nation, in the region and the civilisation; with all levels inspiring each other.
From Daoism: the principle of yin-yang, the good in the bad and the bad in the good, and the bad in the good in the bad and good in the bad in the good and so on; a complexity far beyond Western dualism.
From Humanism: the idea of basic human needs, to some extent reflected in the basic human rights as a general. guideline for human action in general and politics/economics in particular.
In the Orient they have done this for ages. We have only our monocultures to lose; they cannot stop us from being multicultural. Much of the future of humanity will depend on this transcendence.
A Case: The Ninth Centenary of the Crusades
The present author has facilitated Islam-Christianity dialogues, using two questions to the parties which are used as openers:
What do you like least, and most, in the other side? The answers:
— "We do not like Islamic fundamentalism and jehad, their holy war"
— "We do not like their just war, and their market fundamentalism"
— "We like, however, that there are so many Christianities"
— "What we like about Islam is . . . (silence)"
Comments: Islamic fundamentalism (e.g. Wahhabism) is a fact; but jehad means exertion for the faith; the fourth stage, the little jehad, being defensive war. Many in the West are unaware that there are concepts of just war of Augustine and Aquinas, and concept of holy wars like the crusades. ‘Market fundamentalism’ is better known today as ‘globalisation’. But the Islamic critique is unknown. It is not the marxist critique of exploiting workers, but of dehumanised buyer-seller relations shuffling goods/services against money with no broad, human contact, not even eye-contact.
The high level of diversity in Christianity as opposed to the low level in Islam (but more than meets the Western eye) matters, and should not be identified with state-mosque inseparability.
But the major finding is the eloquent silence when asked to elaborate what they like in Islam. There is polarisation, seeing nothing good, and above all the distance known as ignorance. Islam includes Christianity and Christianity excludes Islam.
On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II made the call for the first crusade in the French town of Clermont. In 1291 the crusades came to an end with no declaration of peace. The crusades stand out as an example of religion used to justify war. Collective memories and a crusade mentality define 1991-2003 a ‘Gulf Syndrome’ with Catholic-Protestant countries against a Muslim country, Iraq, with a major crusade experience, the massacre of Baghdad in 1258.
On November 26-27, 1995, a dialogue was convened at the Swiss Institute for Development in Biel/Bienne, bringing together leading representatives of the Christian and Islamic faiths: The Ayatollah, Professor Mohammad Taghi Jafari, Tehran; Sheikh Ahmad Kuftarou, Grand Mufti of Syria, Damascus; Nuncio, Archbishop K J Rauber, Bern; Metropolit Damaskinos, Bishop of Orthodox Church, Geneva; and scholars and clerics. Pope John Paul II sent his blessings and a message to the symposium through Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Holy See:
" . . . It is opportune to reflect on these events, in order to draw vital lessons for today. His Holiness renews the call of the Second Vatican Council which urged that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding, so that, for the benefit of all, Christians and Muslims would together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values . . . "
Communique: "The adherents of Islam and Christianity proposed the following to members of their respective faiths and all others:
— to try to understand other religions the way their followers understand themselves, as a condition for true dialogues;
— to develop school material in history, civic education and religious education, particularly material about the two religions, acceptable to all parties;
— not to abuse the freedom of speech when speaking and writing about other religions;
— to work together to identify, develop further and put into practice an inspiring ethic of peace, liberty, social justice, family values, human rights and dignity, and nonviolent forms of conflict resolution;
— to establish permanent inter-religious councils to further mutual respect and understanding;
— to cooperate across religious borders in Bosnia to reconstruct the country;
— to discuss with people in the media more responsible, peace-promoting forms of journalism.
On this day of the ninth centenary of the call for the crusades, we call upon Christians, Muslims and all others, to go beyond mere tolerance. We must open our hearts and minds to each other. Instead of sensing danger when somebody is different let us be filled with joy at the opportunity to learn, to enrich and be enriched, to live in peace and create peace. Like everything else the two largest religions in the world are also subject to development. While keeping the basic message of devotion let us find new ways, acts and words. It is within the spirit of freedom of interpretation of one’s own religion that genuine respect for other religions can evolve. Let the next 900 years and beyond be an era of active peace built in our hearts and our minds, and enacted in our deeds." But the media interest was nil, zero.