In his book On Religion, John D. Caputo writes:
If we are honest, however, we will admit that we do not have a monopoly on truth, for truth is something bigger than ourselves, something that won't fit into our finite formulations without violently shattering those formulations. Nor do we have the sole key that will unlock the mystery and reduce the mystery to our perfect language and our mystery-containing minds.
If we are honest, we will recognize that we may learn a thing or two from those we are inclined to label enemies. The pro-life advocate may gain something of what it means to respect life from the pro-choice person. The defender of the right to choose may take to heart something about the nature of freedom from the one he or she calls anti-choice. The conservative may grasp from the liberal how to cherish and to honor past institutions and customs, and the liberal may gather from the conservative how best to build a better future. The theist may teach the atheist ramifications of unbelief, while the atheist may instruct the theist on how he can serve the least among us.
This is not to say that we should forsake our ideas and beliefs, for if we do that, then we have nothing to offer the other in hospitable exchange. Nor should we pretend that the exchange of ideas is not dangerous, that it does not pose risks, that it does not protect us from confusing falsehood for truth. We dialogue not because there is no truth, but rather because the other, even our enemy, may have something to say to which we would benefit from listening.
"No one foresaw that Nietzsche's theory of fictions would converge with the biblical critique of idols, of mistaking our own graven images for the divinity. In this way of looking at things, the Enlightenment and its idea of Pure Reason are on the side of Aaron and the golden calf, while Nietzsche, God forbid, he who philosophizes with a hammer, stands on the side of Moses as a smasher of idols, and stands right beside Paul giving the Corinthians holy hell about the idols of the philosophers."It is our common practice to ignore, alienate, or destroy those whose interpretations of the world vary from our own or call our interpretations in to question. We want the world to conform to our binary categorizations, where we possess the right interpretations and all others are to varying degrees wrong. We needn't be open, we needn't make room in our minds for opposing views, for we have nothing to learn from them. After all, we have the truth, it is ours, its fits so nicely in our formulas.
If we are honest, however, we will admit that we do not have a monopoly on truth, for truth is something bigger than ourselves, something that won't fit into our finite formulations without violently shattering those formulations. Nor do we have the sole key that will unlock the mystery and reduce the mystery to our perfect language and our mystery-containing minds.
If we are honest, we will recognize that we may learn a thing or two from those we are inclined to label enemies. The pro-life advocate may gain something of what it means to respect life from the pro-choice person. The defender of the right to choose may take to heart something about the nature of freedom from the one he or she calls anti-choice. The conservative may grasp from the liberal how to cherish and to honor past institutions and customs, and the liberal may gather from the conservative how best to build a better future. The theist may teach the atheist ramifications of unbelief, while the atheist may instruct the theist on how he can serve the least among us.
This is not to say that we should forsake our ideas and beliefs, for if we do that, then we have nothing to offer the other in hospitable exchange. Nor should we pretend that the exchange of ideas is not dangerous, that it does not pose risks, that it does not protect us from confusing falsehood for truth. We dialogue not because there is no truth, but rather because the other, even our enemy, may have something to say to which we would benefit from listening.