~ by Leonard Swidler whom I met at the conference in Boston last month. Here is his bio and the video of his address of the recent talk to Scottish Parliament, followed by the transcript of his short talk. Enjoy. And please let me know if you have any comments.
Dr. Swidler is Co-Founder with his wife Arlene Swidler in 1964 of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies (and still the Editor), Founder/Director of the Institute for Interreligious, Intercultural Dialogue (1985),and Co-Founder/Director of the Global Dialogue Institute (1995), holds degrees in History, Philosophy, and Theology from Marquette University (MA), University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.) and Tübingen University, Germany (S.T.L.), was Visiting Professor at Graz (Austria), Hamburg and Tübingen (Germany), Nankai University (Tianjin, China), Fudan University (Shanghai), and Temple University Japan (Tokyo), University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). He has published more than 180 articles & 60 books, including: Dialogue for Reunion (1962), Jewish-Christian Dialogues (1966), Bloodwitness for Peace and Unity (1977), Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue (1978) From Holocaust to Dialogue: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue between Americans and Germans (1981), Buddhism Made Plain (1984), Religious Liberty and Human Rights (1986), Breaking down the Wall Between Americans & East Germans, Christians and Jews (1987), Catholic-Communist Collaboration in Italy (1988), After the Absolute: The Dialogical Future of Religious Reflection (1990), Death or Dialogue. From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue (1990), A Bridge to Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (1990), Human Rights: Christians, Marxists, and Others in Dialogue (1991), Muslims in Dialogue. The Evolution of a Dialogue over a Generation (1992), For All Life: Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic. An Interreligious Dialogue (1998), Theoria ¸ Praxis. How Jews, Christians, Muslims Can Together Move from Theory To Practice (1999), The Study of Religion in the Age of Global Dialogue (2000).
In the dawning Age of Global Dialogue we humans are increasingly aware that we cannot know everything about anything! This is true for the physical sciences: no one would claim that s/he knows everything about biology, physics, or chemistry. Likewise no one would claim that we know everything about the human sciences, sociology, or anthropology, or—good heavens!— economics! And each of these disciplines is endlessly complicated. To repeat: “Nobody knows Everything about Anything!”
However, when it comes to the most comprehensive, the most complicated, discipline of all— theology or religion—billions of us still claim that we know all there is to know, and whoever thinks differently is simply mistaken! But if it is true that we always can only know partially in any limited study of reality, as in the physical or human sciences, surely it is all the more true of religion, which is an “explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly, based on some notion of the Transcendent.” We must then be even more modest in our claims of knowing better in this most comprehensive field of knowledge, religion, “the ultimate meaning of life.”
Because of the work of great thinkers like the recently died Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Recoeur we now also realize that no knowledge can ever be completely objective, for we the knower are an integral part of the process of knowing. In brief, all knowledge is interpreted knowledge. Even in its simplest form, whether I claim that the Bible is God’s truth, or the Qur’an, or the Gita, or indeed, the interpretation of the Pope, or John Knox, it is I who affirm that it is so. But if neither I nor anyone can know everything about anything, including most of all the most complicated claims to truth, religion, how do I proceed to search for an ever fuller grasp of reality, of truth?
The clear answer is Dialogue. In Dialogue I talk with you primarily so I can learn what I cannot perceive from my place in the world, with my personal lenses of knowing. Through your eyes I see what I cannot see from my side of the globe, and vice versa. Hence, Dialogue is not just a way to gain more information. Dialogue is a whole new way of thinking! We are painfully leaving behind the Age of Monologue, and are with squinting eyes entering into the Age of Global Dialogue!
