Can a Religious Pluralist do Comparative Religion or Comparative Theology?

The Illegitimacy of Comparison
For some theorists, religious pluralism requires dropping views of religions that diverge from their own views of themselves
As in
D'Costa's reduction of pluralism to exclusivism (1996)
Particularist theologies of religions
Religious studies since the late 1980s
Constructivist approaches to mysticism
The God Helmet
Michael Persinger famously devised a helmet that produces the sense of an invisible presence in up to eighty percent of subjects when their right temporal lobes are stimulated with magnetic fields
This experience is "the result of a brief, focused electrical incident in the brain" and is "the model for the impression of spirits, ghosts, aliens, and perhaps God" Ross Aden, Religion Today: A Critical Thinking Approach to Religious Studies (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 186
This supports a forceful repudiation of particularist, inclusivist, empiricist, and constructivist interpretations of religious experience

A few examples might suggest the power of the neurobiological turn for a pluralistic and comparative approach to religious experience and spirituality, one that can be conducted completely independently of sectarian religious concerns
The Neurobiological Turn
Benefits of the neurobiological turn:
Not a figment of the speculative imagination
No sectarian markings
Reveals the deep structure of religion & spirituality
Provides a scientific basis for the study or mysticism
Provides a foundation for a pluralistic & comparative science of religion
The Neurobiological Turn
The long dominance of antiessentialist, constructivist approaches to mysticism is being forcefully challenged by what I see as the neurobiological turn

Pluralism and Comparison
Instead of language and culture, we can look to contemplative neuroscience and the evolutionary cognitive science of religion (ECSR)
They uncover patterns rooted in our common neuroanatomy, biochemistry, genetics, and cognitive capacities.
These patterns can't be rejected as mere philosophical and theological speculation
These patterns are doctrinally underdetermined, which supports pluralism rather than inclusivism and particularism
Appealing to the sciences is a real exercise in multidisciplinarity for this religious philosopher!



But if we look neither to speculative theologies or philosophies, where can we turn?
Pluralism and Comparison
Let's keep in mind that
Familiar comparative categories ("the divine," incarnation/avatāra, etc.) are ideologically suspect or too narrow
General philosophical concepts (truth, the Absolute, nonduality, etc.) are also speculative and not generally accepted

Other examples supporting the neurobiological turn . . .

Deafferentation of the Orientation Association Areas (OAA)
E. D'Aquili & A. Newberg showed that meditation decreases activity of the OAAs
Results in loss of sense of orientation in space and erasure of boundaries between body and environment "
 "Lack of activity in the right orientation association area gives rise to a sense of unity and wholeness"
"Lack of activity in the left orientation association area results in the dissolving of the self/non-self boundary"
Source: "The neuroscience of mindfulness,"
http://www.mindfulnet.org/page25.htm

The God Gene (Dean Hamer)
"Spirituality has a biological mechanism akin to birdsong, albeit a far more complex and nuanced one" The God Gene (2005): 8
The Cloninger Self-Transcendence Scale
Twin studies show it's highly heritable
The "God Gene"—VMAT2 gene variations control serotonin & dopamine to produce altered states
A Little Bit of Brain Science
We can exercise control over our limbic system (reptilian brain) with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) by learning how not to mindlessly react to sensations and thoughts Hanson and Mendius, Buddha's Brain (2009), 117




At this point, a bit of brain science might come in handy . . .
Neurological Effects of Meditation
Meditation:
Increases gray matter in the insula, hippocampus, & prefrontal cortex (PFC)—improves psychological health, attention, compassion, empathy
Increases left prefrontal cortex activity—increases positive mood
Reduces cortical thinning—linked to depression, ADHD, psychopathology
Increases power and reach of gamma waves—more neurons fire together and form new synapses

Source: Aubele, Wenck, and Reynolds, Train Your Brain to Get Happy (2011), 105

Meditation & The Relaxation Response
"When the mind is focused, whether through meditation or other repetitive mental activities, the body responds with a dramatic decrease in heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure (if elevated to begin with), and metabolic rate—the exact opposite effects of the fight-or-flight response"

Source: Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response
Benson's Relaxation Response
The Relaxation Response (1975) pioneered constructive biological accounts of religious experience
First in a series of medical bestsellers focusing on the body-mind connection and meditation
Describes a meditatively "inducible, physiological state of quietude" opposite the fight-or-flight response
Meditation induces decreased rate of metabolism, or hypometabolism, which is a restful state



Mindfulness Meditation & Dynamic Genes
After 8 hours of mindfulness meditation, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona discovered that "meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes. This correlates with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation"
Noted neuroscientist Richard Davis comments that "Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression"
Psychoneuroendocrinology 40 (February 2014): 96-107 and Weber 2013

Hypersensitive Agency-Detection Device (HADD)
J. L Barrett and others developed an Evolutionary Cognitive Science of Religion (ECSR) theory about belief in immaterial agents
Humans evolved a cognitive module that detects agency in the environment as a survival strategy (ADD)
Over-imputation of agency is better than under-imputation of agency
Postulation of immaterial agents is a result of overuse of this cognitive module (HADD)
Pluralism and Comparison
If we agree—and we might not—that no religious doctrine is universalizable, where should we look for our comparative categories?

And now the comparativist requirement
Syncretism indicates that:
no religious doctrine is final or normative
As with the dominant religions of millennia ago, so presently dominant religions will, if history continues, disappear or morph into their successors
Thus, pluralism is the future of religion
The Transitoriness of Religious Expressions
29

How can we negate D'Costa's reduction of pluralism to exclusivism?

Let's start with the pluralism requirement
Pluralist and Comparativist
Two moves are needed at this point:
Must establish a non-inclusivist pluralism
Find a basis for non-inclusivist comparativism

Pluralism: The Inevitable
Theology of Religions
Contrary to opponents of pluralism, I think that a pluralist theology of religions is the final and inevitable theology of religions because
It's the most logically stable variant of theology of religions (as made clear by Prof. Schmidt-Leukel)
It's the only ethical basis for theology and the study of religion
Rejection of pluralism fosters absolutism

Global religious diversity calls for a pluralist, comparative approach in order to
Undercut the competition between walled-off religious absolutisms
Encourage respect for and between religions
Foster peace and mutual understanding
Develop a theoretical and scientific picture of human religiosity
So, how can we move forward?
The Necessity for Comparison
I can't stop developing a pluralist, comparative approach because . . .
The Illegitimacy of Comparison
Common presuppositions of these approaches
Comparative categories are subjective and alien to the doctrines of individual traditions
Comparisons are hegemonic
Comparative approaches can at best be inclusivistic, not pluralistic
Focus instead on noncomparative study of and defense of single traditions

My way around D'Costa's clever "you also" argument is to distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 pluralisms
Type 1 Pluralism
Type 1 Pluralisms are substantive
Construe specific religious doctrines as local expressions of 'superdoctrines' such as theism, nondualism, the Absolute, the Real, love, goodness, etc.
Type 1 Pluralism is the widespread caricature of pluralism
Type 1 Pluralisms are inclusivistic


Type 2 Pluralism
Type 2 Pluralism is restrictive rather than substantive
Does not propose a generic doctrine, quality, or aspect of being as the ground of truthfulness for specific religious doctrines
In place of metaphysical claims, it places an epistemological restriction on the scope of religious language
Syncretism and New Religious Movements (NRMs)
Syncretism: the central process in the formation of new movements (NRMs)
Syncretism can be conceptualized as operating through two sub-processes:
Religious hybridity: the creative mixing of new religious identities from older identities
Departicularization: the decay and dispersal of old religious forms
Source: Rose, Pluralism: The Future of Religion, 2013
28
If religious diversity is a function of the nonfinality of all forms of religious language, then religious change is as inevitable as aging and death.
The process of religious change is called syncretism
Language and Syncretism
27
A Short History?
A Baptist theologian argued that my pluralism is limited by the reality that Jesus is at the beginning, center, and end of history
My response is that such a view requires a short history (which is not a problem for many evangelical Christians)
This requires a historical Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden some 6000 years ago and an imminent Second Coming of Christ
My own response to all of this is to point out . . .
Criticisms of Rose's Type 2 Pluralism
Criticism of this approach have included:
Supreme but unrecognized final religious teaching (K. Schilbrack)
Reply: How do we know which of the many available it is? (This favors good guessers or lucky hearers, since we can't know which justified—or unjustified!—beliefs are true)
Surrenders the search for truth (Schilbrack, et al.)
Reply: Versions of "truth" are sortable into the categories of the Tripolar Typology
Dogmatic continuity (Minlib Dallh, D'Costa, R. James)
Reply: Presupposes a short history—what is such continuity over a span of 5 or 10 millennia or to our successor species?
Rose's Type 2 Pluralism:
Apophatic Pluralism
Pluralism is inevitable because no religious teaching, as a finite and contextualized attempt to express the limitlessly real, is conclusive, normative, and plausible for all of past, present and future humanity

This non-substantive, second-order theory of religious pluralism avoids D'Costa's reduction of pluralism to inclusivism and/or exclusivism


Can we formulate our own version of a Type 2 Pluralism?
Here's mine . . .
A Little Bit of Brain Science
For example, we can learn to develop equanimity through mindfulness meditation:
"In daily life and meditation, deepen your equanimity by becoming increasingly mindful of the feeling tones [pleasant, unpleasant, & neutral] of experience and [becoming] increasingly disenchanted with them. They come and they go, and they're not worth chasing or resisting."
(Hanson and Mendius. Buddha's Brain (2009), 117)

That's what we do with our minds, while our brains operate in the following way . . .
The Neurobiological Basis of Religious Experience
Boston University School of Medicine professor of neurology Patrick McNamara has identified the "brain circuit that normally handles religious experiences"

Source: Patrick McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 127

This seems conclusive to me as a defense of the terms of the Tripolar Typology
Perry Schmidt-Leukel's Clarification of the Logic of the Tripolar Typology
P = mediation of a salvific knowledge of ultimate/transcendent reality
P is not given among the religions
P is given among the religions, but only once
P is given among the religions more than once, but with only one singular maximum
P is given among the religions more than once and without a singular maximum
"These four answers are comprehensive, because they are fully disjunctive: Either P is given or not. If P is given, it is given only once or more than once. And if P is given more than once, it is either with or without a singular maximum form."
Source: Perry Schmidt-Leukel, "Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: The Tripolar Typology—Clarified and Reaffirmed," in Paul F. Knitter, The Myth of Religious Superiority: A Multifaith Exploration (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), 16

Is the Tripolar Typology adequate to religious diversity?
As you know, Prof. Schmidt-Leukel offers a cogent defense of the Tripolar Typology in The Myth of Religious Superiority . . .
Exclusivism
Only one true religion—others are false
One Mountain, One Way Up the Mountain
Inclusivism
Only one true religion (or essential truth)—others are true insofar as they mirror the home tradition (or essential truth)
One Mountain, Many Ways Up the Mountain
Pluralism
All religions are true insofar as they express some quality or general idea (traditional version)
Many Mountains, Many Ways Up Each Mountain



The Tripolar Typology
The Tripolar Typology
This is where the familiar Tripolar Typology comes in handy . . .

Doctrinal Differences Not
Doctrinally Resolvable

These contrary doctrines resist being absorbed or explained by each other
Resolution of these conflicting doctrines impossible at the level of doctrine

The Prisoners' Parable
The divergent doctrinal perspectives of six religious leaders imprisoned together during a war in a religiously divided country:
Mormon bishop: in these latter days God has restored the ancient revelation contained in the Book of Mormon through Joseph Smith
Evangelical Christian pastor: no salvation without doctrinally correct faith in the bodily risen Lord Jesus Christ
Hindu Vaiṣṇava swami: all religions culminate in the worship of the supreme personal God, Kṛṣṇa
Hindu Advaita Vedāntist swami: the yoga of wisdom (jñāna) reveals the identity of ātman and brahman
Mahāyāna Buddhist nun: all entities are impermanent, insufficient, and selfless
Sunni Muslim imam: there is no God but Allāh and Muḥammad is the seal of the prophets
Can a Religious Pluralist do Comparative Religion or Comparative Theology?
Why ask this question?
Is there even a problem here? Isn't this what pluralists do?

Can a Religious Pluralist do Comparative Religion or Comparative Theology?
Kenneth Rose, PhD
Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Christopher Newport University

A Presentation at the
University of Münster
January 19, 2015
(edited version)


Another way to undercut the typology is not to question the adequacy of its terms, but to negate the comparative project entirely

This leads to the question:
The Prisoners' Parable
To begin, let's consider the thought experiment that I call "the Prisoners' Parable" in Pluralism: The Future of Religion (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Does anyone remember how that goes?
Beyond the Impasse:
The Unity of the Spiritual Life
My approach does not reduce religion to biology
Biology & religious experience are twin expressions of the spiritual ground of existence
Neurobiology, yoga, meditation & mysticism all support the intuitive discoveries of the mystics . . .
The Neurobiological Basis of Religious Experience
This circuit links the:
orbital and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
ascending serotonergic systems
mesocortical dopaminergic [DA] system
amygdala/hippocampus
right anterior temporal lobe
Patrick McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 127
Neurophysiologic Activation in Meditation
(Wang, et al., 2011)
Study advances "understanding of the neural pathways of meditation by addressing the cerebral blood flow (CBF) responses associated with . . . meditation practices . . . and how such changes related to the 'stress' circuits in the brain"
Study shows that:
Meditation affects frontal regions, anterior cingulate, limbic system & parietal lobes
"Strong correlations between depth of meditation and neural activity in the left inferior forebrain areas including the insula, inferior frontal cortex, & temporal pole
Correlations between brain changes & subjective experiences
Ongoing, post-meditation changes in left anterior insula & precentral gyrus
Source: "Cerebral blood flow changes associated with different meditation practices and perceived depth of meditation," Danny J.J. Wang, et. al., Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 191 (2011) 60–67.

Basic Mindfulness Meditation
Can we try that?
Become aware right now of what you're feeling
Note if it's pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral
Step back mentally from interpretations
Just note the feeling tone of the next sensation
Repeat for a few minutes a couple of times a day

The Neurobiological Basis of Religious Experience
These neurobiological processes are shared by human beings and support nomothetic (essentialist) approaches to religious experience after decades of idiographic (non-essentialist) approaches focusing on the cultural divergences that attend exclusively to individual mystical traditions
Beyond the Impasse:
The Unity of the Spiritual Life
Garrigou-Lagrange claimed that the contemplative itinerary isn't "merely a conventional scheme, but a truly vital process founded on the very nature of the spiritual life" (Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Conversions in the Spiritual, Life, 1938, 79-80)
And the Upaniṣads proclaim, "I have touched, I have found/The narrow, long and ancient way" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.8, Roebuck trans., The Upaniṣads, 2003, 73)


An Idiographic Dead End
Theological, philosophical & religious-studies accounts of each of these contemplative universals and meditative landmarks diverge irreconcilably
This seems to justify retreat to idiographic approaches of constructivists, inclusivists, particularists, radical empiricists & historicists
Beyond the Impasse:
The Unity of the Spiritual Life
Also, the phenomenological identity of these contemplative landmarks displays the unity of the spiritual life
Yoga is compatible with any religious—or nonreligious system
Mysticism is not religion specific. As noted by William James, Prof. Schmidt-Leukel's Gifford Lecture predecessor, mysticism has "neither birthday nor native land"(The Varieties of Religious Experience)


A Nomothetic Approach to Comparative Mysticism
I adopt a nomothetic approach to a number of what I call "contemplative universals," which are expressed in what I call "meditative landmarks" in my next book, Yoga, Meditation, & Mysticism: Contemplative Universals and Meditative Landmarks (Bloomsbury 2016)
Beyond the Impasse:
The Unity of the Spiritual Life
But the neurobiological identity of these meditative landmarks expresses the unity of the spiritual life
Our neurophysiology is indifferent to doctrinal, ceremonial, behavioral, and historical differences between religions
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master subtitle style
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click icon to add picture
Click to edit Master text styles
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text styles
7/12/2015

#
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
7/12/2015

#

40
Richard Dawkins in the God Helmet
38

55
Eric C
22

18

6

7/12/2015

Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level

#