QUESTION : I am disturbed by different scandalous experiences within the Church. When there are differences, what would be a suitable way to address them? How worthy is the method of power politics? – Joby Jose

ANSWER: Saji Mathew Kanayankal CST

Your anguish and concern are the feelings of many who love the Church and seriously think about its identity and uniqueness. It is true that when ‘we’ look around the world or even within the Church we see many ‘unwanted’ or ‘unsuitable’ elements, which we never expect from the Church of Jesus. No doubt, it is scandal to many that may prompt them to leave the Church as well. Do we have a way out?

THE COSMIC HARMONY
I would like to share some of the insights that I received when I thoroughly pondered over various recent incidents. Indeed, the mess, confusion and conflicts give us a bad image, a picture of some kind of disorder and chaos. But chaos itself is not totally bad because it is the place of new birth or re-birth, a time of renewal and rejuvenation. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). The experience of death and decay is not pleasing; it is neither pleasant and mostly the components are stinky. But the net result is new sprouts. The process of creation or re-creation or new-creation still has to undergo certain struggles, conflicts and traumas. The first creation story (Gn 1:1-2:4a) in the Bible stands as a par excellence in this regard. As per the biblical creation story, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, ‘it was formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep’ (Gn 1:1). ‘The formless void’ is a state of a watery abyss in which in absolute confusion, nothing is clear. The Hebrew term, ‘tohu wabohu’, which is used in the Bible to describe the primordial condition, is ascribed with different meanings such as devastation, desert, nothingness, uselessness, groundless claim, uninhabitable chaos, unformed and void, hodgepodge and mish-mash etc., Despite the different interpretations and explanations, the exact meaning of ‘tohu wabohu’ still lacks clarity. Some scholars like Philp Hefner describe the existence of chaos in the primordial condition as an opposite force of God, which is co-eternal with him, sharing as it was equally primordially with him. Though all these meanings are applicable in one way or other to the condition of ‘without form and void’, it can be simply described as a chaotic and unbearable situation, where meaningful life is impossible. It is the initial ambiguous and indefinable situation of meaninglessness and no-thingness. In spite of the chaos and darkness, ‘a wind from God swept over the face of waters’ (Gn 1:1) and God begins his creative activity in this initial chaotic state.
The most fascinating act to be noted in the process of creation is the act of separation and ornamentation. The creator does not annihilate any of the chaotic powers, rather he brings them under his order. After creating light with His word, through the parallel works of ‘opus separationis’ and ‘opus ornatus’ (separation and ornamentation) God brought out order, stability, harmony and life into the chaotic state. Harmony and order are taking place not by removing some of the elements, but rather by bringing them together under the work of the Holy Spirit. Through the acts of separation, naming and ordering, the creator gave individuality, meaning and identity to each being which was part of the initial chaos. From this perspective, the act of creation can be summarised as a movement from ‘in-distinguishability to separation and difference,’ meaninglessness to meaningfulness, non-personalization to personalization, and no-thingness to existence. By the act of separation and differentiation, the initial chaos is transformed into an ordered cosmos. The final stage of creation gives the picture of a “continuous transition from disarray to order, from unrest to rest, from chaos to harmony.” Nevertheless, in the integral formation as well as the function of the universe, the pre-existing ‘abys’ has its creative role to play. During the progress of creation, the initial chaotic elements became part of the larger cosmic reality. Even though the different chaotic forces are an ever-remaining threat, they are indispensable components of the rhythmic order of cosmic harmonic coexistence. Thus, at the end of the creation, on the seventh day, we have a dynamic cosmos, where all creatures exist in mutual relationship and communion.
This creation story invites us to look at reality with a new-eyes. As Louis Janssens, a well-known Belgian moral theologian says, we consider suffering, pain, sickness, death etc., which disturbs human life as evil, something undesirable and bad. However, at times the pain can be turned into a positive effect as it warns of something wrong regarding our health. In the same way, the shattering and traumatic experiences in our day-to-day life can turn into a point of departure, something that substantially contributes to our life. Even though some experiences are undesirable and scandalous, it becomes an inevitable process for renovation and renewal. If there is no darkness, how does light get its significance? If only the arid land exists without the presence of water, does not the earth become barren? The creative function of the universe is possible only through a synchronizing function of all existing realities. Thus, all realities become parts of the synchronization of the universe. Even if it appears as something unfair and cynical, good and bad are frequently distributed in the created order. As Holmes Rolston in his article “Does Nature Need to Be Redeemed” points out, “the world is not a paradise of the hedonistic case, but a theatre where life is learned and earned by labour, a drama where even the evils drive us to make of things. Life is advanced not only through thought and action but also by suffering, not only by logic but also by pathos.” (Zygon 29, no. 2 (1994): 219)
The counterbalancing paradoxical realities like light and darkness, dessert and river, heavens and earth keep the equilibrium of the universe. In a broader outlook, there is no conflict between light and darkness or desert and ocean. The creator has absolute power over everything. With his absoluteness, he is able to turn darkness into light and He may withhold light if so He wishes. It is because of the ambiguities of creaturely existence, and of the otherness, autonomy and freedom granted in some measure to all things. Evil is not the premise of cosmic relationships. It comes when things come out of harmony, out of order, and out of balance. The various polarities of experience represented by both light and darkness are the two-fold forces of nature, complementing each other, but only in opposition when their basic relationships are disturbed.

MULTIPLICITY AND MUTUAL CO-EXISTENCE
The insights of Mikhail Bakhtin, one of the most important Soviet thinkers in the social sciences in the twentieth century, who developed the concept of polyphony in literature, offer further insights into this enigma. The literal meaning of polyphony is ‘multiple voices.’ Bakhtin borrowed the concept of polyphony from music, where the term is used to explain the simultaneous combination of two or more distant melodic lines or tones. Two or more melodic lines are perceived as independent even though they are related. He explains it with the support of the models from the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. His novels are the best example of ‘genuine polyphony of ‘fully valid voices’. “Bakhtin reads Dostoevsky’s work as containing many different voices, unmerged into a single perspective, and not subordinated to the voice of the author. Each of these voices has its own perspective, its own validity, and its own narrative weight within the novel” (Andrew Robinson, In Theory, Bakhtin). We do not get the picture of a monological world or a single objective vision in the works of Dostoevsky, rather we are confronted with a ‘plurality of consciousnesses, each with its own world’, and the author stands independent of the ideas. The reader does not see a single reality, rather the reality appears through each character. In his novel, Dostoevsky insists uniqueness and irreplaceability of each person. This uniqueness is given to each individual and it is actualised through each one’s life, vision and aspirations. For Bakhtin, truth does not contain in ‘single consciousness’, rather it requires a multiplicity of consciousnesses, “it comes into existence at the point of contact between diverse consciousnesses, and is intrinsically full of event potential” (Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 81.)
Bakhtin uses the implication of this literary analysis to society, to analyse social problems. For him, the social world is made up of multiple voices, perspectives, views and subjective ‘worlds.’ While one enters into the world with his or her own task and responsibility, one finds meaning in her or his life. Each one exists as a relation between particular, coordinates in time and space, differentiating and relating to other coordinates. A human person is always in dialogue, not only with other people but also with everything in the world. Though dialogue does not occur between fixed positions or subjects, the separateness of each one is essential to the dialogue. Even when they agree, they do so from different perspectives and different senses of the world. Similarly, even when one disagrees, she or he sees the space in between. Moreover, “people are also transformed through dialogue, fusing with parts of the other’s discourse. The other’s response can change everything in one’s own consciousness or perspective. Dialogue can produce a decisive reply which produces actual changes.”
When multiple voices are in the frame, one cannot claim the monopoly of truth through mere assertion, rather it is the duty of an authentic person to make a painful search to get an integral vision of reality that encompasses and converges different views and visions. Since the world is changing and reality is perceived through different ankles, dialogue demands more openness and dynamism, which means we also need a broader vision to understand the truth and to practice justice. When many voices are in conflict, it needs more time to reach the final destination. Truth is not mere denial or negation of some of the unpleasant voices (to me), rather it is the integration of many incommensurable voices and multiple views. In a vast multitude of contesting meanings, making a single meaning as absolute and categorising others as evil is harmful and unjust. The carrier of truth “is not the assertion, but rather the integral point of view, the integral position of the personality.”
The problem we face today is the forgetfulness of the language of dialogue and a calculative amnesia. We wilfully ignore the existence and the relevance of the other. When one assumes that he has the totalitarianism of knowledge and power, he absolutizes everything and denies the space of the other. The example God the creator stands in a counter-position. He offers not a picture of total annihilation or negation, rather He is a model of acceptance and integration, incorporating even the ‘opposite force’ into his broader dynamism. In this broader vision, the voice of the other is properly and attentively listened to, his or her identity is recognised, and the separateness of the other or the otherness of the other is respected. The integrity of a person consists in the capacity to absorb the different faces of reality, not by colonising or imposing one’s view over the other. Such a respectful approach harmonises the different voices into one symphony, a harmonic coexistence of different voices.