Chapter 1: The Great Questions (William L.

Portier, Tradition and Incarnation)

THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION
Our world is full of religions. Most cultures exhibit what we can intelligently recognize
as religious behaior. Putting aside until !ha"ter ### the tas$ of de%ning the term religion, we
can note that whereer we %nd human beings we usually %nd a god or gods, religious
behaior, and religious faith. !ritics of religion both ancient and modern hae dismissed it as
a mere human creation, a %re around which "eo"le who can&t bear to imagine a cold and
indi'erent unierse huddle. (eligious "eo"le beliee that the gods are )uite real and hae
manifested themseles. !ritics cannot deny that the religions of the world, along with their
share of charlatans and hy"ocrites, hae also ins"ired many sel*ess and truly holy "eo"le
whom we can&t hel" but admire. #n s"ite of recurring "ro"hecies that humanity will soon
outgrow them, religious faith and "ractice remain.
Whether we agree with religious "eo"le or their critics or sim"ly don&t $now, the near+
uniersal a""eal, the "ersistence, and the transforming "ower of religions are intriguing.
What is there about human beings that o"ens them to religions and their claims about
things unseen, Where do religious ex"erience and religious language %t into human
ex"erience in general, -his cha"ter will address these )uestions by trying to lay o"en what
we might call the de"th+dimension of human ex"erience, that innermost "art of us, best
re"resented by some combination of the traditional symbols of heart and head. #t is at this
leel that we can best hear the words of the "hiloso"hers, "oets, and gods. We will begin by
distinguishing between ordinary and extraordinary human ex"erience.
ORDINARY HUMAN E!ERIENCE
What is meant here by .ordinary/ human ex"erience ta$es "lace at the leel of what
is often called common sense. #t is routine. We don&t hae to thin$ about it. 0etting out of
bed, ta$ing a shower, brushing your teeth, "utting on your shoes, starting your car, driing
to school or wor$ are all the $inds of stu' of which the ordinary is made. 1or our "ur"oses,
its distinguishing feature is that we don&t hae to thin$ about it. -he ordinary, day+to+day
routine doesn&t usually gie rise to re*ection. We tend to ta$e it for granted.
2ut to describe ordinary ex"erience as routine is far from dismissing it. Without the
basic structure it "roides, we might all go mad. What would ha""en, for exam"le, if you
had to %gure out the inner wor$ings of the internal combustion engine eery time you
wanted to start your car, -he routine is comfortable. #t lets us $now what to ex"ect.
3ach culture "uts at human dis"osal a set of ready+to+hand things from which we "ut
together our "re+re*ectie routine. What is common sense for one culture, eg. cars and
"lanes and how to use them, may be )uite extraordinary for another. What you regard as
routine or ordinary will be related to your culture.
ETRAORDINARY HUMAN E!ERIENCE
4t certain "oints in eery life, the routine of ordinary ex"erience is bro$en or
interru"ted in a dramatic way. 2y contrast with the routine, we can call these disru"tions
.extraordinary./ -he terms ordinary and extraordinary are correlatie or de%ned in relation
to one another. -o hae one you need the other. We recognize and name the extraordinary
by its contrast with what we $now as ordinary. -his gies us the relatiely routine or
ordinary and the relatiely extraordinary or s"ecial. One of the distinguishing features of
extraordinary ex"eriences is that they can lead "eo"le to thin$ more dee"ly or at a di'erent
leel than they usually do when they are "erforming day+to+day tas$s. 3xtraordinary
ex"eriences are )uite common in the sense that they ha""en to eeryone at di'erent times.
-hey are only extraordinary in relation to the routine of the "erson who has them. 1our
exam"les will be used to clarify extraordinary ex"erience and its e'ects5 birth, death, loe
and eil. 2irth and death establish the boundaries of a gien routine. Loe and eil sha"e
its highs and lows.
"OUR EAM!LES #o$ e%traor&inar' e%p(
6. )irth. 4lthough some "sychologists s"ea$ of the .trauma of birth/ and its e'ects on us,
our own births are not an issue here. # am referring rather to births that occur in one&s own
family or in other families that are close to us. 4lthough millions of "eo"le are born each
day and, in that sense, birth is )uite common, it usually only ha""ens in the lies of
indiidual sets of "arents, for exam"le, a relatiely few times in their lies. #n that sense,
birth is statistically and "ersonally extraordinary. 7ome women hae described childbirth as
an ex"erience of often but not always uns"ea$able "hysical "ain to be followed by
exhilarating 8oy. 2abies re"resent for us a renewal and rea9rmation of life. -hey remind us
of new beginnings and human "ossibilities. While we hae all seen diagrams of the hit+or+
miss "rocess that unites s"erm and egg and $now )uite well how the baby comes into being,
we still s"ea$ innocently of the .miracle of birth./ -o hold a newborn baby that is your own
*esh and blood, and to realize that this little human being didn&t exist before and now it
does, and that you and eerybody else got here this way, is to $now this wonder. -he
wonder will not last as birth gies way to the demanding routine of infant care and child
rearing. 2ut it returns with our occasional re*ectie binges about what the future might hold
for this new being and about the "ossibly "rodigious conse)uences of how we treat it.
-hese are not the thoughts of which routines are made, and were we to sustain them
inde%nitely, they would "robably drie us crazy.
1or a "regnant woman who is alone and abandoned, for "arents who, for whateer
reasons, do not want the routine to be intruded u"on by new life and all its attendant
com"lications, the wonder turns to dread. -he two res"onses are closely related. #n both
cases, the awesome magnitude of new being inades our lies. #t can be greeted as a
gracious gift or resisted as an intolerable im"osition. Often we greet new life with com"lex
combinations of the two res"onses.
:. Death. 4s with birth, we are not concerned here with our own deaths, but with those of
"eo"le close to us5 "arents, children, relaties and friends. ;eath "uts a %nal end to the
routine and to life as we $now it. #n the "rocess, it raises the dee"est and the most
disturbing )uestions about the "ossible meaning or absurdity of human life. #s this it, Why
are we een born if it is only to come to this, ;o we 8ust return to the chemical elements
out of which we are com"osed, 4nyone who has held a dead child, watched a loed one die
slowly and "ainfully, touched the cold, dead face of one&s mother&s or father&s cor"se, $nows
the awful "ull of these )uestions.
-he end of the routine ma$es us wonder why there is any routine at all. #t throws into
)uestion the ery nature of what we are dealing with in human life. ;eath enables us to see
life whole, and so we use the term life, as in .Life is sad, life is a bust,/ or .Life, # loe you, all
is grooy./ What about this .life/ we tal$ about, #s life such that it has it in for us, as it
seems when the lies of our fellows are ta$en away and we are left to face our own
mortality, #s life gracious, as it seems when it bestows the gift and "romise of new life, Or
is life sim"ly cold and indi'erent, ;o we een hae any 8usti%cation for s"ea$ing this way,
7uch )uestions become more "oignant when death inoles the innocent, a young child, or
an obiously good "erson who has su'ered more than we would wish on een the worst of
us. !an we ex"ect anything better out of life, Why do we een want to or thin$ we hae a
right to, -he old retort that no one eer said life had to be fair cannot ta$e away the
sadness or the anger or the longing. We seem to want more than life has to o'er. #s this a
clue that "oints to the nature of reality or sim"ly a warning that we need more .realistic/
ex"ectations,
4lthough death raises in dramatic form the )uestion about the ultimate meaning of
our lies, we can and do %nd short of ultimate meanings. #f someone were to as$ you, for
exam"le, why you are here, you could answer at arious leels with reference to lielihood,
career goals, and "ersonal "references. -hese are all short of ultimate meanings. -he
ultimate meaning is what is true .in the last analysis,/ the last meaning, the meaning of all
the little meanings, the last .why/ that would answer at the most radical leel the )uestion
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about the reason you are here. Perha"s there is no such answer, no ultimate meaning.
;eath brings us to the "oint of facing u" to this "ossibility. Life gies us death but it doesn&t
tell us what death means. -his leaes us in an ambiguous situation. Life might not mean
anything in "articular beyond the %nite meanings we gie it in terms of our arious cultures.
-he )uestion about ultimate meaning might 8ust be a silly one.
<. Lo*e. Loe and eil are used here to stand for what ha""ens in us when we ex"erience
the human ca"acity for sel*ess behaior and the human ca"acity for cruelty and inhumanity.
#n the case of loe, we are s"ea$ing of the e'ects that unsel%sh behaior, done for the sa$e
of someone else, might hae on the "erson who receies it. (omantic loe is certainly not
excluded from such an understanding of loe. 2ut loe as sel*ess behaior is much broader
than romantic loe, and some forms of romantic loe can be )uite sel%sh. 4lthough # am
committed to the "ro"osition that unsel%sh behaior is "referable to cruelty, the "oint here
is not "rimarily an ethical one. #t is rather to ex"lore the $inds of )uestions that our
ex"erience of loe and eil raise about the human condition. -his is "re+ethical.
3x"eriencing loe in the sense meant here often brings one u" short. #t comes to us
as a gift, unowed and often unex"ected. While we might try to mani"ulate the feelings and
behaiors of others more often than we&d li$e to admit, we cannot coerce or control loe
freely gien. -he record of human history, as well as the ex"erience of most "eo"le,
testi%es to the extraordinary human ca"acity for heroic self+sacri%ce. 4mong the exam"les
we could include are courageous soldiers who gie their lies for their comrades, daring
rescuers who ris$ their own lies to sae others, women and men who deote their lies to
care of the "oor, the sic$, the elderly, and the dying, and mothers and fathers who carry out
the daily nurture of their children. Often we hae a hard time belieing that others could
really loe us unsel%shly, 8ust for us. We tend to wonder at their gifts, sus"ecting that we
don&t desere them, or fearing that they&ll be ta$en away.
We tend to be in awe of genuine human goodness when we encounter it in such
"henomena as faithfulness to "romises that we might hae bro$en. 4nother&s loe is a
"otential 8udgment on our own fre)uently sel%sh behaior. Often it ma$es us feel unworthy,
challenging our own "atterns of behaior, ma$ing us wonder if what we consider good in
others is really the way we ought to behae. 4gain the em"hasis here is not on ethics,
es"ecially if that is understood in its most "rimitie form as the im"osition of external
standards. -he em"hasis is rather on the dee" "re+ethical )uestions about the human
condition raised by the ex"erience of loe.
=. E*i+. -his section is not about what modern theologians and "hiloso"hers sometimes call
the "roblem of eil or theodicy. >or is eil being used as a "rimarily ethical category. (ather,
the em"hasis is on the dee" )uestions about the human condition raised by our own
ex"eriences of cruelty, inhumanity, and seemingly undesered su'ering. We can
ex"erience this $ind of eil ourseles or witness as others su'er it. #n discussing the
"roblem of eil, theologians and "hiloso"hers sometimes distinguish between the $ind of
eil that others do to us, li$e cruelty or inhumanity, and that which befalls or oerta$es us by
accident, such as cancer or other diseases. 2ecause diseases such as cancer are often
caused by the refusal of human agents to ta$e "ublic health into account when they ma$e
business decisions, this distinction cannot be too rigidly a""lied. 2ut it wor$s in a general
enough way that we can limit our "resent concerns to the $ind of eil that is done to us by
others. 3il is being used in a common+sense way that "recedes ethical re*ection. -his use
"resumes our natural reulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity human beings in*ict on one
another.
-he cruel taunts with which children torment one another "roide a frightening
indication that the human ca"acity for inhumanity runs as dee" as our ca"acity for heroism.
Who among us has not been the clumsy one, the fat one, the handica""ed one, the one that
was too smart, the one whose clothes were wrong or whose "arents were strange, Who
among us doesn&t $now someone who is 8ust downright mean, Who has been s"ared the
sting of human cruelty, On a grander and more ghastly scale, we hae the oens of
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;achau, the .colored/ water fountains, lunch counters, and schools, and their nagging but
subtle residues in 4merican society. What would you hae felt if you were a ?ew being
ex"erimented u"on or incinerated sim"ly for being a ?ew, a blac$ man being lynched in the
segregated south sim"ly for being blac$, -hese are the taunts of children raised to the
most gruesome "owers. 4nger, rage, determination, resignation, or des"air cannot ta$e
away the radical sense that such things should not be allowed to ha""en to us. (eligious
"eo"le as$ where their 0od has gone. We feel we hae the right not only to com"lain but to
lament and "rotest such treatment to whateer "owers there are. 4t some dee" leel such
behaior stri$es at our ery sense of humanity. Li$e life itself, the human begins to emerge
against the bac$ground of the recognizably inhuman. What is human anyway, What are
human beings that they seem to hae such diided ca"acities,
-he most disturbing moment in our re*ections on our res"onses to human cruelty
comes when we begin to realize that we are brothers and sisters to the grand in)uisitors and
the @itlers of our world. Our hearts can twist themseles into the $inds of $nots that lead to
the "oint where we can write o' whole grou"s of "eo"le as less than what we are. We hae
all ino$ed our own "articular ersions of the %nal solution.
We are wea$ com"osites of con*icting moties and im"ulses. We fail to lie u" to the
ery ideals we hae set for ourseles. We brea$ faith with the ones we loe. -his is not to
deny that sometimes we can be heroically faithful. 7ometimes we do come through. #t is
"recisely this ambiguity that raises the dee"est )uestions about us. What $ind of beings are
we, @ow ought we to act, 7hould our behaior lead to "rofound regret at our wea$ness or
only to cynicism about all forms of oughts, whether they come from within or without us,
SUMMARY CHARACTERISTICS O" ETRAORDINARY E!ERIENCES
1irst, extraordinary ex"eriences are stri$ingly di'erent from the routine or the
ordinary against which they a""ear. -hey tend to brea$ the "atterns of our ex"erience in
dramatic ways. -o locate them in the geogra"hy of ex"erience, we often use s"atial
meta"hors. -hus we s"ea$ of the .de"ths/ of human ex"erience or its .borders/ or .limits/
or ."ea$s./
7econd, in themseles extraordinary ex"eriences are ambiguous. ;eath, for
exam"le, does not also tell us what death should mean, how we should inter"ret it, or
answer the )uestions that it raises. ;eath is therefore ambiguous, admitting of more than
one "ossible inter"retation.
-hird, we tend to remember extraordinary ex"eriences, and they can exert "owerful
in*uences on the direction of our lies. -he stronger or more stri$ing they are, the more
"ower they hae to a'ect us.
1ourth, because of their unusual character, extraordinary ex"eriences often lead us
to thin$ seriously about the meaning and direction of our lies. -his $ind of thin$ing or
re*ection ta$es "lace at a di'erent leel, usually we call it .dee"er,/ than the $ind of
thin$ing we do in the eeryday world of common sense. 3xtraordinary ex"eriences often
gie rise to )uestions that are ery di9cult to answer with our usual "roblem soling
methods.
THE QUESTION O" ULTIMATE MEANING
1rom the discussion of extraordinary ex"eriences and the )uestions they raise, we
can conclude that, at its .de"ths,/ or whateer meta"hor we choose, the human condition
can be described as mysterious. 2ecause we are tal$ing about the extraordinary, the term
mystery is not being used in the ordinary sense it has when we refer to .mystery stories./ #n
this latter sense, mysteries can be soled conclusiely on the basis of eidence. -he 1rench
"hiloso"her 0abriel Marcel (6AAB+6BC<) distinguishes between a problem and a mystery.
1or Marcel, "roblems hae solutions and mysteries do not. 4s mysterious, human life can
only be lied. -he ordinary )uestions of the wor$aday world hae de%nite answers. We can
loo$ them u" in the "rose of memoranda and instruction manuals. 2ecause the dee" or
great )uestions about the human condition inole us "ersonally, we can only answer them
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with "ersonal decisions. 4t this leel of mystery, the "oem, the song, or the story is more
a""ro"riate than the memorandum, the manual, or the encyclo"edia.
We %nd that at its dee"est leels, human ex"erience cannot account for itself in a
"urely theoretical way. #t raises )uestions that cannot be answered unless we ac$nowledge
our "ersonal inolement in them. We can say that human ex"erience carries within itself
this "ossibility for re*ection, because certain ex"eriences lead us to )uestion the meaning of
all ex"erience. -his last is what is meant by the )uestion of ultimate meaning. #t as$s about
the %nal meaning of all the short+of +ultimate meanings in our lies. Why are we here,
What becomes of us in the end, What is our %nal "ur"ose, What is a human being and how
ought we to behae toward one another, -hese are the great )uestions, the dee" )uestions
about the human condition.
#t is im"ortant to em"hasize that the wonder about the human condition ex"ressed
by the great )uestions has not been im"osed on ex"erience from outside by out+of+touch
scholars and "rofessors. -hough we would each gie oice to them in our own way, we hae
all felt the great )uestions. -hey are gien with ex"erience, rising u" from out of its de"ths.
-o return to the )uestion with which this cha"ter began, we can say that religion %ts
into ex"erience and a""eals to us at the same dee" leel where we encounter life as
mystery and the arious )uestions that reeal it as mysterious. 4ll serious literature
o"erates at the same leel, ex"loring and rendering the great )uestions into the literary
forms of "oetry and narratie. -o treat religious matters as routine, dis"osable commodities
in the eeryday world is to triialize them and turn religion into a banal form of magic or a
sic$ game that the gods force us to "lay. 7erious religious faith and "ractice can only ma$e
sense to someone who has felt the dee" and mysterious ambiguity of the human condition
and felt the urgency of the )uestion to which it gies rise . 4t the leel of mystery, life
re)uires of us a certain o"enness re"resented by the "ilgrim attitude of the wayfarer. Marcel
calls us Homo viator, human being on the way.
#f human ex"erience is o"en+ended and mysterious, then it can admit of, but does
not re)uire, religious inter"retations. We can exclude religious inter"retations, if we choose
to, but we cannot demonstrate that the eidence of ex"erience re)uires this of us. >one of
the exam"les discussed aboe is, strictly s"ea$ing, religious. @oweer, religious "eo"le
often so ex"erience them. 4t this "oint, we can only conclude that the ultimately
mysterious )uality of human existence, o"ened by the great )uestions, leaes life o"en to a
religious inter"retation.
THE !OSITI,E ROLE O" TRADITION IN QUESTIONING
Why are we here, What becomes of us in the end, What is our %nal "ur"ose, What
is a human being and how ought we to behae oward one another, -hese are some of the
great )uestions. 4s one begins to re*ect on them, two a""roaches "resent themseles. -he
following "air of images ca"tures the contrast between them.
1irst image5 Picture yourself at your des$ in your room. Dou are alone. #t&s eening.
#n the lam"light you can see the "a"er in front of you as you write. -he "a"er is blan$, and
you are free to %ll it with your own thoughts. #t is as if you were the only "erson in the
world.
7econd image5 Picture yourself in church on 7unday or on a city sidewal$ for a 1ourth
of ?uly "arade. Dou are surrounded by other "eo"le, but also by the inherited words and
symbols of your religion or nation. Dou share these words and symbols with the other "eo"le
in church or on the sidewal$s. 7ometimes you s"ea$ the words together as in the creed or
the "ledge of allegiance to the *ag. Dour imaginations res"ond similarly, though not
identically, to common symbols such as the cross and the *ag.
-he %rst image is an image of a solitary indiidual )uestioner. -his unfettered self,
unconscious of "rior connections to family and history, feels com"letely free to as$ the great
)uestions and su9ciently mobile and unbound to follow whereer the )uestions lead. -his
image has a certain heroic or larger+than+life as"ect. #n the stories of our culture, the heroic,
solitary searcher holds a noble "lace.
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-he second image is that of an indiidual in context, situated in a "articular "lace and
time and in a "articular networ$ of relations to "eo"le in family, community, nation, and
church. -his image reminds the )uestioner to "ay attention to the settings in which the
great )uestions might arise. -he inheritance of shared language, culture, and religion
sha"es such settings and su""lies terms in which we can as$ and answer )uestions about
the human condition.
3ach reader is both a solitary and a contextual )uestioner. 4cademic life tends to
em"hasize the disengaged "osture of the %rst image. #t teaches us to .trust lonely reason
"rimarily./ 2ut ex"erience should teach us that we don&t encounter the human condition
raw. -hough our )uestions about human life are dee"ly "ersonal, historical contexts sha"e
their forms and tones. Our thoughts and )uestions about death, for exam"le, don&t occur in
a acuum. -hey must be "osed in some "articular language or other.
#n this cha"ter on the great )uestions, readers hae been addressed as if they were
sim"ly solitary, disconnected )uestioners. 3m"hasis on the indiidual in)uirer is useful at
the outset. #ts abstract a""roach minimizes the historical di'erences among readers and
thus a""eals to the widest audience. 7ubse)uent cha"ters, howeer, will challenge readers
increasingly to ta$e account of the fact that )uestioning is not only "riate and "ersonal, but
also "rofoundly social or contextual.
4nother word for context is tradition. # want to use it to refer to the sea of historical
connections (linguistic, national, and religious) in which indiiduals swim. 4 tradition is an
historical context or networ$ of linguistic, "ersonal and cultural relationshi"s. Within such
networ$s, indiiduals learn how to be indiiduals. -hey learn the categories in terms of
which they tal$ and act and wor$ and %nd meaning in their lies. -raditions are not
monolithic or uniform or one+sided. (ather, they are li$e ongoing conersations. -he "oints
of iew and the shades of em"hasis in the conersation are often functions of money and
"ower. -hus traditions embody not only conersation but also bitter argument and "olitical
struggle. -he $ey as"ect of tradition, howeer, is that it "roides the framewor$ and the
terms in which conersations or "olitical struggle can be conducted and sometimes moed
forward. 4s a result of such moement, "ower relationshi"s are often changed.
4n excellent exam"le of a tradition is 4merican law. #t is itself a "articular
deelo"ment in the 4nglo+7axon legal tradition. -he body of "recedent doesn&t "roide
ready+made answers to each new legal )uestion. (ather it "roides the framewor$ and the
terms in which answers emerge from a "rocess of dialogue that is designed to test
com"eting claims to truth in a con*ictual setting.
#f you are an 4merican, the legal tradition of the Enited 7tates is "art of your cultural
context or inheritance. Dou carry it around inside of you een if you neer thin$ of it. #t
sha"es your ideas of what is fair and what you hae a right to ex"ect in "ublic dealings with
"eo"le, es"ecially "eo"le you don&t $now. -o realize how much your own legal tradition has
sha"ed your sense of what is fair, you need only com"are it with an alien legal tradition.
-he fact that you could ma$e such a com"arison illustrates that traditions are not
absolutely closed and isolated from one another, but o"en to dialogue. -he exam"le of
4merican law also illustrates that traditions are o"en to "olitical change. When the leaders
of the ciil rights moement in the Enited 7tates wanted to end segregation, they made an
internal criti)ue of the laws that made it "ossible. -hey criticized segregation as un8ust in
the legal terms "roided by the 4merican tradition. -hey a""ealed to the 4merican legal
tradition and to its sense of what is fair. -hey struggled and they won, and "ower
relationshi" changed.
-radition so understood is both limiting and enabling or freeing. -radition literally
means .what has been handed on./ -he term is intended to em"hasize the historical or
inherited character of context. 3ach of us carries around within ourseles++een when we
are alone at our des$s++an inherited language, an inherited family from an inherited "eo"le
in an inherited cultural setting. -o try to thin$ seriously without aderting to our manifold
inheritance is naie in the extreme. #f we should decide that our inheritance is too limiting
and needs to be oercome to some degree, we will %nd that the best resources aailable for
oercoming it are, "aradoxically, those we hae inherited. -hough a""eals to tradition are
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often used to su'ocate growth and re"ress )uestions, we must ac$nowledge that the ery
terms we use to )uestion and challenge inherited authorities hae been themseles
inherited from a liing tradition. -radition or inheritance is alie and constantly being
refashioned by indiiduals who inhabit it and contribute to its ongoing conersation.
!atholicism has been called the longest+lied intellectual tradition in the west. One
of the goals of this boo$ is to coney to the reader a sense of how the !atholic intellectual
tradition wor$s. # hae em"hasized context, historical setting, inheritance, and tradition++
intending them as irtually synonymous++because one cannot understand what it means to
thin$ and )uestion as a !atholic without a "ositie feel for tradition as simultaneously
enabling and limiting. What we inherit not only limits what we can do++the usual em"hasis
of our culture++but it also enables us to do what we can do. -radition is not sim"ly inert and
su'ocating. #t is also alie and enabling. #t harbors its own resources for self+criticism and
growth.
FFF
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