03/23/2022 – What is a Fractal Interpretation of Religious Diversity?

What is a fractal interpretation of religious diversity? For that matter, what even is a “fractal”? And who in the world is this Perry Schmidt-Leukal guy? What? Perry Schmidt-Leukal? Are you sure? Apparently, I’ve been procrastinating on doing this episode because I don’t know how to correctly pronounce his name. Forgive me, Father Perry. I’ve seen him speak at a few academic meetings. He seems to be nice. Most of the time… I guess. You see, we’re really close. Like, this is him… and this is me over here. Enough of this nonsense. Let’s goooo... This is TenOnReligion.

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Today we’re going to talk about a scholar named Perry Schmidt-Leukal from some place called Germany, specifically the University of Münster. The book is Religious Pluralism & Interreligious Theology. This book has several different things going on kind of mashed together because it’s based on two different series of lectures. After chapter 1 which is an introduction, part one on religious pluralism is based on lectures delivered back in 2014 at the Zheijiang University of Hangzhou in China. I’m sure I didn’t pronounce that correctly. Part two on interreligious theology is based on the author’s Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow in Scotland in 2015. I’m going to start by providing some context, then talk about some aspects of the author’s view of interreligious theology, and then get into the details of his fractal interpretation of diversity.

The introductory first chapter lays out what the author considers four logical options regarding the truth of religious traditions. He doesn’t really clarify what he means by the word “truth” in a philosophical sense, but I digress. The logical options are: (1) none are true, (2) only one is true, (3) more than one is true – which has two further options – (3a) either one in a uniquely superior sense, or (3b) none superior to the rest so that some are possibly equally valid. He labels the first logical option as naturalism, although there is a religious form of naturalism with Wesley Wildman’s position being one example, so his usage of this term as being entirely nonreligious perhaps needs some clarification. He labels the second option as exclusivism – none are true except mine. He labels (3a) as inclusivism – more than one is true but only mine is somehow uniquely superior to the others. He labels (3b) as pluralism. He does make two further points which are important to consider. First, tolerance is not pluralism because tolerance is based on a negative assessment of what one “tolerates” while pluralism is based on a positive assessment of what one appreciates, although that does not necessarily mean everything is equally valid. There’s not a sheer relativism in that there can still be criteria for adjudicating validity. The second important point is that he mentions agnosticism as not being an additional position because it is a kind of second-order claim about not being able to assume any one of the other four positions, which makes it logically prior to the other four positions. So, we’re left with something like this flow chart.

Are religious claims knowable? No. Agnosticism. Yes. Keep going. Are there any religious claims? No. Naturalism. Yes. Keep going. Are only one tradition’s claims true or are more than one tradition’s claims true? Only one is true. Exclusivism. More than one is true. Keep going. Is there one singular maximum? Yes. Inclusivism. No. Pluralism. So that’s an illustration in chart form displaying the logical options he describes. My graphic arts skills are really horrible.

Part one of this book details how religious pluralism can be framed in six different traditions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religion. It’s no doubt an interesting part of the book, but I want to focus on the second part of the book on interreligious theology. Here, the idea is established that the discipline of religious studies should become personalized. That is, the object, a religious tradition or subtradition, and the subject, religious adherents, should be seen as living people rather than “things” to be studied. This move means that the investigation will be dialogical, from person to person, in a global exchange of perspectives.

Interreligious theology has four principles and then four further methodological issues that flow from those principles. The first principle is a theological credit of trust in that one presupposes the existence of an ultimate reality with genuine access to said reality. The second principle is the unity of reality. There’s only one. But what about the multiverse? Well, it’s nice for science fiction, but religion? Meh. The third is that it is tied to interreligious discourse. The fourth is the in-process character, or incomplete nature of interreligious theology. There are always more ways to comparatively frame interreligious ideas as an ongoing process. These four principles lead to four methodological points. Interreligious theology should be perspectival in facing the confessional dimension. It should be imaginative in seeing through the eyes of others. It should be comparative in seeking reciprocal illumination. And it should be constructive in seeking mutual transformation. After laying down this groundwork, Schmidt-Leukal then takes the next four chapters to provide examples of how to interreligiously compare two traditions. I’m not going to talk about them, but for those interested the pairings are Islam and Christianity, Christianity and Buddhism, Buddhism and Islam, and Buddhism and Christianity on creation. These are obviously not the only pairing options, but they show by way of example how this methodology can be accomplished.

And now we’re finally here. The last chapter details his fractal interpretation of religious diversity. It’s based on the theory of fractals from Benoit Mandelbrot, a Polish-born mathematician who spent most of his life in either France or the United States. He coined the term “fractal” to describe a set of geometric structures which he introduced in the 1970’s. The basic idea is that smaller copies of a pattern are continuously nested inside each other such that one sees the same shapes no matter how far one zooms in. Schmidt-Leukal takes this idea and posits that there are three different levels of religious diversity. First, intercultural – between traditions. Second, intracultural – within a tradition. Third, intrasubjective – within an individual person.

Here’s the quotation from the book describing this:

“A fractal interpretation of religious diversity proposes that the differences that can be observed at the interreligious level are, to some extent, reflected at an intrareligious level in the internal differences discerned within the major religious traditions and that they can be broken down at the intrasubjective level into different religious patterns and structure of the individual mind.” [p. 233]

What this means is that multireligious identity is a possible attribute not only of religious individuals. It is also an attribute of individual religious traditions. Since a fractal interpretation presupposes that the other religious person is never completely or entirely “other” this means that key components of the other’s religion will likely have parallels in one’s own tradition. It’s not really as different as we might think it is at first glance. Remember the idea that the objects and subjects of religious studies should be personalized, seen as living people rather than “things” to be studied? If we’re all people, then obviously there’s some similarities going on there. But, given that such similarities are never strict and that there will always be many kinds of variations, the fractal approach also allows for a clear discernment of differences as well. This is why reciprocal illumination – learning from the otherness of the other – is so important. The otherness of the religious other will be understood in terms of a different emphasis and possibly further elaboration of certain aspects of religious ideas or practices that are either less developed or differently developed in one’s own tradition. This does not mean to necessarily accept all forms of diversity as good and may even include darker aspects of religion. But take a look again at the flow chart. One result of a fractal interpretation of religious diversity does mean that diversity is not always an expression of something which is false, thus ruling out exclusivism, or something that is inferior, thus ruling out inclusivism. It definitely falls underneath the pluralist interpretation.

So, what do you think about the fractal interpretation of religious diversity? Is Schmidt-Leukal’s application of fractals to religious diversity helpful? Are there other positive implications of this application that should be pointed out? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.