화이트 헤드의 종교관, 종교는 외로움의 산물이다.

과정철학의 선구자 화이트 헤드(White Head)는,

"외로움 혹은 고독의 문제는 궁극적 정당화(Ultimate justification)를 불러온다"라고 했다.

또한 종교는 외로움 가운데서 작가적 상상(Writer's Imagination)에 의해 나타나게 된다고도 했다.

 

외로움(loneliness)은  혼자라는 정서적 느낌에 속하지만,

고독(solitariness)은 더욱 광범위한 일반성을 갖는 것이며, 근원적인 존재 지평의 자리를 얘기합니다.

"고독 그 자체는 종교적--전단계(pre-religious)라며 종교는 고독 가운데 잠재해 있었다" 라고 화이트헤드는 말한다.

그래서인지 고독에 빗대, 철학에서는 간혹 실존(existence)이라고도 합니다.

 

 

 

종교는 어떤 개인이 자신의 고독에서 나온

작가적 상상(Writer's Imagination -- JK) 에 의해 창조되는 것입니다. (1926b [1996: 15–16])

 

종교가 반드시 좋은 것은 아닙니다. 그것은 매우 사악할 수 있습니다. (1926b [1996: 17])

종교를 고려할 때 우리는 종교의 필연적 선(善)에 대한 생각에 매몰 되어서는 안 됩니다.

이것은 위험한 착각입니다. (1926b [1996: 18])

 

종교는 인간의 야만성의 마지막 피난처입니다.

종교와 선의 무비판적인 연관성은

명백한 사실에 의해 직접적으로 부정됩니다. (1926b [1996: 37]) 

 

현실적이지만 실현되기를 기다리는 것;

먼 가능성이지만 현재의 사실 중 가장 큰 소망;

지나가는 모든 것에 의미를 부여하면서도 모든 이해를 피하는 것;

그 소유가 최종 선이지만 모든 범위를 넘어서는 것;

궁극적인 이상이며 희망 없는 탐구입니다. (1926a [1967: 191–192])

 

과학으로부터 신학을, 신학으로부터 과학을 보호할 수 없습니다”(1926b [1996: 79])

이들 사이의 관계에 대한 현 세대의 판단에 따라

역사의 미래가 좌우된다고 해도 과언이 아니다. (1926a [1967: 181])

종교는 교리의 틀에서 우리 지식의 완전한 범위에서 수정을 인정해야 하지만,

여전히 그들 경험의 자체에 바로 더 해질뿐입니다. (1926b [1996: 79–80])

 

종교의 외적 삶의 중요성을 과장하는 것을 중단해야 합니다.

종교의 종말은 이 모든 것 너머에 있습니다. (1926b [1996: 17])

과학자들로부터 지속적인 수정에 대처하는 방법을 배워야 합니다.

종교의 진화는 이전 시대에 즐겼던 세계에 대한 상상적 그림이라는 관점에서 볼 때

그 자체의 고유한 관념을 근본적으로 분리시키는 것입니다.

불완전한 과학의 속박에서 그러한 해방은 모두에게 유익합니다. (1926a [1967: 188–189])

 

상호 관용의 조건이 충족되면 "교리의 충돌은 재앙이 아니라 기회입니다"(1926a [1967: 186]).

충돌은 더 깊은 종교와 더 미묘한 과학의 화해가 발견될

더 넓은 진실과 더 미세한 관점이 있다는 신호입니다. (1926a [1967: 185]) 

철학의 임무는 과학과 종교의 기초에 있는 직관을 포함하여

"경험의 모든 원천을 하나의 시스템으로 흡수하는 것"(1926b [1996: 149])

 

질적으로 삶의 더 나은 명백한 행복이나 명백한 즐거움과

직접적인 관련이 있다는 것은 사실이 아닙니다.

종교는 그러한 행복과 쾌락을 넘어 현실적이고 일시적인 것의 기능으로 남아 있으며,

세상에 정보를 제공하는 질서에 불멸의 사실로서

그 특성을 기여한다는 직접적인 이해입니다. (1926b [1996: 80])

 

 

 

 

 

※ 과정철학, 과정신학

 

 

화이트헤드의 과정철학이 신학자들 사이에서 유명하고

과정신학을 낳은 가장 큰 이유 중 하나는

전능하신 하나님이 무에서 만물을 창조하신다는 교리를 극복하는 데 도움이 되기 때문입니다.

 

이 무(無)에서 출발하는 창조 교리는

모든 악에 대한 하나님의 책임이 있으며,

또한 하나님만이 궁극적인 실재라는 것을 내포하고 있습니다.

즉, 신의 사랑과 인간의 고통의 화해와

유신교, 무신론 등 다양한 종교 전통의 화해를 방해하는 것을 포함한다.

다른 말로 하면 그와같은 무(無)의 창조 교리는

신정론이나 종교간 대화에 관여하는 신학자들에게 걸림돌이 되는 것입니다.

 

이와는 대조적으로 화이트헤드의 프로세스 철학은

전체 실재의 세 가지 궁극적(그러나 분리할 수 없는) 측면이 있다고 주장합니다.

신과 모든 유한한 실제적 사건들이 구현하는 효율적이고 최종적인 인과관계가 있다는 것이다.

 

신과 창조성의 구별(신만이 창조성의 유일한 실례가 아님)은

세상의 모든 실제 사건의 발생을 완전히 결정할 수 있는 능력을 가진 신이 없다는 것을 의미합니다.

그들도 창조성의 실례입니다.

 

이런 의미에서 하나님은 전능하지 않으나

“이해하는 동료 고통자”로 이해될 수 있다(1929c [1985: 351]).

 

더욱이, 화이트헤드의 세 가지 궁극적인 교리,

즉 하나의 최고의 존재 또는 신,

많은 유한한 존재 또는 우주,

존재 자체 또는 창조성이라는 교리와 다양한 종류의 종교적 경험이 동일한 궁극적 현실,

그러나 현실 전체의 다양한 궁극적 측면을 경험하는 다양한 모드.

예를 들어: 

 

화이트헤드가 "창의성"이라고 부르는 것에 해당하는 이 [3가지 궁극적인] 중 하나는

불교도에 의해 "공허"("순야타") 또는 "다르마카야", Advaita Vedantists에 의해

"니르구나 브라만", 마이스터 에크하르트에 의해 "신격"이라고 불렸습니다. 

 

그리고 Heidegger와 Tillich의 "Being Itself"(특히).

그것은 형태가 없는 궁극적인 실재이다.

화이트헤드가 "신"이라고 부른 것에 상응하는 다른 궁극적인 것은 존재 그 자체가 아니라 지고한 존재이다.

 

그것은 정보에 근거하고 형식(진실, 아름다움, 정의와 같은)의 근원입니다.

그것은 "아미타 부처", "삼보가카야", "사구나 브라만",

"이슈바라", "야웨", "그리스도", "알라"라고 불렸다. (D. 그리핀 2005: 47)

 

[일부] 도교의 형태와 아메리카 원주민 종교를 포함한 많은 원시 종교는 […] 우주를 신성시합니다.

우주를 제3의 궁극적인 것으로 인식함으로써 우리는 이러한 우주적 종교들도

사물의 본성에서 진정으로 궁극적인 무엇인가를 지향하고 있음을 알 수 있습니다. (D. 그리핀 2005: 49)

 

 

화이트헤드의 세 가지 궁극적인 교리의 종교적 다원주의적 함의는

존 콥에 의해 가장 분명하게 그려졌습니다.

"John Cobb의 Whiteheadian Complementary Pluralism"에서 David Griffin은 다음과 같이 말합니다.

 

실재의 전체가 세 가지 궁극적인 것을 포함한다는 Cobb의 견해는

특정 전통이 그 중 하나, 둘 또는 심지어 세 가지 모두에 집중할 수 있다는 인식과 함께

우리에게 다양한 종교적 경험을 어떤 것에 대한 진정한 응답으로 이해하는 기초를 제공합니다.

그것은 실제로 경험하기 위해 존재합니다.

Cobb는 “전 세계의 종교적 경험과 생각을 이런 식으로 이해할 때

다양한 전통의 기여를 보완적인 것으로 보는 것이 더 쉽습니다”라고 강조합니다. (D. 그리핀 2005: 51)

 

 

One of the major reasons why Whitehead’s process philosophy is popular among theologians, and gave rise to process theology, is the fact that it helps to overcome the doctrine of an omnipotent God creating everything out of nothing. This creatio ex nihilo doctrine implies God’s responsibility for everything that is evil, and also that God is the only ultimate reality. In other words, it prevents the reconciliation of divine love and human suffering as well as the reconciliation of the various religious traditions, for example, theistic Christianity and nontheistic Buddhism. In yet other words, the creatio ex nihilo doctrine is a stumbling block for theologians involved in theodicy or interreligious dialogue. Contrary to it, Whitehead’s process philosophy holds that there are three ultimate (but inseparable) aspects of total reality: God (the divine actual entity), the world (the universe of all finite actual occasions), and the creativity (the twofold power to exert efficient and final causation) that God and all finite actual occasions embody. The distinction between God and creativity (that God is not the only instance of creativity) implies that there is no God with the power completely to determine the becoming of all actual occasions in the world—they are instances of creativity too. In this sense, God is not omnipotent, but can be conceived as “the fellow-sufferer who understands” (1929c [1985: 351]). Moreover, the Whiteheadian doctrine of three ultimates—the one supreme being or God, the many finite beings or the cosmos, and being itself or creativity—also implies a religious pluralism that holds that the different kinds of religious experience are (not experiences of the same ultimate reality, but) diverse modes of experiencing diverse ultimate aspects of the totality of reality. For example:

One of these [three ultimates], corresponding with what Whitehead calls “creativity”, has been called “Emptiness” (“Sunyata”) or “Dharmakaya” by Buddhists, “Nirguna Brahman” by Advaita Vedantists, “the Godhead” by Meister Eckhart, and “Being Itself” by Heidegger and Tillich (among others). It is the formless ultimate reality. The other ultimate, corresponding with what Whitehead calls “God”, is not Being Itself but the Supreme Being. It is in-formed and the source of forms (such as truth, beauty, and justice). It has been called “Amida Buddha”, “Sambhogakaya”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Ishvara”, “Yaweh”, “Christ”, and “Allah”. (D. Griffin 2005: 47)

[Some] forms of Taoism and many primal religions, including Native American religions […] regard the cosmos as sacred. By recognizing the cosmos as a third ultimate, we are able to see that these cosmic religions are also oriented toward something truly ultimate in the nature of things. (D. Griffin 2005: 49)

The religious pluralism implication of Whitehead’s doctrine of three ultimates has been drawn most clearly by John Cobb. In “John Cobb’s Whiteheadian Complementary Pluralism”, David Griffin writes:

Cobb’s view that the totality of reality contains three ultimates, along with the recognition that a particular tradition could concentrate on one, two, or even all three of them, gives us a basis for understanding a wide variety of religious experiences as genuine responses to something that is really there to be experienced. “When we understand global religious experience and thought in this way”, Cobb emphasizes, “it is easier to view the contributions of diverse traditions as complementary”. (D. Griffin 2005: 51)

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/#Reli

 

 

 

Religion (White Head)

As Whitehead’s process philosophy gave rise to the movement of process theology, most philosophers think that his take on religion was merely positive. This commonplace is wrong. Whitehead wrote:

Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil. (1926b [1996: 17])

In considering religion, we should not be obsessed by the idea of its necessary goodness. This is a dangerous delusion. (1926b [1996: 18])

Indeed history, down to the present day, is a melancholy record of the horrors which can attend religion: human sacrifice, and in particular, the slaughter of children, cannibalism, sensual orgies, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry, can all be laid at its charge. Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. The uncritical association of religion with goodness is directly negatived by plain facts. (1926b [1996: 37])

This being said, Whitehead didn’t hold that religion is merely negative. To him, religion can be “positive or negative, good or bad” (1926b [1996: 17]). So after highlighting that the necessary goodness of religion is a dangerous delusion in Religion in the Making, Whitehead abruptly adds: “The point to notice is its transcendent importance” (1926b [1996: 18]). In Science and the Modern World, Whitehead expresses this transcendent importance of religion as follows:

Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes all apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest. (1926a [1967: 191–192])

And after pointing out that religion is the last refuge of human savagery in Religion in the Making, Whitehead abruptly adds: “Religion can be, and has been, the main instrument for progress” (1926b [1996: 37–38]). In Science and the Modern World this message reads:

Religion has emerged into human experience mixed with the crudest fantasies of barbaric imagination. Gradually, slowly, steadily the vision recurs in history under nobler form and with clearer expression. It is the one element in human experience which persistently shows an upward trend. It fades and then recurs. But when it renews its force, it recurs with an added richness and purity of content. The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. (1926a [1967: 192])

With respect to the relationship between science and religion, Whitehead’s view clearly differs from Stephen Jay Gould’s view that religion and science do not overlap. Gould wrote:

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. (1997)

Whitehead, on the contrary, wrote: “You cannot shelter theology from science, or science from theology” (1926b [1996: 79]). And: “The conflict between science and religion is what naturally occurs in our minds when we think of this subject” (1926a [1967: 181]).

However, Whitehead did not agree with those who hold that the ideal solution of the science-religion conflict is the complete annihilation of religion. Whitehead, on the contrary, held that we should aim at the integration of science and religion, and turn the impoverishing opposition between the two into an enriching contrast. According to Whitehead, both religion and science are important, and he wrote:

When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relation between them. (1926a [1967: 181])

Whitehead never sided with those who, in the name of science, oppose religion with a misplaced and dehumanizing rhetoric of disenchantment, nor with those who, in the name of religion, oppose science with a misplaced and dehumanizing exaltation of existent religious dogmas, codes of behavior, institutions, rituals, etc. As Whitehead wrote: “There is the hysteria of depreciation, and there is the opposite hysteria which dehumanizes in order to exalt” (1927 [1985: 91]). Whitehead, on the contrary, urged both scientific and religious leaders to observe “the utmost toleration of variety of opinion” (1926a [1967: 187]) as well as the following advice:

Every age produces people with clear logical intellects, and with the most praiseworthy grip of the importance of some sphere of human experience, who have elaborated, or inherited, a scheme of thought which exactly fits those experiences which claim their interest. Such people are apt resolutely to ignore, or to explain away, all evidence which confuses their scheme with contradictory instances. What they cannot fit in is for them nonsense. An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion. This advice seems so easy, and is in fact so difficult to follow (1926a [1967: 187]).

Whitehead’s advice of taking the whole evidence into account implies taking the inner life of religion into account and not only its external life:

Life is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others. The conduct of external life is conditioned by environment, but it receives its final quality, on which its worth depends, from the internal life which is the self-realization of existence. Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things.

This doctrine is the direct negation of the theory that religion is primarily a social fact. Social facts are of great importance to religion, because there is no such thing as absolutely independent existence. You cannot abstract society from man; most psychology is herd-psychology. But all collective emotions leave untouched the awful ultimate fact, which is the human being, consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. (1926b [1996: 15–16])

Whitehead’s advice also implies the challenge to continually reshape the outer life of religion in accord with the scientific developments, while remaining faithful to its inner life. When taking into account science, religion runs the risk of collapsing. Indeed, while reshaping its outer life, religion can only avoid implosion by remaining faithful to its inner life. “Religions commit suicide”, according to Whitehead, when do they not find “their inspirations … in the primary expressions of the intuitions of the finest types of religious lives” (1926b [1996: 144]). And he writes:

Religion, therefore, while in the framing of dogmas it must admit modifications from the complete circle of our knowledge, still brings its own contribution of immediate experience. (1926b [1996: 79–80])

On the other hand, when religion shelters itself from the complete circle of knowledge, it also faces “decay” and, Whitehead adds, “the Church will perish unless it opens its window” (1926b [1996: 146]). So there really is no alternative. But that does not render the task at hand any easier.

Whitehead lists two necessary, but not sufficient, requirements for religious leaders to reshape, again and again, the outer expressions of their inner experiences: First, they should stop exaggerating the importance of the outer life of religion. Whitehead writes:

Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, churches, rituals, bibles, codes of behavior, are the trappings of religion, its passing forms. They may be useful, or harmful; they may be authoritatively ordained, or merely temporary expedients. But the end of religion is beyond all this. (1926b [1996: 17])

Secondly, they should learn from scientists how to deal with continual revision. Whitehead writes:

When Darwin or Einstein proclaim theories which modify our ideas, it is a triumph for science. We do not go about saying that there is another defeat for science, because its old ideas have been abandoned. We know that another step of scientific insight has been gained.

Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development. This evolution of religion is in the main a disengagement of its own proper ideas in terms of the imaginative picture of the world entertained in previous ages. Such a release from the bonds of imperfect science is all to the good. (1926a [1967: 188–189])

In this respect, Whitehead offers the following example:

The clash between religion and science, which has relegated the earth to the position of a second-rate planet attached to a second-rate sun, has been greatly to the benefit of the spirituality of religion by dispersing [a number of] medieval fancies. (1926a [1967: 190])

On the other hand, Whitehead is well aware that religion more often fails than succeeds in this respect, and he writes, for example, that both

Christianity and Buddhism … have suffered from the rise of … science, because neither of them had … the requisite flexibility of adaptation. (1926b [1996: 146])

If the condition of mutual tolerance is satisfied, then, according to Whitehead: “A clash of doctrines is not a disaster—it is an opportunity” (1926a [1967: 186]). In other words, if this condition is satisfied, then the clash between religion and science is an opportunity on the path toward their integration or, as Whitehead puts it:

The clash is a sign that there are wider truths and finer perspectives within which a reconciliation of a deeper religion and a more subtle science will be found. (1926a [1967: 185])

According to Whitehead, the task of philosophy is “to absorb into one system all sources of experience” (1926b [1996: 149]), including the intuitions at the basis of both science and religion, and in Religion in the Making, he expresses the basic religious intuition as follows:

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality. It is not true that the finer quality is the direct associate of obvious happiness or obvious pleasure. Religion is the direct apprehension that, beyond such happiness and such pleasure remains the function of what is actual and passing, that it contributes its quality as an immortal fact to the order which informs the world. (1926b [1996: 80])

The first aspect of this dual intuition that “our existence is more than a succession of bare facts” (idem) is that the quality or value of each of the successive occasions of life derives from a finer quality or value, which lies beyond the mere facts of life, and even beyond obvious happiness and pleasure, namely, the finer quality or value of which life is informed by God. The second aspect is that each of the successive occasions of life contributes its quality or value as an immortal fact to God.

In Process and Reality, Whitehead absorbed this dual religious intuition in terms of the bipolar—primordial and consequent—nature of God.

God viewed as primordial does not determine the becoming of each actual occasion, but conditions it (cf. supra—the initial subjective aim). He does not force, but tenderly persuades each actual occasion to actualize—from “the absolute wealth of potentiality” (1929: 343)—value-potentials relevant for that particular becoming. “God”, according to Whitehead, “is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness” (1929c [1985: 346]).

“The ultimate evil in the temporal world”, Whitehead writes,

lies in the fact that the past fades, that time is a “perpetual perishing.” … In the temporal world, it is the empirical fact that process entails loss. (1929c [1985: 340])

In other words, from a merely factual point of view, “human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience” (1926a [1967: 192]). According to Whitehead, however, this is not the whole story. On 8 April 1928, while preparing the Gifford Lectures that became Process and Reality, Whitehead wrote to Rosalind Greene:

I am working at my Giffords. The problem of problems which bothers me, is the real transitoriness of things—and yet!!—I am equally convinced that the great side of things is weaving something ageless and immortal: something in which personalities retain the wonder of their radiance—and the fluff sinks into utter triviality. But I cannot express it at all—no system of words seems up to the job. (Unpublished letter archived by the Whitehead Research Project)

Whitehead’s attempt to express it in Process and Reality reads:

There is another side to the nature of God which cannot be omitted. … God, as well as being primordial, is also consequent … God is dipolar. (1929c [1985: 345])

The consequent nature of God is his judgment on the world. He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved. (1929c [1985: 346])

The consequent nature of God is the fluent world become ‘everlasting’ … in God. (1929c [1985: 347])

Whitehead’s dual description of God as tender persuader and tender savior reveals his affinity with “the Galilean origin of Christianity” (1929c [1985: 343]). Indeed, his

theistic philosophy … does not emphasize the ruling Caesar, or the ruthless moralist, or the unmoved mover. It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love. (idem)

One of the major reasons why Whitehead’s process philosophy is popular among theologians, and gave rise to process theology, is the fact that it helps to overcome the doctrine of an omnipotent God creating everything out of nothing. This creatio ex nihilo doctrine implies God’s responsibility for everything that is evil, and also that God is the only ultimate reality. In other words, it prevents the reconciliation of divine love and human suffering as well as the reconciliation of the various religious traditions, for example, theistic Christianity and nontheistic Buddhism. In yet other words, the creatio ex nihilo doctrine is a stumbling block for theologians involved in theodicy or interreligious dialogue. Contrary to it, Whitehead’s process philosophy holds that there are three ultimate (but inseparable) aspects of total reality: God (the divine actual entity), the world (the universe of all finite actual occasions), and the creativity (the twofold power to exert efficient and final causation) that God and all finite actual occasions embody. The distinction between God and creativity (that God is not the only instance of creativity) implies that there is no God with the power completely to determine the becoming of all actual occasions in the world—they are instances of creativity too. In this sense, God is not omnipotent, but can be conceived as “the fellow-sufferer who understands” (1929c [1985: 351]). Moreover, the Whiteheadian doctrine of three ultimates—the one supreme being or God, the many finite beings or the cosmos, and being itself or creativity—also implies a religious pluralism that holds that the different kinds of religious experience are (not experiences of the same ultimate reality, but) diverse modes of experiencing diverse ultimate aspects of the totality of reality. For example:

One of these [three ultimates], corresponding with what Whitehead calls “creativity”, has been called “Emptiness” (“Sunyata”) or “Dharmakaya” by Buddhists, “Nirguna Brahman” by Advaita Vedantists, “the Godhead” by Meister Eckhart, and “Being Itself” by Heidegger and Tillich (among others). It is the formless ultimate reality. The other ultimate, corresponding with what Whitehead calls “God”, is not Being Itself but the Supreme Being. It is in-formed and the source of forms (such as truth, beauty, and justice). It has been called “Amida Buddha”, “Sambhogakaya”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Ishvara”, “Yaweh”, “Christ”, and “Allah”. (D. Griffin 2005: 47)

[Some] forms of Taoism and many primal religions, including Native American religions […] regard the cosmos as sacred. By recognizing the cosmos as a third ultimate, we are able to see that these cosmic religions are also oriented toward something truly ultimate in the nature of things. (D. Griffin 2005: 49)

The religious pluralism implication of Whitehead’s doctrine of three ultimates has been drawn most clearly by John Cobb. In “John Cobb’s Whiteheadian Complementary Pluralism”, David Griffin writes:

Cobb’s view that the totality of reality contains three ultimates, along with the recognition that a particular tradition could concentrate on one, two, or even all three of them, gives us a basis for understanding a wide variety of religious experiences as genuine responses to something that is really there to be experienced. “When we understand global religious experience and thought in this way”, Cobb emphasizes, “it is easier to view the contributions of diverse traditions as complementary”. (D. Griffin 2005: 51)