A Philosophical Theology for Interfaith Dialogue
Here are some categories that I use as conceptual placeholders, nothing tightly
systematic, just a loose heuristic to help keep useful distinctions in mind.
There are a lot of implicit presuppositions that we bring to the inter-faith table in
dialogue, which can have us talking past one another without our knowing it. So, I like
to be on the lookout for how it is others are approaching an issue from the following
angles: 1) anthropology , our view of humanity; Phil's tripartite superhighways
approach comprises a rather classic approach to what it is that we each bring to
reality, for example, intellect, will and awareness 2) methodology or epistemology ,
or what it is that we find ourselves doing with that intellect, will and awareness in our
approach to reality; I suggest that we describe, evaluate, norm, interpret and
participate with reality, which is just another way of describing Lonergan's and others'
hermeneutical spirals 3) axiology or the ends to which we aspire, such as truth,
beauty, goodness and unity, the ends toward which we strive with our methodologies
4) phenomenal experience , or the manifold and multiform impacts reality has on
our internal milieu, which is distinct from 5) phenomenology or metaphysics or
ontology , which attempt to account for reality, phenomenology employing vague,
more or less, common sense terms, and metaphysics aspiring, speculatively, to more
robust descriptions using root metaphors like being, substance, process, experience
and so on to describe our internal and external milieus and 6) our theological
responses , their performative significance moreso than their speculative content .
Our theological responses then include such things as a) theological anthropology ,
who is this created-co-creator, wo/man, vis a vis ultimate reality? b) paterology , who
is this creator, God? c) christology , who is this anointed one, Christ? d)
pneumatology , who is this Spirit? e) apophatic theology , pointing to the very
ground of being ? increasing our descriptive accuracy via negation? f) soteriology ,
why are we so needy and how are we made whole, justification ? g) sophiology , how
are we made holy? what return shall we make? sanctification ? h) eschatology ,
where's all of this finally headed? glorification ? i) ecclesiology , how are we made a

people of God?
Further explicating item 5, phenomenology, I have introduced four categories, which
pretty much correspond to classical categories of our encounter of world, self,
other/God and ultimacies: a) intra-objective identity of unitary being b) intersubjective intimacy of our unitive strivings c) intra-subjective integrity of one's
unified self and d) inter-objective indeterminacy of an ultimate unicity .
When all of this is taken together, we can describe what's going on in terms of
witnessing revelation, both in terms of general and special revelation. To wit, below
are 5 examples of each, respectively:
General Revelation: 1) descriptive sciences 2) evaluative cultures 3) normative
philosophies 4) interpretive spiritualities (via a ubiquitous pneumatological
imagination , although variously developed) 5) participative imaginations , all of
these engagements methodologically-autonomous but axiologically-integral , meaning
each probes reality with distinct questions but none, alone, are sufficient, all being
necessary, for human value-realizations. The undue emphases then manifest as
various scientisms, relativisms, rationalisms, spiritualisms and gnosticisms and so on.
Special Revelation: 1) sacred scriptures 2) religious traditions 3) ecclesial
magisteria 4) theological interpretations 5) ecclesial participations ( sensus
fidelium ), again integrally-related, each presupposing the others. The undue
emphases then manifest as sola scriptura, fideism, traditionalism, hierarchicalism,
super-rationalism, radical apophaticism and individualism and so on.
Optimally, for any given engagement of reality, none of these witnesses should be
ignored, none over- or under-emphasized, all duly emphasized, though each may
enjoy a certain primacy vis a vis the particular value-realization in play, but
methodological primacy does not imply axiological autonomy.
See Chart Below, enlarged here:
http://johnboy.philothea.net/2012_archived/witnesses%20to%20revelation.jpg

With those distinctions in mind, as introduced above, one caveat that seems to enjoy a
consensus view, at least, so far in this thread, is the distinction between one's
phenomenal experience and any ontological conclusions. Let me suggest, however,
another distinction, which is that between an ontological conclusion and an
ontological implication. I don't think we want to suggest that our phenomenal
experiences do not have ontological implications but I do think we go too far, saying
way more than we could possibly know, proving way too much, if we then try to
articulate those implications in robustly descriptive metaphysical terms rather than
vaguely suggestive phenomenological categories. Also, engaging other witnesses to
revelation, there are certainly no ontological or metaphysical implications that come
from our phenomenal experiences during meditation that we do not also have some
access to through philosophical reflection, scientific investigation and so on. There is
no privileged gnosis. THAT reality suggests both ontological continuity and
discontinuity, autonomy and quasi-autonomy, some clear inter-relatedness even,
beyond the merely analogical, even with God, seems to be a universal intuition but

attempts to suggest just HOW this might be so should be more modest and tentative
with an epistemic humility proper to the highly complex ontological realities we
propose to model.
It often seems to me that enlightenment experiences often engender - not only truly
holy end-products , like compassion & deep consolations as well as some very
practically efficacious by-products, like angst-free existential outlooks, but also some metaphysical waste-products , like certain philosophy of mind positions. The
leap from a phenomenal experience of unitary being to a metaphysical description of
consciousness, itself, is nothing short of fantastic (etymology = fantasy). It is as if,
alongside space, time, mass and energy, a new primitive is given, consciousness,
when all the empirical evidence suggests that consciousness clearly emerged from
those realities and not vice versa. It is as if, after finally exorcising the ghost from
inside the dualistic Cartesian machine and realizing that there are no homunculi
taking up residence in each human mind, some have posited a singular absolute
homunculus , Who, as the One, gazes out of its own manifesting plurality of the Many at
reality, often curiously forgetting Who s/he is and therefore grounding all things
soteriological in anamnesis (not forgetting or remembering or ridding oneself of
delusion and illusion). Now, this account would amount to a harsh caricature of
Eastern approaches writ large if I did not clarify that it is not usually the East that thus
interprets nondual realizations metaphysically (although some religious cohorts
have) but, instead, it has been westerners, who have misapplied such metaphysical
lenses to practices, which are intended to lead one into an experience and not toward
ontological conclusions.
But allow me to set all of that aside to turn our attention to another angle, which is that
distinction between the phenomenal experience (including as well as our
anthropological and psychological accounts) and what those experiences can
sometimes mean spiritually as they might correlate with various types of consolation,
which would indeed comprise part of the soteriological, healing trajectory of our
primary encounters, variously, with God 1) as creativity, Father, 2) as contingency,
Son, 3) as relational, Spirit, all determinate (via paterology, christology &
pneumatology) and 4) as ground, Indeterminate Being-Itself, Ultimate & Uncreated.
Consider, then, these Ignatian accounts of consolation :
http://www.theway.org.uk/Back/s104McGuinness.pdf and also
http://povcrystal.blogspot.com...thout-cause.html?m=1. What I am tossing out for
consideration is that I would not cursorily dismiss the possibility of authentic
consolations flowing through certain of these experiences and I would not facilely

categorize them as necessarily ensuing with or without preceding causes (or even
some combination thereof), as this requires careful and individual, not categorical,
discernment. Such consolations do not gift one with speculative gnosis,
metaphysically or theologically, but do gift us with self-authenticating en-couragement, no more and no less real, perhaps, because it's more vs less mediated, but the
gift of a sovereign God, Who equips us each with all that is required for us to take our
next good step on the journey, moving more swiftly and with less hindrance as She so
decrees.

categorize them as necessarily ensuing with or without preceding causes (or even
some combination thereof), as this requires careful and individual, not categorical,
discernment. Such consolations do not gift one with speculative gnosis,
metaphysically or theologically, but do gift us with self-authenticating en-couragement, no more and no less real, perhaps, because it's more vs less mediated, but the
gift of a sovereign God, Who equips us each with all that is required for us to take our
next good step on the journey, moving more swiftly and with less hindrance as She so
decrees.