religion essay

TRnotrtoN nNo INca,RNATIoN

in understanding of what is handed on, both the words and the realities they signify. This comes about through contempla- tion and study by believers, who "ponder these things in their hearts" (see Lk 2,19 and 51); through the intimate understand- ing of spiritual things which they experience; and through the preaching of whose who, on succeeding to the office of bish- op, receive the sure charisma of truth. Thus, as the centuries advance, the church constantly holds its course towards the fullness of God's truth, until the day when the words of God reach their fulfillment in the church.

Vatican Il, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965)

ChaPter l

The Great Questions

THE RETIGIOUS DIMENSION

Ourworldisfullofreligions.Mostculturesexhibitwhatwe can intelligently recognize asreligious

behavior' Putting aside un-

iii'Ct"p,"i III the task of defining the term religion, we can note

;;^;t";""er we find human beings we usually find a god or

i"ar, ."1igious behavior, and religious faith' Critics of religion

toth'anci"ent and modern have clismissed it as a mere human creation, a fire around which people who can't bear to imagine

a

cold and indifferent universs huddle' Religious people believe

thatthegodsarequiterealandhavemanifestedthemselves.Crit- ics cannJt deny that the religions of the world, along with their share of charlatans and hypoirites, have also inspired many self-

less and truly holy people *ho- we can't help but admire' In.spite of recurring prophecies that humanity will soon outgrow tnem' religious faith and practice remain.

whether we agree with religious pcople or their critics or simply don't know, the near-universal appeal' the persistence, and the transforming power of religions are intriguing. What is there about human U"ingr that opens them to religions and their claims about things unseen? Where do religious experience and religious language fit into human experience in general'? This chapter will address these questions by trying to lay open what we might call the depth-climension of human experience, that inner- most part of us, best represented by some combination of the traditional symbols of heart and head. It is at this lcvel that we can best hear the words of the philosophers, poets, and gods. We will oegtn by distinguishing between ordinary and extraordinary hu- man experience.

10 TR,qnrrroN a,No INcnnNArroN

ORDINARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE

what is meant here by "ordinary" human experience takes place at the level of what is often called common sense. It is routine. we don't have to think about it. Getting out of bec1, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, putting on your shoes. start- ing your car, driving to school or work are all the kinds of stuff of which the ordinary is made. For our purposes, its distinguishing feature is that we don't have to think about it. The ordinary. day- to-day routine doesn't usually give rise to reflection. we teno io take it for granted.

But to describe ordinary experience as routine is far fr.m dismissing it. without the basic structure it provides, we might all go mad. What would happen. for example. if you hacl to tigrr. out the inner workings of the internal combustion engine every time you wanted to start your car? The routine is comfbrtable. It lets us know what to expect.

Each culture puts at human disposal a set of ready_to_hand things from which we put together our pre-reflective routine. What is common sense for one culture, e.g. cars and planes and how to use them, may be quite extraordinary for anoiher. What you regard as routine or ordinary will be related to your culture.

EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE

At certain points in every life, the routine of ordinary expcri- ence is broken or interrupted in a dramatic way. By contrast with the routine, we can call these disruptions ,.extraordinary.'. The terms ordinary and extraordinary are correlative or defined in relation to one another. To have one you need the other. We recognize and name the extraordinary by its contrast with what we know as ordinary. This gives us the relatively routine or ordi- nary and the relatively extraordinary or special. One of the distin- guishing features of extraordinary experiences is that they can lead people to think more deeply or at a different level than thcy usually do when they are performing day-to-day tasks. Extraordi- nary experiences are quite common in the sense that they happen to everyone at different times. They are only extraordinary in

Tss Gnenr QussrtoNs

relation to the routine of the person who has them' Four exam-

oles will be useo. ro clarify extraordinary experience and its ef-

l"i g Oitrn, death' love' and evil' Birth and death establish the

fl"*A"ti"t of a given routine' Love and evil shape its highs and

lows.

FOUR EXAMPLES

1. Birth. Although some psychologists speak of the "trauma

of birth" and its effects on us, our own births are not an issue

t "r, r am referring rather to births that occur in one's own family

o.-in ott". families that are close to us. Although millions of people are born each day and, in that sense, birth is quite com-

Inon, i, usually only happens in the lives of individual sets of parents, for example, a relatively few times in their lives. In that

,"nr", birth is statistically and personally extraordinary' Some women have described childbirth as an experience of often but not always unspeakable physical pain to be followed by exhilarat- ing joy. Babies represent for us a renewal and reaffirmation of life. They remind us of new beginnings and human possibilities. While we have all seen diagrams of the hit-or-miss process that unites sperm and egg and know quite well how the baby comes into being, we still speak innocently of the "miracle of birth." To hold a newborn baby that is your own flesh and blood, and to realize that this little human beins didn't exist before and now it does, and that you and everyboJy else got here this way, is to know this wonder. The wonder will not last as birth gives way to the demanding routine of infant care and child rearing. But it returns with our occasional reflective binges about what the fu- ture might hold for this new being and about the possibly prodi- glous consequences of how we treat it. These are not the thoughts ot which routines are made. and were we to sustain them inde{i- nitely, they would probably drive us crazy.

ror a pregnant woman who is alone and abandoned, for parents who, for whatever reasons. do not want the routine to be lntruded upon by new life and all its artendant complications. the w^older turns to dread. The two responses are closely related. In Doth cases, the awesome masnitude of new beins invades our

ll

Tna.orrroN,qNo INcaRNAT ToN

lives. It can be greeted as a gracious gift or resisted as an intolera- ble imposition. often we greet new life with complex combina_ tions of the two responses.

2. Death. As with birth. we are not concerned here with our own deaths, but with those of pcople close to us: parents. chil_ dren, relatives. and friends. Death puts a final end to the routine and to life as we know it. In the process, it raises the deepest and most disturbing questions about the possible meaning or absur- dity of human life. Is this it? why are we even born if it is onlv to come to this? Do we just return to the chemical elements out of which we are composed? Anyone who has held a dead chircl. watched a loved one die slowly and painfully, touched the colcl, dead face of one's mother's or father's corpse, knows the awful pull of these questions. This is part of the power of Michelan- gelo's Pietd.

The end of the routine makes us wonder why there is any routine at all. It throws into question the very nature of what we are dealing with in human life. Death enables us to see life whole. and so we use the term life, as in "Life is sad, life is a bust." or "Life, I love you, all is groovy." what about this "rife" we tark about? Is life such that it has it in for us, as it seems when the lives of our fellows are taken away and we are left to face our own mortality? Is life gracious, as it seems when it bestows the eift and promise of new life? or is life simply cold and indifferent'fDo we even have any justification for speaking this way? Such questions become more poignant when death involves the innocenr. a young child, or an obviously good person who has suffered more than we would wish on even the worst of us. Can we expect anything better out of life? why do we even want to or think we have a right to? The old retort that no one ever said life had to be fair cannot take away the sadness or the anger or the longing. We seem to want more than life has to offer. Is this a clue that points to the nature of reality or simply a warning that we need more "realistic" expectations?

Although death raises in dramatic form the question about the ultimate meaning of our lives, we can and do find short of ultimate meanings. If someone were to ask you, for example, why you are here, you could answer at various levels with reference to livelihood, career goals, and personal preferences. These are all

THs Gnenr QuEsrtoNs

short of ultimate meanings. The ultimate meaning is what is true

1.,,i',t" last analysis'''the last meaning, the meaning of all the

ri,ti" r.unings. the last "why" that would answer at the most

,"ji""f level the question about the reason you are here' Perhaps

if,"i" ir no such answer, no ultintate meaning. Death brings us to

iir"-O.in, of facing up to this possibility. Life givcs us death but it

i""i"., tell us what death means. This leaves us in an ambiguous Jiuution. Life might not mean anything in particular beyond the

fini,. n,"unings we give it in terms of our various cultures. The ouestion about ultimate meaning might just be a silly one'

3. Love. Love and evil are used here to stand for what hap- pens in us when we experience the human capacity for selfless Lehavior and the human capacity for cruelty and inhumanity. In the case of love, we are speaking of the effects that unselfish behavior, done for the sake of someone else, might have on the person who receives it. Romantic love is certainly not excluded from such an understanding of love. But love as selfless behavior is much broader than romantic love, and some forms of romantic love can be quite selfish. Although I am committed to the proposi- tion that unselfish behavior is preferable to cruelty, the point here is not primarily an ethical one. It is rather to explore the kinds of questions that our experience of love and evil raise about the human condition. This is pre-ethical.

Experiencing love in the sense meant here often brings one up short. [t comes to us as a eift. unowed and often unexpected. While we might try to manip"ulate the feelings ancl bchaviors of others more often than we'd like to admit. we cannot coerce or control love freely given. The record of human history, as well as the experien.. of riost people, testifies to the extraordinary hu- mal.capacity for heroic self-sacrifice. Among the examples we could include are courageous soldiers who sive their lives for their comrades. daring ."r.u!r, who risk their own lives to save othcrs, ::,T.: and men who devote their lives to care of the poor, thestck. the elderly, and the dying, and mothers ancl fathers whocarry-out the daily nurture of their children. Often wc have a hard l::nerjelieving that orhers could really love us unsetfishly, just for I]:^1. tend to wonder at rheir gifts, suspecting that we don,r "tt:y: them, or fearing that they;ll be taken awiy.

We tend to be in awe of genuine human soodness when we

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1574 TnaorrroN nNo INcRRNATToN

encounter it in such phenomena as faithfulness to promises that we might have broken. Another's love is a potentialjudgment on our own frequently selfish behavior. Oftcn it makcs us feelunwor- thy, challenging our own patterns of behavior, making us wonder if what we consider good in others is really the way wc ought to behave. Again the emphasis here is not on ethics, especialll,if that is understood in its most primitive form as the imposition of external standards. The emphasis is rather on the deep pre-ethical questions about the human condition raised by the experience of love.

4. Evil. This section is not about what modern thcolograns and philosophers sometimes call the problem of evil or theoclicy. (see Chapter lI). Nor is evil being used as a primarily cthical category. Rather, the emphasis is on the decp questions about the human condition raised by our own expcriences of cruclty. inhu- manity, and seemingly undeserved suffering. We can expenencc this kind of evil ourselves or witness as others suffer it. In discuss- ing the problem of evil, theologians and philosophers somctimes distinguish between the kind of evil that others do to us, likc cruelty or inhumanity, and that which befalls or overtakes us by accident, such as cancer or othcr diseascs. Because diseases such as cancer are often caused by the refusal of human agents to take public health into account when they make business decisions. this distinction cannot be too rigidly applied. But it works in a general enough way that we can limit our present concerns to thc kind of evil that is done to us by others. Evil is being used in a common-sense way that precedes ethical reflection. This use pre- sumes our natural revulsion at the crueltv and inhumanity human beings inflict on one another.

The cruel taunts with which children torment one another provide a frightening indication that the human capacity for inhu- manity runs as deep as our capacity fbr heroism. Who among us has not been the clumsy one, thc fat one, the handicapped one' the one that was too smart, the one whose clothes were wrong or whose parents were strange'l Who among us docsn't know some- one who is just downright mean? Who has been spared the sttng of human cruelty? On a grander and more ghastly scale. we have the ovens of Dachau. thc "colored" water fcluntains. lunch ctlull- ters, and schools, and their nagging but subtlc rcsiclucs in Amcri-

THp Gnrlr QuEsrIoNs

^on soci€ty. What would you have felt if you were a Jew being

ll"".ir.nted upon or incinerated simply for being a Jew, a black il,in U.ing lynched in the segregated south simply for being ili".nf ThLse are the taunts of children raised to the most grue- ..,ra Oo*.rs. Anger. rage. determination. resignation. or despair .unnoi take away the radical sense that such things should not be

allowed to happen to us. Religious people ask where their God

has gone. We feel we have the right not only to complain but to

lament and protest such treatment to whatever powers there are.

At some deep level such behavior strikes at our very sense of humanity. Like life itself, the human begins to emerge against the background of the recognizably inhuman. What is human any- way? What are human beings that they seem to have such divided capacities?

The most disturbing moment in our reflections on our re- sponses to human cruelty comes when we begin to realize that we are brothers and sisters to the grand inquisitors and the Hitlers of our world. Our hearts can twist themselves into the kinds of knots that lead to the point where we can write off whole groups of people as less than what we are. We have all invoked our own particular versions of the final solution.

We are weak composites of conflicting motives and impulses. We fail to live up to the very ideals we have set for ourselves. We break faith with the ones we love. This is not to deny that some- times we can be heroically faithful. Sometimes we do come through. It is precisely this ambiguity that raises the deepest ques- tlons about us. What kind of beings are we? How ought we to act? Should our behavior lead to profound regret at our weakness or !_nlV

to. cynicism about all forms of oughts, whether they come rrom within or without us?

SU-MMARY CHARACTERI STI CS UF EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES

"".-Il_._t:ur examples used here to illustrate exrraordinary experi-

Xllt^t^it.jY no means exhaustive. In his book Faith and Doctrine, .:|:|?ty Baum, a Canadian rheologian, adds more descriptions ofwnat he calls "depth-experienc".],, both secular and relisious.

TsE Gnenr QuesrtoNs t716 Tna.orrroN nNn IUcnRNATIoN

Among his examples of secular depth-experiences he inclucles friendship, conscience, truth, human solidarity, and compassi6n- ate protest. These and many other examples could be developed along the lines indicated here to formulate the kinds of questions about the human condition that open up its depth dimension. \Vs can summarize the preceding experiences in the following way:

First, extraordinary experiences are strikingly different from the routine or the ordinary against which they appear. They tend to break the patterns of our experience in dramatic ways. Ib locate them in the geography of experience, we often use spatial metaphors. Thus we speak of the "depths" of human expcrience or its "borders" or "limits" or "peaks."

Second, in themselves extraordinary experiences are ambigu- ous. Death, for example, does not also tell us what death should mean, how we should interpret it, or answer the questions that it raises. Death is therefore ambiguous, admitting of more than one possible interpretation.

Third, we tend to remember extraordinary experiences, and they can exert powerful influences on the direction of our lives. The stronger or more striking they are, the more power they have to affect us.

Fourth, because of their unusual character, extraordinary ex- periences often lead us to think seriously about the meaning and direction of our lives. This kind of thinking or reflection takes place at a different level, usually we call it "deeper," than the kind of thinking we do in the everyday world of common scnse. Extra- ordinary experiences often give rise to questions that are very difficult to answer with our usual problem solving methods.

THI QUESTION OF UITIMATI MEANING

From the discussion of extraorclinary experiences and the questions they raise. we can conclude that' at its "depths"'or whatever metaphor we choose, the human condition can be de-

scribed as mystirious. Because we are talking about the extraordi- nary, the term myster-y is not being used in the ordinary sense it has when we refer to "'mystery stories." In this latter sense, mys- teries can be solved conclusively on the basis of evidence' The

r*'*ftnff''r'lt*'-*g** instruction manuals'

the human concutlon involve us personally' we can only answer

them with personat decisions' O:l]:,t^",ltl of mystery' the poem'

the song, or the story is more appropriate than the memorandum'

iit" t""'"'t'.ol the encyclopedia' nnor"^'- -W" find that at its deepest levels' human experlence ca

"r"oun-, ior itsett in a pureiy theoretical way' It raises questions

that cannot be answeied unless we acknowledge our personal

innolu.nr.nt in them. we can say thilt human cxperiencc carries

withinitselfthispossibilityforreflection.becausecertainexperi- ences lead us to question ihe meaning of all experience.

This last

is what is meant by the question of ultimate meaning. It asks aboutthefinalmeaningofalltheshort-of.ultimatemeanlngsln our lives. Why are we'here? What becomes of us in the end?

What is our final purpose? What is a human being and how ought

we to behave towardone another? These are the great questions,

the deep questions about the human condition' ..Numberless are the world's wonders," said the Greek play-

wright Sophocles, "but none more wonderful than man" (Antig- ,n", S."n" I). It is important to emphasize thal the wonder about the human condition expressed by the great questions has not been imposed on experience from outside by out-of-touch schol- ars and professors. itrough we would each give voice to them in our own way, we have all felt the great questions. They are givcn with experience, rising up from out of its depths.

Tb return to the question with which this chapter began, we can say that religion fits into experience and appeals to us at the same deep level where we encounter life as mystery and the vari- ous questions that reveal it as mysterious. All serious literature operates at the same level, exploring and rendering the great questions into the literary forms of poetry and narrative. To treat religious matters as routine, disposable commodities in the every- day world is to trivialize them ernd turn religion into a banal form of magic or a sick game that the gods force us to play. Serious

t91B TnaorrroN a,No INcRnNATToN TsB Gneer Qus,srloNs

unfettered self' unconscious of prior connections to family and

ilir'r.O, t".,s completely free to ask the great questions and suffi-

'^,--rl" mobile and unbound to follow wherever the questions

i""i.'tt,i, image has a certain heroic or larger-than-life aspect. In

,il-r,ori"r of our culture, the heroic, solitary searcher holds a

noble Place'""" fire second image is that of an individual in context, situated in a particular place and time and in a particular network of ,"tution. to people in family, community, nation, and church. This

i*ug" reminds the questioner to pay attention to the settings in wtriitr the great questions might arise. The inheritance of shared

language, culture, and religion shapes such settings and supplies

terms in which we can ask and answer questions about the human

condition. Each reader is both a solitary and a contextual questioner.

Academic life tends to emphasize the disengaged posture of the first image. It teaches us to "trust lonely reason primarily" (Rodri- guez,46). But experience should teach us that we don't encounter the human condition raw. Though our questions about human life are deeply personal, historical contexts shape their forms and tones. Our thoughts and questions about death, for example, don't occur in a vacuum. They must be posed in some particular language or other.

In this chapter on the great questions, readers have been addressed as if they were simply solitary, disconnected question- ers. Emphasis on the individual inquirer is useful at the outset. Its abstract approach minimizes the historical differences among readers and thus appeals to the widest audience. Subsequent chap- ters-' however, will challenge readers increasingly to take account of the fact that questioning is not only privatsand personal, but also profoundly social or contextual.

Another word for context is tradition.l want to use it to refer l?^th: sea of historical connections (linguistic, national, and reli- glous) in which individuals swim. A tradition is an historical con-text or network of linpuisrii;;;.',Y' rrctworK oi llnguistic. personal. and cultural relationships.wtthin such networks, individuals learn how to be individuals.

religious faith and practice can only make sense to someone who has felt the deep and mysterious ambiguity of the human concli_ tion and felt the urgency of the question to which it gives rise. At the level of mystery, life requires of us a certain op.nn.r, repre- sented by the pitgrim attitude of the wayfarer. Marcel calls us Homo viator, human being on the way.

If human experience is open-ended and mysterious, thcn it can admit of, but does not require, religious interpretations. we can exclude religious interpretations, if we choose to, but we cannot demonstrate that the evidence of experience requires this of us. None of the examples discussed above is, strictly speaking, religious. As we shall see below, however, religious people orten so experience them. At this point, we can only conclude that the ultimately mysterious quality of human existence, opened by the great questions, leaves life open to a religious interpretation.

THE pOStTtvE RotE oF TRAD|T|ON tN QUESTTONTNG

Why are we here? What becomes of us in the end,l What is our final purpose? What is a human being and how ought we to behave toward one another? These are some of the great ques- tions. As one begins to reflect on them, two approaches present themselves. The following pair of images captures the contrast between them.

First image: Picture yourself at your desk in your room. you are alone. It's evening. In the lamplight you can see the paper in front of you as you write. The paper is blank, and you are fie e to fill it with your own thoughts. It is as if you were the only pcrson in the world.

Second image: Picture yourself in church on Sunclay or on a city sidewalk for a Fourth of July parade. you are surrounded by other people, but also by the inherited words and symbols of your religion or nation. You share these words and symbols with the other people in church or on the sidewalks. Sometimes you speak the words together as in the creed or the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Your imaginations respond similarly, though not identi- cally, to common symbols such as the cross ancl the flag.

The first is an image of a solitary individual questioner. This

learn how to be individuals.,FL :-vr"vrAJ, rrrulvluudlJ rg4ltl ltLrw LL, utt tllulvlLludtlr. j,lll !""T^,he categories in terms of which they talk and act andtlrnrl- - ,',;l ono hnd meaning in their lives. Traditions are not mono-tirr,:_ -"- rrrru ilr€itlrlrlg ln tnelr llves. lraclltlons are not mono_rrtnlc or uniform or one-sided. Rather, they are like ongoing con-

2120 TnaorrroN nNo INcnRNATToN

versations. The points of view and the shades of emphasis in the conversation are often functions of money and power. Thus tracli- tions embody not only conversation but also bitter argument and political struggle. The key aspect of tradition, however, is that it provides the framework and the terms in which conversations s1 political struggle can be conducted and sometimes movecl fo1_ ward. As a result of such movement, power relationships x1s often changed.

An excellent example of a tradition is American law. It is itself a particular development in the Anglo-Saxon legar tradition. The body of precedent doesn't provide ready-made answers ro each new legal question. Rather it provides the framework and the terms in which answers emerge from a process of dialogue that is designed to test competing claims to truth in a conflictual setting.

If you are an American, the legal tradition of the United States is part of your cultural context or inheritance. you carry rr around inside of you even if you never think of it. It shapes vour ideas of what is fair and what you have a right to expect in pubhc dealings with people, especially people you don't know. To realize how much your own legal tradition has shaped your sense of what is fair, you need only compare it with an alien legal tradition.

The fact th:rt you could make such a comparison illustrates that traditions are not absolutely closed and isolated from onc another, but open to dialogue. The example of American law also illustrates that traditions are open to political change. When the leaders of the civil rights movement in the Unitecl States wanted to end segregation, they made an internal critique of the laws that made it possible. They criticized segregation as unjust in thc legal terms provided by the American tradition. They appealed to the American legal tradition and to its sense of what is fair. They struggled and they won, and power relationships changed.

Tradition so understood is both limiting and enabling or free- ing. Tradition literally means "what has been handed on." The term is intended to emphasize the historical or inherited character of context. Each of us carries around within ourselves-evefl when we are alone at our desks-an inherited language, an inher- ited family from an inherited people in an inherited culturzrl set- ting. To try to think seriously without adverting to our manifold

Tsr Gnnnr QussrtoNs

inheritance i.s naivl,in the extreme. lf we should decide that our

i)i"ritance is too limiting and needs to be overcome to some )lli"r.we will find that the best resources available for overcom- iiii, urr, paradoxically, those we have inherited. Though appeals t'oiradition are often used

to suffocate growth and repress ques-

itn., *. must acknowledge that the very terms we use to ques- iion una challenge inherited authorities havc been themselves

inherited from a living tradition. Tradition or inheritance is alive

and constantly being refashioned by individuals who inhabit it and

contribute to its ongoing convcrsation. Catholicism has been called the longest-lived intellectual tra-

dition in the west. One of the goals of this book is to convey to the reader a sense of how the Catholic intellectual tradition works. I have emphasized context, historical setting, inheritance, and tradition-intending them as virtually synonymous-because one cannot understarrd what it means to think and question as a Catho- lic without a positive feel for tradition as simultaneously enabling and limiting. What we inherit not only limits what we can do-the usual emphasis of our culture-but it also enables us to do what we can do. Tradition is not simplv inert and suffocatins. It is also

Pope John Paul II on the dltnamic nature of traditions:

From this open search for truth, which is rencwed in every generation, the culture of a nation clerives its character. In- deed. the heritage of values which has been received and nanded down is always challenged by the young. To challenge

Loes not necessarily mean to destroy or rcject a priori, but

above all to put these values to the test in one's own life, andtnrough this existential verification to make them more real, l"].,Yl", and personal, clistinguishing the valid elements in thetradition from false and erroneori on"r, or from obsoletetorms which can be usefully replaceci by others more suited tothe times.

Cente.simus Annus, 1991, Paragraph 50

L-'t22 Tna,nrrtoN nNo INcnnNATIoN

alive and enabling. It harbors its own resourccs for self-critici5ry and growth.

Questions for Review and Discussion

1. Discuss the diffcrence between complex, cveryday questions. such as how to repair a transmission or program a compurer. and ultimate, or deep, questions.

2. what is ambiguous about our expericnce of birth ancJ cleath,l 3. Why is the discussion of love and evil callcd ..pre-cthical..,/

4. Based on your experience, how would you pose the question of ultimate meaning?

-5. Are music and literaturc "just entcrtainment," or can they also open us up to the depth-dimension of human life'l

6. Argue for or against the claim that human life is ultimatelv open-ended and mysterious.

7. This chapter has claimed that human life has a clepth- dimension, and further that religion becomes meaningful to us at this level. Do you agree or disagree with these claims'J llx- plain.

From what has bcen said in this chapter. how would you define the term tradition.!

What is the rolc of tradition in asking the great clucstions'/ How can you be an individual and make your own free choices, if you always carry around insidc you so many con- nections to the past?

For Writing and Reflection

1. Write a descriptivc essay about an cxtraordinary experience you have had. Show how it ope ned up thc depth-dimension by raising ultimate questions or causing deep rcflcction.

2. Write a descriptive essay about an extraordinary experience you have cncountered in a film, novel, plav. poctry, or song. or

TuE Gnsa.r QunsrtclNs

about the reflections such works of art might have occasioned

in You.

write an autobiographical cssay in which you discuss both the

fin,itlng and the enabling aspccts of the tradition(s) you inher-

ited.

For Further Reading

The kinds of reflections that appear in this chapter are often

simplifications of lines of thought found in the writings of the continental philosophers known as "phenomenologists" c\r. more

popularly, "existentialists." Gabriel Marccl's T-he Mystery of Be- ing,2vols. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co. ' 1960). originally deliv- ered as a series of lectures in 1949 and 1950, offers useful access to this kind of thinking.

The approach to tradition taken in this chapter is indebted to the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900- ). His book Tiuth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975; origi- nal edition 1960), pp. 235-344, especially 24,5-58, provides an account of how tradition is a componcnt in all of our understand- ing.

In his autobiography Httnger ol' Memory (New York: Bantam Books, 1983), Richard Rodriguez offers a moving narrative ap- proach to the interaction betwee n an individual and tradition. the private and the public, as he terms them.

8.

9.

10.