When I was a child my father would always goad me to light up some incense in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary and pray to her before I went to sleep. That got stuck into my head until I was in high school, when I actually had the capacity to ask some questions, especially regarding faith. I asked: to whom was I really praying? Now, this becomes problematic, especially since the Catholic faith holds certain dogmatic truths that cannot be altered. The main problem, therefore, is to keep the essential.
But what is essential in one’s faith? Surely, it must be dogma, for dogma presupposes an exhausted understanding of a certain faith element, cemented through tradition. But I beg to differ; if dogma is the essential core of my faith, then there is no possibility for addressing other faiths. It must not be dogma. It seems meaningful that we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks; precisely because dogma takes precedence over human experience, we now live in a bleaker world full of fundamentalisms, both theistic and atheistic.
I continued to find a faith that contains what seems to me what is essential to human existence; I explored the mystical chords of Christian Gnosticism, the seemingly esoteric passages of Zen Buddhism, and even agnosticism, but in the end I have come to realize that there are “grains” of truths in each of these religious systems. I once asked Eddieboy Calasanz if it would be possible to “fuse” faiths together, such that you only take what is “essential” in order to have a spirituality that makes sense only for you. He said cryptically: “A true center is a center that is not located anywhere because everything is its center.”
During the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I had the chance to go to the places of worship of different religions. Strangely enough, all of them spoke of the reality of impermanence and suffering, of living in solidarity with the oppressed, of peace. I’ve always thought that only Christianity had an understanding of a preferential option for the poor; I realized that my Ateneo education has been unfortunately limited to the Christian perspective.
Of course one must understand that this university is a Christian and Catholic university, but one must also ask: how are the other faiths represented? If the word “Catholic” means universal, then where is the universe of faiths in Ateneo? This all the more seems confusing because of the fact that some people within this community don’t seem to embody the value of charity. So I ask myself: are the core subjects failing in their vision of holistic formation?
The problem seems all the more urgent on the national level—a number of recent controversies have all been regarding the relationship of the Church with the State. Some have accused the Church of being anti-poor, anti-life. The secular society has likewise been accused of not holding human agency in high regard. Both sides have been accused of intellectual and physical violence, both of which are horribly and unfortunately unfounded and uncritical. Whether pretentious clergyman or “free thinker,” everyone is guilty of this.
Going back to the inter-faith exposure trip, all the religions spoke of justice. The Hindus have high regard for human solidarity and societal cooperation; the Buddhists emphasized emptying oneself in order to teach others to accept suffering; the Muslims would always mention that Islam means “peace.” Christianity itself traces its roots to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who, after all, asks us to love those who are in the fringes of society. Even secular humanism would tell us that even if there might not be an intelligent design in the universe, the main point is to extend one’s hand toward the other. Perhaps that was the essential element of any religion, the oft-sought out “core” of belief itself: it is not only a belief in an all-good God in the midst of suffering, but the fact that one can love other people as God would love them.
Social justice is the key to talking with other religions. Everyone can understand what suffering is, what injustice is, because everyone has an experience of it. Experience teaches us to move ourselves further into ourselves, to strive to reach for a center, only to find it outside oneself – and what is a center outside oneself but everything but myself?
How would it be a delight if an organization that focuses on grassroots inter-faith dialogue appears in Ateneo—that way, people can have a glimpse of other belief systems by immersing themselves into the multi-faith communities. That way, Ateneo can also give its students the opportunity to be open to the truths that a particular religious system engenders. It will also show the world and the so-called “free-thinking” critics that religions do not promote pain and suffering, and instead offers a response of suffering as a response of compassion and solidarity.
Now, try replacing the word “faith” all throughout the article with the word “person,” and it still makes perfect sense, if not deeper. Even without religious discourse, social justice can be a bridge of understanding across different cultures and traditions. One is enlightened at the fact that the word “person” comes from the Latin term persona, which signifies dialogue. The Humanities, therefore, must always include the other person in trying to understand itself. Perhaps that is the reason why some people fail to see the significance of the holistic formation given to them by Ateneo: they hold on to their ideas too tightly that they forget that to be a person is to speak.
And what are we pushed to speak of? That there is impermanence and suffering in the world, but in spite of this, we can work it out through solidarity and compassion, thus attaining peace. This is what I think religions can offer us: a way of understanding the world that is wrought in suffering and injustice, and yet a hope, not for an eventual utopia (that will never come anyway), but for other people.
I’ve always despised taking up the incense and worshipping what I didn’t believe in; but now, I can hold it with dignity, knowing that rituals are traces of a rich cultural heritage (insofar as the rituals do not override the call to action), and that the essential—peace—is always the same. But of course, lighting up the incense is not the point of social justice. It is all about contemplative action, something that is unfortunately missing in Ateneo, both in the administrative level and in the student level. Perhaps we should reawaken this activist spirit of charity.
Eddieboy’s answer cannot be more correct. To not see God in all things is to not see Him at all.
Jefferson Chua, a senior philosophy major, is the president of Samahan sa Pilosopiya. He is also the editor-in-chief of Pilosopo Tasyo, the official Ateneo student publication on philosophy published every semester.
