Like other categories of thought, religion remains unthought in Pakistan. That is why in a majority of the cases we witness, there are more polemics and debates about religion than there are attempts to understand religion, let alone generating knowledge about it. Thus, we have a total absence of production of knowledge about the philosophy of religion and theology in the country. The apathy to religious studies is evident in the absence of any specialized degrees in comparative religion, theology and religions other than Islam in the Pakistani universities. This situation appears quite paradoxical as to how it is possible that a society so steeped in religion and religiosity can have zero contribution towards the philosophy of religion.
To explore any issue or entity, it is imperative to raise pertinent questions. The nature of question determines the direction of our intellectual exploration. Before delving deep into the debate of religion, we must try to understand: what makes religion the religion. According to Rudolf Otto religion is about the ‘the Holy’ or ‘numinous.’ Emile Durkheim calls it ‘the sacred’, whereas Paul Tillich terms it the object of ‘unconditional concern.’ Although these definitions define certain aspects of religion, they do not provide an all encompassing definition because of the diversity of contexts from which religions emerge. Therefore, it is better to approach religion through a deconstructive method, which is in the words of Max Charlesworth “an attempt to reveal the historical and cultural and other ways in which a discourse, or disciplined or sphere of human thought, is built up.”
The search for the origin of religion takes us to ancient sites and caves which provide evidence of proto religions and its followers. There are rock carvings on the caves of Lascaux in southern France, Africa and other parts of the world. The caves are estimated to be 17,000 years old. Among different figures of animals in the drawings, there were men in a state of trance with upraised arms. Karen Armstrong thinks they are probably shamans who can be called the first homo religiosus – religious animal. Since then religion has taken different shapes in response to different challenges of changed times. The varieties of religions that emerged on the face of earth ranges from pre-axial worldly religions and soteriological religions – the religions of salvation or liberation, to modern cult figures.
Etymologically, the word religion is derived from Latin religare means ‘to bind’. Historically, religion enacted a pivotal role as a binding force in different societies. Contrary to religion, the vocation of philosophy is breaking the mental shackles and idols that bind our thinking. Therefore, philosophy is a hammer that break the idols of any category be it religious or profane. Apparently, both philosophy and religion appears to be diametrically opposed. Hence, they are bound to clash with each other. However, the history of philosophy reveals that it is not much clash around labels but against any frame of mind that congeals over the time into uncompromising orthodoxy in its religious and profane forms. Hence, we can say that philosophy is a hammer that smalls the idols of thoughts.
Our current perception of philosophy as inherently anti-religious stem from the culture of disbelief created by modernity. Otherwise, historically, a majority of philosophers and scientists were religious. A philosopher’s fight is basically against the time for she sees the dominant order of things and knowledge through a perspective that is out of sync with the time. Thus, only becoming untimely, a philosophy becomes timely. By the same token, it can be said that any attempt to look at religion through philosophical lens is bound to challenge the dominant paradigm of religion.
The reason for the world wars and mass killing, even in the most godless century lies in the fact that the nation-state and ideology have been turned into idols for worship. John Hick treats modern secular schools of thoughts as religions of a post-axial age, for they are salvation oriented, with a firm faith in their ideology. Because of its Utopian vision, Nietzsche called socialism “latent Christianity.”
In history, philosophy remained at loggerheads with different entities. It took a drastic turn during the movement of the Enlightenment, when philosophers of both secular and atheistic persuasions challenged religion and forced it to become subservient to the disenchanted order. The most significant pronouncement came in the shape of ‘death of God’ by Friedrich Nietzsche. Unlike his contemporaries who were celebrating the success of new age inaugurated by reason, Nietzsche dreaded the age of reason. Unlike his contemporaries who were exulting the triumph of reason, he dreaded the emerging society for he feared that the emergence of a sanguinary century in the rationalized world. His fears came true in the twentieth century at the start of which he died.
With the victory of Enlightenment in the world, the proponents of reason and opponents of religion were confident that dominance of reason will end exploitations, wars and parochial ways of looking at things. These hopes were soon dashed when the World War I started and resulted in annihilation of millions of lives. Again, after a pause of two decades, the world plunged into another nihilistic World War II, resulting in the killing of 60 million people within a short period (1939-1945). Never in history has humanity witnessed carnage at the scale and sophistication of killing as it witnessed in the twentieth century. This fact compelled philosophers to contemplate the reasons for genocide at the universal scale in an age where religion was totally sidelined. Karen Armstrong rightly states that “the twentieth century presented with one nihilistic icon after another, and many of the extravagant hopes of modernity and the Enlightenment were shown to be false.”
These tragic events of both the world wars led to soul searching among philosophers who uncovered the process that transformed modern institutions into churches and the most liberating ideas into justificatory discourse for murder and mayhem. The reason for the world wars and mass killing, even in the most godless century lies in the fact that the nation-state and ideology have been turned into idols for worship. John Hick treats modern secular schools of thoughts as religions of a post-axial age, for they are salvation oriented, with a firm faith in their ideology. Because of its Utopian vision, Nietzsche called socialism “latent Christianity.”
At epistemic level, Talal Asad questions the employment of very word religion in the modern age. He argues that the modern definition of religion is essentialist because modern reason is in ‘…itself the historical product of discursive processes,” i.e., within the cultural location of secular modernity.’ Talal argument points towards important connections of conceptual categories with power. The world we inhabit today is basically constituted by the concepts and sensibilities of the grammar that transform the religious imbued meaning into secular. His magisterial book “Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam ” basically traces these genealogies of change under the rational spirit of the Enlightenment. Upon the excavation of layers of modern reason and its consequences, we find an unreason. So going against the grain, philosophy today reasons against the unreason of the dominant reason.
What is to stay here is capitalism, which has become global religion because of its outreach, influence and lifestyle. Today bank balance is our virtue, which can guarantee a safe future. Stock exchanges in the big cities around the world are cathedrals.
Owing to their belief in liberating ideology, the believers in the end of history do not balk at imposing their ideas, institutions and lifestyle on the people who have different cultural background and ideas about society. This apathetic zeal of transformation and unidimensional thinking is akin to a religious worldview that sees the world in terms of good and evil, and reflects a typical attitude of holier than thou. Currently, the world is in anarchy because the dominating institutions, ideas and lifestyle are considered indispensable to the well-being of people. Any deviation from these will lead to death and destruction. This attitude is not different from religious fanatics, who see other believers as evil and any deviation from religiously prescribed ways a prologue to the end of world.
Currently, the world is occupied with the war on terror in which some vested interests employ religion as a bogeyman to keep attention of the masses away from the real mechanics behind the new wars all over the world with no visible enemy. There is a tendency to attribute the resurgence of religious fundamentalism as the return of religion. The kind of violence from religious fundamentalists we are witnessing today will ultimately disappear. At the same time, archaic or traditional ways of religion will also disappear. Religion will remain alive in this century, but in new forms of spirituality, which expresses itself in art and aesthetics. George Steiner asserts ‘the encounter with the aesthetic is, together with certain modes of religious and metaphysical experience, the most “ingressive,” transformative summons available to human experiencing.” And novel is considered the most representative medium expressing sense and sensibilities of modern age.
What is to stay here is capitalism, which has become global religion because of its outreach, influence and lifestyle. Today bank balance is our virtue, which can guarantee a safe future. Stock exchanges in the big cities around the world are cathedrals. In the time of distress, there are savior angels of banks and lending institutions. In addition, this world view has a strong military force behind it. When a conviction coalesces with military might, then it is difficult to confront such a force. The situation in our time has become difficult because the dominance of mass media, schooling and the hegemony of cultural apparatus has created idols that cannot be challenged. When all things in the world turn into nail, then it is the duty of philosophers to philosophize with hammer to hammer in their iconoclastic ideas and smash modern idols.
Prophets appeared on the horizon of history when the world was simple. Today, our world has become too complex. For this complexity, we need holistic thinking at a prophetic level, in a non-religious sense. It was probably Karl Jasper who lamented the fact that our age has lost the capacity to produce prophets. The last prophets of the modern age were Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Unfortunately, their votaries have turned the former into idol and the latter into saint. That was what Nietzsche feared the most. He said, “I have a terrible fear I shall one day be pronounced holy.” Today, philosophy has to fulfill its duty by smashing modern idols and religions which control our life by donning modern garbs, and demand religious faith in their ideological agenda by riding roughshod over “others” who do not toe the line of their religion.
In forthcoming articles, we will examine how a uniform ideology dominates politics and epistemic approaches, and the attempts to break the theoretical universality of epistemes in both the Christian and Muslim contexts.