Scriptural reasoning: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:17, 30 March 2023

Revision as of 15:22, 30 March 2023

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Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish three commonly-cited and not mutually-exclusive purposes.

==== 1. ''L'shma:'' For its own sake or for God's sake ====

According to David Ford, one should practice SR because studying scripture is intrinsically valuable. On this view, one practices SR for the same reasons and in the same spirit that most traditional Abrahamic readers have studied their scriptures. David Ford makes this point using the Hebrew term "''l'shma''":<blockquote>''This practice of shared reading could be done for its own sake—or, better, for God’s sake.'' Each of the three traditions has its own ways of valuing the study of its scriptures as something worth doing quite apart from any ulterior motive. Scriptural Reasoning might of course have all sorts of practical implications, but to do it above all for God’s sake—as Jews say, ''l’shma'' — encourages purity of intention and discourages the mere instrumentalising of inter-faith engagement.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ford|2011}}</ref></blockquote>The term ''l'shma,'' which literally means "for the name," is ambiguous, capable of signifying Torah study "for its own sake" or "for God's sake."<ref>As Mike Higton points out, Ford tends to slip from one sense to the other, "confident that each supports or feeds into the other, or even that they are two ways of saying nearly the same thing."{{Harvnb|Higton|2013|p = 291}}</ref>

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Study ''l'shma'' is motivated by desire, by love for the scriptures and/or for God. For this reason, by inviting participants to share ''l'shma'' study together, SR provides what Ochs calls "a venue for members of different traditions or modes of inquiry to share their affection for scripture." This affective aspect of SR, in turn, contributes to SR's capacity to form unexpected interreligious friendships.<blockquote>The most likely source of these friendships is that ''the style of Formational Scriptural Reasoning tempts participants (often unawares) to reveal at least a bit of the warmth and ingenuousness they display in intimate settings of scripture study among coreligionists at home.''<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=631}}</ref></blockquote>

==== 2. To repair academic methods and logics ====

As originally conceived, SR was an academic practice involving theologians, religious philosophers, and text scholars, and was said to be aimed at 'repairing' or 'correcting' patterns of modern philosophical and theological reasoning.<ref>{{Harvnb |Mudge|2008}}; {{Harvnb |Lamberth|2008| pp=460–461}}; {{Harvnb |Campbell|2001}}.</ref> These patterns of reasoning persist both in the Western academy and in religious traditions influenced by modernity. Thus according to Peter Ochs, SR was originally intended to repair academic methods of study and the habits of mind that they presuppose.<blockquote>For the founders of Scriptural Reasoning, the original purpose was to repair what they judged to be inadequate academic methods for teaching scripture and scripturally-based religions, such as the Abrahamic religions...Over time, both Scriptural Reasoning and Textual Reasoning acquired new purposes as participants discovered additional consequences of these practices.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=629-30}}</ref></blockquote>Nicholas Adams characterizes SR as a practice of "reparative reasoning" capable of advancing "the pragmatic repair of secular universalism."<ref>{{Harvnb|Adams|2008}}. For a thorough account of Ochs and Adams as reparative reasoners engaged in "immanent critique", see {{Harvnb|Rashkover|2020|p=130-151}}.</ref> Building on this description, Ochs frequently emphasizes SR's reparative capacity to accustom practitioners to new ways of reasoning and habits of mind. He says that "the primary purpose of Scriptural reasoning is to correct "binarism in modern Western civilization and in religious groups that have, willy-nilly, adopted this binarism as if it were an engine of indigenous religious discourse and belief."<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=632}}. See {{Harvnb|James|2022}} for an account of the technical aspects of this logical repair.</ref> Binarism is this logical tendency to assume that difference entails opposition. As Ochs says, "All I mean by "binarism" is a strong tendency to overstate and over-generalize the usefulness of either/or distinctions."<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=632}}</ref> SR repairs this tendency, in part, by training practitioners in alternative habits of mind: <blockquote>[To affirm] that scripture tolerates, say, two meanings of a crucial verse, and not only one, is already to soften the rage that such participants may feel towards those whose readings different from theirs. In place of rage, such participants may adopt, for example, a superior and patronizing--but nonviolent--attitude towards these others as errant, but guilty only of a weaker reading of scripture rather than a reading that defies the very truth of things.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2015|p=494}}. Ochs's fullest account of this logical repair is {{Harvnb|Ochs|2019}}, on which see also {{Harvnb|James|2022}}.</ref></blockquote>

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SR thus implies a distinction between fundamentalism and traditionalism: the former tends to apply when the indigenous logic of a religious tradition has been superseded by modern binarism. For this reason, SR can undermine fundamentalism without attacking religious tradition per se, and indeed, purporting to draw its repair from traditional texts and interpretive practices. SR, by contrast, undermines fundamentalism while adopting an optimistic posture towards religious tradition. "Liberal" religion itself tends to operate with the same modern logic; indeed, the opposition between "liberal" and "fundamentalist" forms of religion is plausible, in part, because both operate with similar logics. For this reason, as Kepnes says, SR is "neither Liberal nor Fundamentalist."<ref>{{Harvnb|Kepnes|2006}}.</ref> This is one reason that SR has often been described as a 'postliberal' or 'postcritical' theological or philosophical movement.<ref>For 'postliberal', see {{Harvnb |Pecknold|2006| p=339}}; {{Harvnb |Smith|2008| pp=469–472}} or {{Harvnb |Heim|2004}}; for 'postcritical', see {{Harvnb |Soulen|Soulen|2001| p=140}}; {{Harvnb |Mudge|2008}}; {{Harvnb |Lamberth|2008}}.</ref>

==== 3. To further interfaith peace and understanding ====

Its purpose is sometimes described as 'humbling and creative' interfaith encounter<ref>{{Harvnb |Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON)|2008| p=6}}.</ref> or 'deeper mutual understanding'.<ref>{{Harvnb|Clooney|2008|p=28}}</ref>