symbolic engagement,transformation,interreligious, interfaith, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Charles Hartshorne, no-self,polypraxy,polypathy,nonstrict identity,fallibilism, pragmatic, semiotic

1. John N Veronica I've mused about these evocative questions
since I first saw them. One way to think about theology in our
era: WITHIN our interpretive communities, we witness - not
only a transformation BY, but also - a transformation OF the
symbols we engage, sometimes augmenting, sometimes
diminishing, their informative and performative values.
BETWEEN such communities, then, it would not be unreasonable
to expect similar dynamics of symbolic engagement (i.e.
transformation "by" and "of" the symbolic)? What, then, would
happen to theology once we are persuaded that God has revealed
Godself in another tradition by way of our participation in
its practices and symbolic engagements? Perhaps theology would
have to follow these emergent "living" symbols around and
report back on their value-realizations and value-
frustrations? And, should
differences in transformative (soteriological) trajectories be
encountered, those might suggest that Barth's "concrete
relationship" definition would have to be broadly conceived
beyond the Christocentric to also include both pneumatological
and trinitarian dimensions, as the poly-praxic and poly-pathic
might suggest the poly-doxic. ~johnboy
20 minutes ago · Like
John N Veronica I was also thinking of how important communal
identity seems to be for the more confessional approaches &
how they might critique a dynamic account. Again, regarding
Barth's "concrete relationship," if the Christian story was
only a narrative of how that community was transformed by the
symbols it engaged, its identity could perhaps be sufficiently
described using static, essentialist and substantival
concepts. As any other interpretive community, though,
Christianity, from its beginning thru now, continues to return
the favor, which is to recognize that it also transforms the
symbols it engages. While we would thus need to describe the
community with more dynamic, fluid and processive concepts,
this wouldn't subvert, as some might fear, its continuity of
identity. Still, the interpretive community's identity might
better be described as "nonstrict" (a concept introduced by
Hartshorne in another context) or as somewhat of a moving
target, not just because of our epistemic fallibilism
(negatively speaking) but because we are created co-creators
(positively speaking). Maybe analogous to the concept of no-
self being considered as adjectival not ontological, at least
as some would approach it, we could still very much enjoy an
empirical-practical, even if not robustly metaphysical, notion
of self/community identity. It seems like we need more than a
dialectical critical realism & fallibilism for comparative
models, that our epistemology must be pragmatic, semiotic,
axiological, participatory, existential and so on.
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