Perspectives

In addition to the examples of the cashier and the girlfriend, that we have considered in the chapter “Metaphysics”, we can also think of novels. A novel is written with a practical purpose in mind. The author does not write it primarily to get grammatical analysis on his novel, or to make the reader wonder if that novel exists or not. The author wrote it to produce in the reader’s intelligence an experience of reading, aimed at involving him globally, by affecting his feelings, his emotions. The cashier, the girlfriend and the novel belong to the same third language, that is practical language, because all of them aim directly at an experience rather than at formulating definitions or criticisms.

The three languages I referred to, metaphysical, anti-metaphysical and practical, are three perspectives, three points of view on reality, three ways of dealing with reflection or life itself. They can further subdivide into other perspectives, for example into believers and non-believers, or atheists.

Practical language can be used in terms identical to metaphysics, with the sole difference that it does not intend to establish universal laws, but recognizes that it is just a perspective. In practical language, for example, we can easily say that a chair exists, but those who make this statement from a practical point of view do not intend to establish a universal truth, a philosophical principle. They mean that that chair exists only to the extent that this statement is useful for practical purposes; for the rest, they have no problem at admitting doubt. Since therefore it is easy to confuse those who make statements for practical use with those who instead intend to place them as absolute truths, when we listen to somebody we need to refer to the context of the whole speaking that that person is doing; considering a single isolated statement is never enough.

Prospects are like rooms. There is no being outside all the rooms, in a universal perspective. Every statement that is pronounced in this world is interpreted from within a room, a perspective. No statement can be put out of any perspective, no one is absolute or superior to the other ones. Each of us represents a different perspective. Dictators, instead, consider their own perspective as universal.

A lot of journalists have the deadly bad attitude of saying first a pronounced sentence and afterwards mentioning the author of the sentence. This way they weaken the critical ability of listeners by preventing them from immediately placing the sentence in its context.

Different perspectives coexist in the same person, based on different moments, moods, health, and even at the same time. In each of us different perspectives coexist in a continuous evolution and they dialogue with each other, or contradict, uninterruptedly.

To make dialogue with another person possible, we need to welcome into us, at least temporarily, their own perspective. I cannot understand the thoughts of a thief if I have never felt inside me a desire to take possession of something. A husband cannot appreciate the beauty of a woman who is not his wife except by placing himself, at least to some extent, in the view of those who look at that woman with appreciation of her beauty. We can consider that this way, at least to some extent, that husband is cheating on his wife. But it is not a betrayal, because in practice we all know that life is like this, we feel emotions and interests of all kinds within us; what makes a difference is when we cultivate them specifically. This way, a boyfriend, at the height of his falling in love with his girlfriend, could say that all other girls are nothing compared to his one; then he could come to his senses, look at things considering other’s points of view, and he will be able to tell others: Sorry, I spoke for a moment from the intimacy of my falling in love, but I realize that for each of you as well your girl is the most beautiful one. At this point the girlfriend could say to him: I suspect that you, by welcoming in yourself the understanding for the sympathy of others towards their girls, host this sympathy towards the others a little too much in you; that is, the girl could also begin to feel a little cheated on.

The same situation happens in the relationship between a believer and his religion, compared to other religions. In this case, religion takes the place of your own girl and other religions take the place of other girls. God could complain to the believer that he, out of a desire for openness, a desire to put himself in others’ shoes, is hosting a little too much in himself an attachment to other religions. God could complain about feeling cheated on by those who try to understand other religions.

This contamination with the desire of the other woman or of the other religion happens without us realizing it; it is practical experience that makes us understand that such contamination has nothing to worry about.
If, instead, it is considered from a theoretical point of view, it can be interpreted as a betrayal of one’s religion. This kind of exclusively theoretical consideration, without paying attention to what actually happens in practice, led Pope Ratzinger to conclude that dialogue with religions, strictly speaking, is impossible; he wrote it in 2008, on the occasion of a review of a book by Marcello Pera:

Dear Senator Pera, recently I was able to read your new book Why we must call ourselves Christians. It was for me a fascinating experience. With a stupendous knowledge of the sources and a cogent logic, you analyze the essence of liberalism beginning with its foundations, demonstrating its roots in the Christian image of God that belongs to the essence of liberalism: the relationship with God of which man is the image, and from which we have received the gift of liberty. With incontestable logic, you show that liberalism loses its basis and destroys itself if it abandons this foundation. No less impressive are your analyses of liberty and of multi-culturalism, in which you illustrate the self-contradictory nature of this concept and hence its political and cultural impossibility. Of fundamental importance is your analysis of what Europe can be, and of a European constitution in which Europe does not transform itself into a cosmopolitan reality, but rather finds its identity in its Christian-liberal foundation. Particularly meaningful for me too is your analysis of interreligious and intercultural dialogue. You explain with great clarity that an interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible, while you urge intercultural dialogue that develops the cultural consequences of the religious option which lies beneath. While a true dialogue is not possible about this basic option without putting one’s own faith into parentheses, it’s important in public exchange to explore the cultural consequences of these religious options. Here, dialogue and mutual correction and enrichment are both possible and necessary. With regard to the importance of all this for the contemporary crisis in ethics, I find what you say about the trajectory of liberal ethics important. You demonstrate that liberalism, without ceasing to be liberalism, but, on the contrary, in order to be faithful to itself, can link itself to a doctrine of the good, in particular that of Christianity, which is in fact genetically linked to liberalism. You thereby offer a true contribution to overcoming the crisis. With its sober rationality, its ample philosophical information and the force of its argument, the present book, in my opinion, is of fundamental importance in this hour for Europe and for the world. I hope that it finds a large audience, and that it can give to political debate, beyond the most urgent problems, that depth without which we cannot overcome the challenge of our historical moment. With gratitude for your work, I heartily offer God’s blessings.
Benedict XVI, 23 November 2008

Along the same lines the Pope had already expressed himself in 2000, in the Dominus Iesus declaration.
After what we have said, we can realize that Christianity, despite making use of absolute languages, cannot help but confront itself with other perspectives, which are also able to relativize it. Each prospect is in contact with all the others and cannot avoid being influenced by them; in other words, the whole world is connected. If we don’t accept to host extraneous perspectives in ourselves, we only make dialogue between deaf, in which everyone tries only to incorporate the other’s perspective into his own. For example, one can tell me: in order to speak you use the principle of non-contradiction, which is objective; and I answer him: but the principle of non-contradiction is conditioned by our brain; and he tells me: you, to be able to answer, have right now made use of the principle of non-contradiction… and so on endlessly. Or if I said to a Muslim: you are a quasi-Christian; and he to me: you are a quasi-Muslim. In other words, there is no perspective able to impose itself and convince dialectically all the others who think differently.