Cultures, Pluralism and Religious Faith

But descriptive pluralism simply delineates the plurality of cultures - as a preliminary step to the task of adjudging how people in a society, obliged to share the same arena-of-living, might optimally co-exist while still adhering to their respective cultures.

Such a quest does not aim at consensus - consensus would only strive to water down or eliminate the cultural differences. The quest, rather, is for accommodations, compromises, trade-offs by means of which individuals so thrown together can rub shoulders in harmony.

There was a long tradition holding that a state could strive for some shared and comprehensive view of its citizens’ common good. But more recently theorists have lowered their sights : they see the state as having only a minimalist, neutral, refereeing role in the management of competing visions of the good. The citizens, for their part, are called on to show courtesy to those of other cultures, to respect them as being in good faith, to try to see the good in their positions, to be open to learning from them - all requisite for the practice of dialogue.

Adherents of political liberalism and persons of religious conviction will find that they hold certain cultural values in common - for example : the unique value of the human person; the rejection of violent, xenophobic nationalism; the duty of a humane society to care for the poor, the unemployed, the homeless. This should make for easier dialogue.

At the same time, however, it may be a struggle to get a hearing in the debate for viewpoints originating in the tenets of religion. First, some may object that viewpoints originating in an ideology are suspect...No such objection, of course, is lodged against viewpoints originating in social or political ideologies ! (And viewpoints do not in any case originate out of thin air). Second, some may object that religion should be confined to the private sphere. While, however, an individual’s confessional predilection in religion is private, that does prevent a particular plank of a given religion’s platform from being advocated for public policy - no more than does an individual’s private choice of a political party prevent a particular plank of that party’s platform from being so advocated.

But such prejudices against religion - combined with the withdrawal of the state from proactively articulating the common good - puts an added onus on religious people to assert their viewpoint. Catholics will need to inoculate themselves against this anti-religious climate. Above all, they will need to emphasize understanding and knowledge - because the Christian faith is first a world-view or culture before it is a source yielding principles of moral action.

Seamus Murphy, SJ is senior lecturer in philosophy at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin.