The period we live in looks to be a rise of intolerance and a regression in many ways. The way to approach religion reflects this aspect. It looks that integrist movements are spreading everywhere, like the evangelists or radical islam. To this extend it looks necessary to advocate movements that defend moderation in many ways.
First it is necessary to defend symbolic views. For instance the John evangelist gave a highly symbolic work, even if he is the apostle who give the most details about the dates of the events. To this extend Judaism has an important tradition, like in the Kaballah. The mitsvots are for instance showing the appearance of divinity in the world. It shows that God put a lot of divinity inside human nature.
The voice of moderation is also a real subject in philosophy. Aristotle is defending the concept of the sovereign good against the vision of Plato, which is more radical. Compromises have contributed to build great thinking movements. For instance Saint Augustine found a compromise between the neo platonician thinkers like Plotin and the Fathers of the Church. Dialog between traditions, different aspects of thinking look to be necessary to this aspect. Thomas de Aquinas, a great doctor of scholastic tradition, created many links between philosophy and theology. His commentary of Aristotle was a reference during centuries.
It also look that countries promoting dialog between different thinking views are likely to be more prosperous. For instance the Netherlands in the XVIIth century was seen as the freest in its time. It was also a model of economical prosperity. It’s advanced capitalistic model compared to its time was seen as dangerous for many surrounding countries, like France and England, despite scandals like the Tulip crisis, one of the first speculative bubbles in history. But the dialog between thinkings, religions, is a necessary approach of properity.
Thinkers like Hegel were seeing a sense in history in the long run. Chaos and cruelty are spreading, but it is necessary to build it everywhere. Moreover the fact he is trying to go beyond separations of concepts like nature and culture is a necessary step to create many bridges between fields. This spirit of reconciliation is necessary. The same way there are oppositions between Hegel and Marx concerning the dialectics : Hegel is making it a tool to think the Spirit which is going into every age and which emanates from Great Men for instance, like Napoleon, and which is building a long term coherence and progress, Marx is distorting this notion to think a “scientifical” dialectical materialism. The opposition between a vision of reconciliation and nuance, against an approach which consider to be “scientifical”, ie the truth, has great illustration in religions.
In fact the quarrel we live in between moderates and ultra conservatives is traditional in history. It was seen between Hillel and Chammaï, two great talmudists ; between Averroes and Al Afghani in the Middle Ages ; and more recently between Ratzinger and Hans Kung. These ideological fights are, in my opinion, linked to the notion of interpretation. Are religious texts matter of it or do we pretend it to be a “scientifical” fact? In my opinion defending balanced interpretation and building a long term process to know more about the text is something necessary. That is the reason why, in the future, promoting reconciliation and dialog is a necessary step. Providing the rise of intolerance and communautarism, there is a lot of work to be done.
The observer 