Culture and interreligious understanding according to the Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga.

Jones, Michael S.

Introduction

A significant philosophical development of the twentieth century was the spread of the realization that beliefs are contextual. Another was the appreciation that this context is, by and large, culture. A quasi-philosophical development of undeniable importante is the movement of interreligious dialogue. The interrelatedness of these three developments has often been commented on but has seldom been systematically developed. However, there is an often-overlooked philosopher from Eastern Europe who has systematically developed the philosophy of culture in a way that has very fertile application to interreligious dialogue. This philosopher is Lucian Blaga.

Blaga's philosophy offers an explanation of the role of culture in the understanding and appreciation of complex belief systems such as religions. It provides an account of the metaphysical source of religious disagreement, affords a vantage point from which religious diversity can be evaluated, illuminates the reason for the difficulty in communicating across cultural barriers, and explains how such communication is possible. An examination of Blaga's philosophy will be fruitful for all those interested in interreligious relations. This article will succinctly explain Blaga's philosophy of culture and then draw out its most significant implications for interreligious understanding and communication.

Lucian Blaga and the Philosophy of Culture

Lucian Blaga was an early-twentieth-century Romanian philosopher (18951961). With an undergraduate degree in Orthodox theology, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Vienna, and a chair of Philosophy of Culture at Babes-Bolyai University, he was not endeared to the Communist Party, which banned him from teaching and publishing. Prior to World War II he published prolifically, however, and during the communist period he wrote additional books that were able to be published only posthumously. At the heart of Blaga's oeuvre are fifteen volumes that detail a speculative and creative systematic philosophy. This cohesive philosophical system is both colorful and rigorously analytical, and it has implications for a wide range of issues, including interreligious dialogue and understanding.

One interesting aspect of Blaga's philosophy is its explication of the role of culture in human cognition. Many Romanian commentators have interpreted culture as holding the central place in Blaga's system. Culture is, according to Blaga, the sine qua non of humanness. (1) It is culture more than anything else that distinguishes humanity from other forms of animal life. (2) A culture is a product of human creativity actuated through a "stylistic matrix" and within a particular set of concrete circumstances. It is an inevitable result of the human attempt to reveal/depict/grasp the mysteries of human existence.

Every cultural creation involves three essential elements: concrete material, metaphorical expression, and style (analyzable into a matrix of elements). The concrete materials of a culture are the physical, intellectual, or spiritual materials that humans utilize in their creations. These are used metaphorically to express ideas, emotions, or intuitions that transcend the material itself. The particular way that the concrete is metaphorically used reflects the style of the user, which is the product of a number of factors called the "stylistic matrix."

The Categories of the Understanding and the Abyssal Categories

A very important aspect of Blaga's philosophy of culture is his analysis of the categories of the mind and how these categories relate to culture. Although the Kantian influence on this area of Blaga's thought is unmistakable, Blaga adds significantly to Kant's understanding of the categories. (3) According to Blaga, humans are equipped with not one bur two sets of intellectual categories. The first of these he names "the categories of the understanding." These categories correspond fairly closely to the Kantian categories. Their role is the organization of sensory data in what Blaga calls "type I cognition" (or "paradisaic cognition"). (4)

Contrary to many scientists, who take categories such as time and space to be objective realities, Blaga agrees with Kant that the categories of the understanding are subjective. Kant's reason for drawing this conclusion is that the conceptual contents of the categories surpass the contents of experiential data and therefore cannot themselves be a product of experience; thus, they must have their source in the mind itself. Blaga writes that the climate (influenced by the Enlightenment and the growing influence of natural science) within which Kant worked prevented him from positing a supernatural source of the categories, and therefore Kant concluded that, if they are a product of the mind, then they must be subjective. (5) Nonetheless, the conclusion that subjectivity is the only alternative left after the elimination of the possibility of ah experiential origin of the categories is mistaken. Blaga points out that there is another option: The categories could be the product of a supernatural source that created them as objective.

In Blaga's view, the categories are in fact the result of a supernatural source, a postulated Creator of the cosmos, about which I will say more presently. (6) However, Blaga was in agreement with Kant that the categories are subjective. Blaga's reason for this interpretation of the categories was quite different from Kant's and had to do with the structure and purpose of cognition. Blaga's reason for believing the categories to be subjective is that, according to his proposed metaphysics, in order to further its purposes in creation, the Creator does not permit humans to have objective ("positive-adequate") cognition. The categories are one of the means utilized by the Creator to guarantee that humanity does not achieve objective cognition. The categories act as both facilitators and limits to cognition, enabling subjective knowledge but preventing objective knowledge. (7)

According to Kant, the categories of the understanding are a fixed set that is necessarily possessed by all people. In other words, all people have the same immutable categories of the understanding. In reflecting on this, Blaga observes that, while the perception of space, time, and so on appears to be universal, space and time are also constructed in different ways in different cultures. (8) The categories of the understanding, though subjective, are not affected by culture (and do not bear the imprint of style) because they are not human creations but are created by the Creator. (9) He accounts for the apparent variability of the categories by proposing that humans have two sets of categories, not one: the cognitive categories of the conscious and the abyssal categories of the subconscious (also called the "stylistic categories"). (10) The former are invariable, bur the latter are quite variable. Space and time are universal concrete horizons of the conscious. However, their "texture" is determined by the abyssal categories of each individual's subconscious and is therefore variable. For example, space can be conceived as being tridimensional, flat, undulatory, arched, or in other ways. (11) Based on its particular set of abyssal categories, the human subconscious attributes to space and time details of structure that are similar to but more determined than the indeterminate structures of space and time in the conscious mind. (12) The abyssal categories form a "stylistic matrix" that lies at the base of all cultural creations. (13) The immense number of combinations of the stylistic categories possible within an individual's stylistic matrix accounts for the plethora of possible and actual cultures. (14) Because of this important role in forming culture, the abyssal categories are constitutive of the substance of humanity, whereas the cognitive categories merely enable the integration of objects to the conscious. (15)

Both the cognitive and the abyssal categories are part of the Creator's plan for protecting and enhancing created existence. (16) The cognitive categories are one way that the Creator implements "transcendent censorship," while the abyssal categories are a means of implementing "transcendent braking." (17) The two types of categories work together to fulfill the Creator's "principle of the conservation of mystery." (18)

The Stylistic Matrix and Its Key Components

Every person's subconscious possesses a "stylistic matrix," a set of stylistic categories that determines the results of its creative endeavors, (19) This matrix is the sum of all the stylistic categories and their influences upon a person's creativity and is composed of four primary factors and an unspecified number of secondary factors. Two different creative styles can be separated by as few as one of these secondary factors. (20) This explains why and how creations within a particular culture bear certain similarities and also why they are not identical. (21) Furthermore, it explains why cultural creations have a sense of fittingness and context. A judgment that a particular creation "lacks style" may be nothing more than an indication that there are subtle differences between the matrices of the creator and the critic. Conversely, the ability of one culture to appreciate the creations of another is explained by the shared elements of their stylistic matrices, which can enable reciprocal understanding. (22)

The four primary components of any stylistic matrix are the horizon of the subconscious, an axiological accent, a particular sense of destiny, and a particular formative aspiration (nazuinta formativa. (23) These, together with an unnumbered number of secondary components, make up the stylistic matrix of the subconscious mind.

The stylistic matrix is the inner horizon of the subconscious and functions according to its own norms, relatively independent of the conscious mind. The stylistic matrix is responsible for the unity of attitudes, emphases, and aspirations that distinguish one culture from another and that give to a person's conscious mind the support of continuity and to a person's subconscious the connection to a collectivity. (24) Furthermore, the existence of stylistic matrices witnesses to the creative destiny given to humanity by the Creator. (25)

Philosophy of Culture and Blaga's Epistemology

Blaga's philosophy of culture has a direct impact on his epistemology. (26) According to Blaga's analysis, there are two types of cognition: type I cognition (paradisaic), and type II cognition (luciferic). (27) Type I cognition increases knowledge quantitatively, through the numerical reduction of the mysteries of existence by adding new facts to human knowledge. It utilizes the cognitive categories. Type II cognition increases knowledge qualitatively, through deepening the understanding of the mystery of a cognitive object. This deepening of the understanding involves creative constructs that provide interpretive explanations of the phenomena in question. Since all creative acts are affected by a stylistic matrix, these acts of type II cognition are, as well. They operate through the application of both the cognitive and the stylistic categories.

Type I cognition is limited by transcendent censorship via the cognitive categories. The stylistic categories do not affect type I cognition. (28) Type II cognition is limited by both transcendent censorship and the stylistic categories. Therefore, all knowledge acquired via type II cognition is conditioned by the culture ("style") of the knowing subject. (29) The stylistic categories function both positively and negatively in cognition, and these two functions are intrinsically related. They function as a structural medium for revelation of mystery and as a limit to this revelation ("stylistic brakes"). Thus while the abyssal categories lead humans to create, they also prevent human creativity from reaching absolute adequacy. (30)

Corresponding to the two types of cognition and the two types of limits on cognition, there are two definitions of truth that spring from Blaga's philosophy of culture. In type I cognition, truth consists in a relation of correspondence between an idea and reality. (31) This is what Blaga names "natural truth." This type of truth involves the application of the cognitive categories to empirical data. Because the cognitive categories are not influenced by culture, "natural truth" is not subject to cultural influences. (32)

What is judged to be true in type II cognition is relative to one's stylistic matrix. What is judged to be true depends not only upon the criteria of logic and concrete intuition. It also involves style, culture, and a feeling of resonance between the proposition and the cognitive subject. (33) As Blaga stated, "Judgments of appreciation, which refer to 'constructed' truths, will vary therefore according to how the people's stylistic matrices vary." (34) This is because what is being judged is not simply the relation between ah idea and a supposedly observable reality but also the relation between an idea that is a theoretical construct and a reality that is not directly observable. The fact that the reality is not directly observable necessitates the constructive nature of the idea. The constructive nature of the idea implicates the incorporation of culture (since all constructs are cultural constructs according to Blaga's analysis), and the incorporation of culture implicates the employment of the stylistic categories, as much in the appreciation (of at least evaluation) of the idea as in its construction.

That type II cognition involves culture in its truth-judgments has implications that reach far beyond philosophy. Even science is affected by the stylistic categories, and religion is as well. These categories, like the cognitive categories, both facilitate and limit cognition. In this way the two types of categories work together to fulfill the Creator's "principle of the conservation of mystery." (35)

Philosophy of Culture and Blaga's Metaphysics

Blaga's philosophy of culture dovetails with his metaphysics. (36) Blaga's metaphysical system posits the existence of a single source of all other existents and that this source created the cosmos in a way that both perpetuates and preserves creation. It created humanity with specific abilities and limits that both motivate and enable humanity to approach mystery but that also prevent humanity from eliminating mystery. (37)

Blaga's philosophy of culture elaborates one of the devices that the originator of the cosmos put in place to accomplish these goals. That device is culture, understood as a collection of stylistic factors. Culture is key to perpetuating the Creator's creative act, for culture is essential to human creativity. Culture is also key to preserving creation, for it prevents humanity from accurately revealing mystery through humanity's creative acts, which (according to Blaga) could endanger the cosmos by allowing a cognitive rival to the Creator. (38) The Creator protects itself from the possibility of human rivalry by the stylistic limiting of human revelatory acts. The Creator also prevents this rivalry by creating humanity in such a way that humans put a positive value on style rather than viewing style and culture as limits imposed upon humanity by the Creator (Blaga calls this tactic "transcendent conversion"). (39) According to Blaga's metaphysics, culture is a positive value, since it is the expression of human creativity and genius and an extension of the creativity of the Creator itself. At the same time culture is also a necessary and useful limit upon human revelation of the mysterious. The relativity that it imposes upon all human creations has the perhaps tragic effect of isolating humanity from the absolute, but Blaga asserts that, at the same time, it gives humanity a dignity beyond comparison. (40)

Benefits of Blaga's Philosophy of Culture

A practical benefit of Blaga's philosophy of culture is that it yields explanations to a number of perennially vexing problems. For example, Blaga's theory provides an explanation of how styles originate. It is often supposed that a particular style is initiated by an individual and then others imitate that style, causing its spread. Conversely, it is sometimes held that a style exists independently of individuals and imposes itself upon individuals. (41) Blaga rejects both of these views. Against the first view he points out that the works of expressionist painters, Bergson's psychology, and Mach's physics all reflect the same fundamental style, but they were ignorant of each other's work; therefore, imitation cannot be the explanation of how they came to share the same style. Blaga's theory of a subconscious stylistic matrix, however, nicely explains this parallelism: The appearance of the same style in the works of people within the same culture who are not aware of each other's works is due to their shared stylistic matrices. Differences between their works are explained by variations between the particular secondary categories within the stylistic matrix of each individual. (42)

Similarly, Blaga's theory of style illuminates the nature of the relationship between an individual and a collective group. The problem involves questions such as: What is the relationship between an individual and a collectivity to which that individual belongs? What distinguishes an individual as belonging to one collectivity rather than another? What is it that distinguishes between different collectivities? Why are there differences between individuals within the same group? Is a collective group a real unit, or is it nothing more than a collection of individuals, the latter being the real existent? Or, are individuals merely exponents of the group, and the group the real existent?

Blaga reviewed and rejected the solutions proposed by romanticism, positivism, and naturalism. His own partial solution to the problem (he granted that there were other aspects in addition to the stylistic one) sees the collectivity as a community of individuals with a shared stylistic matrix. (43) The individual, in Blaga's view, shares in these categories and has additional categories that are unique to that individual. Particularly individualistic people can, moreover, reject some of the categories shared by that individual's group. Therefore, the individual is not merely a component of the collectivity, nor is the community merely a conglomeration of individuals. Seen through the lens of Blaga's philosophy of culture, the distinguishing characteristics and "'familial resemblances" of both the individual and the group are seen to result not from one's or the other's being a "real existent" but from shared and not-shared abyssal categories. (44)

This explanation of the relationship between individuals and communities leads to an elucidation of a further problem, that of cross-cultural communication. The question of whether it is really possible to overcome cultural barriers and have effective cross-cultural communication is not a new one. (45) Many have argued that cross-cultural communication is doomed to produce misunderstanding. Blaga takes it as evident that this is not always the case. He argues that any overlapping elements of two different stylistic matrices enable communication between the matrices. What is more, these shared elements also make possible the influencing of one culture by another and the "contaminating" of one culture by another. (46)

The Problem of Interreligious Understanding: Contemporary Questions

There are a number of issues in the contemporary philosophical discussion of interreligious dialogue to which Blaga's philosophy can provide illumination and answers. These issues involve the very possibility of interreligious understanding and, if such understanding is possible, what its extent is and how it is achieved.

There is serious contemporary debate over the possibility or impossibility of true interreligious understanding. This problem is perhaps more widely acknowledged in the Continental than in the analytic tradition, but it has also received some attention in English-language philosophy of religion. (47) Interreligious dialogue has become a very important theater of religious and philosophical reflection. However, frustration is a common experience in interreligious dialogue.

This has led to a dialogue about dialogue. (48) Some have suggested that even dialogue does not guarantee the ability of overcoming the barriers to interreligious communication, and therefore such frustration may always be part of some attempts at interreligious communication. (49) Two questions related to such a communicational chasm must be addressed: the question of its existence and size, and the question of whether such a chasm (if one truly exists) can be overcome.

That there exist a number of religions and ideologies that are so different from each other that they encounter difficulties in understanding each other is not disputed. (50) It is possible to view the differences between these belief systems as insignificant and surmountable, as significant but surmountable, or as significant and insurmountable. If the differences between these belief systems are accepted as being significant, it is possible to view the conflicting beliefs involved either as truly incompatible or as complementary.

It is possible to view religious diversity positively or negatively. Positively, many view diversity as having aesthetic benefit. Some also view diversity as having pragmatic benefits. Negatively, it could be argued that, among multiple incompatible beliefs on a given subject, only one of them can be correct and therefore that diversity often points to widespread cognitive error. It can also be pointed out that diversity often leads to conflict. (51)

Interreligious communication is useful, perhaps even critical, to avoiding conflict between groups holding to different beliefs. It would seem that, since all humans are probably descended from common ancestors and since all humans inhabit largely similar environments, all human belief systems should be reducible to a set of common elements that would facilitate such communication. (52) However, if real pluralism (multiple incompatible systems) exists, then there can be no inclusive reconciliation except at the cost of the elimination of pluralism. (53) If real pluralism obtains, then interideological communication may not be possible.

In addition to these epistemological facets of the problem of interreligious communication, there is an aesthetic aspect to the problem. It can be argued that the valuation of truth-criteria is aesthetic--that the valuation of homogeneity or consistency over diversity or paradox, and vice versa, is an aesthetic judgment. It is also possible that the weight given to certain kinds of support in one tradition versus other types of support in another tradition (for example, historical evidence rather than contemplative experience) is based on aesthetic criteria and that allegiance to a system is sometimes a result of the personal appeal and satisfaction of a system, which may vary from one individual to another. The price of unity may be the loss of diversity or of individual identity and vice versa. So, what might seem like gain to one may seem like loss to another. Furthermore, the price of diversity and/or individual identity may be the loss of universal intelligibility; it has been argued that diversity entails incommensurability. (54) If that is the case, then interreligious communication may be possible only at the cost of diversity and individuality.

It has been argued, from the perspective of hermeneutics, that the meanings of terms are strictly relative to the belief systems in which they are used. (55) Some have argued that, because of this, belief systems can only be understood from within, and therefore there can be no objective comparison or evaluation of such systems. (56) This argument may err in viewing such understanding as an "all-or-nothing" affair. It may be more accurate to view understanding as occurring in degrees (that is, understanding might better be viewed as being shallow, poor, good, better, profound, etc.). If that is the case, it still may be possible that systems of belief can be well understood only when understood from within.

A number of thinkers have also argued that there is no neutral ground from which competing truth-claims can be viewed--no "God's-eye perspective"-and therefore that it is not possible to have an objective evaluative comparison of the truth-claims of different belief systems. (57) However, this argument may overlook the significant distinction between truth-claims and truth-criteria. While truth-claims differ in such situations, truth-criteria might possibly be the same, which might make possible the evaluation of the truth-claims of adherents to various belief systems. Ninian Smart has analyzed a variety of attitudes toward religious diversity and criteria by which religions can be evaluationally compared; he has concluded that, although there are no absolutely neutral arenas of comparison, there are at least seven valid interreligious evaluative criteria. (58) William Wainright, sympathetic to Smart's analysis, has proposed additional criteria. (59) Additionally, it is possible that all belief systems share at least some minimal number of common elements (common experiences, common communicative elements, etc.). These shared elements may enable interreligious communication, (60) but, more than that, how successfully these common elements are accounted for by each system can be a criterion of evaluation.

Central to the issue of the possibility of interreligious communication, then, ate two important and interrelated questions: (1) Which is more significant, the shared elements of human belief systems or the differences between human belief systems? (2)) Do the shared elements of human belief systems provide a basis for interreligious communication, of do the differences between them prevent such communication? Some have argued that the two opposing forces (difference and commonality, or communication and estrangement) may exist simultaneously and that the concurrence of the two may, in fact, be a primary factor in dialogue. (61) No accord has been reached about the possibility of such a resolution of this dilemma: The questions of the commensurability and the communicability of belief systems continue to be discussed by philosophers, religion scholars, and linguists.

Blaganian Answers

Blaga's philosophy makes answers to these pressing questions possible. One of the questions posed earlier in this article was whether or not a communication and understanding chasm exists between differing belief systems. Blaga's philosophy indicates that such a chasm does exist. This is implied in his statements to the effect that cultural and subjective factors playa large role in determining the reception of rejection of metaphysical systems. Blaga addressed the issue more directly in a short discussion of the supposed "impermeability of cultures" in Orizont si Stil. (62) In light of Blaga's emphasis on the role of culture in cognition, his constructivism, and his epistemological modesty with regard to the knowledge of other kinds of cognitive objects, it would be no surprise if he saw interideological communication as being potentially problematic.

However, Blaga's philosophy goes beyond merely affirming the existence of such a chasm: It offers a possible explanation of its source. According to Blaga's philosophy, the probable reason for the problematic nature of communication between belief systems is stylistic braking, which was introduced above. Stylistic braking is a method employed by the Creator for the purpose of preserving the Creator's own hegemony and thereby preserving the order of creation. Stylistic braking operates by necessitating that all human creations, including belief systems, occur through the guiding and molding influences of the abyssal categories formed into a stylistic matrix.

Religions and other similar ideological systems involve both type I (paradisaic) and type II (luciferic) cognition. Religious beliefs of the type I sort involve truth-claims of a correspondence nature that can be easily communicated and are relatively easy to verify or falsify. Claims such as "Siddhartha Gautama is the founder of Buddhism," "Mohammad taught that religion should not be a matter of coercion," and "Jesus rose bodily from the dead" are "natural" truths that are readily understood and tested.

Religious beliefs of the type II sort involve creative constructs that provide interpretive explanations of the issues relevant to the particular belief system. Since all creative acts are affected by a stylistic matrix, the creative constructs of type II cognition are, as well. Therefore, the theoretical explanations offered by any religion are affected by the culture of the people involved in constructing that religion. Furthermore, the belief system of any religion is not a single construct but a complex of constructs. Religions involve a complex interweaving of large numbers of elements derived at least in part from the historical/cultural settings of the people who have constructed them.

Here it becomes important to point out that stylistic matrices affect not only the production of stylistic creations but also their reception. As was stated earlier, luciferic cognition is limited by both transcendent censorship and the "stylistic brakes," which are the abyssal categories that comprise any stylistic matrix. Because of this, all luciferic cognition is culturally relative. (63) The abyssal categories function both positively and negatively in cognition, and these two functions are intrinsically related. They function both as a structural medium for the theoretical cognition and as a limit to this cognition. Thus, as previously stated, the abyssal categories both facilitate human creativity and prevent human creativity from reaching absolute adequacy. (64) Likewise, the abyssal categories both facilitate theoretical cognition and prevent such cognition from being positive-adequate.

Because of these factors, religious beliefs of the type II sort involve truth-claims that are constructivist, claims that involve judgments of appreciation in addition to judgments of correspondence. Sometimes these beliefs cannot be easily communicated and are difficult or impossible to verify or falsify. Claims such as "Buddhism is the deepest philosophy," "Islam is the purest monotheism," and "Jesus lived an unparalleled life" involve subjective evaluations the acceptance of which is dependent upon harmony with a person's abyssal categories and the cultural matrix that they form.

The fact that human theoretical constructs are so intrinsically cultural may explain why different belief systems sometimes seem to each other to be opaque. Understanding a belief system or the statements of its adherents is not so simple and straightforward as it at first appears. Understanding a belief system involves sharing in or at least understanding the cultural matrix that produced it. This involves the sharing of at least understanding of a whole complex network of cultural and historical elements, including the four primary components of a stylistic matrix and a potentially large number of secondary components that may be largely foreign to the person struggling to understand.

A second questions posed earlier was whether this chasm can be overcome. The heightened emphasis that Blaga placed on the cultural factors in cognition and creation might make it seem that interreligious understanding is doomed to failure or, at best, to very moderate success. According to Blaga, however, the very same cultural factors that render interreligious understanding problematic also make it possible.

According to Blaga, all humans have a cultural (stylistic) matrix. (65) This matrix is defined as a group or constellation of primary and secondary factors that together determine the style of the creations of a person or society. It is theoretically possible that two belief systems could be truly incommensurable; this would be the case if their creative elements would be completely different, which furthermore would be the case if their respective matrices would not share any common factors at all. In reality, however, this is never the case. Stylistic categories are shaped by the environment in which one lives. Environmental commonalties lead to similarities in stylistic matrices. Since all humans share some environmental commonalties, there will always be at least some similarities (areas of overlap) between stylistic matrices.

Just as differences in matrices are responsible (at least in part) for the difficulties of interreligious communication, overlapping areas of matrices are what enables interreligious communication. (66) Since all humans have at least some areas of overlap between their stylistic matrices, there is always a foothold for interreligious communication. It is the existence of commonalties between stylistic matrices that enables understanding and communication between cultures. According to Blaga, the extent of theoretical commensurability resulting from intermatricial overlap goes beyond mere understanding and communication: He stated that it enables "contamination" of one culture by another. (67)

The questions posed at the beginning of this section involved the existence and extent of the communicational chasm between religions and the question of whether such a chasm (if one exists) can be overcome. In attempting to answer these questions three related issues surfaced: (1) Which is more significant, the shared elements of human belief systems or the differences between human belief systems? (2) Are the differences between belief systems something that should be valued, or are they something that should be overcome? (3) Do the shared elements of human belief systems provide a basis for interreligious understanding and/or communication, or do the differences between them prevent such understanding and communication? Blaga's philosophy has provided tentative answers to all of these questions.

According to Blaga's philosophy, the differences between belief systems ate significant. They are the significant expressions of the culture and the creativity of those who are their creators. These differences form a chasm between the belief systems. They impede interreligious understanding. From both the perspective of type I cognition and the perspective of type 11 cognition, Blaga would say that positive-adequate cognition of a religion is not possible.

Since these differences are a result of religion's being a creative attempt to understand and express ultimate realities, the differences between religions are something that should be valued. The distinctives of each religion reflect the cultural creativity of that religion's adherents and are every bit as much a work of art as are the paintings, music, and literary masterpieces of that culture. However, this way of looking at religious difference brings to the fore the question of interreligious understanding. Can the adherents of one religion understand another religion enough to appreciate its differences without rejecting them outright? When a religion makes assertoric statements about the nature of ultimate reality, it is doing more than merely expressing deep inner feelings; it is making statements the veracity, suitability, or cogency of which would seem to be open to public evaluation. Is such evaluation precluded by the bias built into every human by the cultural matrix that she or he has already absorbed? This is the third question raised above: Is such evaluation possible without the inevitable result that the adherents of the second religion misunderstand and therefore misevaluate the statements of the first?

According to Blaga's analysis, the differences that separate religions account for only part of the situation. The other parts of the situation involve the nonconstructivist ("natural") elements of religions and the commonalties between the abyssal matrices that shape religions as human creations. The type I elements of religions are fairly easily shared and can serve as a basis for and beginning of interreligious understanding. Furthermore, all humans share at least some common abyssal categories and some common elements in the stylistic matrices that these create. These commonalties are extremely important, for they enable people flora different religions to begin to understand each other's constructivist beliefs and to communicate regarding their type II cognitions. It is at this last stage that real interreligious understanding is most challenging and also most interesting; the possibility of truly understanding and appreciating another person's evaluative beliefs offers the greatest hope for peace and reconciliation between religions.

Thus it can be seen that, according to Blaga's philosophy, both the differences and the commonalties between belief systems are significant. Neither seems more significant than the other within Blaga's system. The commonalties ate effective in providing a basis of interreligious communication, but they neither eliminate nor depreciate the differences between belief systems. Differences should be respected and appreciated as cultural productions. We should strive honestly to understand them, realizing that our own evaluative beliefs are also culturally conditioned products of stylistic matrices. Blaga's philosophy and the commonalities between matrices do not guarantee that interreligious communication and understanding will be easy. However, they do show us both that interreligious communication and understanding are possible and why they are possible. Thus, Blaga's philosophy of culture promotes a high regard for culture and cultural distinctness and at the same time vindicates, enables, and promotes efforts at interreligious understanding.

(1) Lucian Blaga, Fiinta Istorica (The Historical Being), included in his Trilogia Cosmologica (The Trilogy of Cosmology), ed. Dorli Blaga, Opere (Collected Works) II (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1988), p. 292 All translations from the Romanian are the author's.

(2) Ibid., p. 498.

(3) See especially Lucian Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie (Science and Creation). included in his Trilogia Valorilor (The Trilogy of Values), ed. Dorli Blaga, Opere 10 (Bucharest; Editura Minerva, 1987), chap. 18 ("Cateva probleme de teoria cunoasterii" [Some Problems of the Theory of Knowledge]) and chap. 19 ("Doua tipuri de cunoastere" [Two Types of Cognition]).

(4) Ibid., p. 176; see also Lucian Blaga, Geneza metaforei si sensul culturii (The Genesis of Metaphor and the Meaning of Culture), included in his Trilogia Culturii (The Trilogy of Culture), ed. Dorli Blaga, Opere 9 (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1985), p. 407.

(5) Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 184-185.

(6) Blaga's postulation of the existence of a creator of the universe is discussed in the chapter on metaphysics in my book, The Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and Contemporary Philosophy (Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006), pp. 58-87.

(7) Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 185-186. This is discussed in more detail in the chapters on metaphysics and epistemology in Jones, Metaphysics of Religion, pp. 58-118.

(8) Lucian Blaga, Orizont si Stil (Horizon and Style), in Blaga, Trilogia Culturii, pp. 137-138.

(9) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 402; idem, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 199 and 211. According to Blaga, Nietzsche argued that the categories are human creations and are influenced by culture (Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, p. 164).

(10) While the existence of a subconscious within the mind is generally taken for granted today, in Blaga's time it was stilt a controversial issue Blaga was a contemporary of Freud and Jung and interacted with their views on the subconscious; see Blaga, Orizont, p 97. Vasile Dera. Zamfirescu contrasted Blaga with Freud and Jung in his chapter, "Filosofia culturii si psihoanaliza la Lucian Blaga" (The Philosophy of Culture and Psychoanalysis in Lucian Blaga), in his Dimensiunea Metafizica a Operet lui Lucian Blaga (The Metaphysical Dimension of the Work of Lucian Blaga), ed. Angela Botez and A. Firuta (Bucharest: Editura Stiintifica, 1996), pp. 271-275. Regarding the stylistic categories, see Blaga, Stiita si Creatie, pp. 174-176, and chap. 19, "Doua tipuri de cunoastere"; anal idem, Geneza Metaforei, chap. 5, "'Categoriile abisale" (The Abyssal Categories).

(11) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 413.

(12) Blaga, Orizont, p. 109. In the words of Vasile Musca, with the introduction of the stylistic categories, "Blaga operates a transfer of criticism from the upper level of the consciousness, the seat of the cognitive activities the analysis of which preoccupied Kant, to the dark basement of the subconscious, the hearth of creative activity" (Vasile Musca, "Specificul creatiei culturale romanesti in campul filosofiei" (The Nature of Romanian Cultural Creation in the Field of Philosophy), in Dumitru Ghise, Angela Botez, and Victor Botez, eds., Lucian Blaga Cunoastere si creatie (Bucharest: Cartea Romaneasca, 1987), p. 469

(13) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 409; idem, Funta Istorica, p. 498.

(14) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, pp 412-413

(15) Blaga, Orizont, p. 133.

(16) This plan is discussed in detail in Jones, Metaphysics of Religion, pp. 123-126.

(17) "Transcendent censorship" and "transcendent braking" are the strategies by which the Creator prevents the arising of any cognitive rivals in the universe, an occurrence that Blaga indicated would destabilize the universe. Together they serve to thwart positive-adequate cognition on the part of any created being.

(18) Blaga, Fiinta Istorica pp. 490 and 502-503; idem, Stiinta si Creatie, p. 176, n. 1.

(19) The term "stylistic field" is sometimes used as a synonym for "'stylistic matrix," as in Blaga, Fiinta Istorica, chap. 5, "Campurile stilistice" (Stylistic Fields); see also pp. 420 and 485. Liviu Antonesei's chapter "Repere pentru o filosofie a culturii" (Signs for a Philosophy of Culture), in Ghise, Botez, and Botez, Lucian Blaga, pp. 399-411, is a very nice study of the importance of the "stylistic matrix" concept to Blaga's philosophy of culture and the influences of psychoanalysis, morphology, and neo-Kantianism in the development of the concept.

(20) Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 176-178; idem, Orizont, p. 175. In some Naces (e.g., Blaga, Orizont, p. 177) Blaga lists five factors, listing the spatial and temporal horizons of the subconscious separately. In other places he includes the spatial and temporal horizons under the single heading "horizon of the subconscious" (eg., Blaga, Orizont, p. 175). I follow this later practice in my enumeration of four factors.

(21) Blaga, Orizont, pp. 177 and 182-183; idem, Funta Istorica, pp. 420-439.

(22) Blaga, Orizont, pp. 177-178 and 184-185. The chapter "Interferente stilistice" (Stylistic Interferences) in Blaga, Fiinta Istorica, discusses the different ways that stylistic matrices relate to each other.

(23) Blaga, Orizont, pp. 152ff., 175, and 179: idem, Geneza Metaforei, p. 410

(24) Blaga, Orizont, p. 186.

(25) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 414.

(26) For a more detailed explanation of Blaga's epistemology, see Jones, Metaphysics of Religion, chap. 5, "Blaga's Epistemology," pp. 88-118

(27) The terms "paradisaic" and "'luciferic" are found in Blaga's earlier writing, while in his later writing he switched to "type I" and "type II" cognition, which, while less suggestive, are also less controversial. Paradisaic cognition works within the cognitive boundaries established by the Creator, while luciferic cognition attempts to overcome these boundaries through the reconciliation of the antinomies that often stymie paradisaic cognition.

(28) This does not imply that type I cognition is not interpretive; all human knowledge of this world is interpretive, even type I cognition, which interprets based on the cognitive categories. See Blaga, Experimentul si spiritul mathematic (Bucharest: Editura Stiintifica, 1969), p. 657

(29) Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 199 and 211.

(30) Blaga, Fiinta Istorica, pp. 492-494.

(31) "Ecuatie intre idee si realitate" (in Blaga, Geneza Metajorei, p. 417). Blaga was well aware that this definition of truth raises a criteriological issue, but we cannot enter into that discussion here.

(32) Ibid., pp. 417-418. Both types of cognition attempt to reveal mystery The former does so in a cognitive way that is subject to specific limits, and the latter does so m a cognitive-constructive way that is subject to additional limits (ibid., pp. 447 and 449ff).

(33) Ibid., pp. 417-18; see also Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, p. 180.

(34) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 418.

(35) Blaga, Fiinta Istorica, pp. 490 and 502-503; idem, Stiinta si Creatie, p. 176, n. 1. The principle of the conservation of mystery is the principle that the Creator protects and furthers creation through preventing the arising of any cognitive rivals that could destabilize the cosmos. It is implemented through the strategies of transcendent censorship and transcendent braking, as explained m note 17, above.

(36) For a more detailed explanation of Blaga's metaphysics, see Jones, Metaphysics of Religion, chap. 4, "'Blaga's Metaphysics,'" pp. 58-87.

(37) The Creator uses the cognitive categories to limit cognition and the stylistic categories to limit construction. When humanity tries to penetrate mystery, it turns to the immediate, but this way is blocked by transcendent censorship. Humanity therefore turns to creative constructs, but that way is blocked by stylistic braking Therefore, humanity never completely succeeds in penetrating mystery. In this way humanity is maintained in its permanently creative state. See Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, pp. 450-451.

(38) Perhaps this would be a destabilizing situation because a rival might not be in accord with the Creator's plan for the cosmos and might attempt to introduce a plan of its own--or perhaps this situation would result in war between rival supreme beings. Alternatively, it may be that Blaga viewed this situation as perilous because of the inherent contradiction of the existence of two ultimate beings in one cosmos.

(39) Blaga, Diferentialele divine (The Divine Differentials), included in his Trilogia Cosmologica, p 179; and idem, Arta si Valoare (Art and Value), included in his Trilogia Valorilor, pp. 631-632. [

(40) Blaga, Aspecte Antropologice (Anthropological Aspects), included in his Trilogia Cosmologica, p. 293, idem, Fiinta Istorica, p. 467 ("tragic and wonderful destiny"); idem, Geneza Metaforei, p. 459.

(41) Blaga stated that the second of these views is a development of a Hegelian view on one of the attributes of the Idea (Blaga, Orizont, p. 181.

(42) Ibid., pp. 181-183.

(43) Blaga, Geneza Metaforei, p. 439.

(44) Ibid., 437-39; idem, Orizont, pp. 184ff.

(45) Blaga wrote that Spengler was among those who believed that all cross-cultural communication results in misunderstanding. He stated that Spengler did little more than transpose Leibniz's metaphysics onto a philosophy of culture, making cultures comparable to monads without windows, and therefore incommensurable (ibid., pp. 184-185).

(46) Ibid.

(47) Influential Continental philosophers have written on the topic of interideological communication; see, e.g., Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975) and Philosophical Hermeneutics (Berkeley. CA: University of California Press, 1976): Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) and Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982): and Jurgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971) and The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987) For views from English-language philosophy of religion, see many of the contributions to Thomas Dean, ed, Religious Pluralism and Truth: Essays on Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion, SUNY Series in Religious Studies (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995); and some of the contributions to Leonard Swidler, ed., Toward a Universal Theology of Religion, Faith Meets Faith Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987).

(48) A dialogue about dialogue is what takes place in Swidler, Toward a Universal Theology. especially pp. 118-250.

(49) See, e.g, Norbert M. Samuelson, "'The Logic of Interreligious Dialogue," in Dean, Religious Pluralism, p. 146; and Raimundo Panikkar, "'The Invisible Harmony: A Universal Theory of Religion of a Cosmic Confidence in Reality?'" in Swidler, Towarda Universal Theology, pp. 124-132.

(50) In this context the term "ideology" is being used to refer to any systematic body of beliefs, including religions and belief systems that are not usually considered religions but that share significant similarities with religion, such as Marxism, scientism, humanism, and other such systems. This use of the term "ideology" has precedent in the World Council of Churches' Guidelines on Dialogue

with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1979), and in other publications of the W.C.C.

(51) See S. Mark Heim, "Different Views of Difference," in his Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995), pp 131-144.

(52) Something along these lines has been argued by Noam Chomsky; see his Rules and Representations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 206-215, 226, 232-234, and many other passages.

(53) "The striving for categorial unity between different worlds necessarily leads to reductionism either in the form of semantic/ontological imperialism or of abstract synthesism" (Ashok K. Gangadean, "The Hermeneutics of Comparative Ontology and Comparative Theology," in Dean, Religious Pluralism, p. 228.

(54) Heim, "Different Views," p. 132. On diversity and incommensurability, see Joseph Margolis, Historied Thought, Constructed World: Conceptual Primer for the Turn of the Millennium (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995), p. 169; and Gangadean, "Hermeneutics," p. 229.

(55) Gangadean, "Hermeneutics," pp 225-226.

(56) This is argued by Michel Foucault in "What Is Enlightenment?" in Paul Rabinow. ed., The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 32-50. A similar line of thought is applied to religions by Panikkar, in his "The Invisible Harmony," pp. 118-153; and perhaps in Dean's statement that "Theology, as a human, cultural, historical enterprise, can be done only from some particular perspective or other, and any claims to be able to dispense with such a perspective or to universalize it must simply be rejected" (Thomas Dean, "Universal Theology and Dialogical Dialogue," in Swidler, Toward a Universal Theology, p. 173).

(57) See, eg., Philip L. Quinn, "On Religious Diversity and Tolerance," Daedalus 134 (Winter, 2005): 136-139.

(58) Ninian Smart, "Truth, Criteria, and Dialogue between Religions," in Dean, Religious Pluralism, pp. 67-71. The seven criteria that Smart listed include: the appeal to religious experience, the appeal to history, the appeal to charismatic authority, the appeal of ethical fruits, the appeal of "modernity," the appeal to psychological relevance, and the appeal to aesthetic properties.

(59) William J. Wainright, "Doctrinal Schemes, Metaphysics, and Propositional Truth," in Dean, Religious Pluralism, pp. 73-85. Wainright's additional criteria are internal consistency, coherence, simplicity, scope, explanatory adequacy, and existential or pragmatic utility (p. 81)

(60) As is argued in Habermas's theory of "universal pragmatics" and also in Gadamer's understanding of philosophical hermeneutics, see Mary Ann Stenger, "Gadamer's Hermeneutics as a Model for Cross-Cultural Understanding and Truth in Religion," in Dean, Religious Pluralism. pp. 156-162.

(61) Dean discussed the significance of religions" being open to dialogue and simultaneously being opaque from the point of view of being understood by other religions in his "Universal Theology," p. 170.

(62) "Impermeabilitatea culturilor" (Blaga, Orizont, p. 184). In this context Blaga criticized Spengler for supporting the view of such impermeability, accusing Spengler of transposing Leibniz's metaphysics onto a philosophy of culture, thus making cultures comparable to monads without windows (pp. 184-185).

(63) Blaga, Stiinta si Creatie, pp. 199 and 211.

(64) Blaga, Fiint a Istorica, pp. 492-494.

(65) Blaga did not directly address the question of the status of those humans who, because of a mental disability, are notable to function on the level of luciferic cognition. His writings make it clear that he viewed luciferic creativity as the acme of humanness.

(66) It seems possible that some instances of communicative difficulty may be caused by simple accidental misunderstanding Likewise, it seems possible that some instances of communicative success may be due simply to happy accident.

(67) Blaga, Orizont, p. 185.

Michael S. Jones (Independent Baptist) has been an assistant professor of philosophy at Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, since 2005. He has been Executive Editor of the online Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies since 2002. During 2000-02, he was an adjunct professor of philosophy at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania During the Fall of 1988, he was an adjunct in New Testament ecclesiology at the Fetesti, Romania, extension of Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, Lansdale, PA. He holds a B.S. from Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Watertown, WI; an M.Div. from Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary; an M.A. from West Chester (PA) University; and a Ph.D. (2004) from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, with specialization in comparative philosophy (Western and Indian), philosophy of religion, and interreligious dialogue. He has also taught high school and adult Bible studies and apologetics at a variety of Baptist churches in WI, PA, VA, and Romania. He held a year-long Fulbright research grant to study in Romania in 2000-01. He is a member of the advisory board of ROOTS: Romanian Orthodox Old Testament Studies (since January, 2009). A consultant to the Seminar for Interdisciplinary Research of Religions and Ideologies at Babes-Bolyai University since 2002, be has been an invited participant in symposia organized by the Academic Society for the Research of Religions and Ideologies, sponsored by the Open Society Institute, in Romania, in 2006, 2007. and 2008. He has presented papers at numerous professional meetings in the US. and Romania. His reviews have appeared in J.E.S. and other journals; his articles, in Philosophia Christi, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, J.E.S. (Summer/Fall, 1999), Echinox, and Romanian journals. He has published chapters in several books, co-edited (with Sandu Frunza and Nicu Gavriluta) The Challenges of Multiculturalism in Central and Eastern Europe (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Provopress, 2005); and co-edited (with Sandu Frunza) Education and Cultural Diversity (Editura Provopress, 2006). His own The Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and Contemporary Philosophy was published m 2006 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. He is currently translating Blaga's Fiinta istorica (The Historical Being).