Today I met with a friend of mine from Syria - a philosopher and a very clever guy. He gave a very interseting potential answer to my difficulty with consistency.
My problem (amongst other things!) is that the conservative tradition has developed over 100s of years to become something that has not that much inconsistency. It has worked pretty well to have a system, within which it makes sense. The modernist tradition is relatively new, and this paradigm shift in thought, is very inconsistent at the moment, with a push for using reason in some instances, and not in others. And the question on what to do when the conservative tradition is not something that makes sense to an individual, but the modernist tradition is still maturing....
The problem is that it is difficult/inconsistent to follow the modernist view in some aspects, and a conservative view in others. So can this be done?
Marius quite interestingly made the following point: we are imperfect beings, in an imperfect world, trying to work towards the infinite. It is impossible to achieve true consistency or purity. Everything in this world that we do is defective BUT what the aim is to become less defective. We can strive for more consistency but inconsistency is not a problem.
He gives the example of a two-person world. In such a world, the infinite demands of the other must be considered by the individual in true morality. Now if there are millions of people, true morality requires you to consider the infinite demands of everyone! This is impossible. Thus we are left with a morality that requires betrayal of the rights of some for the few. Thus the morality is defective but we can strive to make ourselves more moral - even though true morality remains impossible.
Therefore, given our circumstances, we can only strive to achieve what we genuinely believe to be God's will, even if it is inconsistent, it is our best attempt and that is something that must not be discarded as an inconsistent genuine attempt at getting to God's will is better than a consistent attempt that doesn't make sense to the individual.
Next post will be back on the ahadith - sorry for sidetracking!
A friend made a few comments about this blog and I ansewred them here:
ReplyDelete1. You are right that the traditionalist landscape has inconsistencies but the point I was trying (not well enough though) to discuss was that the modernist framework is not to remove inconsistencies in an old framework but it's in a new framework. And as it's in a new framework, there are undeniably inconsistencies whilst the framework is fleshed out e.g. right now, you may have a liberal view about what hte point of wudhu is (based on the methodology that some scholars have outlined in a liberal framework) - but you still follow the traditionalist model, because the liberal framework has not dealt with this. This leads you to be doing some things according to a traditionalist framework, and otehr times due to a liberal framework....and this is what I am considering as an inconsistency. I mean internal inconsistency most specifically rather than external (e.g. with Quran...etc.), which is another matter.
2. The discussion about morality was just that in a moral universe, you cannot be absolutely moral due to the impossibility of having absolute morality. This is an analogy to the problem with consistency (I am not comparing morality and consistency). What I mean is that the problem with morality was the issue that you wnat to have a complete whole of pure morality but this is impossible so the moral path is the one that is least immoral. Simliarly here, the problem is that complete consistency (at least whilst we do not know the truth) is impossible, and thus we need an interim solution (or maybe permanent) or striving for consistency BUT accepting the defectiveness and the inherent inconsistency.
3. The final point I was trying to make was that maybe the struggle itself to what is God's wish on the earth, is what God wants. And the end product of a pure consistent model is perhaps impossible. In such a case, although the truth of God's word IS in its absolute form both internally and externally consistent, it still might be relatively the best we can do, to have something that is inconsistent.
One might for example argue that slavery/concubinage at the time of the Prophet (SAW) was inconsistent with true Islam. The alternative is to argue that it is RELATIVELY consistent but not ABSOLUTELY consistent. And that is because it is the best that can be done at that time....