Seeking truth through doing justice

Michael Barnes' article, Having faith, being critical, and seeking (1994) is in part a response to my essay, Having faith, being neutral, and doing justice: Toward a paradigm of responsibility m comparative study of (1993). On surface Barnes' article offers several comments in complimentary appreciation of my article, but critically notes that it does go far enough to legitimate kind of criticism of religions he takes to be needed. He goes on to advance a number of interesting proposals which attempt to meet this need. On closer reading, though, I find it to contain some basic confusions that handicap his project of critically evaluating religions and, despite its complimentary words of appreciation, to fail to take seriously paradigm of responsibility my article proposes. My article was addressed primarily to readers who tend to be exclusively identified with a phenomenological approach to study of religion so much so that a critically evaluative approach seems to them to be alien. It was not wntten to provide legitimation for readers unsympathetic to phe nomenology of religion who are already committed to a critically evaluative approach (as Barnes seems to be), although it does have definite implications for such an orientation. Whether intended or not, Barnes' choice of words for his title in juxta position to my title reflects a basic issue at stake between us. Is the critical about religion that is sought truth if it fails to do full justice to religious phenomena in question or fails to be fully responsible to every per spective which affords significant access to different facets of phenomena? I contend that it does not. That is why a truly empathetic, phenomenological approach (as I defined it in my article) is indispensable and not to be taken for granted. The limitations of a phenomenological approach which I out lined in my article are not limitations which render it replaceable by some supposedly more effective, more direct approach to truth about religion. For a phenomenological approach, properly understood and practiced, is only

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