Domains, Normativity, and Normativity Across Domains

How is it possible for members of different and conflicting religious traditions to engage amicably with one another without bracketing their deepest religious commitments? Ochs’s account of the practice and philosophy of Scriptural Reasoning provides an answer to this question in terms of a logic of normative engagement across traditional borders distinct but not separate from the normative decision-making that takes place within particular traditions. Such normative engagement navigates between two extremes: unmediated conflict at one end, and a detached surveying of ‘worldviews’ at the other end. In the former scenario participants can only wield the normativity of their own traditions against others who do not share that normativity; they cannot reason with them. In the latter scenario, participants step back from the traditions they otherwise inhabit in order to view them alongside others as objects for description and comparison, bracketing their normative force. Ochs’s inter-traditional normativity is unknown to either, and a source of repair for both. In this essay I read Ochs’s Religion Without Violence as offering the more general theory of which his previous book, Another Reformation, is a particular case study. In doing so, I hope to show how the latter book clarifies and repairs the earlier one at a crucial point. This is to treat Ochs’s oeuvre as a developing trajectory whose deep reasonings can be traced and extrapolated further. Specifically, following Ochs’s own method of reparative reading (displayed most fully in his close study of the work of C.S. Peirce), I will identify two tendencies in his work that, while potentially complementary, come into conflict precisely when they are not sufficiently distinguished from one another.1 Another Reformation, through its study of a series of postliberal Christian theologians, generates a model for nonsupersessionist Christian theology. In the light of Religion Without Violence, it can be seen as doing two distinct things. On the one hand, it displays a Christian accommodation of Jews inside their Christian vision (what I will call the ‘accommodationist’ tendency). However, when viewed from the perspective of the later book, Another Reformation can be seen as running into problems insofar as it does not sufficiently distinguish between these tendencies. By bringing into focus the question of normativity across and between traditions, Religion Without Violence emphasises the ‘limiting’ tendency, and invites a definition of nonsupersessionism primarily in those terms: in terms of the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ of the Christian vision. To be sure, such a definition is present in Another Reformation, but jostling ambiguously alongside a definition in terms of the ‘accommodationist’ tendency—which emphasises the content of the Christian vision rather than the manner in which that vision is held. In my analysis I implement a conceptuality and terminology developed by Nicholas Adams in his reading of Peter Ochs.2 Adams coins the phrase ‘domains of limited validity’ to denote the conditions under which truth claims are made, and (potentially to be distinguished from the former) the conditions under which they are affirmed or denied. Domains can be local and well-defined, such as the classificatory system in a supermarket, or broad and underdetermining, such as the deep rules and axioms of a whole religious tradition. Scriptural Reasoning, as a practice of engagement across traditions, can be conceived as engagement in which claims are made and received in multiple domains at once. A truth claim made within one domain may make very different, or even no, sense when received within another domain, and the assessment of its truth-value will vary accordingly. In the normal run of things, normativity belongs to domains. I judge what is true or appropriate with respect to domain-specific conditions.3 Scriptural Reasoning, while in some ways operating with rules specific to the practice, and thus in a domain of its own, is at the same time a practice that deliberately brings into focus the relation between diverse domains. The normativity it engages is accordingly of a different kind. It is precisely part of the job of Ochs’s book to uncover its logic. To anticipate, its normativity is less about the content of the claims made, and more about the manner in which they are made: the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’. Using domains language, it is possible elegantly to distinguish between the alternative potential avenues for nonsupersessionist Christian theology outlined above. To accommodate Jews inside one’s Christian vision is to change the claims one makes within one’s Christian-specific domain. To acknowledge the potential rationality of Jewish thought and practice beyond the Christian vision entails acknowledging, on the one hand, the limitedness of the validity of the claims made with a Christian-specific domain, and on the other hand (and by the same token), the existence of other domains in which quite different claims are conceivably valid. As will become clear, ‘validity’ is not to be confused with ‘truth’. For Ochs, the ultimate truth value of competing religious truth claims cannot be settled ‘short of some end time’.4 I will begin by offering an account of Ochs’s logic of Scriptural Reasoning, with reference to the ways in which truth and normativity are figured. I will then draw out the lines of continuity between this logic and the logic of nonsupersessionism articulated in Another Reformation. In this light it will then be possible to trace and articulate the two tendencies present in Another Reformation, and to diagnose and repair their conflation. Finally, I will draw attention to the fact that the dominant tendency in the literature on Christian nonsupersessionism is the ‘accommodationist’. Against that background, Ochs’s emphasis on the ‘limiting’ tendency becomes all the more significant. Ochs distinguishes between three different types of scenario according to the way in which they differently configure ‘truth’ (or, in other words, according to their different modes of normativity). The first type of scenario is a conventional setting in which the language (and other) conventions in operation are not in question. They are assumed by all participants and thus remain largely implicit and even unacknowledged. Ochs calls these ‘constative claims’ and gives, as an example of a common-sense claim of this kind: ‘The salt shaker is on the small cabinet’, said by someone at a dinner table in their home. The assumption is ‘that everyone at the table knows exactly where to look’.5 This would not be the time to exploit ambiguities in the language, for example by asking whether the speaker means the (very) small cabinet in the dolls’ house upstairs. To get anything done, conversation partners must work with many assumptions that remain unarticulated and undisputed. In such a scenario (in which conventions remain undisputedly at work) constative claims are either true or false (they cannot be both true and false, nor can they be neither true nor false). To get a better handle on this type of scenario, I will offer another, more complex, theological example. In the context of Christian catechetical instruction in which orthodox (Nicene) trinitarian theology is being taught, suppose the catechist asks the catechumens: ‘When Jesus says to his disciples in the Farewell Discourses, “For the Father is greater than I”, does that mean that the person of the Father is of higher than the and thus that the is to the In such a the answer is false, while the answer is It is from this example that what is by is be affirmed under the conditions of orthodox the question without to those such a reading of the by means be Ochs calls is or its only being according to the conventions that for particular of The type of scenario is one in which or claims are to change or repair specific conventions for To offer a reparative reading of a is another way to the of its sense than according to a conventional The is that the reading is not according to conventions that are in but as in some not in to It is reparative only it to work with many of the conventions of a of its being to repair rather than the Such a a conventional does not by a logic to which it is either true or false). It may out to be true or false, but it may be a value as or with what Ochs a The reason for this is that truth and are according to the conventions are in the of being the truth of the reparative claim is with its in conventions that repair the In the and as a for reparative it is neither true nor false or As an example of a reparative Ochs a from the on a in the as it is all be they the Ochs that this is being in the context of the in in the In order to make sense of of the this the is to The reading the of a of to the repair of conventions within that in the of the of the the will only time will The of in the context of which this becomes is the of the to repair the sense for the of of truth are with Ochs in between the of the as in the sense of but only and the that are at by of For only the latter In Another Reformation, may from the whose is true are not the to articulate the of this In other words, is and while may articulate cannot to do in an but only from can be to the logic of these conventional and reparative are to be or under domains of limited claims are to be affirmed or under the conditions of assumed reparative claims are under the conditions of a in the sense of for a and they by those who them. This is not to conventions and specific to with local and of it of which to with or less on the part of the such as to the or of the sense of the or to the of the while claims in the context of may be to an domain of limited its focus on what Ochs calls or with call in multiple Specifically, not one but a of of whose of the a is the ultimate source of the conventions of a religious then source of The of rather than a that generates a of In other words, is not an this means and in terms of type and type is that does not its own conventional language according to which conventional or reparative of the being can be at by the In other words, are not to be read for for or or order to the of for a It is in this sense that Ochs the that in are On the one hand, is and thus source of normativity by all On the other hand, and by the same are in this sense does mean truth On the one hand, and as an domain may that be their content either or On the other hand, participants in an setting to and their own about and of they not others those study is not about truth or For truth or is a only of claims about the of and such claims are only within traditional of study The a of ‘truth’ that can to study. This is truth as a from the is with this of the that to the sense of and that, to It would be to the to truth as as a claim about the potential between those who their or normativity at the this would be to of its and to the practice to that of that Ochs is to I on the that to get at truth as is precisely to get at the normativity in of is to one’s for the true of the whether those of one’s own or of The of to the possible of this as a of the previous the truth as is out in terms of the possible of the I the the for the true to to a religious either to articulate a conventional or to at a reparative reading of a particular A (in the is one that is a a religious the of its is in the of for specific this is the of the To this traditional normativity in of the possible of the is not to the of one’s own but to to that in a different on the of the or it for specific This is to do two things. in Ochs’s it is to focus on the sense as that which the will of the and by the same it is to acknowledge that this sense is to being read by members of other traditions, whose alternative may at (and at the very to the conventional a is in the conventions it (and for reading its in specific the sense that of the do not a on its As Ochs the one hand, the the between members of one and their on the other hand, is the of study as it to the of within that with their and they are by all to acknowledge the ultimate of one’s own for members of one’s own is to acknowledge the that be by members of other traditions it is not in its possible traditional normativity is what is the of the normativity by a focus on the in their sense in the of from other To make with this question must the of other at the does it mean to that they On the one hand, it cannot mean that they On the other hand, it cannot mean that they the of a As does not the of a for its However, the focus is on its possible its cannot be against that of the other of from one cannot be to of from another nor as their This would only be possible with that one another are in an do not but alongside one another in their they are not in the but and In the by the of the different is not an that or as would but the of more that In the of possible (in the of the of the different is in To read one’s own alongside the of other traditions and in the of members of those other traditions is potentially to the of one in the sense of one’s own such an does not the normative of it does potentially change the of for in specific in other words, with a normativity of and which for the traditional normativity of and In this the of the other traditions, while not being an on a with one’s own are a in one’s normative engagement with one’s own this to the members of other traditions and their I that the in the of the of the The to which one belongs is the and but context within which one makes sense of the It alongside and in relation with other such within which the is To to these other (and their domains of limited as of potential into the is to that they on the same other words, that is one to which all are In the to the in their is by the to to the and one in the of the It is this to which truth as Ochs of that to the sense of and that, to to the sense is to the in which its is the of to other I to their is the by to the one in the I to an in the of the as Ochs them within the I will to this in the context of my reparative reading of On the one hand, the particular in the of its sense the conventional conditions under which that truth claims are valid. this the sense to the not in its own but as the for an series of in of On the other hand, alongside the of other traditions, the finitude of a particular to the this perspective a traditional must that claims are limited not only as of the sense of but more as by an of the of these than In other words, are truth in quite different that cannot be by them. To where a normativity of and in order to into focus a normativity of and be sure, the latter is at within traditions, but it is to the and are the language of more to specific domains. it one to more between domains (in it a with specific to a precisely under which conditions (in what it be In this is first and a in the ‘how’ of rather than instruction in the ‘what’. participants are to about the limited domains of their truth In with others who these claims in different they are to from the of their claims those others to a into whose domains are not They are to the of their whose in the to and as the may to an in traditional a ‘how’ may to a ‘what’. it As in Religion Without Violence, a emphasis in Another Reformation is on the or of the This with the that a particular is only one of many possible within and for a and thus of the potential of other for other Such an is in the context of Jews and offer alternative of that are first of of is the of it the attention from the theological value of the in its many of is that it for other of that who its A nonsupersessionist Christian by the as of to the sense of and what it means in the light of the of Jesus In doing so, it both the of the and the of its own by the same it the fact that may be in which a does not make sense or would not be In domains terms by Another Reformation a nonsupersessionist Christian the limited validity of as claims made in Christian-specific domain which the with Jews are the of By the same the validity of as claims made in domains which the is not in the validity of Jewish as claims made within domains. The Christian is then beyond to and the potential rationality and integrity of Jewish as it under the of domains. This is rather different from not its ‘limiting’ and ‘accommodationist’ tendencies alongside one another in the this to be the case when Ochs brings into relation with the in the of the Ochs and as two of a or This is to the of Another Reformation. as Ochs emphasises its as a of the of the that it to is for all to of their different religious traditions. must not be confused with truth claims are true is a Ochs an end the of one’s own claims an not only to the validity of claims made in the context of other traditions, but to their rationality and is distinct from their truth claims are only truth within domains of limited insofar as all traditions are to the one they the of a rationality and integrity is a of its The of Ochs’s into not against the of the that to beyond Christian The dominant tendency in these is the ‘accommodationist’. This is the tendency of and the literature by with the emphasis on with the Jewish to I this from the of of the for a by of a of such a diverse can be this claim is to the of the tendency it in the of on the within the same tendency, the of this To offer a account of with and Jews is to the of in the light of a of one of its Finally, even Ochs’s source for an alternative account of Christian displays the ‘accommodationist’ tendency, as the postliberal within the for Without to the potential value of the ‘accommodationist’ tendency, I hope this its not and distinguished the ‘limiting’ The latter is Ochs’s not only in the Christian context but beyond

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