Reconceiving Disability as Diversity - polypraxy, polypathy & polydoxy

When the Gospel addresses the poor, the needy, the marginalized, the innocent, the vulnerable, make no mistake, it's talking about everyone of us.

We are all in desperate need of healing (i.e. soteriology or being saved) and transformation (i.e. theosis or true self realization). Both within and between our great religious traditions, we can identify differences in emphases on various healing (soteriological) and transformational (sophiological) trajectories. These differences present both in our practices and experiences as well as in their gifts and fruits, thus also in our post-experiential reflections, as we all engage the different dimensions of the same indwelling divine life. We might then conceive these pluralities of practice, experience and reflection, respectively, in terms of diversity vis a vis poly-praxy, poly-pathy and polydoxy, not over against but, in addition to any otherwise elusive orthopraxy, orthopathy and orthodoxy. (See note below on Polydoxy)

These differences not only present within and between our traditions, but also between and within each of us, as unique individuals. In our radical finitude, we are all differently-abled and thus made whole only in community. Perhaps, then, every good theological anthropology must be, in essence, a theology of disability.

Religious pluralism thus entails, not only interreligious dialogue (e.g. Christology and pneumatology) but, anthropology, soteriology and ecclesiology, with implications for eschatology, for, in the beginning, now and forever, it's all about having our brokenness always transformed into giftedness toward the end of a wholeness that is inescapably realized in togetherness.

Note on Polydoxy

We cannot deny that there are propositional elements that do differentiate our various traditions. However, before processing those through a prism of

orthodoxy and heterodoxy, in my view, we best look at them through a lens called POLYDOXY.

To the extent that our trinitarian approach imagines God's determinate nature in terms of 1) creativity, 2) contingency and 3) relation and indeterminate nature in terms of 4) ground and to the extent that these are precisely those aspects of divinity that are respectively emphasized by 1) the Abrahamic traditions 2) Christianity 3) the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism and 4) the Advaita Vedanta of Hinduism, we might then reasonably suggest that, while these traditions do indeed have different sophiological and soteriological (healing) trajectories, they, nevertheless, engage different dimensions of the same indwelling divine life. Their practices and experiences would then be differentiated by the variety of the textures and fruits associated with each unique healing transformation (same Spirit, different gifts). While we must neither deny nor dismiss the tensions that exist between these different trajectories, we might acknowledge that those tensions continue to play out, creatively and to our mutual edification, not only between but also within our great traditions.

I understand that this is dense prose that requires a great deal of unpacking and one can find pointers to other resources here: http://www.scribd.com/johnboy_philothea/search?query=polydoxy Also, this represents a slight (tetradic) variation on John J. Thatamanil's (triadic) account: God as Ground, Contingency and Relation: Trinity, Polydoxy and Religious Diversity http://depts.drew.edu/tsfac/colloquium/2010/TTCChapter%2013%20%20Thatamanil.pdf

The practical take-away is that those of you who follow your hearts and common sense intuitions regarding other religions already experience the truth, beauty, goodness and unity that the theologians struggle to describe in more rigorous ways. Such rigor is not unimportant, however, for the practical errors that can result from oversimplifications can have enormous consequences in people's lives in very many ways.