Dogma: 1. An official system of principles or tenets concerning faith, morals, behavior, etc.
2. A specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down.
3. Prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group.
4. A settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.
“Dogma” comes from the Greek verb “dokein”, which can mean to expect, think, seem, seem good, or pretend.
The way we use the word now has more the flavor of something fixed, permanent, definitive, binding, unchangeable.
But nothing human can be that. If each of us is less than perfect—and we are—than the best we can do is to declare what seems to us to be good or correct, according to our lights, at a particular moment
No dogma can fit every possible situation and no dogma can preclude the possibility of being dated, divisive, or even destructive at another time or in another place.
Even the very understanding of dogmas develops and changes.
Since dogmas often are concerned with religious beliefs and practices, let’s look at how they play out.
First, things—events—happen, But even participants and eyewitnesses differ in their telling about them, and their solemn testimony about them, and their writing about them. Again, human limitations at play.
Second, with the passage of time, the stories, histories, and traditions passed on themselves change and sometimes are revised and altered.
Consider the Bible. There are many places where you can find more than one version of events, conversations, and conflicts—sometimes in the very same book!
One inspired author writes from one point of view, and another, from another. It’s not about who is right and who is wrong—it’s about a complex reality bigger than any one person’s understanding or communication.
Besides this diversity, with the passage of time further insights occur, more facts are uncovered about the earlier period, and perhaps a greater appreciation of the achievements of the earlier persons and their points of view develops.
As the diversities increase, so does a discomfort with them. There is a desire for some clear definitions of meaning and some clear standards of practice. In effect, it often means that persons in authority respond to this desire with dogma.
And, then gradually, diversity in the understanding and application of the dogma develops as well. There’s no stopping it!
Since we human persons are necessarily limited, no human work or construction is ever perfect, and change and development always lead to new understandings, articulations, and norms.
Dogmatic diversity in some sense is almost a contradiction in terms, and dogmatic development can be frightening and challenging to its partisans. But, life is about change and development, and that means that education, technology, governance, behavioral standards, faith, religion, science, philosophy, theology—all things that involve human beings—involve change and development!
We sometimes say, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Maybe we should also say, “Better to embrace change and development than to bewail the loss of our comfortable, earlier certainties.”
18 April 2021