we face is the fact that scientism and
this idea that empirical knowledge is
the only true knowledge and the idea
somehow that speculative knowledge
reflective knowledge knowledge that
comes through deductive reasoning with
universals is no longer a valid form of
knowing this comes from august compton
others but and this is a long long
discussion so i can't go into it but
bayer dodge who was the president of the
protestant university in the protestant
University in Beirut brilliant scholar
Bayer dodge wrote a book on medieval
Muslim education and in it he argued
that the Muslim education of the Middle
Ages is rapidly being superseded by
schools and universities which are both
modern and secular the widespread
movement is so recent that it is
impossible to tell how it will affect
the cultural and social life of Islam it
is clear however that in this age of
chaotic change when members of the
rising generation are confused by
bewildering doubts the reformist must
not neglect the basic principles of
medieval education which were a search
of spiritual truth and faith in the
reality of Allah I consider this to be
just an incredibly important statement
by somebody who made the statement over
60 years ago and I think we're now
seeing the results in the Muslim world
of the fact that education has
completely ignored this side and and
you've had reactions that are gross and
and and and actually heinous because of
that the umayyad mosque and College in
Aleppo one of the most beautiful
architectural testimonies is now a
rubble heap because of this forgotten
tradition this is my real belief that
it's something that they've forgotten I
could go into this maybe we can talk a
little bit about this but the importance
of knowledge when we think the the the
the Scholastic's had this idea of what
they called the the theater LaMotta that
that god has these divine intentions and
that that meaning is imprinted on the
human being and that meaning comes
through form and it comes through the
interaction of the mind with form and
and and data is a latin word which means
what's given who gave it to us
fact is from is from factum which is
what is made who made it these are these
are ancient ideas that facts are not
something we we create or make up there
they're discovered by our minds and then
they're organized into knowledge so data
and information which is what much of
our modern education involves
organization of data information becomes
knowledge but knowledge then has to
become understanding and understanding
has to evolve into wisdom how do we use
that knowledge do we use our airplanes
to dwarf great distances or do we use
them to bomb people that have no self
defense how do we how do we use the
incredible knowledge of chemistry that
we have to create napalm or to create
balms and salves that that heal our
bodies I mean these are these are real
problems that we're dealing with today
and and so grammar was that the
knowledge logic was was the idea of the
understanding but then rhetoric was the
wisdom rhetoric was not a bag of tricks
that you learned to to influence people
when friends rhetoric was was the the
way that you expressed the truth of your
knowledge in your understanding this is
a beautiful picture by Botticelli a
young man being introduced to the seven
liberal arts the liberal arts were
always personified as women in the
Western tradition because men were the
students and men pursue women and so
these were the beauties to pursue and
you have who's leading her this young
men in grammar and then over them is
prudential wisdom so you learn these
seven sisters to be presided over by
wisdom but grammar was the entrance into
the liberal arts so to go from the
sublime to the ridiculous
yes Winky yes a winky face is correct
but in ancient times the semicolon was
actually used to separate archaic
written devices known as complete
sentences and if you think that's a joke
you have not taught composition in
college recently ignorance you know and
all I need to conclude because I want
dr. Sexton to have his time
ignorance compound and simple ignorance
I'll just end by saying that I truly
believe that if we don't restore the
vision of the liberal arts tradition to
its proper place at the heart of the
intellectual and spiritual pursuits of
our civilization then the we will
continue to watch as our civilization
declines and Falls the trends and
consequences are clearly evident our
elite further isolate themselves in
distant places our inner cities become
military theaters of engagement our poor
schools remain juvenile halls for
hapless youth while our top tier schools
continue to serve as recruiting centers
for what could really be argue argue Lee
be called sociopathic corporate
enterprises that devastate the global
Commons destroy our oceans and devour
what remains of the great forests and
jungles of the world I think it's
appropriate that I conclude by sharing
something from our nation's history the
very few people are aware of it's an
inspirational story about a woman and
the high school where she served as
principal the scholar and educator is
Anna Julia Cooper a name that should be
known to our children
as well as George Washington or any
other name she was a true liberal artist
a devout Christian an early advocate for
the rights of women and the fourth
african-american woman to receive a PhD
in 1924 from the University of Paris
Sorbonne born a slave on a southern
plantation despite all odds she obtained
what she should have what should have
been her right in education she mastered
the liberal arts
she learned Latin and Greek she wrote
her dissertation in French and went on
to become the principal of America's
first public high school for black
students that was renamed Dunbar High
School in 1906 it produced some of the
greatest african-americans of the 20th
century their sports team which i think
is the best name for a college team ever
was known as the Dunbar poets in a
seminal speech entitled the ethics of
the Negro problem Cooper wrote a
nation's greatness is not dependent upon
the things it makes and uses it's not on
the iPhones and the iPads things without
thoughts are mere vulgarities America
can boast her expansive territory her
gilded domes her paving stones of silver
dollars but the question of deepest
moment in this nation today is its span
of the circle of brotherhood the moral
stature of its men and its women the
elevation at which it receives its
vision into the firmament of eternal
truth thank you
[Applause]
well I want to thank my good friend
serene for being here and Hamzah welcome
to the I almost say the right coast but
I want to make it clear that I mean the
correct coast I think that my visit to
site tuna was a very important one for
me not least because I met this
remarkable man we had shared a wonderful
student important both of our lives who
brought us together and I'm delighted
that that has resulted in part in your
being here
now he's rightly described as the major
religious figure that he is I guess I
can give you an image which will give me
a little bit of religious stature I mean
you're actually very few of you know I
don't know if I've ever said this
publicly at NYU but you are looking at a
major historical figure at the podium
right now
you're looking at the Jackie Robinson of
the B'nai B'rith Little League I was the
first Christian to play in an old Jewish
league so this was a simpler time well
before the vast majority of you in this
room were born perhaps well before some
of your parents were born certainly well
before the two of them were born it was
the 1940s and the 1950s in this place
that gives birth to this accent Brooklyn
New York is the true other center of the
world I must say and it was a simple
time for Irish Catholics like me
working-class Irish Catholics like me I
went to a religious school was a Jesuit
High School it was an enlightened place
there were men teaching us and women and
many of them would go on to lead the
peace movement in the United States and
the civil rights movement name said I
could tell you the history books would
use to conjure and one of the great ones
just died a year ago his name was Daniel
Berrigan he was a leader of the peace
movement here in the 1960s and I will
never forget the word that he wrote on
the blackboard in my sophomore year of
high school
extra ecclesia nulla Salus outside the
church by which he meant the Catholic
Church there is no salvation
I remember going up to this
extraordinary progressive man after
class and saying father Bergen theirs
does that mean my my best friend my
picture I was a catcher
Gerry Epstein can't go to heaven and he
said unless you baptize him he will not
go to heaven now ultimately I was
blessed with persuading the most
extraordinary human being I ever met to
marry me she was Jewish and she doesn't
have a far higher place in the eyes of
God than I do there's something wrong
with God but that was this triumphalism
that we were taught that we had the
truth and no one else did and then as I
began college in 1959 the Vatican
Council began in the Catholic Church and
a great man by the name of John the 23rd
a great Pope what's in the spirit of the
Pope you know Francis taught us a word
and the word was acumen ISM acumen ISM
now some of the students here some of
the alumni here certainly some of the
faculty certainly Holliday knew who to
have heard me refer to NYU which unlike
the universities that hamza described
here in america that did have religious
roots and weiu in 1831 was founded
solely as a secular University from its
beginning but people have heard me
describe and want you as the first
ecumenical University but not ecumenical
in the sense that john xxiii was using
it he taught people with narrow
worldviews like me that we could frankly
understand our own selves in our own
faith better if we entered into genuine
dialogic dialogue not just a
conversation of tolerance but a
conversation where you really emptied
yourself into the being of the other
person and tried to see what that person
seeing through the window that he or she
had been given at birth not just the
window that you'd be given at birth and
to see yourself as they were seeing you
and that dialogic dialog allowed you to
look at the world not through the one
window you were given by birth but
through the many windows of the mansion
and enrich your own view of self never
giving up your own space but enriching
it and then that's what this word acumen
isn't meant theologically for john xxiii
but when when we've used it here at NYU
to refer to a secular university we've
meant it in a more yura sztyc secular
sense okay it's still a heuristic word
it's still a way of looking at the world
but but one doesn't have to take now
we're we're we're here in an event
that's sponsored by a many and that
celebrates the the work of many and and
which is an ecumenical work and we're
here gathered most of us in the room I
would assume like me like them taking
religion as a serious part of our lives
as speaking to the deepest part of our
lives but humanism this this this
heuristic is much broader and can be
seen simply as a way of looking at
diversity in the world and it's in that
sense we began to use it here at NYU a
secular University how does this play
into what we see going on around us in
the world the large trends of the world
we are the three of us theologians so we
don't think even election cycle to
election cycle let alone debate to
debate we think in centuries the large
arc of history that we hope is as Martin
Luther King says bending towards justice
we're certainly hopeful of that we we're
inherently optimistic
about the future because we believe in
the inner worthiness of human beings so
what are the large trends that are
relevant to universities today first
undeniably the world is miniature rising
all of the constraints of that bed that
separated us physically from each other
are disappearing we each are in each
other's lives the matter how remote we
are from each other
so how do we react to this some people
react with feein some people choose fear
and and they they they there's kind of
that latent triumphalism that was
captured in that phrase extra ecclesiam
nulla Salus outside my group there is no
worthiness there is no salvation and we
attempted out of theá--
nativism if you want to call it that
which is a deep strain in america we
attempt to to get ourselves off gaining
strategies whether they be gated
neighborhoods or as some would suggest
gated Nations the second reaction is the
reaction of embrace to delight in the
fact in the spirit of John the 23rd in
the spirit of a human ism that that that
someone who sees the world and me
differently from the way I do what a
delight that is how much I can learn
from that now in a way the the theory of
our University here at NYU captured in
an of many's agenda but permeating I
hope the entire university is is the
second of those reactions it's it's it's
affirming the power of community yes I
have an identity but but at NYU that
identity isn't found in some overarching
notion of homogeneity and community its
we don't gather in big stadia or arenas
wearing the same colors with
cheerleaders having us chant in unison
pretending to be the same tell us that
seems very old very kind of 1950's it
belongs back in that small classroom in
Brooklyn where even a great man thought
small about the word community we give
you here at NYU hard community it's hard
to find community at NYU unless you look
for it and work at it and and and and we
would we would rather assert the complex
community that can be the joy of an
ecumenical world a community of
communities where we all become parts of
micro communities within the overarching
entity and then we interlock the way of
many has us interlocking we interlock
creating a whole that's greater than the
sum of the parts creating and something
like a watch where the elements are
still identifiable but where there's
something greater that's come out of the
aggregation of thee of the elements so
that's the first broad trend and I think
the way we as a university and
universities generally could react to it
but there's another broad trend and I
hope you'll see here a connection both
to the first and to Hamas's remarkably
wise talk where we're on the verge of
seeing the death of the
but the death of thought certainly the
Trivium maybe also the quadrivium
because we some would say we're moving
into a post factual a post factual
period but certainly you've seen and I
first wrote about this you go my website
and see a piece I wrote over a decade
ago through 12 years ago after the 2004
election I began to worry that America
was developing what I call been an
allergy to nuance and complexity we we
we wanted very simple answers best of
all we wanted a ranking give us a
ranking I remember discussing with an
NYU trustee you owned a magazine that
provided extensive rankings of colleges
and universities and it was the first
time I'd met him I was a relatively new
Dean and he came up to me and said Dana
I understand that you're against
rankings and I said they're an
abomination and he said to me why would
it why should the consumer have less
information on the purchase of an
education that on the purchase of a
toaster and I said why does NYU have a
trustee who thinks in education is like
a toast
and I said what are you gonna do next
what are you gonna do next rank
religions give us a nice ranking to let
us know who's best you know or at least
who this week is best but this this
allergy to nuance and complexity which
is of course what thought is we do new
ones in complexity at universities
inevitably leads to a world where the
the corollary lack of trust develops
because we engage with each other
through conversation in an in a trusting
way you know we have to develop common
ground and of course the next step is
the devaluation about which harms the
worried of the spiritual there are some
here tonight who have been kind enough
to tell me you've read my book baseball
as a road to God it's interesting if you
read baseball as a road to God which I
could only write after Lisa's death
because I could only be public about my
spirituality then you'll see that it's
really not a book about baseball and
it's really not a book about God it's
it's a book about and the word I use in
the book is a word that hums are you
scientism and the danger of scientism
the danger of making science into a
religion that is the only true religion
the triumphalism now has all told us
that there is the known and we impart
that hopefully to our students we have
experts here on what is known and and
what we have cognitively and we should
give every bit of that that we have to
our students and then because we are a
research university there is the
knowable but not yet known the knowable
but not yet known and that's of course
what a research university does it
discovers the next generation of
knowledge and and that becomes part of
the virtuous cycle of them of an party
but then and and this was at the S
of what hamza said i think then there is
a third category which is neither known
or knowable and but not yet known if we
mean by known known in our cognitive
terms that's where scientism comes in if
you end the block there if it's all
capable of knowledge through science
then you've left out perhaps the most
important and that is those things that
are ineffable ineffable beyond our
putting into words they're so deep like
love love the meaning of life the fact
that there is a dimension called the
spiritual the fact that that there is a
God not necessarily an anthropomorphic
or interventionist God although perhaps
even that but something that goes beyond
our capacity for words that all the
great religions describe as God and we
need as we approach that to approach
that third category that goes beyond
science with deep humility and and and
never with the triumphalism of extra
ecclesiam nulla Salus because that
displays a pride which is the Greek
tragedy floor of hubris taken to its
extreme so it is that it brings great
pleasure to me every time I walk into my
new office on the fifth floor of the
Student Center here
I always enter through or most of the
time I enter through the spiritual life
center because it's wonderful for me to
see the activity there it's wonderful
for me to see the the affirmation of the
spirit that's true and the work of the
Islamic sent there in the Brompton
Center and everything else and I'll just
close with a story
of my first week here at NYU as
president I I had been named president
it was made 2001 so it was before 9/11
and the students in the Brahmin Center
were the first to invite me to come
visit with them and it was a Friday
night and they all gather for Shabbat
dinner on Friday night and then and then
they go back to the Brompton Center and
they asked me to come over after Shabbat
dinner and I I left Lisa we usually
tried to have time together at home on
Friday night I left her about 8:30 I
think to go over and I said honey I'll
be back in about an hour and when I
walked in shortly before midnight
my beloved understanding wife looked at
me and I said to her because I'd come
from the law school where we built a
little community everybody knew
everybody's name and I said to her you
know honey I think there's a chance I
think that my message of community got
through these students tonight and I
can't I'm sorry I'm late I'm sorry we
missed our Friday night but I was on
such a roll with them persuading them of
the importance of community and she
looked at me and she said honey where
did you go tonight
and I said to the Brockman senton I
remember she's Jewish and she said I
said Friday night and she said where
they bent
I said Shabbat dinner and she said and
you think you taught them about
community
you see that's the wonder of an eye
though love affair right because an ID a
love affair allows you to to understand
the context in love the way this person
is saying to you this is the way you
look to the world how absurd of you to
think and how absurd of me to think
every time the elevator opens does that
go up to the fifth floor and I see the
students the Muslim students gathered
for prayer I just said my heart leaps
for joy every time that elevator happens
or I see it happening and that's the
wonderful work that's being done here we
have to avoid the pride that I was
taught in Brooklyn in the 1950s if we do
if we embrace the ecumenical mission of
our faiths at their best of this place
at its best of our universities as they
fight against simplicity and advance
truth or this miniaturized world can be
a world of much great joy and not fear
and don't listen to anybody that tries
to scare you
about people that are different from you
[Applause]
[Applause]
so let me first begin by thanking both
of you for your reflections for your
combination of story and abstraction if
you will which often sits at the heart
of what makes the sacred tick I don't
quite know where to begin in terms of
opening up the conversation between you
but the scholar in me wants to ask right
here at the beginning as we've been
using this language of the sacred and
the secular like as you were reflecting
on your remarks do those terms actually
mean anything anymore
what what are they referring to what is
the difference between the secular and
the sacred what's the difference with
the sacred and the religious or the
secular and the state but what are we
playing with when we're playing with
this big distinction that underlies both
of your thoughts well one of the
beautiful words in our language is
sacrifice and one of the religious
aspects of baseball is the sacrifice
bunt the word the word sacrifice is the
Latin root is to make sacred and so at
the root of sacredness is really the
idea of sacrificing things for greater
things and whenever you have that
whether it's from a secular person or a
religious person you have something
sacred and in my estimation
I read a an op-ed in the Los Angeles
Times about It's a Wonderful Life which
in when I was growing up that was an
American ritual I think to watch that
around Thanksgiving and
Jimmy Stewart I was just actually at
Princeton where he went
Jimmy Stewart plays a character who
keeps sacrificing his dreams for other
people's dreams and and he's got a lot
of resentment he's a bit of a
passive-aggressive in the film but by
the end of it he realizes what an
incredible life he's had and what what
deep meaning was in those sacrifices but
the article was arguing what a horrible
movie it was and how terrible a
philosophy that was because why should
we give up our dreams for other people's
dreams and and I thought that was just
such a testimony to the secular so first
of all I want to join brother Hobbes his
opinion this is what we lawyers do I'll
join but I'll write a concurring opinion
with a slightly said no dissent yet no
dissent here at all says so for me the
dimension of which we're talking in
which every human tries to touch whether
it be in love or through spirituality or
whatever is in this ineffable space and
just as it's ineffable that means that
all the architecture of doctor in an
organization and so forth serves the
wonderful role of carrying on the
tradition on the one hand but has the
danger of sapping all of the energy out
of the tradition on the other and when
that sapping occurs by people who want
only to maintain their power
that's when religion can become very
dangerous so for me you know the word
sacred and profane or sacred and secular
are completely circular words if you try
to make an explanation of them in other
words they there is no explanation
beyond the experience of the person who
is experiencing the higher Offaly of the
sacred the sacred shining throat and and
and and so so I I can't convince you
my sacred or vice versa any more than I
can convince you of the existence of God
or I could convince Lisa by a syllogism
that we were in love I mean these things
are not touchable bye-bye
the first two of the three categories I
spent so just very quickly and then I'll
toss it back to you so one example I use
for my students is you know suppose I
were as could have been a Catholic
priest and the heart of the Liturgy of
my religion is is the Eucharist where
the bread and wine are transformed
sacramentally into the spirit and body
of the Savior that's my belief now I'm
walking through the outback in Australia
with a native Australian guide and and
the great vast flatness of the outback
suddenly arises uh LaRue ul you are you
google it you'll know you'll recognize
it this tremendous orange mound that to
the native Australian that's with me and
his one hundred thousand year olds
culture of welcoming and love represents
the connection of this world to the next
and we stopped because he's in awe in
the religious sense of it and I'm in awe
of it as a beautiful beautiful piece of
nature that has caused me to travel
around the world to see it and I'm so
moved I take out the bread and wine that
I have with me and I consecrate them
liturgically
for me the deepest spiritual act I'm
looking at a wonder of nature not Axis
Mundi he's seeing me eat my lunch
right I mean this is what's sacred and
what's profane what's sacred and what's
secular it's it's it depends upon the
experience and how it calls you but we
know there is this category that calls
us okay and each of us so many of us at
least in this room are called deeply to
that plane of existence which is the
most fulfilling and joyful of all planes
it's the plane of love and I think one
of the most interesting phenomenon
that's happening right now in the u.s.
not outside of the US but in the u.s. is
precisely the rise of this category sort
of like the sacred was called the realm
of the spiritual and it's the rise of a
whole generation of people who are
spiritual but not religious who who
claimed exactly to feel that common
human yearning for the ineffable and
that that thing that we reach for which
is beyond and yet it's it's not
connected to any kind of religious
practice or deep religious tradition and
it is in many ways calling into question
what we mean by secular or sacred
anymore and my question is is what is
the future of the category the reality
of this thing called religion which is
about not the ineffable but about
oftentimes practices and doctrines and
borders and boundaries and determining
mechanisms and related to identity and
not about sacrifice and the giving away
of oneself I mean that's almost the
opposite of the dogmatic and religion is
not about the reaching it's often about
the the defining that stops the reach so
if you could both just reflect on that
the the future of religion well one of
the things I mean obviously what's
called organized
aegeon has put off a lot of people I
always tell them become a Muslim or the
most disorganized religion on the planet
but there there is there is a real you
know disdain now for organized religion
for me personally one of the things that
I love about the the the pre-modern
world is is the discipline of the
pre-modern world if you wanted to dance
you had to learn how to dance I grew up
my my mother was half Greek so we had to
learn how to Greek dance and one things
about the Greek dancers is somebody who
really masters the the steps and becomes
a great Greek dancer is allowed to
improvise and a great musician has to go
through all these scales and learning
all these these the circle fists and all
these this music theory but at a certain
point they become free to play the piano
and this is essentially what the liberal
arts is about it's about the discipline
of becoming free one of the things most
people think that they think freely but
there are many shackles of the mind and
and and we have natural prejudices that
were often very unaware of like
generalization people come to New York
they have a bad experience with a taxi
driver and they're convinced that all
New York taxi drivers are cheats that's
a very common hasty generalization and
and this is why traditionally learning
how to to think clearly and to think
effectively it was a discipline that
actually took a great deal of time and
so I think that religious practice one
of the things that I've found because we
have a very specific practice of praying
five times a day and I Muslims always
tell me you know I pray and and I'm not
really feeling anything and for me I
think we tend to forget that this is a
spiritual experience consciousness
itself is a spiritual experience and and
what practice is meant to do if it's
done right is to actually free you
to have that experience and this is why
they say to live in wonder the the child
who is is still in that that world of
the sacred you know little children are
there already there they don't need to
be anywhere else but as they come into
adulthood and and and they they come
into their bodies and have their their I
mean you can't even use this word
anymore but they're sinful experiences
and and they and they become tainted
with the world religion is there to
remove that taint and and to
re-establish that purity of children and
and somebody one of my favorite quotes
of Confucius is when I was 15 my heart
was set on learning when I was thirty I
remained firm when I was forty I no
longer had doubts when I was fifty I
knew the Mandate of Heaven when I was
sixty my ear was obedient and I was when
I was seventy I could fulfill my heart's
desires without deviating that's a
spiritual path and that's practice and
that's the purpose of practice so you
can be spiritual without a practice but
where is it going to take you
[Applause]
so I would I would say picking up
exactly on what you said Hamza that the
future of religion depends in large part
on how we use it and how those to whom
we've given it as stewards in my church
the hierarchy uses it I'll take the
spirituality as a good start even if
it's not inside organized religion if
you find it at a baseball game because
of the intense attention to detail a
baseball game requires fine that's why I
say bass boys a road to God because it
cultivates the intense hard work of
noticing and paying attention if you
find it in the Grand Canyon you know in
the wonder of nature or in Leroux that's
a good start but Hamza is completely
right that that there are truths I mean
to to affirm the importance of the
ineffable is not to deny the importance
of what we can know and what is knowable
and we should come to know this is not
an argument against science it's an
argument against scientism that we're
making it's making science into a
religion and saying it has all knowledge
that's the argument I think both of us
are making so so yes we should try in in
in the great liturgical stories of the
great faiths to return to them because
they have an ability to convey the
ineffable and and and doctrine is
important because it shines a light but
if doctrine becomes an instrument of
power you know if I'm told by