9
Christianity and Other Religions
Introduction
Christianity has always existed in a multifaith world. At one level, Christianity emerged from within the matrix of Judaism, meaning that the clarification of its relationship with both the text of the Old Testament and the living faith of Judaism required active and urgent consideration. This issue was clearly recognized as important in the New Testament, with two of Paul's letters (Galatians and Romans) dealing with the issues in some detail. Were Christians obligated to observe the ceremonies of the Old Testament cult? Were they to be circumcised? And what of food laws?
Yet the cultural world of early Christianity became increasingly defined by the religions of ancient Greece and Rome. How did Christianity relate to the gods of Olympus? Or to Roman religion? In that Christianity was not a legal religion within the Roman empire, it frequently found itself the target of low-level harassment, and occasionally active persecution. This official hostility made it difficult for Christian writers to engage seriously with the question of the intellectual and cultural status of Roman religion. With the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine in 313, however, this situation changed.
After the fall of the Roman empire, the western church retained a strong intellectual presence in Europe. The presence of Jewish and Islamic communities in western Europe led to growing interest on the part of Christian theologians in understanding other faiths. Yet the resurgence of theological reflection on other religions dates mainly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. British theologians who had experienced Islam or Hinduism in India – then a British colony – reflected on how Christian theology could create intellectual space for other religious traditions. It is, however, widely thought that the trigger for sustained engagement with this question was immigration to the west, so that sizable communities of Hindu, Islamic, Sikh, and other religious traditions became a permanent feature of western culture after the Second World War.
This chapter includes three major readings relating to the nature of religion itself. Ludwig Feuerbach regarded religion as an expression of human longing; Karl Marx saw it as the result of social and economic alienation; and Karl Barth held it to be an expression of human defiance in the face of God. Each of these views is influential and worth careful consideration.
However, it was the issue of Christian theological responses to religious pluralism which was of chief importance in the twentieth century, which was without question the most significant period of theological reflection on this theme. Three main theological approaches have emerged over the course of Christian history, all of which are represented in the readings collected in this chapter:
- Particularism (or exclusivism) holds that only those who hear and respond to the Christian gospel may be saved.
- Inclusivism argues that, although Christianity represents the normative revelation of God, salvation is nonetheless possible for those who belong to other religious traditions.
- Pluralism holds that all the religious traditions of humanity are equally valid manifestations of, and paths to, the same core of religious reality.
This chapter provides some extended readings relating to these themes, as follows:
9.1 Justin Martyr on Christianity and Judaism
There will be no other God, Trypho, nor has any other God ever existed, other than He who made and disposed this entire universe. Nor do we think that there is one God for us, and another for you, but that He alone is God who led your fathers out from Egypt with a strong hand and a raised arm. Nor have we trusted in any other (for there is no other), but in Him in whom you also have trusted, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But we do not trust God through Moses or through the law; for then we would do the same as yourselves. But I have read that there will be a final law and covenant, the greatest of all, which all people who are seeking for the inheritance of God are now called upon to observe. For the law proclaimed on Horeb is now old, and belongs to you alone; this [law] however, is for all people. Now, a law set against a law which precedes it has abrogated it, just as a covenant which comes after another puts an end to the previous one. In the same way, since an eternal and final law – that is, Christ – and a trustworthy covenant have now been given to us, there shall be no further law, commandment, or ordinance. Have you not read this passage, in which Isaiah says: “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples. I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope” (Isaiah 51: 4–5). And Jeremiah speaks in this way about this same new covenant: “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (Jeremiah 31: 31–2). If, therefore, God proclaimed that a new covenant was to be instituted as a light to the nations, we can see and believe that those approach God, leaving behind their idols and other evils, through the name of Him who was crucified, Jesus Christ, will stand fast in their faith and piety, even in the face of death. Moreover, on account of his works and accompanying miracles, all are able to understand that [Jesus Christ] is the new law and the new covenant, and the fulfilment of those who out of every people wait for the benefits of God. For we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ are the true spiritual Israel, and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham – who was approved of and blessed by God on account of his faith, while still being uncircumcised, and called the father of many nations. We shall demonstrate this as we proceed.
9.2 Ludwig Feuerbach on the Human Origins of Religion
Consciousness of God is human self-consciousness; knowledge of God is human self-knowledge. By the God you know the human, and conversely, by the human, you know the God. The two are one. What God is to a person that too is the spirit, the soul; and what the spirit, the soul, are to a person, that is the God. God is the revealed and explicit inner self of a human being. Religion is the ceremonial unveiling of the hidden treasures of humanity, the confession of its innermost thoughts, and the open recognition of its secrets of love.
However, to characterize the consciousness of God as human self-consciousness in this manner does not mean that religious people are themselves immediately aware of the fact that their consciousness of God is simply their own self-consciousness. In fact, the absence of such an awareness is the distinctive mark of religion. In order to avoid this misunderstanding, it should be said that religion is the earliest and truly indirect form of human self-consciousness. For this reason, religion precedes philosophy in the history of humanity in general, as well as in the history of individual human beings. Initially, people mistakenly locate their essential nature as if it were outside of themselves, before finally realizing that it is actually within them. [...] The historical progress of religion consists therefore in this: that what an earlier religion took to be objective, is later recognized to be subjective; what formerly was taken to be God, and worshiped as such, is now recognized to be something human. What was earlier religion is later taken to be idolatry: humans are seen to have adored their own nature. Humans objectified themselves but failed to recognize themselves as this object. The later religion takes this step; every consolidation in religion is therefore a deeper self-knowledge.
9.3 Karl Marx on Feuerbach's Views on Religion
1 The chief defect of all previous materialism (including Feuerbach's) is that things, reality, the sensible world are conceived only in the form of objects of observation, not as human sense activity [sinnlich menschliche Tätigkeit], not as practical activity; not subjectively. [...] In the Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuine human attitude, while practical activity is apprehended only in its dirty Jewish manifestation. For this reason, he fails to grasp the significance of “revolutionary,” “practical–critical,” activity. [...]
4 Feuerbach sets out from the fact of religious self-alienation [religiösen Selbstentfremdung], the replication of the world in religious and secular forms. His achievement has therefore consisted in resolving the religious world into its secular foundation. [...]
6 Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of humanity. But the essence of humanity is not an abstraction which inheres in each individual [keim dem einzelnen Individuum inwohnendes Abstraktum]. Real human nature is a totality of social relations [das ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse]. As Feuerbach does not deal with this point, he is obliged to:
- (i) abstract from the historical process, to hypostatize religious feeling, and to postulate an abstract – isolated – human individual;
- (ii) to conceive human nature only in terms of a “genus,” as something inner and silent, which is the natural common link connecting many individuals.
7 Feuerbach therefore fails to see that “religious feeling” is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual who he is analyzing belongs to a particular form of society [einer bestimmten Gesellschaftsform]. [...]
11 The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it [Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es kömmt drauf an sie zu verändern].
9.4 Karl Barth on Christianity and Religion
A theological evaluation of religion and religions must be characterized primarily by the great cautiousness and charity of its assessment and judgments. It will observe and understand and take man in all seriousness as the subject of religion. But it will not be man apart from God, in a human per se. It will be man for whom (whether he knows it or not) Jesus Christ was born, died, and rose again. It will be man who (whether he has already heard it or not) is intended in the Word of God. It will be man who (whether he is aware of it or not) has in Christ his Lord. It will always understand religion as a vital utterance and activity of this man. It will not ascribe to this life-utterance and activity of his a unique “nature”, the so-called “nature of religion”. [...]
Revelation singles out the Church as the locus of true religion. But this does not mean that the Christian religion as such is the fulfilled nature of human religion. It does not mean that the Christian religion is the true religion, fundamentally superior to all other religions. We can never stress too much the connection between the truth of the Christian religion and the grace of revelation. We have to give particular emphasis to the fact that through grace the Church lives by grace, and to that extent it is the locus of true religion. And if this is so, the Church will as little boast of its “nature”, i.e., the perfection in which it fulfils the “nature” of religion, as it can attribute that nature to other religions. We cannot differentiate and separate the Church from other religions on the basis of a general concept of the nature of religion. [...]
We begin by stating that religion is unbelief. It is a concern, indeed, we must say that it is the one great concern, of godless man. [...] Where we want what is wanted in religion, i.e., justification and sanctification as our own work, we do not find ourselves – and it does not matter whether the thought and representation of God has a primary or only a secondary importance – on the direct way to God, who can then bring us to our goal at some higher stage on the way. On the contrary, we lock the door against God, we alienate ourselves from him, we come into direct opposition to him. God in his revelation will not allow man to try to come to terms with life, to justify and sanctify himself. God in his revelation, God in Jesus Christ, is the one who takes on himself the sin of the world, who “wills that all our care should be cast upon him, because he careth for us ....”
Religion is never true in itself and as such. The revelation of God denies that any religion is true, i.e., that it is in truth the knowledge and worship of God and the reconciliation of man with God. For as the self-offering and self-manifestation of God, as the work of peace which God himself has concluded between himself and man, revelation is the truth beside which there is no other truth, over against which there is only lying and wrong. If by the concept of a “true religion” we mean truth which belongs to religion in itself and as such, it is just as unattainable as a “good man”, if by goodness we mean something which man can achieve on his own initiative. No religion is true. It can only become true, i.e., according to that which it purports to be and for which it is upheld. And it can become true only in the way in which man is justified, from without; i.e., not of its own nature and being but only in virtue of a reckoning and adopting and separating which are foreign to its own nature and being, which are quite inconceivable from its own standpoint, which come to it quite apart from any qualifications or merits. Like justified man, true religion is a creature of grace. But grace is the revelation of God. No religion can stand before it as true religion. No man is righteous in its presence. It subjects us all to the judgment of death. But it can also call dead men to life and sinners to repentance. And similarly in the wider sphere where it shows all religion to be false, it can also create true religion. The abolishing of religion by revelation need not mean only its negation: the judgment that religion is unbelief. Religion can just as well be exalted in revelation, even though the judgment still stands. It can be upheld by it and concealed in it. It can be justified by it, and – we must at once add – sanctified. Revelation can adopt religion and mark it off as true religion. And it not only can. How do we come to assert that it can, if it has not already done so? There is a true religion: just as there are justified sinners. If we abide strictly by that analogy – and we are dealing not merely with an analogy, but in a comprehensive sense with the thing itself – we need have no hesitation in saying that the Christian religion is the true religion.
9.5 C. S. Lewis on Myth in Christianity and Other Faiths
There are, however, two other lines of thought which might lead us to call Theology a mere poetry, and these I must now consider. In the first place, it certainly contains elements similar to those which we find in many early, and even, savage, religions. And those elements in the early religions may now seem to us to be poetical. The question here is rather complicated. We now regard the death and return of Balder as a poetical idea, a myth. We are invited to infer thence that the death and resurrection of Christ is a poetical idea, a myth. But we are not really starting with the datum “Both are poetical” and thence arguing “Therefore both are false”. Part of the poetical aroma which hangs about Balder is, I believe, due to the fact that we have already come to disbelieve in him. So that disbelief, not poetical experience, is the real starting point of the argument. But this is perhaps an over-subtlety, certainly a subtlety, and I will leave it on one side.
What light is really thrown on the truth or falsehood of Christian Theology by the occurrence of similar ideas in Pagan religion? I think the answer was very well given a fortnight ago by Mr. Brown. Supposing, for purposes of argument, that Christianity is true, then it could avoid all coincidence with other religions only on the supposition that all other religions are one hundred per cent erroneous. To which, you remember, Professor Price replied by agreeing with Mr. Brown and saying: Yes. From these resemblances you may conclude not “so much the worse for the Christians” but “so much the better for the Pagans”. The truth is that the resemblances tell nothing either for or against the truth of Christian Theology. If you start from the assumption that the Theology is false, the resemblances are quite consistent with that assumption. One would expect creatures of the same sort, faced with the same universe, to make the same false guess more than once. But if you start with the assumption that Theology is true, the resemblances fit in equally well. Theology, while saying that a special illumination has been vouchsafed to Christians and (earlier) to Jews, also says that there is some divine illumination vouchsafed to all men. The Divine light, we are told, “lighteneth every man”. We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great Pagan teachers and myth-makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story – the theme of incarnation, death and rebirth. And the differences between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and the Christ Himself is much what we should expect to find. The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other. It is like watching something come gradually into focus: first it hangs in the clouds of myth and ritual, vast and vague, then it condenses, grows hard and in a sense small, as a historical event in first-century Palestine. This gradual focussing goes on even inside the Christian tradition itself. The earliest stratum of the Old Testament contains many truths in a form which I take to be legendary, or even mythical – hanging in the clouds: but gradually the truth condenses, becomes more and more historical. From things like Noah's Ark or the sun standing still upon Ajalon, you come down to the court memoirs of King David. Finally you reach the New Testament and history reigns supreme, and the Truth is incarnate. And “incarnate” is here more than a metaphor. It is not an accidental resemblance that what, from the point of view of being, is stated in the form “God became Man”; should involve, from the point of view of human knowledge, the statement “Myth became Fact”. The essential meaning of all things came down from the “heaven” of myth to the “earth” of history. In so doing, it partly emptied itself of its glory, as Christ emptied Himself of His glory to be Man. That is the real explanation of the fact that Theology, far from defeating its rivals by a superior poetry is, in a superficial but quite real sense, less poetical than they. That is why the New Testament is, in the same sense, less poetical than the Old. Have you not often felt in Church, if the first lesson is some great passage, that the second lesson is somehow small by comparison – almost, if one might say so, humdrum? So it is and so it must be. This is the humiliation of myth into fact, of God into Man: what is everywhere and always, imageless and ineffable, only to be glimpsed in dream and symbol and the acted poetry of ritual, becomes small, solid – no bigger than a man who can lie asleep in a rowing boat on the Lake of Galilee.
9.6 Karl Rahner on Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions
1st Thesis: We must begin with the thesis which follows, because it certainly represents the basis in the Christian faith of the theological understanding of other religions. This thesis states that Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all men, which cannot recognize any other religion beside itself as of equal right. This proposition is self-evident and basic for Christianity's understanding of itself. There is no need here to prove it or to develop its meaning. After all, Christianity does not take valid and lawful religion to mean primarily that relationship of man to God which man himself institutes on his own authority. Valid and lawful religion does not mean man's own interpretation of human existence. It is not the reflection and objectification of the experience which man has of himself and by himself. Valid and lawful religion for Christianity is rather God's action on men, God's free self-revelation by communicating himself to man. It is God's relationship to men, freely instituted by God himself and revealed by God in this institution. This relationship of God to man is basically the same for all men, because it rests on the Incarnation, death and resurrection of the one Word of God become flesh. Christianity is God's own interpretation in his Word of this relationship of God to man founded in Christ by God himself. And so Christianity can recognize itself as the true and lawful religion for all men only where and when it enters with existential power and demanding force into the realm of another religion and – judging it by itself – puts it in question. Since the time of Christ's coming – ever since he came in the flesh as the Word of God in absoluteness and reconciled, i.e. united the world with God by his death and resurrection, not merely theoretically but really – Christ and his continuing historical presence in the world (which we call “Church”) is the religion which binds man to God. Already we must, however, make one point clear as regards this first thesis (which cannot be further developed and proved here). It is true that the Christian religion itself has its own pre-history which traces this religion back to the beginning of the history of humanity – even though it does this by many basic steps. It is also true that this fact of having a pre-history is of much greater importance, according to the evidence of the New Testament, for the theoretical and practical proof of the claim to absolute truth made by the Christian religion than our current fundamental theology is aware of. Nevertheless, the Christian religion as such has a beginning in history; it did not always exist but began at some point in time. It has not always and everywhere been the way of salvation for men – at least not in its historically tangible ecclesio-sociological constitution and in the reflex fruition of God's saving activity in, and in view of, Christ. As a historical quantity Christianity has, therefore, a temporal and spatial starting point in Jesus of Nazareth and in the saving event of the unique Cross and the empty tomb in Jerusalem. It follows from this, however, that this absolute religion – even when it begins to be this for practically all men – must come in a historical way to men, facing them as the only legitimate and demanding religion for them. It is therefore a question of whether this moment, when the existentially real demand is made by the absolute religion in its historically tangible form, takes place really at the same chronological moment for all men, or whether the occurrence of this moment has itself a history and thus is not chronologically simultaneous for all men, cultures and spaces of history. [...]
2nd Thesis: Until the moment when the gospel really enters into the historical situation of an individual, a non-Christian religion (even outside the Mosaic religion) does not merely contain elements of a natural knowledge of God, elements, moreover, mixed up with human depravity which is the result of original sin and later aberrations. It contains also supernatural elements arising out of the grace which is given to men as a gratuitous gift on account of Christ. For this reason a non-Christian religion can be recognized as a lawful religion (although only in different degrees) without thereby denying the error and depravity contained in it. This thesis requires a more extensive explanation.
We must first of all note the point up to which this evaluation of the non-Christian religions is valid. This is the point in time when the Christian religion becomes a historically real factor for those who are of this religion. Whether this point is the same, theologically speaking, as the first Pentecost, or whether it is different in chronological time for individual peoples and religions, is something which even at this point will have to be left to a certain extent an open question. We have, however, chosen our formulation in such a way that it points more in the direction of the opinion which seems to us the more correct one in the matter although the criteria for a more exact determination of this moment in time must again be left an open question.
The thesis itself is divided into two parts. It means first of all that it is a priori quite possible to suppose that there are supernatural, grace-filled elements in non-Christian religions. Let us first of all deal with this statement. It does not mean, of course, that all the elements of a polytheistic conception of the divine, and all the other religious, ethical and metaphysical aberrations contained in the non-Christian religions, are to be or may be treated as harmless either in theory or in practice. There have been constant protests against such elements throughout the history of Christianity and throughout the history of the Christian interpretation of the non-Christian religions, starting with the Epistle to the Romans and following on the Old Testament polemics against the religion of the “heathens”. Every one of these protests is still valid in what was really meant and expressed by them. Every such protest remains a part of the message which Christianity and the Church has to give to the peoples who profess such religions. Furthermore, we are not concerned here with an a posteriori history of religions. Consequently, we also cannot describe empirically what should not exist and what is opposed to God's will in these non-Christian religions, nor can we represent these things in their many forms and degrees. We are here concerned with dogmatic theology and so can merely repeat the universal and unqualified verdict as to the unlawfulness of the non-Christian religions right from the moment when they came into real and historically powerful contact with Christianity (and at first only thus!). It is clear, however, that this condemnation does not mean to deny the very basic differences within the non-Christian religions especially since the pious, God-pleasing pagan was already a theme of the Old Testament, and especially since this God-pleasing pagan cannot simply be thought of as living absolutely outside the concrete socially constituted religion and constructing his own religion on his native foundations – just as St Paul in his speech on the Areopagus did not simply exclude a positive and basic view of the pagan religion. The decisive reason for the first part of our thesis is basically a theological consideration. This consideration (prescinding from certain more precise qualifications) rests ultimately on the fact that, if we wish to be Christians, we must profess belief in the universal and serious salvific purpose of God towards all men which is true even within the post-paradisean phase of salvation dominated by original sin. We know, to be sure, that this proposition of faith does not say anything certain about the individual salvation of man understood as something which has in fact been reached. But God desires the salvation of everyone. And this salvation willed by God is the salvation won by Christ. [...]
3rd Thesis: If the second thesis is correct, then Christianity does not simply confront the member of an extra-Christian religion as a mere non-Christian but as someone who can and must already be regarded in this or that respect as an anonymous Christian. It would be wrong to regard the pagan as someone who has not yet been touched in any way by God's grace and truth. If, however, he has experienced the grace of God – if, in certain circumstances, he has already accepted this grace as the ultimate, unfathomable entelechy of his existence by accepting the immeasurableness of his dying existence as opening out into infinity – then he has already been given revelation in a true sense even before he has been affected by missionary preaching from without. For this grace, understood as the a priori horizon of all his spiritual acts, accompanies his consciousness subjectively, even though it is not known objectively. And the revelation which comes to him from without is not in such a case the proclamation of something as yet absolutely unknown, in the sense in which one tells a child here in Bavaria, for the first time in school, that there is a continent called Australia. Such a revelation is then the expression in objective concepts of something which this person has already attained or could already have attained in the depth of his rational existence. It is not possible here to prove more exactly that this fides implicita is something which dogmatically speaking can occur in a so-called pagan. We can do no more here than to state our thesis and to indicate the direction in which the proof of this thesis might be found. But if it is true that a person who becomes the object of the Church's missionary efforts is or may be already someone on the way towards his salvation, and someone who in certain circumstances finds it, without being reached by the proclamation of the Church's message – and if it is at the same time true that this salvation which reaches him in this way is Christ's salvation, since there is no other salvation – then it must be possible to be not only an anonymous theist but also an anonymous Christian. [...]
4th Thesis: It is possibly too much to hope, on the one hand, that the religious pluralism which exists in the concrete situation of Christians will disappear in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, it is nevertheless absolutely permissible for the Christian himself to interpret this non-Christianity as Christianity of an anonymous kind which he does always still go out to meet as a missionary, seeing it as a world which is to be brought to the explicit consciousness of what already belongs to it as a divine offer or already pertains to it also over and above this as a divine gift of grace accepted unreflectedly and implicitly. If both these statements are true, then the Church will not so much regard herself today as the exclusive community of those who have a claim to salvation but rather as the historically tangible vanguard and the historically and socially constituted explicit expression of what the Christian hopes is present as a hidden reality even outside the visible Church. To begin with, however much we must always work, suffer and pray anew and indefatigably for the unification of the whole human race, in the one Church of Christ, we must nevertheless expect, for theological reasons and not merely by reason of a profane historical analysis, that the religious pluralism existing in the world and in our own historical sphere of existence will not disappear in the foreseeable future. [...]
9.7 The Second Vatican Council on Non-Christian Religions
1. In this age of ours, when men are drawing more closely together and the bonds of friendship between different peoples are being strengthened, the Church examines with greater care the relation which she has to non-Christian religions. Ever aware of her duty to foster unity and charity among individuals, and even among nations, she reflects at the outset on what men have in common and what tends to promote fellowship among them.
All men form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth (cf. Acts 17: 26), and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all men (cf. Wisdom 8: 1; Acts 14: 17; Romans 2: 6–7; 1 Timothy 2: 4) against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city which is illumined by the glory of God, and in whose splendor all peoples will walk (cf. Apocalypse 21: 23 ff.).
Men look to their different religions for an answer to the unsolved riddles of human existence. The problems that weigh heavily on the hearts of men are the same today as in the ages past. What is man? What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is upright behavior, and what is sinful? Where does suffering originate, and what end does it serve? How can genuine happiness be found? What happens at death? What is judgment? What reward follows death? And finally, what is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and towards which we tend?
2. Throughout history even to the present day, there is found among different peoples a certain awareness of a hidden power, which lies behind the course of nature and the events of human life. At times there is present even a recognition of a supreme being, or still more of a Father. This awareness and recognition results in a way of life that is imbued with a deep religious sense. The religions which are found in more advanced civilizations endeavor by way of well-defined concepts and exact language to answer these questions. Thus, in Hinduism men explore the divine mystery and express it both in the limitless riches of myth and the accurately defined insights of philosophy. They seek release from the trials of the present life by ascetical practices, profound meditation and recourse to God in confidence and love. Buddhism in its various forms testifies to the essential inadequacy of this changing world. It proposes a way of life by which men can, with confidence and trust, attain a state of perfect liberation and reach supreme illumination either through their own efforts or by the aid of divine help. So, too, other religions which are found throughout the world attempt in their own ways to calm the hearts of men by outlining a program of life covering doctrines, moral precepts and sacred rites.
The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men. Yet she proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14: 6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself (2 Corinthians 5: 18–19), men find the fullness of their religious life.
The Church, therefore, urges her sons to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, also their social life and culture.
3. The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own. Although not acknowledging him as God, they worship Jesus as a prophet, his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting.
Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred Council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding; for the benefit of all men, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values.
4. Sounding the depths of the mystery which is the Church, this sacred Council remembers the spiritual ties which link the people of the New Covenant to the stock of Abraham.
The Church of Christ acknowledges that in God's plan of salvation the beginning of her faith and election is to be found in the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all Christ's faithful, who as men of faith are sons of Abraham (cf. Galatians 3: 7), are included in the same patriarch's call and that the salvation of the Church is mystically prefigured in the exodus of God's chosen people from the land of bondage. On this account the Church cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament by way of that people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy established the ancient covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws nourishment from that good olive tree onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted (cf. Romans 11: 17–24). The Church believes that Christ who is our peace has through his cross reconciled Jews and Gentiles and made them one in himself (cf. Ephesians 2: 14–16).
Likewise, the Church keeps ever before her mind the words of the apostle Paul about his kinsmen: “they are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race according to the flesh, is the Christ” (Romans 9: 4–5), the son of the virgin Mary. She is mindful, moreover, that the apostles, the pillars on which the Church stands, are of Jewish descent, as are many of those early disciples who proclaimed the Gospel of Christ to the world.
As holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize God's moment when it came (cf. Luke 19: 42). Jews for the most part did not accept the Gospel; on the contrary, many opposed the spreading of it (cf. Romans 11: 28). Even so, the apostle Paul maintains that the Jews remain very dear to God, for the sake of the patriarchs, since God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made. Together with the prophets and that same apostle, the Church awaits the day, known to God alone, when all people will call on God with one voice and “serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Soph. 3: 9; cf. Isaiah 66: 23; Psalm 65: 4; Romans 11: 11–32).
Since Christians and Jews have such a common spiritual heritage, this sacred Council wishes to encourage and further mutual understanding and appreciation. This can be obtained, especially, by way of biblical and theological enquiry and through friendly discussions.
Even though the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (cf. John 19: 6), neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion. It is true that the Church is the new people of God, yet the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from Holy Scripture. Consequently, all must take care, lest in catechizing or in preaching the Word of God, they teach anything which is not in accord with the truth of the Gospel message or the spirit of Christ.
Indeed, the Church reproves every form of persecution against whomsoever it may be directed. Remembering, then, her common heritage with the Jews and moved not by any political consideration, but solely by the religious motivation of Christian charity, she deplores all hatreds, persecutions, displays of antisemitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews.
The Church always held and continues to hold that Christ out of infinite love freely underwent suffering and death because of the sins of all men, so that all might attain salvation. It is the duty of the Church, therefore, in her preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God's universal love and the source of all grace.
5. We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people in other than brotherly fashion, for all men are created in God's image. Man's relation to God the Father and man's relation to his fellow-men are so dependent on each other that the Scripture says “he who does not love, does not know God” (1 John 4: 8).
There is no basis therefore, either in theory or in practice for any discrimination between individual and individual, or between people and people arising either from human dignity or from the rights which flow from it.
Therefore, the Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against people or any harassment of them on the basis of their race, color, condition in life or religion. Accordingly, following the footsteps of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the sacred Council earnestly begs the Christian faithful to “conduct themselves well among the Gentiles” (1 Peter 2: 12) and if possible, as far as depends on them, to be at peace with all men (cf. Romans 12: 18) and in that way to be true sons of the Father who is in heaven (cf. Matthew 5: 45).
9.8 Clark Pinnock on Pluralists and Christology
Theological pluralists have a problem with Christology. Were Jesus to be decisive for all nations, that would be unconducive to dialogue and cooperation among the religions. Therefore, ways must be found to reinterpret historical data so as to eliminate finality claims from Christology. They must be diminished so they do not constitute a barrier to interreligious peace. Pluralists hope there is a way to read the New Testament without coming up with a Christ who has to be normative for everybody in the world. They need a way for Jesus to be unique for his followers, but not necessarily for others. If his uniqueness could be relational, for example, this would create fewer problems. Pluralists think that belief in the finality of Jesus Christ stands in the way of our appreciating other religions and getting along smoothly with them. They intend to correct the problem.
Different solutions have been proposed. The least radical involves shifting the emphasis away from metaphysics in the direction of action/functional categories. The problem could be eased, in the minds of theological pluralists, if we would just learn to view Jesus as God's love in action and present him as one who assists people to find access to the grace of God. Why not put the emphasis on Christ's prophetic office, then stress the way he reveals the Father's character and will for humans in his own life and teachings? This would shift the emphasis away from Jesus as a metaphysical oddity and toward the impact he had on people, the way he shaped people's understanding of what God is like. Instead of repeating the idea that God entered history in Jesus from the outside in a miraculous way, we could explain how Jesus functions as a window into God's very nature. [...] The late J. A. T. Robinson took this tack. He claimed that it was God's love that was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, not the divine substance. Jesus was special because God was acting in and through him. He became the image for us of who God is. Incarnation imagery supplies an effective mythic expression of the way we relate to God through him. Jesus is the clue to the nature of God as personal love, not the absolutely unique embodiment of God's being. He is unique in degree but not in kind.
The idea of Jesus embodying God's love for us is true as far as it goes. But not going farther creates severe difficulties. First, unwanted claims of finality tend to attach themselves to action Christology, even though the claims are functional. Even when the Christ-event is taken only as disclosure, it is still viewed as decisive disclosure. But if decisive for us, why not for others? If it is decisive for us in our cultural setting, why not also in other people's settings? Second, functional Christology has a way of not remaining functional. Edward Schillebeeckx also places emphasis on Jesus' role in communicating God's love, but then he goes on to posit an ontological bond between Jesus and God his Father also. Substance and action categories are brought together in his final assessment. For, he reasons, if Jesus presents us with God most human, are we not also in the presence of unfathomable mystery? Third, there are texts that present ontological teaching about the person of Jesus elsewhere in the New Testament, so that moving to action Christology does not really get one off the hook. It cannot account for the entire biblical witness, even though it can account for some of it.
A second possible way to correct the “problem” of high Christology in the New Testament allows one to accept the higher-than-functional claims that are made for Jesus and still dispense with universal normativeness. With reference to the “once and for all” language of the New Testament for the decisive work of Jesus, Paul Knitter comments that, “To close one's eyes to such proclamation is either psychologically to repress or dishonestly to deny what one does not wish to face.” We cannot prevent the biblical witnesses from saying what they meant to say.
Nevertheless, Knitter does try to evade the proclamation in another way. First, he explains the expressions in terms of the culture of the early Christians, saying it was natural for them to speak of their religious experiences in the ways that they did. Being a culturally conditioned way of speaking, their words tell us more about their social setting than about the actual person of Jesus. Second, their high praise of Jesus is more an expression of love and devotion to him than truth claims as such. It is rather like our saying, “My wife (or my husband) is the kindest and most loving person in the world.” This is not a scientific statement based on research but rather love language. By looking at these claims in this way, Jesus can be relationally unique (like a spouse is relationally unique), unique in the way Christians experience God – but not unique in a universal sense, in the sense of being normative for other people who may experience God in different religious contexts. The confession, “Jesus is Lord,” would express what Jesus means to us without carrying any implication that everybody in the world must worship him or come to God by way of him. This confession is our way to honor God, but need not be taken as a judgment on other confessions made by other people.
This approach allows one to admit that the New Testament witnesses make extraordinarily high claims for Jesus. Yet, one does not have to deny or excise them. The key is to reinterpret their significance in the experiential and confessional terms of love. Because they are culturally conditioned and psychologically rendered, the claims for Jesus turn out not to be truth claims in the ordinary sense, in which the church has understood them historically. The problem of high Christology vanishes.
The approach is ingenious and possible, if not entirely plausible. But there are problems in the following areas. First, the New Testament writers appear to be stating, as far as one can tell, what they consider to be facts and truths. They are not only sharing religious feelings, but conveying what they took to be information as well. [...] Second, there is also something of a justice issue involved here. What right does a modern interpreter have to alter what the biblical witnesses intend, so as to make it mean something else? What right has he or she to change and reduce the meaning in this way? To transmute claims about Jesus, as Savior of the world and risen from the dead, into a description of what was going on in their culturally conditioned psyches is illegitimate. Suppose one turned this same argument on pluralists and reduced their claims in this same way? Are their claims for God similarly derivative from the psyche? Is it their love for God that makes them think there actually is a God? To argue in this way constitutes an unacceptable put-down. People have the right to make claims others do not like or accept without having others change and distort their meaning to suit themselves. New Testament claims for Jesus ought to be taken seriously, the same way Knitter's claim about God ought to be. It is inconsistent to apply a noncognitivist bias to claims for Jesus and not to claims for God.
Third, the suggestion is very dubious that Christians might confess a non-normative Jesus without losing anything important in their faith. Knitter posits our living, and even dying, for Christ with the knowledge that the truth of the gospel is our truth, but not necessarily the truth for the world. It is as though we could confess that Jesus is Lord while harboring the reservation that maybe he is, and maybe he isn't. How can Christ's resurrection be true for us and not for the world? The faith of Christians would be fatally damaged if it came to be accepted that the risen Lord were our myth of meaning and not more than that.
A more radical approach to the problem of high Christology in the New Testament is adopted by John Hick. First, he outright denies any uniqueness claims on the part of Jesus. He realizes that hesitating on this point would leave a thread of continuity between Jesus and the later developments, giving it a toehold of plausibility. This is certainly a wise move methodologically, if a risky one exegetically. Second, like Knitter he transposes all the uniqueness claims made on behalf of Jesus by the New Testament witnesses onto the level of noncognitive love language. Third, he attempts to locate the Christology of the Incarnation in a hypothetical context of the development of traditions. Using Buddhism as an example, he points to the process by which religious leaders are deified over time out of respect. Fourth, he adds that there are various insuperable logical problems with belief in Incarnation. This supplies a philosophical backup objection should all else fail.
Unfortunately, none of his points sticks firmly. First, one cannot deny Jesus' claims to uniqueness on the basis of critical exegesis. While granting his point about Jesus not making explicit claims to Incarnation, the implicit claims Jesus does make solidly ground the more-developed views of his person after the Resurrection. Not easily sidestepped, they entail the high view of Jesus which issued in the faith of the church. Second, transposing claims for Jesus' uniqueness made by the biblical witnesses onto the level of noncognitive love language is an unacceptable put-down of their sincerely held beliefs. It is rooted in hostile presuppositions against the truth of what they are declaring. Neither just nor fair, it refuses to take them seriously. Third, there is Christological development in early doctrine, and the Incarnation is noticeable in that development. But the Christology being developed there is already very high, with the event of Jesus' Resurrection, and constitutes an unpacking of what is implicit from the beginning. The centuries of development envisaged by the Buddhist analogy do not exist in this case. Fourth, as to whether belief in the Incarnation is rational or not, two things can be said. First, the problem of finality is much larger than belief in the Incarnation. In many other ways the biblical witnesses lift up Jesus as Lord of the universe. Second, not everyone is as impressed as Hick by the logical problems of believing in the Incarnation. A large number of thoughtful Christians find the belief coherent, even true and magnificent.
The New Testament quite effectively resists attempts of this type to rid it of the unwanted belief in the finality of Jesus Christ. Efforts to revise Christology downward are difficult to accept because they go against the evidence, and they appear to be based on special pleading and hostile presuppositions. It is impossible to bring it off in an exegetically convincing way. One cannot make the New Testament teach a non-normative Christology. There may be nothing wrong with trying – one learns a lot from conducting exegetical experiments. But in terms of results, the effort to rid the New Testament of the doctrine of the finality of Christ must be pronounced a failure.
9.9 John Hick on Complementary Pluralism
Now it seems to many of us today that we need a Copernican revolution in our understanding of the religions. The traditional dogma has been that Christianity is the centre of the universe of faiths, with all the other religions seen as revolving at various removes around the revelation in Christ and being graded according to their nearness to or distance from it. But during the last hundred years or so we have been making new observations and have realized that there is deep devotion to God, true sainthood, and deep spiritual life within these other religions; and so we have created our epicycles of theory, such as the notions of anonymous Christianity and of implicit faith. But would it not be more realistic now to make the shift from Christianity at the centre to God at the centre, and to see both our own and the other great world religions as revolving around the same divine reality?
Indeed, if we are to understand the entire range of human awarenesses of the divine, including those enshrined in the Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist, as well as the Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions, we shall need an even wider framework of thought. Such a framework can perhaps best be approached through a distinction which is found in one form or another within some strand of each of the great traditions. Its Christian form is the distinction between, on the one hand, God as he is in himself, in his infinite self-existing being, independently of and “before” creation, and on the other hand God in relation to and as experienced by his human creatures. In its Hindu form it is the distinction between Nirguna Brahman, i.e. the absolute Reality beyond the scope of human thought and language, and Saguna Brahman, i.e. Brahman humanly experienced as a personal God with describable characteristics. In Buddhism there is the distinction between the incarnate and the heavenly Buddhas (comprising the Nirmanakaya and the Sambhogakaya), and on the other hand the infinite and eternal Dharmakaya or cosmic-Buddha-nature. Again, the Taoist Scriptures begin by saying that “The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao”. Within Jewish mysticism (in the Zohar) there is the distinction between En Soph, as the infinite divine ground, and the God of the Bible; and within Muslim mysticism (for example, in Ibn Arabi) between Al Haqq, the Real, and our concrete conceptions of God. Likewise, the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart distinguished between the Godhead (deitas) and God (deus) in a way which closely parallels the Nirguna–Saguna polarity in Hindu thought. And in the present century Paul Tillich has spoken of “the God above the God of theism”. Contemporary process theology likewise distinguishes between the eternal and temporal natures of God. In all these ways we have a distinction between the infinite transcendent divine Reality an sich, or in its/his/her-self, and that same Reality as thought, imagined and experienced by finite human beings.
This distinction enables us to acknowledge both the one unlimited transcendent divine Reality and also a plurality of varying human concepts, images, and experiences of and response to that Reality. These different human awarenesses of and response to the Real are formed by and reciprocally inform the religious traditions of the earth. In them are reflected the different ways of thinking, feeling and experiencing which have developed within the world-wide human family. Indeed these cultural variations amount, on the large scale, to different ways of being human – for example, the Chinese, the Indian, the African, the Semitic, the Graeco-Roman way or ways, and the way of our contemporary technological Atlantic civilization. We do not know at all fully why the life of our species has taken these various forms, though geographical, climatic and economic factors have clearly played their parts.
However, given these various cultural ways of being human we can I think to some extent understand how it is that they constitute different “lenses” through which the divine Reality is differently perceived. For we know that all human awareness involves an indispensable contribution by the perceiver. The mind is active in perception, organizing the impacts of the environment in ways made possible both by the inherent structure of consciousness and by the particular sets of concepts embedded in particular consciousnesses. These concepts are the organizing and recognitional capacities by which we interpret and give meaning to the data which come to us from outside. And this general epistemological pattern, according to which conscious experience arises out of the interpretative activity of the mind, also applies to religious experience.
The wide range of the forms of human religious experience seems to be shaped by one or other of two basic concepts: the concept of God, or of the Real as personal, which presides over the theistic religions, and the concept of the Absolute, or of the Real as non-personal, which presides over the non-theistic religious hemisphere. These basic concepts do not, however, enter, in these general and abstract forms, into our actual religious experience. We do not experience the presence of God in general, or the reality of the Absolute in general. Each concept takes the range of specific concrete forms which are known in the actual thought and experience of the different religious traditions.
Thus the concept of deity is concretized as a range of divine personae – Yahweh, the Heavenly Father, Allah, Krishna, Shiva, etc. Each of these personae has arisen within human experience through the impact of the divine Reality upon some particular stream of human life. Thus Yahweh is the face of God turned towards and perceived by the Jewish people or, in more philosophical language, the concrete form in which the Jews have experienced the infinite divine Reality. As such, Yahweh exists essentially in relation to the Hebrews, the relationship being defined by the idea of covenant. He cannot be extracted from his role in Hebrew historic experience. He is part of the history of the Jews, and they are a part of his history. And as such Yahweh is a quite different divine persona from Krishna, who is God's face turned towards and perceived by hundreds of millions of people within the Vaishnavite tradition of India. Krishna is related to a different strand of human history from Yahweh, and lives within a different world of religious thought and experience. And each of these divine personae, formed at the interface between the divine Reality and some particular human faith community, has inevitably been influenced by human imaginative construction and sinful human distortion as well as by the all-important impact of the transcendent Reality; there is an element of human projection as well as of divine revelation. How otherwise can we account for the ways in which the various divine personae have sometimes validated cruel massacres, savage punishments, ruthless persecutions, oppressive and dehumanizing political regimes? God, as imaged and understood by the masses of believers within any of the great traditions, must be partly a human construction in order, for example, for God the Father to have been on both sides of the conflict in Europe in the Second World War, and for Allah to have been on both sides of the recent Iraq–Iran conflict. But it does not follow that the divine personae are purely human projections. On the contrary, the theory that I am outlining is that they constitute the concrete forms in which the transcendent divine Reality is known to us. Each is the Real as perceived and experienced (and partly misperceived and misexperienced) from within a particular strand of the human story.
And essentially the same is to be said concerning the various impersonae in terms of which the Real is known in the non-theistic religious traditions. Here the concept of the Absolute is made concrete as Brahman, Nirvana, the Dharma, the Dharmakaya, Sunyata, the Tao. And according as an individual's thoughts and practices are formed by the advaitic Hindu tradition, or the Theravada or Mahayana Buddhist tradition, he or she is likely to experience the Real in the distinctive way made possible by this conceptuality and meditational discipline.
But can the divine Reality possibly be such as to be authentically experienced by millions of people as a personal God, and also by millions of others as the impersonal Brahman or Tao or Sunyata? Perhaps there is a helpful analogy in the principle of complementarity in modern physics. Electromagnetic radiation, including light, is sometimes found to behave like waves and sometimes like particles. If we experiment upon it in one way we discover a wave-like radiation, whilst if we experiment upon it in another way we discover a procession of particles. The two observations have both had to be accepted as valid and hence as complementary. We have to say that the electromagnetic reality is such that, in relation to human observation, it is wave-like or particle-like according to how the observer acts upon it. Analogously, it seems to be the case that when humans “experiment” with the Real in one kind of way – the way of theistic thought and worship – they find the Real to be personal and when other humans approach the Real in a different kind of way – the way for example of Buddhist or Hindu thought and meditation – they find the real to be non-personal. This being so, we may well emulate the scientists in their realistic acceptance of the two sets of reports concerning the Real as complementary truths.
Such a theory has the merit that it does not lead us to play down the differences between the various forms of religious experience and thought. It does not generate any pressure to think that God the Father and Brahman, or Allah and the Dharmakaya, are phenomenologically, i.e. as experienced and described, identical; or that the human responses which they evoke, in spiritual practices, cultural forms, life-styles, types of society, etc., are the same. The theory – arrived at inductively by observation of the range of human religious experiences – is that the great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses to, the Real or the Ultimate from within the major variant cultural ways of being human. Such a theory, I would suggest, does justice both to the fascinating differences between the religious traditions and to their basic complementarity as different human responses to the one limitless divine Reality.
This complementarity is connected with the fact that the great world traditions are fundamentally alike in exhibiting a soteriological structure. That is to say, they are all concerned with salvation/liberation/enlightenment/fulfilment. Each begins by declaring that our ordinary human life is profoundly lacking and distorted. It is a “fallen” life, immersed in the unreality of maya, or pervaded by dukkha, sorrow and unsatisfactoriness. But each then declares that there is another Reality, already there and already open to us, in relation to or in identity with which we can find a limitlessly better existence. And each proceeds to point out a path of life which leads to this salvation/liberation. Thus they are all concerned to bring about the transformation of human existence from self-centredness to Reality-centredness. Salvation/liberation occurs through a total self-giving in faith to God as he has revealed himself through Jesus Christ; or by the total self-surrender to God which is islam: or by transcending self-centredness and experiencing an underlying unity with Brahman; or by discovering the unreality of self and its desires and thus experiencing nirvana, or by becoming part of the flow of life which in its emptiness–fullness (sunyata) is found to be itself nirvana. Along each path the great transition is from the sin or error or self-enclosed existence to the liberation and bliss of Reality-centredness.
9.10 John B. Cobb Jr. on Religious Pluralism
How odd I find it to be writing for a collection of essays in criticism of theologies espousing religious pluralism! Yet I have agreed to do so because of the very narrow way – indeed an erroneous way, I think – in which pluralism has come to be defined. By that definition of pluralism, I am against pluralism. But I am against pluralism for the sake of a fuller and more genuine pluralism. Let me explain.
I declined to write a paper for the conference that led to the publication of the book, The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, because I did not share in the consensus that conference was supposed to express and promote. In the minds of the organizers, that consensus was to be around the view that the several major religions are, for practical purposes, equally valid ways of embodying what religion is all about. The uniqueness that is rejected is any claim that Christianity achieves something fundamentally different from other religions. From my point of view, the assumptions underlying these formulations are mistaken and have misled those who have accepted them.
Probably the most basic assumption is that there is an essence of religion. This essence is thought to be both a common characteristic of all “religions” and their central or normative feature. Hence, once it is decided that Buddhism, Confucianism, or Christianity is a religion, one knows what it is all about and how it is to be evaluated. The next step is then the one about which the consensus was to be formed. Given the common essence, let us agree to acknowledge that it is realized and expressed more or less equally well in all the great religions. It is hoped in this way to lay to rest once and for all Christian arrogance and offensive efforts to proselytize. Christians could then contribute to that peace among religions that is an indispensable part of the peace the world so badly needs.
If, as in my case, one rejects this whole view of religion, then it is very difficult to take part in the discussion as thus posed. I do believe there is a family of traits or characteristics that guides the use of the term religion for most people. But the term is used even when only some, not all, the traits are present. For example, most people in the sphere of dominance of the Abrahamic faiths think of worship of a Supreme Being or deity as a religious trait. Yet when they find this absent in most Buddhist traditions, they do not automatically deny that Buddhism is a religion. They notice that it is permeated by a spirit of deep reverence or piety, that it aims to transform the quality and character of experience in a direction that appears saintly, that it manifests itself in such institutions as temples and monasteries in which there are ritual observances, and so forth. The overlap of characteristics suffices for most people, so that Buddhism is almost always included among the world's religions.
If one turns to Confucianism one finds a different set of overlaps with Abrahamic assumptions about religion and a different set of discrepancies. By a certain stretch of terms one can find in it a worship of a Supreme Being, but the function this plays is far less central than in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There is great concern for the right ordering of human behavior, but much less interest in transforming the quality and character of experience. So is Confucianism a religion? This question divided Jesuits and their opponents in the seventeenth century, and the vacillation by Rome prevented what might otherwise have been the conversion of the Chinese court to Catholicism.
In the twentieth century the more acute issue is whether communism is a religion. Those who take their cue from the Abrahamic faiths notice at once the denial of God, but such denial does not exclude Buddhism. They notice also the evangelistic fervor, the selfless devotion evoked, the totalistic claims, the interest in the transformation of the human being, the confidence that a new age is coming. And in all this they see religious characteristics. One might judge that communism actually resembles Christianity, at least in its Protestant form, more closely than does Buddhism, yet the features it omits or rejects seem the most “religious” aspects of Christianity. A popular solution is to call communism a quasi-religion, whatever that may mean.
It would be possible to draw up a long list of characteristics that one person or another associates with the word religion. A list drawn up by a Buddhist would be likely to overlap with, but differ from, a list drawn up by a Muslim. Does that mean that one list would be more accurate than the other? That would imply that there is some objective reality with which the lists more or less correspond. But there is no Platonic idea of “Religion” to which the use of the term ought to conform. The term means what it has come to mean through use in varied contexts. Each user should be at some pains to clarify his or her meaning. But arguments as to what religion truly is are pointless. There is no such thing as religion. There are only traditions, movements, communities, people, beliefs, and practices that have features that are associated by many people with what they mean by religion.
One meaning of religion derived from its Latin root deserves special attention here. Religion can mean “a binding together”; it can be thought of as a way of ordering the whole of life. All the great traditions are, or can be, religions in this sense. So is communism. All are, or can be, ways of being in the world. In most instances they designate themselves, or are readily designated, as Ways. If this were all that were meant by calling them religions, I would have no objection to designating them as such. But we would need to recognize that this use does not capture all the meanings of religion that are important to people. In fact, we do not cease thinking of these traditions as religious when they fail to function as the overarching ways of life for people who identify themselves with them. In the case of Buddhism in China, most people who identified themselves as Buddhists also identified themselves as Confucianists. Neither constituted an inclusive way of being in the world. For many people, being Chinese provided the comprehensive unity of meaning, the basic way of being, in the context of which they could adopt Buddhism for certain purposes and Confucianism for others. When religion is taken to mean the most foundational way of being in the world, then being Chinese is the religion of most of the Chinese people. This meaning of religion needs to be kept in mind along with others, but in most discourse it functions more as one of the characteristics that may or may not be present than as the decisive basis of use of the term.
If one views the situation in this way, as I do, the question, so important to the editors of The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, can still arise as to whether all the great traditions are of roughly equal value and validity. But the requisite approach to an answer to this question is then much more complex than it is for those who assume that all these traditions have a common essence or purpose just because they are religions. The issue, in my view, is not whether they all accomplish the same goal equally well – however the goal may be defined. It is first of all whether their diverse goals are equally well-realized.
Consider the case of Buddhism and Confucianism in China. What of their relative value and validity? They coexisted there through many centuries, not primarily as alternate routes to the same goal, but as complementary. In crude oversimplification, Confucianism took care of public affairs, while Buddhism dealt with the inner life. Perhaps one might go on to say that they were about equally successful in fulfilling their respective roles, but that statement would be hard to support and does not seem especially important.
Questions about the relative value of the great religious traditions can all be asked, and asked with less confusion, if the category “religion” is dropped. Both Buddhism and Confucianism are traditions that are correctly characterized in a variety of ways. By most, but not all, definitions of “religious,” both can be characterized as religious. But to move from the fact that they are, among other things, “religious,” to calling them religions is misleading and has in fact misdirected most of the discussion. It is for this reason that I am belaboring what appears to me an all-too-obvious point. The horse I am beating is not dead. It is alive as an assumption of the editors of The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. The assumption is so strong that, so far as I can discover, no argument is given in its support, and arguments against it, such as mine, are systematically ignored rather than debated.
I oppose the “pluralism” of the editors of (and some of the contributors to) The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, not for the sake of claiming that only in Christianity is the end of all religion realized, but for the sake of affirming a much more fundamental pluralism. Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, among others, are religious traditions, but they are also many other things. Further, of the family of characteristics suggested by “religious,” they do not all embody the same ones.
Few of the supporters of either “pluralism” or “anti-pluralism” deny the fact of diversity. Our difference is that they discern within and behind the diversity some self-identical element, perhaps an a priori, that they call religion. It is this that interests them and that functions normatively for them. The issue among the Christians who espouse this view is whether Christians should claim superiority.
What strikes the observer of this discussion is that among those who assume that religion has an essence there is no consensus as to what the essence may be. Even individual scholars often change their mind. The variation is still greater when the scholars represent diverse religious traditions. Yet among many of them the assumption that there is an essence continues unshaken in the midst of uncertainty as to what that essence is.
I see no a priori reason to assume that religion has an essence or that the great religious traditions are well understood as religions, that is, as traditions for which being religious is the central goal. I certainly see no empirical evidence in favor of this view. I see only scholarly habit and the power of language to mislead. I call for a pluralism that allows each religious tradition to define its own nature and purposes and the role of religious elements within it.
9.11 Lesslie Newbigin on the Gospel in a Pluralist Culture
There is a longing for unity among all human beings, for unity offers the promise of peace. The problem is that we want unity on our terms, and it is our rival programs for unity which tear us apart. As Augustine said, all wars are fought for the sake of peace. The history of the world could be told as the story of successive efforts to bring unity to the world, and of course the name we give to these efforts is “imperialism.” The Christian gospel has sometimes been made the tool of an imperialism, and of that we have to repent. But at its heart it is the denial of all imperialisms, for at its center there is the cross where all imperialisms are humbled and we are invited to find the center of human unity in the One who was made nothing so that all might be one. The very heart of the biblical vision for the unity of humankind is that its center is not an imperial power but the slain Lamb.
The truth, of course, is that every program for human unity has implicit in it some vision of the organizing principle which is to make this unity possible. As Andrew Dumas has pointed out, if this is not clearly recognized and stated, as it is in the Christian vision of the cross of Jesus as the place where all peoples may find reconciliation, then we shall find that the interests and intentions of the proposer are the hidden center. If there is no explicit statement of the center of unity, then the assumptions and interests of the proposer become the effective center. This becomes very clear in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. Professor Gordon Kaufman of Harvard begins with the need for human unity, assumes without argument that the Christian gospel cannot furnish the center for such unity, and goes on to say that “modern historical consciousness” requires us to abandon the claim to Christ's uniqueness, and to recognize that the biblical view of things, like all other human views, is culturally conditioned. This same “modern historical consciousness” will enable us to enter into the mental worlds of the other religions without supposing that we can impose our Christian norms on them. But to a person living in another culture it is not obvious that the modern historical consciousness of twentieth-century Western intellectuals provides us with a vantage point which can displace the one provided by the Christian story, or that it can furnish a basis for human unity. It is true that modern historical studies enable us to see that people in other times and places were looking at the world through culturally conditioned lenses and that their claim to “see things as they really are” is relativized by our studies in the history of cultures. But to suppose that modern historical consciousness gives us a privileged standpoint where we really do see things as they are, is of course unsupported dogma. Modern historical consciousness is also the product of a particular culture and can claim no epistemological privilege. Kaufman's theology of religions is thus similar to that of the Christian in that it finally rests on an ultimate faith-commitment which does not and cannot seek validation from some more ultimate ground. In this case the ultimate faith-commitment is to the validity of the “modern historical consciousness.”
The same is true for the often made claim that all religions are variants of one central human experience, namely that which has been explored most fully by the great mystics. It is indeed true that mystical experience has played a very important role in all the world's great religions, including Christianity. But in no religious tradition is it the only reality. There is much else in all religious traditions, much about the conduct of human life, about justice, freedom, obedience, and mutual charity. To select the mystical element in religion as the core reality is a decision which can be questioned in the name of other elements in the religious life. And the claim that the mystical experience is that which provides the primary clue to what is real, and therefore the one road to salvation for all humanity, is – once again – to choose a particular faith-commitment among others which are possible. It does not enable one to evade the question: Why this, rather than that?
Wilfred Cantwell Smith in the same volume restates his familiar view that all the religions have as their core some experience of the Transcendent; that whether we speak of images made of wood and stone or images made in the mind, or even of such an image as the man Jesus, all are equally the means used by the Transcendent to make himself, herself, or itself present to us humans. To claim uniqueness for one particular form or vehicle of this contact with the Transcendent is preposterous and even blasphemous. Much rather accept the truth so beautifully stated in the Bhagavad Gita and in the theology of Ramanuja, that God is so gracious that he (or she or it) accepts everyone who worships whatever be the form through which that worship is offered.
It is clear that in Smith's view “The Transcendent” is a purely formal category. He, she, or it may be conceived in any way that the worshipper may choose. There can therefore be no such thing as false or misdirected worship, since the reality to which it is directed is unknowable. Smith quotes as “one of the theologically most discerning remarks that I know” the words of the Yogavasistha: “Thou art formless. Thy only form is our knowledge of Thee.” Any claim for uniqueness made for one concept of the Transcendent, for instance the Christian claim that the Transcendent is present in fullness in Jesus (Colossians 1: 19), is to be regarded as wholly unacceptable. There are no criteria by which different concepts of the Transcendent may be tested. We are shut up to a total subjectivity: the Transcendent is unknowable. [...]
I venture to offer two concluding comments on the pluralist position as it is set out in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. One is from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. The culture in which this type of thinking has developed is one in which the most typical feature is the supermarket. In a society which has exalted the autonomous individual as the supreme reality, we are accustomed to the rich variety offered on the supermarket shelves and to the freedom we have to choose our favorite brands. It is very natural that this mentality should pervade our view of religion. One may stick to one's favorite brand and acclaim its merits in songs of praise; but to insist that everyone else should choose the same brand is unacceptable.
And that leads to a second point which is more fundamental. The Myth volume celebrated a decisive move beyond exclusivism, and beyond the inclusivism which acknowledges the saving work of Christ beyond Christianity, to a pluralism which denies any uniqueness to Jesus Christ. This move, the “crossing of the Rubicon,” is the further development of what was described by John Hick as a Copernican revolution – the move from a christocentric view of reality to a theocentric one. The further move is described as “soteriocentric” – it has its center in the common quest for salvation. Even the word “God” excludes some concepts of the Transcendent Reality and is therefore exclusivist. But what is “salvation”? It is, according to Hick, “the transformation of human experience from self-centredness to God – or Reality – centredness.” The Christian tradition affirms that this salvation has been made possible because God, the creator and sustainer of all that is, has acted in the historical person of the man Jesus to meet us, take our burden of sin and death, invite us to trust and love him, and so to come to a life centered in God and not in the self. The authors of the Myth deny this. “Reality” is not to be identified with any specific name or form or image or story. Reality “has no form except our knowledge of it.” Reality is unknowable, and each of us has to form his or her own image of it. There is no objective reality which can confront the self and offer another center – as the concrete person of Jesus does. There is only the self and its need for salvation, a need which must be satisfied with whatever form of the unknown Transcendent the self may cherish. The movement, in other words, is exactly the reverse of the Copernican one. It is a move away from a center outside the self, to the self as the only center. It is a further development of the move which converted Christian theology from a concern with the reality of God's saving acts, to a concern with “religious experience,” the move which converts theology into anthropology, the move about which perhaps the final word was spoken by Feuerbach who saw that the “God” so conceived was simply the blown-up image of the self thrown up against the sky. It is the final triumph of the self over reality. A “soteriocentric” view makes “reality” the servant of the self and its desires. It excludes the possibility that “reality” as personal might address the self with a call which requires an answer. It is the authentic product of a consumer society.
It is not easy to resist the contemporary tide of thinking and feeling which seems to sweep us irresistibly in the direction of an acceptance of religious pluralism, and away from any confident affirmation of the absolute sovereignty of Jesus Christ. It is not easy to challenge the reigning plausibility structure. It is much easier to conform. The overwhelming dominance of relativism in contemporary culture makes any firm confession of belief suspect. To the affirmation which Christians make about Jesus, the reply is, “Yes, but others make similar affirmations about the symbols of their faith; why Jesus and not someone or something else?” Thus a reluctance to believe in something leads to a state of mind in which the Zeitgeist becomes the only ruling force. The true statement that none of us can grasp the whole truth is made an excuse for disqualifying any claim to have a valid clue for at least the beginnings of understanding. There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to the knowledge which is available to fallible human beings. We have to ask, “How do you know that the truth about God is greater than what is revealed to us in Jesus?” When Samartha and others ask us, “What grounds can you show for regarding the Bible as uniquely authoritative when other religions also have their sacred books?” we have to ask in turn, “What is the vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims which these different scriptures make? What higher truth do you have which enables you to reconcile the diametrically opposite statements of the Bible and the Qur'an about Jesus? Or are you in effect advising that it is better not to believe in anything?” When the answer is, “We want the unity of humankind so that we may be saved from disaster,” the answer must be, “We also want that unity, and therefore seek the truth by which alone humankind can become one.” That truth is not a doctrine or a worldview or even a religious experience; it is certainly not to be found by repeating abstract nouns like justice and love; it is the man Jesus Christ in whom God was reconciling the world. The truth is personal, concrete, historical. To make that confession does not mean, as critics seem to assume, that we believe that God's saving mercy is limited to Christians and that the rest of the world is lost.
9.12 Gavin D'Costa on the Self-Contradictions of Pluralism
Hick holds that all religions are paths to the “Real” (a neutral term, compared to “God” which has theistic implications or “Nirguna Brahman” which has non-theistic implications, etc.). This, according to Hick, is the best hypothesis which explains religious pluralism positively. He argues that the other possibilities are either saying that all religions are false, or claiming that truth resides only in a single religion with the further possibility that fragments of this truth are found in other religions which are thereby always viewed as inferior and inadequate. The most plausible hypothesis which does justice to the wide range of religions is that the Real is thought of as finally beyond all description, and certainly not exhausted in the differing descriptions given to the Real by the various religions; all of which are true to some extent and false in other ways. [...]
Two devices are employed to shore up this position. One is a Kantian type distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal. The Real an sich, in itself, is the noumenal which is beyond all description and the differing images within the religions are like phenomenal representations of the noumenal. In this way, such pluralists claim that the Real is beyond, but related to, conceptions such as Allah, God the Father, Nirvana, and so on. The second device is the employment of the distinction between mythic and factual truth which is used to distinguish the proper status of claims for finality and ultimacy; i.e. that they are in fact provisional and partial. For example, claims that God is disclosed in Jesus uniquely and exclusively are deemed mythical, apparently better understood as expressing the ultimate concern the worshipper has in relation to Jesus than any metaphysical claims concerning the person of Jesus.
What I must now do to establish my case that pluralism must always logically be a form of exclusivism and that nothing called pluralism really exists is to show that this position of philosophical pluralism in fact involves specific and exclusive truth claims with specific and exclusive criteria for truth. In this respect it will be seen to grant no autonomous pluralist validity to the differing religions. To find out John Hick's truth criteria we will have to follow two differing paths. This is because there is an ambiguity as to how Hick would answer this question and textually there are two distinct answers. One possible answer is that Hick's truth criteria are finally theistic, grounded in a philosophical cum cross-revelatory conception of an all loving God who desires the salvation of all men and women and who creates the world so that this scenario is achieved, with the final result of eternal loving fellowship. Ultimately, claims that contradict this series of truth claims are deemed to be false and provisional. The question of the grounding of such claims cannot be pursued now, but it highlights that this question then becomes more interesting and central in the discussion. This theistic answer is certainly the one found in works such as God and the Universe of Faiths (1973), and in the eventual eschatological scenario put forth in Death and Eternal Life (1976) and in parts of An Interpretation of Religion (1989).
The reason why this answer is found is because Hick is (and always has been) committed to defending the cognitive status of religious language and this runs directly against his pluralist aim to allow for conflicting and differing views of truth. I have noted that Hick's texts are capable of another answer to which I shall now briefly turn, but my main point stands in regard to the first answer: there are finally exclusive and particular criteria for truth and that Hick is eventually committed to excluding or mythologizing such claims that are in conflict with this truth. Concomitantly, he is found to exclude such error from salvation and his para-eschatological scenario in Death and Eternal Life is similar to exclusivists who posit a post-mortem confrontation with Christ to allow that all people will have the opportunity to attain salvation.
The second answer leads us to what I shall call transcendental agnosticism (making a claim that one cannot know what the truth is, except that there is a truth that is beyond us). This is the dominant position found in An Interpretation of Religion. Hick's distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal is such that Hick is driven to say that no one image of the noumenal is privileged which then means that the statement that the Real is all loving and desires the salvation and well being of all persons and draws them into communion with itself cannot be said to be truer than the statement that finally the Real is no different from the ultimate reality of all persons and the ultimate state consists in pure consciousness, without distinction and difference. If neither is truer and more accurate and appropriate, then either one of three consequences follow.
Firstly, the Real contains contradictions for contradictory things may be said of it. This is unacceptable to Hick, for the Real cannot be contradictory. Secondly, the statements can be reconciled in a higher propositional synthesis which is able to render the partial truth of both statements in such a way that their contradictory nature is overcome. In this case the resulting statement must itself be more accurate and appropriate than the two previous statements. Hence, this synthetic statement has more appropriateness and validity about the Real than the previous two. If this is the case, then some phenomenal descriptions are privileged and more appropriate and more truthful – and this was the case in the reading suggested above where Hick's incipient theism leaks out. Whatever is said on that issue, the point would be that truth criteria would emerge in the privileging of some phenomenal images as compared to others and my case would then stand. Or, thirdly, the two initial statements have no cognitive purchase at all but are only useful in creating attitudes and dispositions which lead to salvation. This position overlaps with what I have called practical pluralism in finally affirming that the criterion of truth is a certain form of practice, not particularly associated with or justified by any doctrine or theory. In terms of ontological claims it leads to transcendental agnosticism. It is with the latter that I am presently concerned. I shall turn to practical pluralism shortly. Now, this position of Hick's (regardless of its intelligibility) is faced with the question: but how does John Hick know that the Real is beyond all language, incapable of any description? How does he know that when claims that the Real itself chooses to reveal itself in this world, these claims cannot be taken seriously? It would take a long time to answer such questions, and Hick's Kantian Enlightenment heritage is certainly a clue in knowing where to look for possible answers. But the main point that I need to establish has been shown: transcendental agnosticism has very specific truth claims that are also exclusive truth claims. For example, it is claimed that the Real cannot be known in itself and when any religion claims that the Real has revealed itself, then such claims are false. Such pluralism cannot tolerate alternative claims and is forced to deem them as mythical. The irony about tolerant pluralism is that it is eventually intolerant towards most forms of orthodox religious belief, Christian or otherwise. Hence, whichever way Hick turns to answer the question, his answer reveals that he is an exclusivist and not a pluralist as he claims. I hope I have shown in this case that pluralism must always logically be a form of exclusivism and that nothing called pluralism really exists.
9.13 Herbert McCabe on Christianity and the Abolition of the Gods
God must be incomprehensible to us precisely because he is creator of all that is and, as Aquinas puts it, outside the order of all beings. God therefore cannot be classified as any kind of being. God cannot be compared to or contrasted with other things in respect of what they are like as dogs can be compared and contrasted with cats and both of them with stones or stars. God is not an inhabitant of the universe; he is the reason why there is a universe at all. God is in everything holding it constantly in existence but he is not located anywhere, nor is what it is to be God located anywhere in logical space. When you have finished classifying and counting all the things in the universe you cannot add: “And also there is God.” When you have finished classifying and counting everything in the universe you have finished, period. There is no God in the world. [...]
The Jewish discovery that God is not a god but Creator is the discovery of absolute Mystery behind and underpinning reality. Those who share it (either in its Judaic or its Christian form) are not monotheists who have reduced the number of gods to one. They, we, have abolished the gods; there is only the Mystery sustaining all that is. The Mystery is unfathomable, but it is not remote as the gods are remote. The gods live somewhere else, on Olympus or above the starry sky. The Mystery is everywhere and always, in every grain of sand and every flash of colour, every hint of flavour in a wine, keeping all these things in existence every microsecond. We could not literally approach God or get nearer to God for God is already nearer to us than we are to ourselves. God is the ultimate depth of our beings making us to be ourselves.
9.14 David Ford on Scriptural Reasoning and Interreligious Dialogue
AN ABRAHAMIC COLLEGIALITY: NOT CONSENSUS BUT FRIENDSHIP
At the centre of the collegiality of scriptural reasoning is reading and interpreting selected texts from the Tanakh, Old Testament/New Testament and Qur'an in small groups, whose inspiration is the Jewish practice of chevruta study, and also (when there is more than one group) in plenary sessions, which often have the purpose of pursuing more theoretical, philosophical, theological and “public issue” questions related to the text study and occasionally discussing matters relating to the group's process, governance and future development.
In scriptural reasoning done between academic Jews, Christians and Muslims the priority of small-group study means that each one is first of all bringing to the table his or her own scripture, a much-studied and much-loved book. They also bring what Aref Nayed has named their “internal libraries”: not only all they have learnt through tradition-specific activity in study, prayer, worship and experience but also what they have learnt through whatever academic disciplines they have studied – and also, of course, elements from a range of cultures, arts, economic, political and social contexts.
A recurring image used to describe the social dynamics of this encounter is that of hospitality – and the resources of each scripture on hospitality have often been a focus for study. Yet this is three-way mutual hospitality: each is host to the others and guest to the others as each welcomes the other two to their “home” scripture and its traditions of interpretation. As in any form of hospitality, joint study is helped by observing certain customs and guidelines that have been developed through experience over time. These are the prudential wisdom of the practice of scriptural reasoning and, like most such customs, are best learnt by apprenticeship that sees them being performed and imitates them or improvises upon them. Put in the form of maxims, a selection of those most important for collegiality would include:
- Acknowledge the sacredness of the others' scriptures to them (without having to acknowledge its authority for oneself) – each believes in different ways (which can be discussed) that their scripture is in some sense from God and that the group is interpreting it before God, in God's presence, for God's sake.
- The “native speakers” hosting a scripture and its tradition need to acknowledge that they do not exclusively own their scriptures – they are not experts on its final meaning; guests need to acknowledge that hosts are to be questioned and listened to attentively as the court of first (but not last) appeal.
- Do not allow consensus to be the dominant aim – that may happen, but it is more likely that the conclusion will be a recognition of deep differences.
- Do not be afraid of argument, as one intellectually honest way of responding to differences – part of mutual hospitality is learning to argue in courtesy and truth, and each tradition as well as each academic discipline embraces complex practices of discussion and dispute.
- Draw on shared academic resources to build understanding – members of different faith communities may be trained in the same field or share a philosophy (pragmatism, critical realism, phenomenology, idealism).
- Allow time to read and reread, to entertain many questions and possibilities, to let the texts unfold within their own traditions of interpretation and in (often unprecedented) engagement with each other, to stick with a text without premature resolution of its difficulties, and to sound the depths.
- Read and interpret with a view to the fulfilment of God's purpose of peace between all – this shared hope (however differently specified) can sustain endurance through inevitable differences, misunderstandings, confrontations and resentments.
- Be open to mutual hospitality turning into friendship – each tradition values friendship, and for it to happen now might be seen as the most tangible anticipation of future peace. [...]
SCRIPTURAL REASONING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE
What about the possibilities of scriptural reasoning in the public sphere?
The main point is an extension of what was said about scriptural reasoning in universities – which are indeed part of the public sphere. Once it is recognised that we are in a multi-faith and secular world and that secular worldviews and principles have no right to monopolise the public sphere in the name of neutrality, then we need ways of forming the sort of “mutual ground” that allows each tradition to contribute from its core belief, understanding and practice. That requires many bilateral and multilateral engagements, and among those is trilateral dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Earlier sections have described scriptural reasoning as allowing rich and deep encounter that both does justice to differences and also forms strong relationships across them. It is a new collegiality that might have an impact on the public world in several ways: by being a sign of reconciliation; by being a site where Jews, Christians and Muslims can work out in dialogue the considerable ethical and political implications of their scriptures; and by encouraging analogous practices among Jews, Christians and Muslims in positions of public responsibility.
Secularised societies have generally failed to mobilise religious resources for public wisdom and for peace. Religions have often reacted against them, faced with a choice between assimilation or confrontation. But there is another possibility: mutually critical engagement among all the participants aimed at transforming the public sphere for the better. For Jews, Christians and Muslims committed to this the best way forward might be through simultaneously going deeper into their own scriptures and traditions, deeper into wisdom-seeking conversation with each other and with all who have a stake in the public good, and deeper into activity dedicated to the common good. So one promise of scriptural reasoning is the formation of people through collegial study, wise interpretation and friendship who might be exemplary citizens of the twenty-first century, seeking the public good for the sake of God and God's peaceful purposes.
CONCLUSION
For all its potential usefulness in enabling understanding, peace, collegiality and much else, scriptural reasoning's deepest and most comprehensive rationale in all three traditions is that it is done for God's sake. It can be instrumental; but before God it is above all an end in itself, worth doing because it celebrates the name of God in the company of others who are doing something comparable. As such, for Christians (and analogously for Jews and Muslims in ways that open up fascinating questions of similarity and difference), it exemplifies the wisdom of God. [...]
Scriptural reasoning also resonates strongly – even shudderingly – at its core with the cries of our world. One of Steven Kepnes' suggested “Rules for Scriptural Reasoning” is:
Scriptural reasoning begins with the scriptural sense that the human world is broken, in exile, off the straight path, filled with corruption, sickness, war and genocide. Scriptural reasoning practitioners come together out of a sense of impoverishment, suffering, and conflict to seek resources for healing.
Perhaps the most acute articulation of this has been by the person who has been most important in developing scriptural reasoning, Peter Ochs. [...] His key maxim is: “Care for those who cry!” which he finds exemplified in all three scriptures, and he differentiates scriptural reasoning's way of responding to this from other modern, postmodern and postliberal projects. His climactic example is the revelation of God to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3 in the context of the whole of Exodus 1–20) where the cry of suffering Israel is the stimulus for a paradigmatic redemption. “We do not hear the cry as mere cry, but only as what ‘reached Me [God] so that I now do this.'” Scriptural reasoning is a joint response by Jews, Christians and Muslims, inspired by the reading of their scriptures, to the cries of a suffering world, including their own communities, and it is committed, for God's sake, to being part of God's compassionate response to those cries.
9.15 Pope Francis on Evangelism and Interreligious Dialogue
250. An attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides. Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities. This dialogue is in first place a conversation about human existence or simply, as the bishops of India have put it, a matter of “being open to them, sharing their joys and sorrows”. In this way we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking and speaking. We can then join one another in taking up the duty of serving justice and peace, which should become a basic principle of all our exchanges. A dialogue which seeks social peace and justice is in itself, beyond all merely practical considerations, an ethical commitment which brings about a new social situation. Efforts made in dealing with a specific theme can become a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth.
251. In this dialogue, ever friendly and sincere, attention must always be paid to the essential bond between dialogue and proclamation, which leads the Church to maintain and intensify her relationship with non-Christians. A facile syncretism would ultimately be a totalitarian gesture on the part of those who would ignore greater values of which they are not the masters. True openness involves remaining steadfast in one's deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one's own identity, while at the same time being “open to understanding those of the other party” and “knowing that dialogue can enrich each side”. What is not helpful is a diplomatic openness which says “yes” to everything in order to avoid problems, for this would be a way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others. Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another.
252. Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they “profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day”. The sacred writings of Islam have retained some Christian teachings; Jesus and Mary receive profound veneration and it is admirable to see how Muslims both young and old, men and women, make time for daily prayer and faithfully take part in religious services. Many of them also have a deep conviction that their life, in its entirety, is from God and for God. They also acknowledge the need to respond to God with an ethical commitment and with mercy towards those most in need.
253. In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.
254. Non-Christians, by God's gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”, and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”. But due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God's working in them tends to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God. While these lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ, they can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences. The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs.
For Further Reading
- Adnan Aslan, Religious Pluralism in Christian and Islamic Philosophy: The Thought of John Hick and Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1998).
- Carl E. Braaten, No Other Gospel! Christianity among the World's Religions (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992).
- Carl Reinhold Bråkenhielm, How Philosophy Shapes Theories of Religion: An Analysis of Contemporary Philosophies of Religion with Special Regard to the Thought of John Wilson, John Hick and D. Z. Phillips (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1975).
- David Cheetham, John Hick: A Critical Introduction and Reflection (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003).
- John B. Cobb, Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975).
- John B. Cobb, “The Religions”; in P. Hodgson and R. King (eds), Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 299–322.
- Gavin D'Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
- Gavin D'Costa (ed.), Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990).
- David F. Ford and Frances Clemson (eds), Interreligious Reading after Vatican II: Scriptural Reasoning, Comparative Theology and Receptive Ecumenism (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2013).
- David F. Ford and C. C. Pecknold (eds), The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 1–22.
- George E. Griener, Ernst Troeltsch and Herman Schell: Christianity and the World Religions – An Ecumenical Contribution to the History of Apologetics (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990).
- John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1989).
- John Hick and Paul Knitter (eds), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987).
- Charles B. Jones, The View from Mars Hill: Christianity in the Landscape of World Religions (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2005).
- Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (London: Harpers, 1938).
- Harold A. Netland, Dissonant Voices: Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991).
- William Lloyd Newell, The Secular Magi: Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche on Religion (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995).
- Douglas Pratt, The Church and Other Faiths: The World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and Interreligious Dialogue (New York: Peter Lang, 2010).
- Wilfrid Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology (London: Macmillan, 1981).
- Miroslav Volf, (ed.), Do We Worship the Same God? Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012).