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faith pluralism
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RELIGIOUS AND FAITH PLURALISM
IN POSTMODERNISM
Anton Bole
Table Content
1. Introduction
2. Post modernity
2.1 Enlightenment and secularisation
2.2 Juergen Habermas
3. Christianity in religious pluralism
3.1 Protestant model
3.2 Catholic model
3.3 Theocentric model
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
1. Introduction
Pluralism is nowadays one of the biggest challenge to religions,
including Christianity. Post-modern relativism asks: “Why are there
so many different religions?” “If God is one, should there
not be only one religion?” “Are the religions all equally
true or equally false?” “Do they all share in something common?”
“How should they relate to each other?” “Are the many
religions really one?” “Can I learn from other religions?”
If we take religion seriously, these are painful questions from which
we cannot run away.
I won’t answer all this questions, but I will try to answer some
of them.
First I will explain the meaning of post modernity, difference between
modernity + Post modernity and secularisation. I will pay particular attention
to the German philosopher, Juergen Habermas, who, I think, can provide
a good view of the post-modern age. Then I will present the four models
of Christianity in post-modern age.
In the conclusion I will give my own opinion. I will try to answer some
questions and explain my own view.
2. Post modernity
If we want to talk about the post-modern we should understand the term
‘modern’. Post-modern of course came after modern. But term
‘modern’ is very confusing.
“The word modern originally intended to identify the postclassical
age, was also consciously adopted by the confident age of steam, and is
still used today in “common parlance to refer to anything perceived
to be up-to-date.”1
Modernity is also a theoretician’s label for the modern age. Still
more confusing is that modernism refers principally to movements within
the arts that sought what is perceived to be a purer and more disciplined
approach to the object than that advocated by its immediate artistic antecedents.2
The term ‘post-modern’ is even more confusing. What does it
mean? Does it mean that modern age is over or simply that it is in decline?
Is post modernity the defeat of modernity? Or is it a development of modernity?
Would it be correct to see postmodernism as a challenge to modernism?3
In discussions about post modernity we have three different views about
the meaning of post modernity.
A - Radical historicist perspective
This view is most frequently associated with the work of Foucault and
poststructuralist in general. It is possibly rash to attempt generalizations
about these radical historicists as they differ among themselves. But
three things at least can be said that seem to be true of all of them.
First, they all reject any theory of knowledge that involves placing the
traditional notion of subject at the centre. Second, they would all agree
that “reason” is a contextual and relative reality and not
absolute or transcendental. And third, each would find that the examination
of this reason reveals its dependence on power relations, desire or something
else.4
Here, genealogy replaces critique that aesthetics takes over from ethics,
irony triumphs, and political engagement cannot be easily justified. It
may be understand in ways that would seem counterintuitive, or it may
be a kind of guerrilla warfare against the micro-fascism of everyday life.5
Another extreme of post-modern thought is:
B - Postmodernism of nostalgia
Various individuals as Martin Heidegger, Allan Bloom, and Theodor Adorno
can be found sheltering under this umbrella. In Heidegger’s thought
the human individual is a “region” or “clearing”
in which Being may appear. And this being is definitely the Being of Greek
metaphysics rather than the debased conception in Western philosophy’s
“forgetfulness of Being.” Conservative cultural critics like
Allan Bloom and Daniel Bell in their different ways find modernism as
a slide from the assertion of the autonomous reasoning subject to the
libidinous narcissism of the leftist intellectual. Allan Bloom harks back
to a more classical age. Daniel Bell celebrates a new class of technocrats
whose discipline and efficiency usher a new economic order, but whose
personal tastes and conventional values belong to a premodern world.6
Between the two attitudes, there is a third assertion. This is:
C- Late modernism
Here are thinkers who choose to remain consciously in the tradition of
reason and subjectivity, but who nevertheless recognize that post-Enlightment
developments have enormously complicated the question of what the subject
is and how notions of universal reason can still be maintained. They demonstrate
an attitude, that of a commitment to the unfinished character of the project
of modernity in a post-modern world. They have varying degrees of closeness
to the Enlightenment and distance from radical postmodernism.7
“Three quite distinct and occasionally opposed directions within
this group can be identified: Juergen Habermas’s assertion of communicative
reason and commitment to a discourse ethic; Charles Taylor’ endorsement
of the attempt to develop ‘anthropologies of situated freedom,’
to overcome the polarization between advocates of ‘self-responsible
reason and freedom on the one hand,’ and those on the other who
feel that to counter this they must be proponents of a ‘disengaged
subjectivity’: and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s assertion of postmodernism
as but a moment within modernism itself.”8
2.1 Enlightenment and Secularisation
For understanding problem of modernity and post modernity we should
understand the Enlightenment? What has the Western world inherited from
the Enlightenment.
“The Enlightenment gave us the autonomy of human reason, the notion
of human rights, and the struggle for a just and equitable society. At
the same time, it is largely responsible for the markedly individualistic
cast of ‘developed’ Western society and implicated in the
anomie and social disintegration that accompanies development.”9
The Enlightenment brought relativism and secularisation also. The transition
from rural to urban societies had broken the hold of the church over society
and the control of religious ideas over the minds of men and women. Urban
industrialisation had destroyed a world of rural communities, in which
men|women were securely located in a unified social, natural and spiritual
reality.10
If we look at in the history before post modernity, we can divide three
social formation: ancient, feudal and capitalist.
In ancient social formation is in dominance of politics. The state apparatus
can be divided into the repressive state apparatus and the ideological
state apparatus. Relationship between both is undifferentiated.
In pre-capitalist societies, the church was the dominant ideological state
apparatus. The church provided a great variety of educational, ideological
and cultural services.
The growth of capitalism differentiates these functions amongst a variety
of institutions, but it is the school/family couple, which is now critical
for the reproduction of labour.11
The Enlightment brought new modern paradigm not only to sociology but
also to theology: “Faith - Reason, Grace - Nature, Christian morality
- Natural law, Church - World, Theology - Philosophy, Christianum –
Humanum.”12
This process of the Enlightenment as a cultural, political, sociological
and theological revolution had been laid a long way back in the high Middle
Ages.
“With the help of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas had allowed an independence
– limited, to be sure, but real – of reason from faith, nature
from grace, philosophy from theology, the state from the church.”13
At the same time we had a process of secularisation. Secularisation means
the transference of church property into the secular sphere by individuals
and states. But slowly became clear that not only some church possessions
but almost all the important spheres of human life – science, economics,
politics, law, the state, culture, education, medicine, social welfare
were to be removed from the influence of the churches, theology and religion
and put under the direct responsibility of human beings. So the word human
beings itself became a “secular”, worldly world.14
No doubt, the Enlightenment was a cultural revolution. From the perspective
of the secular world, it represented progress in:
A - the sciences. Philosophy and natural science no longer operated with
dogmatic assumptions. Historiography became a separate discipline.
B - the new social order: religious toleration and freedom of belief were
grounded in natural law: ideas like constitutional law, the abolition
of the privileges of clergy and aristocracy arose; science and the arts,
industry and trade were officially promoted; the schools were reformed.
C - a revaluation of the individual: the innate rights of human beings
were put under state protection: the right to life, freedom and property,
social and political emancipation of citizens.15
2.2 Juergen Habermas
The German philosopher Juergen Habermas, can perhaps teach us which option
should we take to judge modernity. Habermas uses his ethical theory as
a critical tool in his examination of modernity. He claims that if people
looked into their hearts they would see that their true needs coincide
with those of everyone else.16
Discourse is for him a moral – transformative process. Communicative
ethics bring practical transformation through participation.17 In such
ethics is argumentation base. Good argumentation demands study and openness.
This is not easy. Authority from outside is not enough. The authority
should give explanation for his order.
Habermas explains society through the notions lifeworld and system. Both
are important but in the right relationship. Lifeworld is the arena of
actions oriented towards understanding, the system is that of action oriented
toward success.18
Habermas believes that in contemporary capitalist society, the system
dominates the lifeworld.19 The role of the system is increasingly revealed
as a “colonization” of the lifeworld.20
The modern world for Habermas is the era of post-liberal societies, which
take one of two forms. In one, organized capitalism leads to the welfare
– state of mass democracy.21 Bureaucratic socialism is on the other
side. In both cases we have a split of the private (lifeworld) and public
(system) spheres. Private life tends to be viewed as the realm of affect,
ethic, religion, art and philosophy.22 Habermas does not believe that
this division is itself pathological. It is one of the necessary stages
in society’s development.23 But he doesn’t deny that the private
individual feels increasingly helpless before the forces of the economy
(money) or the state (power).24 We should do everything so that lifeworld
can be the place where even the system is ultimately grounded. Systems
are necessary to modern society, but the decision about priority has to
remain in the hands of the human community. The example he gives us is
policy of the Reagan administration that used unemployment to cure inflation.
A problem within the system was handled by transferring the problem to
the lifeworld, where it had immediate and devastating effect on any number
of American families.25
Because the scale of crisis is so immense, the character of protest has
changed from the days of class conflict. The new problems are in quality
of life, equal rights, individual self-realization, participation and
human rights. In late capitalist societies varied, small, single –
issue groups seek to defend the world and the human community from the
unchecked system. These groups are united in their critique of growth.
Almost all are also primarily defensive in character. The only exception
is the feminist movement, which has an alternative vision of society.26
“The defensive groups are either bourgeois groups focused on the
defense of class interests – for example, groups to oppose tax reform;
or they are groups in effect involved in ‘resistance to tendencies
toward a colonization of the lifeworld’ – such as, for example,
groups opposing nuclear energy, pollution, deprivation of privacy, and
so on.”27
We all know such feeling like our dependence on an international economic
system, which could disrupt cultural patterns, destroying family life,
indirectly causing increases in crime and poor health. We should be aware,
if we are of Habermas’s mind, that we cannot wait that the system
solve the problems of the system.28
“Habermas’s argument would suggest that a first step is to
begin to resist mightily the forces that privatise art, philosophy, ethics,
and even religion, and to promote a vigorous communication community dedicated
to a public ethic that will win back control for the lifeworld of the
system, that is inevitably, a good servant but a very bad ruler. In this
struggle the churches may play a crucial role, but to do so effectively
they will have to recognize their own character as communities of communicative
action oriented to consensus and understanding.”29
His vision is suffused with the realisation that only in cooperation and
dialogue with one another does the human community have a future. If we
accept the equation of the true self-interest with the common interest
we will have a future. Such post modernity may be the fulfillment of modernity,
rather than the overturning of it.30 The problem of modernity, Habermas
thinks, is to ground itself, and it finds its norms in the principle of
subjectivity. Subjectivity can divide the world into autonomous realms,
but cannot find within itself the means of unity.31
Helmut Peukert’s book, Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology
suggest that Habermas’s thought stands in need of a religious dimension.
He argues that the human solidarity does not make sense outside a religious
framework.32 Critical theory needs the dimension of transcendence for
its completition.
“The scriptual warrant for this is found in the universal solidarity
in relationship to God of the covenant community of Israel, and the universal
solidarity achieved in the Christian Tradition through faith in the Resurrection.”33
The struggle between the charismatic and institutional in the church is
a clear parallel to Habermas’s describe of society’s lifeworld
– system tension. This analysis is attractive because it does not
simply blame the system. The system is a necessary mechanism, but should
be instrumental to the lifeworld. It doesn’t mean to reduce the
gospel to a struggle for a mundane utopia. On the contrary the church
is senseless if it does not believe that the greatest gift God can offer
is that salvation which goes beyond emancipation and which such secular
liberation may not bring.34
The church could be an example for a community of emancipation, freedom
and equality. Basic – community church would be such an example.
3. Christianity in religious pluralism
The post-modern thought’s impact on the four models of relationship
between religions: evangelical model, protestant model, catholic model
and theocentric model.
3.1 The Mainline Protestant Model: Salvation only in Christ
The central difference between the mainline Protestant model and the
conservative Evangelicals is that the mainline Protestant model seeks
a more positive, a more dialogical approach to other faiths.
Against many contemporary conservative Evangelicals, mainline Protestants
argue that Christians must recognize that the God revealed in Jesus is
truly speaking through voices other than that of Jesus. Such interpretation
is sound reformational doctrine. Calvin and Luther spoke of a “sense
of God” instilled into human nature. Such a general revelation is
the work of God. We feel for our neighbour’s welfare, the beauty
and order of nature, the hidden depth of interpersonal relationship. This
original revelation is the originating and sustaining force behind all
world religions.35 To the general revelation from the New Testament and
human experience, mainline Protestants add a theological consideration.
If Jesus brings a full and final revelation, this revelation cannot be
dropped perpendicularly from above on barren terrain. There must be something
to plug into.36
Faith in Christ is possible only if it is the response to and fulfillment
of a person’ s previous knowledge of God in general revelation.
The God of Jesus Christ is not a stranger. Most of the theologians who
use the mainline Protestant model recognize that general revelation can
also reveal that this reality is somehow personal and benevolent. It is
not simply “first mover”. God can be experienced in other
religions as a “thou”.
The religions are willed by God; they are representatives of the Almighty
God’s tools. It seems to imply that the religions are ways of salvation.
Does it? When the question of salvation through other religions arises,
the Protestant model changes opinion.37
What the Protestant model sees are two tendencies that make salvation
in other religion either totally impossible or profoundly inadequate.
a - In all other religions the tendency is to effect their own salvation.
Other religions do not really accept salvation “by faith alone.”
outside of Christ is a self – manifestation of God, knowledge of
God, but it does not lead to salvation, to union between God and man.
Although there is truth, there is also so much error that finally truth
is swallowed in error and darkness. In all non – Biblical religions,
no matter how deeply mystical or highly ethical, man seeks himself and
his own salvation.38
b - A second tendency, in trying to achieve their own salvation, all religions
end up attempting to capture God. This tendency is related to the first
tendency. They try to claim that they contain divinity in their doctrines
or manipulate it with their “good works.” We can find some
form of idolatry in all religions. The authentic knowledge granted in
general revelation becomes material for constructing idols. Such idols
can be very sophisticated efforts to reduce God to human size and reach.
The religions either personalize God into a divine fellow whose action
they can predict or dictate; or they depersonalise God into some kind
of abstract principle that they can grasp with their reason. The essential
mystery and transcendence of God is stuffed into the container of human
thought or desire. Also, Paul Tillich allows salvation in other religions
only in a corrupted, fragmentary form.39
Pannenberg claims, also, that religions always move toward an idolatrous
attempt to pin God down. He held that the fullness of God’ s revelation
will come only in the future, at the end of history. God is the God of
future. Pannenberg claims that all religions end up with finalization
of the divine mystery. They do not recognize that God is beyond all their
images and myths. All their concepts must be constantly transformed into
a fuller revelation in the future. And salvation, a true experience of
the true God, is at best only partial and inadequate.40
The ontological necessity of Christ is very important for protestant.
Humankind is caught in a rebellion against God. This is our human condition.
Something must be done to remedy this human condition. Divine justice
must be satisfied. In Jesus Christ, especially in his death, divine justice
and love are expressed. This is not the simplistic pagan understanding
of the satisfaction theory in which Jesus’ death is assessed as
the price to be paid before God could love. All hinges on Jesus. He is
not, as much Roman Catholic theology implies, a symbol, a new idea, a
clearer expression of what God is doing universally. Jesus is a historical
fact that works an ontological change between God and humankind.
Althaus and Brunner admit the insight of the Bhakti Hinduism and Amida
Buddhism. But then they reject them as possible ways of salvation. These
religions speak of God’s love, but they do not speak of the divine
wrath. They don’t gras the full reality of human sin and divine
justice. Grace must first of all be forgiveness of sin. They announce
a cheap grace. So these religions are ultimately ways of self –
redemption. The reason is clear, they do not know Christ.41
Although the protestant gives many heart – warming calls for openness,
respect, dialogue, although it is even said that Christians can learn
from other faiths and find new expressions for the true identity of Jesus,
still the basic category for the relationship between Christianity and
other religions is that of “the law and the gospel,” as understood
by the Reformers. The law has been given not only to the Jews but to all
peoples as a preparatory revelation for the full revelation of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Through the perfect obedience of Jesus a new relationship
has been established between God and the whole human race. The new bridge
has been built.
3.2 The Catholic model: Many Ways, One Norm
The Roman Catholic effort seems to be the most open and ready to provide
new models. With the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic has undergone
radical change.
To understand how Vatican II brought radical change, we must have some
idea of what was before. We might describe the attitudes of Roman Church
toward other faiths, from the patristic age to the twentieth century,
as a teeter – tottering between God’s universal love and desire
to save, and the necessity of the church for salvation. Jesus undergoes
death for the salvation of all peoples - outside the church, there is
no salvation. It was not easy throughout centuries balancing both these
beliefs. With Augustine the balance begins to move toward an exclusivity
of revelation and grace within the church. One of his pupils, Fulgentius
of Ruspe claimed that all heathens, Jews, heretics, schismatic who die
outside the church will go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels. Thomas Aquinas admitted the possibility of salvation for
the gentiles through implicit faith in divine providence, but he also
held that outside the church there was no salvation. The Fourth Lateran
Council (1215) repeated Cyprian’s formula “outside the church,
no salvation.” Pope Boniface VIII, in his bull Unam Sanctam (1302)
clarified that to belong to this church and find salvation, one had to
accept papal authority. The Council of Trent tried to balance the teeter
– totter horizontally between God’s universal love and the
necessity of the church. Pagans could be baptized also through desire.
If they followed their conscience and lived morally they joined the church
through desire and could get salvation. This more positive attitude toward
the “pagans” has characterized Roman Catholic attitudes into
the twentieth century. A development took place from an exclusive to an
inclusive understanding of the church as the sole channel of grace. Catholic
belief moved from holding “outside the church, no salvation”
to “without the church, no salvation.”42
From this historical overview of Catholic tradition, the Second Vatican
Council stands as a watershed. It carries on the tradition but in new
directions. The council affirms the universality of grace and salvation.
Even express atheists who follow their conscience are moved by grace and
can partake in eternal life. The Council recognizes that other religions
contain what is “true and holy” and reflect the truth that
enlightens every human being. But the council does not explicitly state
that the religions are ways of salvation.
The majority of contemporary Catholic theologians offer a very different
interpretation. However, we can recognise progress in Vatican II. But
we cannot deny ambiguity in its understanding of just how effective the
truth and grace within the religions are and how far Christian dialogue
can go. The ambiguity come from the same tension between God’s salvic
will and the necessity of the church that is evident in the history of
Catholic thought. Although the council brought some very new and positive
views on the religions, it still maintains that the church is necessary
for salvation, and it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone,
which is the fullness of salvation. What then is the purpose of dialogue?
The declaration on the religions sees dialogue as mutual understanding,
but the decree on the missions seems to view it is an avenue toward conversion.
The theologians gave us different answer.
The most famous answer is that of Karl Rahner. Roman Catholic views of
other religions are often associated with his well known theory of anonymous
Christianity from Karl Rahner. Rahner means this theory only for Christian
consumption. It is to be used within Christian theology and not as tool
for dialogue with other religions. As anonymous Christians, “pagans”
already know the one God of love who is active in their midst. This theory
has also clear limits. It claims not only that there is saving grace within
other religions but also that this grace is Christ’s. Pure grace
doesn’t exist. It is always grace won by Christ. Saving grace is
caused by the event of Jesus Christ. Rahner sets a time limit for the
validity of the religions. Once the gospel is translated into the new
culture then old religion loses its validity. It must give way for him
who is greater.43
Many theologians have problems with this theory. If we recognize in other
faiths their own validity, then Christians must reform their traditional
view that there is no new revelation after the death of the last apostle.
No less a theologian than Thomas Aquinas argued that plurality of divine
incarnations is theoretically possible. It would mean that the Logos became
incarnate not only as Jesus of Nazareth but also as the founders of the
other great world religions.44
I think that we should take seriously that theory about anonymous Christianity
is only a tool for Christian in dialogue with other religions. With this
theory I recognize the value of other religions.
3.3 The Theocentric Model: Many Ways to the Center
The most radical and best – known author who advocates a theocentric
model is John Hick. He was born in unreligious family. He tried many ways
and left institutional Christianity in England. Hick became a minister
in the Presbyterian Church. In Birmingham where he lived, he experienced
other religions. Surrounding him were Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews. This
all forced him to another conversion. Before Jesus was centre, now God
is centre. He moved from Christocentrism to theocentrism and later to
Ultimate Reality. Ultimate Reality is behind all the religions. And religions
are different responses to Ultimate Reality. One understand this Reality
either theistically (as personal) or non theistically (impersonal). Such
differences are only historical, cultural or psychological adaptations
and therefore relative. Each religion is true and relative. Some are more
adequate as others, but all are relative. Christianity is also one of
many ways. We should leave such cultural conditions and come closer each
other. This will bring a transformation of the individual religions. Perhaps
one day we will have one religion as we have one Logos behind all the
religions. World ecumenism will grow. The Godhead is the last goal. Hick
uses the distinction between numinous and phenomenon. The Godhead is numinous
and a total secret, mystery, beyond all words. Phenomenon is manifestation
of the Real, numinous.45
“I am suggesting, however, that it can be made clear by distinguishing
between God and God’s infinite self – existent being, beyond
our conceptual grasp, and God as known to us in humanly conceivable and
experience able ways.”46 For Hick, we cannot speak about God in
se or the Real an sich in human terms.47 In the last stage Hick moved
from a more specific to a more general conception of the Ultimate. “I’m
not saying that the Real does not have the nature that it has, but that
this nature cannot be expressed within our human conceptual systems.”48
Hick claims that the formlessness of the Ultimate is taught within all
the great traditions.
“Within Hinduism, the Upanishads say of Brahman, ‘There the
eyes goes not, speech goes not, nor the mind,’ and that Brahman
is that ‘before which word recoil, and to which no understanding
has ever attained.’ From Sikhism, ‘By thinking I cannot obtain
a conception of Him, even though I think hundreds of thousands of times.’
The Tao Te Ching declares that ‘The Tao that can be expressed is
not the eternal Tao.’ Within Buddhism Ultimate Reality is referred
to within the Mahayana tradition, as Sunyata, emptiness. As D.T Suzuki
explains, ‘To say that reality is empty means that it goes beyond
definability, and cannot be qualified as this or that. In other words,
it is empty of everything that the human mind projects in its activity
of awareness.’ Within the mystical strands of Judaism and Islam,
En Sof, the Infinite, and al-Haqq, the Real, are beyond all human thought
forms. And within Christianity in the early period Gregory of Nyssa wrote
that God is ‘incapable of being grasped by any term, or any idea,
or any other device of our apprehension, remaining beyond the reach not
only of the human but of the angelic and all supramundane intelligence,
unthinkable, unutterable, above all expression in words.’ Later
St Thomas Aquinas wrote that ‘by its immensity the divine substance
surpasses every form that our intellect reaches,’ and that ‘what
God is transcendent all that we understand of him.’ Indeed, I think
we can say that all serious religious thought affirms that the Ultimate,
in its infinite divine reality, is utterly beyond our comprehsion.”49
The authors who advocate a theocentric pluralism differ from one another
in various respects, which we need not detail here. These authors wish
to abandon the view, which placed the Church and Jesus Christ at the centre.
For the theocentric perspective, God and God alone stands at centre. The
various religions represent the many ways leading to God. All have the
same validity.50
What is the critical approach to theocentrism? There are different points:
a – Ahistorical idealism or a naïve relativism that press all
the religions into a common dough. Hick doesn’t take the history
seriously. All religions are answers to Ultimate Reality.
b - Nothing should be taken literally. But Christianity has a historical
foundation.
c - He ignores truth claims. Truth claims are only signs. He doesn’t
acknowledge that truth also bring conflict. For him religion is mythological.
If religion is not mythological we have a big problem of truth. Here,
pluralists are exclusivist. If we don’t play their game, we are
out. Hick is also intolerant on this point.
d - Gavin D’Costa contradicts his epistemology. If we cannot really
know anything about Ultimate Reality, this is agnosticism. For D’Costa
Ultimate Reality have ontological connections with the world. Hick claims
that it does not. He teaches an agnostic universal ethic. About God we
know nothing. We should live according to the wisdom and ethics of all
religions. He accepts the value of the human being, but not as in the
Bible and the revelation. He is a modern liberal and not a pluralist.
His is an Enlightenment exclusivism. God could reveal himself in the particular,
historical situation. We can recognise God in the history.51
4. Conclusion
Relativism of post-modern thought creates a lot of problems for an understanding
of God, Ultimate Reality. In the certain time we read in the newspapers
a lot about the Taliban in Afghanistan. They were all very religious.
But it seems to me that their God was only a projection not real God.
Religion is often only a human projection. Meister Eckhart was aware of
this problem. He distinguished between God and Godhead. His words are
famous; all one can think of God, God is not. Is the answer agnosticism?
Hick is wrong as well when he says that the Real couldn’t be expressed
within our human conceptual systems.52 Between anthropomorphism and agnosticism
we should be an answer. Perhaps we should learn more from Judaism. When
they pray the psalms they don’t pronounce God’s name, JHWH.
God is a mystery and secret. Instead of the name JHWH they pronounce Adonai
what means in English “Lord.” Ordinary Jews use the psalms
a lot for their own pray. So they have been educated to understand that
Adonai is only a manifestation of JHWH, who is still a mystery. All pictures
in the Bible have a deep base in JHWH, who is secret. Without this understanding
someone could think that the Bible is too anthropomorphic. But we would
see that this is untrue, if we know the Jewish tradition better. Perhaps
we shouldn’t translate JHWH with Lord.
In the end I think that Hick and Vatican II do not take truth claims seriously.
Vatican II recognised that each religion has its own way. The other is
always anonymous Christ. But we can reach our goal only through Jesus
Christ. For Hick, the religions are all the same and they don’t
have big differences.
Mark Heim claims that each religion has its own end, goals, and salvation.
Each religion expresses its goal on its own way. This should be respected.
We have many true religions and each has the only way. Each has its own
reasons and its own truth. I think that Mark Heim is right. But religions
have to be open to their own critical judgment. It is an illusion to think
that everything in religion is good. In our dialogue we can see and feel
what is wrong in one’s own religion and what is truth in one’s
own religion. I would like to give example. For Buddhism, I think, the
central truth is that Nirvana is secret, a mystery beyond our logic. In
Christian religion it is central that God is love. If we are open, we
can learn from Buddhism that this God is love but also mystery beyond
our logic. Nowadays I think that anthropomorphism in Christianity is a
big problem. Already Meister Eckhart knew the difference between Godhead
and God. But in the doctrine, the liturgy, prayer we don’t make
such distinction. And Buddhist can learn that Nirvana is love. It is true
that Buddhism know Bodhisattvas who don’t want to go in the Nirvana
before all humanity won’t be save. But this teaching is not so central
as in Christianity. In dialogue and openness will we get much more as
get lost.
Hans Kueng claims that without peace between religions we won’t
have peace in the world. It is only when I know someone well that he ceases
to be an enemy for me. So religious dialogue is and will be very important
for over the world. If we want to have peace, dialogue is our task and
responsibility.
1 P.Lakeland, Theology, p.211
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., p.212
4.Lakeland, Post modernity, p.16
5 Ibid., p.17
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., p.18
9 Ibid., p.13
10 B.Turner, Religion, p.134
11 Ibid., p.138
12 H.Kueng, Christianity, p.678
13 Ibid., p.686
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., p.687
16 P.Lakeland, Theology, p.60
17 Ibid., p.61
18 Ibid., p.63
19 Ibid., p.64
20 Ibid., p.65
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., p.66
23 Ibid., p.67
24 Ibid., p.66
25 Ibid., p.67
26 Ibid., p.68
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., p.69
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., p.97
31 Ibid., p.217
32 Ibid., p.223
33 Ibid., p.227
34 Ibid., p.240
35 Ibid., p.98
36 P.Knitter, No Other Name, p.99
37 Ibid., p.101
38 Ibid., p.102
39 Ibid., p.103
40 Ibid., p.104
41 Ibid., p.106
42 P.Knitter, No Other Name, p.123
43 Ibid., p.128
44 J.Hick., Christian, p.88
45 Goosman’s Lecture
46 J. Hick., Christian, p.59
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., p.66
49 Ibid., p.57-58
50 J.Dupuis, Toward, 186-187
51 Goosman’s Lecture
52 J.Hick, Christian, p.66
5. Bibliography
Braybrooke, Marcus 1990 Time to Meet: Towards a Deeper Relationship Between
Jews and Christians, SCM Press Ltd, London
Dupuis, Jacques 2001 Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism,
Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York
Hick, John 1995 A Christian Theology of Religions: the Rainbow of Faiths,
Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky
Knitter, Paul F. 1999 No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes
Toward the World Religions, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York
Kueng, Hans 1995 Christianity: the Religions Situation of Our Time, SCM
Press Ltd, London
Lakeland, Paul 1990 Theology and Critical Theory, Abingdon Press, Nashville
Lakeland, Paul 1997 Postmodernity: Christian Identity in a Fragmented
age, Fortress Press, Minneapolis
Turner, Bryan S. 1991 Religion and Social Theory, Sage Publications, London
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