Toward a Universal Theology of Religion edited by Leonard Swidler

FAITH MEETS FAITH SERIES

Toward a Universal Theology

of Religion

Leonard Swidler, Editor

ORBIS BOOKS

Maryknoll, New York 10545

FAITH MEETS FAITH

An Orbis Series in Interreligious Dialogue

Paul F. Knitter, General Editor

In our contemporary world, the many religions and spiritualities stand in need of greater intercommunication and cooperation. More than ever before, they must speak to, learn from, and work with each other, if they are to maintain their own vitality and contribute to a better world.

FAITH MEETS FAITH seeks to promote interreligious dialogue and cooperation by providing a forum for exchange between followers of different religious paths, making available to both the scholarly community and the general public works that will focus and give direction to this emerging encounter among the religions of the world.

Second Printing, March 1988

The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll) recruits and trains people for overseas missionary service. Through Orbis Books Maryknoll aims to foster the international dialogue that is essential to mission. The books published, however, reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the official position of the society.

Published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 10545

Manufactured in the United States of America

Manuscript Editor: William E. Jerman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Toward a universal theology of religion.

Includes bibliographies.

1. Christianity arid other religions. 2. Religions.

3. Religion.

I. Swidler, Leonard J.

BR127.T58

1987

291.2

87-9213

ISBN 0-88344-580-8

ISBN 0-88344-555-7 (pbk.)

Contents

Proem

TOWARD A UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY OF RELIGION?

LEONARD SWIDLER

Preconference Paper

INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERIDEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE:

THE MATRIX FOR ALL SYSTEMATIC REFLECTION TODAY

LEONARD SWIDLER

Dialogue

Deabsolutizing Truth

Ground Rules for Interreligious, Interideological Dialogue

Dialogue Areas and Phases

Dialogue in Practice

“Spiritual” Dialogue

A Universal Systematic Reflection (Theology) of Religion Ideology“Ecumenical Esperanto”

Goals of Interreligious, Interideological Dialogue

Full Human Life

A Christian Experiment in “Ecumenical Esperanto”

Jesus, the Primary Standard for Christianity

The “I” and Radical Openness

Stages of Faith Development and Interreligious, Interideological

Dialogue

“Reconciling the World to God through Christ”

Conclusions

Notes

I. THEOLOGY AND THE WORLD’S RELIGIOUS HISTORY

WILFRED CANTWELL SMITH

“A Universal Theology of Religion”

Theology: Speaking the Truth about God

History of All Religion: True Basis for Theology

Three Arguments for the Thesis

Seeing Transcendence in History

Naturalistic Fallacy

“Studying History Backwards” Fallacy

Dichotomizing Fallacy

A Word about Truth

Christian Theology-or, Theology

Conclusion

I.1. ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY AND THEOLOGIZING

STANLEY S. HARAKAS

The Stance Whence I Speak

Theology “of” or Theology “or” Religion?

Science and Religious Experience

The Theological Task

Revelation and Transcendence

Rationalist, Individualist Religion, and Religion as a Gestalt

Conclusion

1.2. THEOLOGIZING THROUGH HISTORY?

KANA MITRA

Theology and History

History in Hindu Theology

Conclusion

Notes

II. TOWARD A CHRISTOCENTRIC CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

JOHN B. COBB, JR.

II. 1. THE INTERIOR PATH

101

ZALMAN SCHACHTER

II. 2. CHRISTOCENTRISM-BUDDHACENTRISM

104

KENNETH K. INADA

Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Methodology

106

Nirvana and Emptiness

108

Notes

111

II. 3. A TALE OF TWO THEOLOGIES

ANTONY FERNANDO

Problems with Christocentrism

114

Problems with Intercommunity Dialogue

116

III. THE INVISIBLE HARMONY. A UNIVERSAL THEORY OF RELIGION

OR A COSMIC CONFIDENCE IN REALITY?

118

RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

Introduction

118

Analysis of the Intent

120

Continuation of the Western Syndrome

120

The Unavoidable Search

122

Critique

124

The Question of Pluralism

124

The Inner Limits of the Logos

132

The Outer Boundaries of Any Theory

135

The Alternative

136

The Harmony from Within

138

Dialogical Openness

140

Human Cosmic Trust

142

Cultural Excursus

144

Conclusion

147

Notes

149

III. 1. A UNIVERSAL THEORY OR A COSMIC CONFIDENCE IN REALITY?

A TAOIST/ZEN RESPONSE

154

CHARLES WEI-HSUN FU

III. 2. UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY AND DIALOGICAL DIALOGUE

162

THOMAS DEAN

III. 3. ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMIC CONFIDENCE

175

BIBHUTI S. YADAV

A Critique of Panikkar

176

A Buddhist Response

183

Notes

190

IV. CHRISTIANITY AND WORLD RELIGIONS: DIALOGUE WITH ISLAM

192

HANS KÜNG

Islam-a Way of Salvation? of Eternal Salvation?

195

Muhammad-a Prophet?

196

The Qur’an-Word of God?

198

What Are the Main Common Elements among Muslims, Jews, and Christians?

202

Is the Qur’an Portrayal of Jesus Accurate?

202

What Is the Central Theological Difference?

203

How Are We to Assess the Central Theological Difference?

204

What Should Muslims and Christians Do?

207

Notes

209

IV.1. INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND THE ISLAMIC “ORIGINAL SIN”

210

KHALID DURAN

Muslim Openness to Dialogue

210

Muslim View of Jesus

213

Trialogue and the Thrust toward Unity

214

Jewish/Christian Origins and Islamic “Original Sin”

216

IV.2. A STEP TOWARD “ECUMENICAL ESPERANTO”

218

ELLEN ZUBRACK CHARRY

IV. 3. HANS KUNG’S THEOLOGICAL RUBICON

224

PAUL F. KNITTER

Muhammad, More than a Prophet?

225

How Is Jesus Unique?

226

Crossing the Rubicon from Inclusivism to Pluralism

228

Notes

229

V. WHAT IS TRUE RELIGION? TOWARD AN ECUMENICAL

CRITERIOLOGY

231

HANS KÜNG

A Pragmatic Solution?

231

Four Fundamental Positions

233

The Criteria of Truth

237

The Humanum as a General Ethical Criterion

239

The Authentic or Canonical as a General Religious Criterion

The Specifically Christian Criterion

245

On the Way to an Even Greater Truth

249

AFTERWORD

251

KANA MITRA

CONTRIBUTORS

254

Proem

Toward a Universal Theology of Religion?

LEONARD SWIDLER

Interreligious, interideological dialogue is something quite new under the sun. For a variety of reasons it has largely been precipitated by Christians, although of course many adherents of other religious traditions have collaborated. Because of this, the reflexive level of theological reflection on the implications of the various dialogues on a global level has been reached by certain outstanding Christian thinkers. Raimundo Panikkar, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, John Cobb, and Hans Küng have clearly been among the most comprehensive, penetrating, influential, and creative in their thought on a global theology of religion. They have begun to raise the question: How can Christians reflect on their faith in ways that will be understandable for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, humanists, and others, that will make room for them as they understand themselves, and still keep faith with Christianity?

Further, it is being requested that the same interreligious reflection be done for their own communities by Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other thinkers. Then, in the total global enterprise of reflection on religious faith or “ideology” (including thinkers who are a-theistic, such as Theravada Buddhists, some humanists, Marxists, and others), a way of thinking, of speaking-in fact, a whole new receptive consciousness-must be forged, which at the same time will be faithful to the universal realities of religious faith or “ideology” and also to its particularities. Just to itemize the task almost stops us in our tracks! But above all it should serve us as a challenge.

Might such an enterprise be best called “a universal theology of religion”? What would such a name mean? Literally the word “theology” means the study of God, and of the relationship of everything else to God. Though it was invented by the ancient Greeks, it has subsequently been used mostly by Christians and has come to mean the systematic reflection on the faith or religion one holds (religion meaning generally “an explanation of the meaning of life, and how to live accordingly”-an “ideology” being such a creed and code without the transcendent). Universal here would first of all be understood materially-that is, the matter to be reflected on should in some significant way include all the religions (and ideologies). But it also has a formal sense in that the intended audience of the reflection is not just a particular religious community, but all religious (and ideological) communities. That would mean that “theologians” would have to reflect and speak in a way that would be understandable by all, in a language shared by all-without, of course, thereby replacing particular religious languages.

Simply proposing the project of a universal theology of religion (not to be confused with a universal religion!) precipitates a series of fundamental questions that must be clarified, analyzed, and judged. Can one even meaningfully think about a universal theology of religion, or is pluralism so radical in reality that it would be absurd even to attempt it? Or, should it nevertheless be attempted, even though, like the horizon, it would always exceed our grasp? Or, is the “perspectivism” in all statements about the meaning of reality so thoroughgoing that the only meaningful way to proceed is by way of reflections ex professo from particular religious perspectives-for example, Christian? Or, should one attempt to move from a particular perspective through dialogue with other perspectives toward a never complete, but ever more complete, universal perspective? Or ... ?

All these and other profound, fundamental-and ultimately highly practical-questions were generated by the papers, responses, and discussions in a conference, “Toward a Universal Theology of Religion,” held at Temple University, Philadelphia, October 17-19, 1984. 1 wrote a preconference paper spelling out the idea of a universal theology of religion and arguing in its favor. A copy of it was sent to all the conference speakers and respondents. The four thinkers mentioned above-Smith, Cobb, Panikkar, and Küng-were asked to write papers on the topic and make them available early enough for respondents to be able to write serious, lengthy responses. As indicated before, the main speakers were all Christians-two Catholics and two Protestants-hence, twelve respondents from the major world religions were invited: Zalman Schachter (Jewish), Antony Fernando (Catholic), Kenneth Inada (Buddhist), Kana Mitra (Hindu), Stanley Harakas (Orthodox Christian), Hossein Nasr (Shiite Muslim), Bibhuti Yadav (Hindu), Thomas Dean (Protestant), Charles Fu (“Taoist-Buddhist”), Paul Knitter (Catholic), Ellen Charry (Jewish), Khalid Duran (Sunni Muslim).

This volume contains the lectures and all but one of the responses of the above, in somewhat revised form. It also contains an additional lecture by Hans Küng. Subsequent to the conference, Küng and I jointly conducted a seminar at the University of Tübingen during the summer semester of 1985. The seminar focused on the papers from the Universal Theology of Religion Conference. Toward the end of that semester Küng wrote a lecture, “What Is the True Religion?,” summarizing his subsequent reflections on interreligious dialogue, and addressing directly the issues of the conference. That lecture has been translated and is published here for the first time.

The cosponsors of the conference were the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and the Religion Department of Temple University, both of which were founded approximately twenty years earlier. Both also have been dealing with interreligious dialogue in an extraordinarily creative way. The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, whose structure, from authors through editors, is thoroughly interreligious, has been judged by the directors of ecumenical and .interreligious institutes around the globe to be the world’s foremost journal in the field of interreligious dialogue. The Religion Department of Temple University is similarly interreligious and interdisciplinary in its faculty, graduate students, courses, and orientation. Its faculty consists of twenty scholars from Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Reformed, Evangelical, Episcopal, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions; its two hundred graduate students come from an even wider spread of religious traditions and cultures. It was therefore most fitting that these two institutions should celebrate their twentieth anniversaries by sponsoring a conference that strove to provide a breakthrough into the next stage of interreligious dialogue on a world basis.

It was likewise a happy coincidence that 1984 was the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Temple University by a Baptist preacher, Russel Conwell, for poor men and women. Since then it has grown to be a great university with over thirty thousand students, and in 1966 became a state-related university, opening the way for the extraordinary flowering of the interreligious dialogue that has been stimulated by its Journal of Ecumenical Studies and Religion Department.

A special word of thanks must also be said to the Friars of the Atonement, who helped make the conference possible through a generous grant.

Preconference Paper

Interreligious and Interideological Dialogue:

The Matrix for All Systematic Reflection Today

LEONARD SWIDLER

I want to argue in these reflections that interreligious and interideological dialogue is the most appropriate matrix within which all thinkers ought to carry out their systematic reflections on their explanations of the meaning of life and how to live accordingly-called theology by Christians. (Most explanations of the meaning of life and how to live accordingly have in the past entailed a belief in a divinity-Theravada Buddhism is a clear exception-and in recent centuries have been called religions by the West. More recent explanations of the meaning of life and how to live accordingly, which do not include a belief in a divinity-for example, Marxism-have at times been called ideologies. I am here adopting that terminology.)

After a description of what is meant by dialogue, I shall describe briefly the recent process of deabsolutizing our understanding of truth and how this has led to the possibility and necessity of dialogue; applying this fact to theology and other systematic reflections leads to the need for interreligious, interideological dialogue, for which I shall outline some necessary ground rules. But how to carry out interreligious, interideological dialogue? This will be the heart of this essay: an attempt to show the way forward, not in the “practical” and “spiritual” areas (each of them warrants separate, full treatment), but in the “cognitive” area by way of “ecumenical Esperanto.” A Christian experiment in “ecumenical Esperanto” will then be essayed. The conclusion will be that no systematic reflection, including Christian theology, can appropriately be done today outside this matrix of interreligious, interideological dialogue.

DIALOGUE

Dialogue of course is conversation between two or more persons with differing views, the primary purpose of which is for each participant to learn from the other so that both can change and grow. Minimally, the very fact that I learn that my dialogue partner believes “this” rather than “that” changes my attitude toward that person; and a change in my attitude is a significant change, and growth, in me. We enter into dialogue, therefore, so that we can learn, change, and grow, not so that we can force change on the other. In the past, when we encountered those who differed with us in the religious and ideological sphere, we did so usually either to defeat them as an opponent, or to learn about them so as to deal with them more effectively. In other words, we usually faced them as in confrontation-whether more openly polemically, or more subtly, with the ultimate goal of overcoming them because we were convinced that we alone had the truth.

But that is not what dialogue is. Dialogue is not debate. In dialogue each partner must listen to the other as openly and sympathetically as possible, in an attempt to understand the other’s position as precisely and, as it were, as much from within, as possible. Such an attitude automatically includes the assumption that if at any point we might find the partner’s position persuasive, we-our integrity being at stake-would have to change.

Until quite recently in almost all religious traditions, and certainly within Christianity, the idea of seeking religious, ideological wisdom, insight, truth, by way of dialogue, other than in a very initial, rudimentary fashion, occurred to very few persons, and certainly had no influence in the major religious or ideological communities. The further idea of pursuing religious or ideological truth through dialogue between differing religions and ideologies was even more unheard of (if one can speak thus!). For example, it was merely a century and a half ago that Pope Gregory XVI penned those fateful lines:

We come now to a source which is, alas! all too productive of the deplorable evils afflicting the Church today. We have in mind indifferentism, that is, the fatal opinion everywhere spread abroad by the deceit of wicked men, that the eternal salvation of the soul can be won by the profession of any faith at all, provided that conduct conforms to the norms of justice and probity... From this poisonous spring of indifferentism flows the false and absurd, or rather the mad principle (deliramentum) that we must secure and guarantee to each one liberty of conscience.¹

Not only was dialogue with the other disallowed, so was even being other!

Today the situation is dramatically reversed. No less a person than Pope Paul VI in 1964 in his very first encyclical focused on dialogue, stating that “dialogue is demanded nowadays... is demanded by the dynamic course of action which is changing the face of modern society. It is demanded by the pluralism of society and by the maturity man has reached in this day and age. Be he religious or not, his secular education has enabled him to think and speak, and to conduct dialogue with dignity.”² We hear many more official words of encouragement from the Vatican Secretariat for Non-believers: “All Christians should do their best to promote dialogue... as a duty of fraternal charity suited to our progressive and adult age.” Further, “the willingness to engage in dialogue is the measure and strength of that general renewal which must be carried out in the Church.” Moreover, this dialogue is not thought of solely in terms of “practical” matters, but in a central way is to focus on theology and doctrine, and to do so without hesitation or trepidation:

Doctrinal dialogue should be initiated with courage and sincerity, with the greatest of freedom and with reverence. It focuses on doctrinal questions which are of concern to the parties in dialogue. They have different opinions but by common effort they strive to improve mutual understanding, to clarify matters on which they agree, and if possible to enlarge the areas of agreement. In this way the parties to dialogue can enrich each other.³

DEABSOLUTIZING TRUTH

Why this dramatic change? Why, indeed, should one pursue the truth in the area of religion and ideology by way of dialogue? A fundamental answer to these questions lies in the even more dramatic shift in the understanding of truth that has taken place first in Western civilization, and now beyond it, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, making dialogue not only possible but necessary.

Whereas the notion of truth was largely absolute, static, and exclusive up to the last century, it has subsequently become deabsolutized, dynamic, and dialogic-in a word, “relational.” This new view of truth came about in at least four different, but closely related, ways:

Historicization of truth: truth is deabsolutized and dynamized in terms of time, both past and future, with intentionality and action playing a major role in the latter.

Sociology of knowledge: truth is deabsolutized in terms of geography, culture, and social standing.

Limits of language: truth as the meaning of something, and especially as talk about the transcendent, is deabsolutized by the nature of human language.

Hermeneutics: all truth, all knowledge, is seen as interpreted truth and knowledge, and hence is deabsolutized by the observer, who always is also interpreter.

1. The historicization of truth. Before the nineteenth century, truth-that is, a correct statement about reality-was conceived in Europe in quite an absolute, static, exclusivistically either-or manner. It was thought that if something was true at some time or other, it was always true, and not only with regard to empirical facts but also with regard to the meaning of things or the oughtness that was said to flow from them. For example, if it was true for the Pauline writer to say in the first century that women should keep silence in the church, then it was always true that women should keep silence in the church. If it was true for Pope Boniface VIII in 1302 to state in definitive terms that “we declare, state, and define that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of all human beings that they submit to the Roman Pontiff,” then it was always true that they need do so. At bottom the notion of truth was based on the Aristotelian principle of contradiction: a thing could not be true and not true in the same way at the same time. Truth was defined by way of exclusion; A was A because it could be shown not to be not-A. Truth was thus understood to be absolute, static, exclusively either-or. This is a classicist or absolutist view of truth.

In the nineteenth century many scholars came to perceive all statements about the truth of the meaning of something as being partially products of their historical circumstances. Those concrete circumstances helped determine the fact that the statement under study was even called forth, that it was couched in particular intellectual categories (for example, abstract Platonic, or concrete legal language), particular literary forms (for example, mythic or metaphysical language), and particular psychological settings (for example, a polemical response to a specific attack). It was argued by these scholars that only by placing truth statements in their historical situation, their historical Sitz im Leben, could they be properly understood (understanding of a text could be found only in its context), and that to express the same original meaning in a later Sitz im Leben one would require a proportionately different statement. Thus, all statements about the meaning of things were seen to be deabsolutized in terms of time. This is a historical view of truth. Clearly at its heart is a notion of relationality: a statement about the truth of the meaning of something has to be understood in relationship to its historical context.

Later, especially with the work of thinkers like Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim, a corollary was added to this historicizing of knowledge; it concerned not the past but the future. They and other scholars also conceived of the knowledge of truth as having an element of intentionality at the base of it, as being oriented ultimately toward action, praxis. They argued that we perceive certain things as questions to be answered and set goals to pursue certain knowledge because we wish to do something about those matters; we intend to live according to the truth, the meaning of things, that we hope to discern in the answering of the questions we pose, in gaining the knowledge we decide to seek. Thus, the truth of the meaning of things as stated by anyone was seen as deabsolutized by the action-oriented intentionality of the thinker-speaker. This is a praxis view of truth, and it too is basically relational-that is, a statement has to be understood in relationship to the action-oriented intention of the speaker.

2. The sociology of knowledge. As the statements of the truth about the meaning of things were seen by some thinkers to be historically deabsolutized in time, so also starting in this century such statements were seen to be deabsolutized by the cultural, class (and so forth) standpoint of the thinker-speaker, regardless of time. Thus, a statement about the true meaning of things will be partially determined by worldview of the thinker-speaker. All reality was said to be perceived from the cultural, class, sexual (and so forth) perspective of the perceiver. Therefore, any statement of the truth of the meaning of something was seen to be perspectival-”standpoint-bound,” standortgebunden as Karl Mannheim put it-and thus deabsolutized. This perspectival view of truth is likewise relational, for all statements are fundamentally related to the standpoint of the speaker.

3. The limitations of language. Many thinkers (following Ludwig Wittgenstein and others) have come to understand that all statements about the truth of things necessarily can at most be only partial descriptions of the reality they are trying to describe. This is said to be the case because, although reality can be seen from an almost limitless number of perspectives, human language can express things from only one, or perhaps a very few, perspectives at once. This is now also seen to be true of our so-called scientific truths. A fortiori it is the case concerning statements about the truth of the meaning of things. The very fact of dealing with the truth of the “meaning” of something indicates that the knower is essentially involved and hence reflects the perspectival character of all such statements. A statement may be true, of course-that is, it may accurately describe the extramental reality it refers to-but it will always be cast in the particular categories, language, concerns, and so forth, of a particular “standpoint,” and in that sense always will be limited, deabsolutized. This also is a perspectival view of truth, and therefore also relational.

Moreover, the limited and limiting, as well as liberating, quality of language is especially seen when there is talk of the transcendent. By definition the transcendent is that which goes beyond our experience. Hence, all statements about the transcendent are seen to be extremely deabsolutized and limited even beyond the limiting factor of the perspectival character of statements.

4. Hermeneutics. Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur led the way in the development of the science of hermeneutics, which argues that all knowledge of a text is also an interpretation of it, thereby still further deabsolutizing claims about the “true” meaning of a text. But this basic insight goes beyond the knowledge of a text and applies to all knowledge.

Some of the key notions here can be compressed in the following mantra (a seven-syllable phrase that capsulizes an insight): “Subject, object, two is one.” The whole of hermeneutics is here in nuce: all knowledge is interpreted knowledge; the perceiver is part of the perceived, especially, but not only, in the humane disciplines; the subject is part of the object. When the object of study is some aspect of humanity, it is obvious that the observer is also the observed, which “deobjectivizes,” deabsolutizes the resultant knowledge, truth. The same, however, is also fundamentally true, though in a different way, of all knowledge, truth, of the natural sciences, for various aspects of nature are observed only through the categories we provide, within the horizon we establish, under the paradigm we utilize, in response to the questions we raise, and in relationship to the connections we make-a further deabsolutizing of truth, even of the “hard” sciences.

To move on to the second half of the mantra, “two is one,” we see that knowledge comes from a subject perceiving an object, but inasmuch as the subject is also part of the object, the two therefore are one in that sense. Also, in knowing, the object as such is taken up into the subject, and thus again the two are one. And yet there is also a radical twoness there, for it is the very process of the two becoming one (or, alternatively, the two being perceived as one, or even better, the becoming aware that the two, which are very really two, are also in fact very really one) that is what we call knowing. This is an interpretive view of truth. It is clear that relationality pervades this hermeneutical, interpretive, view of truth.

A further development of this basic insight is that I learn by dialogue-that is, not only by being open to, receptive of, in a passive sense, extramental reality, but by having a dialogue with extramental reality. I not only “hear,” receive, reality, but I also-and I think, first of all-”speak” to reality. That is, I ask it questions, I stimulate it to speak back to me, to answer my questions. Furthermore, I give reality the specific categories, language, with which, in which, to speak, to respond to me. It can “speak” to me-really communicate to my mind-only in a language, in categories, that I understand. When the speaking, the responding, becomes more and more ununderstandable to me, I slowly begin to become aware that there is a new language being developed here and that I must learn it if I am to make sense out of what reality is saying to me. This is a dialogic view of truth, whose very name reflects its relationality.

With this new, and irreversible, understanding of the meaning of truth, the critical thinker has undergone a radical Copernican turn. Just as the greatly resisted shift in astronomy from geocentrism to heliocentrism revolutionized that science, and much else (!), so too the paradigm or model shift in the understanding of truth statements has revolutionized all the humanities, including theology-ideology. The macroparadigm or macromodel with which critical thinkers operate today (or the “horizon” within which they operate, to use Bernard Lonergan’s term) is characterized by historical, social, linguistic, hermeneutical, praxis, relational, and dialogic consciousness. This paradigm or model shift is far advanced among thinkers and doers; but as with Copernicus, and even more dramatically with Galileo, there are still many resisters in positions of great institutional power.

In the understanding of reality and how to live accordingly it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the role played by the conceptual paradigm or model one has of reality. The paradigm or model within which we perceive reality not only profoundly affects our intellectual understanding of reality, but also has immense practical consequences. For example (as pointed out by Henry Rosemont, Fulbright Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University, Shanghai, 1982-84), in Western medicine the body is usually conceived of under the model of a highly nuanced, living machine, and therefore, if one part wears out, the obvious thing to do is to replace the worn part-hence, organ transplants originated in Western medicine. However, in Oriental medicine, the body is conceived of under the model of a finely balanced harmony. If “pressure” is exerted on one part of the body, it is assumed that it has an effect on some other part of the body-hence, acupuncture originated in Oriental medicine.

Furthermore, obviously some attempts at perceiving reality through a particular paradigm or model will fit the data better than others, and they will then be preferred-consider the shift from the geocentric to the heliocentric model in astronomy. But sometimes different models will both in their own ways “fit” the data more or less well-as in the example of Western and Oriental medicine. The differing models would then be viewed as complementary. Clearly it would be foolish to limit one’s perception of reality to only one of two or more complementary paradigms or models. Perhaps at times a more comprehensive model, a megamodel, can be conceived to subsume the two or more complementary models, but surely it will never be possible to perceive reality except through paradigms or models. Hence metamodel thinking is not possible, except in the more limited sense of meta-monomodel thinking-that is, perceiving reality through multiple, differing models that cannot be subsumed under one megamodel, but must stand in creative, polar tension in relationship to each other. Such might be called multimodel thinking.⁴

With the deabsolutized view of the truth of the meaning of things, we come face to face with the specter of relativism, which is the opposite pole of absolutism. Unlike relationality, which is a neutral term, merely denoting the quality of being in relationship, relativism is a basically negative term (as are most “isms”). If one can no longer claim that any statement of the truth of the meaning of things is absolute, totally objective, because the claim does not square with our experience of reality, it is equally impossible to claim that every statement of the truth of the meaning of things is completely relative, totally subjective, for that also does not square with our experience of reality, and furthermore would logically lead to an atomizing solipsism (self-alone-ism) that would stop all discourse, all statements to others.

Our perception, and hence description, of reality is like viewing an object in the center of a circle of viewers. My view and description of the object (reality) will be true, but it will not include what someone on the other side of the circle perceives and describes, which will also be true. So neither of the perceptions/ descriptions of the object (reality) is total, complete-”absolute” in that sense-or “objective” in the sense of not in any way being dependent on a “subject.” At the same time, however, it is also obvious that there is an “objective,” doubtless “true,” aspect to each perception/description, even though each is relational to the perceiver-“subject.”

At the same time that the always partial, perspectival, deabsolutized view of all truth statements is recognized, the common human basis for perceptions/ descriptions of reality and values must also be kept in mind. All human beings experience certain things in common. We all experience our bodies, pain, pleasure, hunger, satiation, and the like. Our cognitive faculties perceive certain structures in reality-for example, variation and symmetries in pitch, color, form, etc. All humans experience affection, dislike, and so forth. Here, and in other commonalities, are the bases for building a universal, fundamental epistemology, esthetics, value system. Of course it will be vital to distinguish carefully between those human experiences/perceptions that come from nature and those that come from nurture. However, because nurture can sometimes override nature, it will at times be difficult to discern precisely where the distinction is. In fact, all our “natural” experiences will be more or less shaped by our “nurturing”-that is, all our experience, knowledge, will be interpreted through the lens of our “nurturing” structures.

But if we can no longer hold to an absolutist view of the truth of the meaning of things, we must take certain steps so as not to be logically forced into the silence of total relativism, including at least the following two. First, besides striving to be as accurate and fair as possible in our gathering and assessing of information, submitting it to the critiques of our peers and other thinkers and scholars, we need also to dredge out, state clearly, and analyze our own presuppositions-but this is a constant, ongoing task. However, even in doing this we will be operating from a particular “standpoint.” Therefore, we need, secondly, to complement our constantly critiqued statements with statements from different “standpoints.” That is, we need to engage in dialogue with those who have differing cultural, philosophical, social, religious viewpoints so as to strive toward an ever fuller-but never ending-perception of the truth of the meaning of things. If we do not engage in such dialogue, we will not only be trapped within the perspective of our own “standpoint,” we will now also know it. Hence, we will no longer with integrity deliberately be able to remain turned in on ourselves. Our search for the truth of the meaning of things makes it a necessity for us as human beings to engage in dialogue. Knowingly to refuse dialogue today could be an act of fundamental human irresponsibility-in Judeo-Christian terms, a sin.

Paul Knitter has noted much the same thing particularly in the shift in the model of truth from the exclusively either-or model to the dialogic or relational model:

In the new model, truth will no longer be identified by its ability to exclude or absorb others. Rather, what is true will reveal itself mainly by its ability to relate to other expressions of truth and to grow through these relationships: truth defined not by exclusion but by relation. The new model reflects what our pluralistic world is discovering: no truth can stand alone; no truth can be totally unchangeable. Truth, by its very nature, needs other truth. If it cannot relate, its quality of truth must be open to question.⁵

If this is true for all human beings in the search for the truth of the meaning of things, it is most intensely so for religious persons and those committed to ideologies, such as Marxism. Religions and ideologies describe and prescribe for the whole of life, they are holistic, all-encompassing, and therefore tend to blot out-that is, either convert or condemn-outsiders even more than other institutions that are not holistic. Thus the need for due modesty in truth claims and complementarity for particular views of the truth, as described above, is most intense in the field of religion.

But the need for dialogue in religion and ideology is also intensified in the modern world because slowly, through the impact of mass communications and the high level of mobility of contemporary society in the West, and elsewhere, we more and more experience “others” as living holistic, “holy” lives-not in spite of, but because of their religion or ideology. To be concrete: when I as a Christian come to know Jews as religious persons who are leading whole, holy human lives out of the fullness of their Judaism, I am immediately confronted with the question: What is the source of this holiness, this wholeness? It obviously is not Christianity. Unless I really work at duping myself, I cannot say that it is unconscious or anonymous Christianity, for if there is any religion that has for two thousand years consciously rejected Christianity, that religion is Judaism. Clearly, the only possible answer is that the source of the holiness, the wholeness, of the Jew is the Jewish religion, and the God w