From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2003 - 14:07:23 EDT
The exchange between Howard and Josh reminds me of what Jacques Dupuis, SJ,
wrote in his book _Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism_. He
is commending the value of interreligious dialogue for deepening one's
understanding of God. Here in part is what he wrote:
"Thus the dialogue does not serve as a means to a further end. Neither
on one side nor on the other does it tend to the 'conversion' of one partner
to the religious tradition of the other. Rather it tends to a more profound
conversion of each to God. The same God speaks in the heart of both
partners; the same Spirit is at work in all [these words reflect RC views
arising out of Vatican II]. By way of their reciprocal witness, it is this
same God who calls and challenges the partners through each other. Thus
they become, as it were, for each other and reciprocally, a sign leading to
God" (p. 383).
Where I see this view connecting with the present discussion is that
while not setting aside the witness to God in the Christian scriptures, a
Christian may in learning from his/her dialogue partner come to a deeper and
broader understanding of God. The non-Christian's experience of the Sacred
may enlighten and enrich that of the Christian. The same is true outside of
interreligious dialogue: a Christian open to other sources of knowledge and
experience of the Sacred beyond Scripture can benefit greatly from the work
of the Spirit. It may well be that insistence that only the Bible presents
authentic revelation of God, and the confusion between revelation and the
interpretation of it that often attends such an attitude, cuts some
believers off from a deeper apprehension (both spiritually and mentally) of
God.
Those of us who accept an evolutionary understanding of creation have to
ask ourselves different questions about God and God's relationship to the
creation than did our theological forbears who lived in a static and
complete creation. And much of the imagery of God in the Bible rests in the
matrix of a static world. If we understand that context, we do not betray
it by concluding that some of the images of God in the Bible are, as it
were, accommodated to the understanding of the people in the audiences of
the sacred writers, just as some of us have argued for accommodation as a
way to put in perspective images of nature in the Bible. Perhaps a good way
to think about this is captured in the story in the Torah in which God
answers Moses that the latter may not see God's face, but if he stands where
he can look through a narrow cleft in the rock, he may catch a glimpse of
God's back. It would be salutary to think that we are always catching
glimpses of God's back and have yet to see God's face.
Bob Schneider
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