For my write-up today on Paul Knitter's No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, I'll comment on points that Knitter makes on page 221 and page 229.
On page 221, Knitter states the following:
"More concretely, the Christian doctrine of the trinity needs
the Islamic insistence on divine oneness; the impersonal emptiness of
Buddhism needs the Christian experience of the divine Thou; the
Christian teaching on the distinction between the ultimate and the
finite needs the Hindu insight into the nonduality between Brahma and
atman; the prophetic-praxis oriented content of the Judeo-Christian
tradition needs the Eastern stress on personal contemplation and 'acting
without seeking the fruits of action.'"
On page 229, Knitter
states: "A global practical theology is telling Christian social
prophets that they must be more contemplative, and Eastern mystics that
they must be more prophetic. As John A.T. Robinson concluded from his
passing over to Hinduism: 'The mystical center needs the prophetic
center if it is not to become airborne....But equally the prophetic
center needs the mystical center if it is not to become arrogant,
narrow, and unlovely."
There's a lot of wisdom in what John A.T. Robinson is saying. There
are advocates of social justice who are arrogant, self-righteous,
condescending, and unhappy, and why not? They're concerned about
injustice and how it is hurting and killing vulnerable people, and yet
they live in a world that is unjust, where a number of people do not
share their concerns. And then there are mystical people who sit around
staring at their navels without accomplishing any concrete good in the
world. But they themselves are taming their inward beasts, as they
become more patient and understanding of themselves and of others. As Robinson astutely affirms, both a concern for social justice and self-reflection are good to have.
That
said, I'd like to comment on what Knitter says about inter-religious
dialogue in the passages that I just mentioned. Many of you have
probably heard the story of the blind men and the elephant (see here),
in which blind men are feeling different parts of the elephant and
disagree about what it is that they are touching. The blind man who is
feeling the elephant's leg believes that he's touching a pillar, the one
feeling the elephant's tail thinks that he's touching a rope, and so
on. The lesson of the story is that, by talking with one another, the
blind men can get a fuller picture of what it is that they all are
touching, and perhaps they would then realize that it's an elephant.
The
story has been said to be a parable that supports relativism or
religious pluralism, but I can understand the argument of critics that
this is not so. The story does not appear to be saying that
each blind man is correct according to his own point of view; rather,
the story is saying that there is a truth out there (the elephant), all
the blind men have the wrong idea, and that only by talking with one
another and bringing their experiences to the table can they arrive at
the truth of what it is that they are touching.
Knitter
believes that he sees the elephant. Granted, he says that we should all
be humble as we realize that we do not have the full truth, and thus we
should be open to learning. But he seems to have an idea in his mind about what the conclusions of inter-religious dialogue should be,
and where the world religions are right and wrong. Perhaps he makes
good points: As I said above, I'm all in favor of balancing the
prophetic with the mystical. And I also see value in viewing everything
as one, while also respecting individuality. But I think that
it would be presumptuous for a Christian to tell a Buddhist that he
needs to recognize a divine Thou. Maybe the Buddhist does not want to
recognize a divine Thou because he's a Buddhist and has a more
impersonal conception of the transcendent. Is Knitter
interested in letting Christians be Christians and Buddhists be
Buddhists, or does he want everyone to convert to his own conception of
what religion should be?
I suppose that the way that I would
approach this issue is to be open myself to what other religions can
teach me, while realizing that others are free to be open or closed to
the lessons of my religion. At the same time, I would feel free to
explain why I believe that elements of my religion are so
valuable----why I think that a personal God is important, why I am
committed to social justice, why I feel that apathy regarding social
justice has disastrous consequences, etc. Perhaps my approach of
listening and trying to persuade overlaps in areas with Knitter's
conception of inter-religious dialogue.