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2007 / 1
Pluralist Theology: The Emerging Paradigm
Introduction: Emergence and Urgency of the New Pluralist Paradigm
Luiz Carlos Susin
Concilium is a review in the Catholic tradition, conciliar in tone, with an ecumenical spirit. The `signs of the times' demand daring in examining and elaborating new depths of `catholicity' and of the spirit of ecumenism. The increasingly obvious emergence of pluralism, to the point where it marks a new paradigm, compels a new and more forceful approach to it, seeking new insights and trying out a new language. ASETT, the Latin American Theological Commission of EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians) proposed a jointly-edited issue of Concilium, in which Latin American theology would draw into its tradition what theology produced in the Anglo-Saxon context had been developing in a somewhat different form: a theology that, rather than being one `of religious pluralism', is a pluralist theology, elaborated on the basis of a pluralist paradigm, and one that is, effectively, a liberating pluralist theology, based on the approach of the option for the poor. The challenge had, in fact, been clearly issued to liberation theology by Aloysius Pieris, on the grounds that religious pluralism has everything to do with the multitudes of poor people, as is confirmed here in the article by José María Vigil. Following a series of publications by ASETT,1 this issue of the review, as a partnership between ASETT and Concilium, displays not only world-wide collaboration, as is necessary today, but also a fruitful marriage between liberation theology and theology of pluralism, showing that liberation theology has not remained stuck in the themes of past decades but is tackling new concerns, such as this pluralist liberation theology.
The `plural condition' as a mark of our time, difference and diversity, `pluralism' developing as an interpretative concept: is all this a historical novelty or simply a fact of life that has always been there, but of which we now have a new understanding fraught with consequences? The argument of this issue of Concilium is that pluralism is a paradigm imposed in place of [8] the uniqueness, universalism, and `absolutism' of traditional thought, of metaphysics, and — even more so — of a western outlook. Pluralism is a matter of understanding the complexity of the deeper reality of life in all its aspects, including social, cultural, and religious. The complexity of reality in its plural condition calls for and requires discernment. It requires a `new awakening', which is now an awakening from the dogmatic religious dream, and a `new enlightenment', of religious stamp, based on otherness and plurality, instead of on subjectivity and an identity with claims to exclusive universality and absolute uniqueness. It also requires a bold acceptance of the epistemological change, with all this implies, which is taking place, irrevocably, in our time.
Certain questions guided the editors of this issue of Concilium: Could religious pluralism be just a consequence of the course taken by Christianity in the phase of modernity; that is, a western phenomenon that does not concern other religious traditions? Or are all religions called to make this paradigmatic leap? And what resources would they have for doing so? Are elements of universality and acceptance of pluralism as a form of this universality not to be found already in different religious traditions?
Faced with the pluralism and complexity of our age, contemporary societies are either exasperating each other by insisting on affirming their identities in religious fundamentalist accents or splitting into fragments with no unifying religious horizons. But these confrontations in religious terms are bound up with a more inclusive and perhaps more urgent reality than the religions themselves: divisive market-based globalization, which is creating a new, globalized form of apartheid, threatening the future of the poor masses and that of all forms of life on earth. Globalization can bring positive values, such as encouragement of democracy and human rights. Seen from the vast regions where the people are ever more excluded from its benefits, however, it forces peoples who feel its malevolent effects to seek ways of resisting in their humanity through recourse to the deepest sources of their religious roots. Religious pluralism can, then, appear ambiguous: on the one hand, it can be the fruit of fundamentalist resistance and even of violence in affirming one's own identity; on the other, it can be a legitimate and civilized expression of cultural identity, of its religious root, of its `soul' with its right to be different within human bio-diversity, resisting the overwhelming power of claims to universality based on the privilege of being the most powerful. Our arguments here stress this positive reality in understanding religious pluralism, seeing it in the light of a creating, revealing, and saving plan, a manifestation of the unfathomable divinity in the plurality [9] of life on earth. And they seek to deconstruct the remains of inclusivist and unifying claims based on a privileged centre. Evidently, as will be seen, this spells trouble for Christian thinking. Religious and ecclesiastical institutions are hesitant about embarking on the route to accepting religious pluralism as a sign of the times and of the living God, of respect for cultural and religious bio-diversity, of hospitality, and of life's riches. The difficulty is understandable, particularly for religions with claims to universality. We do not yet know how to react positively to pluralism in terms of mission, of ecumenism, of inter-religious hospitality, of acceptance of the cultural bio-diversity in which religions can express themselves with deeper human riches and provide an encounter with the divine.
What is nevertheless certain is that religious pluralism, apart from being a fact of life now, and one that has come to stay, will also become more extensive and more complex. What cost in sacrifice and violence will this acceleration in complexity entail? What can we learn in time? Shall we learn to see soon enough, with discernment, greeting religious pluralism as divine creation and taking a coherent approach to it?
As Christians, we know that one of the great challenges posed by religious pluralism is how to understand the universality of revelation and salvation in Jesus and, at the same time, without half measures, the revelatory or salvific value — including universal value — of other religions. Most of us would go down the path of `inclusivism', saying, for example, that there is something of the grace of Christ or the universality of the breath of the Spirit in a good Buddhist. But how would we react if a Buddhist told us there is something of Buddha's enlightenment in a good Christian? Can we take the others' inclusivism as seriously as our own? In other words, is it worth carrying on with inclusivism?
On the other hand, pluralism cannot be grasped in the abstract, passing over the real and even radical differences among religions. This would be an unrepentant universalism of sublimation via abstraction of our particular characteristics. It dissimulates the will to power, colonization, the reducing of others. The West knows all this well, and it deserves all the criticism it gets. Pluralism, as a thought-paradigm and an attitude fully adopted, obliges us to abandon any pretension to absolute and panoramic ways, to unilateral exclusions or inclusions.
To adopt a tranquil `henotheism', however, comfortable with accepting that each nation and each culture has its own god, while tolerance and indifference among religions goes on in the same old way, would be a return [10] to an archaic attitude that does not match up to the complexity of relationships in our world today. Indifference, in a world where those different from us are ever closer to us, turns out to be a subtle form of violence. In today's West, marked by fragmentation of individualities, the new religious experiences tend to produce new syntheses or syncretisms out of diverse sources and traditions. Could these be `moving beyond' pluralism, or are they just individual and fragile defences against the gale of globalization, one of the forms of indifference?
In their institutional aspect, religions today, together with all major institutions, are undergoing changes increasingly seen to be global. The sensation is of loss of power and of proving inadequate. A `liquid' spirituality (to use a term coined by Zygmunt Bauman) contained within walls that are becoming increasingly porous and permeable, with increasing open breaches, is one of the signs of the times. Will a spirituality without religion become possible, or will spirituality create new forms of religion, albeit now within a pluralist paradigm? The fact is that pluralism needs a corresponding spirituality.
Readers can add many questions of their own to these. This issue of Concilium cannot claim either to exhaust the questions or to give fully worked-out answers to them. Its claim is to something more urgent for the present: to carry out some analyses, to develop some indications, to set some tasks in train, and to make some attempts. This is not a little: it is bringing to birth, in pain and affliction, essaying new categories, trying out some neologisms. New realities need a new language, with all its attendant risks and burdens, beginning with misunderstandings. Our contributors are not lacking in good cheer, alongside the seriousness with which each seeks to articulate tradition with the novelty and promise that are emerging in this new paradigm.
We begin (Part I) with the most global aspect of our common home, the earth, with our human family. The harsh reality of centuries of history and of western hegemony has brought us to a new and unprecedented level of apartheid and to a cul-de-sac for the earth and its children. It is Mother Earth herself and the life of the poor that are calling for a radical break. And the possibility of a future can only come from a massive mutual learning process, from dialogue, from hospitality, and-from common endeavours using our plurality of resources. The pluralist paradigm is not a requirement for Christianity alone. It is a vital need, one that permeates and challenges cultures, peoples, all traditions and forms of religion. Part II consists of theological considerations that take stock of cultures, [11] traditions, and languages. Our main support comes from the general idea of discernment: first to provide a favourable interpretation of the kairós, the opportune moment, the signs that show theology what to think about, what to investigate, what to debate. How do we approach revelation in the plurality of revelations, of languages, of cultural symbols? How do we combine universality and real particularity in religious experience? How do we understand the specific `form' of Jesus, the Christ and Son of God according to Christian belief, against a pluralist horizon? Even if the living reality of faith communities is more important than the epistemology required to describe their experiences correctly, nevertheless epistemology and fresh language are requirements of our human condition. We have to risk losing and being open to new images and concepts. Thinking in generational terms, faced with young people who embody the shape of pluralism, perhaps we need to be more radical than providing new bottles for new wine and develop new wine for new bottles, as one contributor says. In Part III we deal with some practical consequences for missionary approach, for spirituality, for religion as such. Seeing the world, our common home, with God's eyes, at this time of religions coming closer together, as are all other human dimensions, brings consequences. Whether they are to be a fruitful blessing or a threat of chaos depends largely on our decision and our response.
We dedicate this issue of Concilium to the memory of Jacques Dupuis. Matthew's Gospel begins appreciation of the `religion of others', with the surprising visit of three wise men from the East, brought about by their seeing, there in the East, a great star shining, a religious sign banished from biblical orthodoxy. Our age and our theology have come to know other wise men from the East: Raymund Panikkar, Aloysius Pieris, Tissa Balasuriya, these three followed by Michael Amaladoss, Felix Wilfred (currently president of the Editorial Board of this review), and others. Jacques Dupuis began by following the opposite path, the path of the missionaries who set out from the West for the continents of the East and South. Many of them experienced the physical shock of the difference and of what Jon Sobrino (also on our Editorial Board) has called the epistemological break, not so much as a theoretical approach and work programme but rather as the result of an aporia — scandal and madness — and of a respectful apophatism toward divine transcendence in the experience of God together with others, received as a grace by means of others. The continents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are witnesses to this transformation of innumerable [12] missionaries into spokespersons for a new theological locus, strengthened in their suffering by this conviction that revelation and salvation are truly grace because they break the logic of religion, make us understand and stammer that `what is within is there outside; the height is there below, the blessing is together with the cursed, the judgment on the world is first pronounced by the littlest ones'. Jacques Dupuis returned to Rome, to the centre, insisting that the new paradigm no longer has a centre. His Christian theology of religious pluralism is coherent with the steps of an about-turn, which demanded a `decentralization'. In his Trinitarian theology of religious pluralism, therefore, the Holy Spirit is God's kiss for the entire world, the catholicity that includes the world and its pluriform religious life.
Jacques Dupuis became an Abrahamic wise man, a master who took steps and opened paths, uniting his studies with his experience. He died under suspicion from those who know others only from within their studies. Nevertheless, `what must be has power', and his companions and disciples carry on, taking fresh strides forward. This issue of Concilium, produced in collaboration with the Latin American Theological Commission of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, pays homage to a colleague and a master. And, in his honour, it essays new steps in faithfulness to the same Spirit that breathes with freedom and life.
The editors wish to thank Virgil Elizondo, Edward Farrugia, Claude Geffré, Rosino Gibellini, Maureen Junker-Kenny, and Marie-Theres Wacker for their assistance.
Translated by Paul Burns
Notes
1. Cf. the series, `Por los muchos caminos de Dios' (Down God's many paths), 5 vols, Quito: Abya Yala, 2002-7. Available at http://www.latinoamericana.org/tiempoaxial. Published in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
