On Interreligious Dialogue
In recent months I have been asked to give talks about Islam. For a number of years I have been teaching a cycle of courses in our Seminary College on non-Christian religions, including Islam, and it was natural, I guess, that that such should be the case. In every instance, however, I found it necessary to begin by placing Islam within the context of the whole religious world in order to be able to understand some of the dynamics of the present-day situation.
I found one of the best ways to establish this larger context was to rely on the short (about five pages) but enormously important Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. This document is often referred to by the first two words of its Latin text, Nostra Aetate, and was promulgated by the Council on 28 October, 1965. It has served as the basic source for many later Church documents (see, e.g., The Catechism of the Catholic Church, ##839-848) and remains outstanding for its brevity and conciseness.
In its first section it succeeds in three short paragraphs in summarizing the Church’s basic teachings upon which all dialog with non-Christian religions must be based. Relying heavily on biblical references, it hammers home the fact that “all human beings form but one community . . . created to people the entire earth . . . and to share one common destiny, namely God.” This truth, stemming from the truth that God is creator of all that exists, is often spoken of theologically as “God's universal salvific will.” God wishes all human beings to be saved.
How can we perceive this in the light of our contemporary world where billions follow faith-systems other than Christianity? For various reasons these other faiths, of course, do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. But the Council tells us these other religions in various ways are seeking “an answer to the unsolved riddles of human existence. . . .” They all, finally, are seeking an answer to the question, “What is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and towards which we tend?”
Section two of the declaration then begins a masterfully brief resume of two of the major religions of east Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism. And it forcefully states: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions,” even though she is in duty bound “to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.” This is the task theologians have before them as they struggle with developing a “Theology of Religions” that accepts the present human situation of the world today.
It is in section three of the declaration that the Council takes up the question of Islam: “The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims.” It goes on to list those religious truths that Christians and Muslims have in common, while alluding to the principal differences that cause so much tension between the two faiths today. Muslims do not have in common with Christians a belief in the Trinity which they see as compromising the oneness of God who is the Creator and the Goal of all. And, as a consequence, while they accept Christ as a great prophet, rejecting his divinity, they do not accept him as Son of God.
This third section is the section, brief as it is, that every Christian today should be well acquainted with in trying to understand the tensions that exist between Christians and Muslims over the centuries and continue today in a renewed form. “The sacred Council now pleads . . . and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding for the benefit of all.”
The fourth and longest section of the declaration takes up the especially thorny issue of the relation of the Church with the Jewish people. And the fifth brief section returns to themes of Section One: “We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people in other than fraternal fashion, for all are created in God's image.” The Council firmly states: “There is no basis therefore, either in theory or in practice for any discrimination between individual and individual, or between people and people arising either from human dignity or from the rights which flow from it.”
Nostra Aetate is still one of the most relevant statements by the Church for a Christian in today’s multi-faith to read and ponder upon as we live out the mystery of God’s salvific will!
I found one of the best ways to establish this larger context was to rely on the short (about five pages) but enormously important Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. This document is often referred to by the first two words of its Latin text, Nostra Aetate, and was promulgated by the Council on 28 October, 1965. It has served as the basic source for many later Church documents (see, e.g., The Catechism of the Catholic Church, ##839-848) and remains outstanding for its brevity and conciseness.
In its first section it succeeds in three short paragraphs in summarizing the Church’s basic teachings upon which all dialog with non-Christian religions must be based. Relying heavily on biblical references, it hammers home the fact that “all human beings form but one community . . . created to people the entire earth . . . and to share one common destiny, namely God.” This truth, stemming from the truth that God is creator of all that exists, is often spoken of theologically as “God's universal salvific will.” God wishes all human beings to be saved.
How can we perceive this in the light of our contemporary world where billions follow faith-systems other than Christianity? For various reasons these other faiths, of course, do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. But the Council tells us these other religions in various ways are seeking “an answer to the unsolved riddles of human existence. . . .” They all, finally, are seeking an answer to the question, “What is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and towards which we tend?”
Section two of the declaration then begins a masterfully brief resume of two of the major religions of east Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism. And it forcefully states: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions,” even though she is in duty bound “to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.” This is the task theologians have before them as they struggle with developing a “Theology of Religions” that accepts the present human situation of the world today.
It is in section three of the declaration that the Council takes up the question of Islam: “The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims.” It goes on to list those religious truths that Christians and Muslims have in common, while alluding to the principal differences that cause so much tension between the two faiths today. Muslims do not have in common with Christians a belief in the Trinity which they see as compromising the oneness of God who is the Creator and the Goal of all. And, as a consequence, while they accept Christ as a great prophet, rejecting his divinity, they do not accept him as Son of God.
This third section is the section, brief as it is, that every Christian today should be well acquainted with in trying to understand the tensions that exist between Christians and Muslims over the centuries and continue today in a renewed form. “The sacred Council now pleads . . . and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding for the benefit of all.”
The fourth and longest section of the declaration takes up the especially thorny issue of the relation of the Church with the Jewish people. And the fifth brief section returns to themes of Section One: “We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people in other than fraternal fashion, for all are created in God's image.” The Council firmly states: “There is no basis therefore, either in theory or in practice for any discrimination between individual and individual, or between people and people arising either from human dignity or from the rights which flow from it.”
Nostra Aetate is still one of the most relevant statements by the Church for a Christian in today’s multi-faith to read and ponder upon as we live out the mystery of God’s salvific will!
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Fr. Donald Grabner, OSB, is professor of theology at Conception Seminary College and a member of Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri. He contributed to both Gethsemani Encounters.