HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES
FINGERS
POINTING TO THE MOON
FINGER1 FINGER2
FINGER3
FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON
AN ANALYSIS OF THE
THEOLOGICAL METHOD
OF KARL RAHNER AND EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX
IN THE CASE OF CHRIST AND AN EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
Liem Pham, S.J.
Lời để chuyển ý, được ý hãy quên
lời.
If you get the meaning, forget the word.
(Trang Tử)
Bè để
qua sông, qua sông hãy bỏ bè. Đừng vác bè mà đi.
After the boat carries you across the river, leave it behind. Don’t
carry the boat on your shoulder.
(Trang Tử)
“This is like a man pointing a finger at the moon to show it to others
who should follow the direction of the finger to look at the moon. If they look
at the finger and mistake it for the moon, the lose (sight of) both the moon
and the finger.”
(The Surangama Sutra).
III. FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON
c. Religions as “fingers pointing to the moon”
2. Fingers Compared (Rahner and Schillebeeck)
a. The significance of different audiences
Different transcendental conditions
b. The significance of different methods
Transcendental versus correlative
Christocentric versus theocentric
3. Theologies-- Fingers Pointing to God
a. Audiences with various mentalities demand different theologies
In the first section of this third chapter, I present God as ineffable reality and human beings as finite, with intellect and language that are finite; therefore, nobody and no method can identify or express God completely; the religions of the world are as fingers pointing to the moon, symbolizing the infinite reality. Religions are intergrated with culture, and their theologies reflect for human beings some aspects of God’s beauty. In the second section, I present Rahner and Schillebeeckx as two theologians who try to talk about God to different audiences: ordinary Christians with a normal ecclesial form of faith (Rahner), and marginal Christians and present-day people of other confessions (Schillebeeckx). The audience is an important element which contributes to making their theologies different. In the third section, I say figuratively that theologies are fingers pointing to God. Pluralism in theology is necessary because of audiences with different mentalities.
God is a reality
independent of human beings’ knowledge. Even if human beings do not recognize
God and deny his existence, God still exists. In this section I treat the
relationship between reality and human reason, then reality as the standard of
knowledge, and finally religions as fingers pointing to the moon.
A human being wills to
do many things, but his strength does not always follow his will. He cannot
understand everything as he would like to. He cannot communicate totally to
others what he experiences. He experiences himself as being limited.
Truthfully, a human being is finite. His reason and language are finite, too.
The intelligence of human beings cannot grasp the entirety of reality;
likewise, human language cannot express the whole of reality. Judgment and
language reflect reality only in certain measure. Moreover, if reality is
personal and absolute, then by definition human intelligence cannot understand
it completely! Free being is ineffable.
I focus on the relation
between concept and reality, then attributes of knowledge, and the relation
between language and dogma.
Many theories explain
the relation between concept and reality. One theory presumes that ideas are
real, the changing world is created according to the world of ideas. That is
Plato’s theory. In this theory, ideas are real whereas this changing world is
not. This theory assumes that ideas already exist in a human being when he is
born. Knowledge is “reminiscence” in Plato’s theory.
A second theory
presumes that this changing world is real. Concepts are formed by human beings
through experiencing this world through the five senses. Concepts reflect
reality. This is Aristotle’s theory; later on, Thomas Aquinas adopts it. The
moderate realism of Saint Thomas maintains that there is a certain relation
between concept and reality. To have knowledge, human beings have to experience
reality, develop concepts, and then judge where true knowledge lies.
A third theory assumes
that concepts are created by the human intellect. The relation between ideas
and this changing world is one of convention. It is something similar to the
relation between a traffic signal and its meaning. All depends upon the human
being. There is no intrinsic relation between concept and reality.
Some western people
today follow Aristotle’s moderate realism, while others do not pay any
attention to theories of knowledge. They accept the reality of human beings’
having knowledge as a fact.
Knowledge is a
constitutive element of the human. However, some deny true knowledge to human
beings.
In the history of
western philosophy, skepticism did not deny knowledge itself to human beings,
but only the truth and certainty of knowledge. For them:
i). Nothing can be
rendered certain through itself. To be accepted as true, it needs a proof that
demonstrates that knowledge;
ii). Skepticists
require that this new proof must be proved as well; and with this newest proof
scepticists again say it must be proved, too;
iii). That leads to an
infinite regress and yields a vicious circle.[1]
Skepticism destroys
science. Its result is uncertainty and insecurity. Even in the moral life, all
would be relative because no knowledge would be certainly true.
Skepticism in
metaphysics amounts to agnosticism. Agnosticism does not deny knowledge of God
but proclaims the uncertainty of metaphysical knowledge. In my opinion, we
cannot classify Kant as an agnostic, because Kant does not deny the certainty
of knowledge about God. Kant affirms merely the impossibility of proving God’s
existence. Addressing the disagreement in the history of metaphysics, for
example, skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism, Kant postulates that human
beings must accept the reality of God’s existence, the freedom of human beings,
and the immortality of souls, because they cannot prove them. For Kant, human
beings know the phenomena but not the noumena of realities.
Some identify
agnosticism with the “negative way” of theology, but in my opinion, they are
very different from each other. One presupposes the incapacity of the human
intellect; the other is the result of the ineffability of God as infinite
reality. Clement of Alexandria is not an agnostic but a theologian who stated
the negative way of knowing God.
In other words, Clement of Alexandria, as the first Christian man of
learning wanted to see Christianity in its relation to philosophy and to use
the speculative reason in the systematisation and development of theology.
Incidentally it is interesting to note that he rejects any real positive
knowledge of God: we know in truth only what God is not, for example, that He
is not a genus, not a species, that He is beyond anything of which we have had
experience or which we can conceive. We are justified in predicating
perfections of God, but at the same time we must remember that all names we
apply to God are inadequate-- and so, in another sense, inapplicable.[2]
Although some refuse to
accept the certainty of knowledge, the truth of knowledge, the knowledge of God
and of God’s attributes, and even God’s existence, most human beings accept the
fact that they possess true knowledge about reality.
Knowledge is judgment.
False or true are the attributes of judgments. “The falsity consists in saying
yes to what does not exist and no to what exists, and the truth consists in
saying yes to what exists and no to what does not exist.”[3] If
a judgment is not made, there is no falsity.[4]
“Truth is the
adequation of intelligence to reality.”[5]
Truth is always the truth of a judgment, and falsity is the falsity of a
judgment. Truth cannot be separated from judgment, nor judgment from
intelligence.
Concepts and ideas
belong to human beings; and judgment is human act. However, human intellect,
which makes judgments, is finite as the human being is finite. Therefore, human
intellect cannot grasp reality completely, and human judgment cannot comprehend
reality completely; similarly, neither does human language adequately express
reality. Human judgment reflects reality incompletely.
Language is also a
constitutive element of human beings. Language describes what human beings
understand and communicate to one another. Language is finite as human beings
are finite, so language cannot describe reality completely. Here we encounter
the problem of religious language, and especially the conception of dogma in
the Roman Catholic Church.
Dogma is a formula
expressing the beliefs of Christians in a definitive time and space. Dogma is
“truths contained in divine Revelation or having a necessary connection with
them, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of
faith.”[6] In
the Catholic view, dogmas are true and irreversible; so Catholics accept
implicitly the intrinsic relation between idea, language, and reality. The
Church accepts Aristotle’s and Thomas’ theory of knowledge.
Here we see a shift.
Truth by Thomas’ conception lies in the judgment of a person, not in a formula.
Dogma is truth, that is, a formula of dogma is a true sentence which reflects
reality correctly. True or false consists in a judgement. It depends on human
beings who make judgements. Therefore, Christians must understand that dogma
expresses “truth” in language and is formed in a certain time in history; human
beings must try to understand “correct formulas” correctly.
Human beings are from
different races, educational systems, and cultures. So they look at reality
with different points of view and express it through different languages and
terms. Therefore to correctly understand a dogma, it is necessary to interpret
it in the cultural context of the hearers, or for the hearers to embed
themselves in the culture of a dogma. A dogma signifies a reality but is not
identical with the reality. In the Christian view, dogmatic formulas are not
wrong (if understood correctly) but are limited. They cannot totally express
reality, and are not identical with it.
Human beings are
limited; human intellects are finite; human languages are inadequate;
therefore, they cannot identify reality completely. Moreover, truth is a relation,
and its standard is reality.
All religions use
ideas, concepts, and languages to describe God, God’s properties, and the
relation between God and human beings. Human concepts and ideas reflect God in
a certain measure, at least in an analogical way; otherwise there would be no
religions or theologies.
According to Asian
cultures, God is the ineffable reality that human beings cannot understand
completely. There is no way that human language can totally express infinite
reality. “The Truth people can talk of is not the unchanging truth; the Name
people can call is not the unchanging Name.” (Tao Te Ching, 1, 1). A human
being approaches total reality, but cannot grasp it completely by his reason,
concepts, or language.
For the Asian
mentality, dogma is not very important, because every religion has a different
view of infinite reality and reflects a certain aspect of it. There are
different understandings, various expressions, and different doctrines such as
the Hindu, Confucianist, Buddhist, and Taoist traditions. Because of this,
religious believers in Asian countries accept and respect one other and their
respective religions.
This conception does
not fall into the relativism that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith warns Christians to avoid: “The
faithful therefore must shun the opinion, first, that dogmatic formulas (or
some category of them) cannot signify truth in a determinate way, but can only
offer changeable approximations to it, which to a certain extent distort or
alter it; secondly, that these formulas signify the truth only in an
indeterminate way, this truth being like a goal that is constantly being sought
by means of such approximations. Those who hold such an opinion do not avoid
dogmatic relativism and they corrupt the concept of the church’s infallibility
relative to the truth to be taught or held in a determinate way.”[7]
Truly, one can state the relativity of dogma, but not fall in relativism. We
meet again the concept of the relativity of human beings and of dogma
(language). One can accept a dogma is a relative formulation without falling
into relativism.
In this century, with
fast communication, the Asian mentality is influencing the European and
American peoples. St. Thomas also talked about negative affirmation when human
beings talk of God, but it is extremely strong in Asian cultures. In Asian
mentality, human reason cannot totally grasp infinite reality, but only some
aspects of it and those only partially. Moreover, human beings from different regions
and cultures grasp different aspects of reality through different viewpoints,
and they express them in different languages and on different levels. For
example, Hinduism expresses reality as Brahman who is transcendent and
immanent; Buddhism expresses the foundation of all reality as Nothingness or
Nihility, which embraces all; and Taoism articulates reality as the Truth or
the Name ineffable.
Concepts, ideas, and
judgments are beings within human intellects, while any reality that is known
exists independently of human beings and their intellects. Although true and
false are properties of judgments, reality is the standard by which one knows
what judgments are true. Reality is always the standard by which one recognizes
what is true or false. Judgments and languages are true in so far as they
reflect reality.
God is the ineffable
reality that no human intellect can exhaust and no language can describe
completely. In human history there are many religions which talk about God. In
Indian philosophy, there is a sound which is used to describe the mystery about
God that human beings cannot express. Buddha used the figure of a finger
pointing to the moon to teach his disciples not to pay attention to his finger
but to that which his finger was pointing to. We must not pay too much
attention to the words which are used to transmit what someone wants to say
about God, otherwise we will not receive the message correctly.
Various religions
exist. Most of them are integrated as cultural elements of people in certain
regions. Every religion expresses absolute reality in different concepts,
languages, cultures and even ideological systems. Figuratively speaking,
religions are fingers pointing to the Absolute.
In religion there are
theological schools which try to describe God by developing one of God’s
characteristics. For example, in Christianity, Christians can see Augustine and
his school, Thomas Aquinas and his school; in the New Testament, Christians can
see Paul as a theologian, and John and his school. The diversity of theological
schools shows the ineffablity of the Absolute and at the same time the
limitedness of theologies.
Religions and their
members’ experiences about God are true but limited. What they communicate to
others is true insofar as it reflects Reality. After an event, audiences who
were struck by different aspects describe it differently. Even though these
expressions are different from one other, on certain levels and in certain
respects each of them is true. That descriptions differ does not mean that some
must be wrong; it means that an event is viewed from different perspectives.
The same is true with God as ineffable reality. Because God is ineffable and
because we talk about him with human capacity and from different point of view,
we can, at different times, both affirm and negate his attributes.
In sum, I can say: God
is infinite reality, but because human beings are finite, they cannot
understand and describe completely this ineffable reality. Religions, as human
institutions, share the same destiny as human beings. Religions are fingers
pointing to the Absolute or even to the Nothingness. Religions are constituted
by the human expression of different people, cultures, and ideologies, so they
are necessary and legitimate.
Again I look at Rahner
and Schillebeeckx as two typical theologians who have different views on
religions. Rahner considers religions as legitimate before Jesus’ appearance,
but illegitimate now because the climax of revelation has already came.
Religions should disappear because of Christianity.
According to
Schillebeeckx, religions continue to exist not only as historical facts, but as
a matter of principle, because every religion reflects some aspects of God.
Because Jesus in his human nature reveals, and at the same time conceals, God,
religions are necessary to reflect God.
Why are there
differences between two well-known Catholic theologians? In my opinion, the
audiences chosen by these theologians, their theological starting points and
theological methods make their theologies different.
Before Vatican II,
Rahner and Young Schillebeeckx had the same audience, namely Christians with
their normal belief, who live within the Christian tradition, and then possess
transcendental conditions to understand Christian doctrine in traditional
formulations, for example, Jesus rose on the third day after death, Jesus is God
incarnate, Jesus is the climax of all revelation. Traditional Christians who
regularly go to Church believe easily what the Magisterium of the Church
teaches.
But after Vatican II,
Schillebeeckx shifts his audience to people embued with the scientific spirit,
who do not believe in any authority except their own reason and experience, who
think that all human beings have equal human rights and that all religions
teach human beings to do good and not evil. Not a few of them are marginal
Christians; their beliefs are not in an authoritarian ecclesial form. They are
Christians who are perhaps not practicising, who do not have the same
transcendental conditions to hear and accept the traditional formulation of
Christianity. Moreover, Schillebeeckx would like his audience to be as wide as
anyone who wants to read his books.
According to Rahner, it
is naturally impossible to say something about the idea of Christianity to
everyone at the same time. His audience is, to some extent, educated Christians
who know and accept what is in the catechism and in the traditional
formulations, who want to have an intellectually honest justification of
Christian faith.[8]
Rahner chooses as his audience good Christians who share “our own personal
Christian faith in its normal ecclesial form.”[9]
Rahner’s audience in Foundations of Christian Faith is the normal
audience to whom his theology is addressed. They want to justify their
Christian faith.
Late Schillebeeckx
chooses as his audience Christians with a post-modern spirit, marginal
Christians, and even believers of different confessions. Schillebeeckx’s
concern is with how they can hear the Gospel’s message.
A transcendental
condition is the condition needed for listeners or readers to understand and
accept what authors and theologians present or talk about. For exemple, one can
only believe in the resurrection of Jesus if she hopes to survive in some final
and definitive sense.[10] If
someone leads a bad moral life and thus does not hope to survive, then that one
probably will not believe in Jesus’ resurrection. Therefore, hoping in one’s
own resurrection is a transcendental condition for belief in Jesus’
resurrection.
Similarly, to believe
in a traditional theology like Rahner’s, a transcendental condition is
Christian faith in normal ecclesial form, for example, belief that Jesus is God
incarnate, Jesus is the climax of all revelation, Christianity is the unique
true religion. If someone writes theology that includes these beliefs, then he
is orthodox and easily accepted by Christians whose faith is in normal
ecclesial form.
Not a small part of
Christians, and specially Christians who live in the intercultural regions as
in the United States, do not share the same transcendental conditions. Their
mentality possesses a scientific spirit. For them, experience as data and the
human intellect hold a very important place for them; equality between
religions is respected as a human right; authoritative teaching of the Church and
tradition no longer have a relevent position as it did in the past. With this
mentality, this transcendental condition, the later Schillebeeckx creates his
theology.
In the context of this
world, with its various Christian groups on different levels of faith, Rahner
and Schillebeeckx try to address their different audiences concerning God and
the Gospel message. Each author chooses his audience and has his own method
appropriate for the specific audience. The methods include the starting point
of each author’s theology and proper way of proceding, so that his audience
will accept them.
Rahner starts his
theology with transcendental anthropology. A human being experiences himself as
a finite being, and by that recognizes infinite reality.[11] A
human being transcends himself and the world, and thereby becomes spirit. The
world is where God reveals himself to human beings. A human being is spirit in
the world, spirit incarnate.
Human beings
experience themselves as limited
beings. Everyone accepts this. Through finite realities human beings get
scientific and even metaphysic knowledge. Most people accept this, too.
Transcendental anthropology and transcendental theology are accepted by almost
all people today. Because of that Rahner chooses transcendental method.
According to
Schillebeeckx, some think it is better to begin theology from present-day
experience than from the New Testament. Schillebeeckx thinks that this is a
false alternative.[12]
Schillebeeckx chooses experiences written in the Scripture, practiced in
tradition, and lived by present-day people as the starting point of his
theology. Experiences accepted by everyone are the data of all sciences,
including theology.
Schillebeeckx’s method
is a method of correlation which uses both experiences of the New Testament and
experiences of present-day people as sources of his theology. There is no
contradiction between the experiences of Scripture, of tradition, and of
present-day people. Present-day people are aware of the multiplicity of
cultures and religions. They recognize that some religions have very deep
experiences of God which are independent of Christianity’s experiences.
Truly, transcendental
method and correlative method do not exclude each other, but complete each
other. However, the starting point of theology is important. It is the base
upon which the author builds his theology. Rahner puts his accent on the
transcendental activity of the human subject, Schillebeeckx on actual
experience. Rahner’s starting point is the human nature of all generations,
whereas Schillebeeckx’s starting point is the experiences of both Scripture and
of people today.
Another starting point
of Rahner’s theology is dogma, especially Christological dogma. Because
Rahner’s audience is Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form, they
accept these dogmas without a problem.
Rahner’s theology is
dogmatic in the sense that it is based on dogma and draws its theological
conclusions from dogma by logic. One must follow to their consequences the line
of reasoning that theologians draw from accepted dogma. For example, Rahner’s
theological conclusions about religions are drawn from his dogmatic theology,
or rather his Christology. Therefore, if someone accepts Rahner’s Christology,
then she has to accept his theological views on the religions.
Schillebeeckx’s method
is hermeneutical. Hermeneutics interprets experiences in history, experiences
of the people of yesterday and of today. The Scripture was formed through the
experience of revelation. Therefore, hermeneutics interprets the experiences
written in Scripture to discover what God wants to reveal to human beings
today; in the same way, hermeneutics interprets the positive and negative
experiences of people today to discover what God wants to say to the human
beings of today.
In a broad sense,
theology is a hermeneutics which interprets human beings and events, to
discover God’s activity and revelation through nature and human history, and to
become aware of God’s presence in human life. Hermeneutics also interprets
dogmas, to uncover the real meanings of these dogmas for people today.
In a certain sense, hermeneutics
is more flexible than dogmatics. Dogmatic theology consists of logic, while
hermeneutics bases itself on the experiences of human beings from whom and for
whom hermeneutics exists. Dogmas presuppose that the people of yesterday
understood reality correctly, while hermeneutics presupposes that the people of
today also understand reality correctly. Therefore, if dogmas reflect God and
the people of yesterday, then interpretations reflect God and the people of
today.
Rahner’s theology is
Christocentric, because Christ holds the central place in his theology.
Christocentrism means that, from their understanding of Jesus, theologians and
Christians draw almost all their theological consequences in theology. For
example, because Jesus is God incarnate, Christians recognize God’s love for
human beings in the event that Jesus was on the cross; because Jesus is the
climax of all revelation, all religions except Christianity should disappear.
Christocentric theology
is very good for helping Christians to recognize Christianity’s position in
God’s plan of salvation. However, it can create an aggressive spirit toward
other religions when someone believes that his religion is the only true one.
Believers of any religion with a bad education or a horrific lack of sound
doctrine could fall into this trap. Christocentric theology is only suitable
for Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form. Moreover, believers of
other religions cannot accept this theological view.
Schillebeeckx’s
theology is theocentric. For Schillebeeckx, Christology is also theocentric
because God is the source of all visible and invisible beings, and the one upon
whom they converge. In a certain sense, all theologies are theocentric.
According to Schillebeeckx, theology -- that is theocentric theology-- treats
all religions; therefore, Christianity is merely one religion among others. In
it, Jesus is a human person through whom God wills to show his universal love
to human beings. In Schillebeeckx’s view, Christianity is a part of the
totality of religions, and all religions are part of God’s plan of salvation.
The advantage of
theocentric theology is that it covers all theologies, even those of other
religions. God is the foundation upon which all religions can base discussion
and mutual listening. It is very good for the ecumenical task. Believers of
respective religions can share their spirituality with one other.
Of course,
christocentric and theocentric theologies do not exclude one other; they are
optional views with which to understand God. Each has advangtages and
disadvantages. Rahner’s christocentric theology is a good choice for Christians
who want to learn more and more about God through Jesus Christ. It encourages
Christians to urge the missionary task to help others to recognize God and
God’s love in Jesus Christ. However, Schillebeeckx’s choice of theocentric
theology respects religions and helps others to recognize the positive value in
other religions. Furthermore, the danger of destroying religions for the sake
of the one true religion is eliminated.
In sum, audience is an
extremely important element which influences the starting points of theology
and theological method. For various audiences of different mentalities, a
pluralism of theologies is necessary even in the Catholic Church.
Theology consists in
words about God which help people understand God more and more. Audience is
very significant for theology. People from different cultures, different
regions, and different languages vary greatly. Black people are beautiful for
black people, yellow people are beautiful for yellow people, and white people
are beautiful for white people. Beauty is dependent upon each one’s view, and
this applies in a certain sense for theology. The background of each group of
people is especially important; so that, if theology is presented according to
the culture of an audience, it will be more comprehensible.
Because of the relation
between reality and concepts, concepts and languages cannot reflect reality
totally. Religious language is limited, but it can, in a certain measure,
reflect infinite Reality.
People in Asian
countries with a different mind-set have different philosophies and theologies.
They think and talk about infinite reality in a way different from people of
western cultures. We need eminent theologians and varied methods so that human
beings can understand more and more the unexhaustable beauty of God.
The attitude of Second Vatican Council illuminates Christians’ position
on Christian theologies. Of course, theologies appropriate to Christians whose
faith is in normal ecclesial form must be respected and honored; however, the
theologies suitable to Christians whose faith lies outside this ecclesial form
must also be supported. We have to support both theologies because the Church
is for all people, and Jesus’ Gospel is appropriate for everyone.
The Church includes not only Christians but also all people who belong
to God, from Abel to anyone “whose faith is known to God alone.”[13] In her mission, the Church must address the
Good News to Christians in other cultures and of different mentalities. The
Church can choose and has to choose another language and even a different
ideology with which to talk to them. The Church is executing this charge
through her theologians. Allowing pluralism is the beginning of this
theological task. It is hard job, but theologians must do it because their
mission requires it. This work sometimes obliges a theologian to shift her
ideology. That could sometimes cause misunderstanding among Christians and even
within the Magisterium of the Church.
To be human means
having a bodyand being informed by an ideology. God creates everything good,
but creates human beings very good. If we believe in God who creates and always
guides human beings, then we must trust all human beings in their struggle
against evil. Consequently, Christians must respect other religions and also
their theologies.
To understand other
religions and their theologies is very hard, especially when other religions
contain other ideologies. For example, in the western ideology the Ultimate
Reality is God, the Absolute, while in the eastern mentality of Buddhist
ideology the Ultimate is Nothingness, and the “No” is the foundation of all
realities. It is very difficult to shift from this ideology to an other, and vice
versa.
To avoid the conception
that what does not conform to our way of thinking is wrong, the idea of
infinite reality and finite human beings is necessary. Through that idea,
Christians can listen to believers of other religions and learn something from
them. The stance of the Second Vatican Council to religions means a lot for
Christians. Pope John Paul II entering the Muslim temple to pray makes sense to
Christians. Pope John Paul II could encounter God in a Muslim temple; how much
more can Muslim encounter God there.
The Church’s mission is
to present Jesus and Jesus’ Gospel to believers of other religions. Therefore,
to help them to more easily understand her proclamation, the Church can choose
to talk about Jesus using the language and even the ideologies of other
religions. In these cases, the Church would not use her own ideology to
transmit her message. She would empty herself to speak with different languages
and different ideologies to people of different cultures and ideologies. A
shift in ideology needs to change the formulas of expression, even to the
extent of not using Catholic dogmas, so that people of the new mentality and
other ideologies can understand it. That does not mean that theology will be
unfaithful to revelation or tradition. It means only that the effort will be
made to describe Christian realities in other languages and ideologies.
Some religious leaders
worry about differences between theologies that could cause relativism and
indifferentism in believers. First of all, Reality is the foundation and
standard of all talk about Reality. Language, which is finite, cannot identify
infinite Reality; therefore language is relative. The case described here is
not relativist because language can describe Reality without describing it
completely. Human language is truly relative. Second, the indifferentism is a
choice of human being among many possibilities. Different theologies that show
the limitedness of theologies and the ineffablity and unhaustibility of Reality
do not cause an indifferent spirit. The first concern of theology is the truth.
In fact, some
theologians have not had the same thinking or positions as the Magisterium.
Some theologians, so called pluralists, affirm themselves within Catholic tradition
while the Magisterium regards them as outside the tradition, that is, their
teaching or theology does not conform to Catholic doctrine. There are tensions
between the Magisterium and some theologians. That happens probably because the
Magisterium and those theologians have different audiences[14]
and therefore different conceptions of truth, of language, and of knowledge
about absolute reality. The audience of the Magisterium is always Christians in
normal ecclesial form of faith, while a theologian’s audience could be the
Catholic faithful, Christians in modern time, academic men and women, or even
the faithful of all religions or atheists. Pluralist theologians also want to
have as their audience members of all world religions. For example, Rahner delivers
his theology to Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form, while
Schillebeeckx fixes his eyes on post-modern people. To avoid inconvenient
tension, theologians need to define clearly enough both their audience and the
language they will use for their audience.
Human intelligence cannot totally grasp the Absolute; furthermore, human language cannot entirely communicate Reality. Moreover, there are many people and cultures, and thus many ways to describe the Absolute. For example, the Absolute could be described as the Ultimate Reality or Nothingness, enveloping and grounding all realities. In the Christian view, dogma always reflects the ineffable reality that is God; dogma and the infallibility of the magisterium are still valid means of helping Christians in Christian cultures to approach absolute reality. However, other languages and conceptions are also ligitimate and good for describing God to people. Christians must respect other religions, their ways of describing the Absolute, and their theologies. To prepare to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them, theological pluralism is a first and necessary presupposition. Moreover, to accomplish her mission the Church could present Jesus and his Gospel to other cultures in the language and ideology of other religions so that believers of other religions can easily understand it.
In the first chapter of this thesis, I presented Rahner’s theological
thought as “God’s self-communication.” Through the Christian message human
beings recognize that God creates and loves human beings; God loves human
beings so much that God gives himself to human beings and, at the highest act
of love, God gives his own son to human beings. Jesus is the climax of all
revelation because he is God incarnate; therefore, he is the constitutive
salvation of all human beings. Before the coming of the absolute savior,
religions had been means used by God to save human beings; but now that Jesus
has come, all religions except Christianity must disappear on principle.
Because Rahner’s audience is Christians whose faith is in a normal
ecclesial form, Rahner used transcendental anthropology and Christological
dogma as starting points of his theology. Rahner’s theology is dogmatic because
his theology has Christological dogma as its starting point, and because he
drew theological conclusions from a dogmatic and Christological view. His
theological view on religions is an example. With transcendental anthropology,
Rahner’s theology is foundational for all human beings. However, with
Christological dogma his theology is foundational merely for Christians.
In the second chapter I treated Schillebeeckx’s theology. Schillebeeckx
has had two phases in his theological career. Early in his life, Schillebeeckx
had the same audience as Rahner, and his theology at the time was very apt for
Christians whose faith was in the normal ecclesial form. Jesus and the Church
are universally necessary for salvation.
Later in his life, Schillebeeckx shifted to experience as the starting
point of his theology. By critical theory, or hermeneutics of history, he
interprets experience of the people of yesterday in Scripture and of the people
of today. With his theocentric view, he recognizes religions as contexts of
talk about God, and considers Christianity to be one religion among others.
Jesus is accentuated in his human person. Jesus is God’s universal love for
human beings. Jesus reveals God, but at the same time conceals God. Therefore,
other religions are necessary in principle, because many religions reflect God
better than only one religion.
Schillebeeckx’s method is to correlate the experiences of people of
yesterday written in Scripture with those of people of today. Hermeneutics is
essential for interpreting experiences. The theocentric view is an easy way to
incorporate religions into theology. Based on experiences of people of today,
Schillebeeckx’s theology is more appropriate for people today with their
various problems. All religions are respected equally in an ecumenical view;
thus, aggressive behaviour against religions formed by a spirit of superiority
is eliminated.
In the third chapter I presented God as the ineffable reality that human
beings who are finite cannot completely understand. The knowledge human beings
have about God is very relative because God is infinite. Truth and falsity are
attributes of judgment. Reality must be the standard of correct judgment and
formulation. Human language is as finite as the human intellect and therefore
cannot totally describe infinite reality. Religions are fingers pointing to God
in different cultures, languages, and ideologies. Theologies belonging to
religions are also fingers pointing to God which help believers understand God
more and more.
Rahner’s audience and Schillebeeckx’s audience in later of his life are
different. The audience of one is Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial
form; the audience of the other is marginal Christians and even believers of
other religions. Therefore, Rahner and Schillebeeckx have different starting
points of their theologies. One used transcendental anthropology and
Christological dogma; the other used the experiences of the people of yesterday
in Scripture and of the people of today. Rahner’s and Schillebeeckx’s
theologies are two fingers pointing to God. Both Rahner and Schillebeeckx are
prominent theologians; both are enthusiasts for the theological vocation. One
is transcendental; the other is correlative. One is dogmatic; the other is
hermeneutical. One is Christocentric; the other is theocentric. One is
foundational; the other is liberative. One is very fit for traditional
Catholics; the other is very appropriate for people today with their scientific
spirit. One is fit to Catholics who often go to Church; the other is suitable
for modern people and marginal Christians who go to Church less frequently.
Both positions are not only valid but also necessary in a situation where there
are various audiences of different mentalities.
Audience is an extremely important element which influences a
theologian’s starting point and theological method. Different audiences have
different mentalities and ideologies; for example, the mentality of an audience
embedded in an eastern tradition is different from that of an audience in a
western tradition, and the mentality of an audience which is Christians whose
faith is in normal ecclesial form is different from that of an audience of
marginal Christians. Thus, different mentalities entail different theologies.
Different ideologies name and express ultimate reality differently. In a
theological view, the Church includes not only Christians who believe in
Christ, but also people from the time of Abel[15]
and even men and women “whose faith is known to God alone.”[16]
The Church’s mission is to proclaim Jesus and his Gospel to people of all
generations, of all cultures and of all ideologies. Therefore, the Church,
through her theologians, must describe her beliefs in God and in Jesus in the
languages and ideologies of the people that the Church talks to. For example,
to proclaim Jesus and his Gospel to people of countries who live in cultures
and ideologies of the Buddhist tradition, the Church should express her beliefs
in God and in Jesus within the Buddist tradition. It is a very hard task, but
the duty Jesus mandated to the Church demands that she carry it out and
accomplish it. I can take Vietnam, my country, as an example.
Vietnam is an Asian country where some peoples share a legacy of land,
cultures, and religions. Christianity has came to Vietnam in the seventeenth
century through missionary Jesuits who accompanied Japanese Christians boating
from Japan to Haifo, a province in the midst of Vietnam, to escape the terrific
tribulation in Japan at that time. In that way, the Vietnamese received the
Gospel.
In Vietnam, before the coming of Christianity, the three great religions
of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism had lived peacefully together and
respected one other. Accurately speaking, Confucianism is not a religion, but
in Vietnam the educated men identified it as a religion where people respect
ancestors and Sir Heaven (Ông Trời) who creates all things and lives in
heaven. The Buddhists in Vietnam are about 90% of the population, 7% are
Christians, and 3% are believers of other religions. In the nineteenth century,
there was a misunderstanding about Vietnamese Catholics. At that time,
Vietnamese patriots identified Vietnamese Catholics as people supporting the
foreign enemies who came to conquer Vietnam, so they massacred the Vietnamese
Catholics. There were more than one hundred thousands Vietnamese martyrs at
that time.
Vietnamese believers of religions respect one other and their
corresponding religions. Popular sayings about religions include: “all
religions are good,” “no religion is bad,” “all religions teach their
respective believers to live rightly and well.” Before Vatican II, Vietnamese
Catholics were worried about the damnation of their ancestors, because all
Vietnamese ancestors were gentiles (before seventeenth century). Now, the
constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Church has liberated them
from that fear by declaring that people outside the Church can be saved (Lumen
Gentium, n. 16). The Second Vatican Council really changed the missionary view
in Asian countries.
Now the increase of Christians has slowed down, probably because the
missionary work is not pushed now as before, or because Christian life is
either not examplary or not credibe enough to non-Christians. Missionary work
is not only a human effort, but also and principally God’s work. Until now,
Asian countries have not had big numbers of Christians, because Asian
Christians are not good in missionary work, or Christians are no better than
believers of other religions, or because that is God’s will. God probably wills
that Jesus be presented to and accepted by other religions in a variety of
ways, rather than that these religions be destroyed.
In Vietnam, and in all Asian countries, I think we need a theology
appropriate not only to Vietnamese Christians, but also to non-Christian
Vietnamese believers. This theology would not exclude any religion nor its
theology. It would include all, and at the same time present the Gospel of
Jesus Christ to believers of all religions.
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HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES
FINGERS
POINTING TO THE MOON
FINGER1 FINGER2
FINGER3
Chúc
bạn an vui hạnh phúc.
Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.
[1] Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, I (New York: Image Books, 1993), 442-445.
[2] Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, II (New York: Image Books, 1993), 26-27.
[3] ARISTOTLE, Métataphysique, IV, 7. Cf. F-J.THONNARD, Précis d’histoire de la Philosophie (Paris: Desclée et Cie, 1966), 93.
[4] St.Thomas, Kant and Husserl accepted the same. Cf. F-J. THONNARD, Précis d’histoire, 1022.
ARISTOTLE, Métaphysique, VI, c.4: 1027, b, 25-29 quoted by ST.THOMAE AQUINATIS S.T., I, q.16, a.1: “Sed contra est quod Philosophus dicit quod verum et falsum non sunt in rebus sed in intellectu”.
[5] ST.THOMAE AQUINATIS S.T., I, q.16, a.1, corp.: “Quod autem dicitur quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus, potest ad utrum pertinere ... Sic ergo veritas principaliter est in intellectu; secundario vero in rebus, secundum quod comparantur ad intellectum ut ad principium”; a.2, 1: “Praeterea, Ysaac dicit, in libro de Difinitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus”.
[6] Cathechism of the Catholic Church (California: Ignatius Press, 1994), n. 88.
[7] Declaration in defence of the Catholic doctrine on the Church against certain errors of the present day (Vatican City, 1973), chap.5, p. 12-14. Quoted by Francis A. Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 34-35.
[8] Rahner, Foundations, xi.
[9] Rahner, Foundations, 1.
[10] Rahner, Foundations, 268.
[11] Rahner, Hearer, 35 ff.
[12] Ed. Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 71 ff.
[13] “Eucharistic Prayer IV,” The Vatican Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 621.
[14] Ted Schoof, ed., The Schillebeeckx Case, 119.
[15] “Eucharistic Prayer I,” The Vatican II Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 606.
[16] “Eucharistic Prayer IV,” The Vatican II Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 621.