Circling the Elephant

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religion And Race

Christian theologians have, for some decades, affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounter with God or ultimate reality; other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If so, the time has come for Christians not just to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to move toward the mystery of divinity is to move toward the mystery of the neighbor. In this book, Thatamanil employs the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blindfolded men to argue for the integration of three, often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology. Circling the Elephant also offers an analysis of why we have fallen short in the past. Interreligious learning has been obstructed by problematic ideas about “religion” and “religions.” Thatamanil also notes troubling resonances between reified notions of “religion” and “race.” He contests these notions and offers a new theory of the religious that makes interreligious learning both possible and desirable. Christians have much to learn from their religious neighbors, even about such central features of Christian theology as Christ and Trinity. This book proposes a new theology of religious diversity, one that opens the door to true interreligious learning.

God as Ground, Singularity, and Relation

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-248
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Divine Life ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter is the culmination of the book. What previous chapters called for—the integration of theology of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology—this chapter performs. It offers a new constructive theology of the trinity, a theology of the trinity that is worked out with the help of Hindus and Buddhists. Such a theology is simultaneously a way to think about religious neighbors, a way of learning from those neighbors, and a way to reimagine the divine life. Specifically, this chapter advocates an account of God/ultimate reality as ground, singularity, and relation. Although these features of the divine life can be discerned across traditions, this chapter argues that certain strands of particular traditions focus on one account of ultimacy at the relative expense of others. But this degree of focus is precisely what makes interreligious learning possible, necessary, and rewarding.

Religious Difference and Christian Theology

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Religious Others

This chapter introduces and frames the argument for the entire book: Christian theology must understand religious diversity as promise rather than as problem. The chapter then proceeds to lay out conceptually what was articulated allegorically in the introduction, namely that theology of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology must be integrated. The chapter defines the scope and tasks of each of these three subfields within theology and puts them into conversation. The chapter argues that it is not enough to merely think about others; we must instead think with religious others and think through what is so learned. In sum, we ought not give an account of the other without being transformed by the other through interreligious learning.

Comparative Theology After Religion?

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-151
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
The Way

This chapter employs genealogy of religion, critical race theory, and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka Buddhism to call into question the way in which uninterrogated notions about “religion” and “religions” compromise theologies of religious diversity. At the heart of the argument is the claim that both the categories “religions” and “races” were invented to reify traditions and peoples over against each other and to develop hierarchies of valuation. Reification is the precondition for ranking, and where there is reification there can be no learning. These reifications persist and complicate and compromise theologies of religious diversity and comparative theology. If Christian theology is to take up the project of interreligious learning, then a variety of extant theories of religion must be called into question. Nevertheless, the chapter concludes that there is no way to simply jettison “religion” and “religions.” These categories must be given new meaning.

Divine Freedom and Human Religions

2018 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-296
Author(s):  
Martha Moore-Keish
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Print Version ◽  
The Past ◽  
Divine Freedom ◽  
Christian Family

This print version of an address given in February 2018 at Columbia Theological Seminary pursues the question, How do we follow Jesus the Christ in this religiously plural world? Martha Moore-Keish tells the story of how Presbyterians, as one particular Christian family, have wrestled with this question for the past 500 years. After reviewing five historical interpretations of religious diversity, the essay introduces the emerging field of comparative theology, as a promising next step in engaging a world of many religions. Finally, it offers a trinitarian Reformed theological rationale for engaging in comparative theology.

Introduction: Revisiting an Old Tale

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology

This chapter introduces, reformulates, and defends the old Indian allegory of the blind men and the elephant to argue that, despite critiques, it remains a valuable tool for thinking about religious diversity. Appealing to John Hull, theologian of blindness, the book reformulates the ancient tale as one about blindfolded men and the elephant. After reformulating the tale, the author puts it to new uses. He argues that theology of religious diversity is the work of accounting for why there are so many different accounts of the elephant, comparative theology is the work of actually walking over to another side of the elephant, and constructive theology is the venture of actually redescribing the elephant in light of the other two tasks. This chapter argues that all three tasks must be done together.

Masao Abe and Comparative Theology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo D. Lefebure
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Faith Tradition ◽  
Mahayana Buddhist

A leading form of comparative theology entails commitment to one religious tradition but ventures out to encounter another tradition, with the goal of generating fresh insights into familiar beliefs and practices reliant upon both the tradition of origin and the newly encountered faith tradition. This chapter, based on a graduate course at Georgetown University, examines how Zen Buddhist thinker Masao Abe engages in a dialogue with Western philosophy and Christian theology. Abe interpreted the meaning of the kenosis (emptying) of God in Jesus Christ in Christian theology in light of Mahayana Buddhist perspectives on Sunyata (emptying) and the logic of negation. The chapter includes responses to Abe from various Christian theologians, including Georgetown graduate students.

Ground-of-Being Models of Ultimate Reality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley J. Wildman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Natural Solution

Ground-of-being models regard ultimate reality as holy or sacred (unlike subordinate-deity models) and reject the idea that ultimate reality is an aware, agential being (unlike agential-being models). Ground-of-being models are radically anti-anthropomorphic, resisting the Intentionality Attribution, Narrative Comprehensibility, and Rational Practicality dimensions of anthropomorphism simultaneously. They are strongly amenable to the scientific study of religion and to apophatic metaphysical frameworks, within which ultimate reality surpasses the complete cognitive grasp of any possible creature. They offer a compelling and natural solution to the problem of religious diversity. They are and have always been relatively less popular than agential-being and subordinate-deity ultimacy models but it is not impossible to imagine a civilizational transformation after which ground-of-being models would become the dominant religious outlook. Variations, strengths, and weaknesses of the ground-of-being class of ultimacy models are discussed.

An Incomplete Journey Away from the Past: The Life and Ideas of Antonius Ameuney (1821–1881)

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-338
Author(s):  
Anthony Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract This article recovers a dissonant voice from the nineteenth-century nahḍa. Antonius Ameuney (1821–1881) was a fervent Protestant and staunch Anglophile. Unlike his Ottoman Syrian contemporaries, who argued for religious diversity and the formation of a civil society based on a shared Arab past, he believed that the only geopolitical Syria viable in the future was one grounded in Protestant virtues and English values. This article examines Ameuney’s complicated journey to become a Protestant Englishman and his inescapable characterization as a son of Syria. It charts his personal life and intellectual career and explores how he interpreted the religious, cultural, political, and linguistic landscape of his birthplace to British audiences. As an English-speaking Ottoman Syrian intellectual residing permanently in London, the case of Antonius Ameuney illustrates England to have been a constitutive site of the nahḍa and underscores the role played by the British public in shaping nahḍa discourses.

Claiming History in Religious Conflicts

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Peace Building ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Reasoning ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
History Play

In what way did or does the past lend credence to religion and how did or does the formation of and departure from tradition affect claims to religious truth? How does historical reasoning contribute towards the unravelling of religious conflicts and what role does history play in concrete peace building processes? The contributions to this volume tackle these questions. Collectively, they take a decidedly multidisciplinary and diachronic perspective, throwing light upon an important subject with significant contemporary reverberations.

Discernment Situations: Some Philosophical Difficulties

1966 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-445
Author(s):  
W. D. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
The Past ◽  
Basic Argument

The concept of a discernment situation has assumed a key J. position in much recent philosophical theology. To take examples: Professor I. T. Ramsey's account of religious language is determined throughout by it; Professor P. van Buren's attempt to state the secular meaning of the Gospel hinges upon the claim that such a situation occurred on Easter; and Dr A. Richardson's oft-repeated asseveration that Christian theology is a matter of the interpretation of history resolves itself into the claim that there have been such situations. The basic argument is that members of our race at certain moments in the past have discerned, and we and our contemporaries at certain moments of present existence may discern, the activity or purpose of God. Connected with this discernment, it is further contended, there is—or ought to be—a response of commitment. Israel, for instance, at the Exodus discerned that they were God's chosen people and responded in the Sinai covenant. The disciples, at the Resurrection, discerned that Christ was, in some sense, victor and committed themselves to him. The important point for philosophical theology is the claim that the occurrence of discernment-commitment situations constitutes an empirical grounding for religious belief and thus provides good reason for an affirmative answer to the troublesome question: how do we know that religious language refers to objective reality? We must look more closely into this.

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