Response to Part III

Mun’im Sirry responds to the essays in chapters 7 and 8 by highlighting difference more than commonality: difference between Barth and Islamic thinking, differences of scholarly interpretation of Barth, and difference within Barth’s own theological understanding. With appreciation for the work of Ralston and Richardson, Sirry nudges the conversation toward deeper attention to real differences between religious traditions, suggesting that such difference “should not be viewed as a source of misguidance but rather, perhaps, the consequence of the divine merciful radiance.”

Analogies across Faiths

Joshua Ralston frankly acknowledges Barth’s dismissive comments about Islam and the possibility of Muslim-Christian dialogue. Despite these comments, Ralston seeks to engage Barth as a conversation partner in comparative theological work by placing his dialectical understanding of revelation as the veiling and unveiling of God in conversation with Ash’arite Sunni thinking about God and revelation, specifically Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Al-Maqsad al-Asna (The 99 Beautiful Names of God). Both theologians affirm the particularity of revelation that comes only from God, and both reject the possibilities of any analogy of being (analogia entis). For both, to speak rightly about God is emphatically to speak “after revelation”—so analogy and reason may be used, but only in light of what God has first revealed (in Jesus Christ or in the Qur’an).

Response to Part V

Nimi Wariboko affirms Ezigbo and Hartman for their pioneering efforts in drawing Barth into conversation with African religious traditions, even as he cautions against their emphasis on common ground rather than genuine difference. He concludes with a question that ought to occupy all scholars engaged in comparative work between such different traditions: how to compare text-based discourse with “fragments of social life”?

“Do Not Grieve”

John Sheveland sets the theme of reconciliation in Barth’s Church Dogmatics 3, no. 2 and 4, no. 1 in conversation with Vedanta Desika’s discussion of Bhagavad Gita 18:66 and its call to take refuge in Narayana alone. In both cases, the futility of the human condition is real, but secondary to the power of divine salvation. Human beings thus live in a paradoxical situation of having been reconciled, yet living much of the time as if that were not so. Sheveland concludes his essay with “pastoral gleanings,” drawing out practical constructive implications from this comparative encounter.

Karl Barth and Parousia in Comparative Messianism

Kurt Richardson compares similar eschatological perspectives in Barth and in Shi’a Islam. He discusses Barth’s complex understanding of Christ’s parousia as both present and future, and he suggests that there is a parallel understanding in Shi’a Islam, with the first and second occultations of the Twelfth Imam and the expected return of Jesus and the Mahdi at the end of time. Richardson attends to both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the God-world relation, in which the synchronic refers to the role of the Mahdi and the risen Christ now, while the diachronic refers to the eschatological expectation of their return. He notices striking parallels between the two formulations, both of which have a cosmos filled with the hidden presence of a saving figure who comes from the future to rectify all things. Considering the personal presence of the hidden holy one in both Barth and Shi’a theology, Richardson suggests that community life in the here and now is determined by presence and expectation.

Conclusion: Barth’s Dreams

This concluding chapter to the collection of experiments with Karl Barth and comparative theology explores the two great moments in Barth’s relationship to religions: critique of all religion as idolatry and affirmation that God is free to act in and through religions without restraint. Heim leads with reflection on how his own theological work has been shaped both by interreligious engagement and Barth’s confessional theology. He points out the particular usefulness of Barth’s critique of religion in a time when much recent scholarship has highlighted the problems with the history and use of that term. In addition, Barth is a valuable conversation partner for other religions because of his fierce commitment to the particularity of divine revelation. Late in life, Barth affirmed that God may employ a variety of “parables of the kingdom of heaven,” which opens the possibility that other religious traditions may work in this way. Heim concludes with the suggestion that the “first act of Barth’s insistence on God’s free choice and promise to be present to us in Christ (coupled with recognition that the Christian religion deserves no presumption of that presence) could be balanced by a second act that affirmed God’s freedom to be present and active without restriction.”

Introduction

The introduction to this volume sets this project in the wider field of comparative theology and Barth studies, seeking to introduce scholars in each field to each other in order to facilitate mutual learning. The editors acknowledge that Barth has usually been interpreted as hostile to interreligious learning, but they note a number of recent works that have sought to engage Barth as a fruitful source for theologies of religious pluralism, including J. A. DiNoia, Garrett Green, Paul Chung, Glenn Chestnutt, Tom Greggs, and Sven Ensminger. Collins Winn and Moore-Keish then situate this project as the next step: drawing on Barth’s own sharp theological thinking not to justify comparative theology, but simply to engage in it. Following a brief explication of the most relevant passages in Barth’s Church Dogmatics on the topic of religion and the religions, the introduction then offers a description of the volume and its array of comparative experiments in theological reflection. They conclude with the hope that scholars both comparative and Barthian will find fodder for further reflection, with conversation partners they never expected to find.

Response to Part II

Paul Knitter responds to the two essays on Barth and Buddhism in chapters 4 and 5 from his own unique perspective as a “double belonger,” one who is nurtured by and engages in both Christian and Buddhist practices. From that vantage point, and drawing from decades of theological scholarship in religious pluralism, Knitter critically engages Lai and Farwell, suggesting in the end that all efforts in comparative theology with Barth must acknowledge more honestly the inherent dualism and Christomonism in his approach.

Barth and Universal Salvation

Pan-chiu Lai takes up the question of universal salvation in Barth, in conversation particularly with Chinese Buddhism, which recognizes a variety of entrances or “dharma-gates” to salvation. After describing several aspects of the universalism of this Mahayana tradition, Lai turns to Barth and notes parallels in his own theology, including the provocative suggestion that what some scholars deem an inconsistency or change in Barth’s position over time may actually be an example of the Buddhist practice of “skillful means,” a change in teaching method in order to address a different concern. Finally, in considering Barth’s doctrine of election, Lai suggests that “Barth’s universalism is more fundamental to his own position, while his denial of universalism is merely his own skillful means which is made for the benefit of his audience.” Even so, from a Mahayana perspective Lai offers specific critiques of Barth’s “implicit universalism.”

Response to Part IV

Advaita scholar Anantanand Rambachan offers comments on the essays of Pugliese and Sheveland, extending and deepening the conversation between Barth and these particular thinkers. He commends both Pugliese and Sheveland for their work so far and offers each of them a particular challenge to think further about an implication of their comparative work.