Dialogical Church, Dialogical Theology: a new way of being catholic

 A Summary of the Articles “Wrong Answers, but Right Questions” and “Church is Dialogical” by Paul F. Knitter.

Paul F. Knitter

The central theme of the articles “Wrong Answers, but Right Questions” and “Church is Dialogical” by Paul F. Knitter, is the urgency of the church, the higher-ups, to learn the art of ‘co-existing’ i.e. being tolerant towards the different and ‘co-operation’ i.e. learning to dialogue (give and take) with the other. It has become one of the urgent issues for the Church which often tends to be rigid, intolerant, shutting-the-door/closed to the different-coloured-neighbour. One such instance is Church’s rude and condemning response to the insights of New Age movement that genuinely challenged, despite its limitations, the dualistic understanding of the God-world relation of Christian theism and the exclusivity of Truth/salvation to the historical Jesus, Son of God. The Church could have lent a listening ear to the New Age movement, for the spirit blows where it wills (Jn 3,8), to help us see clearly what we now see dimly, to help us know fully what we know only in part (I Cor 13,12), but it refused. 

One of the unique contributions of the New Age philosophy is the non-separability of the divine and the world, a sort of pantheism. In its encounter, therefore, with the Catholicism, it sought to challenge and to remove the essential difference between creator and creation, man and nature, spirit and matter and so on. Though their pantheistic conception of the God and the world is inadequate, yet their challenge to Christian theism is relevant as it has become the rising problem for growing number of Christians. People struggle to reconcile with our idea of God, who needs to be reached only through the hierarchy for all the important matters in life. Such a concept becomes all the more difficult with people who have grown to recognize divine in and through the world – thanks to science and technology. The faithful as a result, find it contradicting their experience when the Church (not all) holds on to the dualism of God and the world in its worship and life. Gradually they begin to drift.

The problem, however can be overcome if the Church begins to listen to their voices and reconsider its positions as some of its theologians. Raimon Panikar, for example, drawing from his experience of Advaidic Hinduism, corrects Christian dualism with Christian non-dualism: it means that God and the world are distinct but inseparable. Thus he calls us to experience God as part of our very being, in and through the world. In this world view, every human being is conceived as supernatural-existential, if I express in the words of Karl Rahner and we find it difficult to distinguish between natural or human and supernatural or divine, nature and grace, my acting and God’s acting. We would be able to join St. Paul saying, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2,20). Such a discovery of the richness of Christian theism and its new interpretation owes to the challenge posed by the New Age movement, our neighbours who have opened for us new vistas. It is high time that Church begins to take the other more seriously.

Moreover, New Age movement challenges us to reconsider our absolutization of historical Jesus as the only way to the Truth/salvation/liberation, without any disrespect to His divinity and Son-ship to the Lord. It attempts, unlike the church, to regard him as a ‘symbol’ and ‘pattern’ (‘sacrament’) of what is to happen in every human being. But, the Church strongly condemned this view only to reaffirm that Christ is not a pattern but a divine person the only Son of God, the full revelation of divine truth and unique savior of the world. This is arrogance and intolerance in this world of pluralism, more over anti-Gospel as Christ recommends us to love our neighbours as we would do to God. The problem of the Church is with its inability to recognize the difference between ‘Jesus’, the human incarnation and ‘Christ’, the second person of the trinity who could manifest variedly in different cultures and traditions. Rahner, speaking about this regards the incarnation in Jesus as the realization of the potential given to all human beings. Though the issue is complex – “how Christ can be full identified with Jesus but not limited to Jesus – efforts to understand it shows our openness to relationship and co-operation with others, those who take a different road to reach the one Truth. But, condemning it takes us no further than self-destruction. The Church is yet to cultivate an attitude of openness and dialogue. It would not long sustain itself as the body of Christ, if it does not learn the art of genuine dialogue with the other. I quote, “There will be no peace among nations without peace among religions. And there will be no peace among religions without dialogue among them” – Hans Kung.

Dialogue, is no less than an engagement to grow in truth and well being, but is a two way street where each one is ready to give and take. In dialogue when one sees the truth of the other’s position he/she is ready to clarify, correct, even change his/her views. The task though is difficult (as it demands one to be humble, to listen, to be ready to learn, to be open to be corrected) and complex (as we struggle to find way to be fully committed to Christ Jesus and be genuinely open to the other) it is worth it. It would give rise to new heavens and new earth.

Knitter, though with the aim to stress the urgency of dialogue seems to exaggerate the negligence of the Church he is not blind to the positive elements in the Church: the documents and declarations that pave way to dialogue like ‘Nostra Aetate’, ‘Gaudium et Spes’, ‘Redemptoris Missioni’ and ‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ and contribution of the Church-in-Asia. His corrective measures are mostly from within. But, what bothers him probably is that these steps of the Church appear more external yielding to the pressure of the current thought lacking the inner conviction.