How We Can Mark the 60^th Anniversary of the Church’s Commitment to Interreligious Dialogue

This fall, Catholics are marking an important anniversary in the history of the Church: the 60^th anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II. Taking place in Rome from 1962-65, the gathering brought together the world’s bishops to chart a new way forward, to open up the church to the modern world.

One of the many fruits of the council was a short declaration called Nostra aetate, which in Latin means “in our time.” In it, the Church reflected on the religious diversity of the world in light of Christian faith, seeking to define its relationship to other religions in a way that had not been done before. Though Nostra aetate is the shortest of the Vatican II documents—it is only a brief five paragraphs—it was nothing short of groundbreaking, spurring interreligious dialogue and collaboration worldwide. As a Catholic theologian who studies Islam, I have been profoundly impacted by this document; the trajectory of my own vocation would not be possible without the way it paved.

Still, the document remains largely unknown and underappreciated by many Catholics. Sixty years after Nostra aetate’s promulgation, the time is ripe to draw new attention to it, to recount some of its history, and to draw out lessons that Catholics (and indeed all people) can carry forward into the second quarter of the twenty-first century.

Speaking positively of other believers

As Nostra aetate declares at the outset, the bishops of Vatican II sought to reflect on what Catholics and those of other faiths have in common and what brings them together. This focus on similarities was a marked shift from the largely negative and oppositional approach to other religions found in past magisterial teaching. Rather than lamenting the religious diversity present in the modern world, Nostra aetate speaks of humanity as “one community” sharing a “common destiny,” and it states that the Church’s duty is to “foster unity and charity” between people.

The declaration acknowledges that throughout history, humans have sensed that we are grounded and upheld by something bigger than ourselves, and have sought out answers to perennial questions about the meaning of life, who we are, what it means to die, and how to live a good life. Nostra aetate speaks positively of the way that religious traditions have endeavored to answer these questions. The document then draws attention to specific aspects of other religions, highlighting Hinduism and Buddhism in section 2.

Judaism is dealt with at the greatest length, in section 4. The Church’s relationship with the Jewish people was the initial impetus for Nostra aetate.

Without a conversation between then-Pope John XXIII and the French Jewish historian Jules Isaac in 1960, the declaration may never have materialized. Just twenty years after the Holocaust in Europe, the Church was recognizing (and seeking to atone) for its historic antisemitism, especially the way that theological interpretations were deployed to justify the mistreatment of Jews. In Nostra aetate, the Church rejects its former teaching of contempt for Jews and the false notion that Jews should be held responsible for the death of Christ. It also draws attention to the roots of the Christian church in Judaism and indicates that God’s covenant with the Jewish people was not revoked. Forcefully condemning antisemitism, Nostra aetate encourages deeper learning, collaboration, and friendship between Christians and Jews.

During the declaration’s drafting process, the council fathers also felt it was crucial to mention Islam and forge a new way forward in the Church’s relationship with Muslims. Consequently, the declaration dedicates a section, paragraph 3, to Muslims, whom it describes as those held in “high regard” by the Church.

Nostra aetate mentions numerous things held in common by Catholics and Muslims, including worship of God, who both groups affirm to be “one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to humanity.” Nostra aetate also points out that Muslims link their own faith back to Abraham, and that Jesus and Mary are important figures that Muslims honor and “devoutly invoke.” Islamic beliefs about the day of judgment and the resurrection of the dead are also mentioned, as well as their practices of prayer, fasting, and charitable giving.

Nostra aetate’s affirmations and statements about other religions are relatively brief, but each word was chosen carefully and purposefully. The records of the council deliberations and this history of its genesis show the complicated yet “inspired” process of the declaration’s creation, leading scholar John Borelli to consider it a “miracle” for it to have been written at all. In the sixty years since, scholars have pored over the text, seeking to understand its history and discern its implications for interreligious relations today.

Committing ourselves to dialogue

The word “dialogue” does not appear in Nostra aetate, but it became the buzzword to define interreligious relations in the wake of Vatican II. The document gave license to Catholics to engage positively with people of other faiths, saying in paragraph 2:

The church, therefore, urges its sons and daughters to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve, and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, together with their social life and culture.

In the last six decades, Catholics the world over—from popes and bishops to children and lay people—have joined together with people of other faiths to engage in what came to be known as the four types of interreligious dialogue. They are:

• the dialogue of theological exchange: discussions, often between scholars, about beliefs;
• the dialogue of social action: working together to help others;
• the dialogue of spiritual experience: witnessing or even participating in rituals or prayer; and
• the dialogue of life: the most ordinary yet perhaps most significant form of dialogue—simply sharing one’s joys and sorrows with those of other faiths in the context of daily living.

Nostra aetate indicates that Church’s new commitment to interreligious dialogue does not negate or conflict with its preexisting truth claims about Christ. In multiple places, the council reaffirms the Catholic teaching that saving grace comes through Christ, and thus the Church retains its “duty” to proclaim the gospel. Thus, in the wake of the council, Catholic scholars (and the Vatican) have wrestled with the coexistence of both dialogue and proclamation as integral parts to the Church’s mission, as well as the role of elements of other religious traditions in the saving plan of God.

Discovering the “true and holy” in other religions today

One of the most significant and quotable lines in Nostra aetate comes from section 2:

The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. It has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and the doctrines which, although differing in many ways from its own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men and women…

What the Church says here is that Catholics can find value in other religions. There are elements of them which are “true and holy”—teachings and rituals of other faith traditions that are the locus of God’s activity. Nostra aetate names some of these sites of truth and holiness in other religions. But as the passage hints at, more could be said. As Daniel Madigan has put it, Nostra aetate left a number of questions open. By focusing on similarities, the declaration refrained from mentioning many of the distinctive aspects of other religions. For example, in the section on Islam, the Qur’an, which for Muslims is the Word of God, went unmentioned, as did the figure of the Prophet Muhammad. Elsewhere, very little is positively affirmed of Jewish belief and practice, and some major religions, like Sikhism, are not discussed at all. What could or should be said about them?

A task for Catholics today, sixty years after Vatican II, is to be on the lookout for all that is “true and holy” in other religions—to notice where God is at work in the spiritual lives and ethical traditions of our friends of other faiths. Each of us can likely point to examples of truth and holiness in the religions of others, even if they go unmentioned in the official text of Nostra aetate.

Standing against dehumanization and religious bigotry

The fifth and final paragraph of Nostra aetate addresses the problem of religious discrimination, drawing on scripture to remind Catholics of their duty to respect the human dignity of people of other faiths. It declares in part, “the church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against people or any harassment of them on the basis of their race, color, condition in life or religion.” And it reminds Catholics that the health of their relationship with God is dependent on their treatment of others: “We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people as other than sisters and brothers, created in God’s image.”

These words are perennially important for Catholics, and indeed all people, to hear. In our own time, religious bigotry persists, fueled by stereotypes of the other and the human tendency to scapegoat others.

Holding together dialogue and social justice

Nostra aetate was not the only document issued at the end of Vatican II in 1965—several others were, too, including two important documents considered part of the body of Catholic Social Teaching. The first is Gaudium et spes, which discusses the Church in the modern world, and Dignitatis humanae, the council declaration on religious freedom. The late Jesuit scholar of the council, John O’Malley, insisted that the council documents could not be read in isolation, but had to be understood together. This insight is particularly important in today’s context, where interreligious dialogue is sometimes siloed from social justice work. While talking about theology, spirituality, and ethical principles is necessary and enriching, it can sometimes be a distraction from engaging real-world injustices. At other times, the desire to maintain cordial bonds with dialogue partners has led Catholics to avoid speaking about or taking action on issues where there might be disagreement. Fortunately, there are many initiatives that bring diverse people of faith together to push for justice and support the vulnerable.

Sixty years after Nostra aetate was promulgated, its lessons and legacy are still unfolding. In our own time, Catholics, people of other faiths and none, can be on the lookout for the “true and holy” in our midst, and as Nostra aetate says, “together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values.”

The quotations from Nostra aetate used in this piece come primarily from the English translation of the conciliar documents published by Austin Flannery, OP. His translations use gender inclusive language and are phrased slightly differently from the official English translation published on the Vatican website.

This is a shorter version of the same article published in Living City magazine.

Jordan Denari Duffner is a Catholic theologian, author, and professor who focuses on Catholic approaches to other religions, Muslim-Christian dialogue, Islamic studies, and Israel-Palestine. Her two award-winning books are Finding Jesus among Muslims and Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination. She is a member of the National Catholic-Muslim Dialogue, organized by the USCCB, and a member of the Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace. A research associate of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies at the University of Oxford, she lives in the Washington, DC area and teaches undergraduate courses Georgetown University and the University of Mary Washington. She writes about dialogue, spirituality, and more at Digging Our Well, her Substack publication.

As we stand at the threshold of commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate’s promulgation on October 28, 1965, we find ourselves witness to one of the most extraordinary metamorphoses in the annals of interfaith relations. This Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions emerged not merely as a theological treatise, but as a luminous response to humanity’s darkest hours and an enduring testament to the possibility of religious reconciliation in our fractured world.

Genesis of reconciliation: From the ashes of Shoah to the dawn of understanding

The genesis of Nostra Aetate cannot be divorced from the profound spiritual earthquake that the Shoah inflicted upon the Christian conscience. The unfathomable horrors of the Holocaust led the Catholic Church into a period of deep moral reflection, prompting a difficult reexamination of its long history of anti-Jewish attitudes and how these may have contributed to the tragic destruction of European Jewry.

Amid this moral reckoning, leaders of remarkable vision and courage emerged. Pope Saint John XXIII, blessed with an intuitive pastoral sensibility that transcended doctrinal rigidity, recognized with extraordinary clarity the urgent imperative for the Church to fundamentally reexamine its relationship with the Jewish people. His providential encounter with the French Jewish historian Jules Isaac on June 13, 1960, would prove to be one of those pivotal moments upon which the trajectory of history turns.

Isaac, bearing the unbearable weight of personal tragedy—having lost his beloved wife and daughter to the Nazi machinery of death—presented the Pontiff with a meticulously documented dossier entitled The Teaching of Contempt. This scholarly indictment revealed how centuries of certain Christian teachings and traditions had fostered attitudes that allowed anti-Jewish prejudice to take root and spread. The encounter left an indelible impression upon John XXIII’s compassionate heart, igniting the ecclesiastical processes that would ultimately birth this revolutionary declaration.

Cardinal Augustin Bea, the erudite German Jesuit and biblical scholar whom John XXIII entrusted with leading the Secretariat for Christian Unity, emerged as the principal architect of this transformative document. Despite encountering formidable resistance from various ecclesiastical quarters, Bea’s scholarly acumen, diplomatic virtuosity, and unwavering conviction proved instrumental in crafting a declaration that would fundamentally recalibrate the Church’s approach to the world’s great religious traditions.

The Islamic dimension: Article 3’s prophetic call to fraternity

While scholarly attention has justifiably focused upon Nostra Aetate’s groundbreaking statements regarding Judaism, Article 3’s treatment of Islam represents an equally momentous watershed in the long and often tumultuous history of Catholic-Muslim relations. The declaration proclaims with remarkable clarity: “The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Maker of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.”

More significantly for our contemporary global context, the declaration extends a compelling invitation that resonates across the centuries: “Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this most sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.”

This clarion call to transcend historical grievances and collaborate in the pursuit of peace, freedom, social justice, and moral renewal found profound resonance among diverse Muslim communities worldwide, most notably within the Hizmet movement inspired by the luminous teachings of Fethullah Gülen.

A historic convergence: Gülen’s visit to Rome

The Catholic Church’s invitation was met with a historic response when Fethullah Gülen traveled to Rome on February 9, 1998, for a private audience with Saint John Paul II. This extraordinary encounter represented far more than a diplomatic courtesy; it embodied the concrete manifestation of Nostra Aetate’s most sublime aspirations, bringing together the successor of Saint Peter with a distinguished Muslim scholar whose life had been dedicated to the noble cause of interfaith understanding.

During this historic colloquy, Gülen emphasized with profound eloquence the enduring relevance of Saint Paul VI’s prophetic call—the very pontiff who had solemnly affixed his signature to Nostra Aetate on that transformative October day in 1965. Gülen reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to interfaith dialogue while articulating practical pathways through which Muslims and Catholics might collaborate: fostering mutual understanding through collaborative academic research, orchestrating shared pilgrimages to sacred sites, and establishing partnerships in education and social service that would bear fruit for generations to come.

This momentous meeting exemplified how Nostra Aetate’s abstract principles could be transmuted into tangible relationships and concrete initiatives. The Hizmet movement’s subsequent engagement with Catholic institutions and communities across the globe—from educational partnerships that span continents to interfaith symposia that bring together the world’s greatest minds—demonstrates the perduring vitality and practical relevance of the declaration’s revolutionary vision.

The foundations of freedom: Dignitatis Humanae’s essential contribution

As we commemorate Nostra Aetate’s sixtieth anniversary, we must also prepare to celebrate the equally momentous sixtieth anniversary of Dignitatis Humanae (December 7, 1965), the Declaration on Religious Freedom, which will be observed this December. This complementary conciliar document provides the indispensable foundation upon which all authentic interfaith dialogue must be constructed.

Dignitatis Humanae proclaimed with unprecedented clarity that religious freedom constitutes an inherent dignity of the human person, rooted not in the subjective disposition of the individual, but in the very nature of human beings as rational creatures called to seek and embrace truth in freedom. The declaration articulated that “all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

This revolutionary affirmation of religious liberty as a fundamental human right creates the essential preconditions for meaningful interfaith dialogue. Without the guarantee of religious freedom at both individual and communal levels, dialogue degenerates into mere tolerance of difference rather than authentic engagement with the other. A sustainable and truly transformative interfaith dialogue demands that every participant possess the inviolable right to practice, profess, and propagate their faith without fear of persecution or coercion.

The symbiotic relationship between Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae becomes apparent when we consider that genuine respect for other religious traditions—the cornerstone of Nostra Aetate—can only flourish in an environment where religious freedom is not merely tolerated but actively protected and promoted. The two declarations together create a theological and practical framework that enables believers of different faiths to encounter one another not as competitors in a zero-sum game, but as fellow pilgrims on the human journey toward truth and transcendence.

Evolution and expansion: From Nostra Aetate to human fraternity

The visionary legacy of Nostra Aetate has continued to evolve and expand throughout the decades, finding its most recent and perhaps most comprehensive expression in the historic “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” signed by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in 2019. This extraordinary document, building upon the theological foundation laid by Nostra Aetate and the freedom guaranteed by Dignitatis Humanae, presents an even more expansive vision of religious cooperation in addressing the manifold challenges confronting our global civilization.

The Document on Human Fraternity represents the maturation of conciliar thinking, demonstrating how the seeds planted sixty years ago have grown into a mighty tree whose branches extend across all continents and whose roots reach deep into the shared soil of human dignity. The Hizmet movement, along with countless other interfaith initiatives worldwide, continues to serve as one of the Catholic Church’s most significant partners in nurturing this expanded vision of religious collaboration.

Through innovative educational initiatives that bridge cultural divides, profound cultural exchanges that foster mutual understanding, and collaborative social projects that address humanity’s most pressing needs, these movements continue to embody the practical implementation of Nostra Aetate’s ideals in our contemporary context, while simultaneously demonstrating the vital importance of the religious freedom guaranteed by Digitatis Humanae.

Unfinished symphony: The challenge of complete reception

Despite these remarkable achievements that would have been unimaginable to previous generations, an honest and unflinching assessment reveals that Nostra Aetate’s transformative goals remain only partially fulfilled after six decades of implementation. The declaration’s reception among both Catholics and non-Catholics has been uneven and incomplete, and its revolutionary potential has yet to be fully realized across all sectors of religious life.

Within Catholic communities worldwide, while official Church teaching has firmly embraced the declaration’s principles and incorporated them into magisterial documents, grassroots understanding and implementation have progressed at varying speeds. In many Catholic institutions, educational curricula are still catching up with official doctrine, pastoral formation programs sometimes provide limited preparation for interfaith engagement, and popular religious understanding can occasionally reflect older pre-conciliar perspectives of exclusivity and caution.

Among non-Christian communities, including the global Muslim community, awareness of Nostra Aetate’s significance and appreciation of its revolutionary character varies dramatically across different regions and cultural contexts.

Political conflicts that instrumentalize religious identity, deep-seated cultural misunderstandings perpetuated by ignorance and prejudice, and unhealed historical grievances continue to impede the full realization of the declaration’s sublime vision of cooperation and mutual respect.

The path forward: Renewed commitment for a new era

As we mark this momentous sixtieth anniversary, both Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae remain simultaneously profoundly relevant and urgently necessary. The declarations’ core insights—that religious diversity reflects the magnificent richness of divine providence, that dialogue is infinitely preferable to confrontation, that believers of different faiths can collaborate for human flourishing while maintaining their distinct identities, and that religious freedom is the sine qua non of authentic spiritual life—speak with prophetic clarity to our contemporary challenges.

The path forward demands renewed commitment from all parties involved in the great work of interfaith understanding. Catholic institutions must continue deepening their comprehension and implementation of both declarations’ principles, ensuring that the vision of religious freedom and interfaith respect permeates every level of ecclesiastical life. Muslim communities and other religious groups must engage more actively and creatively with the unprecedented opportunities for dialogue and cooperation that Nostra Aetate creates, while simultaneously advocating for the religious freedom that Dignitatis Humanae champions.

Most importantly, we must transcend symbolic gestures and ceremonial encounters to achieve substantive collaboration that addresses the urgent needs of our common humanity. The existential challenges of our historical moment—climate change that threatens our planetary home, grinding poverty that degrades human dignity, systemic social injustice that perpetuates inequality, and the erosion of moral values that undermines social cohesion—require the coordinated response of all people of faith working together. Nostra Aetate provides not merely permission for such collaboration, but an imperative mandate, while Dignitatis Humanae guarantees the freedom necessary to pursue this collaboration authentically.

Conclusion: A vision for future generations

Sixty years after their respective promulgations, Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae stand as both monumental achievement and soaring aspiration. These declarations fundamentally transformed the landscape of interfaith relations and established principles that continue to guide religious dialogue in our interconnected world. Yet their complete potential remains tantalizingly unrealized, awaiting more profound reception and more comprehensive implementation by future generations of believers.

The extraordinary journey from the ashes of the Shoah to the hope of human fraternity, from Jules Isaac’s painful testimony to the collaborative vision of Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb, from centuries of religious persecution to the affirmation of religious freedom as a fundamental human right, demonstrates both the remarkable distance we have traveled and the challenging road that still lies ahead. The luminous legacy of John XXIII, Cardinal Bea, and all the visionary figures who contributed to these revolutionary documents calls us not merely to commemorate their historic achievement, but to complete their unfinished work.

In our fractured world, torn asunder by religious misunderstanding and sectarian conflict, threatened by the rise of religious extremism and the erosion of religious freedom, Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae remain twin light of hope illuminating the path toward a more harmonious future. Their combined vision of religious communities working together for peace, justice, and human dignity within a framework of guaranteed religious freedom is not merely an aspiration—it is an urgent necessity for the survival and flourishing of our global civilization.

The fundamental question that confronts us on these momentous sixtieth anniversaries is not whether this vision possesses continued relevance, but whether we, the inheritors of this extraordinary legacy, possess the courage, wisdom, and unwavering commitment necessary to transform aspiration into reality, hope into achievement, and vision into lived experience.

The seeds planted six decades ago in the fertile soil of the Second Vatican Council await their full harvest. May these anniversary celebrations inspire renewed dedication to the unfinished work of building a world where religious diversity enriches rather than divides, where ancient wisdom traditions collaborate rather than compete, where the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael walk together toward a more just and peaceful future, and where every human being enjoys the fundamental freedom to seek, embrace, and live according to their understanding of divine truth. In this noble endeavor lies not merely the fulfillment of conciliar vision, but the hope of our common humanity.

For those not so fond of believing in God or following any faith tradition in modern times, religion is historically one of the major, if not the main, sources of conflict and violence among nations. Religious traditions – the accusation goes – claimed monopoly on the truth and salvation, and have mobilized rulers and fellow followers to impose their beliefs on others, thus igniting wars to subjugate those who did not tag along. Perhaps this argument is not entirely accurate in most instances, nor would it be fair to make a sweeping claim that lays all the blame on religion.. The blame that had to be laid on our greed and desire for more, has been placed on religion as a scapegoat to free our conscience from that burden of guilt. Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the Church’s relations with non-Christian faiths, was an important step to dispel such accusations by showing that religious traditions can actually serve as instruments for peace.

The declaration was made on October 28, 1965. Commemorating its 60^th anniversary with many events throughout the year, the Catholic church and many interfaith partners from other traditions are taking this opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to continuing friendly dialogue in this day and age when “mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger” as acknowledged in the Declaration. To contribute to this ongoing dialogue, there are two major contributions in this issue of The Fountain that explore Nostra Aetate and what it means today. The first contribution is by Mustafa Cenap Aydin, the Director of Istituto Tevere, a research center on intercultural and interreligious studies in Rome, Italy, who sees the Declaration as a vision still unfolding. After laying out the tragic background that paved the way for the Declaration, Aydin neatly explains the importance of the fact that the Church did not try to reconcile with Judaism only, but also with Islam. Of course, one important steppingstone in building up dialogue with the Catholic Church and Islam was when Fethullah Gülen, the late Islamic scholar, visited Pope John Paul II in 1998. Aydin also mentions the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” signed by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in 2019, as “an even more expansive vision of religious cooperation in addressing the manifold challenges confronting our global civilization.”

The second contribution is by Jordan Denari Duffner, a Catholic theologian, author, and professor who focuses on Catholic approaches to other religions, Muslim-Christian dialogue, Islamic studies, and Israel-Palestine. This is a shorter version of her piece originally published in Living City magazine, which generously gave permission for publication in The Fountain. Duffner calls on Catholics – and all who take this Declaration seriously – “to be on the lookout for all that is true and holy in other religions, to notice where God is at work in the spiritual lives and ethical traditions of our friends of other faiths.”

The liberating document of Vatican Council II, Nostra Aetate, stirred up an enormous interest in interfaith inquiry. One of the distinctive modern Catholic voices belongs to David Burrell (b. 1933), a philosophic theologian and Professor Emeritus at Moreau Seminary, Notre Dame, Indiana. His book, Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), seeks to contribute to the young and yet ever-growing field of comparative theology. Boldly attempting to compare such loaded theological terms as creation, freedom of will, and grace, as exposed by leading medieval and modern thinkers in each Abrahamic tradition, Burrell’s book exercises what he calls “creative hermeneutics”: he explores illuminative “similarities-in-differences” within conceptual patterns developed by each tradition (xxii). Indeed, for Burrell, Jews, Christians, and Muslims “all worship the same God” (xi), each tradition elaborating the features of the divine in a remarkable parallelism. Methodologically speaking, Burrell espouses the post liberal Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck’s emphasis on the primacy of the believers’ praxis over their doctrines, considering the latter as “precipitations” or “distillations” of the former (1). Burrell also recognizes that the “tone” for his project was set by the famous Catholic theologian Bernard Lonergan’s “sense for the intellectual developments latent in a revelational tradition” and his invitation to grasp theological questions that undergird any doctrinal answers (xiv).

In Chapter 1, “Free Creation as a Shared Task for Jews, Christians, Muslims,” Burrell shows how each tradition helped shape the overall context in which the doctrine of creation was elaborated (11). Each, for instance, shared the belief—as unimaginable it is—that “creation can only be creation if God can be without creating” (i.e., can exist without the world) (11, 13). Burrell also mentions Ghazali, Maimonides, and Aquinas as thinkers who resemble each other in envisaging revelation as a corrective to the once-popular Neo-Platonic idea that Creation “emanates” from God of its own accord. At one place, however, it seems that Burrell reads into Aquinas something that neither Aquinas himself nor such neo-Thomists as J. Maritan or B. Lonergan would accept: Aquinas, despite all his endorsement for the idea of existence as a divine “act” rather than “substance,” can hardly be seen “dismissive” of the idea that God is “perfect” (21).

The next chapter, “Relating Divine Freedom with Human Freedom,” shows how resourceful Islamic and Christian traditions can be when it comes to a “zero-sum” game between the freedom of humans and their autonomous volition vis-à-vis the omnipotence of the divine as signifying Creation’s total subordination. Ghazali, for instance, points out that the issue outstrips human conceptualizing altogether, emphasizing instead the importance of one’s spiritual state (as opposed to knowledge) as one’s habitual capacity to align one’s personal responses to various events with one’s realization of divine omnipresence and omnipotence (35-6). Burrell is also beholden to Aquinas’ account of the “free gift” of divine grace—the latter equips one’s will with an inbuilt orientation and an initial “specification” toward “comprehensive good” and yet never predetermines the outcome of our choices; humans are thought of as “free creators” of their actions only when they deny the gift (37, 40). Burrell speaks of the notion of “situated freedom”—admittedly rhetorical as it is—as a stance implicitly affirmed by mainstream Christian and Muslim theologians. According to it, even if countless moral, political, social, economic, and other compulsions (“pushes”) and attractions (“pulls”) constantly inform the warp and weft of one’s life, there is still a room for one’s personal discretion and preference (37, 45).

Chapter 3, “Human Initiative and Divine Grace,” demonstrates how each tradition conceives of the divine not as the “biggest thing around” (which would be tantamount to idolatry) but rather as a “non-duality” in which the effect (Creation) can subsist in a way that detracts nothing from the ontological primacy of the cause (God). Far from being a remote “deistic god,” this divine is both self-same with Creation (58-60) and “interpersonally” related with Creation, be this relation expressed through “grace” (Christians), “covenant” (Jews), or “proximity to God” (Muslims) (51-53). Burrell, however, does not show if, and how, this “non-duality” can be defended against the possible accusation of monism or pantheism.

Chapter 4, “Trust in Divine Providence,” further expands—admittedly, rather rhetorically than demonstratively—on the intractable issue of the freedom of humans vis-à-vis God’s omnipotence and generosity, this time comparing the following two “key works in Christianity and Islam”: the Jesuit priest and professor Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s The Sacrament of the Present Moment and Ghazali’s Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence. For Ghazali, one can understand divine unity not by way of “philosophical schemes” but through a “life of trust” (tawakkul in Arabic), wherein one’s rigorous practice of faith will lead one to the “only understanding possible here,” namely mystical insight or “unveiling” (kashf) (69). De Caussade’s discourse offers a “remarkable parallel” to Ghazali’s: faith, while outstripping conceptualization, is confirmed in an inexhaustible trust that divine action “operates in each moment and in all things” (76, 78). This unyielding trust hardly succumbs to quietist resignation: a skilled musician’s “long practice” and “perfect understanding of music,” allows him or her to make music “impromptus” no less impressively than in the conventional manner (78).          

Chapter 5, “The Point of It All: ‘Return,’ Judgment, and ‘Second Coming,’” deals with humanity returning, in response to the free gift of creation, to the One as a point of humanity’s finality or perfection. Such is Jesus’ “second coming” for Christians, “Messianic era” for Jews, and a “last judgment” for Muslims: these are all “journeys in hope,” ones that are informed by revelation and yet shored up by one’s mystical, “post-rational” realization of the divine “Sun” as reflected deep within one’s consciousness (88, 103). Burrell, however, recognizes that Judaism makes very few references to the hereafter and focuses instead on “individual legacy rooted in progeny and lasting good deeds” (93). He also shows an ingenious “similarity-in-difference” between Islam and Christianity in that Islam perceives the “word of God” to be “made book” (the Qur’an), whereas Christianity perceives it “made human,” i.e., Christ. He eloquently shows how such a creative approach can unravel seemingly irreconcilable difference between the two traditions (112, 176).                  

Chapter 6, “Realized Eschatology: Faith as a Mode of Knowing and Journeying,” further expands as to how each tradition limns the shape of its ultimate goal within the very ways (“pilgrimages,” spiritual and physical) it proposes for reaching it. Some adherents are even able to “exchange” these ways and become “border-crossers” (130). Burrell shares the detailed stories of such “crossers.” Ghandi’s principle of ahimsa (non-violence), for instance—Hindu as it is—was profoundly influenced by Tolstoy’s ideas (134). Louis Massignon, a French Islamicist, returned to his Catholicism after being deeply transformed by his study of Sufism (135). The Islamic scholar Jawdat Said is especially remarkable in his interpretation of the Qur’an as a book that imposes a position of non-violence that is not dissimilar from that of Tolstoy and Ghandi’s (145-153). Chapter 7, “Respectfully Negotiating Outstanding Neuralgic Issues: Contradictions and Conversions,” is unique with its emphasis on the differences rather than “larger common schemes”; still, it does so in a way that procures a surplus of clarity and fosters “mutual understanding” (166). Jewish tradition’s emphasis on the divine oneness as formulated in the shema (“hear O Israel, God our God is One”), for instance, helped early Christians to articulate their doctrine in a way that precluded Jesus’ idolization into a “being alongside God” (170, 186). Burrell sees Muslims’ unanimity upon the Qur’an being an inerrant “word of God” (and even as “God enbooked”) as prone to be misinterpreted by many contemporary Jews and Christians as “fundamentalism” (171). Moreover, Muslims conceive of God as speaking through the Qur’an as one recites it (172-3). Constructive analogies, however, might be seen with the way Christians believe Christ be “word of God” incarnate and receive the “body of the Lord” in communion, or with the notion lectio divina (the prayerful reading of the Bible) (173). Muslim theologians, however, can raise a quizzical brow at Burrell’s certainty that there is no way in which Muslims can see Muhammad as “mediator” between Muslims and God (174). Indeed, the very concept of “messenger” (rasul in Arabic) presupposes mediation: “And We have sent down unto you the Qur’an that you might explain clearly to men what is sent down to them” (Qur’an 16:44). Further, doctrines, for Burrell, play only rather grammatical, than theoretical, a role in our lives: they do not explain the real but rather provide the manner in which one’s response to the ultimate can avail one of the real as revealed by one’s personal transformation (158). In his view, it is the life and deeds of the notable figures of faith, therefore, that allow us to ground our “frame of reference” or “benchmarks” as to what a systematic doctrine can be when it is “embodied” in real life (158). Burrell then proceeds to contend that “neither adherents nor interlocutors are in a position to assess the truth of a revelatory tradition,” and that, as far as faith-claims go, “doubt remains endemic” (181). Burrell’s assertion that, for the sake of dialogic fruitfulness, all truth-questions be somehow “bracketed” (181), strikes as all too utilitarian—why would anyone, then, remain faithful, rather than doubtful, toward one’s own tradition in the long run, and how would a dialogue between distinctive traditions be possible at all?

All in all, Burrell books is impressive with the range of convoluted philosophical and theological issues it attempts to cover as well as its overall attempt to constructively engage “similarities-in-differences.” Every chapter demonstrates Burrell’s undeniably profound knowledge of each tradition and procures a wealth of practical dialogic insights. However, the book hardly apprises its readers of any “common theology” that might potentially underlie all three traditions—something that the book’s self-confessed Lonerganian “tone” would presuppose it to do. Such a tremendous task, however, cannot but require a robust methodological underpinning, and it is precisely at this point that Burrell’s “creative hermeneutics” generates more questions than answers. If the doctrines are nothing but the “distillations” of the practices, what, then, grounds the practices in the first place? To avoid regression ad infinitum, it must be something other than another practice. Praxis is unthinkable without values that propel it, and Lonergan himself would stress that any doctrinal foundations, while basing themselves on the answer to the question, “Is something valuable?” cannot but polymorphically relate to the answer for the antecedent truth-question: “Is something really so?” Burrell disregards any systematics as “pretentions” (5). One would suggest that Burrell’s work, insightful as it is, could reveal even greater surplus of ulterior meanings underlying the three traditions should it implement a more systematic approach.

Find this book on Amazon: Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology 1st Edition