THE DIGNITY OF MAN
VIS-A-VIS THE RELIGIONSNigerian Dialogue, N. 2 (1977), 59-60
Precisely the subject of this paper is "What positive approaches can Christianity take to Islam?" Any statement concerning the official position of Catholic Christianity on any matter today must make reference to the Second Vatican Council. The first of its documents to mention Muslims acknowledges them as included in what the Council terms "God's plan of salvation". This was in 1964. A year later another document went further to say:
In our times, when every day men are being drawn closer together and the ties between various peoples are being multiplied, the Church is giving deeper study to her relationship with non-Christian religions. In her task of fostering unity and love among men, and even among nations, she gives primary consideration in this document to what human beings have in common and to what promotes fellowship among them. (1)
The document then lists certain things it considers that the Church holds in common with Muslims, and concludes with this appeal:
Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this Synod urges all to forget the past and to strive sincerely for mutual understanding. On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom. (2)
The first appeal of the Council is for mutual understanding. This requires dialogue, on an intellectual as well as a personal level. Dialogue excludes blind hostility, indifferent isolation, and also an over-hasty declaration of unity without taking into account diversity. It searches out common or parallel areas in man's relation to God in belief and worship and in man's relation to other men. This goes beyond a facile listing of points of agreement or disagreement, and is an ever deepening quest into the complexities and mysteries of religion in man's life as psychology, sociology, history and renewed study of revelation open up ever widening horizons of the inner space of human life. Such a quest requires a wide culture as well as specialization in one's own and the other religion, a specialization from within that consults sources rather than secondary material.
We now come to the second appeal of the council, to make common cause in meeting human personal and social needs. As important as we recognize doctrinal dialogue to be, it is only one step in fulfilling the common task of the religions to provide hope for mankind in a troubled world. Certainly ordinary people expect relgiion to play a part in meeting the basic needs of men, especially personal needs. While theologians are busy with grand theroies, ordinary people are devising amulets and special prayers with power to ward off sickness, to succeed economically, and to obtain a good wife and healthy children. A deeper area of ordinary people's concern is protection against enemies who can harm them by physical violence, diplomatic outmanoeuvering, and also by casting spells through the cooperation of evil spirits. Fear of the other man looms large in the waking and dream life of most ordinary men. We are dealing not only with enmity which arises between brothers who quarrel and separate, but also with fears and hurts which are deep in the sub-conscious mind and are passed on from one generation to another unintentionally as parents' feelings are impressed on their infant children, even while still in the womb, as psychologists say. Such deep-set suspicions exist between individual men, between towns and tribes, between religious communities, and between nations, and are the main obstacle to cooperative social action as well as intellectual dialogue.
What hope can Islam and Christianity offer in such a situation? First of all, in the area of teaching or religious law, each religion can be faithful to its sources by portraying an ideal of life which is attractive because it summons people to a state of happy relations with God and one another. A teaching which calls for reconciliation with other men and other communities is already one step in the therapy of men's worries. Concretely, religious teaching presents certain threats and promises which are psychologically good because they can outweigh the power of evil attractions and fears in a person's mind, and reinforce the person's efforts to strive for peace within himself and to be confident and secure with others.
All such teaching and warning, however, will be without effect if God's power does not accompany it. As Psalm 127 says, "If the Lord does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless; if the Lord does not protect the city, it does no good for the sentries to stand guard." This is the area where what Christian theology calls "actuating grace" comes into play, a reality which Muslims designate by a variety of expressions, such as s"bi-idhn illâhi" or qadar, meaning that, however important our efforts are, it is God alone hwo accomplishes the good we seek to do.
There are ways by which, if I may use the expression, we can draw upon God's power, aligning ourselves with his own purposes and intentions so that he can make use of us as his instruments in bringing reconciliation among men. The plans we work out for ourselves and throw all our energy into carrying out, even though good in themselves or in our estimation, are not always the ways God wants to use. We need his gift of wisdom and insight to discern how he wants us to work. And even if our plans coincide with those of God, he will not approve of our work if our intention and mind are not in tune with his. We need an inner purification so that God's revelation can be translated into a concrete demand and guide for us in the existential now. In seeking inner purification, we could think of Christian contemplation and mysticism, or Islamic sufism with its dhiker and tafakkkur. But we do not have to resort to esoteric practices. The prescribed or customary acts of worship for all the faithful can be prepared for and carried out with a spirit of recollection and expectation so that they become a deep inner experience relating us to the mind of God.
Worship and contemplation, therefore, are not ways of fleeing form the world and its needs, but are a preparation for facing the world's problems with the vision and power of God. Thomas Aquinas explained that the active life has its merits, but the contemplative life is better. And better still is a contemplative life that overflows in action, "contemplata aliis tradere", "sharing the fruits of contemplation with others." (3)
My conclusion is that great potential lies in the exploitation of the sacred, symbolic and worshipful aspects of religion in drawing upon the power of God to recall and heal the inner wounds of man, which are buried deep in his psychological make-up and prevent him from relating to the other man. With such power from God, men can not only forgive past injuries but also forget them. (4) They can give themselves effectively to the work of theological dialogue and social action, dismantling imaginary and unnecessary barriers which separate men form one another, and opening the way for Islam and Christianity to enrich one another in untold ways.
1. The Church (Lumen gentium), n. 16, in The documents of Vatican II, edited by Walter M. Abbott (N.Y.: America Press, 1966), p. 35.
2. Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions, nos. 1 and 3, in The documents of Vatican II, ed. cit., pp. 660 ff.
3. Summa theologiae, II-III, quest. 188, art. 6.
4. An excellent detailed discussion of Christian inner healing is written by Francis MacNutt, Healing (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1974).