Adam Cleaveland has an interesting post on what interfaith dialogue is and is not:

Many believe that it is a polite meeting where the depths of our respective faiths are set aside in the name of easy tolerance. But this is a misconception. Genuine encounter and dialogue is a meeting of the deepest levels of our respective faiths, where we bear witness to what of the spirit and of God has been given to us. This we do not for the sake of persuading the other that we are right and they are wrong, but for the sake of bearing witness to what each has experienced and knows of the One who is beyond. When we meet in this way, when the dialogue goes this deeply, then both parties can grow not only in their own faith but in their recognition of the validity of the other.” [quoting M. Darrol Bryant, Co-Editor of Muslim-Christian Dialogue: Promise & Problems]

Good to hear. I didn’t really see the point of sitting around and saying, as Cleave puts it, “Well, yah - I mean, I don’t really KNOW that Jesus is the only way, I mean, what’s good for you is good for you, and I guess, well…I’m not quite sure, why, but…yah, I mean…I kind of like Jesus, er…” I’m glad that’s not the kind of interfaith dialogue he’s talking about.

He then says that we must remain open to conversion when dialoguing with people of other faiths:

I think it is important to speak with conviction; but we must also enter into the dialogue with enough humility that we are open to a conversion experience, that we are open to learning more about truth, about the Divine and about Other’s encounters with the Divine. And it is only when we enter into this form of dialogue with our convictions, our beliefs, our differences, our distinctions, and amidst all of these, that we’re able to embrace the Other without diminishing their uniqueness in Creation. It is then that we are able to fully encounter the Other, and in doing so, encounter the Divine.

I think there’s a mix of good ideas and poppycock in here. On the one hand, I think we can certainly learn from people of other faiths. I respect the intellectual honesty that funds such dialogue. If we are committed to pursuing the truth, we must remain open to changing our beliefs to some extent. I’d certainly hope people of other faiths feel this way, because they’d have to in order to find faith in Jesus, and it’s not fair to demand that of others but not ourselves.

Now for the poppycock. I don’t think “encountering the other” is at all equivalent to encountering the divine. While this is certainly an interesting view of God’s omnipresence and incarnation, I don’t think it does justice to Christian monotheism. It is at this point that I’d like to draw on my recent study of Radical Orthodoxy.

When we say that other religions can teach us about the divine (which I am not capitalizing for reasons which will become clear in a moment), we are implying that God can be known (to some extent, at least) apart from his particular revelation and history with humankind. This is known as “natural theology“:

Natural theology is the knowledge of God accessible to all rational human beings without recourse to any special or supposedly supernatural revelation. The expression ‘natural theology‘ (theologia naturalis) seems to have been first used by Augustine with reference to the deepest theological insights of the classical philosophers. Natural theology (or natural religion) is theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology (or revealed religion) which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning (see Immanuel Kant et alia).

Thomas Aquinas believed that natural theology could serve as a foundation for revealed theology, though, suggesting that

there is an objective or neutral reason that determines the shape of truth concerning finite existence, [on the basis of which one can] attempt either to demonstrate Christianity’s consistency with this rational account (as in Bultmann and Tillich) or to demonstrate the truth of Christianity’s account by appealing to neutral principles of truth that are common to all humanity (as in classical apologetics). Smith, 157-158

Radical Orthodoxy suggests (insofar as “it” can suggest things) that natural theology is not a proper or adequate foundation for revealed theology. Natural theology may be able to tell us that God exists, but it cannot tell us what kind of God exists, or even what type of thing a god is. Brian McLaren, in Finding Faith, suggests that any kind of theism (especially monotheism) is better than atheism, because theism at least shares with Christianity the belief that God exists. Radical Orthodoxy points out granting the validity of a generalized theism has the effect of establishing philosophy as an automous and neutral discipline that can and should control the shape of our theology.

If I haven’t driven you away with my little head trip yet, hopefully I can connect this to the interfaith dialogue question. How much value is there in interfaith dialogue if we could gain the same insights from natural theology? If our worldviews, philosophies, epistemologies, and all that other stuff are based on completely different assumptions, what is there to gain?

It sounds like the main benefits are personal: you come to appreciate others more. You see that they aren’t idiots for believing differently from you. They may still be wrong, but you can’t write them off as morons. You come to appreciate the importance of religious freedom and a commitment to truth.

What do you think? Is interfaith dialogue worthwhile?