God, Love, and Interreligious Dialogue

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

distinguished professor emeritus of philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Abstract

The monotheistic religions that valorize love typically believe that their love for God should be extended to God's creatures and, in particular, to one's fellow human beings. Yet, in practice, the love of the Christian or Muslim or Hindu monotheist doesn't always extend to the love of the religious other. Precisely how, then, should the adherents of the major monotheistic religions respond to the obvious diversity of these religions? The arguments of philosophical theology largely depend on what John Henry Newman called our "illative sense" or faculty of informal reasoning. Even the most fully developed illative sense can vary from one person to another, however. As a consequence, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu monotheists are unlikely to fully agree on matters of philosophical theology. I argue that this precludes neither mutual respect, though, nor a rational adherence to the philosophical and theological views of one's own tradition.

Keywords

References

Byrne, P. (1995). Prolegomenon to Religious Pluralism: Reference and Reason in Religion. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Griffiths, P. J. (2001). Problems of Religious Diversity. Malden Mass & Oxford: Blackwell.
Hick. J. (1989). An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
James, W. (1896). The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1956
Kierkegaard, S. (1962). Works of Love. Some Christian Reflections in the Form of Discourses. (E. Howard & E. Hong, Trans.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Newman, J. H. (1843). Love the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition (LSF), Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford, Between A.D. 1826-1843 (pp. 222–250). Reprinted in Westminster, Md: Christian Classics, 1966.
Newman, J. H. (1843). The Nature of Faith in Relation to Reason (FR). Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford, Between A.D. 1826-1843, (pp. 202–221). Reprinted in Westminster, Md: Christian Classics, 1966.
Newman, J. H. (1870). An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent. Kessinger Publishing. Reprinted in Newman, J. H. (1979). Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press.
Newman, J. H. (1976). The Theological papers of John Henry Newman: On Faith and Certainty. (H. M. D. Achaval, H. M. de Achaval, & J. D. Holmes, Eds.). Oxford Eng.: Oxford University Press.
Newman, J. H. (2018). Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol. II (C. Publications, Ed.). Independently published.
Rahner, K. (1966). Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions. Theological Investigations, vol. 5. London: Darton, Longman, & Todd; Baltimore: Helicon Press. pp. 115-134.
Safi, O. (2018). Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (O. Safi, Ed. & Trans.). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
Wainwright, W. J. (2005). Competing Religious Claims. In William E. Mann, Ed, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religions. Malden MA & Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing], pp. 220-41.
Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics