An Appreciation and Extension of William Wainwright’s Insights on Interreligious Dialogue

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

Ph.D., Th.D., Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA.

چکیده

Abstract
In honor of William Wainwright, this article takes up his interest in interreligious dialogue. It pursues two goals simultaneously: One is to provide a better model for understanding philosophy of religion. Terrence Tilley claims that there is the standard model which is mistaken in that it takes arguing for religious beliefs to be equivalent to justifying commitment to a religion. He promotes a practical model, which has its ancestry in the writings of Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal. This model begins with the lived practices of religion and justifies its intellectual content as explanation for the rightness of this way of life. Wainwright’s work fits into the practical model, but Tilley provides a description and a stronger basis for it. The second goal is to provide much more adequate epistemological resources than those used by the standard model, with contributions from Catholic modernist theologian George Tyrrell, recent philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, and Alasdair MacIntyre, who became interested in evaluating traditions, in science, in moral reasoning, and finally what he came to call large-scale traditions. The problem he needed to overcome is the fact that such traditions carry their own, often different, concepts of reasoning. The possibility of fruitful rational conversation between religions is illustrated here by an account of dialogue between Christianity and Shi’ia Islam, as exemplified in David Burrell’s ability to use conversation with Islamic thought to clarify for Christians their own doctrines of the Trinity, the mediation of Christ, and original sin.
 

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات


عنوان مقاله [English]

An Appreciation and Extension of William Wainwright’s Insights on Interreligious Dialogue

نویسنده [English]

  • Nancey Murphy
Ph.D., Th.D., Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA.
چکیده [English]

Abstract
In honor of William Wainwright, this article takes up his interest in interreligious dialogue. It pursues two goals simultaneously: One is to provide a better model for understanding philosophy of religion. Terrence Tilley claims that there is the standard model which is mistaken in that it takes arguing for religious beliefs to be equivalent to justifying commitment to a religion. He promotes a practical model, which has its ancestry in the writings of Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal. This model begins with the lived practices of religion and justifies its intellectual content as explanation for the rightness of this way of life. Wainwright’s work fits into the practical model, but Tilley provides a description and a stronger basis for it. The second goal is to provide much more adequate epistemological resources than those used by the standard model, with contributions from Catholic modernist theologian George Tyrrell, recent philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, and Alasdair MacIntyre, who became interested in evaluating traditions, in science, in moral reasoning, and finally what he came to call large-scale traditions. The problem he needed to overcome is the fact that such traditions carry their own, often different, concepts of reasoning. The possibility of fruitful rational conversation between religions is illustrated here by an account of dialogue between Christianity and Shi’ia Islam, as exemplified in David Burrell’s ability to use conversation with Islamic thought to clarify for Christians their own doctrines of the Trinity, the mediation of Christ, and original sin.
 

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Burrell
  • D.B
  • interreligious dialogue
  • Lakatos
  • I
  • MacIntyre
  • A.C
  • Mulla Sadra
  • Tilley
  • T.W
  • Tyrrell
  • G
  • Wainwright
  • W.J
Alston, W. P. (1991). Perceiving God: the epistemology of religious experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Alston, W. P. (2000). Religious diversity and perceptual knowledge of God. In Philip L. Quinn, & Kevin Meeker (Eds.), The philosophical challenge of religious diversity (pp. 193–207). New York: Oxford University.
Berkhoff, H. (1953). Christ and the powers. (J. H. Yoder, Trans.). Scottdale, PA: Herald.
Burrell, D. B. (2010a). Journey to Mulla Sadra: Islamic philosophy II. Journal of Islamic Studies, 3(2010), 44-64.
Burrell, D. B. (2010b). Mulla Sadra’s ontology revisited. Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 6(2010), 45-66. doi: 10.5840/islamicphil201063
Burrell, D. B.  (2012). A philosophical–theologian’s Journey. In C. W. Troll, & C. T. R. Hewer (Eds.), Christian lives given to the study of Islam (pp. 53–62). New York: Fordham University.
Caird, G. B. (1956). Principalities and powers: a study in Pauline theology. Oxford: Clarendon.
Chung, P. S. (2016). God at the crossroads of worldviews: toward a different debate about the existence of God. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
Gettier, E. L. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis, 23, 121–123. doi: 10.1093/analys/23.6.121
Edwards, J. ([1746] 1959). A treatise concerning religious affections. Reprinted in P. Miller (Ed.), The works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2. New Haven, N.J.: Yale University.
Hababi, M. S., & S. Ahmad. (2021). Karl Rahner’s role in shaping the decisions of Vatican Council II on dialogue with other religions (A historical, theological and analytic study). PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 18(2), 412–425. https://doi.org./10.48080/jae.v18i2.6301
Kallenberg, B. (2022). The promise of passional reason. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research. 24(93), 93-114. doi: 10.22091/jptr.2022.8379.2730
Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos, & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 91–197). Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Lakatos, I., & E. Zahar. (1998). Why did Copernicus’s research programme supersede Ptolemy’s? In J. Worrall, & G. Currie (Eds.), The methodology of scientific research programmes: philosophical papers Volume 1
(pp. 168–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Lindbeck, G. A. (1984). The nature of doctrine: religion and theology in a Postliberal Age. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster.
MacIntyre, A. C. (1977). Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative, and the philosophy of science. The Monist, 60, pp. 453–471.        
doi: 10.5840/monist197760427
MacIntyre, A. C. (1988). Whose justice? Which rationality? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
MacIntyre, A. C. (1990). Three rival versions of moral enquiry: encyclopedia, genealogy, and tradition. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
MacIntyre, A. C. (2009). God, philosophy, universities: a selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition. Lanham, MI: Rowman & Littlefield.
McClendon, J. W. (1994). Doctrine: systematic theology, Volume II. Nashville, TN: Abingdon.
McClendon, J. W. (2002). Ethics: systematic theology, Volume I. 2nd revised edition. Nashville, TN: Abingdon.
Moser, P. K. (1992). Gettier problem. In J. Dancy, & E. Sosa (Eds.), A Companion to Epistemology, pp. 157–59. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shirazi, S. M. (Mulla Sadra). (c. 1628). (1981). Al-Asfār al-arbaʿah fī l-ḥikmat
al
-mutaʿaliyah. [The Transcendent Theosophy in the Four Journeys of the Intellect], 9 vols. 2nd ed. Beirut: Dar Iḥya al-Turath al-ʿArab.
Murphy, N. C. (1989). Another look at novel facts. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 20(3), 385–88. doi: 10.1016/0039-3681(89)90014-9
Murphy, N. C. (1990). Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Murphy, N. C. (1997). Postmodern proliferation and progress in science. In N. C. Murphy (Ed.), Anglo-American postmodernity: philosophical perspectives on science, religion, and ethics, (ch. 4). Boulder, CO: Westview.
Murphy, N. C. (2018). A Philosophy of the Christian religion for the twenty-first century. London: SPCK.
Murphy, N. C. (2019). Illuminating modern Western skepticism. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 21(81), 5–26.    
doi: 10.22091/jptr.4570.2162
Newman, J. H. ([1870] 1979). Essay in aid of a grammar of assent. Reprinted, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
Pascal, B. ([1670] 1958). Pensées. (G. F. Trotter, Trans.) Introduction by T. S. Eliot. New York: E. P. Dutton.
Plantinga, A. (1992). Epistemology of religious belief. In J. Dancy, & E. Sosa (Eds.). A Companion to epistemology (436-441). Oxford: Blackwell.
Rizvi, S. (2005). Mysticism and philosophy. In P. Adamson, & R. Taylor (Eds), Cambridge companion to Arabic philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Rorty, R. (1991). Texts and lumps. In Objectivity, relativism, and truth: philosophical papers volume 1 (pp. 78–92). Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Tilley, T. W. (1995). The wisdom of religious commitment. Washington D. C.: Georgetown University.
Tyrrell, G. (1907). Through Scylla and Charybdis, or the old theology and the new. London: Longmans, Green.
Wainwright, W. J. (1995). Reason and the heart: a prolegomenon to a critique of passional reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Wainwright, W. J. (2000). Religious experience and religious pluralism. In P. L. Quinn, & K. Meeker (Eds.), The philosophical challenge of religious diversit (pp. 218–225). New York: Oxford University.
Wainwright, W. J. (2020). God, love, and interreligious dialogue. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 22(85), 5–14.          
doi:10.22091/jptr.2020.5351.2288
Yong, A. (2012). The cosmic breath: spirit and nature in the Christianity–Buddhism–science trialogue. Leiden: Brill.
CAPTCHA Image