Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Dezember/2023 |
Spalte: | 1195-1198 |
Kategorie: | Religionswissenschaft |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Demiri, Lejla, Zaman, Mujadad, Winter, Tim, Schwöbel, Christoph, and Alexei Bodrov [Eds.] |
Titel/Untertitel: | Theological Anthropology in Interreligious Perspective. |
Verlag: | Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2022. XIII, 267 S. = Sapientia Islamica, 5. Lw. EUR 124,00. ISBN 9783161617775. |
Rezensent: | Randy Ramal |
The 14 essays in this edited volume are very informative and creative in their approach to the topic of theological anthropology, particularly in how they bring Christian and Islamic theologies into dialogue. I enjoyed reading and learning about the areas where Islam and Christianity converge and diverge on the question of what it means to be human. Due to limitations of space and the fact that the Introduction to the volume contains a detailed summary of the essays, I focus in what follows on a few central questions these essays raise, including the methodologies adopted to tackle them. While I am encouraged by the creative theological explorations provided, I question some of the perspectives on what philosophy can and cannot do in this context.
It is appropriate to begin with the last essay by M. Kirwan and A. Achtar because it raises the central question of how to engage in theological anthropology if, by definition, any theology about what it means to be human aims to give »a unitary account of how the human being stands before God« whereas anthropology »seeks to discern the intense diversity of human cultures, behaviours and beliefs« (213). This is an important question, particularly since the theologies under consideration are not philosophical but normative. The authors acknowledge the threat of generalizing one’s normative theological anthropology as the only legitimate anthropology, and they stress that the Christian and Islamic narratives dealing with the questions of human nature and destiny are only two among other legitimate narratives (244). But, ultimately, they do not answer their own question about how to legitimately apply a unitary theology onto diverse views of human nature. In the face of secular, evolutionary-based anthropologies that do not define humanity in relation to God, the authors seem content to ap- prove of falling back on a common, normative »Abrahamic revolution« (248), as they put it, which presupposes moral weaknesses in human nature and calls for an ethical conversion that transcends idolatry.
In his Introduction to the volume, Tim Winter points out that the Christian and Muslim anthropologies promoted in the volume do not subscribe to the kind of theological pluralism theorized by thinkers such as Raimundo Panikkar who claims that the rival religious systems of the world are simply alternate formulations of a common truth (6). In the cases of Christianity and Islam, one might say that they are seen as families of language-games expressing normative values about, among other things, human nature and free will, God, death, prophets, and the hereafter. Similarities and irreducible differences between Christian and Islamic anthropologies are admitted but, ultimately, the philosophical question as to how a unitary and normative theology could be rightly applied to a diverse set of views concerning human nature, whether religious, secular, or both, is not taken seriously in the volume.
The debates over the idea of original sin throughout the volume, especially in the essays by I. Noble, D. Madigan, and R. Wüsternberg, exemplify Winter’s point about theological pluralism well. Traditionally, scholars of Islam rejected the notion of original sin because they read the Qur’an to be saying that human beings are created with a fiṭrah, an innate and pure religious orientation toward God. Humans tend to forget this fiṭrah, these schol- ars argue, because of moral weaknesses they gather throughout their lives, but sin is not innate to human nature. Wüsternberg is aware of this disputation and argues that people »have fallen« differently in Christianity and Islam. Whereas people can still help themselves in Islam to overcome their fallen nature by obeying God (and God forgiving them), a divine sacrifice is needed in Christianity (185–86). Noble focuses on free will to fault humanity for its moral weaknesses, a fault that is common to the Islamic and Biblical narratives, he states, but he seems to endorse St. Irenaeus’s idea that Adam’s and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden was an opportunity for them to grow in morality and spirituality. He might see application for this idea in Islam but does not insist that it is found in the Qur’an. Although Noble’s position is difficult to accept because it risks treating a potential byproduct of the Fall, moral and spiritual growth, as the reason for its occurrence, he, like Wüsternberg, does not shy away from pointing out real differences between Islam and Christianity, and neither one endorses reductionist forms of theological pluralism.
Madigan is too hurried when accusing the Qur’an of denying »the significance and perhaps even the very history of the death of Jesus« (161), but he engages in enough textual and conceptual analysis to reach the conclusion that »mutual questioning« between Islamic and Christian scholars »will pinpoint irreducible differences« in their theological anthropologies (163). He ultimately thinks that what is acknowledged in the Qur’an as Adam’s moral »slip« is similar in nature to original sin, and that affirming the latter in Christianity does not entail denying the innate dignity of the human person affirmed in the Qur’an (166). One excellent type of argumentation he uses to make his point is to remind the reader that the idea of original sin does not suggest a historical time that explains its origins but is a dramatic narrative that reflects people’s moral feelings of sin and guilt (167). This is appli-cable to both Christianity and Islam, he suggests.
The important point to make here is that the acknowledgment of both the similarities and radical differences between the various world’s religions requires conceptualizing a non-normative type of theology, or a descriptive type of philosophy, that bypasses any conceptual biases. In the case of Islamic and Christian anthropologies, a philosophical theology that restricts itself to textual and conceptual analysis of the nature of humanity in some of their radically different doctrines will do the job, but not biased normative theologies or theological forms of pluralism that insist on a unitary ultimate reality that cancels out difference. The essay by P. Hardy comes close to capturing the essence of that philosophy but ultimately does not.
Hardy discusses the relevance of Wittgenstein, a powerful proponent of radical pluralism, alongside Heidegger, for a proper reflection on how theological anthropologies ought to do their normative job in the context of interreligious dialogue. But he focuses on the question of how words in Christianity and Islam name things in the world, including God, and reaches the conclusion that humanity’s supposed encounter with God is an encounter with silence. He also theorizes that any meditative use of the word God in Christianity and Islam has to be about more than simply seeking moral and spiritual transformation. It is therefore difficult to appreciate the Wittgensteinian link he makes in his interpretation of both the meditative use of God and humanity’s encounter with the divine. Yes, Wittgenstein, like Heidegger, was preoccupied with how words latch onto the realities they signify, and, yes, there is room to speak of the hiddenness and silence of God in the monotheistic religions. But, in affirming radical pluralism, Wittgenstein would have paid attention to both the presence and absence of God’s voice in the monotheistic scriptures, and he would have been open to the idea that the meditative use of God is about achieving moral and spiritual transformation in one’s life.
C. Schwöbel acknowledges the normative nature of theological anthropology, whether Christian or Muslim, but he sets it up against secular and philosophical forms of anthropology that miss out, from his perspective, on what it means to be human. He follows M. Luther and al-Ghazālī in saying that philosophical wisdom is deficient because it defines humans as rational animals who possess bodily sensations, and that only theological wisdom defines humanity correctly by revealing its logical and causal dependence on God (27). From his perspective, philosophical anthropologies ignore the material, efficient, and final causes of being human and miss out on seeing God as »the efficient cause of everything there is« (28). Although one may agree that dialogue is essential in a biased world full of prejudices and ignorance about the specifics of the world religions, why limit philosophical anthropologies to Aristotelian definitions of humans as rational animals and why should one take Luther and al-Ghazālī seriously in arguing that reason cannot be properly used in philosophy to elucidate the meaning of God’s reality?
C. Cunningham uses the language of »domesticating theology« and »paradox of theology« (237, 221) to explain Aquinas’s anthropology, stating that to speak of either the soul or of Jesus’s resurrection in simple terms, rendering them one-sidedly as things that transcend the material world – rather than as things that are co-dependent on the world – is to domesticate theology. The soul is not annihilated when achieving union with God in the beatific vision, he states, and to speak »about that which cannot be spoken« is simply a paradox of theology (221). His critique of traditional theology is certainly philosophical rather than theological and it proves the need to reassess the positive role that philosophy plays in theological matters, including theological anthropology. The essay by L. Demiri on the reality of death and its relevance to a theological anthropology also demonstrates this point, albeit due to the absence of the needed philosophical analysis in her essay.
Demiri reflects on the question of whether or not death is a state of non-existence and relies on al-Ghazālī and Ibn ‘Arabī to deny this idea. But no attempt is made by her to unpack the semantics of what is meant by the existence and non-existence of death in the contexts she discusses. For example, when Demiri cites the hadīth upon which al-Ghazālī bases his »evidence« for the non-existence of death, whereupon the prophet Muhammad is asked about the rationale of addressing dead polytheists who cannot hear him, she does not analyze what Muhammad meant by the following response: »You are no better than they at hearing what I say; it is just that they cannot answer« (73). The same goes for Ibn ‘Arabī’s claim that when people die they are asked questions related to their religion, prophet, and God in their graves. To say, »If they were not alive they would not have been interrogated« does not take us far without conceptual analysis. The absence of conceptual analysis here diminishes the role that death plays in shedding light on what it means to be human in Islamic anthropology.
Not every essay in the volume touches on methodology, which is the reason I did not discuss some of them in this review. I apologize to the authors of these essays and want to add here that I consider their essays not only important but also interesting. The essay by A. Nawaz on the Morisco Muslims of 16th century Spain is especially important, for example, because it exemplifies radical pluralism in religion without using any theology or philosophy. Nawaz gives us the historical context of the assault on religious pluralism by the Christian Inquisition at the time, mentioning the choice given to Muslims of either exile, conversion to Christianity, or death (106–7). Looking at the devotional practices of Morisco Muslims who converted to Christianity but kept their Muslim practices in secret shows that they perceived themselves to be radically different from Christians even when they used language common in Christian beliefs. Other interesting essays include two by F. Schweitzer and M. Zaman on the important role that scriptural narratives about children play in theological anthropology, an essay by R. V. Sanseverino on what it means to follow the prophet not only in moral and spiritual practices but also in everyday mundane practices, another essay by R. Sentürk on how al-Ghazālī’s idea of the human person sheds light on the concept of the self in the Qur’an and Islam, and, finally, an essay by S. D. Nardella on how Ibn ‘Arabī’s mystical vision of existence sheds light on what it means to arrive at fanā’ (annihilation) in God.