Wymagania prawdy a kultura dialogu ekumenicznego

Abstract

We live in unusual times. Our societies become more and more multicultural and multireligious. One can speak about a real revolution within the religious history of humanity. The Western tradition ceases to be a privileged form of Christianity. The Gospel of Christ urges the Christians to shape a new spiritual culture of dialogue, mutual respect and recognition. This culture requires a deep reflection on the very understanding of the truth in its essential link with hope and future fulfilment. Against this background the author shows first how the spirituality of dialogue forms new positive attitudes towards the other people. It has its basic foundations in a theistic vision of the world. Equally important is also the motivation based on anthropological and existential premises such as relational character of human person, common search for the meaning of life and the feeling of its mysterious nature. The spirit of the Gospel requires that all Christians learn how to care for the quality of interpersonal relations. Christian identity is best preserved not by constructing the walls of defense, but by enlarging within ourselves a hospitable space for all the good values wherever they may exist. In its central message Christianity offers an unusual potential of benevolence, brotherhood and friendliness towards people. We are called today to show more sensibility to these dimensions of human coexistence. The article deals then with a difficult issue of the truth. By its very nature the truth is orientated towards its future fulfilment. Our Churches abuse religious language when they speak about their possession of the whole truth. This claim is unfounded, for, as the apostle of the nations says, ,,we have partial knowledge” (1 Cor 13:9). The knowledge that we have now is imperfect. The truth stands in essential relation to hope. One of the most characteristic features of the truths of the faith is their openness to the future. They bear in themselves the dimension of hope and promise, which does not permit to contain them in limited conceptual boundaries. The truth remains always greater than all human words, concepts and definitions. Religious language is a language of hope. We have to "become more cautious and modest in our affirmations. In the discussions provoked by the Vatican Declaration Dominus Iesus the issue of relativism and the absolutist concept of the truth have forcefully come again to the fore. The author takes a critical stand to some statements of the Declaration. We are all on the road towards the ultimate truth. God's revelation in Jesus Christ constitutes only a historical, and not eschatological fullness of the truth. One should not forget about the eschatological distance of theological statements from the ultimate reality. Already some medieval masters defined an article of the faith as perceptio veritatis tendens in ipsam. The Declaration takes into account neither connection between truth and hope, nor the relational character of the truth, its openness and eschatological orientation. The very tone and the language of the document are far removed from the real culture of the dialogue. More than thirty-five years of multilateral dialogues seem to have been ignored or passed over in silence. The ecclesial status of the Protestant Churches has been categorically denied, causing thus a great astonishment and disappointment among evangelical Christians. It is not without reason that cardinal Walter Kasper, the new head of the Vatican Council for Promoting Christian Unity, expressed his cautious criticism of the Declaration. According to him, one should not speak that the Protestant Churches are not Churches „in the proper sense of the word” In fact they rather represent „a new type of Churches” (ein neuer Typ von Kirchen). There is still a long way ahead of us till we learn a sincere and profound respect for the other Churches and their otherness. In this context the author draws attention to the openness of the Jewish tradition, which admits that variety may be expressed even in contradictions, and that various interpretations of the Word of God should be regarded as a positive value. This can be clearly seen in the rabbinical commentaries (Biblia Rabbinica). The paper stresses also the bond between the truth and the responsibility for the world, and the need for a new style of education. The secular world is able to come to an agreement (an eloquent example is the European Union) whereas the Churches will further be dividing us for a long time to come. We live in the captivity of our denominational doctrines. This fact makes the dialogue with non-Christian religions even more difficult. All Christians have to learn how to see in the plurality of religions a divine plan of salvation. At the end the author emphasizes the role of the dialogue in the process of mutual recognition. No Church is entitled to make its own tradition a universal criterion of the truth, which in its fullness remains an eschatological reality. The faith speaks the language of hope. Here on earth we have no better and wiser language. This conviction belongs also to the true culture of ecumenical dialogue.