Salvation, Incarnation and Trinity - How to Deal with Theological Convictions in Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Index 1. Introduction 1 2. A theological reconciliation? 2 3. The practicability and viability of Schmidt-Leukel’s enterprise 4 4. Conclusions 4 5. Bibliography 5 6. Appendix 6 1. Introduction Before getting involved in Christian-Muslim dialogue it is always advisable to first determine the aims, the framework and the methods of this very important commission. Usually there are two optional ways of proceeding: Either one decides to focus on rather practical issues like social, educational, moral and cultural cooperation and interaction or one tries to get engaged in theoretical debates, discussing about theological communalities as well as differences and conflicts. In his article on Muslim-Christian dialogue and the work of the pontifical council Risto Jukko detects in contemporary endeavors the tendency that “practically orientated emphases are more important than the question of faith in one God, or religious and theological issues in general.” A current example of this rather practical approach is to be found in the work of the Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue. In the provisions of their “Arab Muslim-Christian Covenant” they ascribe themselves to a “dialogue of life” , which “is not directed toward self-serving debates or argumentative religious polemics.” Their aim is to constitute “a guide or a basis for practical programs and steps in the cause of coexistence and in various other areas of public information, education, culture and society.” Although this is a commendable objective, one can argue with Risto Jukko that in this way religions are reduced to mere sociological systems, understating their transcendental and spiritual value. Therefore we decided to dedicate our thoughts in this paper to a more theological, content-wise investigation at the behest of Christian-Muslim dialogue. Our proceedings shall be conducted on the model of the intellectual edifice of Kenneth Cragg, who stated that “to have neutralized one’s own faith in the imagined interest of relationship is probably to have also neutralized the other’s.” The first step will be to present innovative theological concepts and in order to avoid remaining at a merely theoretical level we decided to investigate on the practicability and applicability of these concepts by interviewing individuals as representatives of actual Christian believers and congregations in a second step. Our third step will eventually be to evaluate and analyze these individual statements and opinions to arrive at a conclusion in regards to the viability of the theoretical concepts. 2. A theological reconciliation? As we ourselves are committing Christians and apparently know best about our own convictions and doctrines, we will, in this paper, focus on Christian teachings, especially those which might be estimated as impediments to mutual recognition and understanding in Christian-Muslim dialogue. In this respect we would like to concentrate on three dispositive topics within Christian theology: The mediating role of Jesus in our salvation, the incarnation theory and last but not least the concept of trinity. For this exploration we will consult the German Professor for religious science Perry Schmidt-Leukel, since he made a noteworthy attempt to resolve exceptionalistic overtones within these christological topics in order to arrive at a broader and more promising interfaith understanding. Schmidt-Leukel dedicates a whole chapter of his book “Gott ohne Grenzen” (“God Beyond Boundaries”) to the three topics: revelation, incarnation and mediation of salvation. In this chapter he considers the theology of revelation as the key to a pluralistic understanding of Jesus’ salvivic mediation. Hence the first step towards reconciliation is made by him with the distinction between the interpretation of revelation in an instructive-theoretical way, i.e. as the communication of contents, and the interpretation in a communicative-theoretical way, i.e. as a self-communication of God. Since we now, after a long period of historical examination and reconstruction, know that Jesus most probably never regarded himself as incarnated son of God and that he himself never taught any conceptions of trinity, the idea of revelation as self-communication and not as transmission of doctrinal knowledge about God seems much more plausible for him. On these revelation-theoretical grounds Schmidt-Leukel views the universal Logos as sole cause of salvation. This implies that only when we interpret Jesus Christ in the Johannine way as the divine word, the notion of Christ as cause of salvation is valid. Additionally he views the event of the crucifixion as representative not constitutive for the divine saving will, simply because the understanding of the cross as cause and not as consequence of the divine saving will would contradict the biblical image of God, who forgives unconditionally. With these presuppositions he eventually arrives at a point, where he can ascribe the possibility of being saved to any kind of signs of salvation, which might even exist before and after, hence which might even exist outside of Christ. The idea of satisfaction for the original sin of humankind through the sacrifice of the Son of God is for Schmidt-Leukel, in accordance to his master John Hick, outdated. This is so, firstly because the idea ignores the unconditional nature of divine love. Secondly it witnesses a crude understanding of justice and a misconception of forgiveness which requests a pay-off for depts. Thirdly it contradicts the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, that considers, at least in its orthodox interpretation, the human and not the divine nature of Christ to have suffered at the cross. This again cannot be correlated with the assumption that only God himself is able to take on the just penalty for our sins. And fourthly Schmidt-Leukel demurs that there is a temporal conflict in the notion of the cross as ultimate event of salvation, because this would deprive Abraham among others of a status of being saved. Due to all these reasons he rejects the satisfaction-theory and assumes a universal possibility of salvation, also outside of the ministry of Christ. Attempting to resolve the two other main issues in Muslim-Christian dialogue, namely the theory of incarnation and the concept of trinity, he chooses to interpret the incarnation as an act of mediation: Jesus Christ is the mediator of the divine self-revelation and thus incorporates a divine and a human nature at the same time. Like every other mediating symbol he embraces the nature of the (human) mediator and the nature of the object of mediation, namely God. The consequence drawn out of this concept is that the mediating role is not restricted to the person of Jesus but is to be encountered, wherever and whenever human beings become a medium for divine self-revelation (for example as witnesses and executer of the divine love). Thus a natural inclination for incarnation is inherent in every human being, realized simply in the mode of being shaped and coined by the unconditional grace of God. Schmidt-Leukel argues for a general incarnation through the Holy Spirit, from which the incarnation of Jesus is only distinguished gradually, i.e. only in Jesus Christ the human nature has arrived at the level of completion and perfection, to which every other human nature is aiming. Concerning the doctrine of trinity Schmidt-Leukel refuses an identification of economic trinity and immanent trinity, because he considers it illegitimate to extrapolate from the human empirical experience of God to the actual identity and essence of God. Indeed the doctrine of trinity is always embedded in or linked to a religious experience, it is in its nature a specific Christian symbolization of this very experience and most importantly it has a universal dynamic that reaches far beyond the boundaries of the Christian faith, because the concept of trinity promotes in itself an abundance and versatility of the divine reality in its relation to humankind. The concept of trinity itself presupposes differences in the experiences of the divine reality. It moreover legitimizes the equality of these experiences. Thus, for Schmidt-Leukel there can be other concepts of God besides the concept of trinity, which are equally valid and true. Doctrinally these reflections imply the abdication not only from the concept of original sin as inherited fallenness of the human race, but also from the concept of remission of sins and the urgently desired restoration of the human-divine relationship. At this point several questions on the practicability in the mundane life of a Christian confessor and of a Christian community need to be posed. Would a Christian believer be ready to give up the concept of original sin and the remission of sins through the crucifixion of Jesus? Is it a loss of unity, a loss of a corporative identity of the Christian community, if we see Christ as merely one among plenty of salvivic mediators, the crucifixion as merely one of plenty other options of reconciliation with God, the trinity as merely one of plenty other concepts of describing the essence of God? Would individual believers consider Schmidt-Leukel’s Christological concepts as reasonable and acceptable or would they consider them as contradiction to their most important Christian convictions? 3. The practicability and viability of Schmidt-Leukel’s enterprise In our survey on the viability of Schmidt-Leukels concepts we interviewed six Christian theologians with different backgrounds and education. All of them are working and living in Beirut and are aware of the contemporary development in Christian-Muslim dialogue. The interview consists of two parts: One is dealing with general constituents of the Christian Faith, the other with the more specific theological topics of Salvation, Incarnation and Trinity. 3.1. Constituents of Christian Faith All the interview partners were persuaded that there are insurmountable conflicts between Muslims and Christians. No one said that there are no problems. Most of the people gave doctrinal (and not political) reasons for the source of these conflicts. Christians cannot accept the prophethood of Muhammad. Muslims cannot accept the Christian understanding of Incarnation, Trinity and Christology, because these things are explained in the Qur'an in a different way. Thus there is no equality between the revelations. The two religions also have a different conception of state and religion. Nevertheless all interview partners were aware of the importance of a Christian-Muslim dialogue. But they plead to have a dialogue for political reasons and mutual coexistence and not for a dialogue about religion itself. Moreover the interview partners referred to the created misunderstandings and false stereotypes on both sides. In the end Christians and Muslims do not know each other good enough. Some interview partners also stressed that there is no real readiness for dialogue on the side of Islam. For the question about the most crucial conviction in Christianity the people answered very different. It is noteworthy that from the conceptions above mostly the Christology was mentioned again, no matter whether the people speak about the salvation and redemption in Jesus, the relationship to God through him or Christ´s centrality in general. Some people stressed the very personal relationship to God/Jesus they have. One person mentioned the growing kingdom of God and the community feeling of being part of it. One person saw the four Lutheran “solis” as most crucial. Another one just said that God is love, in accordance to 1 John, chapter 4. The salvation is most of all seen as a redemption for sins. Thus human beings are able to enter into a relationship with God. It comes through Jesus/God and is at least in theory valid for everyone. The concept of trinity does not seem to deeply convince the people. No one rejects it, but everyone was aware that it is a dogma from the 4th century and that it is not understandable by reason but only by faith. People also referred frequently to the explanations of Church Fathers such as St. Augustin. 3.2. Concepts of Salvation, Incarnation and Trinity When it comes to Salvation everybody agreed that the love of God is unconditional. Nearly everybody said he forgives unconditionally, too. The majority could not speak about Jesus Christ without assuming him to be the needed sacrifice of God and they believed Jesus is constitutive for God’s will of salvation. Again the majority was sure that from an inclusivistic standpoint there can be seen other signs of salvation besides Jesus Christ. Concerning the topic of Incarnation everybody was sure that God is incarnated in Jesus, he can be considered as God’s tool on Earth and can be understood like a symbol with two natures. But talking about whether or how different Jesus is compared to human beings, more than the half was convinced, that Christ is essentially not only gradually different. Only one interviewee thought that God is incarnate in every one of us through the Holy Spirit and that there is no uniqueness of Incarnation. One of the interview partners was not ready to talk about this topic, so the question has been skipped. With taking position to the concept of Trinity some of the interview partners turned out to have a pluralistic approach, when it comes to revelation. Half of them agreed on all questions, stating that besides the concept of Trinity there can be other concepts of God which are equally valid and true. Compared to their approach concerning incarnation two of them changed from an inclusivistic to a pluralistic point of view, which shows that they do not include their understanding of the Christology in their concept of Trinity. One participant agreed to the first four questions, but thought in the end, that the divine concepts are not equally valid and true. And finally one of the interview partners turns out to have an exclusivistic approach because he believes Trinity is not only human experience, but essentially true, therefore there cannot be truth beyond Christianity. To conclude all three topics, there is only one interview partner who was ready to confirm to all the questions and statements. The biggest obstacle for an agreement appeared to be Christology. In the field of Trinity the participants tented to have a more pluralistic approach. 4. Conclusions After all, the event of Eastern appears to be the most significant pillar of the living Christian faith, because it includes the redemption of sins and as an historical event it is easier to grasp The Trinity as a rather dogmatic concept of God is more difficult to include in everyday life, since it is neither fully obvious in the Gospels, nor fully comprehensible to human reason In the end the survey eventually calls for a decision between two options: One is to renounce theological debates and focus on practical dialogue of coexistence, like the initially mentioned Arab Group for Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Another possibility is to introduce and enforce the pluralistic mindset within Christian communities. More precisely via moderating the focus one a exclusivistic view on salvation only in Jesus Christ, while make the rather dogmatic concept of Trinity more accessible to the Christian intellect, more rooted in the common faith and more evolved in Christian everyday life. This is because we experienced a certain openness towards pluralistic mindsets in the field of Trinity, maybe due to the fact that trinity in itself promotes a variety and divergence concerning relationships, experiences and convictions. In the end we all agreed that we are yet not able to make a final decision on this delicate topic. 5. Bibliography THE ARAB GROUP FOR CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM DIALOGUE, Dialogue and Coexistence. An Arab Muslim-Christian Covenant, Beirut, 2010. CRAGG, Kenneth, The Call of the Minaret, Oxford, Oneworld, 32000. JUKKO, Risto, Trinity in Unity in Christian-Muslim Relations. The Work of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Leiden, Boston, Brill 2007. SCHMIDT-LEUKEL, Perry, Gott ohne Grenzen. Eine christliche und pluralistische Theologie der Religionen, Gütersloh Verlagshaus, 2005.