Comparative Theology, Truth, and Christianity

Marsilio Ficino, like many before and after him, was interested in exploring the way philosophy unites people from different religious traditions, while acknowledging that in such unity, because people would come to it in a diversity of religious faiths, there would remain differences between them as well. In some ways, the differences were based upon the different interests each religious tradition brought with them — the religions of Abraham, for example, place a high regard on the body, and therefore will interpret universal truths in such a way that this recognition of the body remains, while the Platonists, with its ambivalence to the body, will engage the same truth to a different end. Thus, in his “Introduction” of his Platonic Theology, he writes:

In truth, when the rational soul is separate it proceeds otherwise than when it does in the body; for the soul in the body proceeds from individuals to species and from species it crosses over to rational principles. Separate from the body, however, the reverse happens, for beginning from the things that are naturally familiar to it then, in the divine rational principles it sees by natural intuition the natural species; and in the species, from a sudden process of argumentation as it were and yet in a moment, it examines individuals. Hence it makes a circle from time to eternity and from eternity back to time again. Therefore, just as it was joined to matter such that it would be separable and occasionally exist as separate, so therefore it exists as separate but such that it is joinable again and occasionally is joined. Powers proceed from natures, natures are revealed by their powers. Nature is ruled by infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. Therefore natural powers are not in vain. The Platonists can use this argument perhaps for the sempiternal circuit of souls with some plausibility. But the Hebrews, Christians, and Mohammedans are obviously able to use the same argument with incontrovertible truth for the resurrection of human bodies.[1]

One of the principles of comparative theology is that one can learn truths from other religious traditions, truths which nonetheless will have to be interpreted via the prism of one’s faith. This is how and why religious traditions can have much to teach each other. It is not that we necessarily will agree with interpretations of truths which are either produced from natural contemplation (natural theology), or truths which were once revealed to people of different religious traditions (rays of revelation found in other religious traditions showing a kind of revealed theology in those other faiths). It is important for us to recognize the truth, and to learn about it, wherever it can be found. Modern science, for example, is a kind of natural theology, and its truths, when discovered, must be seen as compatible with the Christian faith (truth does not contradict truth, as Pope John Paul II pointed out). However, the meaning established for those truths are often in conflict with the meaning Christians would have for them; this does not have to lead to hostility, but rather, dialogue and mutual learning.

The interpretation of truth, which takes exegetical work, is different from their discovery, and people of all walks of life need to realize this so as to avoid undue conflict and over-simplification. What has often been seen as the conflict between science and religion really is not a conflict on methodology of discovery but of interpretation. Those not trained in hermeneutics will often confuse the discovery of truth with its interpretation, and view it as all or nothing. This must never be the way truth is to be treated. This, of course, cuts many ways; Christians, with their revealed truths, often follow the same hermeneutical error as positivists, thus confusing the mode of revelation as itself being a part of, and indeed, essential element of, the truth. Fundamentalism, indeed, comes about from such an inability to separate two different actions (discovering a truth and providing meaning to it).

We often grow too complacent in our understanding of the truth. We become too used to what we have learned and how we have interpreted it, that the fullness of truth is lost, and what we believe ends up being a warped piece of the truth. One of the reasons why we need to keep exploring and listening to others, from traditions other than our own, is because they will help remind us of the fullness of truth, to make sure we give all elements of truth their due. It is not a settling feeling to know others, especially those who you might dislike, might actually have something to say to you, something which you need to actually come to grips with. One of the great feats of scholasticism was to realize this and so it brought divergent views in contact with one another, leading to some rather important conclusions because of it. St Thomas Aquinas’s teachings would not have been the same if he didn’t actively respond to Jewish and Muslim thinkers, and if he didn’t do so with charity.

Today, more than ever, we need to realize the pursuit for truth is shared by people from all kinds of faiths and traditions. We will not always agree, but this lack of agreement does not mean we should then ignore each other. Rather, it is this difference which can and should lead us to pursue truth further, to get a greater grasp of it, and to make sure we do not turn truth into heresy (reified opinion). Christians must pursue this, even if others do not; we are not called to be like others, but to be like Christ, the prince of peace. If we would but follow Christ, and show the world we are indeed Christians by following his self-giving love, we will find that the world will listen, and what was once cut apart can once again be brought together as one. That is after all the lesson of the resurrection.