The Nature and Purpose of Ecumenical Dialogue

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 2000 by Walter Kasper

Basic presuppositions

1. To speak about ecumenical dialogue, and to start a dialogue on dialogue, pre-supposes that we first know what dialogue is. Dialogue is one of the most fundamental concepts in contemporary philosophy and is related to today's personalist way of thinking (compare Buber, Rosenzweig, Ebner, Levinas and others). This fresh start of philosophical thinking with a dialogical philosophy in the 20th century means the end of monological thinking, and the self-transcendence of the person towards the other. The starting-point and the fundamental principle of dialogical philosophy is: "I do not exist without thou"; "We don't exist for ourselves". "We not only have encounter, we are encounter; we are dialogue." The other is not the limit to myself; the other is a part of, and an enrichment of, my own existence. Dialogue is an indispensable step along the path towards human self-realization. Personal identity is a dialogical identity and not an identity closed in upon itself.

Dialogue therefore is not only dialogue by words and conversations; it is much more than a theological or academic exercise. Dialogue encompasses all dimensions of our being human; it implies a global, existential dimension and the human subject in his or her entirety. Dialogue is communication in a comprehensive sense and means ultimately living with one another and for each other.

2. Such dialogue is not only necessary for individuals. Dialogue concerns also nations, cultures, religions, each of which has its own riches and gifts. But it becomes narrow and ideological when it closes itself off and absolutizes itself. Then the other nation, culture and religion becomes the "enemy". The "clash of civilizations" (Huntington) would be the result. Even today, in a world of globalization, nations, cultures, religions must open themselves and enter into dialogue. This presupposes mutual tolerance, mutual respect, mutual understanding and acknowledgment of our own limits and of the riches of the other, as well as the willingness to learn from each other. Today dialogue among cultures, religions and churches is a presupposition for peace in the world. It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. In all this, reciprocity is required.

3. This dialogical vision of the human being is rooted in the biblical and Jewish tradition. God did not create us as isolated individual beings. He created us as man and woman, as social beings who can and must see in the other the image and likeness of God, who must respect and love each other. Even revelation is a dialogical process. In revelation God addresses us and speaks to us as to friends and moves among us in order to invite and receive us into his own company (Dei Verbum 2). The highpoint of this dialogue is the Christ-event itself. In Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man, we have the most intensive and totally unique dialogue between God and man. For Christians Jesus Christ is the centre and the criterion of any dialogue, and the common reference point of dialogue.

4. Christianity claims that Jesus Christ is the fullness of time and that in him the ultimate truth is revealed. The logos who shone in all creation appeared in Jesus Christ in its fullness. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Dialogue means common listening to truth revealed in Jesus Christ, common listening to the will of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and witnessed in holy scriptures and Tradition. Dialogue does not produce truth; dialogue discovers the truth, which is given to us once for all in Jesus Christ. Therefore concrete, firm and decisive affirmations belong to Christian witness: Tolle assertiones et christianismum tulisti (Luther). The Christian message withstands every relativization, also every relativization in the name of a wrongly understood dialogue. But this once and for all given truth -- according to the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom -- "is to be sought after in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person and his social nature. The inquiry is to be flee, carried out with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue ... in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth" (Dignitatis Humanae 3).

So we bear the truth "in earthen vessels". All our concepts are limited, culturally and historically conditioned. Thus the encounter and the dialogue with other cultures can help to discover new aspects of the truth, which is Jesus Christ. Dialogue helps us to know all the depths and heights of Jesus Christ. Only when we bring in all the riches of all cultures can we know the fullness of truth in its fullness. Mission therefore is not a one-way process; mission -- as it understands itself today -- realizes itself in a dialogical way and is connected with inculturation.

5. Thus the fundamental starting-point for all Christian theology is that Jesus Christ is the fullness of God's revelation and that Jesus Christ is present for ever in the church through word and sacrament. Each church believes, and must believe, that it is the true church of Jesus Christ. In a certain sense every church is convinced that the church of Christ subsistit in it. This is especially the conviction of the Catholic church, expressed in Lumen Gentium 8. But in the same context, the Second Vatican Council says that outside the Catholic church there are many ecclesial elements, especially baptism (LG 15; Unitatis Redintegratio 3). This implies that the Catholic church under the conditions of division cannot realize fully her own catholicity (UR 4). The Catholic church, therefore, needs dialogue and exchange with the other churches and church communities. Being catholic and being ecumenical are not contradictory but are two faces of the one and same coin. So ecumenical dialogue is -- as Pope John Paul II says -- "an outright necessity, one of the church's priorities" (Ut Unum Sint 31).