Taraneh Rosanna Wilkinson

The Islamic concept of “tawḥīd” or Divine Unity is more than a simple affirmation that God is One. It lies at the heart of Islamic spirituality, thought, and practice. It is a concept with a rich semantic field and complex philosophical connotations. Tawḥīd affirms God’s incomparable unity in such a way as to embrace the plurality of existence and infuse it with life and meaning. Tawḥīd, in the context of Turkish Muslim thought, has functioned as a conceptual tool for addressing difference to suggest ways of engaging the challenges posed by skepticism and the truth-claims of other religions within an Islamic context. This chapter lays out various Turkish Muslim theological interpretations and applications of tawḥīd to the phenomena of religious pluralism and global diversity, and then turns to the work of theologian Şaban Ali Düzgün as a case study. The paper concludes with the observation that, in both Düzgün’s work and in Turkish discussions on pluralism more generally, tawḥīd serves as both a limit and a facilitator to pluralism.

Karl Rahner, S.J., is known to be one of the great theological forces behind Vatican II and has influenced subsequent Catholic theologians in their exploration of other religions. Drawing upon the heuristic of finite-Infinite that runs through Rahner’s thought, this chapter examines the theological method of Francis X. Clooney, S.J., pioneer of an approach to comparative theology growing in popularity. The paper treats three related themes from the perspective of one who has appropriated Clooney’s methods for her own scholarship: Rahner’s theological anthropology as a resource for comparative theology, Rahner’s affinity with F.D.E. Schleiermacher on this question, and the strengths and limitations of Clooney’s approach.

This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.