Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

AQUINAS AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 11
others as you would want they should do unto. you, seems to be
epitomized in the word 'dialogue'. It is therefore not surprising that
this word is frequently used in ecclesiastical and theological parlance.
It refers to communication within a Church (intra-denominational),
communication between Churches (inter-denominational or intrareligious)
and communication between religions (inter-religious)",
When a word is thus frequently used, and in so many different
contexts, it gets a certain vagueness. In some instances, dialogue
seems to cover any kind of communication. In other usages, however,
dialogue is sharply contrasted to other forms of interreligious
communication, such as polemics or mission. Some theologians
advocate the necessity of dialogue as a new method of communicating
the Christian Gospel to others: dialogue is the modem form of
mission. Instead of the one-way traffic of evangelization, interreligious
dialogue means openness, mutuality, and the willingness to learn from
each other". But in some of the most recent theological documents
from the doctrinal authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, dialogue
seems to be a flag covering the cargo of old-fashioned mission as
evangelization? One has to conclude that there is a deliberate
ambiguity in the use of the word 'dialogue' in the Catholic Church.
On the one hand, this word signals a change of attitude from the lofty
possession of ultimate Truth to a position of equality and an awareness
that all human beings are together in pursuit of an ever greater Truth.
But, on the other hand, the claim to possess the only way to
salvation through the person of Jesus Christ is still made by most of
For an analysis of some examples, see P. Valkenberg, "The Myth of
a Dialogue between Equals: Who needs Interreligious Dialogue in Western
Europe?", W. Valkenberg / F. Wijsen (eds.), The Polemical Dialogue:
Research into Dialogue, Truth, and Truthfulness (Nijmegen Studies in
Development and Cultural Change, 24), Saarbrücken 1997, 85-104.
6 See, for instance, P.F. Knitter, Jesus and the Other Names:
Christian Mission and Global Responsibility, Maryknoll NY 1996, chapter 7:
"Mission Reaffirmed - Mission as Dialogue", pp. 136-164.
? This is the case in the encyclical Redemptoris Missio. See also two
recent documents of the International Theological Commission, on God as
Saviour (1994) and on Christianity and the Religions (1996).