Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 72 No. 4, 2002.
Review article
Theological Foundations and Religious Implications of Prayer in Inter-Religious Dialogue
Nikola Bižaca
orcid.org/0000-0001-9412-508X
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
In the last decade, inter-religious prayer in the context of Catholic spirituality has become part of inter-religious dialogue. Globally and on a daily basis, there is a manifold experience of prayer amongst people of different religions. Hence, prayer increasingly becomes an essential dimension of the dialogical relationship between Catholics and people of other religions. Still, there remains an absence of a thorough and systematic theological reflection of the significance, basic principles and implications of prayer in an inter-religious context. Theologically, inter-religious prayer represents only a segment of a theology of religions and therefore in many ways shares its essence 'in fieri'. Having offered some useful intuitive thoughts not only for the formation of a more systematic and complete theology of inter-religious prayer, but also in furthering a more specific and developed inclusive model, which pluralistic theology in principle and incessantly rejects, the author by and large, critically formulates an insight into the theological foundation and meaning of inter-religious prayer in the context of the prayer meetings of Assisi I and II, and of the theological conferences in Bangalore and Bose, which were structured on the theme of inter-religious prayer. In the second part of the article, starting with the implication of dialogical practices themselves, as well as contemporary theological interpretations of inter-religious prayer, the author formulates at a systematic and theological level, some of the founding guidelines of a possible open-type of inclusively structured Trinitarian model. It relates to the following categories: 1) »an immanent Trinitarian logic (from the Father by the Word Šor SonĆ in the Spirit)« which is persistently characterized by God's work in the spreading of the Kingdom of God, prior and subsequent to the Incarnation; 2) Christological values present in other religions and understood as various forms of agapical transformations, resulting from a more or less conscious dialogue of a Trinitarian God and people, through the example of the event of Jesus Christ as the utmost paradigm of the Kingdom, and as a continually effective and matchless type of God's care and love for people; 3) a continual inter-historical difference between an 'outside' and 'inside perspective' in the Christian study of religions, which in some way is a reflection of the tension between apophatic and cataphatic dimensions of the revelation of the Mystery in history. Consequently, the author concludes that an inclusive Trinitarian model bears not only a requirement for an interpretation of inter-religious relationship with the assistance of the category of 'serving', but also with a theological need for a 'spirit of discernment' with regards to other religions, and therefore arriving at a certain insight with respect to the range of salvific and interceding functions of a particular and actual religion in the history of salvation.
Keywords
inter-religious dialogue; inter-religious prayer; Trinitarian theology; the Kingdom of God
Hrčak ID:
28810
URI
Publication date:
8.4.2003.
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