Original scientific paper

On Theological Meaning of Interreligious Dialogue

Nikola Bižaca orcid.org/0000-0001-9412-508X ; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split

Abstract

The development of theology and practice of interreligious
dialogue in post-council decades have brought, in relation to the
council scope, significant deepening and new insights. On the level
of the Magisterium and theology, and also in appreciable segments
of God’s people, the dialogical way of relationships with the members
of other religious traditions has gradually become and is becoming
an integral element of church awareness and consequently an
increasingly practiced method of concrete coexistence of Christians
and members of other religious traditions in today’s pluralistic
societies. However, thinking about the meaning of interreligious
dialogue has been going on, because the dialogue among religions
has by no means been sufficiently discussed, and moreover, the
relations between religions have been still rather far off to be marked
as authentically dialogical. Therefore, in the Catholic areas, one can
recently hear the opinions on predominantly functional meaning of
interreligious dialogue. It is proposed to understand the dialogue as a
very useful instrument in promoting tolerance, mutual introduction to
various cultures, human dignity and peaceful coexistence of nations
and their religious traditions.
Contrary to this, this text wants to show that interreligious
dialogue, besides this function, has its theological meaning and
foundation for Christians. For this purpose, in a few successive
paragraphs, we first present and interpret the most important
statements of Church Magisterium from the Council up to the present
days regarding the meaning, aim and structure of interreligious
dialogue. The final part, on the basis of the obtained insights in the
present scope of the Catholic understanding, points to the evident
theological meaning and foundation of interreligious dialogue. At
that, we have tried selectively to deepen some of the bearing elements of understanding the dialogue, as it has been gradually formed in accordance with the Council and on the level of the prevailing Catholic theology of religions.

Keywords

interreligious dialogue; theology of religions; theology of dialogue; fruits of dialogue

Hrčak ID:

38886

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/38886

Publication date:

30.6.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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