“Tradition is led to understand its revelation by probing questions posed by that revelation itself” was the opening remark of Prof. David Burrell, from the Uganda Martyrs University in a conference on“Lonergan and Anawati: An Interfaith Inquiry”, held at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome. Tradition, as defined by Bernard Lonergan and expounded upon by Prof. Burrell, is a revelation that is handed down as a doctrine practiced by subsequent generations. Tradition, he said, lives and breathes in each century and its “self-critical ethos” separates it from ideology. Burrel explained what needs to be done to prevent tradition from  becoming ideology:   49 secondi I think it is that we have to constantly fight thinking that we possess the truth, because truth is something that is very much beyond us and we keep searching for it. Friendship helps a lot. Interestingly enough, if you meet people who are ideologues, they simply cannot allow themselves to be contradicted, they have to think that what they say is true and not only just true, but the truth, so I think that if we are good friends with people then we learn how to allow ourselves to be criticized and we won’t become ideologues.  The key to harmonious relations between people of different faiths—most particularly between people belonging to the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam—is the examination of their traditions and beginnings. Encounters with members of other religions – the Jesuit professor added - will always provoke a return to the origins of each religion and the revelation that developed into a tradition. Working within a living and growing tradition allows a man to form a dialogue between people and not religions. For Burrell, it is important to look at doctrine in a way that allows a better interreligious dialogue.  We should understand that whatever is said was the result of a continued search to say it better, so if the way in which we say something is criticized by someone else  that person may see some flaws in our way of saying it. John XXIII, when he began Vatican Council II, put it that way--that there is what we have received and there is our way of expressing it and our way of expressing it can always be improved. Ultimately the great benefit of interfaith dialogue is that it leads each participant back to the origins of his tradition. The humble return to one’s own beginnings lays bare the foundations of different faith systems and enables free inquiry and insight into the origins and traditions belonging to another.

“Tradition is led to understand its revelation by probing questions posed by that revelation itself” was the opening remark of Prof. David Burrell, from the Uganda Martyrs University in a...leggi tutto