|< в начало	<< назад	к содержанию

CHAPTER IX

Bonaventure and Ecumenism

This is a unique moment in the history of religion. As our communication network encircles the earth, men are being drawn ever closer together - across the barriers of space, time, and culture. In this process of convergence, the religions of the world are meeting each other in a new way. Within Christianity the ecumenical atmosphere has spread over the last fifty years: first within Protestantism, then to Orthodoxy, and after Vatican II, in a striking fashion, to Catholicism. Now a more complex phenomenon is emerging on the horizon. The great religions of the world - of the East and the West - are coming together in a way unprecedented in the history of mankind. They are meeting in an atmosphere not of conquest, imperialism, or syncretism, but of mutual respect, responsive listening, and sharing. What will the future of ecumenism be? We cannot predict. But we can direct our efforts to make the most of the present moment. This is a time of opportunity and challenge. The theologian must have at his disposal the full resources of his tradition; he must be sensitive to the religious experience of other men; and he must have the imagination to develop new perspectives and new speculative structures in order to contact philosophies and theologies that seem radically alien to his own. In searching for a ground of unity among religions, he must respect the unique and absolute claims of each tradition.

In this age of ecumenism, Bonaventure can be a rich resource both for Christian unity and for establishing ecumenical relations between Christianity and the other religions of the world. It should not be surprising to discover in Bonaventure a resource for ecumenism; for his person, his life, and his thought all reflect an irenic and ecumenical spirit, a respect for diversity, and a desire to achieve authentic unity. Throughout his life, in the turbulent mid-thirteenth century, he worked for peace and reconciliation. As Minister General and as cardinal at the Council of Lyons, he displayed an ability to reconcile opposites, bringing together disparate groups in a larger unity. This ability to reconcile opposites is seen also in his thought with its logic of the coincidence of opposites. In his theological synthesis, he integrated elements which many other thinkers have found incompatible: scholastic logic and mystical intuition, Aristotelian abstractionism and Platonic innatism, the Greek predilection for the universal and the Franciscan preoccupation with the individual.

In its subsequent history, Bonaventure's tradition has provided resources for ecumenism. For example, Nicholas of Cusa is similar to Bonaventure not only through the coincidence of opposites and the structure of his thought, but also in his ecumenical spirit and in his career as a cardinal in the service of the Church. Nicholas was heir to the same Christian Neo-Platonic tradition as Bonaventure and was directly influenced by Bonaventure's writings, perhaps in his development of the coincidence of opposites.⁵²² Just as Bonaventure worked for the union of the Greeks and the Latins at the Council of Lyons, so Nicholas worked for their reunion at the Council of Florence. Living in the expanding world of the early Renaissance, Nicholas extended his speculative theology farther into the area of ecumenism than Bonaventure did. In his De pace fidei, Nicholas developed a theory of ecumenism that encompassed Christians, Jews, and Muslims.⁵²³ This same speculative tradition that produced such ecumenical spirits as Bonaventure and Nicholas can produce in our day a new flowering of ecumenical theology. In the expanding vision of the world, which has progressed from Bonaventure's closed Europe through the enlarged horizons of Nicholas' Renaissance to our own sense of a global community, this tradition can continue to be a major resource in developing a theory of global ecumenism through its logic of the coincidence of opposites and its ideal of diversity in unity.

Theology's Ecumenical Task

In the area of ecumenism, the contemporary theologian faces a threefold task: He must enlarge his theological horizons in order to become sensitive to the diverse strands of the Christian tradition; secondly, he must develop a speculative theological model that will encompass this diversity in an authentic unity; thirdly, he must discover new ways to relate Christianity to world religions. This threefold task must focus on the mystery of Christ, since paradoxically Christ is both the primary source of unity and the major obstacle to unity. For Christians Christ is the source of their identity, consequently the basis of any unity that exists or that might emerge. However, precisely because the mystery of Christ is so profound and multidimensional, it has produced diversity among Christians as well as unity. In the history of Christianity, different traditions have grounded their identity in diverse aspects of the mystery of Christ. Furthermore, the mystery of Christ is the ultimate root of the separation of Christianity from other religions. The more Christians become united among themselves by becoming conscious of their common identity in Christ, by that very fact they tend to separate themselves from other religions.

Because the mystery of Christ is the central resource and the central problem of ecumenism, I will focus on Bonaventure's Christology, seen from the standpoint of the coincidence of opposites. I will look upon his Christology from three points of view corresponding to the threefold task outlined above. I will view his Christology (1) as integrating some of the major strands of the Christian tradition; (2) as providing speculative tools that will help us develop a theology of Christian ecumenism; (3) as offering resources for the construction of a larger theology of ecumenism that will encompass Christianity and world religions. In each case the coincidence of opposites will be the key to unlock the ecumenical resources of Bonaventure's thought.

Bonaventure's Comprehensive Christology

Bonaventure's Christology is comprehensive, integrating major strands of the tradition's consciousness of the mystery of Christ. It comes at a pivotal moment in Christian history, at a time when the traditions of the Greek East and the Latin West were not yet radically broken apart. Yet the distinctly Western devotion to the humanity of Christ had already flowered within the early Franciscan movement, and the seeds of later Protestant Christologies were already sown. Granted Bonaventure's genius for integration, it is not surprising that he responded to this pivotal moment by producing one of the most comprehensive Christologies in Christian history. In the twentieth century, Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants can look back to Bonaventure's Christology and find there distinctive aspects of their own consciousness of the mystery of Christ. Yet in Bonaventure they can see these distinctive aspects integrated into a unified whole, thus providing a basis for ecumenical union within the larger mystery of Christ.

The foundation of Bonaventure's Christology lies in his doctrine of the Logos, which is developed extensively and systematically throughout his writings.⁵²⁴ This Logos Christology has three levels: in the Trinity, in creation, and in the soul's illumination and mystical union. Because the divinity is absolutely self-diffusive, the Father must generate the Son as his Image and Word. In generating the Son, the Father produces in the Son the archetypes of all that he can make. The Son is thus the Art of the Father, through whom all things are created and to whom they all reflect back as to their Exemplar. Finally, as Word and Truth, the Son illumines the minds of men when they know with certitude; and on the mystical level, he is the bridegroom of the soul, bringing the soul to union with the Father.

Bonaventure's Logos Christology reflects the distinctive Christology of the Greek Fathers, which is derived from the Alexandrian school and which has formed the continuing tradition of the Orthodox Church. The roots of Bonaventure's Logos Christology actually go back to the Greek Fathers through the Pseudo-Dionysius and John Scotus Erigena. Another source, of course, is Augustine, whose own Logos Christology has its roots in the common Christian Neo-Platonism shared by him and the Greek Fathers. On the level of the Trinity and creation, Bonaventure's Logos Christology has striking similarities with that of Athanasius and the Cappadocians. Although Bonaventure's illumination theory is derived from Augustine, it has its counterpart in the Greek world. On this point it would be fruitful to compare the treatise on Christ as Paidagogos of Clement of Alexandria with Bonaventure's Christus unus omnium magister. Bonaventure's Logos mysticism clearly reflects Origen's classical commentary on the Canticle of Canticles.⁵²⁵

Bonaventure's Christology, then, reflects the distinctive Logos Christology of the first millenium of Christian theology, both in the East and in the West. However, coming as it does at a pivotal point in history, it also reflects the distinctive Christology of the next millenium in the West, among both Catholics and Protestants; for Bonaventure integrates into his Logos Christology the characteristic Western devotion to Christ's humanity, his passion and death. Rooted in the West's sense of the particular and the historical, this devotion to Christ's humanity was finding expression during the high Middle Ages in various sectors of life. It reached a climax in Francis of Assisi, whose life-style was a radical imitation of Christ's and whose stigmata embodied the two aspects of this devotion: identification with the concrete particularities of Christ's humanity and participation in his suffering and death.

Bonaventure expressed this devotion in both his speculative and mystical theology. He laid the foundation in the speculative theology of the Incarnation in his Commentary on the Sentences and the Breviloquium; and he developed the distinctive Franciscan themes in such treatises as the Itinerarium, the Tree of Life, and the biographies of Francis.⁵²⁶ His speculative soteriology focuses on the passion and death of Christ, incorporating the satisfaction theory of Anselm, which expressed the medieval world's sense of the need for redemption from guilt and which remained the dominant theme in the Reformation and into the twentieth century in both Protestant and Catholic circles.⁵²⁷ In keeping with the Western tradition, Bonaventure did not emphasize the resurrection as much as the Greeks did. However, his soteriology has more of an implicit resurrectional dimension than many other Western Christologies, since it is grounded on the theme of the reform (reformatio) of the image of God. Derived from Augustine, this theme in Bonaventure reflects the divinization motif of the Greek Fathers. For Bonaventure the redemption involves not merely a liberation from the guilt of sin, but a turning of the image to its Exemplar, the Word, which involves a transformation and divinization that participate in the mystery of the resurrection.⁵²⁸ Bonaventure's Christology is crowned by his doctrine of Christocentricity. In the first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron, he develops the theme of Christ the center of all the sciences: metaphysics, physics, mathematics, logic, ethics, politics, and theology.⁵²⁹ Bonaventure describes Christ as the center of the Trinity, the medium between the divinity and creation, the illumination of men's minds, as the center of the cosmos and the redeemer who overcomes the forces of evil and transforms death into life and leads the soul back to unity with the Father. Thus Christ is the center of human existence, of the universe, and of salvation history. Bonaventure's Christocentricity has resonance in the East in the theology of Maximus the Confessor and in such diverse contemporary Western theologies as that of Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Teilhard de Chardin. In Bonaventure's Christocentricity all the lines of his thought converge and reach their climax, for he uses the notion of Christ the center to integrate into a unified whole all the different strands of his comprehensive Christology.

A Resource for Speculative Theology

Having described Bonaventure's comprehensive Christology, I will now examine it as a resource for a speculative theology of ecumenism, first within Christianity and then in relation to world religions. In this section I will not limit myself to an exposition or interpretation of Bonaventure, but will draw material from him, attempt to complete his system and develop speculative possibilities that extend beyond the horizons of his thought.

As a basis for a speculative theology of ecumenism, we can draw from Bonaventure the notion of the fullness of the mystery of Christ. It is true that he did not develop this notion in the precise sense in which I am taking it, but it is suggested by the comprehensive nature of his Christology and is thoroughly compatible with his system. The full mystery of Christ would be seen as encompassing the many aspects integrated into Bonaventure's system, and leaving open the possibility of other aspects in addition to these. We would then see that the various Christian traditions have been sensitive to different aspects of the total mystery of Christ. Since each aspect is related to the total mystery as microcosm to macrocosm, then in grasping one aspect of these traditions, to some extent, we have grasped the whole. Hence Orthodox, Protestants, and Catholics can relate to those aspects that ground their identity, and through these participate in the full mystery of Christ. Through ecumenical convergence, they can come to a deeper sharing in aspects of the mystery that have been submerged in their own traditions, but cultivated in others.

What are the speculative roots of this conception in Bonaventure's system? Foundational in his system - and in the early Franciscan milieu - is the awareness of God's fecundity and of the expression of this fecundity in creation. This stands at the base of the Franciscan joy in creation, in diversity and in the value of each individual thing, no matter how apparently insignificant. Theologically, Bonaventure describes the Father as the fontalis plenitudo, whose fullness expresses itself in the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit. This notion of fontalitas and plenitudo, Bonaventure applies to the Father and to the act of creation.⁵³⁰ He also speaks of the fullness of Christ's wisdom, grace, and merit; and in the Apologia pauperum he uses the notion of Christ's fullness as a basis for the diversity of forms of the Christian life.⁵³¹ Just as the plenitude of the Eternal Word is expressed in the diversity of creatures, so the plenitude of the incarnate Word is mirrored in the different ways of Christian perfection. This clearly suggests an application to ecumenism, based on the principle that Christ is the fullness of the expression of the Father: the Father expresses himself in the Son and through the Son in creation. Furthermore, the divine fecundity achieves an unsurpassable expression in the Incarnation, since in Christ the eternal is expressed in time, the highest in the lowest, the beginning in the end.⁵³²

Here the notions of fullness and expression are linked with the logic of the coincidence of opposites and the concept of Christ the center. The norm for fullness is the expression by way of the union of opposites through perfect centering. This norm is realized in an unsurpassable way in Christ, in whom opposites are joined as in a universal center. Hence we can speak of the mystery of Christ expressing in an unsurpassable way the unsurpassable fontalis plenitudo of the Father. This means, then, that in its fullness the mystery of Christ touches all levels of the universe, all dimensions of human experience, and the entire sweep of history. In Christ, the greatest coincidence of opposites, all things are drawn together as to their center.

If we apply this complex model to the sphere of Christian ecumenism, we can say that all authentic Christian traditions are related to Christ as to their center and through Christocentricity are related to the fullness of the mystery of Christ. This establishes their identity as Christian and is the root of their unity. Because of the richness and complexity of the full mystery of Christ, these traditions have realized different aspects of the mystery: for example, Christ as Logos, as incarnate in history, in his passion or resurrection. This accounts, at least in part, for the diversity of traditions. In an ecumenical context, these traditions can discover their common center in Christ and recognize that their authentic diversity is a reflection of the larger mystery in which they all participate. By sharing their diversity, while rooted in a common center, each can enter more fully into the mystery of Christ and its progressive realization in history.

Bonaventure and World Religions

Having seen Bonaventure as a resource for Christian ecumenism, we move now to a larger horizon and ask the question: What can Bonaventure contribute to the dialogue of world religions? I believe that he provides special resources both from a historical and a contemporary perspective. He can help us understand the Christian tradition in its richness and at a decisive period in the shaping of Western culture. Because of his awareness of the depth and nuances of religious experience, he can make us sensitive to the dimension of religious experience in other traditions. Because of the complexity of his thought - his blending of philosophy, theology, and mysticism - he can provide resources for understanding other traditions and for formulating the uniqueness of the Christian claim. And he can offer speculative material for building bridges between Christianity and even the most diverse traditions.

From a historical perspective, Bonaventure and his time deserve special study in the light of the convergence of world religions. The thirteenth century witnessed an extraordinary confluence of major strands of Western religion and philosophy. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam were caught not only in tension among themselves, but in a common struggle with Greek philosophy and science. Bonaventure's thought represents one of the major attempts to deal with these tensions. Through Bonaventure and the struggles of his day, we can observe a major formative period in the history of world religions. A re-examination, then, of the thirteenth century in the light of the history of world religions would be enormously fruitful at the present time.

From another standpoint, Bonaventure's thought can be a speculative resource at the present time. His vision is distinctively Christian; for he not only treats the mysteries of the Trinity and Christ extensively and systematically, but he makes them the central and architectonic elements of his synthesis. The result is a world view that is unmistakably Christian. Yet at the same time, his thought has a universal quality that opens to a broad ecumenism. It is this twofold aspect of Bonaventure's thought which I believe is its most valuable quality at the present time and which I would like to explore here. I will treat three areas, indicating how contemporary writers have used Bonaventure's thought either explicitly or implicitly in their approach to world religions. Each area involves a different type of the coincidence of opposites which we have previously studied: (1) the coincidence of God and the world in Bonaventure's broad notion of revelation, as employed by Robley Whitson; (2) the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's doctrine of the Trinity as a way into Buddhism and Hinduism, as suggested by the approach of Raymond Panikkar; and (3) the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's notion of Christ the center as a point of contact with the Tantric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism and as a speculative resource for developing a Christian theology of world religions.

Revelation and Experience

Our first area of study is Bonaventure's doctrine of revelation. It is precisely here that we find the basis of his broad ecumenism. Bonaventure grounds his doctrine of revelation in the Trinity itself: in the Father's self-diffusive expression of the Son. This Trinitarian expressionism is the basis for the doctrine of exemplarism, since in expressing himself in the Son, the Father produces in the Son all that he can make. Thus the Son is the exemplar of creation; as the Son expresses the Father, so the world expresses the Son. Consequently, theophany is fundamental to the structure of the universe; it is coextensive with creation and human experience and constitutes the deepest metaphysical and theological dimension of reality. Thus God is manifested throughout the cosmos, and in the multiple dimensions of human experience. Therefore through the coincidence of opposites Bonaventure can find the reflection of the Trinity in the material universe, in the human psyche, and in man's productive activity.⁵³³ It is this aspect of Bonaventure's vision that Robley Whitson has taken up in his book The Coming Convergence of World Religions. In his chapter entitled "The Revelational in Religion," he cites Bonaventure explicitly; in fact he takes Bonaventure as his major source, both as a historical witness to a broad ecumenical attitude within Christianity and as a resource for a contemporary theologian to establish connections with the great traditions of the world.⁵³⁴

One of the problems of linking Christianity with Oriental religions is the concept of revelation. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim to have received a revelation from God which is embodied in their sacred books: the Bible and the Koran. On the basis of this revelation they distinguish themselves from other religions, and on this basis scholars of comparative religion have distinguished between revelational and non-revelational religions. By drawing from Bonaventure, Whitson re-examines this issue. Although Bonaventure gives a special place to the book of Scripture, he does not isolate it from the book of creation or the book of life. The book of Scripture is to be read in the larger context of the theophanic universe. The entire universe and human experience are basically revelational; hence the book of Scripture is organically related to the book of creation. Whitson cites texts from Bonaventure's disputed questions De mysterio Trinitatis, indicating the theophanic nature of the universe through the metaphor of the book. Through the book of creation, the book of Scripture, and the book of life, the Trinity is revealed:

. . . the foundation of the whole Christian faith . . . has a triple testimony . . . considered from the standpoint of three books: the book of creation, the book of scripture and the book of life . . . The book of creation . . . first shown to our senses gives a twofold testimony . . . For every creature is either a vestige only, of God such as are corporeal natures, or also an image of God as are intellectual creatures.⁵³⁵

Although this double testimony of the book of creation was adequate for man in his state prior to sin, the book of creation has become obscured and the eye of man has been clouded by sin. So divine providence has given the testimony of a second book, the book of Scripture. In addition to the book of creation and the book of Scripture, Bonaventure calls attention to the testimony of the book of life:

But since "not all obey the Gospel," and this truth [that is, the doctrine of the Trinity] is above reason, therefore Divine Wisdom provided an eternal testimony, which indeed is the book of life. Now this book of life through itself and in itself explicitly and expressly gives irresistible testimony ... to those who with face unveiled see God in the homeland [that is, at the completion of man's journey of return to God], but on the way it gives testimony according to the influence of the light which the soul is capable of in the wayfarer's state ... It enlightens in two ways, namely, through an innate light, and through an infused light . . .⁵³⁶

Whitson takes Bonaventure's notion of the book of life and applies it to human experience. For Whitson, the book of life refers not directly to the Son in the Trinity, but to human experience as it reflects God. Although this is a non-technical use of the Bonaventurian term, I believe that it is quite compatible with Bonaventure's vision; for it expresses the theophanic nature of human experience. In the light of an expanded notion of revelation derived from Bonaventure, Whitson examines the Buddha's enlightenment experience and texts from Confucianism and reads them as revelational. In this way he is able to see as revelational two religious traditions which are usually placed at the opposite pole from the revelational religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Whitson's use of Bonaventure suggests that the latter's thought can provide a large speculative framework for two positions current among Christian theologians: that non-Christians are saved not in spite of but through their religions; and that Christianity will not understand fully its own revelation until it sees it in the light of the religious experience of all men.

Trinitarian Model

While Whitson sees human experience as revelational, Raymond Panikkar believes that one must distinguish various forms of religious experience. Whereas Whitson draws from Bonaventure's doctrine of the coincidence of God and the world, Panikkar approaches the problem through a Trinitarian model of the coincidence of unity and diversity. In his book The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man, he examines three types of religious experience which correspond to three aspects of the divinity.⁵³⁷ Found throughout the world, these three types of religious experience can be understood in the light of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. By using this Trinitarian approach to world religions, Panikkar is able to relate Christianity to Buddhism and Hinduism at points where these traditions differ most widely from Christianity.

Stated very briefly, Panikkar's position focuses on silence, speech, and unity. The deep religious experience of silence he relates to the Father in the Trinity and to the Buddhist experience of nirvana. Speech is related to the Son, for the Son is the expression, the Word and the Image of the Father. In this perspective, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be seen as religions of the word; for it is in and through the word that God communicates to man. While these religions reach their goal in and through the word of God, the Buddhist moves to the depth of silence by negating the way of the word, of thought, of logos. This is seen very graphically in the techniques of Zen Buddhism. While the Buddhist negates the word to achieve silence and the Christian moves through the Word to the Father, the advaitan Hindu experiences the unity of himself and the Absolute. This experience of undifferentiated unity is the third element in Panikkar's Trinitarian approach. This experience of unity or immanence Panikkar relates to the Spirit in the Trinity, for the Spirit is the union of the Father and the Son. Thus in Panikkar's perspective, Buddhism can be called the religion of the Father; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam the religion of the Son; and advaitan Hinduism the religion of the Spirit.

Panikkar's approach through the Trinity provides a model for dialogue which allows for pluralism while affirming unity. The Christian can relate to the Buddhist as one who has contacted the silence of the Father and to the advaitan Hindu as one who has experienced the mystery of the unifying Spirit. In this way, the Christian can respond positively to the other traditions without having to reduce them to his own; rather he can accept difference in unity according to a Trinitarian model.

In developing his approach, Panikkar situates himself in the Bonaventurian tradition, stating: "We would like here to approach the Trinitarian mystery in a more direct way following up the more dynamic thrust of the Greek patristic tradition and the Latin Bonaventurian scholastic."⁵³⁸ Panikkar not only reflects the Bonaventurian tradition but extends it to a new level. In an article on Panikkar's position,⁵³⁹ I have argued that his Trinitarian approach harmonizes with the classical vestige tradition and brings this tradition into the realm of universal religious experience. Following Augustine, Bonaventure saw the reflection of the Trinity in the material world and in the psyche. Christian theologians have also seen the reflection of the Trinity in the Old Testament and in the triads of Greek philosophy. It is not surprising, then, that a contemporary theologian like Panikkar - at a time when the religions of the world are converging - should find a reflection of the Trinity in the divergent strands of man's religious experience as these have developed in their highest forms. In order to grasp the significance of Panikkar's approach, I believe that one should situate it within the tradition of Trinitarian theology of which Bonaventure is one of the foremost spokesmen. Hence Bonaventure offers rich resources here, not only to support Panikkar's approach from the Christian tradition, but also to provide technical clarification for his distinctive mode of theological thinking.⁵⁴⁰

Panikkar's thought calls for a radical re-examination of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, since his ecumenical vestige doctrine includes elements that have not been formally thematized by the Christian tradition. For example, he describes the Father as silence rather than power. The question arises: Is Panikkar's position contrary to the Christian tradition? Or is the convergence of religions bringing to light a dimension of the Trinitarian mystery that has been latent in the past? Bonaventure's thought can be of great assistance here. In addition to his explicit vestige doctrine, Bonaventure has a systematic treatment of the Father. In both cases, the Father is conceived as power: In the power, wisdom, and goodness of creation, the Father is reflected in power; in the Trinity Bonaventure describes the Father as fontalis plenitudo, the fecund source of the generation of the Son. Is there in Bonaventure a hint of the silence of the Father? I believe there is. Bonaventure acknowledges that innascibilitas and paternitas (unbegottenness and paternity) both apply to the Father, and he claims that innascibilitas is the root of paternitas.⁵⁴¹ If we make explicit the logic of the coincidence of opposites which permeates Bonaventure's system and apply this logic to the Father, then we can see that the element of power in paternitas is balanced by silence; hence we can interpret innascibilitas as silence.⁵⁴²

This leads us to re-examine the seventh chapter of the Itinerarium. Does the seventh chapter express a type of apophatism in which all finite modes of thought are transcended in the mystical experience? Certainly this is the case. But does it also suggest a second level of apophatism, in which one enters into that aspect of the divinity which Panikkar describes as the silence of the Father? I believe that there is evidence for this interpretation, which I will only briefly summarize here.⁵⁴³ Note that the seventh chapter comes immediately after Bonaventure's treatment of the Trinity, which focuses on the Father as the source of the self-diffusiveness of the good in the Trinitarian processions. In the light of the logic of the coincidence of opposites and the interpretation of paternitas and innascibilitas given above, it would not be an exaggeration to read Bonaventure's quotations from the Pseudo-Dionysius, with their images of darkness and silence, as referring to the silence of the Father.⁵⁴⁴ In view of this, Bonaventure's concluding statement is especially suggestive:

Let us, then, die and enter into this darkness. Let us silence all our care, our desires and our imaginings. With Christ crucified, let us pass "out of this world to the Father," so that, when the Father is shown to us, we may say with Philip: "It is enough for us."⁵⁴⁵

Christ and World Religions

The Christian, then, can approach world religions, as Whitson does, through Bonaventure's notion of cosmic revelation; and with Panikkar he can establish rapport with diverse traditions in the light of the Trinity. But there still remains the problem of Christ. While revelation and the Trinity are modes of universalizing the Christian perspective, the doctrine of Christ particularizes and differentiates. Ultimately it is Christ who separates Christianity from other religions. This is undoubtedly the most complex problem facing the Christian in the dialogue of world religions. Both Whitson and Panikkar acknowledge this problem and explore it. Bonaventure offers assistance here in two ways. First, he is quintessentially Christian; for him Christ is the center of the universe, of history, of human existence, of revelation. His Christology is both universalized and particularized. He blends the universalizing Logos Christology of the Greek Fathers with the particularizing incarnational Christology of the West. Hence, one can turn to Bonaventure for a richly articulated doctrine of Christ which is distinctively Christian to the core.

Paradoxically it is Bonaventure's notion of Christ the center that can open new ecumenical possibilities for Christology. If the notion of Christ the center is examined in the context of Mircea Eliade's research into primitive religions, of Carl Jung's research into the human psyche, and Giuseppe Tucci's research into the mandala in Hinduism and Buddhism, then we may be able to view incarnational Christology in a more ecumenical perspective.⁵⁴⁶ In Chapter Six on the mandala, we have used this research in order to throw light on Bonaventure's notion of Christ the center.⁵⁴⁷ In our present context we can see how Bonaventure's particularist Christology can be universalized in the light of this research, through the extensive presence of the symbol of the center in the history of religions. According to Eliade, the category of the center is widespread in primitive belief and ritual; according to Jung, the center can symbolize the Self, which is the root, organizing principle, and religious core of the psyche. Accepting the general lines of Jung's position, Tucci explores the meaning of the center in the use of the mandala in Oriental religions. The mandala design - with a circle or square and prominent center - is used in the Tantric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism for meditation. The fact that the category of the center is found throughout the world and throughout history indicates a basis for ecumenism, even through incarnational Christology. Many complex problems remain. How is Christ related to the center of the Buddhist and Hindu mandalas and to the archetype of the Self as studied by Jung? If this is a fruitful area of investigation - as several fields of research have suggested - then among Christian theologians Bonaventure has much to offer since, as I have argued, the mandala structure is basic to his thought, with its coincidence of opposites and Christ as its center.

The notion of the center can be universalized by being found throughout the world and throughout the religious history of mankind. But there is another way in which it can be universalized: by providing a speculative framework for the Christian to relate to world religions. In this perspective, Christ in his particularity is seen as the cosmic center in whom a wide diversity is centered as in a coincidence of opposites. The diversity does not have to be reduced to a unity, as it would be in a universal Logos Christology. And it does not have to be maintained at the expense of unity, as it would be in a sheer particularist Christology. Rather diversity can be maintained precisely in its distinctiveness, but at the same time it can be related to the unity of the particularist center.

In order to establish the pattern of diversity, I will take my point of departure from the book by R. C. Zaehner, Christianity and Other Religions.⁵⁴⁸ Here Zaehner proposes the thesis that Christianity integrates opposites which remain separated in other world religions. For example, Islam affirms the divine transcendence to the exclusion of immanence; and certain Hindu traditions affirm immanence to the exclusion of transcendence. However, in its doctrine of Christ, Christianity affirms the union of the transcendent and the immanent. Zaehner examines other religions and interprets them according to this model of polarities.

We can apply Bonaventure's Christological model to this description of the polarities in man's religious experience. For Bonaventure, Christ is the coincidence of opposites uniting the polarities of immanence and transcendence, and he is also the universal center. The entire spatio-temporal cosmos is centered on Christ and all men are related to him as the cosmic center. Thus the very particularist element in Christianity is universalized, not by being present in a universal way in all things and all people, but by being the cosmic center to which all is related. Thus for the fullness of the mystery of Christ we must look to the entire cosmos. Only in the diversity of the religions of the world is the fullness of the mystery of Christ revealed. Can we, then, call all men anonymous Christians? In a certain sense, yes; but this might be misleading. For they are related to Christ, the cosmic center, precisely by their differences, that is, by their cultivation of one of the poles of opposites that are united in Christ. In their case, it is only in the fullness of the mystery of Christ that their relation to Christ the cosmic center is discernible.

If one views the mystery of Christ through Bonaventure's perspective and sees Christ as the universal cosmic center, then he can see the rich diversity of religious traditions centered ultimately on Christ, but not necessarily immediately connected to him through a direct historical line. I must state here that this is intended as a Christian's theology of ecumenism and would not be an appropriate perspective for, say, a Buddhist's theology of ecumenism. In this Christian perspective, one can maintain his absolute claim about the particularity and uniqueness of Christ and yet, through Christ the center, encompass the diversity of man's religious experience.

We see, then, that in three major areas Bonaventure's thought is a rich resource for advancing the dialogue of world religions: in the doctrine of revelation, of the Trinity, and Christology. In each area, the coincidence of opposites operates in a different way, providing a rich complex of models of unity and diversity. The encounter between Bonaventure and world religions can have reciprocal advantages; for it can enhance our understanding of Bonaventure by enlarging our horizons, by forcing us to go deeper into his thought and by leading us to make explicit what was only implicit. This deeper understanding of Bonaventure can, in turn, shed new light on the Christian tradition not only in its past and present, but also in its future possibilities. As mankind moves forward toward the convergence of world religions, the journey can be clarified in many ways by the itinerarium which Bonaventure provides.

Our own journey into Bonaventure's thought has led us deeply into his vision. Guided by the coincidence of opposites, we have explored the major structural elements of his system: the Trinity, God's presence in creation, Christ the center. Drawn into the Bonaventurian universe through the coincidence of opposites, we can marvel at its richness, its complexity, and its fullness. In this vision we find ourselves not stranded in the Middle Ages but thrust into the heart of the problems of today and tomorrow. Having penetrated deeply into the mystery of man and God, Bonaventure is alive to the crucial issues of the twentieth century. Because he makes available the height, the length, the breadth, and the depth of the Christian religious experience, he can lead us towards Christian unity and draw us into the dialogue of world religions. Bonaventure has been true to his origins - to the spirit of Francis. He has grasped Francis' sense of the richness of God, of God's nearness to the world, of the importance of each creature, and of the centrality of Christ. By being true to his origins, Bonaventure has become relevant to our day, and I venture to predict, he will be relevant to the future as well.

|< в начало	<< назад	к содержанию