The Concept of God, the Origin of the World, and the Image of the Human in the World Religions

167 Pages·2001·10.733 MB·English

by  Peter Koslowski (auth.), Peter Koslowski (eds.)

THE CONCEPT OF GOD, THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD,
AND THE IMAGE OF THE HUMAN IN THE WORLD RELIGIONS
THE CONCEPT OF GOD,
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD,
AND THE IMAGE OF THE HUMAN
IN THE WORLD RELIGIONS
Editedby
PETER KOSLOWSKI
Hannover Institute of Philosophical Research,
Hannover, Germany
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-94-010-3880-5 ISBN 978-94-010-0999-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-010-0999-7
Printed with the Support of the Foundation of Lower Saxony
(Stiftung Niedersachsen)
The German language version of this book is published simultaneously by
WILHELM FINK VERLAG
Munich
Editorial Assistant: David W. Lutz
Cover Photograph:
JANNIS KOUNELLIS, Untitled, 1985
Claudio Abate, capc Musee d' art contemporain, Bordeaux, 1985
Printed on acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 2001
No part ofthe material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword Vll
The Conflict of Religions and the Mission of a Philosophy of the
World Religions: Introduction
PETER KOSLOWSKI 1
The Origin of the World, the Concept of God, and the Image of the
Human Person in Hinduism
R. BALASUBRAMANIAN 11
The Concept of God, the Image of the Human Person, and the Origin
of the World in Buddhism
SHIZUTERU UEDA 43
Imago Dei in Judaism: Early Rabbinic Literature, Philosophy, and
Kabbalah: The Teaching about God, the Human Person, and the
Beginning in Talmudic and Kabbalistic Judaism
YAIR LORBERBAUM 57
Discussion of the Concept of God, the Origin of the World, and the
Image of the Human Person in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism 75
Creation, the Concept of God, and the Nature ofthe Human Person
in Christianity
MICHAEL WELKER 80
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
God, Creation, and the Image of the Human Person in Islam
MEHDI AMINRAZAVI 95
Discussion of God, Creation, and the Image of the Human Person in
Christianity and Islam 112
On the Conceptions of God, the World, and the Human Person in
Five World Religions: An Attempt at a Synthesis from a Buddhist
Perspective
JOHANNES LAUBE 115
The Concept of God, the Origin of the World, and the Image of the
Human Person in the World Religions: An Attempt at a Synthesis
From a Christian Perspective
ARMIN KREINER 127
Discussion ofa Possible Synthesis of the Ideas of the World Religions 144
Conversation between the Representatives of the World Religions
after the Conclusion of the Public Discourse 146
Contributors 151
Index of Persons 155
FOREWORD
In the world religions the modern consciousness stands face-to-face with forms
of thought that derive from the earliest times, from world ages before our own,
but which nevertheless extend into our most up-to-date present time. The forms
of thought, the systems of rules for conduct and the good life, and the interpre
tations of human existence developed by the world religions characterize the
life of many persons to a depth unlike that of any other system of thought.
The series A DISCOURSE OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS, the five volumes of
which are started with the volume in hand, are intended to contribute to the dia
logue of the world religions. They were designed on the occasion of and for the
World Exposition Expo 2000 Hanover in the year 2000 in Hanover, Germany.
This world exposition established as its theme "The Human Person, Nature, and
Technology," and thereby accepted the challenge of contributing to the knowl
edge of the human person, of nature, and of technology. It was clear in the re
flections preparing for the world exposition that if it were to meet this chal
lenge, the world exposition would have to be more than a great show and a pre
sentation of virtual worlds. The Expo DISCOURSES OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS
were intended and were held to complement the Expo 2000 Hanover with an
encounter of philosophers and theologians representing the five world religions
of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The conversation of the religions is capable, in the framework of the en
counter of people from the entire world, of forming a bond of the spirit between
the religions and regions of the world, a bond about which a poem of August
von Platen speaks:
Einjedes Band, das noch so leise
Die Geister aneinander reiht,
Wirkt fort auf seine stille Weise
Durch unberechenbare Zeit.
A bond, which still ties spirits
To one another so quietly,
Continues to work in its silent way
Through incalculable time.
viii FOREWORD
It is thanks to the support of the Foundation of Lower Saxony, its President
Dr. Ernst Albrecht and its General Secretary Dr. Dominik von Konig, and of the
Founder of the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research, the Catholic Bish
op of Hildesheim, Dr. Josef Homeyer, as well as the Chairman of the Founda
tion of the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research, Vicar-General Karl
Bernert, that we have the opportunity at the beginning of the new millennium,
with the Expo DISCOURSES OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS "The Human Person,
Nature, and Technology from the Perspective of the Religions," to lead a con
versation between the major forms of religious thought in the world today.
Before and during the Expo 2000 in Hanover, the Expo DISCOURSES OF THE
WORLD RELIGIONS investigated the contribution of the religions to the solution
of major and vital problems of humankind.
With this volume, the series of books that emerged from the Expo DIS
COURSES is started. The present volume publishes the essays and discussions of
the FIRST ExPO DISCOURSE, "The Concept of God, the Origin of the World, and
the Image of the Human Person in the World Religions," which took place in
the Johannes a Lasco Library Great Church Emden in Emden, Lower Saxony,
Germany, on the 3rd and 4th of September 1999. The Great Church Emden in
the city on the North Sea, a medieval brick church, which was converted into an
academic library and place of study for Reformed Protestantism after its de
struction in the Second World War, was the ideal site for an encounter and a
conversation of the world religions. The organizers of the Expo DISCOURSES,
the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research and the Foundation of Lower
Saxony, thank the Johannes a Lasco Library Great Church Emden, its then Di
rector, Pastor Walter Schulz, and its members for their support of the discourse.
I would also like to thank Anna Maria Hauk, Michael Berges, Luca Di Blasi,
Dr. Friedrich Hermanni, and Brigitte Berges of the Hanover Institute of Philo
sophical Research, as well as Linda Anne Engelhardt of the Foundation of
Lower Saxony, for their help in organizing the conference and preparing the
book series A DISCOURSE OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS.
Peter Koslowski
THE CONFLICT OF RELIGIONS AND THE MISSION OF
A PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS
Introduction
Peter Koslowski
Many conflicts in the world have religious motives and are justified by the
mutually-contradictory statements and claims of the various religions. It appears
that behind the "clash of civilizations" there stands the "clash of religions." For
this reason, a discourse of the world religions runs the risk of being drawn into
such conflicts. At the same time, however, it is also a means of opposing such
conflicts, of hindering them, or at least of toning them down. A Discourse of the
World Religions within the context of the world exposition Expo 2000 Hanover
in the year 2000 had to accept this challenging mission of promoting a discus
sion between the world religions and of defusing the conflicts between them.
Therefore, this discourse of religions contributed at the same time a dimension
of depth to the mission of a world exposition: promoting the encounter of per
sons from the entire world and from different religions.
1. The Conflict ofthe World Religions
The opponents of the religions take the frequent conflicts between religions as
an argument against them and demand the abolition of religion in general, be
cause they assume this would also eliminate the cause of many conflicts, even
wars. In doing so they, of course, overlook the fact that human nature is capable
of making nearly everything and every idea - and even the very best of things
and ideas - the cause of a conflict. It is, however, not only the misjudgment of
the nature of human conflicts that makes it illusory to hope that the problem of
people in many parts of the world coming into conflict for actual or pretended
religious reasons can be solved through the abolition of religion. It is a misguid
ed opinion to believe that religion could be something that belongs to an unen
lightened epoch of humanity and will disintegrate and disappear as sham with
the increasing enlightenment of human persons about themselves and the world.
Religions belong to the nature of the human person, and will endure. In
many parts of the world, there is not a dying out, but a dramatic revival of reli-
P. Koslowski (eds),
The Concept o/God, the Origin o/the World, and the Image o/the Human in the World Religions, 1-10.
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 PETER KOSLOWSKI
gion today. Not dying out, but the revival of even fundamentalist forms of the
religions characterizes the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of
the 21 st - in complete contrast to the end of the 19th century and the first half of
the 20th. The world is experiencing a phase of the dying out of ideologies and
the return of religions. It is undergoing precisely the opposite of what the phil
osophies of history of Hegel, Comte, and Marx predicted.
The resurrection of the religions in the world is a movement towards the par
ticularism of the world's regions, though certainly towards a particularism of
the largest communities that exist in the world, those of the world religions.
This movement towards structuring the world according to the great religions
stands in a relation of tension with the second great development of the present
day, the development of globalization and the establishment of an integrated
world market and world information network, the Internet. The tension of this
opposing development could not be greater: while one nation, for religious rea
sons, forbids young women to complete their higher education, everyone can
instantaneously exchange his or her opinion regarding this question with every
other person in the world via the Internet.
The "Discourse of the World Religions" and its five volumes stands within
the tension between the universal and simultaneously particular claims of the
religions, on one hand, and the new simultaneity and new proximity of the reli
gions, on the other hand. It is concerned with a question that occupies the hu
man race at the beginning of the new millennium: How will the world religions
clarify and shape their coexistence?
It is obvious that the question of the coexistence of the various religions
involves more than mere tolerance. "Tolerance," as Goethe put it, "should in
reality be only a transitory attitude; it must lead to recognition. To tolerate is to
affront.") In the discussion between the world religions, the goal of mere toler
ance cannot be sufficient, because religion concerns the most internal and be
loved matters of human persons. When it comes to what concerns the most in
ternal personal center of the human person, the other person cannot be content
with tolerating, but must attempt to achieve the recognition of this other person.
It is not necessary to point out how difficult this is for religions in their rela
tionships with one another. Nearly all religions are familiar with the warning
against false gods and the prohibition of making idols. This prohibition of idols
has its good purpose. It originated from the experience of the human race that
men desire to devote themselves to false gods. The Bible of the three Abraham
ic religions describes how the chosen people constantly returned to their idols,
I J. W. Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen, "Gesellschaft und Geschichte," in Goethe, Goethes
Werke, ed. E. Trunz, lIth Ed. (Munich: Hanser, 1989), Vol. 12, p. 385, no. 151: "Toleranz sollte
eigentlich nur eine voriibergehende Gesinnung sein; sie muB zur Anerkennung fUhren. Dulden
heiBt beleidigen."
INTRODUCTION 3
were ready and willing to worship the Golden Calf, and how it was only by the
constant efforts of its prophets that they gave them up.
One can say with Max Scheler that everyone believes either in God or in
idols. The "Discourse of the World Religions" project must bear this tendency
in mind. The Discourse of the World Religions does not mean dismissing ques
tions of truth and the critique of the religions from the discussion of the world
religions. The Discourse of the World Religions, instead, poses to all world reli
gions the question what within them is the authentic revelation of God and what
are the signs of idol worship.
The justification of religious truth claims, the critique of the justifications
and the praxis of the religions, and communication, in the sense of the transla
tion and demonstration of commonalities and differences between religions, are
the three tasks of the intellectual entry into religion, regardless of whether this
entry is called theological or philosophical. Every religion must give reasons for
its truth claims, account for its beliefs. Every religion must withstand the cri
tique of these claims, must allow one to ask: "How do you know that?" "What
is your justification for making such a claim to authority here?" Finally, every
religion must perceive the obligation to make understandable to those who sin
cerely believe in another religion, what and why it believes and what it consid
ers to be important.
2. The Mission of the Philosophy ofthe World Religions
The "Discourse of the World Religions" serves the mission of justifying, cri
tiquing, and mediating the world religions. Philosophy is entitled to a leading
role in the rational discourse of the world religions - as the justifier, critic, and
mediator of religious truth claims for those who stand outside a religious com
munity and are not counted among its adherents. The philosophical perspective
is distinguished from the theological in that the former is not dogmatic in the
sense of presupposing the validity of a canon of religious scriptures and doc
trines.
From their self-apprehension, the individual religions must find a theological
relationship to the truth claims of other religions. In the Christian context, this is
the task of the "theology of religions." While presupposing the validity of its
own theological doctrine, it undertakes the evaluation of other religions - of that
within other religions which is compatible or incompatible with its own theol
ogy and how the claims of other religions likewise to be authentic divine revela
tions relate to the revelation of one's own religion. The mission of the theology
of religions is of the greatest significance for peace between the religions, be
cause it codetermines the relationship of a religion to the other ad intra, from
within, for its believers and determines their assessment of and conduct toward
adherents of other religions. If a religion determined the relationship of its ad-