BC Symposia on Interreligious Dialogue

Yesterday evening marked the opening plenary session, open to the larger BC community, of the now annual Boston College Symposia on Interreligious Dialogue. Most of the Spirituality Committee, myself included, were in attendance at the BC Heights Room. The session was followed by an informal social, with wine and cheese and other finger foods provided by BC catering. Last year's event was headlined by David Burrell, a Notre Dame professor of philosophical theology who specializes in dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Following in Burrell's footsteps in 2009 comes University of Chicago professor David Tracy, one of North America's most prominent Catholic theologians. Like Burrell, Tracy approaches interreligious dialogue from a philosophical perspective and takes Western hermeneutics as his shining light. His opening address was entitled, "Understanding the Religious Other: Western Hermeneutics and Interreligious Dialogue." Catherine Keller of Drew University and S. Mark Heim of Andover Newton Theological School followed Tracy's 45-minute address as respondents.

Here is a brief summary of Tracy's address from Prof. Tracy himself: "This paper will address the difficult question of whether modern Western hermeneutics (especially those of Gadamer and Ricoeur) are helpful as heuristic guides for interreligious dialogues. The claim will be that Gadamer's model of conversation is indeed a helpful one and that Ricoeur's addition of explanatory methods and hermeneutics of retrieval and suspicion are also relevant. However, I will also claim that there are serious limits to the present hermeneutic models: namely Gadamer's idea of "fusion of horizons" and Ricoeur's notion of "appropriation." These hermeneutic claims must be faced with the question of radical otherness. This was central in the exchange between Gadamer and Derrida as well as Ricoeur and Levinas. Clearly radical otherness and difference are present in interreligious dialogues. The question of otherness and difference in a context of a revised hermeneutics will be posed as a possible heuristic tool for interreligious and intercultural dialogues."

While my own insufficient background in the hermeneutical philosophy of Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Derrida at times made it frustratingly difficult to follow, Tracy's address and Heim's and Keller's responses nevertheless provided some tantalizing food for thought in the highly-difficult-to-digest emerging fields of interreligious dialogue and comparative theology.

How much can we really understand about the 'Other'? How much should we want or expect to understand in dialogue? What are the aims of dialogue? Following up on Catherine Keller's comment on the etymology of 'empathy', is em-pathos (fully entering into the feeling of) in interreligious dialogue something we should strive for? Mark Heim made an interesting observation about the mindest that is presupposed when reading scriptural texts. Can a Christian, for example, really be able to understand a text from the tripitaka without that high degree of risk that comes with the expected degree of openness?

What are your thoughts?