Truth or Truths—How Does This Fit in a World of Religious Plurality?

When invited to lecture, give talks, or present a paper on interreligious dialogue, one runs almost as if by design into one issue: the interrelationship between the question of truth, our faith-claims, the faith-claims of others, and how to deal with religious plurality. If you are right, people say, then we must be wrong. If you are right, if you provide space theologically for other faiths, then we must be wrong—our teaching, the basis of our faith and belief, the very foundation of our salvation must be wrong.

Bishop Krister Stendahl, a Swedish-American theologian and New Testament scholar, once expressed this tension in the form of a question: “How can I sing my song of praise of Jesus without offending the other?” Christians want to praise Jesus, and praising him means saying that he is the Savior; he is the only one, and there is no other next to him, not only for themselves but for everyone. This is where the problem begins: The praise of Jesus seems to say that other ways of faith and praise are not valid ways. Stendahl said that praise of Jesus should not be understood to exclude the experiences of other relationships. Praise of Jesus belongs in the same category as love expressed between two human beings. Love language, or caressive language as Stendahl called it, is and remains an expression of a relationship between two persons in love with each other. It is a declaration, a proclamation, an announcement, an embrace of two people in love. It is a particular language. Blaise Pascal’s words are helpful for our understanding: “Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas” (We know the truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart). This is neither sentimental language nor the language of a timetable or government decree. Love language has its own logic and belongs to those in love, having experienced meeting someone in the depth of their being. It is a language of a special kind, which does not right away relate to anyone but the two who are in love. Is this not also our experience, when we find ourselves next to a couple busy telling each other how much they love each other? We feel that we are witnessing something private. To be quite honest, is not such love language quite out of context for the outsider to listen to? It belongs only and is meaningful only to those who have a relationship with each other.

The same is applicable in the relation between a human being in his or her praise of God. Love language is also the language spoken in the relationship between God and human beings. When human beings speak love language with God—when they praise God—they pronounce their love for God and their feelings about God. There is a lot of love language in the Bible. People express how much they love God, how they have been saved by God’s grace, how they have been convinced that there is no one like God, that God is truly the only one for them. Let us read from Rom. 11:33–36 (N.R.S.V.). This is pure love language:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

Every word is true in Paul’s praise of God. Paul is full of love and, one could say, admiration for God. This is what Paul believes about God. When Paul thinks of God, this is what comes out of his heart and mouth. This is his belief and creed. It is interesting to remember that the...