The Work of Discovery: Interreligious Dialogue as Life-Long Learning

At the beginning of his great treatise, De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine says that "[t]here are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the process of discovering what we need to learn, and the process of presenting what we have learnt."¹ By doctrine Augustine means not just the content of faith but, more fundamentally, the way we are taught by God's grace and learn how to interpret and communicate what we have learned. Scripture is made up of words, which act as signs pointing to the action of God's Word in the world and, which, therefore, form the Church in a particular way. If the text is to be interpreted and explained correctly, the work of discovery (inventio) needs to be informed by knowledge of the Canon of scripture as well as by virtues of humility and piety. Inner and outer movements work hand in hand, two parts of a single dialectical process: the conviction that "the words" do indeed point to the Word and the act of explanation, which in seeking to communicate that conviction is forever addressing questions raised by the world "beyond." Put like that, it is not that the Christian teacher first apprehends the Word by listening attentively to what has been proclaimed in the Gospel and then reformulates it, translating the terms as appropriate, so that others can understand the message. Rather, the two movements, activities of learning and teaching, work together, provoking a deeper understanding of the mystery of God's love. Listening to others and learning the skills of speaking truth in love are not by-products of "Christian teaching"; they are its very expression.

This is, first and foremost, Augustine's own experience—being called to that inner conversion of heart where he learned what he most needed and had long sought to avoid: the inner instruction of the Word of God. The treatise is neither a polemic against particular adversaries, nor a catechetical summary, which unpacks the essentials of Christian faith. It speaks rather of what the Church is called to be: a learning community or a school of faith. This, however, is no ordinary school made up of teachers and pupils in formal relationship with each other. Indeed such distinctions, as Nicholas Lash puts it, have to be subordinated to the "recognition that all of us are called to lifelong learning in the Spirit, and all of us are called to embody, to communicate, and to protect what we have learned."² Such learning is an end in itself—not just a practical task which demands the honing of human skills for the sake of making clear what is to be passed on but one which is deeply theological because its object is nothing less than to become learned in Christ and thus taken into the very heart of God. In Book Four, written long after Book One, Augustine focuses on the qualities necessary in the Christian teacher and draws attention to the ethical problem inherent in the use of rhetoric—the disconnect, which often opens up between what one says and what one does. Truth can drown in a show of eloquence; mere words can overwhelm and distort. Before preaching, says Augustine, it is important for speakers to pray, both for themselves that they may speak effectively, and for those they address that they may listen effectively. It is thus that he ends with an important disclaimer. He thanks God that he has been able to express "not the sort of person that I am - for I have many failings - but the sort of person that those who apply themselves to sound teaching [Titus 1.9], in other words, Christian teaching, on behalf of others as well as themselves, ought to be."³

Rediscovering Our Story

This essay arises from the experience of interreligious dialogue as an experience of learning; more specifically, it is about the "sort of person" Christians are called by the Spirit of Christ to become. My primary argument is that the virtues, which make Christian living possible, are formed in response to the...