JESUS, SYMBOL OF CHRIST THE CHRISTOLOGY OF RAIMON PANIKKAR Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master in Theological Studies By Justin M. Yankech Dayton, Ohio August 2012 JESUS, SYMBOL OF CHRIST THE CHRISTOLOGY OF RAIMON PANIKKAR Name: Yankech, Justin M. APPROVED BY: ____________________________________ Dennis M. Doyle, PhD. Faculty Advisor ____________________________________ Ramon Luzarraga, PhD. Faculty Reader ____________________________________ Cyril Orji, PhD. Faculty Reader ii ABSTRACT JESUS, SYMBOL OF CHRIST THE CHRISTOLOGY OF RAIMON PANIKKAR Name: Yankech, Justin M. University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. Dennis Doyle The present study investigates the means by which Raimon Panikkar negotiates between the traditional principles of Catholic theology and Christology and the goals and needs of his conceptions of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. During the last half of the 20th century Raimon Panikkar was a major figure in the field of comparative religion, interreligious dialogue and theology of religions. Based upon his work in those fields, Panikkar came to develop an account of the person and office of Christ. What resulted was a conception of Christ that began with the traditional principles of Catholic Christology and ultimately resulted in an account of Christ that stands in tension with some of those principles. This study examines the Christology of Raimon Panikkar, as it developed in response to his work in religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue, in light of the Christological principles outlined by the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. As an ecumenical council, Chalcedon established certain principles necessary for any orthodox account of Christ. Also, iii this study consults the Christological documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in order to establish how those principles were being maintained and interpreted in current debates over Christological accounts. In particular, the principle of the communicatio idiomatum, the communication of idioms, certified at Chalcedon, and utilized by the CDF, has played a major role in establishing the boundaries of Christology in contemporary Catholic theology. As a result of these sources, the conclusion of this study is that while Panikkar faithfully begins with the traditional principles of Catholic Christology, his concerns for religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue lead him to an account of Christ which stands in tension with Catholic Christological principles established by Chalcedon and overseen by the CDF; in particular, the communicatio idiomatum. iv Dedicated to my parents John and Cathy Yankech v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Dennis Doyle, my advisor, without whose help this project would not be what it is. For his patience, his persistence and his expertise, he has my deepest thanks. I would like to thank my wife, Leah Yankech, who has walked this long path right alongside me. Finally, I would like to thank my mother, Cathy, who never stopped asking if I was done. You all have my greatest and most sincere appreciation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………… iii DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.………………………………………………………….vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………………………...…………………...…………..1 CHAPTER 2. A BRIEF CHRISTOLOGICAL SURVEY………………...………………11 Part I. The Council of Chalcedon……………….………………….…………......11 Part II. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith…………………………..21 CHAPTER 3. PLURALISM AND THE COSMOTHEANRDIC EXPERIENCE……..30 Part I. The Argument for Pluralism……………………………………………31 Part II. Cosmotheandricism: Making Sense of the Experience of Pluralism……….40 CHAPTER 4. INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN THE WORK OF RAIMON PANIKKAR……………………………………………………………………….3 Part I. The Current Interreligious Context……………………………………..54 Part II. Dialogical Dialogue……………………………………………………..63 Part III. Intrareligious Dialogue…………………………………………………64 Part IV. The Form and Results of Interreligious Dialogue………………………67 CHAPTER 5. PANIKKAR’S CHRIST: FROM COSMIC MEDIATOR TO SYMBOL OF CHRIST…………………………………………………………………………..77 Part I. Christ as Mediator………………………………………………………78 Part II. The Symbolic Shift………………………………………………………86 Part III. Jesus, Symbol of Christ…………………………………………………97 CHAPTER 6. GENERAL CONCLUSION………………………...…………………114 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………..…………………118 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION For anyone attempting something akin to a systematization of his theology, Raimon Panikkar does not make the task easy. As someone who rarely seemed to even attempt a theological system, Panikkar’s theological writings are difficult to read in a linear fashion. What is apparent throughout Panikkar’s writings is a unifying thread of inspiration. Much has been made of his statement about being Christian, finding himself as a Hindu, and becoming a Buddhist without ever ceasing to be a Christian. This experience embodies the very same thread that runs throughout his work and writings. In many places he expresses it as being a shift in context; one in which Christians are coming into greater positive and mutually fecund ways of engaging other religious traditions. It is that experience for Christians and Christianity that so greatly sets the course for Panikkar’s work. Much also has been made of his childhood as the son of a Hindu father and Spanish Catholic mother. His life as a Catholic priest, with the multiple layers of discernment that such a decision would entail, foreshadows the great importance that Panikkar would place upon the experience of faith, the notion of religious identity and the multiple layers of identity which form a person. These elements are what clearly shaped the theological work of Panikkar. It is ultimately my conclusion that Panikkar provides an account of the person and office of Christ that is largely faithful to the traditional sources and principles of 1 Christological investigation. However, because he is attempting to transfer traditional Christology into what he perceives as the new context for Christians, which is not solely Christian, Panikkar’s Christology does pose a problem for Catholic theology. In particular, his notion of symbol and of Jesus Christ as symbol of the same universal cosmic Christ symbolized in other religious traditions, is the result of reading traditional Christology through his pluralistic and interreligious hermeneutic. The result is a form of symbol Christology which violates the traditional principle of the communicatio idiomatum. In context to other theological expansions of Christ to other religions, Panikkar’s symbol Christology poses problems for traditional Catholic Christological parameters. It is also important at this point to deal with what is likely the more ecclesial concerns about Panikkar’s work. Foremost, Panikkar never appears to see his work as simply Catholic theology. In fact, he might even argue that he is distinctly not doing “Catholic” theology. One might better describe him as a Catholic theologian experiencing Christ through other religions. Thus he might be characterized as doing transreligious theology. In many ways, Panikkar envisions the paradoxical relations between religions in two ways. First, religions are wholly and completely distinct unto themselves. They might have similarities and use similar ideas, but they are ultimately different from one another. They are mutually exclusive. Christianity is not Hinduism is not Buddhism. Second, religions are ultimately the same. They all want the same thing; salvation, moksha, nirvana (though these same things are completely different). They all get where they want to go through the same conduit (though these conduits cannot be equated between themselves). For Panikkar, this means that Christianity and Hinduism are functionally the same (they get their practitioners to some 2 salvation), but they are not identical (they do so by radically different ways and get them to radically different places). For Christians (ad intra) traditional theological principles are fine and adequate. Let the Church be the Church. But for what Panikkar wants to do (make Christ and Christianity intelligible, palatable and adoptable to other religions) it is necessary to go beyond and transcend the overly restrictive theological boundaries closing Christianity in and cutting it off from other religions. It is still important for Christian theologians to continue doing Christian theology. For Panikkar, his work stands outside of those debates, while remaining dependent upon them and contextualizing them. Here his notion of texts, contexts and texture from the 1970’s can be helpful. Christianity is the result of a faith response to a particular “text,” Christ as experienced in Scripture. As it continues through time it finds itself responding to different and changing contexts, e.g. Greco-Roman, Latin, Global. Both of these however, the text and context, are all located relative to the “texture” of reality. Further, all other religions are in a similar relation to the same texture of reality, which relativizes all religions. Thus, each religion is unique; and yet, each religion is similar (but not identical) in relation to the singular and eternal texture of reality. I would argue, though this is never explicitly expressed in his work, that this has much to do with Panikkar’s appropriation of the Vedantic Hindu notion of advaita (which he understands as irreducible non-duality). Indeed, it is quite likely that much of Panikkar’s work is the result of the use of advaita to provide some useful resolution to the Western intellectual problem of the One and the many, Being and beings. To go even further, I would argue that the Christology that precipitates out of Panikkar’s career is the result of the application of advaita to help understand the tension between duality and unity with 3