If we now come to consider from the point of view of
their relations with
the world of today the three great religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
we can recognize the enormous impact they could have in the world. The modern
world, even it has been enriched with many exterior values (which one would not
wish to despise in any way) has nevertheless become spiritually impoverished to
a disturbing degree. The Orientals would say: it has become a world "of
having" at the expense of the world" of being". One can observe
that while the means for securing well being and an easier, more comfortable and
pleasurable existence have increased. Human happiness has not automatically
increased; indeed, in many cases it has diminished to a preoccupying extent. One
of the reason for this human condition of dissatisfaction (to which we could add
the wide area of problems stretching from misery to injustice, to hatred, to
denial of liberty), indeed, we would say the fundamental reason from which man's
profound unease and dissatisfaction and those other problems follow, is that the
world of today has, to a great extent, turned a way from God and from His Law,
and considers that it is sufficient to itself.
In a world where "God is absent" man finds himself fearfully
isolated and, as it were, abandoned down a blind alley. Only in God, the God of
Abraham, is man able to find his true measure, and to live his existence in time
to its fullness, opening himself to the certainty of eternal life. "When I
turn a way from you ", says Juda Halvy in his poem, Kuzari "although I
live, I am dead; but when I draw near to you, even if I dead I am a live".
In his book The Primal Vision, John Taylor gives this view of the
African people: "The African myth does not tell of men driven from
Paradise, but of God disappearing from the world".
While Judaism, Christianity and Islam are at one in their affirmation
that God is "Wholly-Other", they also agreed that He is the
"Wholly-Near". As a powerful Muslim expression puts it, God is closer
to man than his own jugular vein. Man is not a lost and practically useless
fragment of the cosmos, but a creature of God, made in hie image and
consequently worthy of respect and love. Man is called to live a moral life,
bound to his fellow human beings by the ideal of peace and brotherhood. If man
gives way to the temptation of "liberating " himself from God, he ends
by becoming the slave of those petty but terrible "gods" called power,
wealth, pleasure, etc.; only too often these "gods", these
"idols", hide under noble names such as progress, social concern, and
even freedom. Yet only as a creature of God does man receive the right to
subject the earth, to till it and keep it ( le'avdah welesharah) [Gen.
2:15]; the Qur’an says that creation is subject to man because he is the
representative of God (His khalifah).
All of us here feel the awesome but marvelous responsibility of being
"friends of God" and we are sure that by being such we are thereby
authentic friend of our fellow men. We have never separated, and even less have
we seen an opposition, between the world as such and the religious world. We
have never seen them as two separate kingdoms; they both come from God!
"The word 'methistemi', in the sense of transference out of one realm into
another, is only once used in the New Testament. The typical New Testament word
is "metanoia", which means turning about. The emphasis is entirely on
a change of direction, not on a change of position" (John Taylor).
I think it would be useful here to
recall the words of Martin Buber: “One does not find God if one remain in the
world. One does not find God if goes out of the world…Certainly, God is the
“Wholly Other”, but is also the “Wholly-Same”, the all present. He is
indeed the ‘mysterium tremendum’ at the sight of whom we are
terrified, but He is also the mystery of presence who is closer to me than
myself”. William Temple once made this seemingly paradoxical observation:
“Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions in the world. It does
take the terrestrial realities seriously”. The author is saying that it takes
terrestrial reality seriously because it takes God seriously. I think the same
could be said of the Jewish and Muslim faiths.
At this point I should like to make a personal observation that comes to
me spontaneously from my work in the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians.
Side by side with the Jews and Muslims, namely the brothers and sisters who
share my personal adherence to the faith of Abraham, there exist millions of men
and women (I do not hesitate to say hundred of millions) belonging to non-Abrahamic
religions – such as Hindus, Buddhist, Shintoists, Confucianists,
etc- whom I feel to be practically united to me by their belief in divine and
religious values. There are others who state that “they have no religion “
(as I have often heard young friends of mine say to me, be they from Hong-Kong,
Singapore or Los Angeles); but if push a little further we often find that they
mean is that they do not belong to a Christian Church, or that they are not part
of the Umma, or, in other words, that they do not belong to any religion
organization as institution. Yet they are often really and truly “friends of
God” and thus in a way form part of our community of religious believers.
Martian said: “men only become one by their spirit”. I would say that around
us and together with us there are millions of such men of the spirit. Sometimes
they are of such spiritual depth that they give the impression of being “true
mystics”; their eyes and hearts are turned towards the Eternal God.
This is a reality that gives us enormous encouragement. Not that it is
our intention to form a stronger and more compact “front” to set against the
“front” of the non-believers. No. This would be an offence against the God
who loves us, and whom we would wish to see loved by all. We are happy because
wesee that the family of believers in God is a large one, and we pray to the
most High that all of humanity may come to be part of this family. Only He has
the power to achieve it.
