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The Search for Pluralism in the Writings of Said Nursi and John

Courtney Murray: Prophetic Pluralism in Islam and Roman

Catholicism

Iain T. Benson**©

Abstract:

Pluralism and development are concepts that often produce confusion and, for some, fear.

Every tradition must develop since even settled truths need to adjust to fit new facts and

contexts. Understanding this and the means of interpretation used to explain such

applications can go a long way to approach change in ways that honour tradition and the

nature of human communities. Pluralism and diversity, properly understood, need not

threaten religious associations that believe their tradition has the fullest insights about

truth. This paper examines the search for pluralism in the writings of two people - - one

Muslim and the other Roman Catholic -- Said Nursi (1877-1960) and John Courtney

Murray S.J. (1904-1967). The paper also touches briefly on contemporary Jewish

writings on pluralism. The goal of the analysis is to show, first, that developments of the

understanding of pluralism within Roman Catholicism were slow and controversial and

that the man who took a prophetic stance in relation to that work, John Courtney Murray,

suffered for it with exclusion and censorship before his ideas became central to key

documents of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty. Second, within Islam,

Said Nursi develops an understanding of pluralism by taking a prophetic stance that led,

in his case, to close to three decades of exile, imprisonment and censorship. Viewing the

work of both writers side by side can lead to insights about the nature of prophecy and

pluralism within great religious traditions and insights about living together with respect

for the beliefs of others. In this task Religions can play a key role and this paper hopes

to contribute to this by quoting from key documents within the Roman Catholic tradition

that show the developed insights within that religious faith community about living

together with respect for those who have other faiths (religious and non-religious).

I would like to dedicate this paper to the memory of Professor Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘ who first introduced me to

the work of Said Nursi and to our mutual friend David Goa, Executive Director of the Chester Ronning Centre for

the Study of Religion and Public Life, Alberta, Canada, who has done so much to encourage Muslim-Christian

dialogue and the friendships that can become its richest ground. I would also like to thank Dr. Faris Kaya and

Hakan Gulerce of the Istanbul Science and Culture Foundation for their encouragement and assistance. **

B.A. (Hons.), M.A. (Cantab), J.D., PhD. Professor Extraordinary, Department of Constitutional Law and

Philosophy of Law, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; Senior Fellow, Chester Ronning

Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life, University of Alberta, Canada; Research Associate, South

African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law, Johannesburg South

Africa.

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Introduction: The Unavoidablity of Pluralism

O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of male and female, and made you into

nations and tribes that you may know each other.” That is, “I created you as peoples,

nations and tribes, so that you should know one another and the relations between you in

social life, and assist one another; not so that you should regard each other as strangers,

refusing to acknowledge one another and nurturing hostility and enmity. That is to say,

being divided into groups and tribes should lead to mutual acquaintance and mutual

assistance, not to antipathy and mutual hostility”1

Holy Qur'an, Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13 with Commentary from Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s

Risale-i Nur.

Pluralism, understood as diversity, is a fact of human existence.2 Like belief, it can have

express or hidden dimensions and, like belief, it is there whether acknowledged or not. Laws

and practices can allow and encourage pluralism or they can attempt to restrict it. However such

laws and practices are structured, there will be pluralism even within communities that profess

homogeneity of belief. This is because human beings are in the process of interpretation and not

all interpretations agree nor do they remain static. Where there is disagreement there is pluralism

and where there is pluralism there is disagreement.

Pluralism, as diversity, as the above surah from the Holy Qu’ran shows, is part of creation and

therefore not something to fear but something through which, properly understood, we can learn

and that can enrich our lives. Creation is about diversity and development as we see all around

us in the stars, in plants, in all of nature and in our friends and ourselves; “another name for

time”, as the saying goes, “is change”.

Being mature humans involves learning to live with pluralism either of an open or a

hidden variety. The question is, will we view difference and change merely as threats or as

things to be accepted and understood as part of living together in communities - - not only with

those who claim to believe as we do but with those who do not make the same professions of

belief.

1 Nursi, “The Letters”, in Risale-i Nur, 1.0 CD 379 – 380, commenting upon the Holy Qu’ran 49.

2 I give a useful set of definitions of “pluralism” in the next section of this paper.

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In this paper, I shall tease out, in an introductory way, some of the dimensions of

pluralism in relation to religion. To narrow the scope of what should be a longer inquiry into

something more manageable this paper will narrow “religion” to Islam and Christianity (with a

small excursion into Judaism) and because that is still a vast area, to something smaller but I

hope useful: “pluralism as it is found in the works of the Muslim writer Said Nursi (1877-1960)

and the Catholic writer John Courtney Murray (1904-1967).

We shall see that both writers have taken a view of their respective religions that, while

affirming the truth of their respective faiths, none the less allows “room” for others to live their

own faiths with integrity in the search for truth.3 Thus, while their religious beliefs affirm that

they believe they practice “the truth faith” they do not claim that others must affirm that faith by

force or coercion.

Just as there are differences of interpretation within traditions about the meaning of

certain terms, rules and their applications, so there are different interpretations between

traditions. Terminology is always blurred at the edges meaning that it can have nuance or

vagueness. This is not to be feared but recognized and it is also important because it allows for

adjustment and adaptation.

In such a manner a judge in certain legal traditions argues from precedent in relation to

case law. A new set of facts arises in relation to a dispute and a legal principle has to be applied

to these facts. How shall this be done to ensure fairness of legal application and predictability

for those in future who wish their actions to be “according to law”? The answer is that

developments must be careful, gradual and, usually, “as little as possible” to accomplish the

necessary development. If the facts are, as is said “on all fours’ with an earlier decided case of a

court of comparable authority (the same level) then we say stare decisis - - precedent is binding.

3 Colin Turner and Hasan Horkuc, Said Nursi (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009) 83 note that “For Nursi, the truth is

where it lies, regardless of whose hands it lies in.” Citing Hakan Yavuz, the author’s comment that Nursi, unlike

others such as Mawdudi, Qutb or Banna, “...did not seek a political collective movement to control the state. He

stressed the formation of an individual consciousness as a precondition for a just society. He wanted to offer a new

conceptual ground to Muslims to defend their inner world against the expanding ideologies of the West” (101,

footnote omitted). I shall comment further on this concern about the nature of politics at the conclusion to this

paper.

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As it is with law, so with religious interpretations. These necessarily involve the faithful

in applying traditional principles to the facts of change. Religious principles must remain

faithful to the original teachings while the faithful wish to apply them to the changing world

around them. Not that religious principles must always accept what the “world around” wishes!

Not at all! In fact, one of the greatest tensions in religions is when the contemporary spirit

wishes to force changes that the religious tradition must weigh and sometimes reject.

Whether and to what extent religious traditions “develop” or change or even accept this

concept is an area itself of controversy. That they do so cannot be denied and neither subject of

these reflections deny such developments as I shall show below. This is how it will be with

human communities. Always weighing their settled interpretations and beloved truths alongside

challenges and in the midst of doing so, prayerfully finding or trying to find ways of explanation

that allow for peaceful co-existence between those who believe one thing and those who believe

another.

The Prophetic Path:

Change often makes people nervous and excites emotions and tensions. New ways of

expressing old truths, no matter what our tradition, call us to evaluate our deepest beliefs

sometimes in fresh ways that emerge from within our traditions. The role of the person of

change - - one aspect of the prophetic role, related to revelation and truth - - leads to insight and

tension and tests faith. Sometimes those who exercise what we term the “prophetic” roles suffer

for their insights. In both of the men whose work I am discussing, suffering, censorship and

rejection played a part in their biographies. I shall focus, not on that, but on the insights for

which they suffered as they can teach us much. As Said Nursi wrote: "The All-Wise Qur'an

sends the Prophets to man's communities as leaders and vanguards of spiritual and moral

progress."4 Through reflecting on their shared insights we can come to understand their work as

“prophetic” in the two great faiths of Islam and Roman Catholicism, we can learn from their

insights at a time when great traditions are in contact as never before in human history and have

4 Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur, 20th Word, Second Station 261. See online at:

http://www.nur.org/treatise/collection/words/word20a.htm

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to adjust to living together as a matter of urgency for civil peace and harmony. Commentators

on Nursi have noted his own ambivalence about and removal from active engagement with

politics due to his awareness of the “corruption” of the politics of his day. Both writers

implicitly or explicitly affirm the application of faith and reason to the development of

understanding within their traditions and created waves of opposition as a result.

Colin Turner and Hasan Horkuc quote Hakan Yavuz as follows:

Nursi’s life and teaching always preach non-violence and he asks his followers to pursue civic resistance.

He derives this commitment to non-violence from the tenets of Islam and the Sufi perception of human

dignity. Human dignity is the key and organizing principle of Nursi’s writings. Although he invites

Muslims to non-violence, Nursi examines the sociological background of violence. He identifies a number

of conditions that impel people to resort to violence: ignorance, poverty and the lawlessness. Nursi argues

that violence exists because power is not constrained and controlled by religious teachings.5

Dialogue and discussion are the means of finding out how to live together and the extent

of our embrace of friendship within difference - - not denying the truth of our own belief systems

but neither claiming exclusivity for them, is a key to living together in harmony and peace.

Claims of exclusivity of belief and denial of place for others to seek the truth in their own ways,

is often a cause of disharmony, disagreement and bloodshed.

It is also a reality of terminology that it does not carry all its meanings explicitly. Many

important things can be held implicitly and sometimes coming to understand these implicit or

hidden meanings is important in order to understand what is being meant.

Taken together this means that when we come to examine a term such as “pluralism” we

need to be careful to make sure that what we mean by the term is clear and that if there are other

meanings inconsistent with the one we mean, we make that clear at the outset;

Definitions of “Pluralism”:

There are many definitions of pluralism but one that I think most useful here is to define it as: a

philosophical and theological perspective on the world that emphasizes diversity rather than

homogeneity, multiplicity rather than unity and difference rather than sameness. Pluralism as I

5 Colin Turner and Hasan Horkuc, Said Nursi, note #3 above, 103.

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wish to investigate it, sees truth as truth wherever it is found and recognizes that the search for

truth is in all human communities. 6 A further aspect of pluralism, easy to overlook, is that,

properly understood it either expressly or more often implicitly involves a useful ongoing

dialogue about truth and therefore should allow for agreement and disagreement as part of this

“development.”

Structural Pluralism:

Here truth claims are maintained within specific traditions and rather than affirm that “truth is

one” or that ‘there is no truth’ this form of pluralism recognizes that understandings of truth are

developed within traditions and may overlap with insights with other traditions in which case the

truth being understood is shared and a deeper insight about the nature of truths that may be

shared is not promulgated on eventual homogeneity or convergence. What is needed in social

ordering are principles of modus vivendi that allow for co-existence with disagreements and

agreements about the nature of truth. Such disagreements are not denials that there is truth but

merely a recognition that we disagree about its nature or extent. Emphasis in this approach can

be on the necessity of freedom within and between associations with different explanations of

“the truth”. It is not, therefore, a denial of “truth” but a recognition of practical limitations in

living with others who do not believe the same thing. It places a premium on peaceful co-

existence, respect, humility and other “civic virtues” and calls for greater understanding of their

contents.

What distinguishes the various approaches to pluralism is how they approach civic

ordering (law and politics particularly in relation to the freedom of association and diversity)

and the nature of the State (how far it purports to control religious exercise for example).

Pluralism as Implying Disagreement and Dialogue:

John Courtney Murray, the American Jesuit who did much to further ideas of pluralism in

relation to the understanding of that within Roman Catholicism, in the “Foreword” to his

important collection of essays that exercised a pivotal influence on the Second Vatican Council

(1963-1965), wrote this about “pluralism”:

6 This definition, thus combines and revises definitions given Calvin O. Sprag in Robert Audi (ed) The Cambridge

Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 624 and in Ian S. Markham and Suendam

Birinci Pirm, An Introduction to Said Nursi (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) 194.

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The term might have many meanings. By pluralism here I mean the coexistence within the one political

community of groups who hold divergent and incompatible views with regard to religious questions – those

ultimate questions that concern the nature and destiny of man within a universe that stands under the reign

of God. Pluralism therefore implies disagreement and dissension within the community. But it also

implies a community within which there must be agreement and consensus. There is no small political

problem here. If society is to be at all a rational process, some set of principles must motivate the general

participation of all religious groups, despite their dissensions, in the oneness of the community. On the

other hand, these common principles must not hinder the maintenance by each group of its own different

identity. The problem of pluralism is, of course, practical; as a project, its “working out” is an exercise in

civic virtue. But the problem is also theoretical; its solution is an exercise in political intelligence that will

lay down, as the basis for the “working out,” some sort of doctrine.7

Notable in this formulation is that disagreement and dissension are not signs of failure but

of vitality as they imply life and the reality, as well, of agreement and consensus. The quest

amidst difference is to find and describe and develop those core “civic virtues” that make the

common life possible, peaceful and fruitful across communities of difference. The theological

and political dimensions of the problem are different but inter-related depending on our

conception of the relationship between religions and the state.

With respect to American religious citizens of various sorts Murray, who lived and wrote

in America, noted that:

...every church claims this freedom to define itself, and claims too the consequent right to reject definition

at the hands of any secular authority. To resign this freedom or to abdicate this right would be at once the

betrayal of religion and the corruption of politics.8

Murray noted that these questions are “put with special sharpness to the Catholic

intelligence” because:

The Catholic may not, as others do, merge his religious and his patriotic faith, or submerge one in the other.

The simplest solution is not for him. He must reckon with his own tradition of thought, which is wider and

deeper than any that America has elaborated. He must also reckon with his own history, which is longer

than the brief centuries that America has lived...The conceptual equipment for dealing with the problem is

by no means lacking to the Catholic intelligence....[but he must be careful] lest the new problem be

distorted or the ancient faith deformed.9

Murray ran into difficulty with Church authorities and was “silenced” for a time and

asked to submit his articles on theology to Rome where they were refused. Over time, however,

7 John Courtney Murray S.J., We Hold These Truths (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960) x emphasis added.

8 Ibid. xi

9 Ibid xi-xii.

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he again emerged and became, eventually, influential on some of the key (and heavily debated)

documents emerging from the Second Vatican Council.10

Due to the manner in which the idea of “development” was dealt with at the Vatican

Council in the 1960’s and the rigorous philosophy of religion and culture that have been

developed over millennia within Catholicism, it may well be that some of the principles that will

be observed in the work of Murray, and later Catholic documents, may shed light that is useful to

Islam. After all, it stands to reason that many of the necessary theological and philosophical

steps that need to be engaged in relation to establishing just plural orders within Muslim

countries today may well have parallels with those Catholics have engaged. It is for scholars of

Islam in general and Nursi in particular to make the application of the principles that this paper

sketches in broad outline and to draw necessary connections and distinctions.

Pluralism Rejects Exclusive claims for the State but Allows them for Subsidiary

Associations:

10 See: Leon Hooper, S.J. “John Courtney Murray” in American National Biography, John A Garraty and Mark C.

Carnes (eds) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). This source describes the background to Murray’s

controversies with the Church as follows: Murray eventually argued that Catholic teaching on church/state relations

was inadequate to the moral functioning of contemporary peoples. The Anglo-American West, he claimed, had

developed a fuller truth about human dignity, namely the responsibility of all citizens to assume moral control over

their own religious beliefs, wresting control from paternalistic states. For Murray this truth was an “intention of

nature” or a new dictate of natural law philosophy. Murray’s claim that a new moral truth had emerged outside the

church led to conflict with Augustus Cardinal Ottaviani (prefect of the Vatican Holy Office) and the eventual

Vatican demand, in 1954, that Murray cease writing on religious freedom and stop publication of his two latest

articles on the issue.

Murray continued to submit religious liberty manuscripts privately to Rome, all of which were rejected.

When finally invited to the second (though not the first) session of Vatican Council II (1963), he drafted the third

and fourth versions of what eventually became the conciliar endorsement of religious freedom, Dignitatis humanae

personae (1965). After the council he continued writing on the issue, stating that the arguments offered by the final

decree were inadequate, though the affirmation of religious freedom was unequivocal.

At that time Murray turned to questions of how his church might arrive at new theological doctrines. He

argued that, if Catholics were to arrive at new truths about God, they would have to do so in conversation “on a

footing of equality” with non-Catholics and atheists. He suggested restructuring his church, which over the last two

centuries had developed its notion of authority, according to him, at the expense of the bonds of love (secured in

ongoing conversation) that more foundationally ought to define Christian living.

http://woodstock.georgetown.edu/library/Hooper/MURBIO.4.htm

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Throughout history all religions at one time or another claim the ability and the authority to rule

all aspects of the State and such claims often prove problematic. Where is the place of

determination of the truth or falsity of religious truth claims? If it is the Divine who will judge

then it is not for humans to make these judgments in time. Political Islam of the sort that aimed

at establishing “a near theocratic Islamic state” has been criticized by some scholars as

totalitarian and “at variance with genuine Islamic tradition.” 11

Conclusion on Islam and Pluralism

As one contemporary scholar, Reza Shah-Kazemi, has noted in relation to “tolerance”:

For Muslims, tolerance of the other is integral to the practice of Islam. It is not an

optional extra, a cultural luxury. The Quran sets forth an expansive vision of diversity

and difference, plurality and indeed of universality. This is all the more ironic since the

practice of contemporary Muslim states, not to mention extra-state groups and actors,

falls lamentably short of those expectations as well as of current standards of tolerance

set by the secular West.12

Shah-Kazemi goes on to observe that in response to this various people within and

outside the Muslim world advocate a “western approach” as a corrective to “tradition and

religiosity” but he rejects this. A “more fruitful response” according to him is to see the

development of “tolerant codes of conduct as expressions of the universal principle of tolerance,

and to discern this principle at the very heart of the vision of Islam itself: a vision in which the

11

Asma Afsaruddin criticizing Pakistani thinker Abl-‘Ala Mawdudi in Fred Dallmayr Integral Pluralism: Beyond

Culture Wars (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 2010) 88. “what is problematic here is not the idea of divine

rule as such (a a corollary of the belief in a Supreme Being) but rather its politicization and conflation with religious

autocracy [and]....the slim scriptural basis for the idea.” Dallmayr is also critical of a certain “hankering for power”

amongst the so-called Christian “Religious Right” in America (and by implication elsewhere) - that results in an

“...indiscriminate welding of faith and power politics” with the difference being that this “movement”, unlike

political Islam, also endorses “corporate capitalism, consumer culture, religious fervor and political ambition”

driven by a “triumphalist spirit” that lends the leadership to be receptive to “crusading ventures” that include “the

doctrine of preemptive warfare” (at 88-89). Dallmayr also points out that other groups of Christians have opposed

these tendencies. Reflection on human communities discloses that the claim not only to exclusivity of the truth and

exclusion of others is as much based upon psychological factors as theological. In every form of human society

there seem to be those who cause dissent and discord as well as those who seek peace, harmony and cooperation.

The fact that every sort of human association from sports groups to political parties to religious organizations knows

these kinds of “personalities” suggests that we need to look elsewhere than religion per se for what we might term

“the discordant personality type.” Nursi’s rejection of war and “enmity” is well known and visible throughout his

works and I shall discuss that further below. 12

Reza Shah-Kazemi “Tolerance” in Amyn B. Sajoo, ed, A Companion to Muslim Ethics (London: I.B. Tauris,

2010) 167-186 at 168.

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plurality of religious paths to the One is perceived as a reflection of the spiritual infinity of the

One.”13

What this form of tolerance leading to plurality would result in, according to Shah-

Kazemi, is “tolerance of human diversity.” The framework that results involves both a duty and

a right. The ethical duty is “to permit people of different faiths to practice their own specific

ways of embodying these universal values” and the spiritual right “to benefit from the varied

cultural expressions” of the universals themselves.

Said Nursi and Pluralism:

Many scholars have touched upon Nursi’s thought and writings in relation to pluralism and I do

not intend to repeat those materials here except by way of the central conclusions.14

Nursi

advocated the diversity of faith in the following terms:

When you know your way and opinions to be true, you have the right to say, “My way is right and the

best.” But you do not have the right to say, “Only my way is right.” According to the sense of “the eye of

contentment is too dim to perceive faults; it is the eye of anger that exhibits all vice”; your unjust view and

distorted opinion cannot be the all-decisive judge and cannot condemn the belief of another as invalid.15

It is well known that Nursi pioneered and advocated Muslim-Christian dialogue and, similar

to the passage just cited, also wrote that the reason for conflict among the people of truth “while

the misguided and worldly co-operate without rivalry” is that religious oppositions are

maintained by failure to recognize the need:

1) To act positively, that is, out of love for one’s own outlook, avoiding enmity for other outlooks, not

criticizing them, interfering in their beliefs and sciences, or in any way concerning oneself with them.

2) To adopt a just rule of conduct that the follower of any right outlook has the right to say, “My outlook is

true, or the best,” but not that “My outlook alone is true.” Or that “My outlook alone is good” thus

implying the falsity or repugnance of all other outlooks.16

Finally, further evidence of Nursi’s practical pluralism was his belief that Christians and

Muslims should make alliance to fight atheism and other irreligious ideologies. He wrote:

13

Ibid. 14

See, for example: Ian Markham and Suendam Berinci Pirim, “Nursi’s Approach to Disagreement and Pluralism”

in An Introduction to Said Nursi: Life, Thought and Writings (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) 51-61; 15

Nursi, “The Letters” in Risale-i Nur 1.0 CD, 314 cited in Hasan Horkuc, “New Muslim Discourses on Pluralism

in the Post-Modern Age: Nursi on Religious Pluralism and Tolerance” The American Journal of Islamic Social

Sciences, 19/2 (2002) 68-86 (emphasis added). 16

Nursi, “The Flashes” in Risale-i Nur, 1.0 CD 203 cited in Hasan Horkuc, ibid 75.

11

It is even recorded in authentic traditions of the Prophet that at the end of time the truly pious among the

Christians will unite with the People of the Qur’an and fight their common enemy irreligion. And at this

time, too, the people of religion and truth need to unite sincerely not only with their own brothers and

fellow believers, but also with the truly pious and spiritual ones the Christians, temporarily from the

discussion and debate of the points of difference in order to combat their joint enemy – aggressive

atheism.17

Clearly the dominance of contemporary cultures by atheism and agnosticism which, in

often implicit ways, or by confusions as to the nature of “secularism” seeks to drive all religions

out of fair public treatment (such as funding of religious schools) in favour of increasingly

strident agnosticism and atheism masquerading as “neutrality” is a matter that concerns all

religious citizens who have common cause, despite their religious differences, to seek justice for

religions generally.18

The Roman Catholic Tradition: John Courtney Murray and Dignitatus Humanae (1965)

The Catholic Church in the Vatican II Ecumenical Council (1963-1965) recognized and

encouraged a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship between Church and State and the

limits on the role of each in various places. I shall touch on some of those here. That there

should be a distinction between the Church and the political community was set out in the

following terms:

It is highly important, especially in pluralistic societies, that proper views exist

of the relation between the political community and the Church. Thus the faithful

will be able to make a clear distinction between what a Christian conscience

leads them to do in their own name as citizens, whether as individuals or in

association, and what they do in the name of the Church and in union with her

shepherds.

17

Nursi, “The Flashes” in Risale-i Nur, 1.0 CD 204 note 7 cited in Hasan Horkuc, ibid.; See also, on dialogue

among and between religions, Abdelaziz Berghout “Nursi’s Vision for a New Universal Culture of Dialogue” in

Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘ (ed) Spiritual Dimensions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur (Albany: SUNY Press,

2008) 231-258. See also, the work of Ian Markham cited elsewhere in this paper. 18

Qutb Mustapha Sano in “The Basis of Present Day Civilization According to the Risale-i Nur” in Sixth

International Symposium, Globalization, Ethics and Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur, (Istanbul: Sözler,

2004) 156-167 (at 165) has noted: “during the periods of supremacy of Islamic civilization in such places as

Andalucia, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, history witnesses to the mutual assistance and solidarity that were prevalent.

Christians were able to live their Christianity in the shade of Islamic civilization and Jews their Judaism. Whatever

people’s religion, whatever their race, love, altruism and togetherness were the norm.”

12

The role and competence of the Church being what it is, she must in no way be

confused with the political community, nor bound to any political system. For she

is at once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendence of the human person.

In their proper spheres, the political community and the Church ar e mutually

independent and self-governing. Yet, by a different title, each serves the personal

and social vocation of the same human beings. This service can be more

effectively rendered for the good of all, if each works better for wholesome

mutual cooperation, depending on the circumstances of time and place.19

The vision of the human community put forward by the Catholic Church is based on the

fact that all people are called to the same end: God himself. From this comes the principle that

love of neighbour is inseparable from love for God. Two “Declarations” from the Second

Council (1963-1965), Dignitatis Humanae and Nostrae Aetate20

are of particular importance in

describing the Catholic conception of dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other

religions.

Nostrea Aetate: “The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian

Religions” (October 28, 1965)

In Nostrae Aetate, the Declaration specifically addresses various religions in terms of the

questions central to the profound human mysteries:

What is a man? What is the meaning and the purpose of our life? What is goodness and what is sin? What

gives rise to our sorrows and to what intent? Where lies the path to true happiness? What is the truth about

death, judgment, and retribution beyond the grave? What, finally is that ultimate and unutterable mystery

which engulfs our being, and whence we take our rise, and wither our journey leads us? 21

Recognizing that these questions are the subject of reflection in all great world religions,

the Church specifically engages (in brief) Hinduism, Buddism, Judaism and Islam. Noting that

“the Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions” (662). In the

section touching on Islam, the Declaration states:

Upon the Moslems too, the Church looks with esteem. They adore one God, living and enduring,

merciful and all-powerful, Maker of heaven and earth and Speaker to men. They strive to submit

wholeheartedly even to His inscrutable decrees, just as did Abraham, with whom the Islamic faith is

pleased to associate itself. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet.

They also honor Mary, His virgin mother; at times they call on her, too, with devotion. In addition they

19

Walter Abbott S.J. ed, The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild Press, 1966) 287-288, quoting Gaudium et

Spes, “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”, para 76 (emphasis added). 20

See; Ibid. “Dignitatus Humanae” (675-700); “Nostrae Aetate” (660 – 671). A further declaration, “Unitatis

Redintegratio”, (“The Decree on Ecumenism” 1964), dealt with ecumenism and the re-integration of unity amongst

Christians. Its approach might well set out principles of interest within Islam but I shall not discuss it further here. 21

Ibid. 661.

13

await the Day of Judgment when God will give each man his due after raising him up. Consequently they

prize the moral life, and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between

Christians and Moslems, this most sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to strive sincerely for

mutual understanding. On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause of safeguarding and

fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom. 22

This passage in the Declaration is built upon the Constitution of the Church which speaks

of Christ as “the Light of the Nations” and so the Constitution, “Lumen Gentium” (“Light of the

Nations”) addresses “those who have not yet received the Gospel but are related to the

Abrahamic covenant as well as those who are included in the plan of salvation because they

“acknowledge the Creator.” Of this latter group, the Church’s Dogmatic Constitution states:

“In the first place amongst these there are the Moslems, who, professing to hold the faith of

Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge

mankind.”23

The Declaration concludes that in relationships with Non-Christian religions:

We cannot in truthfulness call upon that God who is the Father of all if we refuse to act in a brotherly way

toward certain men created though they be in God’s image. A man’s relationship with God the Father and

his relationship with his brother men are so linked together that Scripture says: “he who does not love does

not know God” (1 John 4:8)...the Church rejects as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against

men or harassment of them because of their race, colour, condition of life, or religion.

Accordingly, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred Synod ardently

implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter. 2:12), and , if

possible, as far as is in them lies, to keep peace with all men (cf. Romans, 12:18), so that they may truly be

sons of the Father who is in heaven (cf. Matthew 5:45).24

The vision, then, is one of peaceful co-existence with those of other faiths recognizing that this

very peaceful co-existence is a mark of sonship to the Father who is in heaven and rules over all.

Now I should like to discuss the Vatican document that discusses religious liberty in relation to

the state. This was one of the most important and controversial documents of the Second

Vatican Council in the 1960’s and John Courtney Murray played a key role in its formation.

Dignitatus Humanae “The Declaration on Religious Freedom: On the Right of the Person

and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious” (December 7, 1965)

22

Ibid. Nostre Aetate, paras 2-3, pp. 662-663 (footnotes omitted except at the end of the first sentence which reads:

“Students of the history of relations between Christians and Moslems will find this section a remarkable change in

the Church’s approach. One thinks invariably of the Crusades (but note that there were Moslem crusaders as well as

Christian). Those were ideological wars. This Council, as it also makes clear in the Pastoral Constitution on the

Church in the Modern World, wants to disassociate itself from war” f.n. #13 p. 663).). 23

Ibid. Lumen Gentium, para. 16 pp. 34-35. 24

Ibid. Nostre Aetate, para. 5 pp. 667 – 668 (footnotes omitted).

14

Much could be said about this important and controversial document.25

Two paragraphs,

however, will serve my purposes here as they focus directly on the developed Catholic

understanding of “pluralism.” In the first:

...government is to assume the safeguard of the religious freedom of all its citizens, in an effective manner,

by just laws and by other appropriate means. Government is also to help create conditions favourable to

the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights

and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of

justice and peace which have their origin in men’s faithfulness to god and to His holy will.26

And, the second, focused on what governments must not do in the name of religion:

It follows that a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means,

the profession or repudiation of any religion, or when it hinders men from joining or leaving a religious

body. All the more is it a violation of the will of God and of the sacred rights of the person and the family

of nations, when force is brought to bear in any way in order to destroy or repress religion, either in the

whole of mankind or in a particular country or in a specific community.27

The Declaration had to deal with the idea of “development” within Catholic theology as

well as overcome a long-standing ambiguity in Church teaching relating to the relationship

between Catholic and non-Catholic citizens. According to John Courtney Murray’s notes to the

Declaration:

The Church does not deal with the secular order in terms of a double standard – freedom for the Church

when Catholics are a minority, privilege for the Church and intolerance for others when Catholics are a

majority. The Declaration has opened the way toward new confidence in ecumenical relationships, and a

new straightforwardness in relationships between the Church and the world.28

The most recent articulation of the Catholic understanding of diversity and the limits of

the state is to be found in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) in which

the foundation and purpose of the political community, and the law, are set out. Here we observe

that "a political community is established to be of service to civil society from which it

originates". The Catholic Church sets out its commitment "on behalf of social pluralism" to

25

A very useful overview of the document is from F. Russell Hittinger “Political Pluralism and Religious Liberty:

The Teaching of Dignitatus Humanae” in Mary Ann Glendon and Hans F. Zacher (eds) ” Universal Rights in a

World of Diversity: The Case for Religious Freedom, Proceedings of the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy

of Social Sciences, Acta 17 (Vatican City: PASS, 2012) 39-55. The controversy, which related, in essence to the

notion of “development of doctrine” within the Catholic tradition is well discussed by John Courtney Murray S.J. in

his introductory note to the Abbott edition of The Documents of Vatican II cited above, at 672-674. 26

Dignitatis Humanae, para. 6 Abbot ed p. 685 27

Ibid. 28

Ibid. 673

15

"bring about a more fitting attainment of the common good and democracy itself according to the

principles of solidarity, subsidiarity and justice."29

Two points should be made in closing. First, the Church recognizes that "the separation

of Christian faith and daily life is one of the most serious errors of our day":30

Without a metaphysical perspective, the loss of a longing for God in self -serving

narcissism and the varied means found in a consumerist lifestyle; the primacy

given to technology and scientific research as ends in themselves; the emphasis

placed on appearance, the quest for image, communication techniques: all of

these phenomena must be understood in their cultural aspects and placed in

relation to the central issue of the human person...31

Thus the Church understands her role to be metaphysical, moral and practical. The

Church understands her role to be in a dialogical relationship with contemporary politics. The

Church rejects the "autonomy" of the state if that is understood to be an independence of the state

from the moral law.32

The question is, therefore, how is moral law to be mediated?

The Compendium sets out a second and indispensable aspect of the Catholic position in

relation to the political order. The Compendium states that "because truth is one":

A sincere quest for the truth, using legitimate means to promote and defend the

moral truths concerning social life - justice, freedom , respect for life and for

human rights - is a right and duty of all members of the social and political

community.33

The moral obligation of the political order extends not just to the Catholic Church but in

fact to all "communities of believers". A "pluralistic society" is expressly recognized and

"secularity" is identified as providing "...a place for communication for different spiritual

traditions and the nation".34

Thus, an expressly pluralistic conception of society has been

developed through Roman Catholic thought, but it is a pluralism connected to a wider moral

vision that includes moral mediation through human communities. Connected to this is the

recognition that democratic societies may not, in fact, extend the same courtesy of moral

29

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Vatican: Libreria

editrice Vaticana, 2004) para 417. 30

Ibid. para 554 31

Ibid. para 554 32

Ibid. para 571 33

Ibid. para 571 34

Ibid. para 572

16

recognition to the Church because “secularism” seeks to dominate just as surely as “theocracies”

did in earlier ages:

Unfortunately, even in democratic socie ties there still remains expressions of

secular intolerance that are hostile to granting any kind of political or cultural

relevance to religious faiths. Such intolerance seeks to exclude the activity of

Christians from the social and political spheres because Christians strive to

uphold the truths taught by the Church and are obedient to the moral duty to act

in accordance with their conscience. These attitudes even go so far, and radically

so, as to deny the basis of a natural morality. This denial, whi ch is the harbinger

of a moral anarchy with the obvious consequence of the stronger prevailing over

the weaker, cannot be accepted in any form by legitimate pluralism, since it

undermines the very foundations of human society. In the light of this state of

affairs, the marginalization of Christianity...would not bode well for the future of

society or for consensus among people; indeed, it would threaten the very

spiritual and cultural foundations of civilization.35

As such the Church now embraces a principled pluralism in all situations, for the

religious rights of other religions as well whether they are the minority or the majority. With

respect to "the choice of political instruments", the Compendium expresses concern lest anyone

place their faith "in one sole political entity" because "Christians cannot find one party that fully

corresponds to the ethical demands arising from faith and from membership in the Church.”36

The ideal stance for the Christian in relation to party politics is one that should "never be

ideological but always critical..."37

This said, the choice of a party, political alliance, and the

persons to whom public life is to be entrusted, while a personal choice, is not one that is

"exclusively individual" because even that choice is one that should benefit from the analysis and

conversations that would occur within the Church. Christians are urged to "try to guide each

other by sincere dialogue in a spirit of mutual charity and with anxious interest above all in the

common good".38

We are a long way from the individual as the unencumbered self and the state

as sole arbiter of moral vision – there are dialogical relations at work and relations between

communities that share the same ontic ground within creation and are “brothers” and “sisters” in

an ordered cosmos. In taking this approach, we see a strong similarity with Said Nursi’s

recognition that ultimately human society and the person needed to be focused not on the

35

Ibid para 572 (footnotes omited). 36

Ibid. para 573 37

Ibid. para 573 38

para 574

17

externalities of politics which can and has often corrupted religion but with the moral dimension

of the human person since this is what would most profoundly influence communities.39

In his Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, (2009 para 9) former Pope Benedict XVI cited a

variety of earlier Encyclicals and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004,

para 76), shedding light “upon humanity’s journey towards unity” (para 8) and the importance of

truth “wherever it is manifested ” as the only possibility of “integral human development”. He

stated that:

This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her

social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to

the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever branch of

knowledge it comes, the Church’s social doctrine receives it, assembles into a

unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it within the

constantly changing life-patterns of the society of people and nations. 40

The Catholic Church’s vision, thus expressed, does not view its insights as limited to

Catholics nor the journey to “truth” as reaching a homogeneous end; here, diversity is

recognized. It views the description of the architecture of society as part of a human journey

involving all religions across communities, nations and time.41

Every year the Vatican issues a statement of good wishes to Muslims for Ramadan. This

year’s statement, “To Muslims Throughout the World”, signed by the new Pope, Francis,

contained the following passage relevant to the “welcome of the other” and ‘neighbourliness”

and the need for education regarding respect and said, in part:

It is clear that, when we show respect for the religion of our neighbours or when we offer them our good wishes on the occasion of a religious celebration, we simply seek to share their joy, without making reference to the content of their religious convictions.

Regarding the education of Muslim and Christian youth, we have to bring up our young people to think and speak respectfully of other religions and their followers, and to avoid ridiculing or denigrating their convictions and practices. We all know that mutual respect is fundamental in any human relationship, especially among people who

39

Şükran Vahide, Islam in Modern Turkey: An Intellectual Biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: SUNY

Press, 2005) 350 and Ian S. Markham, Engaging with Bediuzzaman Said Nursi: A Model of Interfaith Dialogue

(Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) 17. 40

Caritas in Veritate, para 9 citing Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (para 76). 41

Most Encyclicals are directed to the Church but also beyond it. Thus, the “address” at the front of Caritas in

Veritate of Benedict XVI (2009) is addressed to: “The Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women Religious,

the Lay Faithful and All People of Good Will” (emphasis added). The Encyclical deals with “Integral Human

Development in Charity and Truth.” The attempt is integrative yet respectful of diversity.

18

profess religious belief. In this way, sincere and lasting friendship can grow....It is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various

religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. 42

Recent Writings from the Jewish Tradition Support The Approaches Mentioned:

Various Jewish scholars, as well, have also written about pluralism in the context of the

Jewish faith. In that tradition, the concept of pluralism is seen alongside the “covenant” that

tradition understands that God has made with His people. One of these commentators, the Chief

Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, endorses the conception of "a community of

communities" that undergirds a developed religious insight about pluralism. For Sacks:

Pluralism is a form of hope, because it is founded in the understanding that

precisely because we are different, each of us has something unique to contribute

to the shared project of which we are a part. In the short term, our desires and

needs may clash; but the very realization that difference is a source of blessing,

leads us to seek mediation, conflict resolution, conciliation and peace, the peace

that is predicated on diversity, not on uniformity. Covenant tells me that my faith

is a form of relationship with God - and that one relationship does not exclude

any other, any more than parenthood excludes a love for all ones’ children. 43

Sacks calls not for a global government, nor a global civil religion, but for something

more subtle and more profound. He calls for a "global covenant". Such a covenant would need to

frame "our shared vision for the future of humanity". Hope, which requires courage, "....is the

faith that, together, we can make things better".44

Such a covenant would be expressed through

the shared and differing insights of the world’s religions.

42

Pope Francis, “To Muslims Throughout the World”, July 10, 2013; Available in full from:

http://www.romereports.com/palio/modules.php?name=News&file=print&newlang=english&sid=10741http://www.

romereports.com/palio/modules.php?name=News&file=print&newlang=english&sid=10741 43

Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Class of Civilizations (London: Continuum, 2002)

203-204. David Novak in Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2000) has also written about re-understanding “rights talk” in the context of what he argues is the richer

ground of “covenant” and notes, citing Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed (3.27) that “political life is pluralistic

because we are embodied” (75 fn #95) which echoes the passage from the Qu’ran cited at the head of this paper.

Thus our nature as embodied persons in community and the natural limitations on society so that it does not become

a “superperson” rather than “a communion of separate persons” ensure that individual rights are a limit on the power

of society “because the life of the human person as the image of god points to a transcendent dimension beyond the

grasp and thus beyond the authority of any human society” (217). “No individual or society itself can claim to be

the exclusive conduit of divine authority in the world. God’s authority is revealed, instead, in the limiting

interaction of these two domains [what is human and what is divine]” (217). Novak concludes by noting that: “the

renewed government of Jewish law in civil society, of which the institution of individual human rights must be

developed, can only come when there is a true renewal of the covenant by the vast majority of the Jewish people

with their God” (218). Thus spiritual renewal outside of government is key to government but the two realms must

not be conflated into one. This seems to echo in a powerful way the insights of both Said Nursi and John Courtney

Murray (as well as the Catholic understandings set out above). 44

Ibid 206.

19

Hope differs from optimism in that optimism is a passive virtue whereas hope requires us

to be involved in change. Setting this religious insight about covenant and hope and the global

possibilities for covenant in juxtaposition to alternative explanations for the human situation,

Sacks observes:

We are not unwitting products of blind causes; the selfish gene, the Darwinian

struggle for survival, the Hegelian dialectic of history, the Marxist war of

classes, the Nietzschean clash of wills, the Durkheimian set of sociological

trends or Freudian complex of psychological drives of which we are only dimly

aware. Humanity has never been at a loss for world views that place the source of

action outside ourselves, casting our faith to the winds and tides of fortune,

which at best we can hope to appease, at worst we can resign ourselves t o.45

Noting that "difference does not diminish" but enlarges the sphere of human possibilities,

Sacks makes a final statement emerging from the insight that "if we cherish our homes [religion]

then we will understand the value of others".46

Sacks notes that "in the midst of our

hypermodernity" there is an old - new call to "a global covenant of human responsibility and

hope" that will require the following:

Only when we realize the danger of wishing that everyone should be the same -

the same faith on the one hand, the same McWorld on the other - will we prevent

the clash of civilizations, born of the sense of threat and fear. We will learn to

live with diversity once we understand the God-given, world-enhancing dignity

of difference.47

It is clear that for Sacks, as for others including Nursi, Murray and the Roman Catholic

tradition in its most recent articulations, all entertain an essentially religious vision of the world

around them. In this world dignity and respect are rooted in his belief in God and his religious

framework. This framework requires recognition of the dignity of "the other" as an obligation of

the self-in-relation, not as a chance “feeling” or obligation about which one cannot form an

explanation. These writers recognize that respect and an appropriate form of tolerance are what

is required of "the other". Ultimately, in different but congruent ways, they state that their moral

visions emanate from their religious foundations, which in turn emerge from the religious

45

Ibid 206 – 207 and see, for a Muslim rejection of virtually the same philosophical viewpoints, but adding Rijson

(life itself as a god) and Sartre (the individual as a false god), M.R. Ubayd cited in Hasan Horkuc “New Muslim

Discourses on Pluralism” note #15, above, at 70. 46

Ibid at 209. 47

Ibid.

20

insights of their various cultures. In short, the Jewish viewpoints, as expressed above, support

the view of man and politics discussed by Murray and Nursi.

It is clear from Nursi’s writings as well as those of Rabbi’s Sacks and Novak, referred to

above, that the depredations of “secularism” against all religions are the shared concerns of

Muslims and Jews as well as Christians. Understood in this way and organized against jointly,

therefore, a practical pluralism of action by the great religions poses a significant threat to

“secularism” understood as an anti-religious movement currently powerful in law and politics in

many countries.

Conclusion:

We have seen, above, how three great traditions of religious faith - - Judaism, Christianity and

Islam have developed (at least in the writings of those quoted) conceptions of co-existence and

respect that reflect the light of revelations that, while they are different in key respects, all

acknowledge the goodness of respect and dignity, harmony, peace and co-existence. All have

come, and are in process, to a deeper understanding of pluralism and the implications of this for

social ordering (including the State). We know from history that the eventual realization of

peaceful co-existence allowing for difference has not always been honoured. The concept of

“pluralism” and its nature and scope plays an important role in these developments.

Said Nursi and John Courtney Murray both suffered for their views and were imprisoned

(Nursi) and/or silenced/censored (Nursi, Murray) as so many have been over the centuries of

human history for challenging the settled “orthodoxies” of the day. Yet in both cases the

positions that each advocated have come to be hugely influential and widely accepted within

traditions that, for a time at least, seemed to reject initially what each writer offered. Ideas have

consequences and fortunately change over time.

The willingness to provide a ground for religious practice to others in private and in

public and maintenance of respect for communities that are “other” than our own seems to be the

mature development of the great religions and they are working their way towards these

principles today at different rates and different ways in differing contexts. As they gain a deeper

21

insight and engage in genuine dialogue to learn from the other even more of the richness of their

own traditions, it will be in no small part, to the work of these two men - - who were roughly

contemporaries of each other.48

48

Both men recognized the limitations of politics and the dangers that political regimes can pose to the integrity of

religion. With respect to Nursi, the late Ibrahim Abu-Rabi‘ wrote in the foreword to Şükran Vahide’s biography of

Nursi, see note #39 above, the following reflection: “It is always interesting to consider whether or not Islam can be

preserved apart from politics. In other words, do we need an Islamic state in order to establish Islamic faith or

propagate Islamic ideas? Nursi’s answer after the foundation of the Turkish Republic seems to be no. That is to

say, Islam can prosper without an Islamic state. As a matter of fact, he writes that Islam and the faith of the

common folk in the Muslim world are better off when the powers that be leave them alone” (xvi). See, also,

Abdullah Ahmed An-Na’im, Islam and the Secular State (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2008) who argues that the idea of

an Islamic State is untenable because once the principles of Sharia are enacted as the positive law of a state, they

cease to be the religious law of Islam and become the political will of that state. Moreover, in view of the wide

diversity of opinion amongst Muslim scholars and schools of thought , to enact a principle of Sharia as positive law

the state would have to select amongst competing views to the exclusion of other views which are equally legitimate

from the Islamic point of view. This outcome would be political rather than religious as such and would be

counterproductive, denying some Muslims their religious freedom. Similar arguments have been made by

Christians and Jews with respect to the corrupting effects of “religious legislation.”

22

At the end of the day it is love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness that undergird the

great religions. It is fitting that, before this audience, I conclude with some words of Said

Nursi’s:

What I am certain of from my experience of social life and have learnt from my life-time of study is the

following: The thing most worthy of love is love, and that most deserving of enmity is enmity. That is,

love and loving, which render man’s social life secure and lead to happiness are most worthy of love and

being loved. Enmity and hostility are ugly and damaging, have overturned man’s social life, and more than

anything deserve loathing and enmity and to be shunned...The time for enmity and hostility has finished.

Two world wars have shown how evil, destructive, and what an awesome wrong is enmity. It has become

clear that there is no benefit in it at all....49

Barış seninle olsun

سالم كون ال كم ي مع

Pax Vobiscum

Iain T. Benson

Ferme Loudas

Quartier Serres

65270 St. Pé de Bigorre,

France.

Email: <iainbenson2@gmail.com>

49

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, The Damascus Sermon (Istanbul: Sözler, 2012) 49-50.