In all fairness to His Eminence Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, we need to recognize the utterly sensational and irresponsible way in which so much of the secondary press is handling his October 18th interview by the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. In that interview he was asked to respond to “A Common Word between Us and You” and, in a more general way, to comment on Catholic-Muslim dialogue.

Some articles I've seen bear titles such as “Vatican Rebuffs Muslim Letter” (Tauran makes a point of praising the letter in the interview!) and other absurdities like, “Dialogue with Muslims Not Possible: Vatican.” This is yellow journalism of the first order. On the other hand, I would also agree, that press interviews are not the best arenas for either testing hypotheses about other religions or trying to make subtle and easily misunderstood philosophical distinctions such as the difference between the dialogue of theological exchange and the three other types of interreligious dialogue enumerated in Church teaching (i.e., “dialogue of spiritual experience,” “dialogue of cooperative social action for justice and peace,” and the all-encompassing “dialogue of life”).

From his statement, it appears that Cardinal Tauran has obviously only talked to, or read about Muslim scholars who assert the absolute validity of their own interpretations of the Qur'an by an appeal to the Qur'an's absolute divine provenance. Many Muslim scholars, however, both past and present, are keenly aware that the certainty all Muslims place in the radically divine nature of the Qur'an does nothing to mitigate the explicit interpretative challenge which the text poses its hearers: “And upon you [Muhammad] We revealed the Recollection [i.e., the Qur'an] so that you may make clear to humanity what has been revealed to them in order that they might reflect” (Q 16:44). Indeed, the theme of the crucial role played in the life of faith by “a people who reflect (qawm yatafakkarun) on the “signs” of God (ayat—the same word for the “verses” of the Qur'an) is one found throughout the quranic corpus (e.g., Q 10:24; 13:3; 30:21; 39:42; etc.).

The point here is that, for most Muslim scholars, the belief in the nature of the Qur'an as thoroughly divine with no human interpolation is the very basis of the imperative to "reflect" on and interpret its content. To be sure, this belief in the unqualified divinity of the quranic word does establish the centrality of certain classical hermeneutical methods such as intra-textual interpretation (i.e., tafsir al-qur'an bi l-qur'an or the interpretation of the Qur'an by the Qur'an), as well as an analysis of the contextual circumstances in which a verse or verses have been revealed (`ilm asbab al-nuzul). What this belief clearly does not do, however, is reduce to an allegedly static monologue the inherently multi-vocal dynamism of the enterprise of quranic interpretation. This is plainly evident to anyone familiar with the impressive historical depth, breadth, and diversity of the tradition of quranic exegesis within Sunni Islam alone, a tradition which spans fourteen centuries of interpretation ranging in focus and genre from the juristic and philological, to the theological and mystical, to the sociological and political. To illustrate this point in a modern context, one need only consider the vastly divergent quranic hermeneutics of a Sayyid Qutb, on the one hand, and a Farid Esack, on the other.

What is sadly ironic in all of this is that the "Common Word" letter signed by 138 Muslim scholars and generously praised by Cardinal Tauran in the La Croix interview is itself evidence of the rich and dynamic potential of existing methods of quranic interpretation. Take, for example, the Muslim scholars' apparent willingness to examine quranic teachings regarding divine-human and human-human relationships through the lens of a theological idiom (i.e., the two-fold commandment) which—while it has deep and thoroughgoing resonance in quranic teaching about what it means to be a person of faith (iman), sincerity (ikhlas), and God-consciousness (taqwa)—is actually biblical and not quranic. This is a very agile, creative, and adaptive hermeneutical move which contradicts what Cardinal Tauran appears to be saying.

As for the specific reference to “theological” dialogue, Cardinal Tauran seems to be following the lead of the Holy Father who has certain misgivings about the value of theological dialogue between Muslims and Christians, but who, at the same time, strongly encourages a dialogue of social action based on shared values. It is clear that this approach to the dialogue has nothing but the best of intentions in its design to pursue two noble goals: to avoid the slippery slope of doctrinal relativism while simultaneously heeding the conciliar call of Nostra Aetate for Muslims and Christians to cooperate on the basis of shared values for the overall welfare of the human family (something the Cardinal makes a point of mentioning in the interview). As noble, however, as the intent of this approach may be, it appears to rest on three somewhat problematic assumptions.

The first is that one can successfully separate out theological dialogue from the dialogue of social action based on shared values. In Islam, for example, the call for social justice in every human community is inextricably linked to the doctrine of tawhid—the doctrine of the oneness and partnerless-ness of God which also implies a commitment to righteous living, as well as belief in the fundamental unity of the human family united in submission to the one God. By the same token, Christian views of the fundamental dignity of every human person are intrinsically linked to our belief in the unsurpassable act of divine love for humanity made manifest in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.

The second problematic assumption is that we cannot or should not dialogue about the things over which we disagree. If this were true, Catholic-Muslim dialogue—indeed any dialogue—would be sorely impoverished, would it not? Isn't the purpose of dialogue to understand more deeply both that upon which we agree as well as that upon which we decidedly do not agree? How can we celebrate our similarities and dignify our differences—the two-fold hallmark of authentic dialogue—if we do not talk deeply about the areas where our views patently diverge. In other words, ought not theological disagreement be an invitation rather than an impediment to dialogue?

And finally the third problematic assumption is that the encounter with Islam is one of the front lines in the Christian struggle against relativism. While profound and very significant differences in doctrine will always distinguish our two traditions from one another, one of the commitments we share is precisely not to compromise our witness to the truth under the false assumption that religious difference is what keeps the human family from attaining perfection in peace and love. Indeed, to be true to our respective traditions, we Muslims and Christians must both assert that the perfection of virtue and the solidarity of the human family we both seek can only be realized through our hunger for the genuine understanding and unfettered witness that can only take place in the context of honest and sincere dialogue.