The Intrareligious Dialogue, Revised Edition

Written by Raimon Panikkar Reviewed By Chris Sinkinson

Panikkar has been writing in the field of inter-religious encounter and understanding for many years. This book is itself a revision and elaboration of a work published nearly twenty years ago. Additional material makes it a new book. It is attractively produced and provides a summary statement of Panikkar’s vision. In some ways the earlier material is brought up to date (sexist language has been rooted out) though in other ways little has changed (there is still no direct interaction with his critics).

Panikkar is a warm writer with a sincere devotion to his theme. In essence, he argues that for too long dialogue has been polarised between rational debate and sentimental encounter. He describes these two forms of dialogue as ‘interreligious’ in contrast to his own ‘intrareligious’ suggestion. While acknowledging the important differences between religions, Panikkar finds the basis of dialogue to lie in our common experience of being human. It is at this level of common humanity that we are able to find a meeting of minds, significant understanding and a position from which to explore our differences. Interreligious dialogue is valuable as far as it goes but Panikkar proposes ‘intrareligious’ understanding as a broader framework in which religious people should engage more holistically with each other. ‘Intrareligious’ dialogue emphasises that the encounter should be seen primarily as a meeting of people rather than as a meeting of religions.

In order to set forward this thesis, Panikkar does battle with the concept of neutrality in dialogue. ‘Epoche’, with its method of bracketing personal beliefs out of the encounter, has been a disaster. It has asked the participant in dialogue to ‘jump over his own shadow’ (80). Neutrality is a hopeless category because it fails to take seriously the primary status of religious belief. However, this promising point sits uneasily with Panikkar’s rejection of apologetics, dogma and theological convictions from having any place in dialogue. Regarding apologetics he notes that it ‘has its function and its proper place, but not here in the meeting of religions’ (62). Though personal beliefs are not to be suspended, Panikkar argues that ‘dogmatism is not needed and that even dogmas are on the move’ (142). He wants to allow dialogue participants to retain their absolute convictions and yet he curtails what relevance those convictions may have. His conclusion that ‘authentic dialogue is a search for truth’ (145) is hard to tie together with his dismissal of apologetics and doctrinal convictions. If apologetics have no function or place in the search for truth then it is difficult to imagine what function apologetics could ever have.

Surely dialogue is possible for those with absolute convictions? The role of absolute Christian commitment in dialogue has been given increasing attention among Christians but Pannikar dialogues little with alternatives to his own version of pluralism. Though the book is shot through with Christian sentiments, language and scriptural references (he prefaces the book ‘The sermon on the mount of intrareligious dialogue’), the book displays a loyalty to some higher reality than Christian revelation. While there is something attractive about his eloquent demand to move beyond simple interreligious conversation, from a theological point of view the failure to interact with critics of such methodology is disappointing. Given that most of the material is rewritten with the benefit of fifteen years discussion on this very subject such a failure is inexcusable.


Chris Sinkinson

Moorlands College, Christchurch