We come together to face a momentous issue regarding the pathways to be taken by two extensive portions of humankind in the new millennium: must they be conflictual; can they be cooperative? Our task is not to resolve that question by constructing a determining ideology, for that would destroy rather than promote the responsible freedom in which consists the special dignity — and the task — of humankind. Rather, our task is to search for understanding in depth of the present challenge, to clarify the values involved, and to envisage creatively possible collaboration between cultures.

Seen philosophically, this turn of the millenium is not a calendar numbers, a change of parties or even of systems. It is rather a basic question of how to order, and whither to direct human life. It is truly an historic juncture for civilizations and cultures. The totemic and mythic stages of the great cultures were essentially religious. This was formulated in the great religious traditions — earlier in the East, in the first millennium by Christianity and later by Islam. In the second millenium Western culture focused on human reason, beginning with the reintroduction of Aristotelian logic and its concomitant scientific capabilities. This was radicalized in the rationalism of the Enlightenment, whose denouement was the pogroms and holocausts of World War II followed by a Cold War and its threat of mutual annihilation. The millenium came to a spectacular end in the implosion of communism and the questioning of an uncontrolled market. Such a total end necessitates a new beginning. What then is to follow: which are the proper pathways into the future?

Two major formative factors stand out. The first is horizontal — namely, globalization. With the sudden end of the bipolar world system we are now in a rapid reorganization without borders. This is driven by economic opportunity grounded in the needs of a burgeoning population; it is implemented by rapidly advancing technology and communications.

The second formative factor is vertical — the opening to deeper dimensions of the human person not only to reason but to insight, not only to science but to wisdom, and not only to will but to creative freedom. Negatively this appeared in the overthrowing of the totalitarian and colonial structures which had ruled in the 1930s. At a positive philosophical level it consisted in recapturing human subjectivity through the development of existential and phenomenological insight which has made manifest the uniqueness of the exercise of freedom. Socially this has meant a renewed sense not only of the universality of human rights, but respect for the affective dimensions of human life, for the uniqueness of cultures and their religious foundations. Today there is an emerging sense of the distinctive character of cultures and of the diversity this entails among civilizations.

In this lies the present challenge, namely, how to relate both the increasing unity of globalization and the increasing appreciation of the uniqueness and diversity of peoples and cultures with their religious roots. Indeed the domination of either unity or diversity at the cost of the other would lead to a great impoverishment of human life both materially and spiritually. Economic and cultural globalization at the expense of the diversity of persons and cultures entails spiritual reduction, meaninglessness and despair in human life; diversity at the expense of effective interchange leads to physical impoverishment and cultural conflict.

A response to this challenge must not flee the economic order of human interchange. Hegel and Marx were correct in underlining this as fundamental; any response must begin there. Globalization consists really (though by no means exclusively) in the intensification of economic interchange to unheard of degrees. Such goods, however, can be traded, but are not truly shared: what one possesses the other does not. This mutual exclusivity of physical goods is the basis for competition which, left to itself, leads to conflict. In the past, land and its resources have been the basis for wars whose outcome was the physical expropriation of the losers in favor of the victors. It is important to look for ways of cooperating on physical resources, but the willingness to do so is part of a broader set of concerns and must be inspired by higher values. It must be enabled by an imagination which is not enslaved to material goods, but capable of ordering and reordering these goods for higher human purposes.

The political is a second level and is concerned with the exercise of power. This too is a major realm of human competition. Indeed while the physical, technical and economic issues, e.g., of oil exploration and transportation, are daunting they have been soluble. It is the political concerns which raise the greatest difficulties. Here the divergent interests of peoples enter and constitute broader patterns of overall national concerns and of the international power by which these are advanced or thwarted.

Whether these can be related harmoniously depends upon the bases upon which power is exercised. If this be the economic goods involved, then political will becomes hostage to the mutually exclusive competition of expropriation and appropriation noted above. As has been said classically, politics then becomes war by other means. Hence, the challenge here is to set these political concerns in the service of peoples by developing a cooperative pattern in which all share. But if power be exercised only for power’s sake, then again the result will be a pattern of dominance and subordination which can only lay the basis for economic or physical conflict or war.

To break beyond this it is necessary to reach for principles of coordination at a third level beyond the physical and the political. These must be goods which are not marked by exclusive possession as is the economic order or by competition as is the political order, but which can be shared as are the spiritual goods of the mind and heart. Knowledge, for example, can be shared without thereby being lost. Indeed, it is in discussion that ideas are cross pollinated, bear fruit and reach their full potential.

This is mirrored in the overall sequence of the work of Kant. His first Critique provided an understanding of the universal and necessary laws which rule the physical sciences. His second Critique articulated the nature of the laws which rule the exercise of freedom. Then only did he recognizes the need for a third Critique, that of aesthetic reason, in order that both might be lived in harmony. This suggests that in an analogous manner at this time of conjoined globalization (corresponding to the first Critique) and personalization (corresponding to the second Critique) — that is, of universalization and diversification — we must look for a third religious sphere in which both dimensions can be harmonized. This third awareness is not superstructure but infrastructure. It has been had by all the cultures since their totemic origins; it needs now to be brought out from behind Enlightenment hubris as the ground for creative relationships in the new millennium.

This, indeed, is the thrust of the recent encyclical of John Paul II, Fides et Ratio. This is an extended disquisition on the dialectic of faith in evoking reason, of reason in guiding faith, and of the synthesis of the two in inspiring and mobilizing human action. The philosophical level alone responds only speculatively to the present challenge; it would not inspire people with a living vision or mobilize them to act accordingly.

He analyses deeply the nature of the scientific disciplines and their ability to serve humankind as instruments of our engagement in our environment. But the human issue is how people can rise above merely being a part of that order and subject to being manipulated and exploited, in order to become truly the masters of their work. He locates this in the ability of the human mind to transcend the physical order, like climbing above the trees of a forest in order to be able to see it as a whole and thereby to engage it with creative freedom. This, in turn, he bases upon the fact that the human spirit is created by, and grounded in, a total Absolute Being which frees the human person from being a slave of nature and installs one as Vice Regent of the world.

But even this awareness may not be sufficient, for it might still be conceived in terms of possession and control. For this it would be sufficient simply to develop a system of management. But where the interests involved are so deeply human that they carry the hopes and fears of a people, much more is involved and must be addressed. Thus, Iqbal speaks of the need to recognize not only the physical and social realities and their corresponding sciences, or even philosophy as a matter of understanding. It is necessary to go beyond to the religious bases where the meaning of life, human values and personal and social commitment are anchored.

This has a threefold implication. First, religion is a matter of personal commitment on the part of persons and peoples. It engages not only their mind, but their freedom and moral sentiment, which are the great mobilizers of human action. Second, it does so in terms of the divine life expressed by such names of God as "Just" and "Loving", "Provident" and "Caring". Third, it contributes to orienting the great technical projects of our day in ways that constitute a world that is marked by these same characteristics.

Here Islam’s devotion to the prophet is its unique strength. The human mind left to itself seeks clarity and control by a process of simplification. In contrast, the role of the prophet is to give voice in time to the Absolute ground of our being. It thereby reminds us that all of life, if it is to be understood and lived properly, must express in time the divine justice and love. The prophet does not leave this to surmise or indirect reasoning, but proclaims it with a voice that echoes through time — not to mention through the neighborhoods of a city such as Cairo today.

When now we turn to the human it is crucial to retain this total response to the Absolute without which human life loses its meaning and value. In order to uncover the real meaning of human history it is essential to see how the divine as source of being and meaning is expressed in and through creation. This is a matter not merely of the beginnings of the universe, but of the creative exercise of human life through history, today and into the future.

This is the forgotten essence of the issue of peace for all humankind. Where rocks and plants just happen and animals live by instinct, humans are challenged by the need to shape their lives according to their self-understanding. In this they face a choice between three basic paths.

Forgetfulness of the Divine. The first path is to forget or to prescind from the divine ground of human life and to proceed as if humans were self-sufficient. In 1700 J.B. Vico foresaw that this emerging modern attitude would lead to a new barbarism of conflict, meaninglessness and despair which has turned the 20th century into the bloodiest century of them all. Islam has rightly rejected such "enlightenment".

Forgetfulness of the Human. There is a second path, opposite to the first, namely, not to exclude religion in order to proceed with the work of history, but to reject history in order to preserve the religious meaning of life. This is the path of another fundamentalism, equally as radical as the first. All that was not found at the time of a Buddha or a Christ, or explicit in the text of the Bible or other sacred scriptures is seen as contrary and unfaithful thereto. In this way, the attempt to protect the religious meaning of life contradicts the development of such human institutions as legislatures and courts by which that meaning is lived concretely.

The issue then is not whether the notion of the divine is conciliable with human thought and life; both emerge from, and depend upon, the divine. Without that which is absolute and hence one, humans and nature would be at odds, and humankind would lack social cohesion; without that which is self-sufficient, thinking would be the same as not thinking, and being would be the same as nonbeing.

The real issue then is how effectively to open this recognition of the divine to the full range of human history. In short, there is need to enable the divine source and goal to provide the basis for the human search for meaning and to inspire a vigorous itinerary of the human heart.

To understand this Plato developed the notion of participation expressing the many as deriving their being from the One which they manifest and toward which they are oriented and directed. This operates on all levels because it is the mode of being itself. Hence, participating in the divine is not something beings do; it is what they are. The self-sufficient and infinite One or Good is that in which all things share or participate for their being and identity, truth and goodness.

This is truly a third way. It does not prescind from God — the formula of Paradise Lost — nor does it prescind from humankind and human history. Instead, God is affirmed in the creativity of His creation and the human is affirmed through creation by its divine source and goal. Thus, the religious basis of cultures inspires their processes of human exploration and creativity.

In sum, instead of considering the religious basis of culture to be inimicable to human progress and undertaking a futile effort at exiling it from human life, this suggests recognizing that the religious view is an essential and necessary foundation of human life and meaning. This implies searching out how this can be enabled to fulfill its task of founding truth and inspiring efforts toward the good in all aspects of life.

In considering cooperation between religions it is important to note that in principle religions are not opposed but convergent. This is based both objectively, subjectively and historically.

Objectively, religions are relations to god who is one. Two Gods are an impossibility because in that case reality would be divided between them, neither would be infinite and hence neither would be God. Religions, therefore, as relations to God, are relations to the one divine source and goal of all.

Subjectively the human spirit as not limited by matter, is open to all being. Hence, it is oriented toward infinite being, which is just seem must be one. Hence, persons in exercising their religion are acting in a convergent manner. This indeed can be traced back to totemic modes of thought and followed through periods of mythic thought to systematic philosophy. My Ways to God traces this sequence or progression, concluding that the many ways constitute a single progression of humankind to God as it develops successive levels of human consciousness.

Historically, this relation is found between sets of religions, such as Buddhism which comes as a reform movement from Hinduism. Most striking and for our purposes most central is the sequence of the Abrahamic faiths of the Book and its sequence of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each of which in succession can be considered a reform movement with regard to the former.

In the second Vatican Council the document Nostra aetate devotes a section especially to Islam, detailing the points of concrete convergence in major issues of faith.

They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to humanity. They endeavor to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own. Although not acknowledging him as God, they venerate Jesus as a prophet; his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting. (Nostra aetate, n. 3, in Vatican Council II, ed. Austin Flannery [Northport, N.Y.: Costello, 1995], p. 571, n. 3.)

 

Moreover, the Council notes that, whereas the past history as been one of conflict, a new age and attitude is now possible and needed. Hence, it calls for collaboration rather than conflict on shared human problems.

Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding for the benefit of all, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values. (Ibid., pp. 571-572.)

 

Indeed looking toward the future the present state of global interchange calls for such a collaborative relationship of Christianity with all religious traditions including those of South and East. But the Council highlights, the shared history and beliefs with Islam in a special way.

In our day, when people are drawing more closely together and the bonds of friendship between different peoples are being strengthened, the church examines more carefully its relations with non-Christian religions. Ever aware of its duty to foster unity and charity among individuals, and even among nations, it reflects at the outset on what people have in common and what tends to bring them together.

 

Humanity forms but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth (see Acts 17:26), and so because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all humankind (see Wis 8:1; Acts 14:17; Rom 2:6-7; 1 Tim 2:4) against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city which is illumined by the glow of God, and in whose splendor all peoples will walk (see Apoc 21:23 ff.).

 

People look to their different religions for an answer to the unsolved riddles of human existence. The problems that weigh heavily on people’s hearts are the same today as in past ages. What is humanity? What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is upright behavior, and what is sinful? Where does suffering originate, and what end does it serve? How can genuine happiness be found? What happens at death? What is judgment? What reward follows death? And finally, what is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and towards which we tend?

 

Throughout history to the present day, there is found among different peoples a certain awareness of a hidden power, which lies behind the course of nature and the events of human life. At times, there is present even a recognition of a supreme being or still more of a Father. This awareness and recognition results in a way of life that is imbued with a deep religious sense. The religions which are found in more advanced civilizations endeavor by way of well-defined concepts and exact language to answer these questions. Thus, in Hinduism people explore the divine mystery and express it both in the limitless riches of myth and the accurately defined insights of philosophy. They seek release from the trials of the present life by ascetical practices, profound meditation and recourse to God in confidence and love. Buddhism in its various forms testifies to the essential inadequacy of this changing world. It proposes a way of life by which people can, with confidence and trust, attain a state of perfect liberation and reach supreme illumination either through their own efforts or with divine help. So, too, other religions which are found throughout the world attempt in different ways to overcome the restlessness of people’s hearts by outlining a program of life covering doctrine, moral precepts and sacred rites.

 

The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. It has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from its own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men and women. Yet it proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life (Jn 1:6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself (see 2 Cor 5:18-19), people find the fullness of their religious life.

 

The church, therefore, urges its sons and daughters enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, together with their social life and culture. (Ibid., pp. 569-571.)

 

By external cooperation is meant ways in which religious cultures can cooperate in facing challenges from outside of both. Today, we have a new reality. In earlier centuries the meeting of our cultures was carried out on the frontiers where relations were often external, military, and violent. There was the long combat with Byzantium, the Crusades, the wars of the Balkans. Now commerce brings materials, notably oil, from afar and makes it an indispensable part of everyday life; the new technology of communications brings distant realities into our homes; the development of education makes them part of our growth and learning; the emerging sense of human subjectivity encourages us to interiorize these elements in our hearts and minds. We meet inescapably in every facet of our lives. Consequently, we can cooperate and we must learn to do so. But in doing so we must not destroy what is distinctive of each and thereby impoverish all, but engage what is distinctive in a shared cause. This can be done through learning from each other.

Islam with its rich sense of faithfulness to God based on its sense of His unity and primacy can contribute to the religious life of the West what is most essential, namely, the sense of God.

In return, the Church in the West has struggled for many centuries with the threats that Islam most fears, namely, reductivism, rationalism and materialism. It has learned by its failures as well as its successes how to live religiously in a culture that is distracted by possessions and inundated by images. These are projected by techniques drawn from sophisticated psychological research and generally are at the service of commercial and ideological interests, often contrary to religion. It could be expected that Christianity which has grown with these challenges in the West might have insights which could be helpful in protecting and promoting religious life in Islam in these times of change.

To recount these lessons would be a long study in its own right. They would include the need to distinguish the multiple orders of human awareness and to locate that which is proper to the religious; the process of relating religion in each of these modes with the levels of theoretical and practical consciousness to the mutual benefit of both; and not least the Vatican II document on religious liberty affirming as a modern accomplishment the need to recognize the rights of conscience of every person with regard to his or her religious belief — this it considered less a deductive than an inductive insight drawn from human experience.

This is the suggestion of Vatican II, namely, that we have much to share and the ability to cooperate in facing challenges from outside of both Christianity and Islam, e.g., in safeguarding and fostering social justice and moral virtues. It is essential for religions to cooperate creatively in developing for the next millenium a broader world civilization which prospers through productive interchange, shared benevolence and peace.

There is also need for internal cooperation, that is, in helping one another not only to be able effectively to withstand contemporary challenges but even to draw more richly on its own resource.

In the introduction the challenge was stated to consist not only in globalization in which one reaches out to others and discovers points of convergent principle or experience, but in personalization in which there emerges a greater consciousness of the differences between peoples. Were dialogue and cooperation to result only from the ways we are the same then the road to peace would lie in suppressing that which is distinctive of persons and their cultures or rendering it inoperative in the public square. This has been a strong factor in the liberal "approach". If, instead, personal life is appreciated as creative and hence as differentiating the pattern of one’s life and culture, then it is necessary to find ways in which even the differences in human and cultural formation can be principles of cooperation, indeed even a means for the internal enrichment of traditions from their proper resources. Only this will make it possible truly to turn swords into ploughshares for the tasks of new millennium.

To understand how this can be so it is necessary first to see how cultures are constituted of the cumulative exercise of that human freedom. If for a living being "to be is to live," then for a human being "to be is to live consciously, creatively and responsibly". Inevitably this creates the uniqueness and hence the diversity of our lives as we respond to different physical and social challenges with distinctive resources, each in our own manner. Further as this is identically to live out our participation in the divine which is the essence of religion, we can expect that not only our cultures will be diverse, but also the religious roots of these cultures.

As seen above, relation to the divine as shared by all peoples provides the basis for cooperation between the many peoples in their efforts at development. But, this is not a matter of theory separated from life or of practice separated from vision. It is, in fact, the wisdom core of the distinctive cultural tradition into which we are born and though which we interpret and respond to the challenges of development in cooperation with others in an ever more inconnected world.

In order then to look for the bases of peace in the process of development we must search not only for possible convergences of interests, but at the distinctive cultural contexts in terms of which these interests are defined; we must look also for the possibility of one culture contributing to the internal and self-consistent growth of another. This entails three issues: the uniqueness of cultural traditions; their roots in the religious commitment of each people; and the way in which people’s with diverse cultural and religious commitments can contribute positively one to another not only through that in which they concur, as was noted above, but also through their cultural divergences.

‘Value’ expresses this good especially as related to persons who actually acknowledge it as a good and respond to it as desirable. Thus, different individuals or groups, or possibly the same group but at different periods, may have distinct sets of values as they become sensitive to, and prize alternate sets of goods. More generally, over time a subtle shift takes place in the distinctive ranking of the degree to which various goods are prized.

By so doing among objective moral goods a certain pattern of values is delineated which in a more stable fashion mirrors the corporate free choices of a people. Further, the exercise of these choices develops special capabilities or virtues as it is in these ways of acting and reacting that we are practiced. These capabilities constitute the basic topology of a culture; as repeatedly reaffirmed through time, they build a tradition or heritage.

By giving shape to the culture, values and virtues constitute the prime pattern and gradation of goods experienced from their earliest years by persons born into that heritage. In these terms they interpret and shape the development of their relations with other persons and groups. Thus, young persons, as it were, peer out at the world through cultural lenses which were formed by their family and ancestors and which reflect the pattern of choices made by their community through its long history — often in its most trying circumstances. Like a pair of glasses, values do not create the object, but reveal and focus attention upon certain goods and patterns of goods, rather than upon others.

Interpersonal dependence is then not unnatural — quite the contrary, we depend for our being upon our creator, we are conceived in dependence upon our parents, and we are nurtured by them with care and concern. Through the years we depend con-tinually upon our family and peers, school and community.

We turn to other persons whom we recognize as superior in terms not of their will, but of their insight and judgment — and precisely in those matters where truth, reason and balanced judgment are required. The preeminence or authority of wise persons in the community is not something they usurp or with which they are arbitrarily endowed. It is based upon their capabilities and acknowledged in our free and reasoned response. Thus, the burden of Plato’s Republic is precisely the education of the future leader to be able to exercise authority.

From this notion of authority in a cultural community it is possible to construct that of tradition by taking account of the preceding generations with their accumulation of human insight predicated upon the wealth of their human experience through time. As a process of trial and error, of continual correction and addition, history constitutes a type of learning and testing laboratory in which the strengths of various insights can be identified and reinforced, while their deficiencies are corrected and complemented. We learn from experience what promotes and what destroys life, and accordingly we make pragmatic adjustments. The cumulative results of this extended process of learning and testing constitute tradition.

But even this language remains too abstract, too limited to method or technique, too unidimensional. While tradition can be described in terms of feed-back mechanisms and might seem merely to concern how to cope in daily life, what is being spoken about are free acts. These express passionate human commitment and personal sacrifice in responding to concrete dangers, building and rebuilding family alliances, and constructing and defending one’s nation.

Moreover, this wisdom is not a matter of mere tactical adjustments to temporary concerns. It concerns rather the meaning we are able to envision for life and which we desire to achieve through all such adjustments over a period of generations: it is what is truly worth striving for.

This points us beyond the horizontal plane of the various ages of history and directs our attention vertically to its ground and, hence, to the religious bases of the values we seek to realize in concrete circumstances. The history of Abraham, our common father in faith, is a concrete account of the process through history of deep wisdom in interaction with the divine.

The content of a tradition serves as a model and exemplar, not because of personal inertia, but because of the corporate character of learning. This was built out of experience consisting of the free and wise acts of the successive generations of a people in reevaluating, reaffirming, preserving and passing on what has been learned. The content of any long tradition has passed the test of countless generations. Standing, as it were, on the shoulders of our forebears, those who come later are able to discover possibilities and evaluate situations with the help of their vision of the elders because of the sensitivity they developed and communicated to us. Without this we could not even choose the topics to be investigated or awaken within ourselves the desire to study those problems.

Cultural traditions, then, are not simply everything that ever happened, but only what has appeared significant to a particular distinctive people, been judged as life giving, and actively transmitted to their next generation. It is by definition then the good as humanely appreciated by a people; its presentation by different voices draws out its many aspects. Thus a cultural tradition is not an object in itself, but a rich and flowing river from which multiple themes can be drawn according to the motivation and interest of the inquirer. It needs to be accepted and embraced, affirmed and cultivated. Here the emphasis is neither upon the past or the present, but upon a people living through time.

The danger, of course, and one that is foundational is whether the combination of the deep immersion in, and commitment to, one’s cultural tradition thereby traps one in insuperable opposition to the interests and strivings of those in other traditions. Can we overcome such opposition? Indeed can the commitments others have to their own cultural tradition become a means for us to look into our own traditions — and vice versa? If so, this would provide the key to effective cooperation between religious and cultures.

It should be understood that cultural traditions will be multiple according to the historical grouping of people, the diverse circumstances in which they shape their lives and the specific challenges to which they respond and in so doing ever more profoundly shape themselves. More foundationally they reflect the specific mode in which God chooses to speak to his peoples and the message he conveys through his prophets to help peoples find their way on their pilgrimages.

Contemporary attention to the person enables us to be more conscious of the distinctive formative pattern of our proper culture and its religious foundations. This can enable us to appreciate it as uniquely different among others. However, being situated among one’s own people and hearing the same stories told in the same way, one’s appreciation of the rich content of one’s tradition could remain limited.

The way to break out of this limitation of the human condition is to encounter other peoples with other experiences in order to check one’s bearings. This is not to copy the other or to graft alien elements onto one’s culture. It is rather to be stimulated by the experience of others and thus enabled to go more deeply into one’s own cultural heritage and sacred books. Here the aim is to draw out meaning which had always been there in the Infinite ground of my culture, but which thusfar had not been sounded.

Rather than abandoning or lessening allegiance to one’s cultural tradition this is a higher fidelity thereto. It is built on the conviction that my tradition as grounded in the infinite divine is richer than I or my people have thus far been able to sound, that it has more to say to us, and hence that we need to be open to new dimensions of its meaning.

This is the special opportunity of our time of globalization, communication and mutual interaction. Rather than looking upon the other as a threat, communication with other cultures as they plum their own religious tradition can enable one to draw more fully upon one’s own. This enables one to cooperate with others in the development of their own cultures from the resources of their own religious tradition. In this way all religious cultures are promoted, each in their unique character. This is more than a dialogue between differences; it is cooperation in developing distinct but convergent pathways for the coming millenium.

1. Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought, ed. Saeed Sheikh (Lahore: Iqbal Academy of Pakistan and the Institute of Islamic Culture, 1986).

2. Ibid., p. 4-5.

3. Ibid., p. 49.

4. Ibid., p. 143.

5. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

6. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1971).

7. (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994).

8 (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1998).

9. The Culture of Citizenship, Inventing Postmodern Civil Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), chap. I.

10. (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1998).

11. (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999).

12. (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999).

13. Parmenides, Fragment 8, see McLean and Aspell, Readings on Ancient Western Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice Hall, 1990).

14. Fragments in G.F. McLean and P. Aspell, Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1971), pp. 39-44. Neither being nor thought makes sense if being is the same as nonbeing, for then to do, say or be anything would be the same as not doing, not saying or not being. But the real must be irreducible to nothing and being to nonbeing if there is any thing or any meaning whatsoever. Hence being must have about it the self-sufficiency expressed by Parmenides’s notion of the absolute One.

15. Richard Nixon, Seize the Moment (New York: Simon & Schuster, c1992).

16. Ivor Leclerc, "The Metaphysics of the Good," Review of Metaphysics, 35 (1981), 3-5. See also Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, ed. André Lalande (Paris: PUF, 1956), pp. 1182-1186.

17. J. Mehta, Martin Heidegger: The Way and the Vision (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1967), pp. 90-91.

18. R. Carnap, Vienna Manifesto, trans. A. Blumberg in G. Kreyche and J. Mann, Perspectives on Reality (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, l966), p. 485.

19. H.G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroads, 1975), pp. 240, 246-247, 305-310.