Word and World: Logic of Plurality

“Founded on the Word and Focused on the World” was the theme of the Mar Thoma Yuvajana Sakhyam for the Platinum Jubilee year, 2007. I was asked to share my thoughts on the theme on two earlier occasions, at The Gulf Mar Thoma Conference in Bahrain, and at the World Mar Thoma Youth Conference in Kochi. Now I am glad to share my views on the topic in this Jubilee memorial volume. What has first struck me while reflecting on the theme is the relationship between the terms, “word” and “world.” Even though the world has only an additional letter “L” added to “word,” in our general view both are far apart in meaning and implications. Word is Word of God and world is Creation of God. When we start to reflect on these categories we become more aware of the intrinsic relation between the two. Examining their intrinsic relationship will challenge our understanding of God’s relationship to the world and the implications of it for our theology and social practice. Hence I have worded the title as : Word and World: logic of plurality.”
Certain dualism has always governed the thoughts of the Western world and the theology we inherited from the West. The Platonic view that distinguished the world of ideas radically from the world of experience has overshadowed our concepts of God and world as well as our morality, making idea the ideal and events insignificant. The New Testament affirmation that the “Word became flesh” was a radical affirmation of the importance of history in God world relationship. Though the biblical and major Indian philosophical schools were free from the Platonic dualism of matter and form, the Indian Church was not able to articulate its own theology, understanding of God world relationship, independent of the Western categories. Though the Indian Advaitic philosophy has been free from any dualism, its denial of any ultimate significance to the world, made it unable to challenge the social evils like caste system. For thousands of years the sufferings of people under caste system was interpreted as maya or ignorance and never a real problem. In the Aristotelian correction of Platonism the world derived such a significance that the present experience of inequalities and injustices were interpreted as the justice of God in terms of natural theology. The theme, “Founded on the word and focused on the World” should not lead us to think that the Word exists outside the World. The doctrine of Incarnation, “Word becoming flesh” rejects such a view. It must also be remembered that Karl Barth, the renowned theologian of the 20th century, has written a book called, the Humanity in God which affirmed : "It is precisely God's deity which rightly understood includes his humanity." In this article I deal with only one aspect, “Word of God” as presented in the Bible and its relation to the culture and religions of the world as it is one of the most sensitive and volatile area of Word-World relationship. Theologically speaking other areas such as science and technology, economics and societal ideologies are equally significant.
World of God – God’s people in the world
The Bible starts with the affirmation that God has created the world and thus it affirms the integral relation of God and the world. Genesis chapter one has been written against a Babylonian world view after the return of the exiles from Babylon where the elites of Judah were captives. Though the Babylonian religions have influenced the biblical theology in several ways, Biblical writers made it clear that everything God has created is good and there is nothing that is not the creation of God. It is the emphasis of the Bible that God who created the world is involved in the very development of history, directing the world in accordance with the will and purpose of God through individuals and communities, through secular as well as religious institutions. Even the story of Paradise is God’s attempt to rescue human beings from self destruction. God even ensures the safety of Cain so that the human race will continue to go on. In the story of building the tower of Babel God intervenes in human affairs and saves them from their inflated pride which would have led them to total destruction by accumulating unbridled power and knowledge. God’s way of redeeming the accrual of resources and power was by enabling the development of different languages and cultural groups. Through out history God challenges the grouping of communities to build unified world bodies, by challenging individuals and groups to form small communities. Not only Abraham, but Lot, Ishmael and communities like Israel as well as others like Ethiopians, Philistines, Syrians - Arameans (Amos 9:6) were chosen and led by God in their histories and helped them to resist the hegemonic super powers of the period like Assyria or Egypt. God had his people in Salem where Melchizedek priest and King (Genesis 14:18) and in Midian where Jethro Exodus 3:1) was the priest and administrator (Exodus 18). God had appointed Moses to liberate people from the power of the Egyptian Empire and anointed the Cyrus the Persian to be the Messiah of the captives of Babylon (Isaiah 45:1). In Jesus Christ God again selected a small community to be the beacon of God’s work in the world. As Paul has pointed out God’s election of the Church does not mean that God rejected all other people (Romans 11.1) just as the election of Israel never meant rejection of other people. Jesus himself said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold” (John10:16 cf. 11:52). When the early disciples were beginning to settle down in Jerusalem God scattered them to different countries (Acts 11:19). Christian tradition gives evidence to several other such re-groupings of Christians in terms of fellowships and denominations to serve some historical purposes. We need not idealize schisms in church history as inevitable or eternal, however, they have somehow served the purpose of God in the world. Today’s revolutions and liberation movements of people groups could be expressions of human freedom by the exercise of which the purpose of God is fulfilled.

Word of God – Plurality of God’s word
The Greek word used by St. John to refer to the word of God is Logos, which means wisdom, logic and, rationality of God. Many early Christian theologians like Justin the Martyr believed that the universal logos, the word of God, seed of the logos (logos spermatikos), permeated not only the entire universe, but also present in a special way in all intelligent beings, homo sapiens. Justin considered Socrates and other philosophers as Christians before Christ. Therefore, today’s Christians need to reaffirm the presence of God in all creation and we need to be humble when we claim to be Christians, following the will of God, so as not to make monopolist claims to the word of God. We need to find the spark of God in all people and all creation. Therefore, pluralism needs to be interpreted in terms of plurality which is a universal experience, not that the truth is universal, but rather plurality of truth is universal. So plurality is the universal truth, that is, each person is different, time is different, experience is different. Thus religions have their own independent meaning and validity and the mission of the church need to be refocused to the needs of people, to free them from the demons that enslave people, in the form of ignorance, poverty, cruelty, violence and not to convert them to what we believe. Conversion needs to be a conversion towards God and not to the different denominational and selfish spirit that tarnishes all our mission enterprises. One of the Christian responsibility in today’s world is a refocusing of the mission of the Church to the needs of the people, not to our own defective understanding of God’s purpose of the world.
Word or Logos is not monolithic. Word is a combination of many sound bits; logos is the rationale behind the thought process. Whether the ancient Vedic concept of OM or the Greek concept of Logos, or the Hebrew concept of Dabar (Word), all refer to the expression of what is thought, the meaning of experience of our existence. It is the logic of thought , purpose and action, a sign and symbol. Word is symbol of consistent deliberation and experience. Bible says, God spoke to Godself: Let there be … Let us make humankind in our own image, male and female…(Genesis 1:26-7). God’s name is given in Genesis 1 is in plural form: Elohim. One who got many names is our God. And people have the right to know God in many names. If the Hebrews understood God as the Lord of their future, other people can know God in one of the many names. The name Yahweh was unknown to the earliest generations (Gen 4:20; 6:3) Jesus is the name of that God and Lord in the New Testament. The Christian affirmation of Jesus as God and Lord has made it necessary for the Church to accept Godhead as Trinity, not as monarchy. Christians have to witness to this Trinity of Godhead with full conviction; then only our mission will be saved from the arbitrary monopoly of authoritarianism and monotheistic absolutism, against which the early Church fought so fiercely. Trinity is the safeguard for the plurality of God which makes plurality the truth of everything. Any kind of absolutism in the name of God, religion or ideologies is rejected by the doctrine of Trinity . Modern researches in quantum physics as well as astrophysics make it clear that plurality is the basic structure of the atom as well as the megaverse, viewed in terms of Super strings or the star dust-cloud. The very life itself has been conceived as a wonderful combination of different elements.
Plurality of languages, culture and Religions
There are many languages in the world and we consider them as a blessing for the particular expression of our identity and culture. In the same way we need to consider the existence of other religions. Religion is an integral part of culture and culture is what we cultivate and both culture and religion need to be reformed, refined for the benefit of each community. God in the Bible is involved in such a reformation of religion and societies. The religion in which we have grown up means so much to us. Any forcible intrusion upon our language and culture will be naturally resisted, similar is the case with religions. We need to be open to new languages as well as to religions, that will only increase our horizon and lead us to an appreciation of God’s glory in human creativity and imagination. If we are not open to other religions and if we do not like other religions to be preached to us how can we expect other people to be open to our preaching. Jesus taught us: “In everything do to others as would have them to do to you: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Christian mission is not preaching a new religion. It is to help people to understand all religions better in its spiritual nature, so that they may be open to human needs, human rights: Christian message is, religion is for humans. Christian mission is a secular mission. Spirituality after all is ability to transcend one’s selfish nature, freedom from egoism. We need not conflict with other religionists on account of changing their religions. True conversion is true self realization, transformation of mind. It is nothing to be forced upon people.
Each language has its own rules. People from one culture many not understand another culture or language as the rules of grammar differ from one another. Unless we are willing to learn the rules and grammar of another language we will not properly understand that language or the mind of the people. Similarly religions also need to be respectfully approached and patiently studied. In the past many languages and cultures of people are destroyed by more powerful language and culture groups. This cultural violence has deprived the world of so many gifts carried by those cultures and destroyed the identity of people. Such cultural gifts are very much valued by God and accepted in the “City of God” as envisioned by St. John in the book of Revelation (Rev. 21:24). Similarly many missionary religions have destroyed the culture and religions of many weak cultures because they falsely believed that they thus would bring glory to God; they failed to know that they have in fact made irreparable loss to the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God belongs to the least and the lost. So one of the responsibilities of the modern Christians is to participate in God’s mission to restore all the lost heritages of humanity. Our mission is not destruction of the religious and cultural heritage of people but revealing the universal logos present in all cultures and religions and disciple them in the truth of the Gospel.
The Gospel of God in Jesus compels us to “Go out into the world and make all people my disciples,” that is, to gather “the dispersed children of God in all nations (John 11:52). The Church many a time misunderstood the meaning of the preaching of the gospel to bring together people in all nations, into something of an imperial programme of conquest and annexation. God’s invitation to all people was modified to something of a necessary mandate that can be resisted only at the peril of eternal damnation thus making the freedom God has given human beings to nothing; God’s loving act was changed to divine wrath and punishment; the message of the cross, love and forgiveness, was deprived of its meaning. Various Christian denominations began to understand mission as a colonial mandate to add members to its own community by destroying other national communities or even the disciples of Christ in other folds. In the world history much blood has been shed, much treachery has been played, by different Christian groups against one another. Even in the early centuries there were excommunications and banishments of Christian leaders and communities who lost the fight by those who won the doctrinal battles under the protégé of the political authorities. Church history would give ample evidence of the persecuted Christian groups in Palestine, Syria and North Africa inviting the Muslim rulers to come and protect them from their Christian masters. In the history of the Kerala Church the “Coonan Cross” in Kochi gives evidence for the struggles of the local Christians to protect themselves against the onslaught of other Christians who have pressurized them to leave their traditional faith with the help of foreign powers. The story still continues in other forms with independent preachers armed with tons of money predating the traditional churches, as well as national communities. The Christian Church today is in need of a re-understanding the purpose of God in the creation of the world and the role of the Christian Church in the execution of Divine plan in the world. In our relations to other religious communities the Christian denominations share the view that all religions should ultimately be destroyed for the glory of God. This is a defective theology. All religions need not be destroyed rather need to be redeemed in Christ including Christianity.
The world has to be seen as a process, a journey, towards an unending future, aided by God in its struggles for freedom, through divine interference in historical events and the life of the individuals. World history should not be interpreted as a journey to one world, one religion, one government, rather it must be viewed as a journey to future to discover the development of all people, to the birth of new communities so that emerging aspirations can find their fulfillment in new earth communities no one would “hurt or destroy” another “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Isaiah:11:9). The prophetic vision of people in the new communities is that they “shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees and no one shall make them afraid” Micah 4:4). Isaiah (19:24) conceives of a time when God makes Israel, who believed that they are chosen by God to be “a blessing in the midst of the earth,” by making them (God’s heritage) the third with Egypt (God’s people), and Assyria (the work of God’s hand). Bible does not conceive a single religion or culture as the ideal one. A world with a monolithic culture and religion or government would be unbearable to humanity. One should see different religions and cultures to be a blessing to keep human life human and free. A truly divine community or person is one that makes others blessed first and accepts a lower or third position for oneself. The desire to be the first and foremost is not to be considered as Christian vision. To make disciples of all nations is not demanding the destruction of them rather to work for the enrichment of their life with the values of the Gospel, making religion (Sabbath) for humans and not humans for religion. The mission of the church is to follow the life and ministry of Jesus wherever people are in need.