Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

60 2. The monotheistic faiths as prophetic religions Here I come to my second point. It has always fascinated me and continues to do so that salvation in the mon- otheistic religions depends on good deeds much more than on the right creed. It is ethics and not necessarily orthodoxy that counts. This has often been overlooked but it is obviously the emphasis on ethics that suggests that men and women are judged more by what they do and less by how exactly they formulated their beliefs. This focus on ethics is what makes them prophetic religions. The prophets are those who tell humans which path to take and give them signposts with regard to their responsibilities in this world, with regard to God and to other human beings and, as we lately understand, vis-à-vis God’s creation. Their strong ethical impulses throughout the ages oblige believers to create a soci- ety that proves worthy of God’s call and in which all humans can live as far as possible “without need and fear” (preamble of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights). This insistence on humanism and the well-being of all humans, for me, constitutes the great commonality between monotheistic religions, more than that they have Abraham as their ancestor. Thus it is that Abra- ham is seen as a righteous person par excellence, who does justice to all, respects them and promotes peace. The title proposed to me – Living dialogue among the Abrahamic Faiths – hints, however, at yet another com- monality between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three are religions of the Word. They believe that God speaks to humans, that He acts like a person addressing other persons face to face – here Abraham is indeed the prominent example. This emphasis on the Word and with it the singular person it is spoken to is most aston- ishing in a cosmos that has existed long before there were humans and that is, as we know, immense. So it is a by no means self-evident. It constitutes a strong common ground of all monotheistic religions giving an immense worth and dignity to each and every human being. If, as all of our Holy Scriptures say, men and women are to imitate God through their actions, then we are to be people of the Word. For Christians, Christ is the Word. The living God is not like the idols made by humans who, as the psalmist says, “have a mouth and cannot speak, hands that cannot grasp, a nose that cannot smell”. He therefore wants living human beings who are able to speak and to act and to do this responsibly. This belief makes a living dialogue between the Abra- hamic faiths possible in the first place. It is God who continues to create through His word, dia-logou, with intention and purpose and to further the good in this world. He is thus the initiator of all true words and the source of all good actions, a common belief of the mon- otheistic beliefs with far reaching ethical consequences. If God speaks to men and women, dia-logou, those who believe in His word, i.e. the faithful, are also called to speak to each dia-logou. They are to communicate to others what they have understood of God’s words under the contingent conditions of our lives, and that is always very limited because of the infinity of Him. Speaking to each other is moreover the opposite of violence, hatred and manipulation. Dialogue there- fore means nothing less than to overcome all forms of non-communication that over the ages have poisoned the relationships between people, whether or not reli- gious, and in many ways continue to do so. In the Hebrew and Christian Bible we repeatedly find the sentence that all believers are prophets. This means that they are to act through the Word and they are to reflect on what they know from God and interpret it for this age and its needs. Prophets speak about God, His judgement and mercy, and they admonish the faithful to do good and avoid evil. To find out what exactly that means is a complex task in any age, and one that requires intensive and serious ethical reflections. Here, the believ- ers of monotheistic faiths can support each other with better discernment: what is the good and the just act to be done here and now, learning from the rich traditions? In any case, I consider it an immense task to spell out the prophetic heritages that we have been vouchsafed for our times and to do this not against each other but in learning from one another. There are different perceptions of God’s word and this will remain so. We are Jews, Christians or Mus- lims and no serious believer can want to adhere to a mixture of two or three of these religions. Syncretism is not an option. But this need not keep us from working together intensively. Indeed, it demands exactly this so as to “overcome want and fear” of humans and, through this, serve the Almighty God since, to cite again Nostra Aetate : “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God.” Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked NOSTRA AETATE AND THE RELIGIONS OF ABRAHAM