Volf Lecture 2: Loving God and Neighbor Together

In this second (read 1, 3, and 4) of four Kistemaker lectures, Dr. Miroslav Volf discusses the Yale Center for Faith and Culture’s response to A Common Word, entitled Loving God and Neighbor Together. Here are my notes:

Background on the Yale Response

Dr. Volf sees A Common Word (ACW) as a highly significant interfaith initiative. He thinks it is amazing that so many Muslim leaders have spoken with one voice, so much so that ACW warranted a response from the Yale Center. Volf himself was the main drafter of the Yale Center’s response (YCR).

The YCR has received a vast array of Christian support from over 600 diverse signers.

The goal of the YCR is simply to reciprocate a friendly handshake that was extended first by the Muslims. Accordingly, it is important to keep in mind what the YCR is not:

• a comprehensive statement of faith,
• an attempt to deny the differences between Christianty and Islam,
• or a mere one-time initiative.

Rather, the YCR is:

• a simple reciprocal handshake,
• which maintains differences between the religions (esp. the distinct nature of Christian love as grounding the ability of a man to love not only his neighbor, but also his enemy),
• and which serves as a first word in a long conversation to come.

Dr. Volf’s presupposition guiding the response is this: If I cannot live with someone who is different than me, than I have failed as a Christian.

On the Unity of God

Dr. Volf grounds Christianity’s imminence of God in His transcendence, stating that because God is transcendent, he is also imminent.

Volf restated much of the same thoughts he shared in the previous lecture on the point of the Koranic polemical phrase, “God has no associate,” as this verse is quoted in ACW. [See the bit about the Sufi reinterpretation of this phrase in terms of God's aseity.] In addition to these restated thoughts, Volf added:

• The triune God is “internally differentiated.” [Though he used this phrase a few times, I don't recall that he ever defined it clearly. In context I assumed he was referring to the one/many problem, or something similar.]
• In Islam, Muslims too believe that God is somehow internally differentiated. [I think he means by this that in Islamic theology God is not sheer oneness without any attributes, such as kindness, mercy, wrath, etc.]
• Volf suggested that a possible dialog point between Islam and Christianity on the doctrine of God is to explore whether the Muslim concept of “attributes” of God is strikingly similar to Christianity’s concept of the three “persons” of the Godhead.
• Thus, the debating could focus on how God is “internally differentiated.”

Love of God and Neighbor: The “Centerpiece” of the YCR

For Luther, to love God is to have faith in God. And to have faith in God is to receive all of his benefits. (See Luther’s 28 theological theses in his Heidelberg Disputation for further explanation of Volf’s view on the love of God.)

In the YCR, God’s very being as love is at the heart of Christianity’s distinct view of love [in that love begins and ends with God]. And if God Himself is love, then the scope of this love must include our enemies, for God loves the unlovable.

God loves the unlovable [the enemy]. Accordingly, Christians don’t just love the near or the neighbor, but the far-off and the enemy.

Volf says that he views his writing as evangelistic in the sense that he is expounding the heart of the Gospel–God’s love for his enemies.

Criticisms Received from the Christian Community

• “What about your apology for the Crusades?” — Volf is stunned that anyone would presume to claim that Christians did not sin within the Crusades.
• “Why apologize at all when the Muslims didn’t?” — Apology is not a negotiation, but a self-effacement [grounded in love].
• “Aren’t you denying differences between the religions?” — No! [Both ACW and the YCR do not deny differences.]
• “Have you given up the deity of Christ?” — This question is off topic, for ACW did not deal directly with Christ’s deity. [However, I might disagree with Volf on this point, though I admit it may be a quibble over explicit vs. implicit denial of Jesus' deity. See the paragraph near the end of ACW where the Muslims describe their view of Jesus' status and role as "Messiah." In my opinion this amounts to a flat denial of Jesus' full deity, albeit indirectly/implicitly.] Volf contends that the Muslims who are behind ACW know full well that the YCR signers are orthodox Christians. In fact, Volf pointed out that Muslims would much rather dialog with Christians who have strong convictions than pluralistic/relativistic agnostics.
• “Haven’t you given up evangelism?” — No. Neither side wants to give up evangelism. However, both sides want to distinguish between evangelism and manipulation. [Note Volf's earlier comment about his writing of the YCR as evangelistic due to its content. However, this point here seems odd to me b/c neither ACW nor the YCR deals with evangelism explicitly or implicitly, except perhaps under the ruberic of 'religious freedom' or 'justice.']
• “Isn’t Islam misrepresented in ACW?” — We shouldn’t tell Muslims how to interpret their own religion. [Although Volf did admit that the best we can do is charitably take Muslims at their word and then hold them to their word if they try to change later, however hard such charity may be considering Islam's Wahabi-dominated history.]

Related Volf Reads