A publication about the activities of the Centro Pro Unione “UT OMNES UNUM SINT” Digital Edition C ENTRO P RO U NIONE Semi-Annual Bulletin Web https://bulletin.prounione.it E-mail bulletin@prounione.it 2532-4144 Digital Edition ISSN N. 93 - Spring 2018 E-book A Ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement Centro Pro Unione Protestantisches Zeugnis in Ungarn - Unser gemeinsamer trinitarischer Glaube `Centro Konferenzen Károly Fekete Thirty-third Supplement (2018) compiled by Loredana Nepi In this issue Clare Watkins Celebrating 50 years of Methodist-Roman Catholic Inter- national Dialogue. Our Growing Together - Observations from a Catholic Member of the Commission `Centro Conferences Gillian Kingston In Appreciation of 50 Years of the Methodist/Roman Catholic International Commission `Centro Conferences Jack Bemporad Monotheism and All That It Implies `Centro Conferences James F. Puglisi, SA `Letter from the Director Kallistos of Diokleia Catholic-Orthodox Relations Following the Holy and Great Council in Crete (2016) `Centro Conferences 28 36 16 10 3 2 20 `A Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues2 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin DIRECTOR'S DESK Centro Pro Unione Bulletin A semi-annual publication about the activities of the Centro Pro Unione The Centro Pro Unione in Rome, founded and directed by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, - www.atonementfriars.org - is an ecumenical research and action center. Its purpose is to give space for dialogue, to be a place for study, research and formation in ecumenism: theological, pastoral, social and spiritual. The Bulletin has been pubblished since 1968 and is released in Spring and Fall. IN THIS ISSUE Letter from the Director EDITORIAL STAFF bulletin@prounione.it Contact Information Via Santa Maria dell'Anima, 30 I-00186 Rome (+39) 06 687 9552 pro@prounione.it Website, Social media www.prounione.it @EcumenUnity CENTRO PRO UNIONE A Ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement N. 93 - Spring 2018 Fr. James Puglisi, SA – Director Centro Pro Unione James F. Puglisi, SA Director Centro Pro Unione Spring 2018, n. 93 / Digital Edition (Web) ›Jack Bemporad ›Gillian Kingston ›Clare Watkins ›Kallistos of Diokleia ›Károly Fekete ›Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues (Thirty-third Supplement / 2018) his issue of the Bulletin – Centro Pro Unione is particularly rich in its contents. Several key events occurred that the Centro Pro Unione was happy to celebrate and commemorate. In the lead article, Rabbi Jack Bemporard opens up a discussion which we asked him to consider for those who are involved in interreligious dialogue among the Abrahamic religions. The article begins with dealing with the complicated question of Monotheism before looking at the question of Biblical Monotheism. The author makes the point that what is truly the most essential element in Biblical Monotheism is that it embodied an Ethical Monotheism. What actually is the Monotheism of the Bible as well as the Monotheism that is found in Christianity and Islam is an ethical Monotheism. The reader is invited to follow Rabbi Bemporad’s reasoning to arrive at his conclusion that the attributes that God Himself proclaims to be paramount are moral attributes, which are the essence of ethical Monotheism. So to comprehend Monotheism as merely the worship of one God is to miss the point entirely. Unless we understand Monotheism as portrayed biblically, in the Abrahamic tradition, as ethical Monotheism, and at the same time understand and accept the kind of imperative that it gives us as human beings, we won’t understand Monotheism at all. The Centro celebrated the 50 th anniversary of the international dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Catholic Church in October of 2017. Two members of the dialogue commission Gillian Kingston (Methodist) and Clare Watkins (Catholic) share their experiences of this dialogue and what their hopes are for the future of arriving at full, visible communion between our two churches. The 20 th annual Paul Wattson and Lurana White lecture in December was given by Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia. In his lecture he offers an objective, critical evaluation of the impact of the Holy and Great Council in Crete on Catholic/Orthodox relations. Bishop Kallistos opens his presentation by considering the historical event as a “miracle in history” considering all of the obstacles that had to be overcome. Following on this observation his lays out the plan of the council and a critical evaluation of success and failure of its various agenda elements. Since he was present at the great assembly we have a first hand witness to the light and shadows of the historic meeting. The last of the articles in this issue is the text of the Hungarian Evangelical Reformed Bishop Károly Fekete who spoke on the shared Trinitarian faith that we hold. On the 500 th anniversary of the Reformation the Hungarian Reformed church celebrates its 450 th anniversary of foundation. Bishop Fekete shares with our readers a part of the history with its struggles and successes which he attributes to the adherence to the fundamental Trinitarian faith. Dr. Loredana Nepi has prepared the annual up date of the bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues for 2017. What can we look forward to in the coming issue? A series of lectures celebrating our 50 th anniversary of foundation. A series of interreligious lectures co-sponsored with the John Paul II Institute for Interreligious Dialogue: Prof. Israel Knohl on “Genesis 49:10 a Messianic Prophecy?”; Prof. Marshall J. Breger will speak on “The Place of the Land of Israel in Jewish Thought” and Rabbi Jack Bemporad will explore “The Philosophy of the Midrash”. The Week of Prayer lecture given by Msgr. Paul McPartlan’s conference “Chieti and the Trajectory of Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue”. Also included is the presentation of the Report from the Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue in Finland: Communion in Growth. Declaration on the Church, Eucharist, and Ministry. The 21 st annual lecture in honor of our Founders will be a commemoration of the 800 th anniversary of Francis of Assisi’s encounter with the Sultan which will jointly be presented by Fr. Michael Calabria, ofm and a Muslim expert. Our keynote anniversary lecture will be given by Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the WCC. This lecture also celebrates the WCC’s foundation 1948-2018. This Bulletin is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Libra- ry Association, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 (www.atla.com). T3 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 Monotheism and All That It Implies Rabbi Jack Bemporad - Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding Teaneck, New Jersey, USA Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding Note: all Biblical quotes are taken from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press, New York, Copyright 2002. The study of Monotheism is complicated. In fact, it is difficult. It’s difficult because when we are trying to figure out what Monotheism is, there is a whole question regarding how Monotheism relates to Gnosticism and Gnostic dualism. How is it distinguished from Pantheism? What is the relationship between Monotheism and the Pagan deities? And it’s a vast, vast subject. In its full development, as it encounters Greek philosophy, there is the connection with Platonism and Aristotelianism and Stoicism, wherein a series of reconciliationist systems emerge in Medieval philosophy, which strive to integrate Greek philosophy and Scripture. And so to understand Monotheism, in its full-blown sense, one must also understand how certain Greek ideas, primarily the Timaeus of Plato and the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle, contribute to this development. Now there are a number of theories as to the origin of Biblical Monotheism. You notice I haven’t begun with a definition; one can’t really begin with a definition because it’s too difficult, so I will try to define it later. There are some theories that have been completely discarded in most scholarly circles, proposing a primitive Monotheism, out of which a variety of religions emerged and then a later reintegration of these various religions into a new and different Monotheism. But a basic theory that has been followed in Biblical critical circles is a theory that roughly evolves through three stages. In the first stage the Israelites were followers and worshipers of YHVH,(Yahveh). Yahveh was their God, in the same way the other gods of the surrounding peoples had their particular gods. Thus Chemosh was the god of Moab and Milkom the god of Ammon (Numbers 21:29). Then the Israelites reached the second stage in which they came to the conclusion that their God was greater than the other gods. This is seen clearly in Exodus, Chapter 15 verse 11, where it states: “Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods?” (for which gods, in this instance, refers to idols.) “Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” The Hebrew of “Who is like you,” is ‘me chamochah bah aylim’. Now ‘chamocha’ in Hebrew does not mean ‘like you’. It means ‘who is as you, or equal to you?’ And here it is clear that it means ‘who is equal to you among the gods?’ In other words, the second stage would be, ‘you are incomparably greater than all the others’. (In the same way, incidentally, one would have to say that in Leviticus 19:18, the correct translation is “you shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against any sons of your own people; but you shall love your neighbor…” And the common translation of the next words is, of course, “as yourself.” But that is not correct. You shall love your neighbor “because he is equal to you.” And if you have any question about that, in the very same chapter, in verses 33-34 it says: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong; the stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him [not as yourself]; (Conference given at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday, 25 May 2017) `Rabbi Jack Bemporad, Conference speaker4 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 for he is equal to you; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” So in the first stage there is Yahveh, one God, although like all the other Gods. The second stage God, Yahveh, transcends all the other gods and is greater than all the other gods. Then, in the third stage God is the only God. So in Isaiah 46 verse 9 it says, “…remember former things of old; for I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me.” But here again it’s not like me, but equal to me, because otherwise, it doesn’t have the force of meaning. So the point is that what we have are basically three stages. The first is Yahveh the God of Israel. Second, Yahveh is stronger than all the other deities and third, that God, Yahveh, is the only God. Now the Bible spends a great deal of time trying to illustrate in what sense God is the only God, that God is one and also unique, as will be explained later. So, for example, Deuteronomy 4 verse 10 refers to: “…how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ “And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with fire to the heart heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. And He declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances…” The important point here in Deuteronomy is that God is not in any way a material, physical entity. So what one gets, finally, is this sense that there is ‘none else’. This becomes very clear in Isaiah 40, a most magnificent statement, quoted in some length, because it is so important. I believe one should experience the grandeur of Isaiah. Isaiah says, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment and who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed his the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket…” (Isaiah 40:12) A drop from a bucket; all of the nations like one drop of water! These words transmit the total transcendence of God. Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as dust on the scales. In other words, they don’t count. “…he takes up the isles like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel…” and so forth. The purpose of all these beautiful words is to underscore the question, “Whom would you then liken to God?” Or, “What likeness compares with Him?” The only possible answer is that there is nothing that compares to or is equal to God. And then, in Isaiah 40 verse 21-23, again, the concept is hammered home: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in? Who brings princes to naught and who makes the rulers of the earth as nothing?” This is the greatness of Isaiah, the beauty, the poetry of it. What Isaiah does in poetic terms, in poetic categories, is essentially what the traditions within `Participants at the lecture Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding5 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam later translated into metaphysical categories. What is important to keep in mind is that the preparation of this foundation was critical to the Bible, which states, “You saw no form,” that everything in creation is as nothing compared to the reality of the one unique God who created the world. It therefore can then become axiomatic that the origin of Monotheism is something unique and unparalleled, viewing human beings as made in the Divine image. And had this not been clearly expressed in the Hebrew Bible, it would have been almost impossible to come to a later metaphysical characterization of God as one and unique, creator, and revealer, and redeemer. While this paper has enumerated the evolution of the conceptualization of God, those that claim that it was a natural development miss what is truly the most essential element in Biblical Monotheism; that is, it embodied an Ethical Monotheism. What actually is the Monotheism of the Bible as well as the Monotheism that we find in Christianity and Islam, is what I would have to characterize as ethical Monotheism. It is not a monism, because it is actually ethical, and this underscores the problems with the other deities. Why is it that the God of Israel is superior to and greater than the other deities and leads, finally, to their rejection as deities? An analysis of Psalm 82, (verses 2-4) brings out the ethical dimension clearly: “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment; “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” So how does the God of Israel judge these gods? What is the problem with them? The problem with the other gods is they don’t care about the widow, the weak, the orphan, the lowly, the destitute, the needy. And then it continues (6-7) : “They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. “I say 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall like any prince.'” In other words, what is the problem with these “gods”? The problem with these gods, according to Psalm 82, is that they are unethical, and it’s intolerable from a Biblical point of view that God could be unethical. The Bible teaches that God is concerned for the needy, the poor, the orphaned, the widow, and so forth. And that’s why Psalm 82 concludes: “Arise O God, judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!” Jewish thinkers have distanced themselves from this evolutionary process, from monalatry to Monotheism, pointing out that such a God seems so well fitted to the Greek concept of being, and that its connection to repentence, to messianism and especially its rejection of Pagan dieties is sui generis. For example, Leo Baeck, in God and Man in Judaism says that the Pagan gods, “Are moral only insofar as their behavior is not immoral. Morality is not essential to their divinity.” 1 And Yehezkel Kaufmann in his Religion of Israel claims that “Israelite religion was an original creation of the people of Israel. It was absolutely different from anything the Pagan world ever knew; its Monotheistic world view had no antecedents in Paganism”. 2 There is, of course, further evidence in the Bible of the concept of Monotheism. What do we know about God in the first Chapter of Genesis? We don’t know very much about God at all. The one thing that we do know is that He creates the world. The other thing we know is that all the various deities of the surrounding peoples are no longer deities, but demythologized parts of God’s creation. For example the Bible says: “tohu va’vohu; and the earth was unformed and void.” Well, ‘tohu va’vohoo’, chaos and disorder, were gods in the Pagan world. Light and darkness were the Zoroastrian gods of light and darkness, respectively, and in the same way, the sun, moon, and stars were deities. 1 Leo BAECK, God and Man in Judaism (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1958) p. 26. 2Yehezkel KAUFMANN, Religion of Israel: From It’s Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (New York: Schocken Books, University of Chicago Press, 1960) p. 2. `A Russell Berrie Fellow asks a question Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding6 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 The text doesn’t even give them credit by naming them ‘sun’, ‘moon’ and ‘stars’; it says: “…the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.” 1:16 So the heavenly bodies are created on the fourth day as part of nature, (they do not exist as gods with powers), while the great sea monsters (also gods in the ancient world) are created on the fifth day, with all the other sea animals. 3 On the sixth day, God creates human beings in the Divine image. One must ask what does ‘God created human beings in the divine image’ actually mean? When the Bible speaks of man, it’s not enough to think simply of man as a living being, we must see man also as a being with self-consciousness, a consciousness that is not otherwise found in nature (at least, to date we have no evidence of it), because it is particularly a knowledge of good and evil. This consciousness is not just a cognitive knowledge that is strictly theoretical; it is also practical knowledge to do with good and evil. And in fact, the very nature of man is determined by this knowledge. So, according to the Bible, human beings are therefore primarily ethical beings, and the creation of man is necessarily the creation of a spiritual being. This is buttressed by numerous passages in the Bible. For example, the Prophet Zechariah says: “Thus says the Lord who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and who formed the spirit of man within him.”(12:1) In the book of Job (33:4): “The spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” And in 32:8 it says: “But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.” 3The great Biblical scholar, Umberto Cassuto, in his Commentary on Genesis, wrote about the parallelism of the first three days and the second three days, days 4-6. So light and darkness were created on the first day, and then the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day; heavens and seas on the second day, birds and fish on the fifth day; the land and vegetation on the third day, the animals and human beings on the sixth day. And each creation increases the potentiality to act. The sun, the moon and stars circle in their heavens on day four, but it is animals and human beings that can change their position on day six. And finally, it’s human beings that not only can act on their own behalf, but mold and affect the land and influence the other creatures as well, Umberto CASSUTO, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part One From Adam to Noah (Jerusalem : The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1961) p. 15. So what is it about human beings that makes us different, that makes us able to understand? That makes us spiritual beings? It is, from a Monotheistic point of view, a spirit that God puts into human beings. In fact, in Numbers, Joshua warns Moses that Eldad and Medad were prophesying; Moses responds, in Numbers 11:29, saying: “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets…” And in Isaiah, Chapter 11 verse 9 you find: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” And Jeremiah (31:34) says: “No longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.” In addition, Joel says beautifully (2:27-29): “You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, And that I, the Lord, am your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days I will pour out my spirit.” Prior to Monotheism, each people had their own god, who fought and battled with the other gods, and each set of gods represented a different people. But, on the contrary, the concept of Monotheism implies the concept of humanity, as Hermann Cohen overwhelmingly demonstrates in his book, Religion of Reason - Out of the Sources of Judaism. 4 So that one God doesn’t just mean ‘not many gods but one god’; it means not many peoples, but one humanity. We can examine the implications of this concept further by examining the central prayer in Judaism, the Shemah. It states: “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) First, saying that God is ‘one’ implies that God is 4 Hermann COHEN, Religion of Reason - Out of the Sources of Judaism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999). Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding7 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 unique. What does unique mean? It means that no other reality is like God and that everything else is contingent. The medieval philosophical tradition viewed such affirmations as claiming that God is necessary. This means that saying something is contingent implied that at one time it didn’t exist, and then it came to be as a possibility, and then became an actuality. So if one takes any finite, contingent thing, one would have to say that there was a time when it was a possibility, which then became actualized, but it was actualized by something else that brought it into being. That is simply a logical progression. Therefore, those who ask “If God caused, or created the world, then who caused God, or who created God?” They are inferring that God is one contingent being in a series of contingent beings, which means that God was possible, and then was actualized by a reality that was prior. But this line of reasoning is inapplicable to the concept of God. Why? Because God is not a contingent being that becomes actual from a state of potentiality; on the contrary, God is the ground for all possibility and all actuality. Now if God is the ground of all possibility and all actuality, God in no sense can simply be one possible being among possible beings, or one actual being among actual beings. Indeed, God is unique and therefore is the ground of all possibility and all actuality, and thus excludes comparison with any other being. God’s being thus implies God’s uniqueness. There are no other Gods. When the Bible declares, in the 10 Commandments “You shall have no other Gods before me,” (Exodus 20:3) it not only means, as Cassuto points out, that when one turns to other beings that are falsely viewed as gods, one does it in the presence of the one unique God. 5 Cassuto interprets correctly: “any place that you turn to another God, I am there.” 5 Umberto CASSUTO, A Commentary..., op. cit., p. 241. What “Thou shall have no other Gods before me,” means is that if you turn to another god, it’s not that this other god now is in God’s sphere, and the one God is relegated to the lesser’s sphere, and is absent. No! God is the God of everything, and therefore, whenever people turn to another god, God asserts, so to speak, ‘You’re doing it in My presence’. You’re doing it in the presence of the one unique God. Thus, idolatry is akin to adultery because it is sharing the worship of the one God with the worship of other realities that we falsely consider to also be divine. But God is exclusive. The worship of God excludes the worship of anything else as equal to God. So, when the Bible refers to God as an ‘El kana,’ it becomes obvious that 'kana’ means exclusive –not jealous– God. Thus, Brown–Driver– Briggs defines ‘kana’ as demanding exclusive service, 6 which Cassuto interprets as parallel to an exclusive marriage relationship. 7 Thus, Biblically, idolatry is akin to adultery. In other words, it means that if you really worship God, if you really understand what God is, it excludes the possibility of worshiping any other God. Now, there’s an interesting passage in the Mekilta that imparts a sense of early Rabbinic Judaism, Rabbinic dialogues, and Rabbinic exchanges with respect to the Biblical phrase usually translated as “a jealous God.” “A certain philosopher asked R. Gamaliel, It is written in your Torah, ‘For I the Lord am a jealous God’. But is there any power in the idol that it should arouse jealousy? A hero is jealous of another hero, a wise man is jealous of another wise man, a rich man is jealous of another rich man, but has the idol any power that one should be jealous of it? R. Gamaliel said to him, Suppose a man would call his dog by the name of his father, so that when taking a vow he would vow; ‘By the life of this dog’. Against whom would the father be incensed? Against the son or the dog? Said the philosopher to him, Some idols are worthwhile. ‘What makes you think so?’ asked R. Gamaliel. Said the philosopher: There raged a fire in a certain province but the temple of the idol was saved. Was it not because the idol could take care of itself?” 8 In other words, since the house of the idol was saved, it must mean the idol had enough power to protect the house. 6 Francis BROWN, S. R. DRIVER, Charles A. BRIGGS, The Brown- Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: Coded with Strong’s Concordance Numbers (Oxford: University Press, 1980) p. 888. 7 Umberto CASSUTO, A Commentary..., op. cit., p. 242. 8 Jacob Z. LAUTERBACH, Mekhilta De-Rabbi Ishmael (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949) II, pp. 244-246. `Fr. Puglisi and Rabbi Bemporad Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding8 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 “Said R. Gamaliel to him, ….When a king of flesh and blood goes to war, against whom does he wage war, against the living or against the dead? The philosopher then said: ‘Indeed, only against the living’”. What R. Gamaliel is pointing out is, what is the point of having a battle against the dead? The house of idols is a house of the dead. “Then he [the philosopher] said again: But if there is no usefulness in any of them, why does He not annihilate them?” I think that’s not a bad question. In other words, why doesn’t God do away with idols if they have no power, and they have no use? All it means is that people falsely believe in them. This is the response: “Said R. Gamaliel to him: 'but is it only one object that you worship? Behold, you worship the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets, the mountains and the hills, the springs and the glens and even human beings. Shall He destroy his world because of fools?'” The philosopher also said to him: “Since it causes the wicked to stumble, why does God not remove it from the world? –But R. Gamaliel continued saying: Because of fools? If so, then since they also worship human beings: 'Shall I cut off man from off the face of the earth?'” In those days the Caesars, beginning with Octavian, proclaimed themselves to be dieties. And they insisted on being worshipped and having sacrifices made to them. During the Maccabean struggle, Antiochus of Syria proclaimed himself Epiphanes, God manifest. If we were to try to capture the nature of Monotheism in its Biblical and then Rabbinic meaning, we would have to revise the simple linear development from Monolatry to Monotheism, while taking into consideration a number of elements which were unique in the Bible and made Monotheism’s development something unparalleled elsewhere. First, as shown earlier, the Bible demonstrates that God is a spiritual, creator God. As long as the gods were forces in nature, (as was true with all pre-Biblical religion), each deity had a certain domain and was characterized by arbitrariness and conflict. There were battles between gods, and nature was seen in constant strife. But one must ask why it is so important for us to understand that the world was created by God? And why is creation so important? Creation is important because without the concept of creation, we fall into the trap of Pantheism, and the identification of God with the physical world. But the importance of creation is even more than that. (Whitehead, one of the greatest philosophers of our time, in his Science of the Modern World, echoed the widely held belief that without the Biblical view of a created, orderly world, we could not have had science. In fact, he says that it’s not that there is a world that happens to have an order, no order, no world.) Creation becomes significant because, logically, there has to be some reality that is the ground for all of the order in the world. This revolutionary view, which was initiated by the prophets, made it possible to see nature as the creation of God as an orderly cosmos, and not chaos. And, perhaps, even more important, since God created nature, God is not a force of nature, but a spiritual being who transcends nature. Another consequence of Monotheism, also previously demonstrated, is that human beings are made in and for the image of God. Humans have a spirit, or spark of the Divine, and hence must be treated with respect and as ends in themselves, and not simply as means to an end or objects of use. And since God is a spiritual being, then human beings made in the Divine image are also spiritual and transcend physical nature. Why is this important? Because without the concept that man is not simply a physical being, but also has a soul or a spirit, the entire foundation for immortality vanishes. In Psalm 51, right after the prophet Nathan confronts David about Bathsheva and Uriah the Hittite, David implores, God: “…take not thy holy Spirit from me.” (Verse 11) Since God is a spiritual, creative being transcending nature, so human beings made in the Divine image also transcend physical nature and have a spiritual quality that manifests itself especially in ethical action. As a result of this revolutionary concept of human nature, as an ethical, spiritual reality, history became possible. In fact, in the Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding `Fr. Giovanni Cereti and Rabbi Jack9 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 93 - Spring 2018 ancient world, the Bible was the first book that actually viewed society as a historical, and not just a cyclical reality. History became the means through which human values and goals could be realized, not immediately, perhaps not in one lifetime, but over time and generations. So historical progression also becomes a consequence of Monotheism. God creates the natural order, creates human beings in the Divine image, and they create social order and history. But history is only history within the context of an ideal goal, because an ideal goal breaks the repetitive, cyclical nature of the Pagan world. And just as Monotheism affirmed one God and one cosmos, it also affirmed the ideal goal, which history would realize as a society of justice and peace. Thus, Monotheism introduced the Messianic ideal. The idea of the Messiah demands a recognition of humanity, of one humankind which is only possible with Monotheism. It is only Monotheism which could produce the concept –found nowhere else in the ancient world– of a time without war: “…and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn [be accustomed to] war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4) Yehezkel Kaufmann, commenting on Isaiah’s prophesy, states, “Murder is a crime, war is not. But there will come a time, with the full realization of humanity, that war itself will be a crime.” This state of peace is clearly described by the prophet Micah when he said, “let each man sit under his vine and under his fig tree; and no one shall make him afraid.” 9 9 Yehezkel KAUFMANN, Religion of Israel,... op. cit., p. 388. And so peace gives human beings their tasks and responsibility for the world. It is a threefold responsibility: First for themselves, in the sense that the Divine within us must be tended and realized, and employed to curb all self-centered action at the expense of others. The second task is for others, who were also made in the Divine image; the Bible was the first book to indicate that all human beings have a claim on us and that in the sight of God we are spiritually equal. And the third is to live according to God’s will as embodied in ethics. Thus the ideal of a just society for all is a basic affirmation of Monotheism. And finally, what is actually foundational for Monotheism, and I’ve saved this for last, is that it makes it possible to love God. Because one can’t love a god who is a tyrant, that is a destructive entity, that is only power. It’s interesting that a tyrannical, capricious god is not the Biblical view. In Exodus 33:18, Moses asks, “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” In Hebrew, “glory” is the word “kavod,” which is a very difficult word to translate because kavod actually means weight, power, or significance. God replies to Moses (33:20) in effect, ‘You really can’t know what my essence is, but I can tell you what my attributes are.’” Now you would think God would say my attributes are omnipotence, omniscience, power, and might, the traditional Greek and Pagan attributes. Of course, that is not what the text says. It says (34:6-7): "rachoom, (which means merciful or compassionate, coming from the Hebrew word rechem, which means womb, a very feminine word), chanoon (gracious), erech apayeem, (slow to anger, or patient), v’rav chesed v’emet (full of steadfast love and truth)…keeping steadfast love for thousands [of generations] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...". In other words, the attributes that God Himself proclaims to be paramount are moral attributes, which are the essence of ethical Monotheism. So to comprehend Monotheism as merely the worship of one god is to miss the point entirely. Unless we understand Monotheism as portrayed biblically, in the Abrahamic tradition, as ethical Monotheism, and at the same time understand and accept the kind of imperative that it gives us as human beings, we won’t understand Monotheism at all. Rabbi Jack Bemporad – Director, The Center for Interreligious Understanding `Br. Giovanni, nsa, Fr. Charles, sa and Br. Gregorio, nsa Next >