When in the 1990s the so-called “new comparative theology” was proposed, some of their protagonists—though never all of them—suggested it as an alternative to the “theology of religions” (or “theology of religious diversity”), allegedly being exempt from the need to choose between the major options of either an exclusivist, inclusivist, or pluralist understanding of religious diversity. Meanwhile most proponents from both forms of theology understand their efforts in terms of complementary tasks. In Circling the Elephant, John Thatamanil (Union Theological Seminary, New York) presents various arguments in favor of such complementarity adding to this a third project: constructive theology unfolding as interreligious learning. The overall goal of his book “is to show that these three projects can and must be integrated” and “how this might be done” (14). While I wholeheartedly support the first aim and most of the arguments forwarded in its support, I do have some qualms about the second.

Chapter 1 provides a basic outline of how Thatamanil conceives the relationship between theology of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology. Chapters 2 and 3 enter into a closer discussion of some versions of exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist models under the somewhat—though not entirely—new aspect of interreligious learning. To what extent do the approaches Thatamanil surveys motivate and foster or hinder and dispense with such reciprocal learning? The question is crucial, for learning is what makes up constructive theology in its connection with comparative theology and theology of religious diversity. He finds that some versions of exclusivism, such as Gavin D'Costa's, and some versions of inclusivism, as Paul Griffith's, do permit interreligious learning but within serious limits. In particular, such approaches are hardly capable of taking what Thatamanil calls “an intrinsic religious interest in the aims of another tradition” (69), that is, an interest in the insight and values of the other tradition not dominated by the premises of one's own tradition. Moving on to pluralist approaches, he first engages in the now widespread kind of John Hick bashing that is often—as here too—based on a misreading or insufficient knowledge of Hick's writings. Thatamanil voices some caution against his own interpretation (79), but unfortunately this remains without consequences. He prefers the “non-identist” approaches of Mark Heim and process theology but finally decides for what he calls “relational pluralism” or “polyphilic pluralism.” It is a pluralistic approach because it rejects superiority claims, but it also abstains from claims of parity because—so his argument goes—religions are too complex to allow comparative assessment (91, n. 64).

This complexity is further analyzed in chapters 4 and 5 where Thatamanil rejects an essentializing understanding of religion(s) seeing them instead as “porous, permeable, and perpetually fluid realities” (15). He mentions Wilfred Cantwell Smith as a pioneer of this insight without reflecting on the fact that Smith belongs to the “identist” pluralists whom he accuses, among other things, of neglecting this crucial aspect. At times, Thatamanil's interpretation of the differences “between and within religious traditions” (91) in terms of “complex crosscutting patterns” (104) is very close to what I have called (since 1995) a “fractal interpretation of religious diversity.” In the remaining chapters, 6 and 7, Thatamanil illustrates interreligious learning by first pointing out how Martin Luther King learned from Gandhi in ways that broadened his understanding of Christ. Then Thatamanil presents his own suggestion of how Christian trinitarian thinking may be enriched and transformed through insights from Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamaka. He insists that interreligious learning must consist of learning more about the nature of ultimate reality as such and not merely about its manifestation in human experience. Interreligious learning is circling the elephant and thus learning about its various dimensions. But what if ultimate reality is infinite and exceeds the limitations of all human notions as has been claimed in all major religious traditions?—a question raised only at the very end of the book (257). Then, any elephant that can be circled will not be the real elephant. In the end Hick's emphasis on the apophatic limitation may therefore provide a more sober and realistic basis for interreligious learning, a goal for which Thatamanil has made a persuasive demand.