Introduction

Abstract

The coming wave of thinking about ultimate reality is transreligious. Because religious truth is not confined to a single tradition, theology restricted to a single tradition will not be adequate to the divine or ultimate truth. What is needed is a constructive theology without confessional boundaries, a Theology Without Walls. This new approach will pose questions more radically—not just what does “my” tradition teach about soteriology or the ultimate aim of the spiritual life, but rather, taking in all religions, as well as philosophy, literature, the sciences, and personal experience, it asks: What is the fundamental human predicament that soteriology should address? Is soteriology even the central concept in our relationship with ultimacy? It would explore the many ways of relating to ultimate reality and the possibilities of transformation. It would address the enduring questions about the real and the less real, life and love, felicity and suffering, justice and compassion, the self and the community, and so on. This introduction clarifies this new approach and relates it to comparative theology, the theology of religions, interreligious theology, interfaith dialogue, religion and literature, theological methods, religious pluralism, dual religious belonging, and the spiritual but not religious, or “nones.”