Customer Reviews

The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends (Sacra Doctrina: Christian Theology for a Postmodern Age)

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As someone who has studied, written, and taught in the area of interreligious dialogue for the last decade, I judge Dr. Heim's most recent work of great significance. He offers a theological model that presents a way beyond the current exclusivist-inclusivist impasse in discussions about the relative truth of major world religions. The focus is on the goal or "end" of the various religions. While explicitly Christian in perspective, Dr. Heim's analysis presents non-Christian traditions in a manner that would be acceptable to their "insiders." While challenging for those without at least some academic theological background, the author's wonderful use of concrete examples should make the work accessible to a patient reader. This is a "must read" for those involved in interreligious dialogue, and for serious seekers with the requisite background. The author presents an exceptionally clear, nuanced description of the ultimate "destination(s)" possible in major world religious traditions. My hope is that his next work will be on "how to get there."

In a previous book entitled "Salvations "Heim challenged the usually undisputed idea according to which, salvation when it is reached, is the same for everybody.
So far, religious pluralists had conceded the possibility that religions could offer alternative paths to salvation, with more or less efficiency and varying levels of achievement. They acknowledged several paths, but only one end. Heim went further into the analysis of religious ends. He concluded that not all religious aims come under the category of "salvation", and that even when they do, they are not identical. Therefore he started to speak not only of salvation, but of salvations, claiming that even within a single religion there may be differences and gradations in the way humans encounter the ultimate reality, whoever or whatever it may be.
One could say that after unsettling us with the idea of multiple salvations, which is not easy to agree with, Heim tries to reassure us in "The Depth of the Riches". He does so by working out a synthesis of these many salvations. In order to reconcile the one and the many, he leads us towards a more comprehensive acceptance of the idea of salvation.
In this rather abstract environment, he tries not to be too exclusively theoretical, so he develops his ideas in the actual framework of Christian theology and more specifically of a Trinitarian theology. He does so with creative insights, using simple words for complex matters, making it as easy as possible for the ordinary reader to make the most of this remarkable book.
Heim leads us towards a more comprehensive acceptance of the idea of salvation, which would encompass all religious ends, not in terms of being their sum, but as resulting from their harmonious communion in which each salvation retains its specifics, but exists only in relation with the others. This is possible within a network of relationships where everyone plays his part in creating and sustaining the whole. The model is the Holy Trinity.
God's nature being a communion nature, and humans being made in the image of God, we are also persons-in-relation. Our salvation can be considered as a multidimensional communion of ongoing relations with others, with nature and with God; a communion in difference.
We can now come back to the more reassuring use of the word salvation in the singular, but with an expanded meaning.

Heim has done a stunning job in this book! First, it is clearly written and able to be understood by non-specialists. Second, he takes a uniqute approach in the reas of comparative religion. It is not a case of all religions "climbing the same mountain" but by different routes. Nor is it a case that the "mystics" in each tradition "have it right" and the specifics of the traditions are secondary. Rather each religion seeks a different end (e.g. the communion of saints, or nirvana) by clearly different ways. As in his earlier work Heim speaks of salvation(s), plural. These are the "religious ends" in the present title. What is heartening about this approach is that it guards the integrity of each tradition; it doesn't interpret others in terms of one's own tradition; it doesn't collapse all traditions into one common end.

This illumines my own experience of the varied spiritual formation of friends from different traditions. I can sense how their religious beliefs and practices have helped form them differently.

Heim also proposes how each tradition can view the "ends" of other traditions as stages toward the end of their own.

In this book Heim attempts to take the core principle of the Trinity - that of the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and develop a theology that attempts to answer some of the thorny questions posed by questions related to religious pluralism. Heim advocates the belief that each of the world's religious traditions will yield the ultimate end it promises. As an example, Buddhism will most likely lead to the selflessness that it advocates; but no religion will yield the ideal state which is accessible only to those who have embraced Christianity. Heim's position is frankly incompatible with C.S. Lewis' belief that he found it hard to believe that "a Muslim boy raised in a Muslim land who knows only the Muslim God and desires to follow Him will be disappointed." Heim's theology requires us to believe that this Muslim boy, through no fault of his own, will be forced to a lower place in the afterlife because he did not place his faith in Christ alone. John Hick answers Heim in a good review that can be read on-line at Hick's site.

I found the core thesis in this book largely inaccessible; I just could not understand how the Trinity provided an insight into multiple religious ends. I loved Heim's treatment of Dante's Inferno and how that view has been folded into his theology. I am interested in how far people like Heim are willing to go in projecting theologies wholly outside of Scripture, and yet so unwilling to be as philosophically rational when debating that which is within Scripture. I think we all need to be very sensitive to speaking for God as to His ultimate motives, plans and directions. Heim's book is interesting, but unfulfilling and largely inaccessible.

but Heim is confusing in spots - pg 291 -"the testimony of the religions is essential for internal Christian life." Hmmmmm? I am sure Peter tells us that in Christ we have everything we need in order to have a thriving internal Christian life. Does Heim mean that until I study other religions my Christian life won't be all it can be? This is ludicrous.