"Without Ceasing to be a Christian": A Catholic and Protestant Assess the Christological Contribution of Raimon Panikkar

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Introduction

Erik Ranstrom

Raimundo Alemany Panikkar (1918–2010)—or as he is more widely known today, Raimon Panikkar—lived, wrote, and taught on three continents over an astoundingly long period, stretching from roughly the close of World War I until the first decade of the twenty-first century. During that span, he published over three hundred articles and sixty books on a wide range of scientific, philosophical, cultural, and theological topics as seismic shifts in global cultural life were occurring—a point of which he was keenly aware. This very considerable output dealt with the interface between various aspects of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and modernity, often in novel and  creative  ways.  Panikkar’s  complexity  of  thought  and  wide- ranging experience is remarkable, and his influence extends far beyond the Catholic, and even broader Christian world.

There has been a growing but selective interest in Panikkar since his death in 2010 at both the popular and scholarly levels, and that trend may well continue and even expand in the coming decades. In recent years there have been multiple symposia dedicated to Panikkar’s legacy at academic conferences and other special events in the US and abroad, the release of Panikkar’s Opera Omnia in several languages, the publication of wide-ranging biographies and prognostications of his influence and legacy, and innumerable uploads onto YouTube of audio-visual interviews conducted during Panikkar’s last years. To understand better the dynamics involved with this process, we may ask about the factors that have contributed to this renewed interest, and about the kinds of socio-cultural and theological trends that are providing support for this revival of interest in Panikkar. How might Christian theologians, like Bob and I, respond to this reality?

It is instructive to consult the historical context of both Panikkar’s work and that of contemporary Panikkar scholarship. During the mid- to late-twentieth century, Panikkar was known as an emerging figure within the world of Catholic theology, appealing both to Western theologians pondering the possibilities of theological inquiry at the boundaries of interreligious and cross-disciplinary explorations, as well as to Indian and more broadly Asian theologians doing theology in the global South. However, a shift began to take place, though it is difficult to determine precisely when this happened, as Panikkar increasingly became a symbol and authenticator of a new religiosity tangentially related to his previous Christian context. As a result, he is, in the eyes of many, an exemplar of intercultural and interreligious life that goes beyond conventional belonging to a single tradition.

Panikkar appears as an authoritative, yet gentle voice in an era when religious pluralism is nearly professed as a creedal norm and syncretism is increasingly endorsed and practiced at both the popular and intellectual levels, particularly with respect to non-Western thought and practices. Panikkar’s own writings seemingly herald a new religious consciousness, and a post-Christian Christianness that has emerged in a declining Christian ethos in the global North. Panikkar’s synthetic appropriation of diverse worldviews and religions, predicated upon experience rather than doctrine, is also attractive to religious nones and spiritual but not religious seekers, who may find Panikkar’s distinctive pluralism an agreeable, if needlessly complicated representative of their spiritual inclinations. In the high-culture iterations of this orientation, there are ample scholars in theology, religious studies, and philosophy who find Panikkar’s path of interculturality a preferable alternative to traditional Christian doctrines and faith-contexts. To sum up, Panikkar was once championed by many as a Christian of the future, a pioneer whose time would perhaps come to pass in the mind of the Catholic Church, and beyond  in  the  wider  Christian  world.  It  is  quite  possible  that the religious future in question has arrived, with Panikkar as one of its most brilliant representatives. The sad irony in the arrival of this future, however, is that the Christian tradition is only faintly recognizable in this newly configured reality. It is also only faintly recognizable in the more recent interpretations of Panikkar.

Panikkar’s words and ideas are to some degree at the origin of the movements that seek to follow his example with scant mention of his Christian identity and inspiration, except as a scaffolding for his future evolution. Though Panikkar draws upon various and diverse Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and secular traditions in his works, it would be unwarranted to claim that he represents any of these traditions in an orthodox manner. Rather, he brings them together in a highly distinctive Panikkarian way, even as he respects tradition and insists upon the necessity of discovering truth inter-subjectively. Beyond his idiosyncratic and personal style, the present shape to Panikkar’s legacy is also partially a result of a dialectical relationship with his audience that, following his move to the United States and especially Santa Barbara in the 1970s, was largely post-Christian. Had Panikkar remained in the European context where he spent the majority of his life until middle-age teaching in Catholic universities, perhaps Panikkar’s intellectual history would have been written differently. It is quite possible that Panikkar, discerning the academic and spiritual contexts where he was living and working, decided that he must undergo a kenōsis into the traditions and life of peoples that were outside of the church, in order to keep pace with the cultural movement of global humanity. This was part of Panikkar’s genius and gift, and it is easy to appreciate the range of Panikkar’s mind and more importantly his heart, as well as his capacity to recognize and call forth from the most diverse human traditions and populations something of their inner depth and mystery. However, is there more to Panikkar than these audiences and contexts recognize? Is the post-Christian portraiture of the thinker and mystic something of a selective caricature? After all, the vast majority Panikkar’s articles and books introduce him as a thinker with deep ties to the Roman Catholic Church. Publisher commendations prominently mention that he was ordained as a Catholic priest, holding a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. There is a concreteness in Panikkar’s ecclesial identity that stands in tension with the ethereal and intangible quality of the universalistic mysticism often celebrated. Does Panikkar scholarship acknowledge this tension adequately?

There is a sense in which Panikkar devoted the entirety of his life to nourishing the sacramental bond which tied him to the Catholic Church. Perhaps ecclesial identity has been overlooked in recent times as an important factor in Panikkar studies. Panikkar went so far as to state in a Festschrift honoring the fiftieth anniversary of his Catholic priesthood that he is a Christian in a way that he is not Hindu, or Buddhist, or secularist. My "ekklesia is a Christian one he wrote, professing his community to be the church, because my belief tallies with what I believe to be the core of the christian belief and I recognize myself in communion with the christian church."[1] In an essay entitled, On Christian Identity, published when he was in his eighties, Panikkar wrestled with the nature of Christian identity by reflecting upon the relationship between the individual and the community. The individual, he wrote, has no prerogative to define what being Christian is in a private manner; the community discerns the meaning of Christian faith. The ekklesia, even at this late stage in his thinking, is linked in a special way with the sociological Christian, who belongs to a concrete ecclesial tradition, as well as and the Catholic Christian, for Panikkar wishes to retain the scandal and concreteness of the geohistorical symbol of Rome.[2] Although the burden of a great part of this book will be to demonstrate that Panikkar’s particular Christology is in certain respects insufficiently stated, we are legitimated to engage Panikkar from this Christian perspective precisely because of texts like this. The ecclesial communities recognized as Christian, by Panikkar’s own admission, have the obligation and duty to discern the meaning of his thought. Bob and I are offering here a kind of ecumenical sensus fidelium.

This sense of accountability to the Christian tradition receives further nuance by Panikkar himself in the English translation of his Opera Omnia recently published by Orbis Press. A significant appendix is found in vol. III, part II of Christianity, entitled, To my Bishop.[3] Striking for its personal nature and for being included in the collection of his writings on Christianity that he himself chose, the editor prefaces the excerpts of Panikkar’s letters to his Bishop throughout the years as intending to bear witness to his priestly commitment, as he himself expressed it in his personal, sacramental, and institutional relationship with the head of the diocese in which he was incardinated until the end of his life.[4] Indeed, throughout these letters, one is struck by the fraternal affection between Panikkar and the late Archbishop Patrick D’Souza of the Diocese of Varanasi (my dear Bishop and Brother Patrick[5]), his commitment to (indirect) collaboration with the Vatican through consultation with D’Souza (the following are the points I believe are worthy of the attention of His Holiness, John Paul II, at request of the Vatican curia,[6]), and his profound sense of the Christian mysteries as they take ecclesial form in the Catholic Church. For example, Panikkar muses upon the spiritual basis of the priest-bishop relationship with D’Souza. Obedience to episcopal authority, according to Panikkar, is much more than a juridical duty but the fruit of an act of faith.[7] This act of faith in the office of the episcopacy is none other than the obedience of faith, a traditional Catholic instinct that Panikkar did not consider obsolete or irredeemably oppressive. On the contrary, Panikkar entrusted his faith, and his discernment of that faith and its directionality, to his Bishop. D’Souza, in turn, exercised his episcopal authority through his own faith in the Spirit’s movements in Panikkar’s life. Panikkar suggests to D’Souza that it is more his task to contribute to building up of the Body by study, prayer, reflection, and life, than by organizing, directing, and committing myself to a particular project, but adds that he may be mistaken and is always willing to obey.[8] D’Souza concurs, and offers his blessing to Panikkar’s particular vocation in the church: I feel that you are in the right path, Raymond, insisting on your Mauna, searching for more and more time with the Lord. . . . So take all the solitude you can.[9] In a candid moment, Panikkar confided to D’Souza his desire for the meaning of his life, intimately tied to his destiny in the church: I was thinking today that if I could have contributed to the opening of the church towards other religions—not only on the practical level—specifically suggesting new lines for a viable theology of religions, I would not have spent my life in vain.[10] It would seem that Panikkar’s bond with the church, and, therefore, the Christian tradition in its totality, is more than an accident of his birth, a sentimental attachment to the religion of his childhood, or a convenient ecclesial-political exigency. It is a constitutively unique dimension of his personhood closely linked with his self-definition, which is none other than that of being a partaker of the Logos made flesh, with a mission in the body of Christ. We may raise a question at this point. Would many who read of Panikkar today recognize, or actively endorse, this dimension of Panikkar’s identity?

In addition to ecclesial identity, which exists on the social-sacramental level, Panikkar was also a theologian and a philosopher who made claims about the nature of reality. Recent scholarship has produced important works on Panikkar’s hermeneutics, philosophy of language, philosophical anthropology, and contribution to peace studies, but it should not be forgotten that such disciplines are ancillary to the realist theological metaphysic at the heart of Panikkar’s life and work. This realist theological metaphysic is none other than what Panikkar calls the mystery of Christ. In his intellectual quest to engage the christic mystery, Panikkar displayed a deep bond with the Catholic intellectual tradition, making ample mention of Augustine, Aquinas, liturgical prayers (often in Latin), and extensively citing papal teaching (very frequently from the first half of the 20th century), all of which animate his texts in generous and surprising ways. From his earliest publications to his last, regardless of the topic at hand, Panikkar expressed himself by drawing upon the Bible and Christian theological categories, and whether theologians ultimately agree with his progressive thinking is irrelevant to the more basic datum of the omnipresence of Christian sources, and its significance for conceiving of Panikkar as, among other things, a Christian intellectual.

The rejoinder may be offered, however: Was Panikkar’s continued use of Christian language simply a matter of what the Buddhist tradition calls upāya, or skillful means? Was Panikkar employing Christian terminology solely to communicate liberating post-Christian realities garbed in Christian language for the epistemic benefit of an audience predisposed to distrust a religious grammar alien to its own credo, a sort of missiological inculturation in reverse? This is an implausible suggestion, as it would imply an outsider stance to the Christian community and tradition, which, as we have seen, is alien to Panikkar’s professed fidelity to the historical and institutional church. Another objection may be that Panikkar’s use of Christian grammar is merely equivocal, expressing truths that can just as easily be rendered in other idioms, and perhaps more effectively. It is true that Panikkar insisted upon homeomorphic equivalents between traditions and the flexibility to communicate creatively in the religious language of others, but he was equally clear that he had not renounced his Christian identity, and did not recommend that it be conveniently dismissed with its insights replaced by those of other traditions. Notwithstanding his wish for mutual fecundation with religions and the appropriate amendments to Christian doctrine, the Christian spiritual and theological tradition remained for Panikkar, a privileged, if not absolutely unique, locus for the experience of God in the world.

Yet, there is tension here that must be faced squarely and directly, with major implications for the future of Panikkar studies and the continuation of his legacy. Is Panikkar the herald of a new religious consciousness or the faithful son of the church, or both? Will Panikkar be interpreted, remembered, and imitated as a post-Christian spiritual sage, a brilliant spiritual intellectual of the pluralist epoch, or as a Christian theologian? What is lost when the significant Christian element of his work is not fully and vigorously engaged? We would like to propose that Panikkar was a Christian theologian, and notwithstanding his interest and explorations in other spheres, that he remained committed to reconciling his insights with those of the Great Tradition, even as this became ever more belabored.[11] Coming to a greater awareness of Panikkar’s Christian identity has important ramifications for the future of Panikkar studies and research, and for Christian theology in general. From our different vantage points and experiences within Christianity, we both agree that the wave of enthusiasm for Panikkar in recent years has not translated into our respective ecclesial and theological contexts. The decline in interest in taking Panikkar seriously as a theologian is discernible in the dearth of references to him in large segments of Catholic and Protestant thought on Christianity and the religions. Panikkar’s work is rarely engaged at theological conferences, and outside of Asian theologians and some Western theologians, his influence is almost non-existent in Christian intellectual circles. These two dynamics, it seems to us, are occurring simultaneously, and reinforcing each other. The more post-Christian intellectuals and spiritual seekers adopt and advance Panikkar’s thought as an intercultural and pluralist alternative to traditional Christianity, the more theologians are likely to ignore him; the more theologians ignore him, the more passionately post-Christian intellectuals propose Panikkar as an eschatological prophet whose life and thought holds the key for a new religious future.

The isolation between Panikkar studies and the traditions he lived is sadly ironic. Panikkar advocated the dialogue of religions, and wished for his life and work to be a conduit for that dialogue, rather than become the basis for a separate ideology itself. It makes good sense to include Christianity and Christian theologians into the circle of Panikkar studies, for it was Panikkar’s great desire that his thought would not only be a gateway into the religious dialogue, but also leave a lasting impact on the church’s growth in relating to other religions. As Catholic and Protestant theologians, we hold that the Christian theological tradition not only has much to learn from Panikkar about the theology of religions, but also stands to profit from his work in the realms of Christology, Trinitarian theology, theological anthropology, theology of culture, eucharistic theology, and ecclesiology. Panikkar’s voice is an enriching one, with significant potential to contribute to theological discussions occurring in our time, particularly around Christology. Yet, even as Panikkar sought to remain faithful to the core of the Christian tradition and remain in communion with the ekklesia in the midst of intercultural and intrareligious encounter, we may ask if his appropriation of other religions calls for more careful reflection.

According to the Panikkar narrative, the most diverse traditions found harmony within his very self. What would be impossible to hold together for many: the church, science, Buddhism, atheism, and so on, Panikkar brings together with a certain grace and even beauty, seemingly radiating indivisible wholeness. The invisible harmony that Panikkar writes about, in the first place, is one that he claims to have experienced in his life. He insisted that such an existential confession and personal discovery always lay at the root of his words and ideas. There is much to reflect upon in Panikkar’s peaceful and fruitful integration of currents of human traditions that have sometimes been at odds, or even in deep conflict, with each other. And yet, what if from the perspective of others in the ecclesial body, the Christian faith-community broadly pictured, there are disharmonies and discordant tones within his existential and liturgically enacted invisible harmony? It is clear that Panikkar saw himself, among other things, as belonging to a cosmic yet historical ecclesial tradition, the church, a tie that was important to him personally, communally, and intellectually. It is not unreasonable on these grounds for Christians to assess the meaning of his thought from an ecumenical perspective which is largely absent in Panikkar. As our ecclesial traditions, both Catholic and Protestant, reconsider their identities in this age of dialogue and pluralism, there is growing reason to consider both the merits and ambiguities of Panikkar’s legacy.

Panikkar was a bold and daring thinker, who ventured into territory that many Christians would consider risky. Even as a young philosopher and theologian, Panikkar warned of a pseudo-Christian intellectual conservatism, and rejected it as a less than Christian prudence of the flesh.[12] Later, after his travels to India and interreligious conversion, he would claim that I ‘left’ as a christian, I ‘found’ myself a hindu, and I ‘return’ a buddhist, without having ceased to be a christian.[13] The last part of that quotation serves as part of the title for our book. We are not questioning whether Panikkar ceased to be Christian, which as we have shown above, is untrue. Yet, it would be surprising if Panikkar’s pioneering spirit did not yield both gift and ambiguity that calls for deeper reflection. What to do when a theologian is both an exemplar of christological revisionism as well as a resource for a fresh engagement with orthodoxy? What can we learn from Panikkar, and what could Panikkar perhaps have learned, or re-learned, from the wider Christian tradition? This volume aims for a balanced appraisal of Panikkar’s theological legacy, with a special focus on its relevance for the christological tradition. This christocentric focus is fitting for a number of reasons. First, it is Christ who is the center of Panikkar’s project, and consequently the christological tradition has the most to learn from such tantalizing notions as the Unknown Christ of other religions, but also the most to lose from following him too closely. We seek both an appreciation of Panikkar’s contribution to Christology in the context of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, as well as a critical discernment of some aspects of its appropriateness in light of the broader christological tradition. In the process, this inquiry will offer the field of Panikkar studies a distinctive interpretation and evaluation of Panikkar’s Christology and a sense of his multi-layered significance for Christian theology.[14]

Our project was conceived shortly after the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in 2011, held in San Francisco. There, Bob and I met each other for the first time as fellow presenters on an international panel aptly titled Raimundo Panikkar’s Christological Contribution. I was presenting on Panikkar from the Catholic tradition, and offering an alternative interpretation of Panikkar’s Christology in the context of Dominus Iesus and then-untranslated texts from his early writings; Bob was presenting on Panikkar from the perspective of the Anglican-Evangelical tradition, and in relationship to Protestant missiologists and theologians of culture. We recognized in conversations afterwards that our papers had much in common: a fidelity to the Great Tradition, an unmistakable enthusiasm about Panikkar, mingled with reservations, a desire to deepen the study of Panikkar ecumenically with attention to Christology and theological method, and a conviction that we could remedy a lacuna in Panikkar studies. In the vein of recent ecumenical book projects, we decided to venture a bi-optic study in the spirit of Evangelicals and Catholics Together[15] that would highlight points of common ground as well as reveal some intriguing ecumenical differences in our readings of Panikkar, which we will return to in the Conclusion. Over the last several years, our reflections have continued in conversations with each other, as well as with other interested scholars, Catholic and Protestant. We have reached several milestones, including the publication of articles related to this research, and for Erik, the completion of a doctoral dissertation on the early Christology of Panikkar at Boston College. It is our hope that the ecumenical dimension of the book might enrich contemporary Christology in the context of interreligious dialogue across confessional differences and draw in a more ecumenical readership to the works of Panikkar. It should also be noted that our respective Catholic and Protestant perspectives are ecumenical in and of themselves, lending fittingness to the dialogical nature of the book. Our book will be divided into two parts featuring chapters by Ranstrom and Robinson, followed by a concluding dialogue between the authors. Each author will present a theological appreciation and critique of Panikkar’s works from the perspective of Christology and their respective ecclesial traditions, Catholic and Protestant.

We both bring to the book distinctive backgrounds and preparations for this study. Bob is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Theology at Laidlaw College in New Zealand. His doctoral dissertation at the University of London was a christological assessment of Hindu-Christian dialogue, which has been since published as Christians Meeting Hindus: An Analysis and Critique of the Hindu-Christian Encounter.[16] It was during this period that Bob first studied Panikkar, and he has continued that study throughout the years, while also publishing Jesus and the Religions: Retrieving a Neglected Example for a Multi-cultural World[17] and a number of academic articles and chapters in various publications. Erik is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Rosemont College in Bryn Mawr, PA, and successfully defended a doctoral dissertation at Boston College in 2014 entitled The Unknown Body of Christ: Towards a Retrieval of the Early Panikkar’s Christology of Religions.[18] Our hope is that this combination of a senior Evangelical and junior Catholic scholar will provide a thought-provoking route of access to the fascinating and intimidating world of Panikkar’s thought.

Fundamental to Erik’s chapters is a chronological framework and analysis of Panikkar’s theological development. It has been noted that chronology is notoriously ambiguous in determining the genesis of Panikkar’s ideas. There have been multiple translations of his texts in different languages over the years, sometimes separated by a decade or more, with some of these (re)publications asynchronous with his contemporary thinking. This, in addition to an overall lack of systematic consistency and the experimental and experiential nature of his reflections, makes any attempt at systematization perilous. Nevertheless, Ranstrom’s chronology takes into account this nebulosity, as he argues for the presence of conceptual fluidity within the typological categories themselves. For instance, Ranstrom argues in chapter one for the recognition of a fundamental tension within Panikkar’s early theology of religions. There is, he argues, a fluctuation between christological inclusivism and an incipient pluralism, hinging on an inconsistent approach to the Incarnation. Consequently, Ranstrom argues that—contrary to such theologians as Dupuis and D’Costa —the 1964 edition of The Unknown Christ of Hinduism is not Panikkar’s worthiest contribution to the Great Tradition, which is rather a lesser known christological reflection on the Old Testament figure Melchizedek. Chapter two draws upon Panikkar’s fascination with Christian sacrifice and the Cross during his Opus Dei period, and follows that same theological interest into a later comparative work on Christian and Hindu worship where he suggests a fruitful Christian attempt to better understand the integration of life and worship through reflection upon various forms of Hindu life and thought. Taken together, chapters one and two reveal Panikkarian projects quite different from his later work, and retrieve the possibility that there exists within Panikkar’s corpus a Jesus-centered understanding of Christ and the religions that privileges the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Eucharist within his understanding of other religions. Chapter three is Ranstrom’s reading of the contextual and intellectual factors that led to the definitive breaking apart of this tension between inclusivist and pluralist approaches to Christ and the religions seen in his early work, resulting in the well-known cosmotheandric Christology of later publications. A key resource for Ranstrom’s assessment throughout is the Anglican theologian and missiologist George Sumner and his work on final primacy.

Bob offers sequential appreciative and appropriately critical chapters on Panikkar’s Christology, framing his reflections within a number of wide-ranging theological and missiological debates in both the Protestant global North and South. Focusing on the Panikkar corpus from the late 1970s onwards, Bob carefully parses Panikkar’s thought for enduring elements worthy of consideration and even reception by Protestants, and for common ground between Protestants and Panikkar concerning issues of central importance to his more radical work. Given what he sees as Panikkar’s relentless christocentrism, Bob works to dispel the notion that Protestant (including Evangelical) readers and Panikkar are necessarily on opposite sides of the Christian theological spectrum on issues as challenging as science and modernity, theological contextualization, ecology, cosmology, and even multiple religious belonging—while noting where Protestants could learn from Panikkar. Bob’s critiques of Panikkar in chapter five are not oriented towards differences between Protestant and Catholic theologies, but—exemplifying the ecumenical dimension of the book—with what Protestant and Catholic theologians hold together in assenting to the historical and universal density of the Jesus-event. He points to the way in which the increasing disappearance from Panikkar’s summative works of the person of Jesus of Nazareth marks a divergence between Panikkar’s Christology and most Protestant christologies. He also carefully addresses Panikkar’s problems with history as a theological datum by drawing attention to carefully nuanced distinctions made by both contemporary Protestant (and Catholic) thinkers concerning the limitations and necessity of the historical foundations of Christian faith. Part of his critique is that Panikkar’s reduced (because de-historicized) Christology threatens key elements of Christian praxis, and actually impedes dialogue with other faiths because of the way it diminishes a defining and enabling component of Christian identity. He also asks why Panikkar did not engage with the many Indian Protestant theologians who had similar concerns to Panikkar’s but who reached different conclusions about the centrality of Jesus for Christian self-understanding.

The contrary argument that may be offered to our respective approaches is that Panikkar transcended accountability to the Christian tradition through a unique epistemology and hermeneutics, but this would be to promote Panikkar into the realm of an esoteric gnosticism. It seems, though, that Panikkar did not desire such a break with the public life and theology of the church. We are aware, as well, of the radical pluralism that is the hallmark of the later Panikkar, and the special concern of much current Panikkar studies. Our lack of treatment of Panikkar’s radical pluralism is not an unwitting neglect or oversight but a principled hermeneutical stance. The possibility of reclaiming Panikkar for the Christian tradition, and playing a