Teologia sistemática e religiões mundiais: aproximações tillichianas ao tema da pluralidade religiosa

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century in the West, the broader range of religious phenomena and experience emerged as a locus of legitimate theological concern, with numerous theologians seeking to contribute toward the construction of systematic reflection on the topic. Among them, the German-American theologian Paul Tillich emerged as one of the most significant, being that he was one of the first Protestant theologians to reflect upon the possibility and need for the creation of a christian systematic theology capable of take other traditions in consideration and capable of entering into creative dialogue with them. We maintain, from the research that the world religions in one form or another, have always been present in the development of his thought. However, a little number of works pay attention to this issue and deepen the task. Recurrently, point to the Tillich's interest in the subject of religious plurality as being predominant in the final years of his life, due to the experiences that he lived in the period from the trip to Japan in 1960 as the personal contact with representatives of other religious traditions, a joint seminar with Mircea Eliade and the perception of him, of a new "situation" of the world. This research supports the idea that religious pluralism has been at the Tillich's interpretive horizon, making him look even break in his theological activity, with what he called provincialisms. Even if one can not deny the importance of religious plurality in the last years of his reflections acquired, we want to point and analyze how he approached the non-Christian religious traditions and to what extent the approaches thereto reflect systematic theological in its production.