Book review: Wolfgang Wünsch, Hans Küng in der Theologie der Religionen:
Von der offenbarten dogmatischen Wahrheit zum interreligiösen Synkretismus,
Wachtendonk: Edition Hagia Sophia, 2020 (394 pp)Prof. Dr. Piotr Adamek von der Fu-Jen-Universität Taiwan
The work starts with a biography and an outline of Küng’s theological development. With the help of his autobiographical My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs (2002), the author presents extensively and in a systematic way the characteristics of the Swiss theologian. Observing the development of national socialism in neighboring countries in his childhood and adolescence, Hans Küng faced a decisive question: “adapt and participate or withstand and resist” (p. 31). According to the author, he transplants the expected answer (resistance) from the political to the church context. Küng’s transfer to the Liberal High School in Lucerne is read by him as a “farewell to ghetto Catholicism” (p. 37). His vocation to the priesthood is ascribed to the words of a friend and the example of his parish priest, filled with “the spirit of Jesus”. In his “self-chosen” philosophical and theological studies in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Hans Küng learned not only about “Roman thomism”, but also, in part, about “modern thinkers”. Küng continued his theological formation in Paris and, in 1957, completed his doctoral thesis: Justification: The doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic reflection. Wünsch emphasizes the “indisputable merit” of Hans Küng’s dissertation in the “convergence” of the doctrine of Karl Barth with Catholic teaching. He objects, however, to its overextended conclusions about the similarity of Protestant and Catholic teaching. He quotes an appeal of Hans Küng, included in his dissertation, for a return to the original ideals of the Gospel, seemingly forgotten in the Middle Ages, “even if he had to move against Church tradition and its authority” (p. 62). Kiing’s doctoral thesis set the course which influenced his later theological thought. Wünsch says that Hans Küng’s thought evolved from “loyal opposition” to “critical Catholicism”.
According to the author, this course continued during Küng’s pastoral years in Lucerne, his habilitation studies at the University of Münster and, since 1960, at the University of Tübingen, where he was appointed professor. Encouraged by the approaching Ecumenical Council for the whole church, announced in 1959, Hans Küng developed the idea of the necessity of the renewal of the Church, including “the realization of justified Protestant concerns” (p. 72). However—as the author notes—for some unexplained reason he ignored the concerns of the Orthodox Church almost entirely. Together with other professors of theology, Küng served as an advisor at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). According to the author, he demanded, inter alia, use of vernacular languages in the liturgy, and held a symbolic view of the Eucharist, similar to that of Ulrich Zwingli. The last, relatively short, subsection of the first biographical chapter presents the further development of Küng’s theological thought, leading up to 1979 and the revocation of his license as a Catholic theologian and its consequences. Cardinal Lehman, as quoted by Wolfgang Wünsch, evaluated the Küng case and the revocation of his license as the “failure of an attempt in the dialogue between theology and the magisterium of the Church” (p. 99). Hans Küng remained, however, a Catholic priest and a professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research. He started a project and foundation for a Global Ethic, promoting intercultural and interreligious research, education and encounter. This “interreligious dialogue”, however, in the author’s judgment, was bound to become just a “discourse of secular reason with the help of various religions” (p. 109), and be deprived of any missionary ideal. The outcome and the preliminary conclusion presented by author after this biographical part of the work, is that, after the success of his doctoral thesis on justification, Küng challenged current ecclesiology, proclaming an “original Christianity” “if needed without or against the Church tradition and authority.” In the opinion of the author, the theologian argued by this means not only against “Roman Catholic special teaching” on the infallibility of the Pope, but also “shortened and falsified” in some way teaching about the “una sancta, apostolica et catholica ecclesia” (p. 116).
The second part of Wünsch’s book intends to understand deeper Küng’s concept of Christianity and the Church. The author points out that the problem of salvation for non-Christians was present very early in the thought of Hans Küng. Küng postulated a paradigm shift to a theology of world religions and proposed four possible variants for the concept of truth in religion: no religion has any truth; only one religion has the truth; all religions are true to the same extent; and one religion has the truth and other religions participate in this truth. Küng favored the last variant. The sources for the knowledge of God are discussed in the section about the Bible, Tradition and the Christian life. With the help of quotations from numerous works by Küng, Wünsch proves that the tradition of the Church appears there as being in opposition to the Bible, which should already contain the fullness of revelation. Trinitarian doctrine is seen by Küng as an element in the Hellenisation of Christianity, which “blocked dialogue with Jews and Muslims from the start” (p. 133). His ecclesiology looks at the Church as “a purely human matter”, merely with event-based actions of the Holy Spirit (p. 166). Discussing Küng’s soteriology, Wünsch emphasizes that Christianity is reduced to being only a part of the “true religion” and possesses only “subjective truth”. Every religion is, in fact, a certain intermingling of belief, superstition and unbelief, and everlasting salvation can be found in each religion. Küng’s cosmology and eschatology are very closely related to each other, even if he “did not want to present a systematic- reflexive eschatology” (p. 174). Küng’s ethic is based on “a kind of golden rule” as an unconditional norm followed by “all major religions.” It is criticized, however, by some theologians as vague and ignorant of the core of religion (p. 185). Wünsch judges that “God” is used by Küng as a vehicle for justification of the ethical requirement, which is the minimal consensus of world religions as an orientation for people.
In the last part of the book the author analyzes the conception of six non-Christian religions in the works of Hans Küng: Ethnic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese Religion, Judaism and Islam. Basically, the Swiss theologian distinguished three significant religious systems: prophetic religions of Semitic origin (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); mystical religions of Indian origin (Buddhism, Hinduism); and wisdom-based religions of Chinese origin (Confucianism, Daoism). He investigated the indigenous religions and the idea of a primeval monotheism proposed by Wilhelm Schmidt SVD, and concluded that the ethical standards, values and norms of ethnic religions have their origin in socio-dynamic processes and there is “no real need” to look for a primeval religion or revelation. As explained by the author, Hinduism is for Hans Küng a “collective of religions”. He compared Christ and Krishna, discovering in Jesus “not more than a man, through whom the other people are enabled to meet God” (p. 235) and he encouraged Christians to adopt numerous aspects of Hindu religiosity. Wünsch then presents Küng’s view of Buddhism, which is seen by the Swiss theologian as a challenge for Christianity, because of the “indisputable similarity of the two concepts.” According to the author, Küng’s Buddha is “an exact mirror image” of his Christology: both Gautama Buddha and Jesus were itinerant preachers, who used vernacular languages and short stories “without being committed to formulas, dogmas and mysteries”. They were also in opposition to the religious traditions of their time. On a closer look, however, the similarities exposed are superficial. The dialogue of Küng with Chinese religions, treated quite extensively in the book, is presented especially (but not exclusively) on the basis of his famous opus Chinese Religions, co-authored in dialogue with the sinologist Julia Ching. Küng compared the Chinese concept of ‘Heaven’ with the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus. He pointed out that Christianity was de facto never an ancestral religion like the Chinese one, which understood ancestors as quasideities. He emphasized the evolution of sacrifice in China into a kind of ethics. He described Chinese folk religion as an answer to “the basic human needs for protection, consolation and encouragement, for explanation and understanding of human existence and the world, as a remedy for the people” (p. 271). In contrast to popular religion, Confucianism is for Hans Küng a “humanistic, moral religion” that is comparable to the ethos of Christianity. Confucianism is—according to Hans Küng—a human wisdom, open, however, to transcendence. As an answer to the Chinese distinction between philosophical and religious Daoism, Küng stressed the difference between philosophy and religion. His analysis of Judaism and Islam is unexpectedly brief, even superficial, in the book, even though the author admits that Küng developed a relatively deep understanding of Judaism and was involved in real dialogue with it. After analyzing Küng’s work on Judaism, Wünsch agrees with his statements about the history of the Jewish nation and its origin embedded in the universal history of mankind. He analyzes his perception of the Jewish concepts of “Covenant,” “People of God,” and “Promised Land” and acknowledges that Hans Küng “had essential achievements” in this field “just as in Christology from below”. He criticizes, however, the omission of reflection on the idea of incarnation which might have posed an obstacle to Christian-Jewish dialogue. As for Islam, the author underlines that the Quran is recognized by Hans Küng as “the way, and the truth, and the life,” (p. 302), and shares with other prophetic religions a common basic ethos, which the author links to Küng’s own project for a Global Ethic. In his final reflections on Küng’s immense oeuvre, Wünsch recognizes “a syncretic conception of Christianity and the Church in the concert of world religions” (p. 309). Küng hoped to solve conflicts between religions with the help of a minimal consensus (tolerance, nonviolence, golden rule etc.). He overlooked, according to the author, a reduction of religion caused by such a consensus.
Wolfgang Wiinsch’s doctoral thesis about the theology of Hans Küng is written in a logical and interesting way. It is clearly structured and has a very extensive bibliography, including 56 works by Küng, his other publications, source texts of various religions and several hundred other books and articles, dealing with the topic. The book is a systematic “analysis of a contemporary theological provocation” in the words of Prof. Dr. loan Emil Jurcan, supervisor of the dissertation. It is not intended as a handbook of Hans Küng’s theology. The purpose of the book is not to affirm or deny his contribution and his merits in the search for ways of interreligious dialogue or revitalization of the Church. Even if the author is partly quite critical and argues with the ideas and proposals of the Swiss theologian, he always gives corresponding theological arguments supporting his own point of view. Therefore, Wünsch allows readers to make their own in-depth reflection and take a critical look at the thought of the famous theologian, whose ideas until now have polarized theological discourse.
