Searching in Face of Mystery

Present day, many people in western countries are inspired by more than one religious or wisdom tradition without committing to any one of them exclusively. This PhD thesis is one of the first studies that proposes a theology for this type of faith. The method used is Imaginative Construction as proposed by Gordon Kaufman. This theology discusses a set of topics which is relevant for religious seekers: ethics, religious interest, the human, the world, ultimate reality, key to the ultimate, truth, spiritual growth, afterlife, and religious diversity. 

For ethics, religious interest, spiritual growth, truth and religious diversity, it is argued that religious seekers have reasons to decide. The decisions that are suggested for these topics lead to six steps of faith guiding someone from an agnostic starting point to a considered religious seeker position. For the other topics: ultimate reality, key to the ultimate, the human, the world and afterlife, this theology proposes to refrain from a decision between the proposals of the various traditions. In that way the seeker can be inspired by those traditions at the same time without incoherency. Aporetic pluralism, a new approach to religious diversity, can help the seeker to live with the resulting ambiguities.