That we live in a world of all manner of racial, cultural and ideological difference, of profound specificities and contingencies, is a trite fact of existence. Such awareness is nothing new. Indeed it was a containing feature of Aquinas’ intellectual perspective. The title of one of his major works—Summa Contra Gentiles—indicates as much. What is new in our time is a growing if still somewhat grudging appreciation of this fact of difference, and the realisation, still halting on the whole, that there is an important sense in which difference is creative and so must be celebrated. In the role of theologian and scholar of religion, and as a tribute to Aquinas’ comprehensive philosophical-theological vision, I propose in this article to inquire into this sign of our times (Mt. 16.3), to assess its significance, and to indicate, with special reference to the study of religion, how it might orient our lives.
Just over 25 years ago, on the last day of October 1967, John Hick, on assuming the H G Wood Chair in the University of Birmingham, gave his inaugural lecture, entitled ‘Theology’s Central Problem’. ‘Today. . . theology’s central problem,’ he declared, ‘is not so much one within theology as around theology, enfolding it entirely and calling into question its nature and status as a whole.’ ‘This issue,’ he continued, ‘at once central and all-embracing, presents itself... as a problem concerning religious language. In a sentence the issue is whether distinctively religious utterances are instances of the cognitive or of the noncognitive uses of language.’