Today, confessing members of any particular religious tradition are apt to find themselves in a context of 'multiple otherness'. That is to say, we practise our own faith within the dominating, framing milieu of a highly energised secular culture - one that is, at best, indifferent to our religious quest. At the same time, within that secular framework we find ourselves constantly thrown together in civic, social or vocational activities with a diverse assortment of committed members of other faith communities. The outstanding merit of Keith Ward's Religion and Human Nature is its thorough and serious engagement with this context of 'multiple otherness'. Thus it attains a relevance to the condition of all of us - contemporary believers across the lines of faith - vouchsafed to a few works of confessional theology.

Preceded by Religion and Revelation (1994) and Religion and Creation (1996), Religion and Human Nature is the latest contribution to a pioneering and ambitious endeavour undertaken by the current Regis Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. The project is in a way quite traditional - a fully articulated Christian systematic theology - and each volume embarks on a traditional, well-worn path of theological inquiry. Yet Professor Ward's approach, as exhibited in Religion and Human Nature, sets off into startling new territory simply by taking the current human context so seriously (and perhaps offering thereby an implicit statement of what constitutes 'human nature'). Professor Ward's nicely wrought union of the traditional and the contemporary constitutes a notable attraction of this work.

Keith Ward organises the views of human nature and destiny found in various religions according to a typology of doctrinal 'strands' (a metaphor introduced originally, I believe, by Ninian Smart) and, selecting specific traditions to represent the various types, the author engages the representative traditions not only by means of study and reflection, but also by active participation and dialogue.

Readers of this publication will find it of particular interest that:

From the 'pure spirit' strand I have chosen, to represent the 'many self' view, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). To some people in the West, this may seem like a rather outlandish sect of young people who dance in groups along city streets, chanting 'Hare Krishna'. Such chanting is indeed central to the practice of this group, but the organisation is part of a major Indian religious group, the Bengali Vaishnavas, or worshippers of the god Vishnu. The group is one of a number of bhakti, or devotional groups. ... As such, it has a good claim to represent what is one of the most widely practised sets of religious beliefs in India. It is committed to the view that each individual soul has an eternal existence, without beginning or end, and that the supreme goal of every soul is to be released from the material world and live an endless life in Goloka, a purely spiritual realm beyond birth and death. (p. 7)

Keith Ward was one of the participants of the Vaisnava-Christian Conference, co-sponsored by ISKCON Communications Europe, in January 1996. This meeting provided him with material for this work and me with the pleasure of his personal association. As a result, I can attest from first-hand experience to the depth and sincerity Professor Ward brought to his encounter with my tradition.

I find little to criticise in his extremely clear exposition of Gaudiya Vaisnava teachings and practices, to which he dedicates the whole of Chapter 3, 'The Search for the Self (Vaishnava Hinduism)', although, I would have wished the sentence, 'For Gaudiya Vaishnavas, just chanting the Mahamantra is sufficient to ensure entry to Goloka after death', to have had the word 'purely' or 'offenselessly' inserted after 'Mahamantra'. However, Professor Ward immediately goes on to note the importance of 'ascetic discipline' in devotional service, although the nature of the relation between such discipline and the quality of chanting is not brought out.

In dealing with other traditions of Indian provenance, Professor Ward examines the 'one self' version of the 'pure self' strand, as exemplified in the neo-Vedanta of Svami Vivekananda, and the 'no-self' strand as exemplified in several Buddhist traditions. It is quite illuminating and thought-provoking to follow a perceptive Christian scholar (who espouses a version of the 'embodied self' strand typical of the Abrahamic faiths) as he analyses these various views of human nature and assesses them in relation to each other. We are all led to think more deeply about what we believe and perceive through our beliefs, and to think critically about what difference it all makes.

All the traditions of Indian origin share an adherence to some version of the doctrine of karma and transmigration, and it is to this particular complex of ideas that the author devotes some extended analysis and critical inquiry, resulting in an exposition of a variety of 'difficulties' with the idea of rebirth (Chapter 4, 'The Doctrine of Rebirth'). Against this, Professor Ward develops his own version of the traditional Semitic 'embodied self' outlook. In Ward's 'soft emergent materialism', the distinctively spiritual attributes of a human being emerge through evolutionary process. This teaching is consonant with a traditional Christian 'embodied self' view of human nature, and, according to Professor Ward, it has the advantage over the Indian views, of being supported by the findings of modern science, particularly those of genetics and neurophysiology. ('If reincarnation is true,' he asserts, 'a great many modern scientific theories on the nature and functioning of the brain and the development of the human embryo must be false' [p. 70].) This chapter should provide adherents to the teachings of karma and reincarnation with an invigorating stimulus to produce a stronger and more complete exposition of the teachings. We must not underestimate the value of good critics.

In spite of his difficulties with the idea of transmigration, Professor Ward sees much religious value in the Gaudiya Vaisnava 'soterial' understanding of karma and rebirth:

Nevertheless, the idea of rebirth does enshrine a hope for the possibility of spiritual progress and development, even for those whose earthly lives seems to make such a hope impossible. That is a hope that must be basic for any religion of devotion to a truly gracious and loving God, and there must be some way of providing for it in any religion of grace. Even if the hypothesis of rebirth is rejected, that hope is one of the things that Gaudiya Vaishnavism has to teach the Christian tradition. (p. 75)

As far as the concept of human nature is concerned, the most fundamental divide seems to be between the traditions of Indian, on the one hand, and those of Near-Eastern origin on the other. For example, in discussing Buddhist teaching, Professor Ward remarks:

Buddhist analyses of human nature share with most Indian traditions a theory of mentalistic causation which underlies the possibility of karma and rebirth. Such a theory is common to virtually all forms of Indian religion, whether they are one-self, many-self, or no-self in form. The Indian traditions contrast, in this respect, with the Semitic traditions, which have no doctrine of rebirth, and which regard material, bodily existence as having much more causal importance in their analysis of human nature. (p. 111)

In spite of the fact that the Vaisnava and the Christian views of human nature are rooted in opposite sides of this fundamental divide, their conceptions of the final human destination, Professor Ward discovers, tend - unexpectedly - towards convergence.

Gaudiya Vaishnavism cannot, therefore, place a uniquely high value on the individual personality as it exists in this embodied world of human history. Such a value can only belong to the self which is never born and never dies, and which is not to be identified with any particular historical embodiment. However, the devotional doctrine of the reality of Goloka Vrindavana, the supreme home of Krishna, and of the transcendental delights which exist there, means that there exists a variegated world, without suffering or pain, in which souls find their highest fulfillment in loving devotion to Krishna. Such a view converges on the view often held in Semitic religious traditions that there will be a resurrection of the person to a transfigured spiritual world, without suffering. When the released self is not a purely disembodied consciousness of bliss and intelligence, as in Sankhya thought, there is not a vast difference from those doctrines of the resurrection of the body which stress how different and more perfect the resurrection body is from the present material body. Surprising as it may seem, Vaishnava belief in the eternity of the soul is not vastly different from some Semitic beliefs in the resurrection of the body (p. 49).

The ground covered by Religion and Human Nature falls very naturally and neatly into the three components of Vedantic knowledge as understood by Gaudiya Vaisnavism (see, for example, Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 7.146). They are sambandha, or correct knowledge of God, the conscious beings and the world in their mutual relationships; abhidheya, acting according to one's proper relationship (this includes understanding the ways and means of deliverance); and prayojana, knowledge of the final destination. It will be interesting to try to account for the way that such an apparently great difference in sambandha, as between Christianity and Gaudiya Vaisnavism, can come to be coupled with a prajoyana 'not vastly different'. If we think of sambandha as a map of what there is, abhidheya as a travel route through the territory covered by the map, and prayojana as the desired destination(s), then I suspect we shall have to look at all three components together in detail to work towards an answer to the question of what difference ideas of human nature, as elements of sambandha, make.

Religion and Human Nature is a work that should lead us all forward. There is a great co-operative task ahead for theologians of all traditions. Keith Ward's work is an inspiring, pioneering first instalment of that great task, to which he invites us to contribute: 'The properly comparative theology to which this [work] is meant as a contribution will only exist if members of many traditions contribute together to continue such a growth in understanding, each expounding their own tradition in the light of a genuine encounter with others' (p. 9).

I urge thinkers in ISKCON to take up Professor Ward's gracious invitation and to follow in his footsteps.

Ravindra Svarupa Dasa