Life, a gift of God Book

The Four Stars speak of my impatience and incomprehension. Weil certainly deserves full Five stars. But my impatience to read slowly and to comprehend the ideas to the full reduced it to four. The fault is mine. But then, I will be going back to it when I have more time.

But whatever I understood of her arguments and ideas, they are all crowned with five star crowns.

In simple terms, we can say that Simone Weil was a forerunner in the field of Theology of Religious Pluralism. This is the present trend in the missiological discussions. If God had chosen to save the world through Christ's Passion and Resurrection (as believed by Christianity) and a person can participate in such salvation by one's faith in Christ, how are we to explain the presence of many religions? Are they not paths leading people to salvation? Is Christianity alone the bearer of divine revelation?

These are the discussions presently very vibrant in missiological debates. The challenge of other religions in the modern times (in the medieval and colonial times, the Church had full authority and power and so it turned a deaf ear to the cries of other religions) had necessitated such discussions. This was also taken up by the Second Vatican Council. The declaration issued by the Second Vatican Council on Church's relationship to other religions (Nostra Aetate) dealt the same theme in relatively a liberal manner.

In that sense, Simone Weil in this book comes out as a Theologian answering such questions and she is inclusive in nature. She says that the "Seeds of Truth" or "Rays of Light" can also be found in the other religions. And they can be saved through his/her own religion. There is no need for mission, in the sense of converting people to Christian Faith.