In this presentation, Gunnar Gabriel takes as his starting point Amitav Ghosh’s argument that only the great world religions possess the requisite power and scope to catalyze the radical re-orientation needed for global humanity to come together. The urgent need is for human beings to collaborate on daunting planet-scale challenges, chief among which are climate derangement, disruption of ecosystems, resurgent nationalisms and war, economic inequality, and the rise of exponential technologies. A necessary step is for world religions to make a planetary and truly ecumenical turn by envisioning and practicing communion-in-diversity, beyond the traditional alternatives of exclusivism and perennialism. Gunnar will argue that the personalist ontology within Christian theology, especially its neo-patristic and apophatic formulations in 20th century Orthodox theologians Christos Yannaras and John Zizioulas, provides a key contribution to such vision and praxis from a Christian ‘theology of religions’ vantage point. The 4th century patristic roots of this ontology will be spelled out, as well as how this ancient ontology is now being fertilized anew by contemporary insights from psychology, biology, physics and philosophy.

About the Presenter(s)

Gunnar Gabriel is an interdisciplinary psychologist, philosopher and theologian based in Oslo, Norway. He earned his PhD in theology from the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo, focusing on the cosmology and spirituality of the Church father Maximus the Confessor in light of issues in contemporary ecotheology. He has practiced psychotherapy for over ten years in private practice and supports people to unfold their inherent divino-human potential to become who they truly are.