In
this lecture, I want to pursue a specific question. I do not want to ask what
is our own scriptural truth and how it compares to other traditions? Rather,
I want to know if and how we can hear our own scriptural truth as inseparable
from those of others? In other words, how can we hear the truth in another's
scripture as our own? I argue that Sikh scripture provides an important insight
into this very contemporary and urgent question – insights which avoid
the dangers of relativising traditions and truths. From one Sikh point of view
“revelation” does not come to displace past prophetic sayings or
correct them – as in the series of revelations that form the Torah, the
Bible, and the Qur'an. Instead, Sikh revelation not only occurs through multiple
voices and people, but these same people come from other traditions. Sikhs and
Sikh scripture actually celebrate the diversity of revelatory speech as a norm.
Sikhs, thus, naturally acknowledge the co-existence of a variety of scriptures.
The plurality of multiple revelations of “God's Word” is the call
of our times. This lecture contrasts two ways of approaching this plurality:
one produces a “silence of obedience”, and the other a “silence
of expectation”. How are we to not only allow the voice of the other,
but also see that other voice as speaking to us?
