What emerges in this second book of the trilogy is that the very “ground” and content of experience is richer than what can be reduced to a particular account of it. As such, dialogue develops from the “natural” diversity of what is “of” faith and what is “of” reason. Neither faith nor reason, however, originates “from” experience; rather, both are “witnessed” in experience. In other words, taking up questions about the nature of man, whether philosophically, psychologically or in terms of social structures, manifests both a variety of points of departure and, at the same time, the manifold conversations that are possible in the “field of culture”.Focusing particularly on the work of St. John Paul II, the first essay examines the answer of reason and the answer of faith to the same question: What is man? Conversion, too, entails an “unexpected” relationship to natural truth, which, in its own way, is both adequate and inadequate to salvation. Communication, as it were, runs throughout these essays; however, in particular, there is a need to enrich our human understanding of the process of “coming to ourselves” with the insights of spiritual discernment. Axiomatically, however, it is possible to say that just as we come to exist through a relationship to others, so our healing and holiness are manifest through our relationship to others in the “Other”. Furthermore, while it is ultimately true that we exist as individually rooted in the social structure of our origin and the times in which we live, we need to critically participate in the dialogue which identifies our common “reality” and not live our lives covered in “psycho-social” labels of one kind or another.
As a whole, then, there is an incomparable range and depth to “dialogue”. Indeed, given the many critical situations in the world, it is increasingly indispensable and essential that humanity choose the incredible wealth of dialogue in contrast to the possibility of a “polarised” and “conflictual” structure between people and peoples.
