ABSTRACT
Take, for instance, the various program m es o f building consensus on theological or m etaphysical grounds. A fam ous exam ple is the treatise cD e pace fidei5, written by N icolaus Cusanus in 1453 shortly after the Fall o f
C on stan tin ople.1 B y constructing a fictitious dialogue am ong representatives o f all m ajor religions o f his day Cusanus w anted to persuade his audience that existing differences betw een religions m erely concern m arginal issues. Cusanus w ent as far as to claim that all religions essentially coincide, thus ultim ately form ing one single religion with a variety o f different rituals-‘una religio in rituum varietate5. Such an idea m ay sound fam iliar especially to m ystics from various traditions. For instance, followers o f Islam ic Sufi orders have expressed similar views m aintaining that the spiritual paths o f all religions ultim ately lead to one and same goal, with the result that rem aining differences should not m atter too m uch. In a som ewhat different spirit, religious liberals in the age o f the enlightenm ent, such as D iderot, Lessing or K ant, also pursued a program m e o f eradicating denom inational conflicts by presenting m etaphysical arguments for what they called the ‘natural religion5 underlying all historical religions.2 T h is enlightenm ent idea o f the one natural religion could be used to unm ask rem aining denom inational differences as m ere societal prejudices w hich, it was hoped, w ould gradually disappear.
