ABSTRACT
If transreligious theology is a thing, then it is of vital importance to investigate how individuals interpret texts, persons, and symbols from outside of their own tradition. Frequently, this interpretation is the end result of dialogue: a mutual exchange between two subjects. Philosophical hermeneutics can give a rich account of interreligious dialogue as a tool for transreligious theological construction. But why should the reader give credence to an admittedly difficult trajectory of modern European philosophy? The author appeals to its own usefulness in a life. He will describe his own lived experiences that point to a method of doing theology – a hermeneutic for approaching the truth claims of others. It is based on four theological hypotheses: 1) ultimate reality is present to all beings; 2) language binds us into a community and constrains the possibilities for what we may perceive; 3) perspectives can be expanded through appropriation; and 4) truth claims are the end, not the beginning, of dialogue and transreligious understanding.
