Cusano’s De pace fidei: a theological approach to thinking about the difference

Written after the Fall of Constantinople (1453), in a very difficult and traumatic moment for the survival of peace between religions in the West, threatened by the conflict between Christianity and Islam, De pace fidei is the huge first work, at that time, that tries to think the inclusive modality of religious pluralism, developing the importance of cultural mediation as the basis of the construction of stability. Going beyond the concept of Tolerance, Cusano imagines a new kind of space in which religions can talk and dialogue, maintaining diversity as the central agent of spiritual research: if coexistence between differences is possible, the knowing of the other becomes a necessary start for going deeply in the mystery of religion, because exceeding the different exteriority it is possible to find the same path of faith. In this way, different religious rituals aren’t at odds, but are instead rationalized and considered as multiples manifestations of the same human researches in faith: not only it is necessary to acknowledge the value of other religions, but also to see in religious pluralism a source of richness. So, this dialogic modality of thinking has the capacity, in Cusano’s taught, to reach and guarantee the fundamental and inalienable peace between religions, basis for stability, and to be an example of an articulated way of thinking religious experiences in an open and dynamic way, suggesting complex and useful analysis that are necessary still nowadays, with the presence of problems linked to religious pluralism as the structural composition of contemporary societies. Starting from this, the attempt can be, in fact, to try to reach conciliation and coexistence as a normal modality of relationship between different faiths, in order to construct a political order that, respecting diversity, uses all the different elements to build a stable multicultural society, in which conflicts can be mediated and solved, using this articulate and all-embracing way of thinking.