JOHANNINE DUALISM AND CONTEMPORARY PLURALISM

The main thrust of this essay is an argument that (1) John's Gospel is not “dualistic” in the technical sense of the term but that it does operate with “oppositional dualities”; (2) far from being negating of pluralism as both a social fact and a political project, John's kind of oppositional dualities may in fact be the best way to preserve social pluralism and make it flourish; (3) two notable features of John's oppositional dualities are that (i) they are soft enough to allow surprisingly blurry boundaries between “inside” and “outside” and that (ii) they mandate a willingness to sacrifice one's own life on behalf of one's deadly enemies.