Catholic Theology And The Pluralism Of Religions
I am responding to the questions raised with regard to my writings in two parts. Since the issues are inter-related, in a first part, I am offering a general presentation of some new trends in theological reflection in Asia and in the world, especially after the Second Vatican Council, in relations to other religions and to Christology in so far as it is linked to it. In the second part I am addressing directly the issues raised.
(Note: This is an unpublished paper written in Nov 2003 in reply to some questions posed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The questions and answers seem to be relevant still. The paper shows that my answers are supported by theologians from across the world. The ideas and references will be useful to students.)
Part One: An Explanatory Introduction
The document Dominus Iesus says: “In the practice of dialogue between the Christian faith and other religious traditions, as well as in seeking to understand its theoretical basis more deeply, new questions arise that need to be addressed through pursuing new paths of research, advancing proposals, and suggesting ways of acting that call for attentive discernment.” ( 3) Later in the same document we read: “With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God – which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church – comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it ‘in ways known to himself’. (Ad Gentes, 7) Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully. Their work is to be encouraged, since it is certainly useful for understanding better God’s salvific plan and the ways in which it is accomplished.” ( 21)
This is the context of my own search. I have had no intention of denying anything that pertains to the traditional faith of the Church. But at the same time I am also sensitive to the fact that even traditional faith affirmations need to be interpreted in new contexts. Traditional doctrine also develops in the light of new theological reflection in new contexts. My reflections do not question the overall context of faith but is trying to make distinctions and clarifications within it in the light of new awareness in new contexts.
Dominus Iesus and Other Religions
In a comment on Dominus Iesus, referring to the “way in which the salvific grace of God comes to individual non-Christians”, Francis A. Sullivan says:
While the CDF does not offer any solution to this question, it does go beyond speaking of the salvation of non-Christians as having a “mysterious” or even “indispensable” relationship to the Church, by saying: “With the coming of the Saviour Jesus Christ, God has willed that the Church founded by him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity” (22). In the following sentence it even describes this as a “truth of faith.” This raises the question whether the CDF means to describe as a “truth of faith” the proposition that the church exercises an instrumental causality in the salvation of everyone who is saved. The texts to which reference is given in support of this statement speak of Christ as the Saviour of all mankind, and of the church as sent to bring his message of salvation to the whole world, but they hardly answer the question whether the church exercises instrumental causality in the salvation of people whom it does not reach with its ministry. Nor does the “universal mediation” of the church in salvation have to be understood in terms of instrumental causality. I believe that the mediation of the church in the salvation of those whom it does not reach can be seen in the fact that the church offers the eucharistic sacrifice for the salvation of the whole world. In my opinion it is not likely that the CDF intended to assert as a “truth of faith” that the church exercises instrumental causality in every instance of salvation. I would see that as one of the “questions that are matters of free theological debate” to which the CDF did not intend to propose solutions (3).
This comment of F.A. Sullivan offers an example of the kind of questions and distinctions that I have in mind. Speaking further about what Dominus Iesus says about the status of other ecclesial communities he suggests that the strong negative reaction that it provoked in some ecumenical circles comes from a feeling of disappointment that the CDF does not seem to take into account experiential ecumenical developments after Vatican II.
Perhaps one might justify the silence of the CDF regarding agreements reached in dialogues with Anglicans and Protestants on the grounds that Dominus Iesus was principally concerned with the other religions. However, the disappointing fact remains that it spoke more negatively than Vatican II had about Christian communities with which the Catholic Church has been in prolonged and productive dialogue, with no hint that judgements being made in Rome concerning those communities might reflect the progress made in the recognition of the extent to which we share common faith.
Asian theologians have a similar feeling that Dominus Iesus does not recognize the experience of Asian Christians in dialoguing with the believers of the other religions. For instance S. Arokiasamy says regarding Dominus Iesus:
1. This is the footnote given by F.A.Sullivan: “Jacques Dupuis, S.J., insists that the mediation of the church in the srtrict, theological sense, has to be understood as instrumental efficient causality. See his work, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997) 350. For this reason he denies the church’s mediation in the salvation of those whom it does not reach with its ministry of word and sacrament.”
2. Here the author refers to his own book Salvation Outside the Church? (New York: Paulist Press, 1992) 158-160.
3. Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., “Introduction and Ecclesiological Issues” in Stephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling (eds), Sic et Non. Encountering Dominus Iesus. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 50-51.
4. Ibid., p.55.
5. This experience has been documented, among other sources, in the statements of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, especially of the Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs. See For All the Peoples of Asia, Vol 1 (edited by Gaudencio Rosales and C.G. Arevalo) and Vol II (edited by Josef Eilers) (Manila: Claretian Publications, 1997) and John Gnanapiragasam and Felix Wilfred (eds), Being Church in Asia (Manila: Claretian Publications, 1994) The reaction of the Asian Christians to Dominus Iesus has been documented by Edmund Chia, Towards a Theology of Dialogue. Schillebeeckx’s Method as Bridge between Vatican’s Dominus Iesus and Asia’s FABC Theology. ( A doctoral thesis defended in the Catholic university of Nijmegen in November, 2003), pp. 55-108.
Though the Declaration just restates the doctrine of Catholic faith on the unicity and salvific universality of the mystery of Christ and the Church, we recognize also that it does not say everything on the subject. Therefore we can state that it is correct in what it says concerning the doctrine of the Catholic faith but incomplete in what it does not say on other important points concerning the same doctrine because of the limited objective it has set for itself… There is a feeling that the theological intellectuality of the Declaration needed for such vital points of faith is not up to the mark and that the rich theological resources available in the local churches are not being tapped.
I will come back to these questions later. Here I am just suggesting that we seem to be in a situation of theological and dogmatic search and development provoked by contextual experience.
The Need for Contextual Theology
The need and methods of contextual theology have been discussed by Asian theologians on various occasions. I need not go into it here. I point only to the encouragement that Asian Bishops have been giving for such theologising. The Indian Bishops in their response to the Lineamenta before the Asian Synod said:
There is more than one theology evident in the New Testament. This pluriformity of theology catered to different Churches of varied cultures and life-situations. Christology is never a finished product but always in process, even while admitting the normative characteristics of the liturgical, biblical, patristic and conciliar Christologies. The lived experience of the Christian community, following the indispensable rules and diversities of time space and cultural conditioning, has an important role in this process. In this context attention is also to be paid to the universalistic and exclusivistic claims to salvific uniqueness by other religions with whom we live and enter into dialogical contact. In theological methodology, the normative roles of scriptural statements, traditional assertions, the experience of faith communities and the life-context of other God-seekers need further investigation and deepening in the process of developing Christological ideas and expressions over the course of time. So today the Churches around the world and here in Asia need to create contextual theologies of our one Faith incarnated into many cultures.
also J. Neuner, “The Fullness of Revelation. Reflections on the Declaration Dominus Iesus”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 65 (2001) 7-13.
6. S. Arokiasamy, “Reflections on Dominus Iesus”, Sampriti 3 (2000) 3.
7. Cf. Office of Theological Concerns of the FABC, Methodology: Asian Christian Theology. Doing theology in Asia Today. (FABC Papers 98, Hong Kong, 2000); also East Asian Pastoral Review 40 (2003) 259-286.
8. See also the books of Claude Geffré. Le nouvel âge de la théologie. (Paris: Cerf, 1987) and Le Christianisme au risque de l’interprétation. (Paris: Cerf, 1988)
9. See the text in Peter C. Phan (ed), The Asian Synod. Texts and Commentaries. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), p.22.
In the same sense they had earlier quoted Ad Gentes, 22. Similar sentiments have been expressed by the Bishops from the Philippines and Vietnam.
My Attempt at Contextual Theologizing
In my article “Jesus Christ as the Only Saviour and Mission” I start with an affirmation of faith: “We Christians affirm that Jesus Christ is the only saviour. We believe that every human person who is saved participates in the paschal mystery of Christ in ways unknown to us.” This affirmation refers to Gaudium et Spes, 22. I have never denied this. I have however sought to explain how this affirmation can be understood today in Asia in the light of a growing positive appreciation of other religions. I have denied the validity of two quick answers as not really addressing the problem: the first is that there are many saviours and the second is that the one divine salvific mystery is known by many names including Jesus.
One quick answer is to say that, in the light of other religions also facilitating the salvific divine-human encounter, the affirmation that Jesus is the only saviour is no longer tenable. There are other saviours… A similar answer is to say that God is the only saviour. Salvation is a mysteric process of God’s continuing action in the world reaching out to the humans. We encounter this mystery in Jesus. Other people may encounter the same mystery through other names and salvific figures. I think that both these answers simply suppress one pole of the dilemma. So they do not really address the problem.
In another article I have said:
Most Indian theologians affirm that all salvation, however understood, is from God in and through Jesus Christ… I think that Christian faith supposes such an affirmation. If this is not affirmed then we can stop the discussion right here, because there is nothing to explain or understand… Attempts to explain do not amount to denial.
So the framework of my search is clear. I do not deny the faith affirmation that Jesus is the unique saviour, but seek to explain this in the context of a positive appreciation of religious pluralism. This is the approach of contextual theology. May I note in passing that increasingly I tend not to speak of other religions as salvific, but as “facilitating the salvific divine-human encounter.” Perhaps we should also avoid calling them ways of salvation.
10. See Ibid., p.40.
11. See Ibid., p.49.
12. Cf. The Japan Mission Journal 55 (2001), 219-226. In French, Spiritus 41 (2000) 148-157.
13. See Japan Mission Journal, p.219 and Spiritus, p.148.
14. See Ibid., pp.219-220 and pp. 148-149 respectively.<blockquote
M. Amaladoss, “The Mystery of Christ and Other Religions”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 65 (1999) 328.
Precisely because I take the issue of religious pluralism seriously in the context of our ongoing experience of and dialogue with the believers of other religions, a priori explanations of the faith which do not take into account our experience of dialogue do not satisfy me. Such, for instance, would be explanations that do not give a place to the other religions in the plan of God for salvation. 97% of Asians today “do not actually have any conscious relation to Jesus Christ. Some of them may even consciously distance themselves from him.” I have always tried to hold on to a middle position between what are popularly called ‘exclusivism’ and ‘pluralism’, (though I do not like this terminology ) or between ‘ecclesiocentrism’ and ‘theocentrism’. I have also affirmed that one cannot be ‘theocentric’ without being ‘Christocentric’.
A search is a search. If someone comes up with more satisfying answers to the questions I am open to them. I have also not written a well-planned book on these themes. While writing short pieces of about 8 to 10 pages on various themes for seminars or publications I do tend to refer rapidly, without much explanation, to positions that I think are widely shared today, at least by theologians in Asia. It is in this context that I would like the following remarks and explanations to be taken.
A Growing Positive Appreciation of Other Religions in Asia
The starting point for the questions under discussion and the theological reflection that they refer to is the growing appreciation in Asia of the role of other religions in the salvific plan of God for the world. This process has a long history.
The Fathers of the Church like Justin and Clement of Alexandria discerned the ‘seeds of the Word’ in the Greek philosophical tradition, seeing it as a ‘paedagogue’ to Christ. In more recent times, in India, a positive view of other religions did not start with the Second Vatican Council. In the nineteenth century, some Hindus in India looked on Jesus as a guru who inspired them to reform their own religious tradition. One of them who became Christian, Brahmabandab Upadhyaya, thought that Hindu philosophy and religion will find their fulfilment in Jesus and the Gospel and, more specifically, in theology of Thomas Aquinas. They were however negative to the institutional structures of Christianity. This framework of preparation-fulfilment was later taken up by Christian missionaries in India. Farquahar wrote a book pointing to Christianity as the Crown of Hinduism. Pierre Johanns, a Belgian Jesuit missionary, wrote a series of essays under the general title: To Christ through the Vedanta, showing how various Vedantic philosophical traditions can find fulfilment in the Scholastic theology of Thomas Aquinas. Abbé Monchanin and Don Henri Le Saux had a great admiration for the mystic traditions of Hinduism and founded a Christian ashram, hoping that these mystic traditions will find their fulfilment in the mysticism of the Trinity.
The Second Vatican Council seemed to approve this approach finding ‘good and holy elements’ and the ‘seeds of the Word’ in other religious traditions. It promoted dialogue with them. It recognized the civil freedom of the members of other religions to practice the religion of their choice according to their conscience, respecting their dignity as humans in the image of God.
16. See Ibid., p.219 and p. 148 respectively.
17. See M. Amaladoss, “Théologie et vie chrétienne en Asie. Une recherche d’identité”, J.-M. Sevrin and A.Haquin (eds), La théologie entre deux siècles. (Louvain-la-neuve: La Faculté de théologie, 2002), pp. 168-169.
18. Cf. M. Amaladoss, Making All Things New. (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1990), p. 198.
19. For a well documented attempt at narrating this history see Jose Kuttianimattathil, Practice and Theology of Interreligious Dialogue. (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 1995), pp. 316-394.
20. Cf. 2 Apol. XIII, 2-6.
21. Cf. Strom. VI, 8.
22. It is interesting that in speaking of such guides Clement refers to “the Indian gymnosophists. Of these there are two classes, some of them called Sarmanae, and others Brahmins… Some, too, of the Indians obey the precepts of Buddha.” (Strom I, 15)
23. Cf. M.M.Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance. London: SCM Press, 1969.
24. Cf. B. Animananda, The Blade: the Life and Work of Brahmababdab Upadhyaya. Calcutta: Roy and Son, 1947; Julius Lipner, Brahmobandab Upadhyay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
25. J.N.Farquhar, The Crown of Hinduism. London: Oxford University Press, 1913.
After the Second Vatican Council
Inspired by this opening, bishops and theologians in Asia, encouraged by their own living contact with the members of other religions thought that God was reaching out to them through their religions. In 1964 an international conference on “Christian Revelation and Non-Christian Religions” on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress in Mumbai said the “the whole of mankind is embraced by the one salvific plan of God which includes all the world religions.” It suggested that for one “who is not confronted in an existential way with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they can be the channels of God’s saving grace” and hence “the historical way to God for their followers.” A research seminar on Evangelization and Dialogue in Nagpur in1971 spoke of “an ineffable mystery, the centre and the ground of reality and human life, (which) is in different forms and manners active among all peoples of the world and gives ultimate meaning to human existence and aspirations.” It suggests that “the religious traditions of the world can be regarded as helping him (the human) towards the attainment of his salvation…, (and) the different sacred scriptures and rites of the religious traditions of the world can be in various degrees expressions of a divine manifestation and can be conducive to salvation.”
K.Kunnumpuram, after a study of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, concludes that “non-Christian religions can serve as ways of salvation, in the sense that God saves these men in and through the doctrines and practices of these religions.”
More recently Samuel Rayan writes:
Today the Church has a more positive view of the religions of the world. She recognizes and respects their openness to the divine and their sense of the beckoning Spirit, all expressed in their worship, prayer and sacred scriptures, no less than in their (often corporate) commitment to human dignity, freedom, justice, and peace. The Church is anxious not only to share her spiritual riches with them, but also to share in their spiritual treasures, to initiate and carry on a dialogue at all levels of thought and life, and to work together to solve pressing human problems, alleviate human suffering, and build; a gentle, joyful and beautiful world in tune with the One who is Love and is our common Origin and Destiny.
26. P. Johanns, Vers le Christ par le Vedanta. 2 vols. Louvain: Museum Lessinaum, 1932-1933.
27. J. Monchanin and Henri Le Saux, A Benedictine Ashram. Rev.Ed. Douglas: Times Press, 1964. J. Monchanin, Mystique de l’Inde, mystère chrétien. Paris: Fayard, 1974. Swami Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux), Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience. Rev.Ed. Delhi: ISPCK, 1984.
28. Nostra Aetate, 1-2; Ad Gentes, 11.
29. Dignitatis Humanae, 1-3.
30. Cf. J. Neuner (ed), Christian Revelation and World Religions. (London: Burns & Oates, 1967), pp.21-24 for the conclusions of the conference. The quote here is from the Conclusions, I.1.
31. Ibid. I.2 and III.4.
32. See J.Pathrapankal (ed), Service and Salvation. (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1973) The final declaration is on pages 1-16. Here Declaration, n.13.
33. Ibid. n. 15.
34. K. Kunnumpuram, Ways of Salvation: The Salvific Meaning of Non-Christian Religions according to the Teaching of Vatican II (Pune: Pontifical Athenaeum, 1971), p.91.
We see a similar development at the Asian level. The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences said at their first general assembly (Taipei, 1974):
In Asia especially this (evangelization) involves a dialogue with the great religious traditions of our peoples. In this dialogue we accept them as significant and positive elements in the economy of God’s design of salvation. In them we recognize and respect profound spiritual and ethical meanings and values. Over many centuries they have been the treasury of the religious experience of our ancestors, from which our contemporaries do not cease to draw light and strength. They have been (and continue to be) the authentic expression of the noblest longings of their hearts, and the home of their contemplation and prayer. They have helped to give shape to the histories and cultures of our nations. How then can we not give them reverence and honour? And how can we not acknowledge that God has drawn our peoples to Himself through them?
They were positive to the prayer methods and traditions of Asian religions. They said:
Sustained and reflective dialogue with them in prayer (as shall be found possible, helpful and wise in different situations) will reveal to us what the Holy Spirit has taught others to express in a marvellous variety of ways. These are different perhaps from our own, but through them we too may hear His voice, calling us to lift our hearts to the Father.
The Theology Advisory Committee of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences
published a set of Theses on Interreligious Dialogue in 1987. Explaining Thesis 2 which accepts religions as “significant and positive elements in the economy of God’s design of salvation”, it says:
Its experience of the other religions has led the Church in Asia to this positive appreciation of their role in the divine economy of salvation. This appreciation is based on the fruits of the Spirit perceived in the lives of the other religions’ believers: a sense of the sacred, a commitment to the pursuit of fullness, a thirst for self-realization, a taste for prayer and commitment, a desire for renunciation, a struggle for justice, an urge to basic human goodness, an involvement in service, a total surrender of the self to God, and an attachment to the transcendent in their symbols, rituals and life itself, though human weakness and sin are not absent.
35. Samuel Rayan, “Many Strings, a Single Melody”, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (eds), In Many and Diverse Ways. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003), p.176.
36. For All the Peoples of Asia, I, p.14.
37. Ibid., p.35.
This positive appreciation is further rooted in the conviction of faith that God’s plan of salvation for humanity is one and reaches out to all peoples: it is the kingdom of God through which he seeks to reconcile all things with himself in Jesus Christ. The Church is a sacrament of this mystery – a symbolic realization that is on mission towards its fulfilment (LG 1:5; cf. BIRA IV/2). It is an integral part of this mission to discern the action of God in peoples in order to lead them to fulfilment. Dialogue is the only way in which this can be done, respectful both of God’s presence and action and of the freedom of conscience of the believers of other religions (cf. LG 10-12; Ecclesiae Sanctae 41-42; RH 11-12)
The Guidelines for Interreligious Dialogue of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India’s Commission for Dialogue and Ecumenism says:
The plurality of religions is a consequence of the richness of creation itself and of the manifold grace of God. Though coming from the same source, peoples have perceived the universe and articulated their awareness of the Divine Mystery in manifold ways, and God has surely been present in these historical undertakings of his children. Such pluralism therefore is in no way to be deplored but rather acknowledged as itself a divine gift.
Asian Bishops at the Synod for Asia
Such a positive attitude to other religions and the belief that there is only one divine economy of salvation that embraces every one in the world are almost taken for granted by the Asian Bishops on the occasion of the special Synod for Asia. The Indian Bishops in their response to the Lineamenta say:
As God’s Spirit called the Churches of the East to conversion and mission witness (see Rev 2-3), we too hear this same Spirit bidding us to be truly catholic, open and collaborating with the Word who is actively present in the great religious traditions of Asia today. Confident trust and discernment, not anxiety and over-caution, must regulate our relations with these many brothers and sisters. For together with them we form one community, stemming from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth. We share with them a common destiny and providence. Walking together we are called to travel the same paschal pilgrimage with Christ to the one Father of us all (see Lk 24:13ff, NA 1, and GS 22)
38. See J. Gnanapiragasam and Felix Wilfred (eds), Being Church in Asia. (Manila: Claretian Publications, 1994), p. 13.
39. No. 25. (New Delhi: CBCI Centre, 1989), p.29.
40. See Phan, The Asian Synod, p.21.
They continue to say:
In the light of the universal salvific will and design of God, so emphatically affirmed in the New Testament witness, the Indian Christological approach seeks to avoid negative and exclusivistic expressions. Christ is the sacrament, the definitive symbol of God’s salvation for all humanity. This is what the salvific uniqueness and universality of Christ means in the Indian context. That, however, does not mean there cannot be other symbols, valid in their own ways, which the Christian sees as related to the definitive symbol, Jesus Christ. The implication of all this is that for hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings, salvation is seen as being channelled to them not in spite of but through and in their various sociocultural and religious traditions. We cannot, then, deny a priori a salvific role for these non-Christian religions.
The Bishops from Indonesia view the people of other faiths as “bearers of the ‘seeds of the Word’ (who) try to live up to authentic religious values which lead them to the God’s Reign. They are our fellow wayfarers to the same Reign of God, to whom we all have access in the Spirit through Jesus Christ.” The Korean Bishops assert that the great traditional religions in Korea “play a part in the salvific economy of God.” The Vietnamese Bishops affirm: “Since God is the creator of all things, one should say that, in a sense, the existence of these non-Christian religions is equally part of his Providence.”
Other Religions in the Teaching and Practice of John Paul II
Such a positive approach to other religions seems to be encouraged by John Paul II. When he invited the leaders of other religions to come together to Assisi in October 1986 to pray for peace in the world, many authoritative commentators suggested that this invitation legitimised other religions as facilitators of divine-human encounter. Marcello Zago said:
At Assisi, the welcome given to the religious representatives and people being present at the prayer offered by various religions were in some way a recognition of these religions and of prayer in particular, a recognition that these religions and prayer not only have a social role but are also effective before God.
In a speech to the Cardinals before Christmas that year John Paul II insisted that all authentic prayer is from the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit can obviously work through the symbols and rituals of other religions.
The Presence of the Spirit in Other Religions
In his encyclical Redemptoris Missio, John Paul II affirmed formally the presence and action of the Spirit in other religions and cultures.
The Spirit manifests himself in a special way in the Church and in her members. Nevertheless, his presence and activity are universal, limited neither by space nor time (DEV 53)… The Spirit’s presence and activity affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions… Thus the Spirit, who “blows where he wills” (cf. Jn 3:8), who “was already at work in the world before Christ was glorified” (AG 4), and who “has filled the world,… holds all things together (and) knows what is said (Wis 1:7), leads us to broaden our vision in order to ponder his activity in every time and place (DEV 53)… The Church’s relationship with other religions is dictated by a twofold respect: “Respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of his life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man.”
41. Ibid.,p.22.
42. Inid., p.24.
43. Ibdi., 32.
44. Ibid., p.48.
45. See Marcello Zago, “Day of Prayer for Peace”, in Bulletin of the Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions 22 (1987), p.150.
The Unity of God’s Plan
A positive appreciation of other religions, however, does not mean that they are parallel ways to God or salvation. God’s plan of salvation is one. The history of salvation has a structure. All the religions are integrated in this structure. They themselves may not be aware of it. We believe that God through the Word and the Spirit is leading all things to a unity in ways unknown to us. St. Iranaeus speaks in terms of four covenants:
Four covenants were given to the human race: one, prior to the deluge, under Adam; the second, that after the deluge, under Noah; the third, the giving of the Law, under Moses; the fourth, that which renovates the human being, and sums up all things in itself by means of the Gospel, raising and bearing human beings upon its wings into the heavenly kingdom.
God involves the Word and the Spirit in this project.
The Word was made the dispenser of his Father’s grace for the benefit of the people, for whose sake he carried out such great divine plans, showing God to people, presenting them to God and preserving the invisibility of his Father so that the human being should never come to despise God, and that he should always have a goal toward which to advance; on the other hand, showing God to people in many ways, lest they, wholly lacking God, should cease to exist. For the glory of God is the living human being; but the life of the human is the vision of God… For from the beginning the Son, present to the creatures whom he has formed, reveals the Father to all those to whom the Father wills, and at the time and in the way he wills; and therefore in all things and through all things there is one God and Father, and one Word, his Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation to all who believe in him.
The Second Vatican Council affirms this unity of the divine plan. It says in Ad Gentes:
This plan flows from “fountain-like love,” the love of God the Father. As the principle without principle from whom the Son is generated and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, God in his great and merciful kindness freely creates us and moreover, graciously calls us to share in his life and glory. He generously pours out, and never ceases to pour out, his divine goodness, so that he who is creator of all things might at last become “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28), thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our happiness. (2)
46. Nos. 28-29.
47. Adv. Haer. III,11,8.
48. St. Iranaeus, Adv. Haer. IV, 20, 6-7.
It continues in Gaudium et Spes:
For, by his incarnation, he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man… In him God reconciled us to himself and to one another… All this holds true not for Christians only but also for all men of good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly. (LG 16) For since Christ dies for all (cf. Rom 8:32), and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery. (22)
John Paul II also affirms strongly the unity of the divine plan of salvation that includes also other religions.
If it is the order of unity that goes back to creation and redemption is therefore, in this sense, “divine,” such differences – and even religious differences – go back rather to a “human fact,” and must be overcome in progress towards the realization of the mighty plan of unity which dominates the creation… The entire human race, in the infinite complexity of its history, with its different cultures, is “called to form the new people of God” (LG 13) in which the blessed union of God with man and the unity of the human family are healed, consolidated, and raised up.
The Theological Advisory Committee of the FABC in their Theses on Interreligious Dialogue speaks about the unity of God’s plan. Speaking about other religions, they say:
This positive appreciation is further rooted in the conviction of faith that God’s plan of salvation for humanity is one and reaches out to all peoples: it is the Kingdom of God through which he seeks to reconcile all things with himself in Jesus Christ. The Church is a sacrament of this mystery – a symbolic realization that is on mission towards its fulfilment.
The Views of Non-Asian Theologians on Other Religions
This open and positive attitude to other religions has been supported by theological reflection. The Asians and Indians are in a privileged situation because of their daily and close contact with the believers of other religions. But non-Asians too have developed such a positive attitude. Raniero Cantalamessa asks:
Can we say that there is yet another way in which Christ draws people to himself, and that is by means of all that is true and valid in other religions? The Council and the magisterium have not ruled out this possibility, and it has now become an active focus of theology.
49. Talk to the Roman Curia, Dec. 22, 1986, No.6.
50. Gnanapiragasam and Wilfred (eds), Being Church in Asia, 13.
51. For the reflections of Indian theologians see Kuttianimattathil, Practice and Theology of Interreligious Dialogue, pp. 326-362.
Karl Rahner insists on the universal salvific will of God and the availability of salvation in Christ to all humans. He adds that this salvation is available in and through the religions that they live.
In view of the social nature of man and the previously even more radical social solidarity of men, however, it is quite unthinkable that man, being what he is, could actually achieve this relationship to God – which he must have and which if he is to be saved, is and must be made possible for him by God – in an absolutely private interior reality and this outside of the actual religious bodies which offer themselves to his in the environment in which he lives… If man can always have a positive, saving relationship to God, and if he always had to have it, then he has always had it within that religion which in practice was at his disposal by being a factor in his sphere of existence.
A similar openness to the role of other religions in salvific history can also be found in other European theologians.
An Italian Biblical scholar, after a study of the Wisdom tradition, comes to the following conclusion:
It seems legitimate to affirm that, for whoever looks at them from the perspective revealed by Wisdom reflection, religions present themselves as the context by antonomasia where man allows himself to be taught by Wisdom and guided by her towards the destination of the whole of humanity: full, invigorating and eternal communion with the living God.
Similarly A. Russo says:
We can say that salvation history, although it is essentially one, is multiplied and refracted in as many ways as the histories of the peoples. For every people has its own history, different from others, and at work in every history is the healing and liberating grace of God, who carries out his unique design on behalf of all humankind over countless different roads.
52. Raniero Catalamessa, “Good Friday Meditation”, Vidyajayoti Journal of Theological Reflection 67 (2003) 344.
53. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. V(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1969), p. 128.
54. Quotations can be multiplied. Cf. Gustave Thils, Présence et salut de Dieu chez les non-chrétiens. (Louvain-la-neuve, 1987); Joseph Doré, Le christianisme vis-à-vis des religions. Namur: Artel, 1997; H.R.Schlette, Towards a Theology of Religions. London: Burns & Oates, 1965; E. Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God (London: SCM Press, 1990), p. 165-166; Adolph Gesché, “Le christianisme et les autres religions”, Revue théologique de Louvain 19 (1988) 339; C. Duquoc, Dieu different (Paris: Cerf, 1977), p.143. See also his more recent book L’Unique Christ. La symphonie différé. (Paris: Cerf, 2002)
55. Giovani Odasso, Bibbia e religioni: Prospettive bibliche per lateologia delle religioni. (Rome: Unbaniana, 1998), p. 222. Quoted in Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 142.
Bernard Lonergan writes:
I am inclined to interpret the religions of mankind, in their positive moment, as the fruit of the gift of the Holy Spirit, though diversified by the many degrees of social and cultural development, and distorted by man’s infidelity to the self-transcendence which is given.
Pietro Rossano, former Secretary of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians, suggests that “grace and truth do reach or may reach the hearts of men and women through the visble, experiential signs of the various religions.”
A recent systematic study and presentation of the theme are Jacques Dupuis’s two books, the second of which has taken into account his theological dialogue with the CDF. Dupuis concludes his search in the following words:
Jesus Christ is indeed the constitutive Saviour of humankind, and the Christ event is the cause of the salvation of all human beings; but this does not prevent the other traditions from serving as “mediations” of the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ for their followers within God’s design for humankind… “Salvation history” encompasses the entire history of the world and humankind. It is “salvation in history” throughout all of history. God has made various covenants with humankind in history, before making a “new covenant” with it in Jesus Christ… At every step God has taken the initiative in the encounter between God and human beings. This is why it seems that it can and must be said that the world’s religious traditions are “ways” or “routes” of salvation for their followers. They are such because they represent “ways” traced by God himself for the salvation of human beings. It is not human beings who have first set out in search of God through their history; rather God has set out first to approach them and to trace for them the “ways” over which they may find him. If, as has been suggested, the world’s religions are in themselves “gifts of God to the peoples of the world,” the foundation for a “religious pluralism in principle” as understood here need not be sought far away.
Statements of Official Bodies in the Church
The Document Dialogue and Proclamation says:
Concretely it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their Saviour.
The International Theological Commission, in a document on Christianity and the world religions has the following to say regarding the other religions as “ways of salvation.”
Some texts of Vatican Council II deal specifically with non-Christian religions: those which have not yet received or heard the gospel are oriented in different ways to the People of God, and belonging to these different religions does not seem to be indifferent to the effects of this “orientation” (LG 16). It is recognized that in the different religions are rays of truth which illuminate all men (NA 2) and seeds of the word (AG 11); because of God’s disposing there are in these religions elements of truth and goodness (OT 16); one finds elements of truth, of grace and goodness not only in the hearts of men but also in the rites and customs of peoples, although all must be “healed, elevated, and completed” (AG 9; LG 17). Whether the religions as such can have salvific value is a point that remains open. (my emphasis)
56. A. Russo, “La funzione d’Israele e la legittimità delle alter religioni,” Rassegna di Teologia 40 (1999) 109, 118. Quoted in Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 102.
57. A Second Collection. Ed. By W. Ryan and B. Tyrrell (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), p. 174.
58. Pietro Rossano, “Christ’s Lordship and Religious Pluralism In Roman Catholic Perspective,” in G.H.Anderson and T.F.Stransky (eds), Christ’s Lordship and Religious Pluralism.(Maryknoll: Orbis, 1981) p.103.
59. Cf. Jacques Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 2001); Christianity and the Religions. From Confrontation to Dialogue. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2001.)
60. J.Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, pp. 253, 254.
The encyclical Redemptoris Missio, following and developing the way traced by Vatican Council II, has emphasized more clearly the presence of the Holy Spirit not only in men of good will, taken individually, but also in society and history, in peoples, in cultures, in religions, always with reference to Christ (RM 28,29). A universal action of the Spirit exists, which cannot be separated from or confused with the specific, peculiar action that develops in the body of Christ which is the Church (ibid). From the formulation of the third chapter of the encyclical, entitled “the Holy Spirit, Principal Agent of Mission,” it appears that it can be deduced that these two forms of presence and action of the Spirit are derived from the Paschal Mystery. In fact, after developing the idea of the mission set into motion by the Holy spirit in n. 21-27, nn. 28-29 talk about the universal presence of the Spirit. At the end of n.28 it is clearly affirmed that it is the risen Jesus who works in the hearts of men through the Holy Spirit, and that it is the same Spirit who distributes the seeds of the Word present in the rites and religions. The distinction between the two ways of the Holy Spirit’s acting cannot lead us to separate them as if only the first were related to the salvific mystery of Christ.
61. No. 29.
62. Nos. 81-82.
Such an open attitude to other religions finds its roots in the Bible. The God of the Wisdom books is an inclusive God. (cf. Proverbs 8:24-32) This vision obviously goes back to creation when God made every thing. (Gen 1:1-31) Jesus, though he often sys that his own mission is limited to the Jews talks to and praises the Samaritan woman and tells her tht soon people will be able to worship God who is Spirit “in spirit and truth”, beyond all limitations of religious symbol systems. (Jn 4:23-24) He praises the faith of the Roman Centurion. (Mt 8:10) He is pleasantly surprised at the strong, clinging faith of the Canaanite woman. (Mt 15:28) After the death of Jesus, Peter is admonished not to consider any of God’s creation unclean. (Acts 10:15) In the Acts, we have the story of Paul who heals a cripple in Lystra. He is in the company of Barnabas. The people believe that they are divine beings and want to offer sacrifice to them. As they are preparing for this, Paul tells them that they are not gods, but rather wish to call attention to “the living God, who made heaven, earth, sea and all that is in them… He has always given proof of himself by the good things he does: he gives you rain from heaven and crops at the right times; he gives you food and fills your hearts with happiness.” (Acts 114:16-17) God’s concern reaches out to all peoples. Paul affirms this again in his letter to the Romans. “Even since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen. Men can perceive them in the things that God has made.” (Rom 1:20) Some people of course choose to turn away from God and do evil. But “God will reward every person according to what he has done. Some men keep on doing good, and seek glory, honour and immortal life; to them God will give eternal life. Other men are selfish and reject what is right, to follow what is wrong; on them God will pour his wrath and anger. There will be suffering and pain for all men who do what is evil, for the Jews first and also for the Gentiles. But God will give glory, honour, and peace to all do what is good, to the Jews first, and also to the Gentiles. God judges every one by the same standard.” (Rom 2:6-11) What matters is faith and faith is possible also for the Gentiles. In his prologue to his gospel John has a similar universal vision. “From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. The Word was the source of life and this life brought light to all men.” (Jn 1:3-4)
The Role of the Church in the Salvation of All Peoples
Regarding the relationship of the Church to all those who are saved I need not go into the history of the axiom “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”. The Second Vatican Council speaks rather about the “necessity of the Church for salvation”. Recognizing the possibility of salvation for those who were not guilty of a sinful refusal to belong to her (LG 14-16), the Council spoke of them as being “related to the church in various ways”. The term used is “ordinantur” – related. (LG 16) Sullivan refers to another text of the Council where it is said of the Church that “established by God as a fellowship of life, charity and truth, it is also used by him as an instrument for the redemption of all.” (LG 9) Sullivan goes on to add: “It is obvious that the church has an instrumental role in the salvation of those who belong to it. It is not so clear, nor did Vatican II offer an explanation of, how it is used by God as an instrument for the salvation of those who are not its members.” John Paul II, referring to those who are not formally and visibly members of the church, says in Redemptoris Missio: “Salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation.” (10) The document Dominus Iesus suggests that the way this happens is not too clear: “Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully. Their work is to be encouraged.” (21) But then it goes on to say that “God has willed that the Church founded by him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity.” (22) I have quoted above the text of Sullivan where he concludes: “In my opinion it is not likely that the CDF intended to assert as a “truth of faith” that the church exercises instrumental causality in every instance of salvation. I would see that as one of the ‘questions that are matters of free theological debate’”.
63. For a brief history and discussion see Kurien Kunnumpuram, Ways of Salvation. The Salvific Meaning of Non-Christian Religions According to the Teaching of Vatican II. Pune: Pontifical Athenaeum, 1971; J. Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, pp,84-109; J.Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, pp. 203-206; F.A. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church. (New York: Paulist Press, 1992) 158-160.
64. Sullivan, “Introduction and Ecclesiological Issues” in Sic et Non, p. 50.
Though the Church is the mystical body of Christ we cannot attribute to it the same mediatory role that we give to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact the mediatory role of the Church is related to its union with Christ. As John Paul II says: “Even in relationship to the religions therefore Christ the Saviour is mysteriously at work and in this work he unites to himself the church, constituted ‘as the sacrament… of intimate union with God and of the unity of the entire human race.” Other religions too have a role of participatory mediation, though always in relationship to Christ’s own mediation.
J. Dupuis suggests that the “church exercises its salvific mediation primarily by announcing the word and through the sacramental economy, at the center of which is the eucharistic celebration… Those factors do not – by definition – reach out to the members of the other religious traditions who receive salvation in Jesus Christ.” He continues: “The church prays and intercedes with God for all people that the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ may be granted to them. The church intercedes and God saves… The causality involved here is not of the order of efficiency but of the moral order and of finality.” He quotes Yves Congar:
Every Catholic must admit and admits that there have existed and exist gifts of light and grace working for salvation outside the visible boundaries of the Church. We do not even deem it necessary to hold, as is nonetheless commonly done, that these graces are received through the Church; it is enough that they be received in view of the Church and that they orient people toward the Church.
The Church and the Kingdom of God
It is in this context that we must also explore the relationship between the Church and the Kingdom of God. The Second Vatican Council says: “The Church, endowed with the gifts of her founder and faithfully observing his precepts of charity, humility and self-denial, receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is, on earth, the seed and the beginning of that kingdom. While she slowly grows into maturity, the Church longs for the completed kingdom and, with all her strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with her king.” (Lumen Gentium, 5)
John Paul II continues this teaching:
The Kingdom of God is meant for all mankind, and all people are called to become members of it … The Kingdom is the concern of everyone: individuals, society, and the world. Working for the Kingdom means acknowledging and promoting God’s activity, which is present in human history and transforms it. Building the Kingdom means working for liberation from evil in all its forms. In a word, the Kingdom of God is the manifestation and the realization of God’s plan of salvation in all its fullness.
65. Ibid. p.51.
66. Osservatore Romano, February 5, 1998, 4.
67. Redemptoris Missio, 5.
68. J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 210; See in the same sense F.A.Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, pp. 158-160.
69. Ibid., p.211.
70. Yves Congar, “L’Eglise, screment universel du salut.” Eglise Vivante 17 (1965), 351
71. Redemptoris Missio, 14.
We can compare this with an earlier statement of John Paul II in the same letter:
The Old Testament attests that God chose and formed a people for himself, in order to reveal and carry out his loving plan. But at the same time God is the Creator and Father of all people; he cares and provides for them, extending his blessing to all (cf. Gen 12:3); he has established a covenant with all of them (cf. Gen 9:1-17). (emphasis mine)
John Paul goes on to say:
The disciples recognize that the Kingdom is already present in the person of Jesus and is slowly being established within man and the world through a mysterious connection with him. (emphasis mine)
One may not separate the Kingdom from the Church. It is true that the Church is not an end unto herself, since she is ordered toward the Kingdom of God of which she is the seed, sign and instrument. Yet, while remaining distinct from Christ and the Kingdom, the Church is indissolubly united to both… The result is a unique and special relationship which, while not excluding the action of Christ and the Spirit outside the Church’s visible boundaries, confers upon her a specific and necessary role …
The Church is effectively and concretely at the service of the Kingdom. This is seen especially in her preaching, which is a call to conversion… The Church, then, serves the Kingdom by establishing communities and founding new particular Churches… The Church serves the Kingdom by spreading through out the world the “Gospel values” which are an expression of the Kingdom and which help people to accept God’s plan. It is true that the inchoate reality of the Kingdom can also be found beyond the confines of the Church among peoples everywhere, to the extent that they live “Gospel values” and are open to the working of the Spirit who breathes when and where he wills (cf. Jn 3:8)…
72. Ibid., 15.
73. Ibid., 12.
74. Ibid.,16.
75. Ibid., 18.
The Church is the sacrament of salvation for all mankind, and her activity is not limited only to those who accept her message. She is a dynamic force in mankind’s journey toward the eschatological Kingdom, and is the sign and promoter of Gospel values (GS 39). The Church contributes to mankind’s pilgrimage of conversion to God’s plan through her witness and through such activities as dialogue, human promotion, commitment to justice and peace, education and the care of the sick, and aid to the poor and to children… Finally, the Church serves the Kingdom by her intercession, since the Kingdom by its very nature is God’s gift and work, as we are reminded by the Gospel parables and by the prayer which Jesus taught us. We must ask for the Kingdom, welcome and make it grow within us; but we must also work together so that it will be welcomed and grow among all people, until the time when Christ “delivers the Kingdom to God the Father” and “God will be everything to every one” (cf 1 Cor 15:24,28)
It seems to me that in these passages, while John Paul II is affirming an “ indissoluble relationship” between the Church and the Kingdom, he also points to a distinction so that the Kingdom is also present, even if inchoatively, outside the Church’s confines and the Church’s missionary activity also includes the promotion of Gospel values among people outside its confines. Marcello Zago, in his commentary on Redemptoris Missio, speaks about five ways in which the Kingdom of God can be understood and shows how the different dimensions of mission are linked to these.
The Kingdom of God in Asian Documents
The Church in Asia, in the context of its experience of the spiritual lives of the members
of other religions, has underlined the outreach of the Kingdom of God, though always relating it to the Church. The Second Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences says:
The Reign of God is the very reason for the being of the Church. The Church exists in and for the Kingdom. The Kingdom, God’s gift and initiative, is already begun and is constantly being realized, and made present through the Spirit. Where God is accepted, where the Gospel values are lived, where the human being is respected… there is the kingdom. It is far wider than the Church’s boundaries. This already present reality is oriented towards the final manifestation and full perfection of the Reign of God.
The Theological Advisory Committee of the FABC, in its Theses on Interreligious Dialogue, has this to say:
The focus of the Church’s mission of evangelization is building up the Kingdom of God and the building up of the Church to be at the service of the Kingdom. The Kingdom therefore is wider than the Church. The Church is the sacrament of the Kingdom, visibilizing it, ordained to it, promoting it, but not equating itself with it.
76. Ibid., 20.
77. Cf. William R. Burrows (ed), Redemption and Dialogue (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), pp. 82-84.
78. For All the Peoples of Asia, Vol 1, p. 252.
79. Gnanapiragasam and Wilfred (eds), Being Church in Asia, p. 21.
A theological consultation on “Evangelization in Asia” organized by the Office for Evangelization of the FABC says:
The Kingdom of God is therefore universally present and at work. Wherever men and women open themselves to the transcendent Divine Mystery which impinges upon them, and go out of themselves in love and service of fellow humans, there the Reign of God is at work… “Where God is accepted, where the Gospel values are lived, where the human being is respected… there is the Kingdom.” In all such cases people respond to God’s offer of grace through Christ in the Spirit and enter into the kingdom through an act of faith…
This goes to show that the Reign of God is a universal reality, extending far beyond the boundaries of the Church. It is the reality of salvation in Jesus Christ, in which Christians and others share together; it is the fundamental “mystery of unity” which unites us more deeply than differences in religious allegiance are able to keep us apart.
The last sentence is an allusion to John Paul II’s discourse to the Roman Curia in December, 1986. The Office of Theological Concerns of the FABC, in its document on Asian Christian Perspectives on Harmony, recognizes “in all sisters and brothers, of whatever faith-conviction and culture, fellow way-farers to God’s Reign.” In their various responses to the Lineamenta of the Asian Synod the Asian Bishops speak in the same way. The Indian Bishops say:
It is an accepted principle that we cannot comprehend a mystery; before it, our attitude needs to be one of reverent acceptance and humble openness. God’s dialogue with Asian peoples through their religious experiences is a great mystery. We as Church enter into this mystery by dialogue through sharing and listening to the Spirit in others. Dialogue, then, becomes an experience of God’s Kingdom.
The Indonesian Bishops observe:
Since in all religions and traditional religious beliefs the values of God’s Reign are found as fruits of the Spirit, to the extent that there is good will they all strive towards the coming of the Kingdom.
The Bishops from the Philippines assert:
The synod should correct or at least clarify what the Lineamenta seems to do – to equate the Church and the Kingdom of God… In the social context of the great majority of Asian peoples, even more use should be made of the model of the Church as servant, a co-pilgrim in the journey to the Kingdom of God where fullness of life is given as a gift.
The Church and the Kingdom among Western Theologians
In a recent study on the Kingdom of God John Fuellenbach, with reference to salvation outside the Church, says:
The saving grace in other religious traditions is seen within the context of God’s larger plan for the whole of creation, a plan expressed in the Bible with the symbol Kingdom of God. Since the Kingdom is not to be identified with the church now because the Kingdom is operative beyond the realm of the church as well, God’s saving power is, therefore, available to all humans beings inside and outside their respective religious traditions. The question is no longer how do world religions relate to the church but how do they relate to the Kingdom. Since the Kingdom aims at the transformation of the world and is already present, not only in the church, we have to regard followers of other religious traditions as members of the Kingdom already present as a historical reality. We still can maintain that the church on earth is the “universal sacrament” of the Kingdom, and yet affirm that other traditions mediate the same Kingdom for their followers, even if in a different and lesser way, which is difficult to determine theologically.
80. For All the Peoples of Asia, Vol II, p.200
81. For All the Peoples of Asia, Vol II, p. 285.
82. Peter C. Phan (ed), The Asian Synod, pp.20-21.
83. Ibid., p.26.
84. Ibid., p.39.
Fuellenbach cites Yves Congar: “In God’s unitary design the church and the world are both ordered to this Kingdom in the end, but by different ways and on different accounts.” He also quotes J. Dupuis:
The Kingdom of God as a historical reality is thus made up of all believers, Christians and otherwise, who in different ways and through varied mediations have heard the Word of God and received it in their hearts, and who responded to the promptings of the Spirit and opened themselves to this life-giving influence. It follows that the “elements of grace” contained in the religious traditions of the world, which mediate for their followers the entry into the Kingdom of God, have been sown in them by the Word of God and his Spirit.
Similarly Rudolf Schnackenburg writes:
The Kingdom of Christ is… a more comprehensive term than “Church.” In the Christian’s present existence on earth his share in Christ’s Kingdom and his claim to the eschatological Kingdom… find their fulfilment in the Church, the domain in which the grace of the heavenly Christ are operative… But Christ’s rule extends beyond the Church… and one day the Church will have completed her earthly task and will be absorbed in the eschatological Kingdom of Christ or of God.
Karl Rahner suggests in a similar way, though he, like Congar and Schnackenburg, does not refer to other religions, but to the world in general:
The Kingdom of God itself is coming to be in the history of the world (not only in that of the Church) whenever obedience to God occurs in grace as the acceptance of God’s self-communication… For the Kingdom of God in the world, which of course can never simply be identified with any particular objective secular phenomenon, the Church is a part, because of course the Church itself is in the world and in its members makes world history. Above all, however, the Church is precisely its special fundamental sacrament, i.e. eschatological and efficacious manifestation, etc., of the world, the Kingdom of God at hand.
85. John Fuellenbach, The Kingdom of God. The Message of Jesus Today. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), p.152. He refers here to J. Dupuis, “The Kingdom of God and World Religions,” Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 51 (1987) 532-533.
86. Ibid., p. 152. The reference is to Congar, Lay People in the Church. (Westminster: Newman Press, 1965), p.88.
87. Ibid., p. 154. The quotation is from the article referred to in note 73 above, p. 542.
88. Quoted in Fuellenbach, op.cit, p. 265. The reference is to God’ Rule and Kingdom. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963), p. 11.
As has been referred to repeatedly in some of the texts quoted above from various authors, the Church, while it is essentially related to the Kingdom of God, is not identical with it, but is its sacrament. Already the Second Vatican Council referred to the Church as “the universal sacrament of salvation” (LG, 48), a “sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men.” (LG, 1) This has been spelt out by theologians later. E. Schillebeeckx says: “The Church is not the Kingdom of God, but it bears symbolic witness to the Kingdom through its word and sacrament, and in its praxis effectively anticipates the Kingdom.” Similarly Karl Rahner says:
That the Church is the sacrament of the world’s salvation… means this: that the Church is the concrete historical appearance in the dimension of history become eschatological, in the dimension of society, for the unique salvation which occurs, through God’s grace, across the length and breadth of humankind.
In a similar way Jean Rigal writes:
To say that the Church is “sacrament of salvation” means that it witnesses to a reality that runs through it but that extends beyond its borders; that it has at the same time an inevitable relationship with that reality. If it is the sacrament (sign and instrument) of salvation it cannot be its origin or the only place where salvation is achieved; it is rather its humble handmaid.
Jerome P. Theisen points to a similar perspective:
The Church as sacrament may mean only that the Church exists in the world as the visible sign of the saving grace that God is effecting through Christ at a distance from the visible Church. The Church mirrors, articulates, and makes intelligible the process of salvation that is being accomplished anywhere in the world… In this sense the Church as sacrament exists to show forth the riches of God’s mercy in Christ. It is a universal sacrament of salvation in that it becomes a sign of God’s salvific activity in Christ wherever this occurs in the world.
The Kingdom as a Dynamic Reality
The Kingdom of God is a dynamic reality. Without entering into the dispute regarding various opinions about eschatology, we can say that it has a dynamism of “already – not yet.” Jesus announces the Kingdom as present: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mk 1:15) At the same time He teaches them to pray: “Your kingdom come.” (Mt 6:10) His parables concerning the kingdom speak of a process and a history. (cf. Mt 13:1-33) In his last discourse to the disciples in John’s gospel he promises the Spirit and foretells persecutions. (Jn 14-17) After the resurrection he sends them on mission into the world. (Jn 20:21-23; Mk 16:15-18; Mt 28:18-20) Paul speaks of a cosmic process. (Rom 8:18-25) He speaks of Christ as the “first fruits” (1 Cor 15:20) gathering up all things and offering them to the Father “so that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28) The Christians await Jesus’ second coming: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20) and hope for a new heaven and new earth. (Rev. 21:1-5)
89. Quoted Ibid., p. 266. The reference is to K. Rahner, “Church and World” in Rahner et al.,(eds), Sacramentum Mundi, Vol.1 (London: Burns and Oates, 1968), p.348.
90. Cf. Church: The Human Story of God (London: SCM Press, 1990), p. 157.
91. The Church after the Council (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), pp.53-54.
92. L’Eglise en chantier, p.58.
93. The Ultimate Church and the Promise of Salvation (Collegeville: St.John’s University Press, 1976), p. 134.
The dynamic nature of the Kingdom of God has been described well by George Soares-Prabhu:
The core message of Jesus contains an indicative which epitomizes all Christian theology and an imperative which sums up all Christian ethics. Its indicative is the proclamation of the kingdom, that is, the revelation of God’s unconditional love. Its imperative is a call to repentance, that is, the demand that we open our hearts to this love and respond to it by loving God in the neighbour…
When the revelation of God’s love (the Kingdom) meets its appropriate response in man’s trusting acceptance of this love (repentance), there begins a mighty movement of personal and societal liberation which sweeps through human history. The movement brings freedom inasmuch it liberates each individual from the inadequacies and obsessions that shackle him. It fosters fellowship, because it empowers free individuals to exercise their concern for each other in genuine community. And it leads onto justice, because it impels every true community to adopt the just societal structures which alone make freedom and fellowship possible…
The vision of Jesus is theological, not sociological. It spells out the values of the new society (freedom, fellowship, justice), not the concrete social structures through which these values are realized and protected. To elaborate these is our never-to-be-ended task – for no “perfect” society is possible in history. One cannot fully actualise the vision of Jesus: one can merely approach it asymptotically! Ultimately, then, the vision of Jesus indicates not the goal but the way. It does not present us with a static pre-fabricated model to be imitated, but invites us to a continual refashioning of societal structures in an attempt to realize as completely as possible in our times the values of the Kingdom. The vision of Jesus summons us, then, to a ceaseless struggle against the demonic structures of unfreedom (psychological and sociological) erected by mammon; and to a ceaseless creativity that will produce in every age new blueprints for a society ever more consonant with the Gospel vision of man. Lying on the horizons of human history and yet part of it, offered to us as a gift yet confronting us as a challenge, Jesus’ vision of a new society stands before us as an unfinished task, summoning us to permanent revolution.
94. George Soares-Prabhu, “The Kingdom of God: Jesus’ Vision of a New Society,” D.S.Amalorpavadass (ed), The Indian Church in the Struggle for a New Society (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1981), pp. 600, 601, 607.
The Asian theologians, therefore, do not speak of the Kingdom as a merely sociological and this-worldly reality. But it is not a purely a spiritual, other-worldly reality either. Perhaps in an incarnational economy spiritual and sociological, other-worldly and this-worldly should not be opposed in this manner, but held in the tension of the ‘already – not yet’.
God as Saviour
Just as the Church, Christ is also often called the sacrament of the human encounter with God. In the Bible, the title “Saviour” is primarily attributed to God and only conjointly to Jesus Christ. John says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (Jn 3:16-17) Paul says: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Cor 5:19) Again: “This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.” (1 Tim 2:3-6)
Salvation as Trinitarian
For us Christians, however, God is the Trinity. The whole of the Trinity is involved in the salvation of humankind. The Trinity is one God in three persons. It is not the unity of identity or sameness, but three different persons in relationship. As K. Rahner says:
Insofar as the modes of God’s presence for us as Spirit, Son and Father do not signify the same modes of presence, insofar as there really are true and real differences in the modes of presence for us, these three modes of presence for us are to be strictly distinguished.
According to Ad Gentes, God’s salvific plan (or mission)
has its origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This plan flows from “fountain-like love,” the love of God the Father. As the principle without principle from whom the Son is generated and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, God in his great and merciful kindness freely creates us and moreover, graciously calls us to share in his life and glory.”(2)
St. Iranaeus speaks of the Word and the Spirit as the “two hands of God.” (Adv. Haer. IV,7,4) Paul Evdokimov comments on the image of Iranaeus:
The Word and the Spirit, “God’s two hands” in the expression of St. Iranaeus, are inseparable in their action manifesting the Father, and yet ineffably distinct. The spirit is neither subordinate to the Son, not a function of the Word; he is the second Paraclete. In the two economies of the Son and the Spirit can be seen reciprocity and mutual service, but Pentecost is not simply the consequence or continuation of the Incarnation. Pentecost has its full value in itself, represents the Father’s second act: the Father sends the Son and now sends the Holy Spirit. With his mission complete the Christ returns to the Father so that the Holy Spirit may descend in person.
95. Cf. E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of Encounter with God. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1963)
96. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p.136.
The Role of the Spirit in Salvation
In the divine economy of salvation the Spirit plays an important role. He is active in creation. (Gen 1:2; 2:7) When the prophets speak about a new creation they refer to the intervention of the Spirit. (Is 43:19; Ez 36:27; 37:1-14) They foretell the outpouring of the Spirit at the eschatological time. (Is 44:3; Zech 6:1-8; Joel 2:23-30) The Spirit will initiate a new covenant. (Is 59:21; Jer 31:31-34; 32:37-40). The Spirit will also inspire the Messiah. (Is 42:1-3; 61:1-4)
The Spirit presides over the incarnation. (Lk 1:35) He descends on Jesus at his Baptism. (Jn 1:32) The Spirit drives “him out into the wilderness.” (Mk 1:12) Jesus drives out demons by the Holy Spirit. (Mt 12:28) Jesus claims that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him to bring good news to the poor. (Lk 4:21) Jesus also promises the Holy Spirit: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (Jn 14:25) “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth;.. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (Jn 16:13-14) Paul says: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11) After the resurrection Jesus breathed on the disciples and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Jn 20:22) Paul also speaks about the Spirit of Christ. “Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (Rom 8:9) He says further that it is the Spirit that makes us joint heirs with Christ. “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, the heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Rom 8:15-17) We see here Christ and the Holy Spirit collaborating in the one economy of salvation.
Jesus Christ and the Spirit
John Fuellenbach underlines the close link between Christ and the Spirit:
The love of Jesus, which reached its climax in his death on the cross, became in the resurrection the all-pervasive power of the Holy Spirit. That power will transform all human creation and lead it into God’s eternal design. The Kingdom makes itself present now in the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the great gift of the risen Lord.
J. Dupuis, on the other hand, points to the distinction. Referring to St. Irenaeus’ metaphor, he says:
97. Paul Evdokimov, L’Esprit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 1969), pp. 88-89, quoted in J.Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 180.
98. Cf. Yves Congar, The Word and the Spirit. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986)
99. The Kingdom of God, p.247.
God’s two hands, the Word and the Spirit – we may add – are paired hands. That means that, while they are united and inseparable, they are also distinct and complementary in their distinction… This metaphor may make it easier to understand that the communication of the Spirit through the risen Christ does not necessarily exhaust the activity of the Spirit after the Christ event.
John O’Donnell writes:
Pneumatology offers us the key to grasp the universality of God’s saving purposes without dissolving the uniqueness of the Incarnation.
Similarly Walter Kasper says:
The Spirit who is operative in Christ in his fullness, is at work in varying degrees everywhere in the history of mankind.
John Paul II affirms strongly that the Spirit was already present and operative before the glorification of Christ. (Dominum et Vivificantem, 53) In his Encyclical Redemptoris Missio he stresses both that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of mission (21-27) and that he is present also in “society and history, peoples, cultures and religions.” (28) He continues:
The universal activity of the Spirit is not to be separated from the particular activity within the Body of Christ, which is the Church. Indeed, it is always the Spirit who is at work. Both when he gives life to the Church and impels her to proclaim Christ, and when he implants and develops his gifts in all individuals and peoples, guiding the Church to discover these gifts, to foster them and receive them through dialogue. (29)
What we have to note here is that it is the same Spirit with reference to the saving activity of Christ, but it is not the same type of activity. In the Christian community the Spirit is active explicitly in and through the community’s commitment to Christ. Outside the Christian community, the Spirit is active, but its action is not mediated through a commitment to Christ, though it is ordained or related to salvation in Christ. Referring to this distinction, J. Dupuis asks:
100. Christianity and the Religions, 179-180.
101. John O’Donnell, “In Him and over Him: the Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus”, Gregorianum 70 (1989) 45.
102. Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (London: Burns and Oates, 1976), p.268.
It is not apparent why, whereas before the Christ event the Spirit was at work in the world and in history, without being communicated through the risen humanity – which did not yet exist – its activity after the Christ event would have to be so tied to such communication as to be limited to it. It must certainly be kept in mind that in both cases – whether before or after the historic event – the outpouring of the Spirit is always in relation to the event in which the expansion of the divine plan of salvation through history reaches its culminating point. In that sense it can and must be said that the gift of the Spirit before the incarnation takes place ‘in view’ of the Christological event. But that does not allow saying that after that event no action whatever of the Spirit as such, albeit in relation to that event, may be conceived.
The Asian Churches too are sensitive to the presence and action of the Spirit in their cultures and religious traditions both in the past and in the present, oriented to the future. In a document on The Spirit at Work in Asia Today, the Office of Theological Concerns of the FABC explores this presence and action of the Spirit. In its introduction it says:
On the face of the Spirit, coming fresh upon us today, we recognize the power with which generations of our foremothers and fathers have been familiar during the millennial history of this continent. It is especially the life and experience of the poor and the marginalized peoples of Asia that has been much attuned to the world of the Spirit as we find in their many religio-cultural beliefs, rites and expressions. The Spirit binds us in a marvellous way with all those who have justify the indelible imprint of their spirit, heart and mind in innumerable forms on our cultures and on our traditions. It is the same Spirit of God that Asia wants to rely on in shaping its future destiny. At the threshold of a new millennium, our Asian local Churches invoke the Spirit, knowing that its transformative and creative power is what we need most to be able to respond to the new and unprecedented challenges the continent is facing, and thus become truly Churches of the Spirit…
The more we follow the leading of the Spirit, the deeper and closer will also be our understanding of the mystery of Jesus Christ. It also helps us to relate in a harmonious and integral way the universal plan of God manifested in Jesus Christ with our Asian history and experiences.
What is to be noted here is the subtle articulation between Christ and the Spirit. There are not two separate economies of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. But Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have different roles and activities within the same economy.
The Word and Jesus
Just as the Word and the Spirit, together with the Father, constitute one God, the one person of the Incarnate Word is constituted by his divine and human natures. The Council of Chalcedon said:
We confess that one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, must be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion or change, without division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person and one hypostasis.
103. Ibid., 181.
104. FABC Papers 81 (Hongkong, 1987), pp. 1-2.
105. J. Neuner – J. Dupuis (eds), The Christian Faith. (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2001), No. 615, p. 228.
The Third Council of Constantinople completed this teaching:
We likewise proclaim in him, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers, two natural volitions or wills and two natural actions, without division, without change, without separation, without confusion. The two natural wills are not – by no means – opposed to each other as the impious heretics assert; but his human will is compliant, it does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will.
What we see here is distinction in unity, not separation.
The Word of God was certainly present and active in the world before it became incarnate in Jesus. After it became incarnate, does the unity of the person involve that the distinction between the natures disappears or that all the actions of the Word thereafter are not only related to its human nature in some way, but is also limited to what the human nature does or can do? Discussing the question J. Dupuis makes the following distinctions:
For clarity’s sake it seems therefore useful to distinguish the following: the action of the Word-to-be-incarnate (Verbum incarnandum), that is, the Word before the incarnation; the action of the Word incarnate (Verbum incarnatum), either in the state of kenosis during his human life or after the resurrection in the glorified state; and the perduring action of the Word as such which continues after the incarnation of the Word and the resurrection of Christ and is not constrained by the limits of his humanity.
What we see here is distinction in unity, not separation.
I think that there is no problem about the action of the Word-to-be-incarnate and of the Word-incarnate. The question is about the action of the Word, distinct from, though related to his humanity, even after the incarnation. In his commentary on John’s Gospel, Xavier Leon-Dufour spells out the different stages of the activity of the Word. He explains that the Logos is working from the beginning of creation (Jn 1:2-5) as the source of light and life, enabling a personal relationship between God and the humans.
This enlightening action, in so far as it is welcomed, produces divine sonship. And this is so, even before the Logos takes a human face, that is independently from any explicit reference to Jesus Christ.
106. Ibid., No. 635, p. 246.
107. J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 140.
108. X. Leon-Dufour, Lecture de l’Evangile selon Saint Jean, Vol 1 (Paris: Seuil, 1988), p. 109. Quoted from Dupuis and his translation.
109. Ibid., p.112.
The ‘coming’ of the Logos has already been spoken of in 1:10f: he ‘was in the world’ and ‘he came to his own home.’ If it is true that the Logos is God communicating himself, this communication has begun not with the incarnation but since creation, and it has continued through the whole history of revelation. However, the incarnation of the Logos marks a radical change in the mode of communication.
Henceforth, [revelation] happens through the language and the existence of a man among others: this phenomenon of concentration in a man will make it possible for the revelation of God to be formulated directly in a intelligible way, and for all people to have access to a definitive communication with God.
This new stage does not supercede the previous one. The Logos continues to express himself thanks to creation of which he is the author and the witness given to the light: many can receive him and become children of God. Henceforth, however, revelation is also and mostly concentrated in him who will be designated by his name: Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17).
According to Leon-Dufour, therefore, while the incarnation is a special manifestation of God through the Word in human nature, it does not exclude a continuing revelation of God by the Word to people who do not relate to the humanity of the Word, namely Jesus Christ. Other exegetes hold a similar opinion. D. Mollat writes, with reference to John 1:9:
In this verse… this coming of the Word into the world, implicitly referred to in vv 4 and 5, is explicitly revealed. It is said that this true light “enlightens all men.” The present tense, “enlightens”… signifies that this is its proper task and its constant work. This work is to be understood in the supernatural sense of the enlightening which in v.4 was declared to be the salvific illumination through which man is instructed and freed, transfigured and sanctified, and also judged. It must be stated that the illuminating virtue of this true light extends to all men. There is not one who is not reached or touched by it. A personal relationship between all men and the Word must therefore be affirmed.
Many theologians also hold a similar opinion. Claude Geffré writes:
Jesus is the icon of the living God in a unique manner, and we need not wait for another “mediator.” But this does not lead us to identifying the historically contingent aspect of Jesus with his “Christic” or divine aspect. The very law of God’s incarnation through the mediation of history leads [us] to think that Jesus does not put an end to the history of God’s manifestations… In conformity with the traditional view of the fathers of the church, it is, therefore, possible to see the economy of the Son incarnate as the sacrament of a broader economy, that, namely, of the eternal Word of God which coincides with the religious history of humankind.
Without producing a ruinous dissociation between the eternal Word and the Word incarnate, it is legitimate… to consider the economy of the Word incarnate as the sacrament of a broader economy, that of the eternal Word of God, which coincides with the religious history of all humanity.
110. Ibid., p. 124.
111. Ibid., p. 124.
112. See R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp.253-254; J. Dupont, Essais sur la christologie de Saint Jean (Bruges: Editions de l’Abbaye de Saint-André, 1951), p.48; A. Feuillet, Le
prologue de quatrième évangile (Bruges: Desclée de Broouwer, 1968), pp.62-76; M.-E. Boismard, Le prologue de Saint Jean (Paris: Cerf, 1953), pp. 43-49.
113. D. Mollat, Introductio in Exegesism Scriptorum Sancti Johannis (Rome: PUG, 1961), pp. 23-24.
114. Claude Geffré, “La singularité du christianisme à l’age du pluralism religieux”, Penser la foi: Recherches en théologie aujourd’hui: Melanges offerts àJoseph Moingt. Ed. by J. Doré and C. Theobald. (Paris: Cerf, 1993), pp.365-366.
Bernard Senécal, inspired by his experience of members and spiritualities of Buddhism in Korea, writes:
By not identifying straightaway the Logos with Jesus-the-Christ, it is easy to conceive a broad revealing action of the Logos throughout the history of salvation, not only before, but also after the incarnation.
Yves Raguin, rich with his experience of Chinese tradition, writes:
Those who will not have known the Father through the Incarnate Word will be able to know him through his non-incarnate-Word. Thus, all human beings can know the Word of God, even without knowing him in his incarnation… We read in the Prologue of the Gospel of John that the Word of God is the life of all things and that this life becomes the light of human beings. Now, every human being can make in oneself this experience of life become light and thus enter, through union with the Word, in the intimacy of the Father. This is how the greatest part of humankind can enter into relationship with God, source of all life and of all love, through the mediation of the Word, without having encountered Jesus and without having known him.
Avery Dulles says:
It need not be denied that the eternal Logos could manifest itself to other peoples through other religious symbols… In continuity with a long Christian tradition of Logos-theology that goes back as far as Justin martyr… it may be held that the divine person who appears in Jesus is not exhausted by that historical appearance. The symbols and myths of other religions may point to the one whom Christians recognize as the Christ.
Felix Wilfred writes:
A crucial question is the relationship between Jesus of history and the Logos. The International Theological Commission notes the importance of this in Christian proclamation. According to it: “A substantial and radical identity between the earthly Jesus and the exalted Christ essentially belongs to the announcement of the Gospel.” This recognition need not exclude the fact that here is a distinction between the historical reality of Jesus and the transhistorical mystery of Christ…
115. Cl. Geffré, “Thélogie chrétienne de dialogue interreligieux,” Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 38, no.1 (1992) 72.
116. B. Senécal, Jésus à la recontre de Gautama le Bouddha (Paris: Cerf, 1998), p. 213.
117. Yves Raguin, Un message de salut pour tous (Paris: Vie chrétienne), p. 31. See also pp. 60-61.
118. A. Dulles, Models of Revelation, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1992), p. 190.
The expression ‘cosmic Christ’ refers to the following three aspects of the mystery of Jesus Christ, all of them attested in the New Testament and in the Christian tradition: (i) The relationship of the Logos to the whole creation, which is not confined to the earth but extends to the whole cosmos: “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn1:3); (ii) The principality of the exalted Christ over the whole creation and cosmos (Col 2:15; Eph 1:20-22). Early Christian writers like Justin the Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Irenaeus developed this cosmic aspect of the mystery of Christ further; (iii) The exalted and transhistorical Christ continues to act through the Spirit in history.
Aloysius Pieris speaks about the “traditional belief that though all of Jesus is Christ, not all of Christ is Jesus (Jesus est totus Christus, non totum Christi)… The Christ of Asia… seemed to have been in Asia long before the Church arrived there and is at work even today far beyond the Church.”
J. Dupuis after discussing this issue concludes:
The Word was undoubtedly manifested in Jesus Christ in the most complete way possible in history, indeed in the most profoundly human way that it is possible to conceive, and therefore in the way best adapted to our human nature. But, paradoxically, this very human way of self-manifestation implied by itself its own limitations and incompleteness. The Word of God remains beyond whatever can be manifested and revealed in the human being of Jesus, assumed personally by him. In his humanity, therefore, Jesus Christ is the “universal sacrament” – the efficacious sign – of the mystery of the salvation which God offers to the entire humankind through his Word; but the God who saves through him remains beyond the human being of Jesus, notwithstanding his personal identity with the Word, even when he has reached his glorified state. Jesus Christ risen and glorified does not substitute for the Father; neither does his glorified humanity exhaust the Word himself, which is never totally contained in any historical manifestation.
Karl Rahner gives the theological ground for such a distinction between the Word and Jesus.
In accordance with the fact that the natures are unmixed, basically the active influence of the Logos on the human “nature” in Jesus in a physical sense may not be understood in any other way except the way this influence is exercised by God on free creatures elsewhere. This of course is frequently forgotten in a piety and a theology which are tinged with monophysitism. All too often they understand the humanity of Jesus as a thing and as an “instrument” which is moved by the subjectivity of the Logos… The human nature of Jesus is a created, conscious and free reality to which there belongs a created “subjectivity” at least in the sense of a created will, a created energia. This created subjectivity is distinct from the subjectivity of the Logos and faces God at a created distance in freedom, in obedience and in prayer, and it is not omniscient.
119. Here the author refers to George A. Maloney, The Cosmic Christ. From Paul to Teilhard. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968); J.A.Lyons, The Cosmic Christ in Origen and Teilhard de Chardin (London: Sheed nd Ward, 1982).
120. Felix Wilfred, “Towards a Better Understanding of Asian Theology”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 62 (1998) 909-910.
121. Aloysius Pieris, Fire and Water (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), p. 75. See also his “Christology in Asia. A Reply to Felipe Gomez”, Voices from the Third World XI (1989) 155-172.
122. J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 159. See also pp. 130-132. For similar opinions see: R. Panikkar, “Un presente senza catture”, Rocca (Oct. 1, 1987) 54-59; R. Panikkar, “The Jordan, the Tiber and the Ganges” in John Hick and Paul Knitter (eds), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1977), pp.89-116; E. Scillebeeckx, Jesus in our Western Culture (London: SCM, 1987), pp.2-3; Christian Duquoc, “Apartenance écclesiale et identification chrétienne”, Concilium 216 (1988) 141-152; W. Thusing and K. Rahner, A New Christology (London: Burns and Oates, 1980), p.180.
The Indian Theological Association, discussing the significance of Jesus Christ in the context of the religious pluralism in India, said in its final statement:
Celebrating the gracious and living mystery of God, we are not only aware of the Spirit of God “who blows where he wills.” But also of the Word of God who speaks to peoples through various manifestations in different ways. (Heb 1:1) and whom we profess as the one who became incarnate in Jesus. We gratefully acknowledge that it is our experience of the incarnate Jesus that leads us to the discovery of the cosmic dimensions of the presence and action of the Word. We realise that we can “neither confuse nor separate” these different manifestations of the Word in history, and in various cultures and religions. We joyfully proclaim our own experience of the Word in Jesus, on the one hand, and on the other we also seek to relate in an open and positive way to the other manifestations of the Word as they are part of one divine mystery.
This effort to distinguish, without separating, between the Word and Jesus in the context of the one divine mystery of salvation also depends on how we understand the relationship of Jesus Christ to the salvation of the members of other religions. As J. Dupuis says:
It must be said clearly that no other consideration except the personal identity of Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God provides an adequate theological foundation for his salvific uniqueness and universality.
Similarly Gerald O’Collins:
If it was Jesus’ humanity that made his dying and rising possible, it was his divinity that gave that dying and rising a cosmic value.
Talking about the presence of Jesus Christ in other religions, K. Rahner makes two presuppositions: the universal salvific will of God and the positive role played by the other religions in the salvific plan of God. Then he goes on to say:
123. K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p.287. See also pp. 290-291.
124. E. D’Lima and M. Gonsalves (eds), What Does Jesus Christ Mean? The meaningfulness of Jesus Christ amid Religious Pluralism in India. (Bangalore: Indian Theological Association, 1999), p.182.
125. J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, p. 157.
126. Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983), p.167. See also Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (London: Burns and Oates, 1976), pp.188-189.
Christ is present and operative in non-Christian religions in and through his Spirit… The incarnation and the cross are, in scholastic terminology, the “final cause” of the universal self-communication of God to the world which we call the Holy Spirit, a self-communication given with God’s salvific will which has no cause outside God… The Spirit who has been communicated to the world has himself, and not only in the intention of God which transcends the world and would be extrinsic to him, an intrinsic relation to Jesus Christ. The latter is the “cause” of the former, although at the same time the opposite relation is equally true, as is always the case between an efficient cause and a final cause. Between them there is both unity and difference, and a relationship of mutual conditioning. Insofar as the efficient cause of the Incarnation and of the cross, namely, the Spirit, bears his goal within himself as an intrinsic entelechy, and insofar as he realizes his own essence as communicated to the world only in the Incarnation and the cross, he is the Spirit of Jesus Christ to begin with. Insofar as this Spirit always and everywhere brings justifying faith, this faith is always and everywhere and from the outset a faith which comes to be in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. In this Spirit of his he is present and operative in all faith.
My conclusion from all these reflections is that God’s salvific plan for the world and for the humankind is one. But this one plan is differently articulated in a pluralism of elements, though they are marked by inter-relatedness. Nothing should lead us to introduce any separation or parallelism between these various elements. But they remain distinct, though inter-related. It is this pluralism that provides a space for dialogue and collaboration between these different elements. The unity will be fully evident only when all things are united together on the last day and God will be “all in all.” (cf. 1 Cor 15:28)
127. K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, p.318.
128. The different points raised and discussed in this first part have also been discussed, with similar conclusions, by Jacques Dupuis in his book: Christianity and the Religions. From Confrontation to Dialogue. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2001) For a summary and comments on this book see Gerald O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis’s Contribution to Interreligious Dialogue”, Theological Studies 64 (2003) 388-397. There has been a rich documentation of discussion around Dupuis’ earlier book Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. For a detailed bibliography of this discussion see Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (eds), In Many and Diverse Ways. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003), pp. 270-281. For Dupuis’ answers to some of the reviews of his book: “La teologia del pluralismo religioso revisitata,” Rassegna di teologia 40 (1999) 667-693; “The Truth will Make You Free,” Louvain Studies 24 (1999) 211-263.
Part Two: Answering the Questions Raised
Introduction
Preliminary to the various questions is a basic approach to the status and role of other religions in God’s plan of salvation for all humans. This is the reason why a good amount of space is devoted to this in the first part. In Asia there is a growing conviction that the other religions do facilitate salvific divine-human encounter. Much of my reflection is trying to take into account this conviction in understanding the mission of the Church in Asia. I try not to speak any more of religions as salvific or as ways to salvation. Much less is there an effort to present them as ways parallel to the way of Jesus Christ. There is no attempt at all to assert that all religions are the same or that they are complementary to each other. There is only the suggestion that they have a role in the “way known to God” of which Gaudium et Spes speaks. (22) We affirm in faith that the salvation that they facilitate is related to Christ and the Church. Jesus Christ in the only Saviour. Even in doing this, I will have to take into account the religious experience of the other believers. I should be ready to meet similar claims of other religions. As the Indian Bishops have said:
In affirming the uniqueness of Christ as the only Son of the Father, sent by him in the Spirit’s power, source of salvation for all peoples, we must also pay attention to the fact that this statement is primarily a profession of faith. Being a profession of mature faith, it comes not at the beginning of the faith journey but in the process of that pilgrimage, as the summit and conclusion towards which the one who has been evangelised is led by grace in the Spirit.
In a similar way, Josef Neuner has said:
It has been made abundantly clear by the Asian Bishops that an abrupt presentation of Jesus as the “only Saviour” in the Asian context not only is an obstacle to those who search seriously for truth, but is perceived as arrogance, as disrespect of their own religious traditions. Jesus must be presented in the same way by which he presented himself in his own earthly mission. People must be introduced into his life, to his radiant personality as it comes to us in the Gospel accounts. With the growing knowledge and love of his person they may be led, step by step, to the acceptance of his mission and of the mystery of his person.
John Paul II recommends a similar approach in Ecclesia in Asia.
But the members of the other religions are not and, we would even say to day, need not be aware of this “mysterious” relationship they have with Jesus Christ and the Church. We cannot ignore this fact, not only in our conversation with them, but also in our own theological reflection. Yves Raguin from France, after many years of experience in China and Taiwan says:
129. Peter C. Phan, The Asian Synod, p. 23.
130. J. Neuner, “Proclaiming Jesus Christ”, Vidyajyoti journal of Theological Reflection 64 (2000) 542.
131. No. 20.
When the other religions were flourishing at the other end of the earth it was relatively easy to think and to say: “No salvation outside the Church.” But who, if s/he has been in contact with the faithful of other Churches or other religions, will have the pretension to defend such a proposition? To save this formula, some great theologians, following Karl Rahner, have included these faithful in the category of anonymous Christians. But these believers have the right to refuse this formulation, because, for them, it is to include them, against their will, in the Christian Church.
Even for us today, the other religions are not mere human and historical facts. Since we recognize the presence and action of the Spirit of God in them (Redemptoris Missio, 28), they are also theological facts. They are elements in the salvific plan of God for the world. When I encounter the members of the other religions, the church is seen by them as one among the many world religions, whatever may be my own personal awareness of its special character in the plan of God. It is at this level that even the Church engages in dialogue with the members of other religions. John Paul II includes this activity in the many paths of mission that he speaks about in Chapter 5 of Redemptoris Missio. Such dialogue, oriented to the Kingdom, is already evangelization and mission, though it is not the whole of mission.
We in Asia tend to talk more about the pluralism of religions and dialogue because these are the newer dimensions of evangelization and are not yet fully understood. They are also more relevant and urgent for us at the present historical context.
My second observation concerns the document Dominus Iesus. There has been a widespread feeling that, while it restates traditional doctrine, it has not taken into account the developments after the Second Vatican Council in our relationship with other churches and religions. This has been stated by Dr. George Carey, (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Ishmael Noko, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation and Rembert G. Weakland, (Catholic) Archbishop of Milwaukee. Many Asians would feel that it does not take into account their own ongoing experience of and dialogue with the members of other religions. I venture to suggest that here is an area of theological and even doctrinal development that may lead to a reinterpretation or even development of traditional teaching, as re-stated by Dominus Iesus.
132. Yves Raguin, Un message de salut pour tous. Paris: Vie Chétienne, 1995.
133. Cf. Sic et Non, p.27.
134. Ibid., p. 30.
135. Ibid., p. 33.
136. Cf. Ibid., p. 168 for a reaction from an American Catholic student of Hinduism. He also points to some inconsistencies in the use of words like ‘faith’. For an Asian reaction, see Edmund Chia, Towards a Theology of Dialogue. (cf. footnote 5)
A third preliminary observation has to do with the notion of unity. In a situation of pluralism is there a middle ground between unity and separation? Can we distinguish between elements of one reality, recognizing their inter-relationship, without separating them? Can we think of a structural relationship between the elements without thinking of them as parallel? We affirm in faith Three Persons in one God; but we do attribute various roles and activities to the different Persons. We confess two natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ; the Council of Chalcedon said that the two natures should ‘neither be separated nor confused’. The Communication of Idioms is legitimate. But it remains a communication of idioms between two natures in the perspective of the unity of the person. But this does not mean that we cannot talk about the two natures, of course, without confusing or separating them, if and when necessary. We speak of one Mediator but also of participated mediations that cannot be simply identified. The Kingdom of God, the church and the religions belong to the one salvific plan of God for the humans; but they are not the same nor equal. In every case there is unity, but it is articulated differently into various elements. We cannot understand the unity without some effort at understanding the articulations of the elements that make up the unity.
Finally, if it is helpful, I may indicate that Jose Kuttianimattathil in an elaborate study on the theology of dialogue in India counts me among the moderates. I have consciously tried to hold to a middle position between two extreme views: a relativising pluralism and an inclusivism that is, in practice, exclusivistic.
With these preliminary observations let me take up the five questions posed to me in the light of the clarifications offered above.
Question I: The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ
The first question deals with the uniqueness and universality of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Let me start saying that I have affirmed more than once that all salvation is from Godthrough Jesus Christ. I have said for instance:
Most Indian theologians affirm that all salvation, however understood, is from God in and through Jesus Christ… I think that Christian faith supposes such an affirmation. If this is not affirmed then we can stop the discussion right here, because there is nothing to explain or understand… Attempts to explain do not amount to denial.
However, I think that in Asia this affirmation of faith has to be understood in a two-fold context.
The first context is the following. The salvation in Christ reaches out to people in different ways. Christians appropriate it through a direct and conscious relationship of faith in Jesus Christ, moved as they are by the Spirit. The same Spirit enables also other people to accept or appropriate the “salvation-in-Christ”. But the Spirit works in them not through the kerygma and sacraments of the Church nor throug an explicit confession of faith in Jesus Christ, but through, or facilitated by, other symbolic figures and structures. These may be called ‘participated mediations’, following John Paul II. There is no attempt to equate these symbolic figures with Jesus Christ or to consider them as parallel mediations. But we have to acknowledge a pluralism of (participated, but real) mediations in the lives and histories of peoples and groups. Acknowledging this pluralism does not in any way mean the denial of the uniqueness of the source or our faith affirmation relating the salvation of all to what God has done in Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact the talk about the ‘mysteric’ or ‘cosmic’ Christ by some Asian theologians is precisely meant to affirm this link with Jesus Christ, but without a conscious relationship to his humanity. The members of other religions are certainly related to Jesus Christ as a final cause. But Jesus Christ is not part of their religious consciousness and commitment. This is what makes space for dialogue with them at the religious level, and, where possible, proclamation.
137. Gerald O’Collins points to a similar effort at making distinctions by Jacques Dupuis. See his paper “Jacques Dupuis: His Person and Work.”, David Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (eds), In Many and Diverse Ways (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003), pp.18-29.
138. Jose Kuttianimattathil, Practice and Theology of Interreligious Dialogue (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 1995), pp. 231-394.
139. M. Amaladoss, “The Mystery of Christ and Other Religions”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 65 (1999) 328.
Analysing the ‘uniqueness statements’ in the New Testament Lucien Legrand concludes:
It is only through (such) a kenotic approach that one can reach Christ and, with him, encounter the other. For the revelation which he brings to the nations does not consist in a extrinsic formula. It is the revelation of the light which the Spirit has placed there: “the light for the revelation of the Nations” (Lk 2:32) and also the revelation of the light of the Nations. And the key that the Lord has justify to his Church is not a magic sesame but the secret of his kenosis, of the weakness in which the folly of love, power of God and wisdom of God has plunged him. Equipped in this manner the church of Christ will go resolutely to encounter the “others” in order to accomplish with them and by the Spirit the “greatest works” which it has been promised.
Here I may be permitted a reference to a remark I had made earlier. There is a level in which we make faith affirmations. There is another level where we speak about what is actually happening at the historical, phenomenological level. These two sorts of affirmations should not be taken and compared as if they are made at the same level. At the same time theological reflection cannot ignore any of the two levels.
The second context is the historically dynamic nature in which the salvation of all peoples is being achieved. Jesus Christ’s salvific act is ‘once-for-all’. But this once-for-all character does not limit it to one particular moment in time but covers the whole eschatological time in a dynamic of ‘already-not yet’. (cf. Jn 13-17; 1 Cor 15:12-28; Eph 1:3-10) The Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and inaugurated is slowly being established in the course of history so that we meaningfully pray: “Your Kingdom come!” (Mt 6:10) and “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22: 20) It is this ‘already – not yet’ historical dynamic that makes space for other religions and the dialogical-missionary interaction of the church with them. So the once-for-all character of the paschal mystery is not an obstacle to a positive role for other religions in God’s plan for universal salvation.
140. Lucien Legrand, “Jésus e l’Église primitive. Un éclairage biblique,” Spiritus 36 (1995) 77. For a deepening of the same perspective see L. Legrand, “Rencontres kénotiques de Jésus,” Spiritus 37 (1996) 40-49
Therefore giving a positive role for other religions in God’s plan of salvation and articulating their relationship to the unique mystery of Christ in such a way that, though the Holy Spirit is active in them, they do not consciously and directly relate to Jesus Christ does not in any way deny the uniqueness and universality of the salvific mystery of Jesus Christ. That is why John Paul II says: “The Church’s relationship with other religions is dictated by a twofold respect: “Respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of his life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man.” This has to be stressed specially in a context of dialogue.
Asian theologians often speak about the uniqueness and universality of Jesus Christ. But rather than focus on what he is they speak about what he signifies and does. Jesus is seen as an initiator of a movement of love, opting to be poor and to struggle with the poor; or as a counter-cultural prophet. This way of presenting the saving action of Jesus does not deny the truth that salvation is ultimately rooted in Jesus’ paschal mystery. Our formulation rather articulates for a larger public an aspect of the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Question II: The Word and Jesus
It is the faith in the uniqueness of Christ that leads me to distinguish, not separate, Jesus and the Word. Christ is reaching out to the believers of other religions even though they do not consciously relate to Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is present in them in a real way in so far as he is the Word. In an earlier time I used to distinguish between Jesus and the Christ (following other theologians like Raymond Panikkar). I realised however that the term ‘Christ’ means ‘anointed’ and refers directly to Jesus. So now I tend to distinguish between Jesus (the human nature) and the Word (the divine nature). While a distinction between “Jesus” and the “Christ” may seem confusing, a distinction between the “Word” and “Jesus” cannot be confusing. I have shown in the first part that this distinction is made by exegetes and theologians and is meaningful and cannot really be denied in the name of the Councils of Chalcedon and Constantinople. While the ‘communication of idioms’ supposes that we can attribute to the one person predicates that refer to both the natures, it does not forbid us to distinguish between the two natures and speak about them. Attempts to articulate the divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ have always been problematic. In the past, perhaps, people were easily divinising the humanity of Jesus and were not able to accept the human limitations that Jesus exhibits in the Gospel. Today people seem to affirm one-sidedly the humanity of Jesus. A balance therefore seems necessary. An affirmation of the oneness of the person in Jesus Christ may tend to privilege the divinity at the expense of the humanity. An affirmation of the distinction of natures may lead to a one-sided emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, down playing the divinity. I have tried to keep the balance compared to many other Christological attempts. I have also shown in the first part that many authors hold a similar distinction between the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ or between Jesus and the Word.
The texts cited from Dominus Iesus refer to the unity of the person of Jesus Christ. I have not denied the unity of person in Jesus Christ any where. But I am trying to make a distinction, not a separation, between the two ‘natures’ that constitute this one ‘person’. The unity of the person of Jesus is not a unity of identity. It is an articulated unity, with distinct, not separate nor parallel elements. Theologians like Karl Rahner have referred to this issue. Rahner says:
141. Redemptoris Missio, 29.
142. Aloysius Pieris, The Christhood of Jesus and the Discipleship of Mary. An Asian Perspective. (Colombo: Logos, 2000); Fire and Water (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), pp. 65-78.
143. Cf. Sebastian Kappen, Jesus and Cultural Revolution. An Asian Perspective. (Mumbai:Build, 1983)
When the orthodox descending Christology of the Incarnation says that this Jesus “is” God, this is an abiding truth of the faith if the statement is understood correctly… For such statements are constructed according to the rules for the interchange of predicates and are meant in this sense, and nothing about them indicates explicitly that this copula “is” appears and should be understood in a quite a different sense than it is in other familiar statements with apparently the same copula “is”. For when we say that Peter is a man, the statement expresses a real identification in the content of the subject and predicate nouns. But the meaning of “is” in statements involving an interchange of predicates in Christology is not based on such a real identification. It is based rather on a unique, otherwise unknown and deeply mysterious unity between realities which are really different and which are at an infinite distance from each other. For in and according to the humanity which we see when we say “Jesus”, Jesus “is” not God, and according to his divinity God “is” not man in the sense of a real identification. The Chalcedonian adiairetos (unseparated) which this “is” intends to express (D.S. 302) expresses it in such a way that the asynchytos (unmixed) of the same formula does not come to expression.
Therefore the relationship between the two natures in the person of Jesus Christ is neither a separation nor a simple identity. There is a unity in distinction. There is a relationship. I recall here a reflection of K. Rahner that I have cited earlier in which he spells out an aspect of this relationship:
The human nature of Jesus is a created, conscious and free reality to which there belongs a created “subjectivity” at least in the sense of a created will, a created energia. This created subjectivity is distinct from the subjectivity of the Logos and faces God at a created distance in freedom, in obedience and in prayer, and it is not omniscient. The affirmation of a distinction and of a relationship is not a denial of unity, but an attempt at an articulation of its constitutive elements in the light of experience. But the unity and the relationship are mysterious. But in the context of our experience and our questions the theologians can explore them, open, of course, to correction and improvement.
144. Foundations of the Christian Faith, 290. For a similar reflection see E. Schillebeeckx, “In Your View, Is Jesus still God? Yes or No?” in Interim Report on the Books Jesus and Christ. (London: SCM Press, 1880), pp.140-143.
145. Ibid., p. 287.
The action of the Word, even after the incarnation, is not separated from the Incarnate Word. But it can be distinct and not confused. It is always related to the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, though we do not always see and know how this happens. By affirming the incarnation and the uniqueness of Christ, I am affirming this relationship, though I accept that I am not explaining it. The idea of Jesus Christ as the ‘final cause’ refers Jesus Christ back, in a way, to the plan of God. To say that Jesus Christ is present in other believers through the Spirit affirms a distinction and relationship between Jesus Christ and the Spirit. I think that to say that the Word is present and active in all humans brings Jesus Christ more closely in relationship to every one. The Word and Jesus are not parallel mediations. They are two ways of one and the same mediation. They relate to and refer to each other. But they need not be the same. All these are attempts to throw some light on “in a way known to God.” (GS, 22) I am open to other attempts at explanation.
Question III: The Word and the Spirit
I have strongly affirmed in my writings the presence of the Spirit everywhere, also in other religions. I have held that that all salvific activity is from God, Father, Son and Spirit and this salvific activity is related to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. The ‘how’ of this relationship in the case of the other believers is known to God alone. (GS, 22) Though all salvation is from the Father, in Jesus Christ and through the Spirit, in the case of the members of other religions, this is not mediated through a direct and conscious relationship to Jesus. This seems clear also from the way that John Paul II speaks about the action of the Spirit in chapter III of Redemptoris Missio. He speaks about the activity of the Spirit in the Christians and in the Church in Nos. 21-27 and then about the activity of the Spirit in the other religions in Nos. 28-29. It is the same Spirit related to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. But the relation of these two groups of people, the Christians and the members of other religions, to Jesus Christ seems to be different. Jesus is present and active in the Christian believers, directly and consciously, in a way that he does not seem to be present and active in the believers of other religions. This is indicated by saying that Christ is present in the other religions through the Spirit. These two different ways of presence of the same mystery is the foundation for differences between the religions at the historical and phenomenological level. I wish to acknowledge and affirm this difference as source of creative and meaningful dialogue between religions. I feel that some times some theologians, by affirming that the Spirit present and active in the other religions is the Spirit of Christ, may not sufficiently appreciate this difference between the two ways of the Spirit’s presence and their relevance to interreligious dialogue.
So I do not affirm an economy of the Spirit more universal than or separate from that of the salvific paschal mystery of Christ. The economy is one. But it may be actualized or realized in practice in different ways. I think that a relationship to the Spirit is real for all peoples in a way that a direct and conscious relationship to Jesus is not. I am trying to affirm this difference because a real difference between religions and the ways in which God, Jesus Christ and the Spirit are active in them is meaningful for dialogue. It is this difference that makes it possible for us to listen to the Spirit speaking to us through the other religions and to learn from the Spirit.
The Document Dialogue and Proclamation says:
The fullness of truth received in Jesus Christ does not give individual Christians the guarantee that they have grasped that truth fully. In the last analysis truth is not a thing we possess, but a person by whom we must allow ourselves to be possessed.
This is an unending process. While keeping their identity intact, Christians must be prepared to learn and to receive from and through others the positive values of their traditions. Through dialogue they may be moved to give up ingrained prejudices, to revise preconceived ideas, and even sometimes to allow the understanding of their faith to be purified.
It is because they realize the presence of the Spirit in other religions that the Asian Bishops insist that we can really learn from other religions. The Bishops from Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, for instance, affirm in their response to the Lineamenta for the Asian Synod, in answer to the question: “What can the Church learn from her dialogue with other Asian religions and the knowledge obtained?”:
1. From Muslims, the Church can learn about prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
2. From Hindus, the Church can learn about meditation and contemplation.
3. From Buddhists, the Church can learn about detachment from material goods and respect for life.
4. From Confucianism, the Church can learn about filial piety and respect for elders.
5. From Taoism, the Church can learn about simplicity and humility.
6. From Animists, the Church can learn about the reverence and respect for nature and gratitude for harvests.
7. The Church can learn from the rich symbolism and rites existing in their diversity of worship.
8. The Church can, like the Asian religions, learn to be more open, receptive, sensitive, tolerant, and forgiving in the midst of plurality of religions.
The Indian Bishops say in their turn:
It is an accepted principle that we cannot comprehend a mystery; before it, our attitude needs to be one of reverent acceptance and humble openness. God’s dialogue with Asian peoples through their religious experiences is a great mystery. We as Church enter into this mystery by dialogue through sharing and listening to the Spirit in others. Dialogue, then, becomes an experience of God’s Kingdom.
Such an attitude contrasts with another which says: “We have the fullness of truth in Jesus; we have nothing to learn from any one else.” The Word of God is indeed the fullness of the truth. But this fullness was not revealed by Jesus himself who says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” (Jn 16:12-13) Even what Jesus has revealed to us may not be fully grasped by us because of our human, historical and cultural conditionings and limitations, even if the Church does not go wrong in what it grasps and expresses. The Spirit may actually be leading us to fuller truth through our dialogue with other religions.
146. No. 49. For the suggestion that the Church it self may be a limited expression of the Truth see Luigi Sartori, “’Subsistit in’. Criterion of ‘Truth and History’ in Interreligious Dialogue”, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (eds), In Many and Diverse Ways. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2003) pp. 86-100.
147. Peter C. Phan, The Asian Synod, p. 36.
148. Ibid., pp.20-21.
Question IV: The Church and the Religions
I think that there are two issues here. The first is whether we accept that God through the Spirit is reaching out to the believers of other religions in and through them. Thinking of them as ways looks at them from the human point of view. We can also ask whether the one salvific plan of God includes various ways in which God is reaching out to the humans. I think that there is a growing consensus that this is the case. As I have pointed out above, even the International Theological Commission accepts that this is a point under discussion among theologians. A positive view of the role of other religions as facilitators of salvific divine-human encounter is common among Bishops and theologians in Asia. I need not repeat that this salvation is a participation in the paschal mystery, though the ways are known only to God. (cf. GS, 22) Theologians are only trying to understand this mystery a little.
The many “ways” in which God is reaching out to all peoples are part of the one salvific plan of God in which the Church has a special role. Traditionally this role has been described as the Church being the sacrament of universal salvation. The idea of the ‘sacrament’ makes space for the presence and role of other religions in the one plan of God. The role of other religions do not exclude the possibility that all humans are “ordained” to the Church, as the Second Vatican Council says. (LG, 16) I have no hesitation in affirming such a relationship according to the plan of God. I think that many theologians agree that the necessity of the Church for salvation does not demand more than such an ‘ordination’ or relationship.
On the other hand, whatever be the relationship at an ‘ontological’ or ‘mysterical’ level according to the plan of God, at the historical and phenomenological level, the Church is seen and experienced by other people as one among other religions. God does reach out to the believers of other religions without their having any direct, conscious relationship with the visible, institutional Church. It is at this level that we are dialoguing with the believers of other religions. I think that it is legitimate to talk about a pluralism of religions at this level. Such a pluralism does belong to the salvific plan of God. That is why inter-religious dialogue is an integral dimension of the mission of God and the mission of the Church. As Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja said, in response to Ecclesia in Asia:
Yes, it is true that there is no authentic evangelization without announcing Jesus Christ, Saviour of the whole human race. But for Asia, there will be no complete evangelization unless there is dialogue with other religions and cultures. There is no convincing and trustworthy announcement of Jesus as the Saviour, unless along with, or even preceding this announcing, the Church presents the actual loving ministry of Jesus which rescues people from situations of injustice, persecution, misery, and in the place of these brings life, yes, even life in abundance.
149. J. Darmaatmadja, “A New Way of Being Church in Asia”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 63 (1999) 891.
In the multi-religious situation of Asia we tend to talk, even among ourselves, at two registers. There is a practical, pastoral level where we speak about pluralism, which is real and based on theological principles. At the ‘ontological’, ‘mysterical’ level we speak about our faith conviction about the relatedness of all those who are saved to Jesus Christ and to the Church. These are two dimensions of one plan of God. As theologians we can and we have to talk at both these levels. We can distinguish them without separating or confusing them.
Question V: The Church and the Kingdom
These two dimensions are relevant when we speak of the relationship of the Church to the Kingdom. Among the theologians there are two views of this relationship. Some still think that the Kingdom is simply the future of the Church which is its beginnings. Others, however, in the context of a positive view of other religions in the plan of God, relate the Kingdom to the plan of God and find a place also for other religions in the Kingdom. This does not mean, however, that all religions have the same relationship to the Kingdom. The Church claims a special relationship, which is not one of identity. It claims to be the sacrament of the Kingdom.
I have never questioned this special relationship of the Church to the Kingdom of God as its sacrament. A sacrament is usually described as ‘sign and instrument’. Since these words seem to refer to a material thing, I have tried to ‘humanize’ the term by talking of ‘symbol and servant’. I have not proposed a “regnocentric” theory of mission. On the contrary I have repeated often that the goal of mission is twofold, namely, the building of the Kingdom and of the Church as its symbol and servant:
Just as we neither separate nor confuse Jesus and God, we need neither separate nor confuse the Church and the Kingdom. The goal of mission then can be redefined as helping to build the Kingdom and the Church as its symbol and servant.
Precisely because there is a double goal with two elements, distinct, though not separate, one from the other, it is possible to think that the other religions can collaborate with the Church in building the Kingdom of God. I have quoted texts from Asian Bishops in the first part. Addressing other religious leaders in Chennai John Paul II said:
By dialogue we let God be present in our midst; for as we open ourselves in dialogue to one another, we also open ourselves to God… As followers of different religions we should join together in promoting and defending common ideals in the spheres of religious liberty, human brotherhood, education, culture, social welfare and civic order.
150. M. Amaladoss, “The Trinity on Mission” in F.Wijsen and P. Nissen (eds), Mission is a Must. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), p. 104.
151. Origins 15 (1986) 598. For similar sentiments see John Paul II’s address to leaders of other religions in New Delhi after the publication of Ecclesia in Asia: “The Interreligious Meeting”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 63 (1999) 884-886.
152. No. 20.
Here he is obviously speaking about collaboration between religions in the presence of God. He refers to a similar project in Redemptoris Missio when he speaks about the Church serving “the Kingdom by spreading throughout the world the “Gospel values.” It is in the same perspective that he has called frequently the leaders of other religions to come together to pray for peace in the world, because he believes that “every authentic prayer is prompted by the holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in every human heart.”
– Michael Amaladoss, S.J.