RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND TURN TO THE SPIRIT
FABC’s and Gavin D’Costa’s Theology of Religions
Keywords:
Salvific Character of Other Religions, Theological Starting Point, Parameters of Thinking of the Spirit in Others, Mutual Enrichment/Fulfilment for the Church and Other ReligionsAbstract
Among the recent approaches to religious pluralism is what has been called “the turn to the Holy Spirit.”[1] Theologians who employ the pneumatological approach regard it as a way out of the traditional impasses that have hindered developments in the theology of religions.[2] For instance, the Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong identifies three advantages of a pneumatological approach to other religions.[3] First, he considers pneumatology as the key to overcoming the dualism between Christological particularity and the cosmic Christ. The either/or of particularity/universality dissolves when one recalls that the historical Jesus was who he was because of the Spirit of God and that the risen Christ was resurrected by the power of the Spirit. Second, pneumatology is the key to understanding the tension between what has traditionally been labelled specific and natural revelation. While it does not deny these categories, pneumatology emphasizes the dynamism of revelation and salvation rather than dualisms. Third, pneumatology enables us to transcend questions related to other religions not merely as human efforts to reach the divine because this approach emphasizes the universality of the Spirit and the dynamic nature of divine activity. Thus, Yong sees pneumatological approach as offering a way of moving the conversation forward.
References
Clark Pinnock, Religious Pluralism: A Turn to the Holy Spirit, 27 March 2008 <http://www.mcmaster.ca/mjtm/5-4.htm>.
Paul F. Knitter, “A New Pentecost? A Pneumatological Theology of Religions,” Current Dialogue 19 (January 1991): 32-41;
Amos Yong, “The Turn to Pneumatology in Christian Theology of Religions: Conduit or Detour?” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 35 (1998), 437-54;
Amos Yong, Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic and Cumbria, UK: Paternoster Press, 2003.
Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997, 173; Gerald O’Collins, “John Paul II on Christ, the Holy Spirit and World Religions,” Irish Theological Quarterly 72 (2007), 323-37.
Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000, 105.
Gavin D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations: Discerning God in Other Religions – Beyond a Static Valuation,” Modern Theology 10 (1994), 165-83.
Karl Rahner, “On the Importance of Non-Christian Religions for Salvation,” Theological Investigations, vol. 18, trans. Edward Quinn, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984, 288-95.
S. Mark Heim, The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.
S. Mark Heim, Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995
Daniel A. Madigan, “Nostra Aetate and the Questions It Chose to Leave Open,” Gregorianum 87 (2006), 781-96.
Ruben C. Mendoza, “‘Ray of Truth That Enlightens All’: Nostra Aetate and Its Reception by the FABC,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 16 (2006), 148-72.
Jacques Dupuis, “The Church, the Reign of God, and the ‘Others’,” FABC Papers 67 (1993), 22.
Catalino Arévalo and Gaudencio Rosales, eds., For All the Peoples in Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, Documents from 1970-1991, vol. 1 (hereafter, FAPA I) Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1992, 14.
Jacques Dupuis, “A Theological Commentary Dialogue and Proclamation” in William Burrows, ed., Redemption and Dialogue: Reading Redemptoris Missio and Dialogue and Proclamation, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993, 137.
Second Formation Institute for Inter-Religious Affairs 3.1 (hereafter, FIRA II), in Franz-Josef Eilers, ed., For All the Peoples in Asia. Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. Documents from 1991-1996, vol. 2 (hereafter FAPA II), Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1997, 126-27.
Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, 3.
Gavin D’Costa, “Revelation and World Religions,” in Paul Avis, ed., Divine Revelation, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997, 114.
Gavin D’Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000, 101-17; D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions, 3-37.
D’Costa, The Meeting of the Religions, 19; cf. Gavin D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity? Whose Neutrality? The Doomed Quest for a Neutral Vantage Point from Which to Judge Religions,” Religious Studies 29 (1993), 79-85.
Franz-Josef Eilers, For All the Peoples in Asia. Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. Documents from 1997-2001, vol. 3, Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2002, 329-419.
Gavin D’Costa, “Roundtable Review of The Meeting of the Religions and the Trinity, by Gavin D’Costa,” Reviews in Religion and Theology 8 (2001), 246.
Gavin D’Costa, “Review of Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, by Jacques Dupuis,” The Journal of Theological Studies 49 (1998), 911.
