The Trinity and the Religions: A Cappadocian Assessment of Gavin D’Costa’s Theology of Religions 1978700601, 9781978700604

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The Trinity and the Religions

The Trinity and the Religions A Cappadocian Assessment of Gavin D’Costa’s Theology of Religions Loe-Joo Tan

LEXINGTON BOOKS/FORTRESS ACADEMIC

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Portions of chapter 1 were previously published in Loe-Joo Tan, “‘Things are not what they seem’: Dominus Iesus, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 48 no. 4 (Fall 2013): 523–543, used by permission of Penn Press; and in Loe-Joo Tan, “The Catholic Theology of Religions: A Survey of Pre-Vatican II and Conciliar Attitudes Toward Other Religions,” Scottish Journal of Theology 67, no. 3 (2014): 285–303, used by permission of Cambridge University Press. Portions of chapter 2 were previously published in Loe-Joo Tan, “Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions: An Assessment,” New Blackfriars, no. 1055 (Jan 2014): 88–104, used by permission of John Wiley & Sons. Special thanks are due to the copyright holders of Trinity Theological Journal for granting the permission to use material from the following article “οὐσία, ὑπόστασις and ἐπίνοια: St Basil’s Contribution to the Development of Trinitarian Doctrine,” Trinity Theological Journal, no. 21 (2013): 1–15, used in chapter 3. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-9787-0060-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-9787-0061-1 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations ix Introduction xiii 1  The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 2  Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions

1 59

3  The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea

123

4  A  n Assessment of D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions based on Cappadocian Trinitarianism

173

Glossary 189 Bibliography 193 Index 235 About the Author

239

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Acknowledgments

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Holmes for his guidance and encouragement at critical stages of this research. My gratitude, too, to past colleagues in the Black Room of the Roundel, Matthew Farlow, Robyn Wrigley-Carr, Milton Nunez-Coba, Lori Kanitz, Samuel Adams, Tanya Walker, Hauna Ondrey, and Sarah Maple, for the many theological discussions we had, their friendships, and good memories. Also at the Roundel, Mary Stevens shared her knowledge of Catholic sources, Jason Sexton kept me updated with the literature on Trinitarian theology, and Estifanos Zwede’s friendship was a living example of Christian koinōnia. Within St. Mary’s College, Jake Andrews was a constant sounding board on patristic theology. The Very Rev. Protopresbyter John Raffan of St. Leonard’s Chapel helped me appreciate the doxological thrust of Cappadocian theology, while Fr. Andrew J. Kingham of St. James Catholic Church deepened my understanding of the tradition through catechesis and mystagogia classes. I am grateful to Prof. Gavin D’Costa for alerting me to some of his recent articles, and Sven Ensminger for our many conversations on the theology of religions. Thanks also to Prof. Fergus Kerr, Dr. Sara Parvis, and Prof. Alan Torrance for their substantive advice and feedback. My sincere appreciation to my home church, Ang Mo Kio Gospel Hall, and its members for their faithful support. The alumni of Chinese Varsity Christian Fellowship and the Fellowship of Evangelical Students were generous with their encouragement. The financial assistance of the Brash Trust and funding from the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship made it possible for me to devote full attention to my studies. My thanks to my neurologist, Dr. Ho King Hee, whose patient and experienced management of my chronic migraine symptoms over the past decade made the doctoral journey even possible. Leow Theng Huat and his family helped us immensely to settle quickly vii

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Acknowledgments

into life at St. Andrews when we first arrived. I am also grateful to my colleagues at Trinity Theological College, Singapore, Mark Chan and Roland Chia for recommending me to pursue doctoral research at the University of St. Andrews. The editorial support I received from Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Senior Acquisitions Editor Michael Gibson and Assistant Editor Dr. Judith Lakamper have been very important to me, as were the comments I received from the anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to Mike, who has been unwavering in his encouragement. Finally, my most profound gratitude goes to my family. To my wife, Nyeo Hon, for her love, patience, and belief in me even when mine was lacking, all this time making many sacrifices of her own. Our son, Barnabas, has endured an often absent-minded dad during this time. It is to both of them that this work is dedicated. Glory to the Father with the Son together with the Holy Spirit.

Abbreviations

ACC AD AEun ANF BNTC BoC CAHS CCT CDF CE CMID ComVII CSCD CURec CWR DEV DI DM DocVII

Ancient Christian Doctrine Series Ad Gentes Against Eunomius [Adversus Eunomium] by Basil of Caesarea, trans. M. DelCogliano and A. Radde-Gallwitz (2011) The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson Black’s New Testament Commentaries Basil of Caesarea, Christian, Humanist, Ascetic: A SixteenHundredth Anniversary Symposium, 2 vols., ed. P. J. Fedwick (1981) Clarendon Ancient History Series Challenges in Contemporary Theology series Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Against Eunomius [Contra Eunomium] by Gregory of Nyssa, in NPNF II, trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson (1989) Christian Mission and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. P. Mojzes and L. J. Swidler (1990) Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 5 vols., ed. H. Vorgrimler (1967–1969) Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, ed. G. D’Costa (1990) Christianity and World Religions by G. D’Costa (2009) Dominum et Vivificantem Dominus Iesus Dialogue and Mission The Documents of Vatican II, ed. W. A. Abbott and J. P. Gallagher (1966) ix

x

DP DSS DV ECF EN ES FC FMF GS HistVII LCL LG MC MCU Meeting MRS MST NA NCE Notification NPNF II OCA OECS OECT OHCC OSHT PG PMS PTMS RCC ReVII RH RM ROS SBL SC

Abbreviations

Dialogue and Proclamation On the Holy Spirit [De Spiritu Sancto] by Basil of Caesarea, trans. D. Anderson (1980) Dei Verbum Early Church Fathers Evangelii Nuntiandi Ecclesiam Suam Fathers of the Church Faith Meets Faith Series Gaudium et Spes History of Vatican II, 5 vols., ed. G. Alberigo and J. A. Komonchak (1995–2006) Loeb Classical Library Lumen Gentium Mystici Corporis Christi The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, ed. J. Hick and P. F. Knitter (1988) The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity by G. D’Costa (2000) The Myth of Religious Superiority, ed. P. F. Knitter (2005) Marquette Studies in Theology Nostra Aetate New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (2003) “Notification on the Book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism by Fr. Jacques Dupuis, S.J.” by Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd ser., ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace Orientalia Christiana Analecta Oxford Early Christian Studies Oxford Early Christian Texts Oxford History of the Christian Church Oxford Studies in Historical Theology Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (1857–1886) Patristic Monograph Series Princeton Theological Monograph Series Roman Catholic Church Rediscovering Vatican II Series Redemptor Hominis Redemptoris Missio Radical Orthodoxy Series Society of Biblical Literature Sources Chrétiennes



SCM SM SNTS TI TMA ToCH TRP UR VCS VCSS WBC

Abbreviations xi

Studies in Christian Mission Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, 6 vols., ed. K. Rahner (1968–1970) Society for New Testament Studies Theological Investigations by K. Rahner (1961–1992) Tertio Millennio Adveniente Transformation of the Classical Heritage series Theology and Religious Pluralism by G. D’Costa (1986) Unitatis Redintegratio Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae Variorum Collected Studies Series Word Biblical Commentary

Introduction

SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY In terms of scope, the subject material of this book is situated at the nexus of two theological loci: (1) Trinitarian theology of religions and (2) patristic Trinitarianism. The first field reflects the recent confluence of two significant developments in Christian theology since the twentieth century, namely, the resurgence of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity, and the emergence of the discipline of the theology of religions. The former has often been attributed to Karl Barth in the Protestant field and Karl Rahner for Catholicism,1 while the latter is a relative newcomer.2 The intersection of these two currents evinces the belief and even confidence that the doctrine of the Trinity contains within itself adequate resources for resolving the questions posed by the theology of religions.3 As one of the chief pacesetters of this trend for over three decades, Gavin D’Costa has spent most of his theological writings expounding a distinctly Catholic understanding of the Trinitarian theology of religions. In fact, inasmuch as it may be argued that the theology of religions as a specialized discipline of studies arose within Catholic circles after Vatican II, his work follows closely and echoes developments within Catholicism and its attempts to grapple theologically with the existence of other religious-historical realities. Since the promulgation of Dominus Iesus in 2000 and its denunciation of de jure pluralism, as well as the subsequent notification on Jacques Dupuis’s work, their combined effects have circumscribed the field to a more specific interpretation of the Conciliar and post-Conciliar documents, one that closely mirrors that found in his work such that D’Costa may now be described as a representative post-DI theologian of religions, and hence worthy of serious study. The second theological locus is patristic Trinitarian theology. In contrast to the first theological locus, which addresses contemporary concerns, the xiii

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Introduction

patristic period may appear staid and devoid of significant academic ebbs and flows. That this is far from the case can be seen in recent scholarly developments in the understandings of its Trinitarianism. In particular, two academic currents have allowed us a clearer picture of the Fathers’ theology. Firstly, the hypothesis by Ayres and Barnes of a “Pro-Nicene” theological matrix that emerged between 360 and 380 AD has allowed for a more unified picture of thought among the Church Fathers rather than an East–West divide as previously assumed.4 Secondly, the monolithic theology of the Cappadocian Fathers has become recognized to be distinguishable among its three proponents, with Basil of Caesarea’s Trinitarian theology being the subject of focus in recent years.5 The field of patristic Trinitarianism is hence far from static, and these developments have made the theology of the bishop of Caesarea an interesting reference point for a Trinitarian assessment on the assumption that his thought is sufficiently penetrating for us to ponder despite differences in context. Recently, K. E. Johnson’s assessment of several theologians of religions based on Augustinian theology also points to a renewed appropriation of the Fathers.6 Hence, with D’Costa as a major representative Catholic theologian of religions and Basil of Caesarea as a chief architect and spokesperson for the classical vision of Pro-Nicene Trinitarianism, the comparison of their theologies is both apposite and applicable, and represents an attempt to utilize the resources of the historical faith for contemporary concerns. Methodologically, this book will approach the evaluation historically and systematically. By noting the evolution of D’Costa’s thinking within the context of Catholic developments, we will observe that despite several notable moves and turns—such as a distancing from the threefold typology, and a shift from Rahnerian inclusivism to “universal-access exclusivism”—D’Costa’s theology exhibits remarkable consistency and internal continuity. At the same time, by situating Basil historically in his context and treating the germane theological issues, we will explore the main features of his thought and identify several key themes that will be of relevance for comparison. Through the historicalsystematic analysis of the contours of both D’Costa’s and Basil’s Trinitarian theologies, we will attempt to bring them into the same theological space and establish connections between a contemporary discussion in systematic theology with patristic formulations, noting that both theologians share similar assumptions about the nature of theology being underlined by an unchanging deposit of faith, which hence allow for such a comparative analysis. STRUCTURE Structurally, the book is organized into four chapters. While this introductory chapter provides an overview, the first chapter analyzes the broader context



Introduction xv

of the Catholic theology of religions, beginning with the pre–Vatican II theology of salvation for nonbelievers and moving into an investigation into the genesis of the theology of religions during the Council and its post-Conciliar trajectory. The importance of this context for forming the theological background for D’Costa’s theology is seen in the next chapter when we delve at length into his understanding of how Trinitarian resources may be brought to bear on the question of the significance and function of other religions in the divine salvific plan. Toward that end, chapter 2 discusses both his analysis of the traditional threefold typology of exclusivism–inclusivism–pluralism as well as his move from an inclusivist strand of the Rahnerian kind into what he now calls a position of “universal-access exclusivism.” We will employ an interpretive matrix of universality and particularity that is implicit in his theology, and further identify an additional stratum of particularity and universality to elucidate the significant features of his system. A preliminary assessment at the end of this chapter will provide us a clearer picture of the assumptions that underlie his formulation. In chapter 3, we change tracks and begin our examination of the theology of the Cappadocian Father Basil of Caesarea, with specific reference, but not limited to, his two principal dogmatic works, Adversus Eunomium and De Spiritu Sancto. After a discussion of two foundational concepts—the ousia/ hypostasis distinction and epinoia—we identify three primary themes within his Trinitarian framework that are of crucial relevance for a comparison with the significant features of D’Costa’s work—the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations, the enlightening work of the Spirit, and baptism and theosis. Finally, chapter 4 continues the assessment of D’Costa’s theology from chapter 2 by bringing together the findings of chapter 3 for a comparative analysis, with a specifically Basilian Trinitarian orientation. The three significant features identified in chapter 3 are brought to bear on his system to suggest areas in which his understanding and utilization of Trinitarian theology differs from the Church Father’s. We will conclude with some observations regarding the necessary union of economy, relationality, and ethics, and note that while there is much to commend in D’Costa’s system, there remain features that may not be entirely consonant with classical Trinitarianism. SIGNIFICANCE AND LIMITATIONS Regarding the significance of this book, firstly, it provides a summary of the status quaestionis of the Catholic theology of religions that had its genesis in the Vatican II Council until the period following the issue of the CDF document Dominus Iesus in 2000. In addition, its contribution lies in its

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comprehensive treatment of D’Costa’s Trinitarian theology of religions, from his first book of 1986 until recent articles in 2013, and its articulation of the central elements of his thought through an interpretive lens of a particularityin-universality/universality-in-particularity Trinitarian matrix, elements of which have hitherto not been studied systematically.7 Thirdly, this book highlights features of Basilian thought that have not been as clearly emphasized as his other contributions to Trinitarian developments. Besides the acclaimed ousia/hypostasis distinction and the concept of epinoia, Basil’s understanding of the doctrines of simplicity, inseparable operations, and the Spirit’s enlightening work and theosis continues to have relevance today, particularly for the Trinitarian theology of religions. Hence, this book seeks to provide an original contribution to the ongoing discussion between Trinitarian theology and the theology of religions by presenting a close reading and comparison of D’Costa’s and Basil’s theologies. We also acknowledge the limitations of this study. As Lössl has pointed out, there are risks associated with analyzing the thought of a living theologian, and hence it must first be noted that this is a particular reading and interpretation of D’Costa’s theology.8 While it is our finding that D’Costa’s work for more than a quarter of a century has demonstrated a remarkable consistency and unity, our current study only encompasses up to his latest and coauthored book, Only One Way? (2011), as well as academic articles until 2013, and hence does not account for any further developments that may come from the pen of this prolific theologian. Secondly, since the thrust of this book is a Trinitarian assessment of the grammar that informs his theology, the theological status of religions per se is not discussed in detail, though we recognize this is a significant topic for study.

NOTES 1.  For studies of this renaissance in the past century, see R. Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004); R. E. Olson and C. A. Hall, The Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002). 2. For good surveys on the theology of religions, see V.-M. Kärkkäinen, An Introduction to the Theology of Religions: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003); P. F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002). 3.  This can be seen in the proposals for a Trinitarian theology of religions found in J. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001); S. M. Heim, The Depth of the Riches (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001). Dupuis, in particular, argues that the debate on the theology of religions has now taken “pride of place on the theological agenda,” citing the abundance of



Introduction xvii

literature currently available. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 180. For a good summary of these projects, see V.-M. Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004). 4.  L. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6, 167–68, 236–40; M. R. Barnes, “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon,” in Christian Origins, ed. L. Ayres and G. Jones (London: Routledge, 1998), 56–57. Ayres has cautioned against abstracting premodern Trinitarian principles through an Enlightenment mindset. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 388. The point is well noted, and the explication of Basil’s background and theological influences in chapter 2 is meant to guard against this. 5. E.g., see S. M. Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek Thought and Biblical Truth (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007); M. DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names: Christian Theology and Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversy, VCS 103 (Leiden: Brill, 2010); A. Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 6.  K. E. Johnson, “A ‘Trinitarian’ Theology of Religions? An Augustinian Assessment of Several Recent Proposals” (Ph.D. thesis, Duke University, 2007). Published as K. E. Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism: An Augustinian Assessment (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011). This current work differs from Johnson’s in that it is focused on a single theologian of religions to fully explicate his work and allow for a closer conversation with major features of patristic Trinitarianism. 7. Plata has proposed an alternative reading of D’Costa’s theology as an attempt to dialectically relate “otherness” and the “closure of truth.” P. Plata, “Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions,” Louvain Studies 30, no. 4 (2005): 299–324; P. Plata, “The Appeal to the Trinity in Contemporary Theology of Interreligious Dialogue” (Ph.D. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2007). While this approach has the advantage of focusing attention on the Other, we will argue that D’Costa’s respect for the Other is predicated on a Trinitarian understanding, and therefore a particular-universality lattice lends itself more readily to an analysis of his system. An appreciation of the added stratum of universality-in-particularity and particularity-in-universality will also answer Flett’s critique that his dialectic theology turns universality and particularity into polar opposites. J. G. Flett, “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: A Critical Reflection on the Trinitarian Theologies of Religion of S. Mark Heim and Gavin D’Costa,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 10, no. 1 (2008): 87. Unfortunately, a doctoral thesis on D’Costa’s thought was not available for loan from the Gregorianum. J. Bong, “Contemporary Catholic Theology of Religions and the Problem of Christology: A Study of Paul Knitter, Gavin D’Costa and Jacques Dupuis” (Ph.D. thesis, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, 1999). Another thesis, by Thoppil, was published in 1998; hence D’Costa’s recent books, including The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (2000) and Christianity and World Religions (2009), were not included in

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that study. J. Thoppil, “Christology, Liberation and Religious Pluralism: A Critical Study of M. M. Thomas, P. F. Knitter and G. D’Costa” (excerpt of Ph.D. thesis, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, 1998). 8.  J. Lössl, “Review: Theologie Im Angesicht Der Religionen. Gavin D’Costa’s Kritik an Der Pluralistschen Religionstheologie John Hicks. By Andre A. Gerth,” Religious Studies 34, no. 3 (1991): 356.

Chapter One

The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions

This chapter discusses the Roman Catholic theology of religions, which is the theological context from which D’Costa’s theology of religions emerged.1 The question of the eternal destiny of the adherents of other religions is not a new one, and it is crucial from the outset to distinguish this from the issue of the value of religions. It will be seen that within the historical-theological development of the Catholic Church, the question of the significance of religions was addressed with the assumption of a priori affirmative answer provided to the former, that is, the church accepted the salvific possibility of nonChristian individuals before it moved to discuss the role of their religions in attaining this. The status of religions with reference to that of non-Christians may then be framed thus: are peoples saved despite their religions or through them?2 Alternatively, to recast the question, do religions per se possess any salvific efficacy, and if so, is this independent of the church and the work of Christ, or is it dependent on either, or both? As we shall observe, the Catholic Church has been making attempts at addressing this question since Vatican II. Structurally, this chapter contains two sections. The first section examines pre-Conciliar attitudes toward followers of other religions as encapsulated by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus before moving into a discussion of the historical background of Vatican II. The primary documents of that period about the function of religions will then be analyzed, followed by an overall assessment of its theology of religions. The second section considers postConciliar developments up to the present and examines the reception of four significant documents, with particular attention to Dominus Iesus (2000), a CDF declaration that has set the stage, and for some the out-of-bounds markers, for Catholic discussions. We will conclude this chapter with the preliminary observation that in the post-DI climate, D’Costa’s theology of religions may be located squarely within the boundaries prescribed by the document. 1

2

Chapter One

VATICAN II’S THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS Pre–Vatican II and Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus Prior to Vaticanum Secundum, the concerns of the Catholic Church3 were centered on the non-Christian as an individual outside the church4 and focused on a theology of the salvation of unbelievers, as summarized by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus (no salvation outside the RCC).5 Here we will briefly outline the Catholic understanding of this axiom, which had its beginnings in the Church Fathers. The question of the fate of those who had not professed Christ during their lifetime, due to either rejection or ignorance of him, arose during the patristic era. Justin Martyr reasoned that those who had lived according to natural law, that is, “who lived according to reason [or logos] are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists.”6 Irenaeus of Lyons likewise argued for the possibility of knowledge of the preincarnate Christ: For the Son is the knowledge of the Father; but the knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and has been revealed through the Son; and this was the reason why the Lord declared: “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father . . . and those to whomsoever the Son shall reveal [him].” For “shall reveal” was said not with reference to the future alone . . . but it applies indifferently throughout all time. For the Son, being present with His own handiwork from the beginning, reveals the Father to all.7

Historically, it was Cyprian of Carthage to whom the axiom has become attached, as he writes, Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. . . . He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.8

While Cyprian’s castigation may seem sweeping, in this context he had in mind specifically heretics and schismatics who had left the church voluntarily rather than pagans who had never been part of it in the first place. Thus, Sullivan defends Cyprian as addressing those who had left the church under the presupposition of some personal responsibility on their part, and poses the hypothetical question of his view of salvation for a pagan with no knowledge of the gospel, concluding, “Cyprian would not have excluded this man from salvation.”9 In the fourth century, a significant shift occurred as the status of Christianity in the Roman Empire was transformed due to edicts issued by Emperors



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 3

Galerius (311) and Constantine (313) that ended the persecution of Christians and legalized Christianity, respectively, while Emperor Theodosius I made it the official state religion in 380 through the Edict of Thessalonica. Since then, because of a prevailing assumption of the gospel’s universal availability, this axiom became applied to pagans as well, and Fulgentius of Ruspe would make an assertion that would have a later impact at the Council of Florence: “Hold most firmly and never doubt that not only all pagans but all Jews and heretics and schismatics who finish this present life outside the Catholic Church will go into eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels”10 (emphasis added). The association of pagans with Jews, heretics, and schismatics thus places them on the same level of culpability due to the widespread belief that all peoples already had a chance to hear the gospel. As Frazier describes, before the Middle Ages, the Mediterranean world was seen as identical to the inhabited world, and as long as this assumption was in place, it was assumed that all peoples had a chance to hear and respond to the gospel.11 During the medieval period, Thomas Aquinas began to work out a theology within this ecclesial-soteriological stricture that would allow for the possibility of salvation for those who, for various reasons, were unbaptized before death through a distinction between those who lack baptism in reality (in re) and in desire (in voto). He wrote, The sacrament of Baptism may be wanting to anyone in reality but not in desire: for instance, when a man wishes to be baptized, but by some ill-chance he is forestalled by death before receiving Baptism. And such a man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized, on account of his desire for Baptism, which desire is the outcome of “faith that worketh by charity,” whereby God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly.12

The in re–in voto distinction will become highly significant for Vatican II. Dupuis has argued that Catholic theologians’ attempts to harmonize God’s universal salvific will with the need for faith are ultimately based on the Thomist notion of implicit faith.13 Sullivan also notes that the Thomist distinction between unbelievers who sinned “not from malice” but out of “ignorance” laid the groundwork for the subsequent concept of “invincible ignorance.”14 Throughout the medieval period, the axiom was interpreted through several papal pronouncements and conciliar documents that further asserted salvation’s inextricable relationship not only to faith and baptism but also to church membership, specifically the RCC. As Flanagin observes, the Middle Ages were distinguished by an understanding of the mediating role of the Catholic Church in terms of sacramental theology, that is, the church became the sacramental means through which divine grace was granted to

4

Chapter One

the believer, especially through baptism, penance, and the Eucharist, and Cyprian’s axiom underpinned this ecclesiology.15 The promulgation of the papal bull Unam Sanctam in 1302 by Pope Boniface VIII included a requirement for membership in the RCC and, in addition, submission to the pontiff for salvation: That there is only one holy, catholic and apostolic Church we are compelled by faith to believe and hold, and we firmly believe in her and sincerely confess her, outside of whom there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. . . . Furthermore we declare, state and define that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of all people that they submit to the Roman Pontiff.16

The 1442 General Council of Florence took another step when it drew upon the language of Fulgentius of Ruspe and linked Jews and pagans with heretics and schismatics, together with the need for salvation within the RCC: [The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and preaches that “no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans,” but also Jews, heretics and schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and its angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of their life they are joined to it.17

This document has often been read as the first official Catholic pronouncement that associates nonbelievers with the dictum.18 In defense of its sternness, Sullivan argues that the council bishops had in mind heretics and schismatics who were culpable of the “sin of infidelity” because of their refusal to accept the true faith rather than those who have never heard.19 However, a significant theological turn would take place with the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492, as the existence of entire populations who had lived and died for the past fifteen centuries without any awareness of the gospel or the church prompted a doctrinal reexamination by theologians about the salvific destiny of non-Christian individuals.20 In 1854, Pope Pius IX, in Singulari Quadam, utilized the concept of “invincible ignorance”21 to acknowledge that those who lived an honest, upright life in observance of natural law could be saved without diluting the assertion of the necessity of the church for salvation: It must, of course, be held as of faith that no one can be saved outside the apostolic Roman Church, that the Church is the only ark of salvation, and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood. Yet, on the other hand, it must likewise be held as certain that those who are in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, are not subject to any guilt to this matter before the eyes of the Lord.22



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 5

Before Singulari Quadam, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) had not addressed the question of those outside the church as it dealt with issues raised by the Reformers, and there were also no apparent significant differences between the latter and the prevailing medieval view: both held to the notion of no salvation outside the church. Thus, Luther would write that “for where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Ghost who creates, calls, and gathers the Christian Church . . . outside of this Christian Church, where the Gospel is not, there is no forgiveness, as also there can be no holiness.”23 In Luther’s defense, Hendrix has noted that during his time, the non-Christians of his world were still understood as primarily the Jews and the Turks (Muslims).24 In the immediate pre–Vatican II period, the development of a solution to the question of salvation for non-Christians reached into a discussion of the ontology of the Catholic Church itself. Since the RCC has always asserted its instrumental necessity for salvation, the question of its role in this “extrachurch” salvation had to be addressed, and this was achieved by a conceptualizing of itself as both a visible and a mystical body based on the Thomist re voto proposal. In the 1943 papal encyclical25 Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII drew attention to those who have not heard of the gospel as well as those separated from the church: We must earnestly desire that this united prayer may embrace in the same ardent charity both those who, not yet enlightened by the truth of the Gospel, are still outside the fold of the Church, and those who, on account of regrettable schism, are separated from Us. . . . For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church. (MC 102–3)26

In this encyclical, the pope describes the Mystical Body as one that does not extend beyond the boundaries of the visible RCC but is yet related to those who have a certain “unconscious desire” to be part of it, an official reference to the Thomist notion of implicit desire, though this encyclical did not distinguish between non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians when it asserted that both are related to the church. Thus, Butler describes MC as having posed serious problems for ecumenism by establishing a dichotomy “between those who belong visibly to the Roman Catholic communion, and everyone else.”27 Despite this explicit pronouncement, there remained those who held onto the traditional view of the impossibility of salvation outside the RCC. Among these, Leonard Feeney, a Bostonian Jesuit priest, stood out for his condemnation of his archbishop, Richard Cushing, who suggested non-Catholics might be saved.28 In response, the Holy Office provided its interpretation of the doctrine of the Mystical Body in a letter to Cardinal Cushing in 1949, stating,

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The infallible dictum which teaches us that outside the Church there is no salvation, is among the truths that the Church has always taught and will always teach. But this dogma has to be understood as the Church itself understands it. . . . To gain eternal salvation, it is not always required that a person be incorporated in reality (reapse) as a member of the Church, but it is required that one belong to it at least in desire and longing (voto et desiderio). . . . When one is invincibly ignorant, God also accepts an implicit desire, so called because it is contained in the good disposition of soul by which one wants one’s will to be conformed to God’s will.29

Hence, by the period before Vatican II, official Catholic theology had developed to affirm, on the one hand, the continued necessity of the Catholic Church for the salvation of non-Christians and, on the other, the possibility of their salvation based on an in voto desire with an assumption of their invincible ignorance. Given this evolution, the continuing significance of extra ecclesiam has been debated. Küng suggests it could be better rendered as “salvation inside the Church!,” such that the positive aspects of the axiom are accentuated, but Congar and D’Costa argue it should be retained in its present form since it does contain a biblical truth that the church of Christ has the role of bringing salvation to all.30 The preceding section has provided a brief discussion of pre-Conciliar attempts to develop a theology of salvation for non-Christians, and much of this development has centered on the axiom of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and the utilization of the notion of invincible ignorance to allow for the inclusion of non-Catholics into the salvific plan. In short, the pre–Vatican II view of the non-Christian religions can be summarized as the following: if one is saved, she is saved despite her religious affiliations.31 By the time of the Council, however, new questions were being asked about how other religious traditions per se are to be related to Christ and the church in light of the possibility of their followers attaining salvation. Dupuis has analyzed that various factors brought about a shift in focus from the individual to her religious traditions, including an increase in knowledge about other religions and encounters with them that would force Christianity to develop a theology.32 Fletcher added three more theses—the development of a global church, the contemporary turn to the subject, and the rebuilding of ties with non-Catholic Christians—that led to the development of links with non-Christians.33 The Catholic theology of religions would begin its genesis in the Council. Historical Background and Hermeneutics of the Council The announcement for the convening of a new ecumenical or general council was made on January 25, 1959, by Pope John XXIII, three months after his



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 7

election as successor to Pius XII.34 The pope’s announcement was seen as simultaneously resolving two prior issues: (1) whether Vatican I should be reopened as it was never formally closed, and (2) the question of the necessity of ecumenical councils given the primacy and infallibility of the pope asserted in Vatican I.35 By May that same year, a pre-preparatory commission established to plan the Council collated over 5,000 proposals from the Roman Curia,36 the bishops, and the universities. In July, the Council was officially named “Vatican II” by the pope, and the following month preparatory commissions based on each of the ten Congregations were set up,37 followed by the appointment of the periti.38 When the pope summoned the Second Vatican Council as the Twenty-First Ecumenical Council on October 11, 1962,39 he emphasized the “pastoral” nature of the Council over a dogmatic intent in his opening address.40 Hastings notes that despite the pastoral intent, the Council did name two of its main documents as “Dogmatic Constitutions,” as it was difficult to separate the two in reality.41 Hebblethwaite also observes that the pope put forth the agenda of aggiornamento (“bringing up to date”) and made clear that it would involve a change in “mentalities, ways of thinking and prejudices, all of which have a long history.”42 Another keyword for the Council was ressourcement and has its roots in the nouvelle théologie movement a few decades before the Council, particularly associated with the work of Jean Daniélou.43 In all, four sessions were held; each took place in the autumn and lasted ten weeks, with intersessions to lay the preparatory work for the next.44 Although John XXIII had convoked the Council and opened its first session, he did not live to see its completion, as he passed away on June 3, 1963, between the first and second sessions, which automatically suspended the Council. The next pope, Paul VI, swiftly decided to continue it and, at his opening address of the second session, indicated his intention to complete the task in the same spirit by saying, “The Council which you [John XXIII] have promoted and inaugurated will proceed faithfully along the path you have pointed out . . . may it reach the goal you have so ardently desired and hoped for.”45 By the time the Council was closed on December 8, 1965, sixteen documents had been produced, including four apostolic constitutions, nine decrees, and three declarations, covering a wide range of topics.46 While the Council may have concluded, its impact and influence endures, but not without debate. Even as some hailed it as an achievement of the Catholic episcopate, it was less clear to others what it had achieved.47 Lennan has argued that the main achievement of Vatican II was that it overcame two significant limitations of the pre–Vatican II RCC: (1) a lack of historical consciousness, which led to defensiveness; and (2) a predisposition to exalt overly a specific manifestation of Catholic life as the ideal.48 Marty too notes a fundamental positive change regarding Catholic–Protestant relations.49

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Rynne, however, argues the overall effects of the Council can be summarized as “nothing has changed, even though things will never be the same again,” citing its emphasis on continuity.50 In particular, attention has focused on the question of the hermeneutics of the Council. Rahner was among the earliest to draw attention to the question of Conciliar hermeneutics by suggesting a “fundamental interpretation,” by which he meant an intra-Council evaluation, and proposed it be seen as marking the de-Europeanizing of the RCC and its actualization as a “World Church.”51 In particular, Nostra Aetate designated for him an unprecedented positive evaluation of world religions that suggested “the possibility of a properly salvific revelation faith beyond the Christian revelatory word,” together with other Conciliar documents. He termed Vatican II a caesura (break) akin to that of the early church’s theological “transition from Judaeo-Christianity to Gentile Christianity.”52 Küng too viewed Vatican II as providing Catholic theologians a new opportunity to do theology with a view of the contemporary world, and argues that “everything that Vatican II proclaims should be ecumenical, directed towards the whole of Christendom.”53 By contrast, De Lubac was less optimistic and noted that there had been confusion about what it stood for, since “almost the very day the Council ended, a deformed and deforming interpretation began to spread.”54 This remark brings to mind the words of Newman as he observed in August 1870, during the First Vatican Council, “there seldom has been a Council without great confusion after it,” referring to five of the first six ecumenical councils.55 In recent years, the divisions over what the Council meant have not converged. For the purposes of this book, we may discern two broad factions, one arguing that the Council signified much greater discontinuity than continuity, and the other emphasizing the reverse. Komonchak, representing the former, suggests that Vatican II should be seen as a dynamic “event,” involving a series of structure-transforming actions and having generated documents that require “redaction” to ascertain their original intention as well as current significance.56 Oviedo similarly argues for the Council to be seen as analogous to the Enlightenment, that is, as a kind of “Catholic Enlightenment” that forms part of a positive evolutionary process of the Catholic Church and resulted in the disruption of the order of the Catholic world.57 In response, Marchetto took direct aim at Alberigo and Komonchak’s multivolume work and argues that that the authors were attempting a “Copernican revolution” into another form of Catholicism, a particularly polemical accusation.58 Ensuing Vatican support for Marchetto’s position seems apparent when the pope’s vicar-general for the diocese of Rome, Cardinal Ruini, critiqued the “Bologna-school” for advocating an interpretation of the Council as a “rupture.”59 Despite this, O’Malley and Schloesser have argued that the Council was clearly discontinuous in several respects.60



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 9

The official Catholic position was recently emphasized by then pope Benedict XVI, who contended against a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” for distorting Conciliar teachings and advocated a “hermeneutic of reform” that does not sever text and spirit and is aligned with the intentions of John XXIII and Paul VI.61 In his first Christmas address to the Roman Curia since his election in 2005, the pope had already warned against those who advocate a “hermeneutic of rupture” that divides the pre- and post-Conciliar Catholic Church and argued that it must be countered by the “hermeneutic of reform” first presented by John XXIII.62 Dulles also quotes John Paul II in a special audience in 2002 as saying, “To read the Council as supposing that it involves a rupture with the past . . . is decisively misleading,” while de La Soujeole describes the hermeneutics of the Council as “tradition with its dual aspect: a faithful memory and a creative innovation.”63 In light of the popes’ responses as well as supporting voices, it would appear the current official interpretation of the legacy of the Council leans toward emphasizing continuation rather than discontinuity, although the murmurs of disagreement are unlikely to cease in the near future. For example, Sweeney continues to argue that the continuity hermeneutic is fundamentally ahistorical because of its failure to grant adequate attention to intra- and extrachurch developments.64 Lash also charges the Christmas 2005 address by the pope as “pure polemic.”65 As we proceed to examine the Conciliar documents regarding the significance of religions, these same interpretive tensions between those who construe them as standing in continuity with tradition and reappropriating the wisdom of the past, and others who see in them signifying real discontinuity and divide, will continue to surface. The Main Conciliar Documents Among the sixteen documents, only four have made direct reference to the theological significance of religions, often in specific sections, and none addresses this issue in its entirety. Regarding the germane texts, Dupuis says that the chief ones directly material to the Catholic understanding of the value of religions are to be found in Lumen Gentium, Nostra Aetate, and Ad Gentes.66 To this list, we will add Gaudium et Spes where it discusses the paschal mystery in article 22. Hence, in the following sections, these Conciliar documents will be analyzed in theological sequence, beginning with specific articles in Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes, followed by those in Nostra Aetate and Ad Gentes. Although Nostra Aetate is the primary document that mentions other religions, we will treat it third because the Catholic view of religions needs first to be understood in relation to the self-definition of the church contained within the first two documents. However, before that, we

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will make a brief excursus into a Paul VI encyclical issued prior to the documents, between the second and third sessions. Though not a Conciliar document, Ecclesiam Suam provides us an understanding of the view of the church before the release of Lumen Gentium and will prove to have a significant impact on subsequent developments in interfaith dialogue. After analyzing the Conciliar articles, this section will then conclude with an overall assessment of Vatican II’s theology of religions, and the case will be made that ultimately the Council chose to leave the question of the salvific function of other religions unanswered. Ecclesiam Suam (1964) In the earlier discussion of MC, we noted that the RCC had developed a theology of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ to allow for the incorporation of the invincibly ignorant with an in voto desire into its membership, and ES did not break new ground as it continued with this identification of the RCC with the Body of Christ.67 Hence, Vilanova notes that Paul VI’s ecclesiology in ES remains that of MC, and that in the opening address of the third session he continued the terminology of “Mystical Body” rather than “People of God.”68 However, although the pope had declared he did not intend to develop any new insights, he did introduce a theology of “dialogue” with the world based on God’s initiative in revealing himself that requires a human response in turn (ES 70), a dialogue differentiated using four concentric circles that revolve around the RCC (ES 96–113), beginning from the most distant and moving to the closest: (1) mankind; (2) monotheistic believers, Jews, Muslims, and “Afro-Asiatic religions”; (3) non-Catholic Christians, and (4) Catholics.69 In discussing the church’s attitude toward those in the second circle, the pope noted, Obviously we cannot agree with these various forms of religion, nor can we adopt an indifferent or uncritical attitude toward them on the assumption that they are all to be regarded as on an equal footing. . . . Indeed, honesty compels us to declare openly our conviction that the Christian religion is the one and only true religion, and it is our hope that it will be acknowledged as such by all who look for God and worship him. (ES 107)

In the next article, however, he added, “But we do not wish to turn a blind eye to the spiritual and moral values of the various non-Christian religions, for we desire to join with them in promoting and defending common ideals in the spheres of religious liberty, human brotherhood, education, culture, social welfare, and civic order” (ES 108). Hence, a positive note on the status of other religions has been struck by the pope, and this marks the beginning



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 11

of a series of affirming indications on how the church will view them during the Council. While Paul VI did not ascribe salvific function to them, he did note their “spiritual and moral values,” and though their exact roles were left untreated, they will no longer be ignored and henceforth be considered part of the church’s wider dialogue partners with the world. At the same time, ES served to prescribe the ambit of work for a newly set up Secretariat during the Council. A few months earlier, on May 17, 1964, Paul VI had instituted within the Curia a department known as the Secretariat for Non-Christians due to a growing recognition during the Council that a new organ would be needed to carry forward the work of religious dialogue.70 The Secretariat was subsequently renamed by John Paul II as the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) on July 1988.71 The theology of “dialogue” contained in ES would become the charter for this new Pontifical Council to carry on the work of dialogue with non-Christian religions. Lumen Gentium (1964) The first Conciliar document under consideration, LG,72 is of such prime significance that it has been called “the most important document promulgated by Vatican Council II.”73 Philips expresses the concurring opinion that LG is the “center to which the other decrees must be referred to . . . they must all be read in the light of the mystery of the Church.”74 Pope John Paul II describes it as the “‘Magna Carta’ of the Council,” while Outler calls it “the fundamentum of the other fifteen documents.”75 For our analysis, it is important to understand the view of the church expounded here since the other religious traditions are always seen in relation to her. McBrien notes that LG and Gaudium et Spes formed the twin pillars of this ecclesiology since they were originally intended as one single document (i.e., De Ecclesia), while Lindbeck summarizes in his study of its ecclesiology that the RCC has fundamentally moved from a strict identification of the church with the Mystical Body of Christ as per MC to three coexisting primary models: (1) the Mystical Body, (2) the People of God, and (3) the Divine Sacrament of salvation.76 De Lubac argues further that greater emphasis was now placed on the church as the “People of God” rather than on the other two models.77 Of especial ecumenical, and by extension, interreligious significance, was article 8, which in Congar’s opinion went beyond MC with its acknowledgment that “some elements properly belonging to this Church founded by Christ are found among the others” (emphasis original).78 This particular article is of key relevance for the self-understanding of the RCC and worth quoting in full: “This Church [the Church of Christ] constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with

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him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure” (LG 8). The phrase “subsists in the Catholic Church” (subsistit in Ecclesia Catholica) has become a theological lightning rod, with the primary contention that it asserts a nonexclusive identity between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church, a point strenuously argued by several Catholic theologians. Komonchak notes that the Doctrinal Commission’s report on LG explained the usage of “subsist in” as “so that the expression might better accord with the affirmation of ecclesial elements that are present elsewhere” (emphasis original).79 Sullivan goes further with his assertion that both LG and Unitatis Redintegratio contain the teaching that other Christian churches are “the ecclesial means by which non-Catholic Christians are being saved.”80 He subsequently traced that while both the 1962 original and the 1963 revised drafts had asserted that the Church of Christ “is” (est) the RCC, the third and promulgated draft of 1964 deliberately substituted “subsistit in” to enlarge on the strict identification of the Church of God with the RCC.81 In contrast, Becker asserts that the change from est to subsistit in does not suggest the Council had deviated from total identification by noting Vatican archives show the suggestion to use “subsistit in” originated with Fr. Sebastian Tromp, secretary of the council’s doctrinal commission and a theologian known for consistently asserting full identity.82 In reply, Sullivan concedes it was unlikely Fr. Tromp had changed his mind but argues there is “good evidence that it [the Doctrinal Commission] did not agree with his understanding of it.”83 Refuting Sullivan and others’ views, Welch and Mansini have contended that such an assertion contradicts post–Vatican II magisterium teachings that articulated an unequivocal identity.84 Dulles clarifies that subsistit was not meant as a replacement for est but rather for adest in (is present in), which was initially proposed to allow for ecclesial elements outside the Catholic Church.85 The debate is unlikely to subside soon, and its broader implications hold not only for ecumenism but also for other faiths. For if the RCC exhibits an apparent reluctance to admit the ecclesial character and the existence of salvific elements in other Christian churches, which seems to be the current position, it is improbable that it will be willing to acknowledge other religions as salvific structures. We turn now to a specific discussion of religions found in LG 16–17. These two articles form part of a continuation in thought started by LG 13, which described all humanity as either belonging or related to the People of God, and stated in descending order of relatedness those who “belong to or are related to it [the RCC] in various ways, the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation.” LG 16 follows with a detailed categorization of non-Christians:



The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions 13

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. . . . But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place, amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God. . . . Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. (LG 16)

In this lengthy and explicit passage, LG 16 classifies nonbelievers into four groups from the closest to the most distant: (1) Jews, (2) Muslims, (3) people who seek the unknown God “in shadows and images,” and (4) those who have no “explicit knowledge of God” but seek to live an upright life. Given this division, the task of the church is then discussed in LG 17: “Through her work, whatever good is in the minds and hearts of men, whatever good lies latent in the religious practices and cultures of diverse peoples, is not only saved from destruction but is also cleansed, raised up and perfected unto the glory of God, the confusion of the devil and the happiness of man” (LG 17) (emphasis added). There are several critical developments made by these two articles compared to the pre-Conciliar position. In contradistinction to the perspective of non-Christians as a monolithic pagan group, there is now a graded recognition of their differences according to the degree to which they share in the spiritual patrimony of the RCC. In particular, the shared elements of spiritual heritage between Jews and Christians and the common belief in one Creator with Muslims will be expanded later in Nostra Aetate 2–4. In addition, LG 17 extends the argument of LG 16 that “goodness and truth” may be found among non-Christians by depicting the religions they belong to as also containing “latent goodness.” Thirdly, as the positive values enshrined in other religious traditions are affirmed, the possibility of salvation for the non-Christian has officially become a nonissue given that she may “attain to salvation.”86 However, several open matters remain. Firstly, there is no direct association yet of the praeparatio evangelicae mentioned in LG 16 with the religions mentioned in LG 17, and secondly, there is no clear affirmation that religions per se are either independent ways to salvation or dependent and mediating means of the one salvation to be found in Christ despite the positive signals about them. As Dupuis argues convincingly, the positive significance is attributed here by LG 16–17 to individual dispositions rather than to the religious groups with which they are associated.87 We conclude therefore that

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the focus of LG 16–17 remains at the individual level as their religions are a subsidiary consideration, and it will be left to Nostra Aetate to provide a fuller account of the Catholic view of religions. Gaudium et Spes (1965) As one of the four Apostolic Constitutions promulgated by the Council, GS88 enjoys the same magisterial status as LG and likewise contains ecclesiology as its subject matter, though they differ in it being a “Pastoral” rather than a “Dogmatic Constitution.” Nonetheless, McDonagh reasons that though this may make it seem slightly lower than a “Dogmatic Constitution,” GS should instead be seen as the one document that expresses best Pope John’s intention of calling for a Pastoral Council.89 As discussed earlier, GS’s agenda is primarily oriented extrachurch as its primary purpose was to explicate the relationship between the RCC and society, or as the document itself puts it, “to explain to everyone how it [the RCC] conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today” (GS 2). The document is of significant length and has endured a mixed reaction,90 but for our analysis the relevant article is 22: Pressing upon the Christian to be sure, are the need and the duty to battle against evil through manifold tribulations and even to suffer death. . . . All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. (GS 22) (emphasis added)

In this crucial article, an analog is established between Christians, who are “linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ,” and non-Christians, who are seen as having prospects of association with this same mystery. Significantly, the Spirit is described in this context as working within all humanity, and this provides for the first time a hint of a Trinitarian involvement, although the exact manner in which this takes place is known only to God. Notwithstanding this favorable mention of the possibility of non-Christian salvation, the traditions of other religions are again left unmentioned as the work of the Spirit is depicted as operating only at the individual level. In fact, there will be no further mention of the relationship of the Spirit with non-Christians or other religions until the post-Conciliar encyclical Redemptoris Missio by John Paul II. Nevertheless, GS 22 has been welcomed for its Christological emphasis and its declaration that the way of salvation is not a human matter but divine.91



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Nostra Aetate (1965) Having examined several relevant articles of ES, LG, and GS on Vatican II’s view of religions, we are now in a position to analyze the one Conciliar document92 that addresses the non-Christian religions directly.93 The origins94 of NA may be traced to John XXIII’s desire to express the relationship between the church and the people of Israel that led to him commissioning Cardinal Bea, president of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SPCU),95 to prepare a draft declaration.96 The subsequent development of this text to include people of other religions was prompted by, among other factors, a widened consciousness of and concern for these people outside the Catholic Church.97 A first schema presented to the Council on November 19, 1963, was controversial as it perturbed representatives of the Eastern churches, who worried about the effects on Christian minorities in Arab nations who may construe it as support of Zionism.98 As a solution, the Eastern bishops suggested including Muslims in the document, and this was soon accepted.99 Root notes that although Jewish opinion was that NA did not go far enough since it did not culminate in a separate document for Jews, the final mention of “Abraham’s stock” (NA 4) within the context of other non-Christians was successful as the Arab reactions were much milder than initially feared. Nonetheless, reflecting its developmental origins, the article in NA that dealt with Jews was the longest.100 The text itself comprises five articles that treat the relation of the “Other” with respect to the RCC using a series of stratified layers, again starting from the most distant to the closest in a schema similar to ES.101 Articles 1–2 begin with a preamble about the unity of humanity and the great religions of the world, with specific mention of Hinduism,102 Buddhism,103 and “other religions”104 in the context of people seeking answers to the most profound questions of life. NA 2 then ends with a significant summary of the church’s understanding of other religions: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (NA 2). The rest of the document deals with the Abrahamic faiths105 as article 3 describes at the phenomenological level the Islamic faith and praxis and declares the church’s respect for Muslims who believe in a Creator God. Anawati has noted that the article on Muslims deliberately left out any commendation of Islamic family morality and chose instead to affirm the Muslim understanding of a Creator God and their Abrahamic linkage due to the objections of African bishops who did not want the RCC to be seen as condoning polygamy or the repudiation of wives. This also accounts for the omission of any mention of

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Mohammed as God’s prophet, a central Islamic tenet, which would become one of the critical questions of discussion in any subsequent dialogue.106 This is followed by a discussion of Jews and their common spiritual patrimony, making clear the RCC’s rejection of discrimination against the Jews before concluding with a strong affirmation of the brotherhood shared by all humanity based on the Imago Dei.107 NA signifies a decisive change as it constituted the first positive affirmation of religions by any Council when taken together with LG 17.108 Fisher has observed that the formation of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ) was a direct legacy of this document,109 and Oesterreicher too notes that for the first time the Catholic Church had made public her understanding of the Pauline view of the role of Israel in God’s salvific plan and the universality of grace among the human religions.110 Cassidy, past president of the PCPCU and the CRRJ, and Dupuis consider NA highly positive in its lack of condemnation of other religions despite some continued vagueness.111 From the Protestant viewpoint, Caird also regards NA 2 as a positive move, and that it marks the transformation from a walled Roman Church into a pilgrim church,112 though Barth and Schlink questioned the lack of scriptural support for its optimistic evaluation of other religions.113 Nevertheless, despite NA’s assurances about the positiveness of other religions as well as the affirming responses it had garnered about its constructive tone, the declaration still falls short of a fully developed theology of religions as it does not discuss in detail their salvific or nonsalvific attributes. What it established at Vatican II was a firm and explicit basis that religions are to be appreciated as positive entities, and although that was by itself a significant departure from the previous view of non-Christians as isolated individuals divorced from their religious affinities, nonetheless the exact theological function of religions remains unspecified. There is still some road to traverse before a Catholic theology of religions will emerge. Ad Gentes (1965) We conclude our analysis of the Conciliar documents with AG,114 which is essentially a vision of Catholic missions with references to the validity of the religious attempts of other faiths.115 The document was prompted by the desire of missionary bishops to exhort Western Catholics to continue their support for foreign missionary work, and together with LG and NA it constitutes the basis for discussion on mission for the RCC.116 For our discussion, we note that AG 3 contains affirmations of both the positive inclinations of man and the religious efforts of other faiths: “This universal design of God for the salvation of the human race is carried out not only, as it were, secretly in the soul of a man, or by the attempts (even religious ones by which in diverse



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ways it seeks after God) if perchance it may contact him or find him, though He be not far from anyone of us (cf. Acts 17:27)” (AG 3) (emphasis added). As in NA, one notes the favorable tone in which other religious attempts are spoken of, even as they are depicted at the same time as needing to be “enlightened and healed,” which implies missions now includes purification besides proclamation.117 In addition, AG 9 speaks positively of elements of “truth and grace” in other human rites: But whatever truth and grace are to be found among the nations, as a sort of secret presence of God, He frees from all taint of evil and restores to Christ its maker, who overthrows the devil’s domain and wards off the manifold malice of vice.118 And so, whatever good is found to be sown in the hearts and minds of men, or in the rites and cultures peculiar to various peoples, not only is not lost, but is healed, uplifted, and perfected for the glory of God. (AG 9)

Thus, AG 9 both echoes and expands upon LG 17 with its affirmation that the “truth and grace” found in other nations and their “rites and cultures” are a kind of “secret presence of God,” though this does not warrant the conclusion that missions are no longer necessary. We may sum up the difference in emphasis between NA and AG in that while the former exhorts Catholics to dialogue with the adherents of other religions, the latter develops this dialogue in the context of Christian witness.119 Schlink similarly interprets the connection between the two in that the former positively assesses other religions while the latter emphasizes the continued need for missionary activity due to their deficiencies.120 We conclude then that AG, like NA 2, has ascribed positive values to both individuals and religions and asserted the presence of God within the latter without positing them as possessing or mediating salvation, thus maintaining a reticence that stretches back to NA 2, GS 22, LG 16–17, and ES 108. Assessment of Vatican II’s Theology of Religions Having examined the various articles pertaining to the Catholic view of religions, we are now in a position to provide an overall account. In assessing the view of religions presented by Catholic theologians concerning their role in God’s plan, we will note a polarity mirroring the divide in Conciliar hermeneutics. Among those assertions that are generally accepted and affirmed by both sides are the instrumental role of the church in salvation, the indispensability of that salvation through Christ, and a positive view of religions, but beyond that opinions differ.121 Standing firmly on one side, Küng puts forth the view in a Concilium article that since the close of Vaticanum Secundum, the Catholic Church has now a newfound sense of respect for other faiths, and explicitly recognizes the possibility of salvation for non-Christians.122

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Knitter goes one step further when he contends that “the majority of Catholic thinkers interpret the Conciliar statements to affirm, implicitly but clearly, that the religions are ways of salvation.”123 These views were subsequently moderated by the remark that though Vatican II was a watershed event in terms of Catholic attitudes toward other faiths, there remains an “ambiguity in its understanding” of the extent of truth and grace in them.124 Later, he concluded that to the disappointment of some, the Council chose not to explicitly endorse Rahner’s views that religions are possible “ways to salvation.”125 Stransky arrives at Knitter’s earlier conclusion when he observes that in NA “religions as such are not outside but within the history of salvation. In some way, an individual can be saved not despite but in one’s community of faith” (emphasis original).126 Amaladoss argues that other religions are now seen as “many ways of salvation” by reasoning they all participate in the one salvation of Christ, and Kunnumpuram concludes that “for those who have not yet been existentially confronted with Christianity, non-Christian religions can serve as ways of salvation . . . through the doctrine and practices of these religions.”127 Ayden also agrees to an implicit acknowledgment of the independent salvific efficacy of other faiths.128 By contrast, Ruokanen, a Protestant observer, contends that Vatican II in no way recognizes their salvific efficacy but only acknowledges the presence of God’s grace among them.129 He notes especially that NA did not employ the category of “revelation” to speak about religions in general, and that this implies that the idea of notitia Dei in religions does not belong within the ambit of revelation.130 In his rebuttal, Knitter concedes to the silence about other religions being viae salus but reiterates that within the broader theological context this silence should be taken as an implicit affirmation131 and argues that Ruokanen was operating from a dualistic conception of nature and grace, whereas Catholic theology implicitly understands the “ray of Truth” in NA 2 as “logos spermatikos.”132 However, the Catholic theologian Burrows opines that Ruokanen’s understanding of Vatican II’s theology of religions was “the most accurate account of that doctrine I have seen in print,” and argues contra Knitter that “there simply are unresolved tensions in the Vatican II magisterium” (emphasis original).133 Likewise, Hogg agrees to the existence of open tensions within the documents.134 The rest of Catholic scholars have leaned toward seeing Vatican II as leaving unspecified the exact status of other religions and delegating the task to subsequent theologians. Rahner, one of the principal architects of the Council, observes that NA, being a document on the relationship with “nonChristian Religions,” has positively expanded the understanding of religions as “concrete sociological realities” but continued to leave the question of their theological status unanswered.135 Phan also asserts that the Council left



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“the question of the positive role of non-Christian religions in salvation undefined” and open for further debate, and Dupuis, D’Costa, Fredericks, and Hunt have come to the same conclusion.136 We agree with this assessment and summarize that while Vatican II ushered in an era of positive attitudes toward non-Christian religions, it deliberately chose not to move beyond that to ascribe any salvific significance to them and left the subsequent task to the Catholic theological community to work out the ramifications of its pronouncements. The preceding section has discussed the Catholic theology of religions presented in the Second Vatican Council. It has shown that the RCC has moved beyond the pre-Conciliar question of the salvation of non-Christians condensed by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus into an assertion of the possibility of them being saved on account of their invincible ignorance. In addition, the Council has developed an understanding of other religions per se as well as recognized for the first time the positive values inherent within them. In the process, this analysis has revealed current hermeneutical tensions about whether the Council signified continuity or discontinuity with tradition, and similar contrasting views about the extent it saw other religions as holding salvific function. On the whole, the majority of Catholic theologians have tended to regard Vatican II as leaving this question open, and it remains for us now to examine post-Conciliar attempts at supplying an answer. Post–Vatican II Developments Since the close of the Council in 1965, the RCC has continued to investigate the role that religions fulfill in the economy of salvation guided by the documents of Vatican II. At the same time, several papal encyclicals and documents issued by pontifical councils and congregations have shed further light into these explorations and propelled the discussion forward. In this section, we will discuss four of these documents in chronological order, namely, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Redemptoris Missio, Dialogue and Proclamation, and Dominus Iesus, to understand how the Catholic Church has affirmed or revised its thinking. As in the previous section, no single document affords us a complete picture, although Dominus Iesus stood out for its denunciation of theological deviations, for setting the agenda for contemporary Catholic understanding, and therefore will be examined in detail. We will conclude with a summary of the current state within Catholicism of its views of religions. Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) On December 8, 1975, on the tenth anniversary of the closing of Vatican II, Paul VI issued an apostolic exhortation that called on all Roman Catholics to

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proclaim the gospel universally.137 This document, in effect a summary of the discussions of the 1974 Synod of Bishops,138 states in article 53 that We wish to point out, above all today, that neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised is an invitation to the Church to withhold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ. . . . In other words, our religion effectively establishes with God an authentic and living relationship which the other religions do not succeed in doing, even though they have, as it were, their arms stretched out towards heaven. (EN 53) (emphasis added)

This reference to the continuing need for the proclamation of the gospel, while preambled with a statement of the RCC’s respect for other faiths, nonetheless closed by noting their inability to establish a genuine relationship with God and has been interpreted as a negative assessment of their salvific status. Dupuis argues that the image of other religions as “arms stretched out towards heaven” in vain was a negative evaluation and laments that this came from the “Pope of dialogue.”139 Knitter notes that while Paul VI was known as the “Pope of dialogue,” he remained rooted to the idea of Christianity being the one true religion, and it was instead John Paul II, both in his speeches and in papal trips to various places of worships in Palestine and Damascus, who embodied openness to other faiths.140 Furthermore, throughout the exhortation, there was a conspicuous lack of mention of dialogue as a potential mode of engagement with other faiths, while the exclusivity of Christian claims as constituting the sine qua non for missions and evangelism became a vital theme of the document.141 While Hogg notes positively that EN, together with AG, provides a clear theological basis for Catholics to engage in mission, Burrows suggests that some clarification remains to be done in explicating the exact relationship between missions and the role of religions.142 Thus, on the whole, when contrasted against previous Conciliar pronouncements, EN appears to have attenuated the hitherto positive tone toward other religions and focused attention instead on their inherent deficiencies for attaining salvation for their believers to reemphasize the need for Catholic missions. Redemptoris Missio (1990) In contrast to Paul VI’s reserve in EN about any endorsement of other religions, Pope John Paul II143 was explicit throughout his papacy in his affirmation of the presence and activity of the Spirit to be found in other religions.144 In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, issued on March 4, 1979, the pope noted the presence of the Holy Spirit in the adherents of other faiths in the context of expressing his hopes for humanity. In article 6, he writes,



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Does it not sometimes happen that the firm belief of the followers of the nonChristian religions—a belief that is also an effect of the Spirit of truth operating outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body—can make Christians ashamed at being often themselves so disposed to doubt concerning the truths revealed by God and proclaimed by the Church. (RH 6)145

Later, in Dominum et Vivificantem,146 he describes the universal activity of the Holy Spirit before the coming of Christ and today outside the church and makes the association between his work and the paschal mystery being possibly available for all, as per GS 22.147 However, it was in RM that he took a significant step in explicating the view of the Spirit’s work within the religions. Written on the twenty-fifth anniversary of AG, RM was a theological argument for the continued significance of the missionary activity of the church.148 RM 28 states concerning both the individual and her faith, “The Spirit, therefore, is at the very source of man’s existential and religious questioning, a questioning which is occasioned not only by contingent situations but by the very structure of his being. The Spirit’s presence and activity affect not only the individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions” (emphasis added). Earlier in RM 5, as the pope affirms the uniqueness of the mediatory work of Christ, he leaves theological room for the “participated forms of mediation” by others: “Christ is the one mediator between God and mankind. . . . Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his.” In John Paul’s papacy, therefore, we may perceive simultaneous affirmations of the Conciliar steps taken previously as well as an advance in the discussion. Firstly, in his acknowledgment of the presence of the Spirit in the adherents of other faiths (RH 6, DEV 53), the pope affirms the work of the Spirit at the individual level. Then, RM 28 goes further and makes an explicit assertion of the Spirit’s work among the religions, while RM 5 reasons that there are “forms of mediations” that participate in the sole mediation of Christ, although these “forms” were not yet unequivocally associated with the “religions.”149 Phan has identified these “participated mediations” with other faiths and argues that the pope moved beyond Vatican II and “extended this notion of participation or sharing to non-Christian religions,”150 although he did note that despite seeing religions as “participated forms,” John Paul never affirmed the salvific value of religions per se.151 This is evident in the apostolic letter Tertio Millenio Adveniente, in which the pope asserts a lack of salvific values in other religions: Here we touch upon the essential point by which Christianity differs from all the other religions, by which man’s search for God has been expressed from

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earliest times. . . . In Christ, religion is no longer a “blind search for God” (cf. Acts 17:27) but the response of faith to God who reveals himself. . . . Christ is thus the fulfillment of the yearning of all the world’s religions and, as such, he is their sole and definitive completion. (TMA 6)152 (emphasis original)

We can conclude here that RM does not confer salvific values on religions, nor imply whether these “participated mediations” include other religious traditions.153 Nonetheless, the pope’s encyclical sows the seeds not only for an inchoate pneumatological theology of salvation but also of a trinitarian theology of religions that will serve as the impetus for subsequent Catholic theologians, including Gavin D’Costa, to develop theirs. Dialogue and Proclamation (1991) As we move closer to our current context, there is an especially clear and positive soteriological affirmation of other religious traditions in the 1991 document Dialogue and Proclamation,154 which declares, From this mystery of unity it follows that all men and women who are saved share, though differently, in the same mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ through his Spirit. . . . The mystery of salvation reaches out to them, in a way known to God, through the invisible action of the Spirit of Christ. 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 (cf. AG 3, 9, 11). (DP 29)155 (emphasis added)

In DP 29, therefore, the apogee of a trajectory of development that had its origins in the Conciliar documents has been reached as the article affirms that salvation for others is attained by the operation of the Spirit working through “what is good in their own religious traditions.”156 Moreover, though there was no direct reference to religions being the “participated mediations” that RM 5 mentioned earlier, it was sufficient for Dupuis to argue that it was tantamount to recognizing religions as so.157 Knitter too interprets this text as a clear affirmation that in and through religions other peoples may find salvation. He contends that DP 41, which says one may decide “to leave one’s previous spiritual . . . situation” through dialogue, implies the possibility of a Christian becoming a Buddhist.158 However, it is arguable whether this article has anything other than Christian conversion in mind, since it quotes DM 37, which explicitly describes conversion in the context of missionary proclamation directed toward the non-Christian as well as links it to the “Paschal Mystery” of Christ. Despite this positive tone, the document does not suggest



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an independent salvific status for religions but merely notes that they remain praeparatio evangelicae and “play a providential role in the divine economy of salvation” (DP 17). DP 82 further indicates that while dialogue is a necessary component of mission, in principle and practice it is not a replacement for proclamation but “remains oriented” toward it. In summary, we may say that among the post-Conciliar pronouncements of the RCC, DP 29 provides the most explicit affirmation that the church was suggesting that adherents of other faiths may be saved in their religious traditions and that this is attained through the work of the Spirit, with the caveat that in no way are they to be understood as autonomous salvific structures. Dominus Iesus (2000) While DP marked the logical culmination of the post-Conciliar theology of religions, the promulgation of DI 159 in 2000 would redraw the theological landscape. The issuing of DI by the CDF160 in 2000 marks the next significant turn in the Catholic theology of religions and requires detailed analysis, both the document itself and the responses it evoked. DI was prepared by its International Theological Commission (ITC)161 and had been approved by then-cardinal Ratzinger as prefect of the congregation, making it an official CDF document.162 The chief motivation for DI was a concern about the emergence of a “pluralist theology of religion” underpinned by a rise in relativism in the West.163 The document is structured into six sections. After an introduction that condemns de jure (in principle) pluralism, section I asserts the definitive nature of the revelation of Jesus Christ (DI 5), while the next section repudiates any notion of a separate, more universalizing work of the Spirit parallel to the work of Christ.164 Section III reiterates that Christ is the sole mediator of salvation, and section IV relates the unicity and universality of the salvific mediation of Christ with the unicity and unity of the RCC by arguing that the Catholic Church is the historical continuation of the church entrusted to Peter and his successors. Here the ecumenical dimension of the document was discussed through a clarification of the term subsistit in as signifying two truths simultaneously: (1) that the Church of Christ exists fully only in the RCC, and (2) that elements of “sanctification and truth” can be found in other churches and ecclesial communities (DI 16).165 Section V refutes those who attempt to separate the kingdom of God from that of Christ and the church, while the last section addresses the relationship that exists between the RCC and other religions by asserting the indispensability of the church (DI 20) and rejecting religions as alternate ways of salvation (DI 21). As DI 22 puts it, while adherents of other faiths may have received divine grace, they remain “in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.”

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The reception of DI was initially overwhelmingly contrary, much of it based on an apparent misreading that it was a statement only against ecumenism because of its interpretation of subsistit in, rather than its actual target, de jure pluralism.166 Branick laments the legalistic tone of its language, while Looney and Rausch call it a retrograde step from Vatican II, which had drawn inspiration from biblical imagery and hence allowed for greater conversation.167 Severe criticism was also leveled against the CDF for exceeding its authority in regulating theological areas still considered open, while Rist contended against DI’s account of the development of doctrine.168 Mirroring the divide in Conciliar hermeneutics, Pieris draws a distinction between “reform” and “renewal” and argues that DI represented an attempt by the conservative wing of the Vatican, who had realized their own mistake at having perceived the Council as a reformist synod of bishops, to reassert their control.169 In its defense, Weigel argues that DI taught what the RCC had reaffirmed at Vatican II, that is, Christ as the only Savior and the church as the most complete expression of his body.170 Reactions grew more nuanced as it became recognized that DI was not meant only as an ecumenical document and its target audience lay within the church, especially against theologians of religions such as Knitter and Dupuis.171 Hence, McDonnell delineates the “watchdog function” of the CDF against impending threats to the life of the Church, while Ratzinger highlights the main thrust of DI, that the “ecclesiological and ecumenical issues of which everyone is now speaking occupy only a small part of the document.”172 Therefore, Chia and Tavard have summarized that most of DI refers to the issue of the salvific significance of non-Christian religions rather than ecumenical dialogue.173 A close reading of the document supports this conclusion that the primary intention of the CDF was to curb any view of the independent salvific status of religions. The summary section, section VI, makes several contentions regarding the other religions: Certainly, the various religious traditions contain and offer religious elements which come from God, and which are part of what “the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures, and religions.” Indeed, some prayers and rituals of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel. . . . One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments. (DI 21) (emphasis added)

Thus, the overall assessment of DI is the deficient nature of religions, making it clear that whatever may be described of them, their adherents could not be said to have been saved through them, although it is noted that DI does



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not address the specific question of Judaism as a religion as it considers the Judaism–Christianity relationship a singular one.174 In 2001, further events supported this view when, as will be discussed later, Jacques Dupuis’s book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism was investigated and a notification issued that concluded there are “notable ambiguities and difficulties on important doctrinal points” in it.175 A subsequent commentary on this notification was issued on March 12, 2001.176 Weigel has argued that DI was issued against theologians in India as well as against Dupuis’s work.177 Waldenfels notes that since DI the CDF has issued another two notifications, to Roger Haight in 2005 and to Jon Sobrino in 2007, and all three have been centered on the question of Christology, and he further asserts that the “true intention of Dominus Iesus” can be seen in the subsequent 2001 notification.178 We will examine in detail the official Catholic attitude toward Jacques Dupuis’s work in the final section of this chapter. Suffice it to note here that DI, the notification, and the subsequent commentary all suggest that Dupuis’s theology of religions, and those of his positions that propose a potentially positive salvific significance for the religions, is unlikely to attract further theological developments, and this has left the field open for those Catholic theologians who argue against this view, of which one chief example is Gavin D’Costa. It is for that reason that May has called D’Costa a “representative post-DI theologian of religions.”179 Assessment of Post–Vatican II Theology of Religions Our analysis of the post-Conciliar theology of religions has shown that it has been marked by uneven developmental progress. While Vatican II affirmed that invincibly ignorant non-Christian individuals may experience Christian salvation and that non-Christian religions are to be positively regarded, its silence about the relationship between the salvific grace these individuals receive and the religions they practice have led to several post-Conciliar possibilities: (1) this salvation is not mediated through non-Christian religions, or (2) religions do mediate salvation for their adherents but not apart from Christ’s mediation, or (3) religions may be seen as independent channels of salvation. Paul VI suggested the first position in EN 53, given his metaphor that religions are “outstretched arms” in futility. John Paul II moved slightly forward from his predecessor into position (2) when he posited in RM 28 that the Spirit is in operation at the level of religions as well as individuals and that there are “participated forms of mediation” by others, which was later affirmed as referring to other religions in DI 14. At the same time, he shows he has not moved into position (3) when TMA 6 reaffirms that religions have no salvific value. DP 29 comes closest to (3) when it affirms that salvation for the non-Christian “Other” is by the Spirit through their religions, and by

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not qualifying them as being forms of participation, it could imply religions as autonomous means of salvation. DI rebounded sharply back to a position closer to (2) when DI 14 affirms the participation of other religions and DI 22 reiterates their acutely deficient situation as compared to those within the church.180 Despite DI, some theologians continue to work from the previous positions elucidated by DP. Thus, Plaiss has reasoned that since DP came from two dicasteries of the Curia, whereas DI was only a CDF declaration, the teachings of DP have in effect not been questioned by higher authorities and remain valid.181 Nonetheless, the vigorous manner in which DI has put forth its case suggests that the theological out-of-bounds markers have been set, and subsequent Catholic discussions on the theology of religions will inevitably have to take account of them. We conclude therefore that, on the whole, post-Conciliar developments continue to manifest positive leanings toward other religions but also display a strong desire within the church to avoid any suggestion that religions are autonomous ways of salvation for the non-Christian, leaning in favor of an assertion of their participated mediation in the sole mediation of Christ through the work of the Spirit. In the following section, we will examine briefly the earlier efforts of a prominent Catholic theologian, Jacques Dupuis, as a study of a theological endeavor that utilized an explicitly Trinitarian structure to attend to the question of the status and function of religions. Ultimately, however, his attempts were ruled inappropriate and outside the contours of Catholic tradition, which paved the way for another Catholic theologian, Gavin D’Costa, to have his views gain further traction within the Catholic community. Case Study: Jacque Dupuis’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions Jacques Dupuis’s Theology Jacques Dupuis (1923–2004) was a Belgian Jesuit priest who had spent close to four decades of his life as a missionary in India before being recalled to Rome for a long-term teaching post at the Pontifical Gregorian University. His experiences and encounters with other religions, particularly Hinduism, caused him to develop a profound theological understanding and enduring interest in the meaning of other faiths. Dupuis himself described it thus: “the exposure to its [Asia’s] religious reality forced me to revise altogether my former evaluation of the meaning of the religious traditions that nourished the spiritual life of the people I was meeting.”182 Grzelak has noted that his views were heavily influenced by the theological writings of Aloysius Pieris and Choan-Seng Song.183 Dupuis’s works are thus the fruits of a lifetime of



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contemplation and thinking on the relationship between his faith and those he encountered.184 His theology of religions is complex,185 and in what is regarded as his magnum opus, his book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, he reveals his theological views about the religions. He writes, “The relationship between Christianity and the other religions can no longer be viewed in terms of contradiction and opposition between realization here and stepping-stones there. . . . It must henceforth be thought of in terms of the relational interdependence.”186 Dupuis’s theology of religions begins with the doctrine of the Trinity as the foundation and “hermeneutical key for an interpretation of the experience of the Absolute Reality to which other religious traditions testify,”187 though this experience may be hidden and anonymous.188 He presupposes not only that God is triune in nature, but also that an inherent Trinitarian structure exists in all religious experiences such that non-Christian religions may mediate God’s saving grace and constitute channels through which their followers will experience Christian salvation.189 Acutely aware that the Christological question is crucial to the discussion concerning the theology of religions, Dupuis reinterprets traditional Christology when he argues that although Jesus Christ is the “universal” Savior of humankind, he should not be viewed as the “absolute” Savior, for absoluteness leads to exclusivism and should only be attributed to God the Father.190 Instead, he preferred the descriptor “‘constitutive,’ insofar as Jesus Christ holds saving significance for the whole of humankind and the Christ-event.”191 This means that Christocentrism should be reunderstood as God placing Christ at the center but not the goal since God remains the origin and the end of all, and Dupuis asserts that this model of religious pluralism—termed “Trinitarian Christology”192—will allow other “saviors” to participate in the mediation of Christ without detracting from his centrality. To accomplish this, Dupuis employs a distinction grounded in the two natures of Christ, that is, between the work of the Logos ensarkos (the incarnate Logos) and the Logos asarkos (the nonincarnate Logos), and argues for the enduring work of the Logos asarkos on the premise that the human action of the Logos ensarkos has not thoroughly exhausted that of the Logos. Thus, he asserts, “The saving action of the God through the nonincarnate Logos (Logos asarkos) . . . endures after the incarnate Logos.”193 Regarding the work of the Spirit, Dupuis is adamant that the Spirit operates together with Christ in a single economy of salvation, and noting that there are theologians advocating a “Pneumatological theology of religions,” he argues that both Pneumatology and Christology must be seen as “two inseparable aspects of one and the same economy.”194 In a later passage, he also invokes Catholic sacramentology for the other religions: “their own religious practice is the reality that gives expression to their experience of God.”195 Thus, the belief

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within Catholic sacramental theology in Christ as the universal sacrament of God’s activity expressed through the transubstantiation of the eucharistic elements is utilized here such that theological room is left for other religions since the religious practice of the Other is considered the sacrament of their experience of God.196 Regarding the revelation found in Christ, Dupuis was emphatic that though its plenitude is found in him, it does not preclude the possibility that “God speaks also to us Christians through the prophets and sages” of other religions.197 In addition, given that the work of the Spirit began before the Incarnation and continued after, one may then properly speak of “Revelation” within writings considered sacred by other religions. Thus, regarding the Qur’an, Dupuis argues that while error is present in it, “this does not prevent the divine truth it contains from being the word of God uttered through the prophet. . . . This revelation is not perfect or complete, but it is no less real for all that.”198 To discern the word of God in other scriptures despite their inherent errors and to determine the authenticity of the divine within other faiths, the criteriological issue is crucial, and at this point Dupuis follows the work of Starkey in ascertaining that criterion.199 In her study of various world religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, Starkey argues that when revelation is understood as “unveiling,” then their sacred texts do contain calls for expressions of agape that she understands as a human response of love for other humans, and reasons that based on this the world religions do contain truth.200 Dupuis agrees that agape love serves as the criterion as it is “the sign of the operative presence of the mystery of salvation in every man and woman who is saved” and that other religions “open their followers—through faith and agape—to God’s grace and salvation.”201 The religions themselves can then be seen as a testimony to God’s saving action among them throughout their history, for salvation history is no longer confined to the Judeo-Christian tradition, as Dupuis contends that the cosmic covenant made through Noah continues to have enduring significance.202 In a pivotal chapter, Dupuis expands his view of religions as sanctioned though asymmetrical paths of salvation along with the Christian faith203 and argues that Hindu veneration of sacred images is an example of worship of God.204 He summarizes about the religions, It seems legitimate, in concluding, to point to a convergence between the religious traditions and the mystery of Jesus Christ, as representing various, though not equal, paths along which, through history, God has sought and continue to seek human beings in his Word and his Spirit. Jesus Christ . . . is the “integral figure of God’s salvation”; the other religious traditions represent “particular realizations of a universal process, which had become pre-eminently concrete in Jesus Christ.”205



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Finally, Dupuis distinguishes the church and the reign of God and associates religions with the latter, since the reign of God is more universal than the church. Hence, when “the believers of other religious faiths perceive God’s call through their own traditions and respond to it in the sincere practice of these traditions, they become in all truth—even without being formally conscious of it—active members of the Kingdom.”206 This reign of God becomes the eschatological focal point of convergence for the religions, as there they meet the triune God through the unique salvific mediation of Christ and the work of the Spirit. Ultimately, such an understanding will require that “the Church be entirely ‘decentered’ from itself” as the giving up of the church’s exclusive claims will then allow for the recognition that religions do exercise a mediation of the reign of God, albeit differently from the church, but no less authentic.207 Evaluation Dupuis’s theology of religions built upon Trinitarian Christology represents a bold and innovative approach to the question of religions, and its evaluation must necessarily proceed on two axes: its fidelity to the canons of Trinitarian theology, and its faithfulness to Catholic tradition. While the second belongs to the purview of the magisterium—and they have spoken, as will be analyzed in the next section—the former requires a full-blown discussion of Trinitarian theology and will not be attempted here since Dupuis’s theology is limited to a case study and is not the focus of this book. Instead, we will look briefly at the critical reception to his theology. As a model for a Christian theology of religious pluralism, Dupuis’s proposal has been seen as an attempt to hold in tension, on the one hand, an acknowledgment of Christ as the universal Savior and, on the other hand, an affirmation of the theological significance of other faiths. Thus, Kendall and O’Collins write that Dupuis was convinced that the divine plan included not only Christ’s role as universal Savior but also has a place for the various religions.208 Phan has highlighted four key insights that enabled Dupuis to “break new ground” in his theology of religions, which includes the universality of the kingdom of God and the presence of the Spirit in other religions,209 while Sullivan has traced his theology of the Logos to the early Fathers, including Justin, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria with their respective views of the Logos-sower (Logos spermatikos), the Logos-revealer (Logos emphutos), and the covenantal Logos (Logos protreptikos).210 Despite his efforts to remain within the contours of Trinitarian theology, his critics have charged that ultimately his conception failed to do so. Johnson argues that though Dupuis claims to affirm the unicity of the economy of

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salvation, his conception of the Logos asarkos/ensarkos ultimately leads to two separate economies of salvation and is incompatible with Chalcedonian Christology.211 In addition, he contends that Dupuis veered toward subordinationism in describing Christ as a “constitutive” savior, that is, as constitutive means rather than the goal of salvation.212 In his defense, O’Collins argues that Dupuis consistently maintained the distinction within the person of Christ of the operations of both his divine and human nature without sundering the two, and that his arguments are in line with Thomas’s assertion that Christ’s “divine nature infinitely transcends his human nature (divina natura in infinitum humanam excedit).”213 Dupuis himself seems to have responded to such criticisms and eschewed this vocabulary in his last book Christianity and the Religions in favor of the Word of God “as such” and the Word of God “operating through his human being in Christ.”214 As added support, he appeals to the Third Council of Constantinople (AD 680/681), which drew a distinction between the two wills of Christ and between the “energies and operations” of the two natures.215 To the charges of subordinationism, O’Collins notes that Dupuis’s language of “constitutive savior” was in line with the Thomist view that only God is truly absolute.216 On the other hand, D’Costa has assessed that while Dupuis affirmed an indissoluble link between Christ and the kingdom of God, his proposal that both can be severed from ecclesiology risks devaluing the full ecclesiological import of the Resurrection and Pentecost.217 Migliore says that, despite attempts to distance his proposal from Rahner’s “anonymous Christians,” ultimately Dupuis’s theology bears too much similarity to it and remains underdeveloped when it comes to the question of criteria to discern the work of the Spirit in other religions.218 Sydnor concurred that his criterion stayed only at the level of ethical considerations and that its reductionism ignored the broader dimensions that any religion carries, including ritual, metaphysics, and epistemology.219 Conversely, Dupuis’s work has been hailed by Delicata for breaking through a narrow ecclesiocentrism into a well-considered Christology as she considers it a “Christology of religions” that is faithful to both scripture and tradition as well as relevant for Christians living in a pluralistic world.220 In his review of Christianity and the Religions, Clooney also concludes positively that it serves as a strong foundation for a twenty-first-century theology of religions.221 Noronha has described Dupuis’ inclusive pluralism as “a suitable model for doing Christology in the context of religions” and concurs with O’Collins’ assessment that Dupuis made a distinction but not a disjunction between the Logos asarkos and Logos ensarkos in suggesting a universal saving activity in the pre-existent Logos.222 Grzelak argues that Dupuis’s inclusive pluralism would have a place in the Catholic theology of religions, though he noted that his theology remains hampered by a high Christology and is an ob-



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stacle to interreligious dialogue.223 Burrows contends that Dupuis successfully reconciled two worlds; the world of “complex religious reality as it is lived today,” and the world of “the Scriptures, early Christian literature, the history of Christian doctrine, and contemporary theologians” as well as Conciliar teaching.224 Cavadini reasons that Dupuis’s renunciation of an exclusivist paradigm and a pluralistic relativism paves the way for an authentic development of a theology of religions.225 Finally, Donnelly argues that Dupuis’s work leads one to a Heilsoptimismus (optimism of salvation) and enables Christians to be optimistic about people of other religions,226 and Merrigan comments that Dupuis’s work empowered the Other to retain the “intrinsic right to be ‘other’” as well as the “intrinsic value of otherness.”227 Nevertheless, despite the criticisms and positive appraisals of his work, the severest critique—and the one that mattered the most as far as Dupuis was concerned—came from an investigation against him led by the CDF after the publication of Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and its subsequent issuance of a notification, and we now turn to this response by the magisterium. Response by the Vatican Dupuis’s book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism was first published in 1997, while his final book, Christianity and the Religions, was completed on March 31, 2000.228 Since then, the CDF has published two documents relating to the Catholic theology of religions: (1) Dominus Iesus on August 6, 2000, and (2) a notification on Dupuis’s book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism on January 24, 2001.229 The connection between DI and the notification has been conceded to by Dupuis, who noted similarities in subject matter, overall themes, and methodology, while the CDF has also made clear their association in a footnote of the “Notification” that it “draws from the principles expressed in Dominus Iesus in its evaluation of Father Dupuis’ book.”230 While DI had previously taken to task several unnamed schools of thought, the “Notification” was a direct critique of the theologian’s work, and it seems safe to conclude that the theology expressed in Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism had been sufficiently disturbing that it compelled the CDF not just to issue an initial oblique response but to follow that up with a direct investigation and statement. “Notification” was the culmination of a three-year investigation into Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism that began with a preliminary study soon after its publication and was followed by a comprehensive examination on June 30, 1999.231 The “Notification” specified five doctrinal areas in which Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism contained these various “ambiguities,”232

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while the later Commentary contains a summary of the same points. The first point relates directly to Christology, which is at the heart of Dupuis’s theology, and reiterates that there is “no salvific Trinitarian economy independent of that of the incarnate Word.”233 By directly affirming the unique singularity and personal identity between the Word of God and Jesus Christ, this effectively constitutes a rebuttal of Dupuis conception of the work of the Logos asarkos apart from that of the Logos ensarkos. Article II counters the view that the revelation of Christ is “limited, incomplete, or imperfect” and asserts that his revelation “has no need of completion by other religions,”234 contrary to Dupuis’s claims of the possibility of God speaking through other religious sages. Article III argues that the salvific operation of the Spirit should not be seen as beyond that of the incarnate Word. As discussed earlier, Dupuis has been categorical that the Spirit operates with Christ in a single economy of salvation, yet the CDF has continued to interpret his theology as sundering the work of the two, suggesting either his work has been misunderstood or not been read carefully enough, or that contrary to his claims the outworking of his theology inevitably leads to that conclusion. Article IV then contends that it is “contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the different religions of the world as ways of salvation complementary to the Church,” a direct refutation of Dupuis’s assertion of religions as “representing various, though not equal, paths” to salvation.235 Finally, article V states that while it is “legitimate to maintain that the Holy Spirit accomplishes salvation in non-Christians also through those elements of truth and goodness present in the various religions,”236 they should not be seen as complementary ways of salvation “since they contain omissions, inadequacies and errors”237 about God, and the article rejects any notion that their sacred texts can be commutual with the Old Testament. This suggests that Dupuis’s designation of the sacred writings of other faiths as containing “revelation” has been seen as straying beyond the doctrinal limits set by Conciliar and post-Conciliar teachings of the RCC. In summary, the critical areas in which the “Notification” and the subsequent Commentary identified Dupuis’s book to contain numerous “ambiguities and difficulties” have caused his entire theological system to be cast in doubt, and suggests that his theology of religions based on a Trinitarian Christology ultimately breached the doctrinal boundaries of the Catholic tradition. While his theology of religions continues to be of relevance insofar as it allows for recognition of the positive values of other religious traditions, his attempt to seek a positive salvific significance for them is unlikely to attract further theological developments within the RCC. In the next chapter, we will explore a similar attempt by another Catholic theologian, Gavin D’Costa, to formulate his own Trinitarian theology of religions, one that seems have met with the tacit, if not explicit, approval of the teaching authority of the RCC.



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SUMMARY This chapter has presented the Catholic view of religions by examining its beginnings as a theology of salvation for nonbelievers summarized by the aphorism extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Noting that Catholic attempts to examine the capacity of religions took place in the period around Vatican II when the church began assessing the non-Christian person not just as an isolated individual but also taking into account her more extensive affiliations to a religious community, it has concluded that the Council chose to leave the question of the salvific function of other faiths open even though it has displayed an unprecedented positive appreciation of them. Nevertheless, Vatican II did affirm the significance of other religions as a preparation for the gospel as well as granted the possibility of salvation of those non-Christians who are invincibly ignorant. Post-Conciliar developments were characterized by spurtive efforts, and the apex of discussion was reached in DP when it was affirmed that salvation for the “Other” might be attained through other religions by the work of the Spirit. However, the 2000 declaration, DI, showed an attempt by the magisterium to rein in what it considered erroneous propositions about religions as independent means of salvation by asserting their acutely deficient nature. The current state of the Catholic theology of religions retains a strong preference for seeing other faiths as only participating in the unique mediation of Christ through the Spirit. This is evident from the case study of the CDF’s investigation into Jacques Dupuis’s theology, a theology that in its view went astray on various grounds. In summary, the above discussion has mapped the trajectory of Roman Catholic thought in the field of the theology of religions and also serves as the theological backdrop for our next chapter, in which we will discuss the efforts of Gavin D’Costa, who has been described as a representative “post-DI” theologian of religions, to construct not just a theology of religions but also of a specifically Trinitarian form.

NOTES 1.  The term theology of religions is the usual designation for this field of study. However, Dupuis titled his book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and not Toward a Christian Theology of Religions because he sought to affirm pluralism as having a “raison d’être of its own right.” Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 11. Kärkkäinen, however, argues that the term theology of religions has already gained an established status. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 20–21. This term is also preferable as it examines the religioushistorical realities without presupposing any de jure status. There is also a distinction

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between a theology of religion and a theology of religions, with the former inquiring about the nature of religion and attempting to interpret universal human religiosity through the lens of the Christian faith, and the latter querying the relationship between various religions to Christ and the church, which is our primary interest here. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 7–8. For an overview of Vatican II and post-Conciliar attitudes toward other religions, see Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 130–79; R. P. McBrien, Catholicism, rev. ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 385–90. Dupuis summarizes the discussion using two theological categories: (1) fulfillment theory, that is, other religious traditions are praeparatio evangelicae and lose their significance after the Christ event, or (2) the theory of “the presence of Christ’s saving mystery” that affirms an operative presence of Christ in other religions. He includes among the latter category Rahner, Küng, and himself, and counts among the former Jean Daniélou. Daniélou’s theology considers that Christianity “perfects and fulfils . . . the incomplete truths . . . in paganism.” J. Daniélou, The Lord of History, trans. N. Abercrombie (London: Longmans, 1958), 121. Earlier, see J. Daniélou, The Salvation of the Nations, trans. A. Bouchard (London: Sheed & Ward, 1950), 8. Sparks argues that a strong dichotomy between the two is unwarranted and Dupuis may still be considered a fulfillment theology proponent. A. Sparks, “The Fulfillment Theology of Jean Daniélou, Karl Rahner and Jacques Dupuis,” New Blackfriars 89, no. 1024 (2008): 654. 2.  Note that even if one takes the position that non-Christians cannot be saved, whether apart from Christ or the church, which leads to the conclusion that other religions are devoid of salvific value, though this may abrogate their soteriological function, it does not totally eliminate their theological significance, that is, religions as praeparatio evangelica. 3.  The self-referential term of the Roman Catholic Church is the Catholic Church. See Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), 868. Thus, the sixteen documents of Vatican II were signed by Pope Paul VI as bishop of “the Catholic Church.” In this book, we will employ the abbreviation RCC because its catholicity is not universally accepted beyond its ecclesial boundaries, though, for convenience, we will also employ the phrase Catholic Church. 4. M. Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, CSCD 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 7; C. Geffré, “From the Theology of Religions Pluralism to an Interreligious Theology,” in In Many and Diverse Ways, ed. D. Kendall and G. O’Collins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 47. 5.  For studies of this axiom, see Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 84–109; G. O’Collins, Salvation for All (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); F. A. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002); G. D’Costa, “‘Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus’ Revisited,” in Religious Pluralism and Unbelief, ed. I. Hamnett, 130–47 (London: Routledge, 1990). Sullivan’s account has been well received among Catholic theologians although its starting point was the writings of the Church Fathers rather than Scripture, and hence O’Collins’s book, which analyzes biblical and deuterocanonical texts, fills this lacuna. Dupuis, however, argues that the Scriptures



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did not directly answer the question of religions but focused instead on the revelation of the Word to the Jews in the Old Testament and Christians in the New Testament. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 51–52. Despite the developments since the Council, Branick has called extra ecclesiam an “albatross bequeathed to the Catholic Church” since its influence lingers. V. P. Branick, “‘Dominus Iesus’ and the Ecumenical Dialogue with Catholics,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38, no. 4 (2001): 416n13. 6.  Justin Martyr, “First Apology,” in ANF 1, trans. and ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Henrickson, 1995), chap. 46. He also writes of the existence of “the seed of reason (sperma tou logou) implanted in every race of men.” Justin Martyr, “Second Apology,” in ANF 1, chap. 8, 10. This has led Dupuis and Sullivan to conclude Justin was expressing what would later be termed “anonymous Christianity” even before Rahner. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 60; Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 15. For Rahner’s “anonymous Christian,” see K. Rahner, “Anonymous Christians,” in TI (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1969), 6:390–98. For a study and a critique of Rahner’s theory, see, respectively, H. A. Russell, The Heart of Rahner: The Theological Implications of Andrew Tallon’s Theory of Triune Consciousness, MST (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009), 153–66; H. Van Straelen, The Catholic Encounter with World Religions (London: Burns & Oates, 1966), 98–132. Adam Sparks has cautioned that Justin’s approval was of Greek philosophy rather than the Greco-Roman religions, and therefore, he should not be viewed as a “proto-inclusivist.” A. Sparks, “Was Justin Martyr a Proto-Inclusivist?,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 43, no. 4 (2008): 509–10. 7.  Irenaeus of Lyons, “Against Heresies,” in ANF 1, 4.6.7. The conflation of the categories of creation with personal revelation has been noted by Dupuis, who argues that this was precisely his point. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 62. 8.  Cyprian of Carthage, “On the Unity of the Church,” in ANF 5, trans. E. Wallis, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Henrickson, 1995), 6. Earlier, Origen suggested the impossibility of salvation beyond the church in his exposition of Joshua 2:19, where he used Rahab’s example to caution against leaving it by writing, “outside this house, that is, outside the Church, no one is saved.” Origen, Homilies on Joshua, ed. C. White, trans. B. J. Bruce, FC 105 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 49–50. However, Burns describes Cyprian as the first to apply this axiom narrowly, and he accounts for its exclusiveness by reasoning that Cyprian was writing during a time of “embattled Christianity.” R. A. Burns, Roman Catholicism after Vatican II (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001), 130–31. Flanagin concurs that Cyprian set the path for medieval theology with this axiom. D. Z. Flanagin, “Extra Ecclesiam Salus Non Est—Sed Quae Ecclesia? Ecclesiology and Authority in the Later Middle Ages,” in A Companion to the Great Western Schism (1378–1417), ed. J. Rollo-Koster and T. M. Izbicki (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 336. 9. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 22–23.

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10.  Fulgentius of Ruspe, “Letter to Peter on the Faith,” in Fulgentius: Selected Works, FC 95, trans. by R. B. Eno (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 38.81. 11. W. B. Frazier, “Nine Breakthroughs in Catholic Missiology, 1965–2000,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 1 (2001): 9. 12.  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1947), III, q. 68, a.2. The same argument was used to include the forgiveness of sin: “man receives the forgiveness of sins before Baptism in so far as he has Baptism of desire, explicitly or implicitly; and yet when he actually receives Baptism, he receives a fuller remission, as to the remission of the entire punishment.” Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 69, a. 4 ad 2. 13. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 112. 14. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 52, 58. 15.  Flanagin, “Extra Ecclesiam Salus Non Est,” 336. 16.  P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom: With a History and Critical Notes, 4th ed., 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1919), vol. 2, app. 3, 605. Sullivan reasons that Boniface’s theory of papal supremacy against political rulers was because of his conflict with the king of France, and argues, “no Catholic theologian now holds that Boniface’s theory about the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power is a dogma of Catholic faith.” Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 66. 17.  J. Dupuis and J. Neuner, The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 7th rev. and enl. ed. (NY: Alba House, 2001), 1005. 18. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 95. 19. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 67–68. 20.  Frazier delineates how the RCC went through a long and difficult time after the discovery in the Middle Ages of vast populations who had not known of the gospel before its understanding of salvation “reached the point of accommodating men and women beyond the church’s current influence.” Frazier, “Nine Breakthroughs in Catholic Missiology,” 9. 21.  Nealy explains the Catholic understanding of ignorance as invincible “when it cannot be dispelled by the reasonable diligence a prudent man would be expected to exercise in a given situation,” as contrasted with vincible ignorance, which, when reasonable diligence is exercised, could be. F. D. Nealy, “Ignorance,” in NCE, ed. Catholic University of America (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2003), 7:314–15. 22.  Dupuis and Neuner, Christian Faith, 1010. Based on this pronouncement, Sullivan reasons for a reinterpretation of extra ecclesiam such that it now meant “no salvation for those who are culpably outside the church” (emphasis original), allowing for the possibility of salvation for those who are outside the church but not culpably so. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 114–15. 23.  M. Luther, The Large Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1921), II.45, 56. 24.  S. Hendrix, “Luther,” in The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology, ed. D. Bagchi and D. C. Steinmetz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 55. 25.  The teaching authority (magisterium) of the RCC allows for several classes of documents. An encyclical is a papal pastoral letter written for the entire Catholic



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Church and considered part of the ordinary teaching authority. F. G. Morrissey, “Encyclical,” in NCE, 5:205–6. An apostolic exhortation is less formal but still carries much weight, in contrast to Congregation documents, which have significantly less authority. S. B. Bevans and J. A. Scherer, “Mission Statements: How They Are Developed and What They Tell Us,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16, no. 3 (1992): 100. In terms of the magisterium, this is distinguished into the ordinary (i.e., the “ordinary exercise of the magisterial office of each Bishop in his diocese,” including the pope for the universal Catholic Church) and the extraordinary (i.e., the College of Bishops assembled with the pope, such as in an Ecumenical Council, as well as in ex cathedra papal pronouncements). J. R. Lerch, “Teaching Authority of the Church (Magisterium),” in NCE, 13:775–82. The latter is further distinguished, respectively, as the extraordinary universal magisterium and the extraordinary papal magisterium. R. L. Fastiggi, “Magisterium, Assent to The,” in NCE Supplement 2009, ed. R. L. Fastiggi (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2010), 567–71. For a theology of the magisterium, see L. Cunningham, An Introduction to Catholicism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 133; G. O’Collins and M. Farrugia, Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 329–30; R. R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium in the Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997), 159–224. The ordinary–extraordinary distinction arose from Vatican I through Dei Filius and Pastor Aeternus, which had recognized the differing nature of the two subjects. A. R. Dulles, “Nature, Mission, and Structure of the Church,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 34. 26.  The complete text of Mystici Corporis Christi, which is the incipit of the Encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ issued by Pius XII on June 29, 1943, is available on the Vatican website, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/ encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi_en.html. It will be quoted as MC followed by article number. Heath analyzed that, since its promulgation, the “Mystical Body of Christ” become the dominant ecclesiological model and was only superseded by Vatican II’s model of the “People of God.” M. Heath, “Salvation: A Roman Catholic Perspective,” Review & Expositor 79, no. 2 (1982): 264. 27.  B. C. Butler, The Theology of Vatican II, rev. and enl. ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981), 54–55. Vatican II would provide further clarification. E.g., Lumen Gentium 16 distinguishes non-Catholic Christians as “joined” (coniuncti) to the church, while referring to others as having an “orientation” (ordinantur) to her. 28. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 3–13, 135–40. 29.  Holy Office, “Letter to Cardinal Cushing,” American Ecclesiastical Review 127 (July–December 1952): 312–13. The letter concluded with a reaffirmation of those related to the church by an unconscious desire, while warning that those who resist the pope’s clear teaching may ironically find their salvation in doubt as they “cannot be excused from culpable ignorance.” 30.  H. Küng, The Church (London: Burns & Oates, 1968), 318. Y. Congar, The Wide World My Parish (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 98; D’Costa, “‘Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus’ Revisited,” 141.

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31.  T. F. Stransky, “The Church and Other Religions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 4 (1985): 156. 32. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 131–32. 33.  J. H. Fletcher, “Responding to Religious Differences: Conciliar Perspectives,” in From Trent to Vatican II, ed. R. F. Bulman and F. J. Parrella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 271–81. 34.  G. Alberigo, “The Announcement of the Council,” in HistVII, 1:1. Alberigo notes that in the pope’s preparatory drafts of the announcement the term used was “general council,” but in the official version it was “ecumenical council,” with no reason given for the change (1:1n2). Butler analyzes that since the Protestant Reformation there had only been two ecumenical councils, Trent and Vatican I, indicating the importance of Vatican II. Butler, Theology of Vatican II, 4–5. 35.  N. P. Tanner, Trent to Vatican II, vol. 2 of Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 817. Vatican I was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the entrance of the Italians into Rome on September 20, 1870, which led to its suspension by Pius IX two months later, and it was never reconvened. For a detailed history of the Council, see the multiauthored five-volume series by G. Alberigo and J. A. Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, 5 vols. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995–2006). 36.  The Roman Curia refers to the administrative apparatus of the Holy See that is the episcopal jurisdiction of the RCC and is often seen as an extension of the Papal Secretariat. P. Hebblethwaite, “The Curia,” in Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After, ed. A. Hastings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 175. For a fuller description of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, and the various Congregations and Pontifical Councils, see F. A. Sullivan, “The Holy See,” in The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, ed. J. J. Buckley, F. C. Bauerschmidt, and T. Pomplun, 418–31 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). 37. Tanner, Trent to Vatican II, 817. Alberigo reasons that the detailed preparations of Vatican II were induced by the memory of the difficulties associated with Trent, which had been attributed to insufficient preparation and had indelibly marked the historical consciousness of the RCC. Alberigo, “Announcement,” 44. 38.  These are ecclesiastical experts in the fields of theology, canon law, ethics, liturgy, and biblical studies and included Catholic scholars such as Karl Rahner, Gregory Baum, John Courtney Murray, and Bernard Lonergan. J. T. Fallon, “Proclamation through Dialogue: Radical Change in Official Catholic Teaching vis-a-vis the Religion of Islam” (Ph.D. thesis, Birmingham University, 2003), 64. Thompson considers Vatican II a triumph particularly for Rahner and Lonergan, who represented the liberal movement within the RCC. W. M. Thompson, “Gaudium et Spes: We Are in the ‘Spes’ Part,” Horizons 26, no. 2 (1999): 322–23. 39.  See D. A. Lane, “Vatican II: The Irish Experience,” Furrow 55, no. 2 (2004): 67; Tanner, Trent to Vatican II, 818. A list of official observers can be found in X. Rynne [Francis X. Murphy], Letters from Vatican City: Vatican Council II; First Session: Background and Debates (London: Faber & Faber, 1963), 80–82; H. Raguer, “An Initial Profile of the Assembly,” in HistVII, 2:178–82.



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40.  John XXIII, “Opening Speech to the Council on Oct 11, 1962,” in DocVII, ed. W. M. Abbott and J. P. Gallagher (New York: Association Press, New Century, 1966), 710–19. 41.  A. Hastings, ed., Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 56. P. Hebblethwaite, “John XXIII,” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 28–29. 42.  This keyword has become permanently associated with the Council and its interpretation much debated. Butler argues that aggiornamento simply implies a “bringing up to date” required of any human institution and from which the church was not exempted. Butler, Theology of Vatican II, 6–7; B. C. Butler, “The Aggiornamento of Vatican II,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 3–13. O’Malley, however, asserts that aggiornamento includes an acceptance of the inevitability of change as well as recognition that it is itself vulnerable to being interpreted in an open-ended manner. J. W. O’Malley, “Trent and Vatican II: Two Styles of Church,” in From Trent to Vatican II, ed. R. F. Bulman and F. J. Parrella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 316–17. 43.  For an account of the influence of nouvelle théologie on Vatican II, see K. B. Osborne, A Theology of the Church for the Third Millennium: A Franciscan Approach, Studies in Systematic Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 75–77. 44.  Other than Alberigo and Komonchak’s work, accounts of the Council proceedings can be found in Letters from Vatican City by X. Rynne, which was the pseudonym used by Francis X. Murphy during the Council, as Lamb and Levering have noted. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering, “Introduction,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3–4. 45.  Paul VI, “Opening Address of the Second Session,” in Council Speeches of Vatican II, ed. Y. Congar, H. Küng, and D. J. O’Hanlon (London: Sheed & Ward, 1964), 10. Hebblethwaite credits Paul VI, then Cardinal Montini, for having effectively “saved the Council from chaos” during the first session, and for its later successful conclusion as pope. P. Hebblethwaite, “Paul VI,” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 53. 46.  The texts of Conciliar and other post-Conciliar documents can be found in A. Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1975); A. Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: More Post Conciliar Documents (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1982); W. M. Abbott and J. P. Gallagher, eds., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Association Press, New Century, 1966). In addition, all the documents in the original Latin and various translations are accessible on the Vatican website; see http://www.vatican. va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm. In this book, all Vatican II and post-Council documents are taken from the official Vatican English website. For detailed commentaries on the documents, see H. Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 5 vols. (NY: Herder & Herder, 1967–1969). A more recent eight-volume series on the Conciliar documents has also been released in the Rediscovering Vatican II series by Paulist Press in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Vatican II.

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47.  G. Alberigo, “Vatican II and Its History,” Concilium 4 (2005): 10. 48.  R. Lennan, Risking the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 14. 49. M. E. Marty, “Never the Same Again: Post-Vatican II Catholic-Protestant Interactions,” Sociological Analysis 52, no. 1 (1991): 22. 50.  X. Rynne [Francis X. Murphy], The Fourth Session: The Debates and Decrees of Vatican Council II, September 14 to December 8, 1965 (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 253. For an overview of post–Vatican II developments, see P. D. Murray, “Roman Catholic Theology after Vatican II,” in The Modern Theologians, ed. D. Ford and R. Muers (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). 51.  K. Rahner, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 40, no. 4 (1979): 716–18. 52.  TI, 20:85. 53.  H. Küng, “Toward a New Consensus in Catholic (and Ecumenical) Theology,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 17, no. 1 (1980): 2–3; H. Küng, The Living Church: Reflections on the Second Vatican Council, trans. C. Hastings and N. D. Smith (London: Sheed & Ward, 1963), 326. 54.  H. De Lubac, “The Church in Crisis,” Theology Digest 17 (1969): 318. 55.  J. H. Newman, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. I. T. Ker, T. Gornall, G. Tracey, and F. McGrath (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 25:175. For excellent studies on the methodology involved in Conciliar interpretation, see O. Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II: Some Hermeneutical Principles (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), x–xii; A. M. Barratt, “Interpreting Vatican II Forty Years On: A Case of ‘Caveat Lector,’” Heythrop Journal 47, no. 1 (2006): 75–76; Lane, “Vatican II,” 68; G. Alberigo, “Preface: 1965–1995,” in HistVII, 1:xii; J. D. Dadosky, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Re-Interpretation of Vatican II,” Heythrop Journal 49, no. 5 (2008): 744. 56.  J. A. Komonchak, “Vatican II as an Event,” Theology Digest 46 (1999): 346. 57.  L. Oviedo, “Should We Say That the Second Vatican Council Has Failed?,” Heythrop Journal 49, no. 5 (2008): 717–19. Greeley was more pessimistic and lamented that “the excitement, the effervescence, of the years of the Council . . . has ended in sorrow and bitterness,” concluding that those who had dashed their hopes have much to answer for. A. M. Greeley, The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 194–95. 58.  A. Marchetto, The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council: A Counterpoint for the History of the Council (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2010). 59.  This is a Catholic school of ecclesiastical history at the University of Bologna currently headed by Giuseppe Alberigo. J. W. O’Malley, “Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?,” Theological Studies 67, no. 1 (2006): 4. Also see R. P. McBrien, The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 198–99. 60.  S. Schloesser, “Against Forgetting: Memory, History, Vatican II,” Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (2006): 296–97; O’Malley, “Vatican II,” 6, 9–16. Also, N. Ormerod, “‘The Times They Are a Changin’: A Response to O’Malley and Schloesser,” Theological Studies 67, no. 4 (2006): 836. These papers have been published together with



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Komonchak’s article “Vatican II as an Event” in J. W. O’Malley and D. G. Schultenover, Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? (New York: Continuum, 2007). 61.  Benedict XVI, “A Proper Hermeneutic for the Second Vatican Council,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), x. 62. See “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings,” available from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_ro man-curia_en.html. 63.  Dulles, “Nature, Mission, and Structure of the Church,” 26; B.-D. de La Soujeole, “Universal Call to Holiness,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 47. 64.  J. Sweeney, “How Should We Remember Vatican II?,” New Blackfriars 90, no. 1026 (2009): 259. 65.  N. Lash, Theology for Pilgrims (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 254–55. 66. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 162. The particular articles are Lumen Gentium 16–17, Nostra Aetate 2, and Ad Gentes 3, 9, 11. 67.  The complete text of Ecclesiam Suam, the “Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Church,” issued on August 6, 1964, can be found on the Vatican website at http:// www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_06081964_ ecclesiam_en.html, quoted as ES and by article number hereafter. 68.  E. Vilanova, “The Intersession (1963–1964),” in HistVII, 3:452. 69.  The term dialogue (colloquium) became a subsequent keyword in explaining the interaction between the church and its external world, and the motivation for dialogue was because “the very nature of the gifts which Christ has given the Church demands that they be extended to others and shared with others” (ES 64). These four circles will be taken up in reverse order in Gaudium et Spes 92. 70.  Abbott and Gallagher, DocVII, 660n1. 71.  Wiltgen claimes credit for this idea of a secretariat after he received news that a Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity would be set up, which prompted him to make the suggestion to Archbishop Zoa of Yaoundé, Cameroon, who was a member of the Council Commission on Missions. R. M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II (Devon, UK: Augustine, 1978), 73–78. 72.  The complete text of Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations), or “The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” can be found in DocVII, 14–101; and Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 350–426. For the Vatican website version, see http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/ documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html, hereafter quoted as LG and by article number. For a history of and commentaries on the text, see R. R. Gaillardetz, The Church in the Making: Lumen Gentium, Christus Dominus, Orientalium Ecclesiarum, ReVII (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2006); R. P. McBrien, “The Church (Lumen Gentium),” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 84–95; G. Philips, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: History of the Constitution,” in ComVII, ed. H. Vorgrimler (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967), 1:105–37.

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73.  J. M. Estevez, “The Constitution of the Church: Lumen Gentium,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 101. 74.  Philips, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” 105. 75.  G. Weigel, Witness to Hope (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999), 267–68; A. Outler, “The Church: A Response,” in DocVII, 102. Despite the title “Dogmatic Constitution,” Dulles argues LG did not define any new dogmas nor claim to be a definitive document for the subject. A. R. Dulles, “The Church: Introduction,” in DocVII, 11, 13. 76.  McBrien, “The Church,” 84; G. A. Lindbeck, “A Protestant Point of View,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 220. The subsequent development of Gaudium et Spes into a separate document was prompted by a need to recognize a distinction between the inner life of the church (Ecclesia ad intra) and its life in the external world (Ecclesia ad extra), with LG addressing the former and Gaudium et Spes the latter. This ad intra/extra distinction was made by John XXIII earlier when he described the “twofold vitality of the Church. There was first the Church’s vitality ad intra, relating to the internal structure of the Church. . . . Secondly, there was the Church’s vitality ad extra, relating to the situations outside of itself.” Quoted in Wiltgen, Rhine Flows into the Tiber, 205–6. Barnes and Komonchak trace the distinction to one made by Leo Jozef Suenens in 1956 that became the basis for Schema 13, which would become Gaudium et Spes. J. A. Komonchak, “The Struggle for the Council during the Preparation of Vatican II (1960–1962),” in HistVII, 1:342–43; Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, 33n10. For the original schema of De Ecclesia¸ see Rynne, Letters from Vatican City, 214–15. 77.  H. De Lubac, “Lumen Gentium and the Fathers,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 157–58. Hoffman also notes the movement from church as a “Societas Perfecta” and “Mystical Body” to the “People of God.” M. Hoffmann, “Church and History in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church: A Protestant Perspective,” Theological Studies 29, no. 2 (1968): 195, 201. 78.  Y. Congar, “The People of God,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 203–4. 79. J. A. Komonchak, “Towards an Ecclesiology of Communion,” in HistVII, 4:42. Also A. Grillmeier, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Chapter I. The Mystery of the Church,” in ComVII, 1:150; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 334; Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 62. 80. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 145. 81.  F. A. Sullivan, “Quaestio Disputata. A Response to Karl Becker, S.J., on the Meaning of Subsistit In,” Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (2006): 395–409. 82.  K. J. Becker, “The Church and Vatican II’s ‘Subsistit in’ Terminology,” Origins 35, no. 31 (2006): 518. 83.  Sullivan, “Quaestio Disputata,” 400. He suggests the German mistranslation of subsistit in as “ist verwirklicht in” (is realized in), or “hat ihre konkrete Existenzform in” (has its concrete form of existence in), is significantly different from its



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classical Latin meaning, which defined subsistere as “to continue to exist,” and notes this misinterpretation in an essay by then CDF Prefect Ratzinger in 2000 entitled “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution Lumen Gentium,” in which he wrote, “The term subsistit derives from classical philosophy . . . subsistere is a special variant of esse. It is ‘being’ in the form of an independent agent.” F. A. Sullivan, “The Meaning of ‘Subsistit in’ as Explained by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Theological Studies 69, no. 1 (2008): 117; J. Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, ed. S. O. Horn and V. Pfnür, trans. H. Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 147. 84.  L. J. Welch and G. Mansini, “‘Lumen Gentium’ No. 8, and Subsistit in, Again,” New Blackfriars 90, no. 1029 (2009): 602. 85.  Dulles, “Nature, Mission, and Structure of the Church,” 28. 86.  Sullivan asserts that this possibility of salvation of non-Christians is grounded on the Thomist re voto solution even though it did not employ this terminology. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 152. 87. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 162. 88.  The complete text of Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), or “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” can be found in DocVII, 199–308; Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 903– 1001; as well as on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_coun cils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html, referred to subsequently as GS and by article number. For its history and commentary, see C. Moeller, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: History of the Constitution,” in ComVII, 5:1–76; N. P. Tanner, The Church and the World: Gaudium et Spes, Inter Mirifica, ReVII (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2005). 89. E. McDonagh, “The Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes),” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 101. Campion too observes that GS deserves to be called a pastoral text, being the only major document to have originated from a suggestion from the floor of the aula. D. R. Campion, “The Church Today: Introduction,” in DocVII, 183. 90. For instance, Ratzinger has been a notable critic of GS 17 for lapsing into “downright Pelagian terminology” and not fully addressing the problems of human freedom. J. Ratzinger, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Part I, Chapter I,” in ComVII, 5:136–38. Rowland also concludes that the treatment of culture in GS was an “explosive problematic.” T. Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, ROS (London: Routledge, 2003), 11. Brown was more positive, noting that considering the conditions and the diverse opinions it had to accommodate, it turned out remarkably concise and clear. R. M. Brown, “The Church Today: A Response,” in DocVII, 309–10. 91.  McDonagh, “Church in the Modern World ,” 103. Ratzinger added that GS 22 is an advance on LG 16, which had overly emphasized the role of human activity in salvation. Ratzinger, “Pastoral Constitution,” 162. 92. Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), or “The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” was promulgated by Paul VI on October 28, 1965. Its full text is found in http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_

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council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html, hereafter cited as NA and by article number. It is also in DocVII, 660–68; Vatican II, “The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate). Translated by T. F. Stransky,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 4 (1985); Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 738–42. 93.  Nicholl argues that NA could only be read in the light of LG and GS as it is essentially the outworking of the implications of GS 22. D. Nicholl, “Other Religions (Nostra Aetate),” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 126. 94.  NA went through five texts in its evolution. For the previous four versions, see M. Ruokanen, The Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions: According to the Second Vatican Council, SCM (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 121–31. For other studies, see E. I. Cassidy, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue: Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Aetate, ReVII (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2005), 125–264; A. Kennedy, “The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); T. F. Stransky, “The Declaration on Non-Christain Religions,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal, ed. J. H. Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 336–39. 95.  The SPCU was created as a preparatory organ of Vatican II by John XXIII on June 5, 1960, to strive for unity with non-Catholic Christians. It was later raised to full Conciliar Commission status, and Paul VI confirmed it as a permanent office of the Holy See, while John Paul II elevated it to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU) in his Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus in 1988. T. F. Stransky, “The Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 182–83. As a measure of its importance during the Council, the SPCU had direct responsibility for preparing and presenting the following documents: UR, NA, Dignitatis Humanae (religious liberty), and together with the Doctrinal Commission, DV. 96.  J. M. Oesterreicher, “The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Introduction and Commentary,” in ComVII, 3:1. Cassidy also notes interreligious dialogue was “not high on the agenda of the Catholic church” until Cardinal Bea was commissioned to study it. Cassidy, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, 125. 97.  Stransky, “Declaration on Non-Christain Religions,” 337. 98. Cassidy, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, 127; E. Schlink, After the Council, trans. H. J. A. Bouman (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), 130–31. 99.  H. E. Root, “The Church and Non-Christian Religions,” in The Second Vatican Council, ed. B. C. Pawley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 235–36. 100.  Root, “Church and Non-Christian Religions,” 236–37. Also see C. Nelson, “Non-Christians: A Response,” in DocVII, 669–70. 101.  Despite being the shortest Conciliar document, Fisher calls it “the most heatedly contested document issued by Vatican Council II.” E. J. Fisher, “Interpreting Nostra Aetate through Postconciliar Teaching,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 4 (1985): 158. As mentioned earlier, much of this controversy had to do with its treatment of the Jewish relationship rather than the non-Christian religions.



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102. Papali argues its description of Hinduism as being mythic expressions of the deepest cravings of the human soul for God bears remarkable similarities to the mysteries of the Christian faith. C. B. Papali, “Excursus on Hinduism,” in ComVII, 3:142–43. 103.  Dumoulin observes NA 2 was careful to give recognition to the two main branches of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana, when it termed its goals as “freedom” and “supreme illumination,” respectively. H. Dumoulin, “Excursus on Buddhism,” in ComVII, 3:145–46. 104.  Mercado notes a minority had suggested “Traditional Religion”—referring to practices such as ancestor worship, primitive religion, and shamanism—to be mentioned alongside Hinduism and Buddhism, but this was voted down and a generic description given instead. L. N. Mercado, “The Change in Catholic Attitudes towards Traditional Religion,” Dialogue and Alliance 18, no. 2 (2005): 94, 101. 105. In contrast, the Anglican document issued by the 1988 Lambeth Conference addressing interfaith relations, “Jews, Christians, and Muslims: The Way of Dialogue,” did not prioritize the Abrahamic faiths over other religions. M. Ipgrave, “Understanding, Affirmation, Sharing: Nostra Aetate and an Anglican Approach to Inter-Faith Relations,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 43, no. 1 (2008): 7. 106. G. C. Anawati, “Excursus on Islam,” in ComVII, 3:152–54. O’Mahoney perceptively analyzed that the Council Fathers spoke more about Muslims rather than Islam as a religion as they did not intend to provide a theological assessment then but left this for the future. A. O’Mahony, “Catholic Theological Perspectives on Islam at the Second Vatican Council,” New Blackfriars 88, no. 1016 (2007): 387. D’Costa has made the same observation. G. D’Costa, “Continuity and Reform in Vatican II’s Teaching on Islam,” New Blackfriars 94, no. 1050 (2013): 215. Previously, he has summarized concerning the same issue that the openness of the Catholic Church to the religions remains confined to the pastoral and social levels rather than the dogmatic. G. D’Costa, “Hermeneutics and the Second Vatican Council’s Teachings: Establishing Roman Catholic Theological Grounds for Religious Freedoms in Relation to Islam. Continuity or Discontinuity in the Catholic Tradition?,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 20, no. 3 (2009): 288. 107.  Pawlikowski argues that NA 4 could be seen as considering Jews as being restored to the divine covenant, and hence there are no further grounds to seek their conversion. J. T. Pawlikowski, “Reflections on Covenant and Mission: Forty Years after Nostra Aetate,” Cross Currents 56, no. 4 (2007): 91. However, Dulles contends that the validity of the Old Covenant was left open by the Council. A. R. Dulles, “The Covenant with Israel,” First Things 157 (2005): 16–17. McDade attempts a mediating position, that neither supersession nor abrogation of Judaism was suggested but rather a respect for the varied dimensions within the mystery of God’s love. J. McDade, “Catholic Christianity and Judaism since Vatican II,” New Blackfriars 88, no. 1016 (2007): 376. 108.  See R. A. Graham, “Non-Christians: Introduction,” in DocVII, 659. O’Connor too welcomes the forwardness of NA but critiques the later 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church for retaining a timid approach toward non-Christians. M. P. O’Connor, “The Universality of Salvation: Christianity, Judaism, and Other Religions

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in Dante, Nostra Aetate, and the New Catechism,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 33, no. 4 (1996): 508–9. 109.  Fisher, “Interpreting Nostra Aetate,” 158. The CRRJ was formed in 1974 by Paul VI, with its president being ex officio the SPCU president. Stransky, “Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,” 183. While it might be more appropriate for the CRRJ to be under the umbrella of the PCID, the decision to link it with the SPCU was an acknowledgment of the closeness of the Jewish–Christian relationship and because historically the Christian Church had its first “rupture” with Judaism. Velati has noted that the very name of the commission, Religious Relations, was a conscious attempt to avoid controversy by distinguishing its work from the Holy See’s political relations with Israel. M. Velati, “‘The Others’: Ecumenism and Religions,” Concilium 4 (2005): 41. 110.  Oesterreicher, “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church,” 1. 111. Cassidy, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, 130; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 164. 112.  G. B. Caird, Our Dialogue with Rome: The Second Vatican Council and After, Congregational Lectures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 90–92. 113.  K. Barth, Ad Limina Apostolorum: An Appraisal of Vatican II, trans. K. R. Crim (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1969), 36; Schlink, After the Council, 129. 114.  The text of Ad Gentes (To the Nations), or “Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church,” promulgated by Paul VI on December 7, 1965, can be found at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vatii_decree_19651207_ad-gentes_en.html and is hereafter cited as AG and by article number. It is also in DocVII, 584–630; Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 813–856. For studies of the decree, see S. Brechter, “Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity,” in ComVII, 4:87–111; S. B. Bevans and J. Gros, Evangelization and Religious Freedom: Ad Gentes, Dignitatis Humanae, ReVII (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2009). 115.  Alexander notes strong connections between AG and LG in that both seek a recovery of the church’s missionary nature. C. Alexander, “Missions: Introduction,” in DocVII, 580. 116. A. Shorter, “Missionary Activity (Ad Gentes),” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 163; W. R. Hogg, “Some Background Considerations for Ad Gentes,” International Review of Mission 56, no. 223 (1967): 281. Smith, however, contends the final document still does not convey the full urgency of Catholic missions. E. L. Smith, “Missions: A Response,” in DocVII, 633. Pierson provides a later negative assessment of Catholic missions since AG. P. E. Pierson, “Roman Catholic Missions since Vatican II: An Evangelical Assessment,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 4 (1985): 166. As we shall see, Evangelii Nuntiandi was issued partly to address this. 117.  Brechter, “Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity,” 114–15. Another article, AG 7, notes that the church continues to have a duty to preach the gospel even though God may lead those “inculpably ignorant of the Gospel” to faith. F. George, “The Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, eds. M. L. Lamb and M. Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 293.



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118.  Stransky has noted that this clause was included in the final draft to avoid “undue optimism” about other religions. Stransky, “Declaration on Non-Christain Religions,” 348n8. 119.  See also W. R. Hogg, “Vatican II’s Ad Gentes: A Twenty-Year Retrospective,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 4 (1985): 148. 120. Schlink, After the Council, 126. He also notes that, strangely, they do not reference each other. 121.  W. R. Burrows, “Tensions in the Catholic Magisterium about Mission and Other Religions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 9, no. 1 (1985): 3. 122.  H. Küng, “Is the Second Vatican Council Forgotten?,” Concilium 4 (2005): 110. Despite his optimism, he was less positive about post-Conciliar developments as he lamented squandered opportunities for reform and concluded things might only improve under a new Pontificate. 123. P. F. Knitter, “Roman Catholic Approaches to Other Religions: Developments and Tensions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 8, no. 2 (1984): 50. 124.  P. F. Knitter, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward the World Religions (London: SCM, 1985), 124. 125.  P. F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 77. 126.  Stransky, “Church and Other Religions,” 156–57. 127.  M. Amaladoss, “Dialogue and Mission: Conflict or Convergence?,” International Review of Mission 75, no. 299 (1986): 224–25; K. Kunnumpuram, Ways of Salvation: The Salvific Meaning of Non-Christian Religions According to the Teaching of Vatican II (Poona, India: Pontifical Athenaeum, 1971), 89, 91. 128.  M. Ayden, “The Catholic Church’s Teaching on Non-Christians with Special Reference to the Second Vatican Council,” in Multiple Paths to God: Nostra Aetate 40 Years Later, ed. J. P. Hogan and G. F. McLean (Washington, DC: John Paul II Cultural Center, 2005), 53. 129.  M. Ruokanen, “Catholic Teaching on Non-Christian Religions at the Second Vatican Council,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 14, no. 2 (1990): 57. 130.  Ruokanen, “Catholic Teaching,” 58. He observed that in DV the word revelation was solely reserved for the events and documents of salvation history. 131.  Knitter also accounts for the reticence of Vatican II toward using the term revelation to describe religions as due to the sensus theologicus of Catholic theology that considers the word in its strict meaning to have ceased with the last apostle. P. F. Knitter, “Interpreting Silence: A Response to Miikka Ruokanen,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 14, no. 2 (1990): 63. 132.  Knitter, “Interpreting Silence,” 62. The relationship between grace and nature is much debated and stems from this being a fundamental matrix implicitly present in any theological discussion of salvation, as Alfaro observes. J. Alfaro, “Nature,” in Studia Missionalia, ed. K. Rahner (London: Burns & Oates, 1968), 176. Protestants and Catholics have held generally differing conceptions. Meeking and Stott note that whereas Evangelicals tend to emphasize the discontinuity between the redeemed and unredeemed man, Catholics stress the continuity. B. Meeking and J. R. W. Stott,

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“Evangelicals and Roman Catholics: Dialogue on Mission, 1977–1984: A Report,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 10, no. 1 (1986): 15. O’Malley aptly summarizes that “the Catholic impulse to reconcile ‘nature and grace’ is . . . an impulse to reconcile the Church with human culture in all its positive dimensions—with sin excepted and the gospel affirmed.” J. W. O’Malley, “Developments, Reforms, and Two Great Reformations: Towards a Historical Assessment of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 44, no. 3 (1983): 406. Mondin also argues that in GS Vatican II officially endorsed the doctrine of a fundamental “harmony between faith and culture.” B. Mondin, “Faith and Reason in Roman Catholic Thought from Clement of Alexandria to Vatican II,” Dialogue and Alliance 1, no. 1 (1987): 23–24. Tracy concludes that at the root of Roman Catholicism is a doctrine of analogy that accepts that Christianity is not totally unlike other religions compared to a Protestant tendency that leans toward the “negative dialectical.” D. Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (London: SCM, 1981), 293. 133.  W. R. Burrows, “Comments on the Articles by Ruokanen and Knitter,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 14, no. 2 (1990): 63. 134.  Hogg, “Vatican II’s Ad Gentes,” 152. 135.  K. Rahner, “On the Importance of the Non-Christian Religions for Salvation,” in TI, 18:289–90. Rahner himself takes the view that the religions can be part of “a positive history of salvation and revelation” (emphasis original). Rahner, “On the Importance,” 18:294. Dupuis astutely comments on NA’s title for its implicit ecclesiocentricism in only dealing with the horizontal relationship between religions and the church without addressing the vertical one with Christ, and suggests this ultimately accounts for the Conciliar lack of affirmation of religions having salvific value. J. Dupuis, Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions, FMF (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 98. Also Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 169–70. 136.  P. C. Phan, “John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue: Reality and Promise,” in The Vision of John Paul II, ed. G. Mannion (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008), 244; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 179; G. D’Costa, “Nostra Aetate—Telling God’s Story in Asia: Promises and Pitfalls,” in Vatican II and Its Legacy, ed. M. Lamberigts and L. Kenis (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 333; J. Fredericks, “The Catholic Church and the Other Religious Paths: Rejecting Nothing That Is True and Holy,” Theological Studies 64, no. 2 (2006): 227; A. Hunt, Trinity: Nexus of the Mysteries of Christian Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005), 144. In Dupuis’s assessment, it is necessary to look at postConciliar developments for a clearer answer. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 161. 137.  The complete text of Evangelii Nuntiandi can be found in Flannery, Vatican Council II: More Post Conciliar Documents, 711–61. All quotations are taken from the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/ documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi_en.html, hereafter quoted as EN and by article number. For commentaries on the exhortation, see Hogg, “Vatican II’s Ad Gentes”; M. L. Fitzgerald, “Evangelii Nuntiandi and World Religions,” African Ecclesial Review 21, no. 1 (1979): 34–43.



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138.  The Synod of Bishops was mandated during Vatican II for greater collegiality so that bishops would share responsibility for governance of the church with the pope (LG 22–25) and was established by Christus Dominus, the “Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops,” the full text of which can be found at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_christusdominus_en.html, as well as in DocVII, 396–429; Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 564–90. For a more detailed description of the history of the Synod, see P. Hebblethwaite, “The Synod of Bishops,” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 200–209. The 1974 Synod was the third assembly and addressed the issue of the evangelization of the modern world, but a common consensus was not achieved and only a statement, “The Evangelization of the Modern World,” was issued. Hogg, “Vatican II’s Ad Gentes,” 149. 139. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 172–73. 140. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 80–81. 141.  Fitzgerald notes that despite the word dialogue being a keyword in the Synod’s statement, EN deliberately eschewed it, and concludes that the world religions had not been adequately considered. Fitzgerald, “Evangelii Nuntiandi and World Religions,” 36, 42. 142.  Hogg, “Vatican II’s Ad Gentes,” 149; Burrows, “Tensions in the Catholic Magisterium,” 4. Frazier’s study of EN also concludes that the missionary nature of the church has not been fully explored. W. B. Frazier, “A Monumental Breakthrough in the Missiology of Vatican II and Its Reception by Ongoing Leadership in the Church,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 34, no. 3 (2010): 139. 143.  The text of Redemptoris Missio (papal encyclical “On the Permanent Vitality of the Church’s Missionary Mandate”), issued by John Paul II on December 7, 1990, can be found on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-missio_en.html, quoted as RM and by article number hereafter. 144.  Williams has analyzed that John Paul’s ecumenical and interfaith orientations can be traced to his Polish and prepapal philosophical background. G. H. Williams, “The Ecumenical Intentions of Pope John Paul II: The Third of the Four Quadrennial Lectures under the Bequest of Judge Paul Dudley, 1750,” Harvard Theological Review 75, no. 2 (1982): 174. 145.  For the full text of Redemptor Hominis, see http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis_en.html, quoted as RH and by article number. 146.  The complete text of Dominum et Vivificantem, or “On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World,” issued May 18, 1986, can be found on the Vatican website at http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/es/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_ enc_18051986_dominum-et-vivificantem.html, quoted as DEV and by article number. 147.  DEV 53 states, We need to go further back, to embrace the whole of the action of the Holy Spirit even before Christ. . . . The Second Vatican Council, centered primarily on the theme of the Church, reminds us of the Holy Spirit’s activity also “outside the visible body of the

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Church.” . . . For, since Christ died for all, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this Paschal Mystery.

148.  George, “Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity,” 301. For analyses, see M. Zago, “Commentary on Redemptoris Missio,” in Redemption and Dialogue, ed. W. R. Burrows (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 56–92; J. H. Kroeger, “Sent to Witness—with Enthusiasm,” African Ecclesial Review 33, no. 5 (1991): 288–94. 149.  This connection was only later affirmed in 2000 by Dominus Iesus 14, which lists RM 5 as its reference when it states, Theology today, in its reflection on the existence of other religious experiences . . . is invited to explore . . . in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation. . . . “Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his” [RM 5].

150.  Phan, “John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue,” 251. 151.  Phan, “John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue,” 252. 152.  The complete text of Tertio Millenio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Approaches) by John Paul II, given on November 10, 1994, can be found on the Vatican website at http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/pt/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19941110_tertio-millennio-adveniente.html, hereafter quoted as TMA and by article number. 153.  See also Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 173; Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?, 194. 154.  The complete text of Dialogue and Proclamation (“Reflection and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”), which is a joint document of the PCID and the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples issued on May 19, 1991, is accessible from the Vatican website at http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_19051991_dialogue-and-proclamatio_en.html, hereafter quoted as DP and by article number. Prior to DP, another document deserves some mention. The 1984 document, Dialogue and Mission by the predecessor of the PCID, the Pontifical Secretariat for Non-Christians, summarized the positive affirmations of Conciliar pronouncements in article 26: This vision induced the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council to affirm that in the religious traditions of non-Christians there exist “elements which are true and good” [LG 16], “precious things, both religious and human” [GS 92], “seeds of contemplation” [AG 18], “elements of truth and grace” [AG 9], “seeds of the Word” [AG 11, 15], and “rays of that Truth which illuminates all humankind” [NA 2]. According to explicit Conciliar indications, these values are found preserved in the great religious traditions of humanity. Therefore, they merit the attention and the esteem of Christians, and their spiritual patrimony is a genuine invitation to dialogue [cf. NA 2, 3; AG 11], not only in those things which unite us, but also in our differences.



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See Pontifical Secretariat for Non-Christians, “Dialogue and Mission. The Attitude of the Church Towards the Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission,” Furrow 36, no. 7 (1985): 519–24. However, the reference in article 26 to LG 16 probably refers to LG 17 instead, which does mention the latent elements of goodness in other religions, since LG 16’s scope was restricted to the individual level. 155.  DP 12 earlier defines the terms religions and religious traditions mentioned in DP 29 to include generically the Abrahamic faiths and the Afro-Asian religions. 156.  See Plaiss’s argument in M. Plaiss, “‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ a Decade Later: A Retreat?,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38, nos. 2–3 (2001): 190. 157. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 178–79. 158. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 82–83. 159.  The complete text of Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus, or “Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church”), issued by the CDF on August 6, 2000, can be found on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominusiesus_en.html, quoted as DI followed by article number. 160.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was established by Paul III in 1542 as a congregation of the Roman Curia with the responsibility of safeguarding doctrinal and faith matters of the RCC. Paul VI renamed this congregation in 1967 as the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In terms of accountability, although each pontifical council is juridically equal to the other, all the other councils are required to submit to the CDF any documents pertaining to faith and morals prior to publication. Stransky, “Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,” 183–84; T. C. Kane, “Curia, Roman,” in NCE, 4:438–40. 161. The idea for the setting up of the ITC was first mooted by the Synod of Bishops on October 28, 1967, with its chief responsibility as “to assist the Holy See and especially the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, principally in connection with questions of greater importance.” Scholars from both the Western and Eastern Churches were appointed for a fixed term to serve in this commission and advise the CDF, while its general secretary was appointed by the prefect of the CDF. Synod of Bishops, “Ratione Habita (on Dangerous Opinions and on Atheism),” in Flannery, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, 670; W. H. Principe, “The International Theological Commission,” in Hastings, Modern Catholicism, 194–95. 162.  Cf. the 1997 ITC document “Christianity and the World Religions,” which expressly proposes that religions do carry a salvific significance when it states, “Given this explicit recognition of the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the religions, one cannot exclude the possibility that they exercise a certain salvific function. . . . It would be difficult to think that what the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of men taken as individuals would have salvific value and not think that what the Holy Spirit works in the religions and cultures would not have such value.” See International Theological Commission, “Christianity and the World Religions,” Origins 27, no. 10 (1997): sec. 84. Phan calls this an affirmation of the salvific status of religions, and Tilley concurs. Phan, “John Paul II and Interreligious Dialogue,” 253–54; T. W. Tilley,

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“‘Christianity and the World Religions,’ a Recent Vatican Document,” Theological Studies 60, no. 2 (1999): 318–37. However, Hick considers its statements insufficient for interreligious dialogue because of its commitment to the superiority of Christianity. J. Hick, “The Latest Vatican Statement on Christianity and Other Religions,” New Blackfriars 79, no. 934 (1998): 542–43. Despite the clear assertion of the document, its issual by the ITC rather than the CDF means that, while it may have theological significance, it still lacks magisterial authority. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 179n28. 163.  J. Ratzinger, “Presentation of the Declaration Dominus Iesus at the Holy See, Sep 5 2000,” in Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, 209–10. Sullivan has noted that the declaration remains a document of the congregation rather than the pope, and hence “has a lesser degree of authority than a papal encyclical.” F. A. Sullivan, “Introduction and Ecclesiological Issues,” in Sic Et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus, ed. S. J. Pope and C. C. Hefling (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 47. Matthew Dunn has argued that despite this the document may still be read as having the full weight of the pope’s authority behind it. M. W. I. Dunn, “The CDF’s Declaration Dominus Iesus and Pope John Paul II,” Louvain Studies 36 (2012): 61. 164. Thus, DI 11 states that “the doctrine of faith regarding the unicity of the salvific economy . . . must be ‘firmly believed’” (emphasis original). The phrase firmly believed in this emphatic form appears seven times, at DI 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 20, suggesting the tone of the document. 165.  Del Colle has noted that DI 16 chose a restrictive reading of subsistit in by noting only one subsistence of the Church of Christ and that only ecclesial elements exist in ecclesial communities. R. Del Colle, “Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 3, no. 2 (2001): 207. Brand too notes its original usage in LG 16 was meant to leave the door open for future consideration about the status of other Christian communities, as does Lash. E. L. Brand, “Dominus Iesus: A Lutheran Response,” Pro Ecclesia 10, no. 1 (2001): 7–8; Lash, Theology for Pilgrims, 268–74. On June 29, 2007, the CDF issued a clarification of subsistit in in which it maintains that “the use of this expression . . . comes from and brings out more clearly the fact that there are “numerous elements of sanctification and of truth” that are found outside her structure, but which “as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.” See CDF, Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church (2007), http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html. This clarification is not likely to appease those who have criticized it as a dialogue ender for ecumenism. 166. An early response to DI is found in Christian Century, “News: Mother Rome,” 117, no. 25 (2000): 895–97. This focused on the adverse implications to ecumenical dialogue given the rejection of the term sister churches to describe postReformation churches. 167.  T. P. Looney, “Dominus Iesus: Appreciation, Critique and Hope,” Ecumenical Trends 30, no. 5 (2001): 70; T. P. Rausch, “Has the Congregation for the Doctrine



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of the Faith Exceeded Its Authority?,” Theological Studies 62, no. 4 (2001): 804; Branick, “‘Dominus Iesus,’” 416. 168.  Rausch, “Has the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Exceeded Its Authority?,” 806–8; J. M. Rist, What Is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 6. The same critique was also directed by Rist at Newman’s concept of the development of doctrine. 169.  To Pieris, “reform” refers to a top-down process of change as witnessed in Vatican I and Trent, while Vatican II was a “renewal” council that found its genesis in the periphery before surging to the centre. A. Pieris, “The Roman Catholic Perception of Other Churches and Other Religions after the Vatican’s Dominus Jesus,” East Asian Pastoral Review 38, no. 3 (2001): 5. Alberigo has however clarified that Trent is to not to be confused with “Tridentinism,” a hardened ideology generated by late medieval scholasticism and characterized by resistance and refusal to change. G. Alberigo, “From the Council of Trent to ‘Tridentinism,’” in From Trent to Vatican II, ed. R. F. Bulman and F. J. Parrella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 29, 32. Komonchak also observes that, ultimately, Vatican II did not depart from the teachings of Trent. J. A. Komonchak, “The Council of Trent at the Second Vatican Council,” in From Trent to Vatican II, ed. R. F. Bulman and F. J. Parrella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 76. 170.  G. Weigel, God’s Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 192. 171.  Branick, “‘Dominus Iesus,’” 413n4; Rausch, “Has the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Exceeded Its Authority?,” 803; K. McDonnell, “The Unique Mediator in a Unique Church: A Return to a Pre-Vatican Theology?,” Ecumenical Review 52, no. 4 (2009): 548; T. George, “Dominus Iesus: An Evangelical Response,” Pro Ecclesia 10, no. 1 (2001): 16. While this may be an intra-RCC matter, the Methodist theologian Wainwright has cautioned that, inevitably, an intrachurch document will be overheard by the wider theological community and have an inadvertent adverse effect on ecumenical efforts. G. Wainwright, “Dominus Iesus: A Methodist Response,” Pro Ecclesia 10, no. 1 (2001): 13. 172. McDonnell, “Unique Mediator in a Unique Church,” 544; J. Ratzinger, “Answers to Main Objections against Dominus Iesus,” L’Osservatore Romano, September 22, 2000, 10. 173.  G. H. Tavard, Vatican II and the Ecumenical Way, MST (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2006), 42; E. Chia, “Dominus Iesus and Asian Theologies,” Horizons 29, no. 2 (2002): 278–79. Chia subsequently develops this thesis further and makes the case that since Vatican II the Curia has been concerned with curtailing developments that John XXIII initiated. E. Chia, “Towards a Theology of Dialogue” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Nijmegen, 2003). 174.  See G. D’Costa, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Response to Terrence Tilley,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 435–46. 175.  The complete text of the notification is included as appendix 1 in the 2001 edition of Dupuis’s book, as stipulated by the CDF as a condition of its continued publication. CDF, “Notification on the Book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1997) by Father Jacques Dupuis,

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S.J.,” in Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Hereafter quoted as “Notification” and by page number. 176.  See CDF, Commentary on the Notification on the CDF Regarding the Book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism by Father Jacques Dupuis, S.J. (2001). Subsequently referred to as Commentary followed by article number. 177. Weigel, God’s Choice, 196. 178.  H. Waldenfels, Jesus Christ and the Religions: An Essay in Theology of Religions, MST (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009), 10, 15. 179.  J. D. A. May, “Catholic Fundamentalism? Some Implications of Dominus Iesus for Dialogue and Peacemaking,” Horizons 28, no. 2 (2001): 280–81. 180.  As we shall see shortly, D’Costa has argued for a position closer to (2). 181.  Plaiss, “‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ a Decade Later,” 195. 182.  J. Dupuis, “My Pilgrimage in Mission,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 27, no. 4 (2003): 170. 183.  C. Grzelak, “The ‘Inclusive Pluralism’ of Jacques Dupuis, Its Contribution to a Christian Theology of Religions, and Its Relevance to the South African Interreligious Context” (Ph.D. thesis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 2009), 20–22. 184.  These include J. Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am? Introduction to Christology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994); Dupuis, Jesus Christ; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997); J. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, trans. P. Berryman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002). O’Collins has described the first three works as his “trilogy on Christ’s person and redemptive mission.” G. O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis: His Person and Work,” in In Many and Diverse Ways, ed. D. Kendall and G. O’Collins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 19. The fourth was borne out of his publisher’s request for a more accessible book on the same subject, but in the aftermath of the CDF investigation may be said to constitute an indirect response to criticisms of his theology. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 260–63. For a complete bibliography, see his Festschrift, D. Kendall and G. O’Collins, eds., In Many and Diverse Ways: In Honor of Jacques Dupuis (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 231–69. 185.  For analysis of Dupuis’s theology of religions, in addition to his Festschrift, see A. Noronha, “Trinity and the Plurality of Religions: Jacques Dupuis’ Trinitarian Approach to Religious Pluralism” (Ph.D. thesis, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2008); Grzelak, “‘Inclusive Pluralism’ of Jacques Dupuis”; K. E. Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism: An Augustinian Assessment (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011). 186. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 204. 187. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 264. 188. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 276–77. 189.  In light of his understanding of the role of religions, Dupuis reinterpreted extra ecclesiam to mean “all salvation is through Christ.” Dupuis, Jesus Christ, 97. 190.  In his earlier book, Dupuis describes the mystery of the universality of Christ thus: “The Christic mystery . . . is present wherever God enters into the life of human beings . . . this mystery remains anonymous in a certain sense. All have the



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experience of the Christic mystery, but Christians alone are in a position to give it its name.” Dupuis, Jesus Christ, 92; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 282. 191. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 283. This position is similar to Rahner’s “anonymous Christians.” 192.  Regarding the three-fold typology of exclusivism-inclusivism-pluralism, Dupuis expresses his theology as a synthesis of the last two categories, i.e., “inclusive pluralism” or “pluralistic inclusivism”; “If the perspective of ‘religious pluralism in principle’ must be expressed in the usual terminology…the most suitable expression . . . will be that of a ‘pluralistic inclusivism’ or of an ‘inclusive pluralism,’ which upholds both the universal constitutive character of the Christ event in the order of salvation and the positive saving significance of the religious traditions within the single manifold plan of God for humankind.” Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 87–96, 255. This typology will be discussed in detail in the subsequent chapter. 193. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 298. 194.  Dupuis identifies Knitter as among those advocating this development. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 196–7. 195. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 318–19. 196.  Sydnor has noted that Dupuis’s usage of the term sacrament in the context of other faiths may convey an impression that they too convey the full presence of Christ but concedes that the rest of his book suggests that they do so only partially. J. P. Sydnor, “Beyond the Text: Revisiting Jacques Dupuis’ Theology of Religions,” International Review of Mission 96, nos. 380–81 (2007): 60–61. 197. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 252–53. 198. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 245. Because of his conviction that other religious texts contain “initial hidden words of God” dating back to before the Old Testament, Dupuis was not averse to calling them “sacred scriptures” though he notes they are not of the same character as the Old and New Testaments. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 250. 199. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 322–23. 200.  P. Starkey, “Agape: A Christian Criterion for Truth in the Other World Religions,” International Review of Mission 74, no. 296 (1985): 462–63. Sydnor has pointed out that when Dupuis appropriates Starkey’s criterion of agapic love, he unwittingly relegates other religions by viewing them as anticipations of the fuller revelation in Christ, and therefore reverts to a form of fulfillment theory that he critiqued earlier. Sydnor, “Beyond the Text,” 62. 201. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 325. 202.  Dupuis’s understanding of salvation history draws on Rahner’s distinction between transcendental/general and categorical/special history of salvation. The former refers to all human history, while the latter is a “thematized” account that, through the “word of God,” both “narrates and interprets” historical happenings as salvific events. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 218. Kilby has described this as “a key feature of Rahner’s understanding between faith, grace, and revelation, of his treatment of the Church and of other religions, of his theology of the sacraments, and of his Christology.” K. Kilby, “Rahner,” in The

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Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. G. Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 343–44. 203. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 305–29. 204.  In Dupuis’s reasoning, while not denying the elements of idolatry, Hindu worship of images is differentiated from idolatry insofar as “the cult offered to them . . . is directed not to the material image but to the symbolic . . . presence of God in the image.” Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 303. 205. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 328. 206. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 345. 207. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 356. 208.  D. Kendall and G. O’Collins, “Preface,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, xiii. 209.  The other two are the “relationality” of the redemptive work of Christ and the extra-Jesus role of the Logos. P. C. Phan, “Jacques Dupuis and Asian Theologies of Religious Pluralism,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 81. 210.  F. A. Sullivan, “Clement of Alexandria on Justification through Philosophy,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 101. Also Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 70. 211.  K. E. Johnson, “A ‘Trinitarian’ Theology of Religions? An Augustinian Assessment of Several Recent Proposals” (Ph.D. thesis, Duke University, 2007), 221. 212.  Johnson, “‘Trinitarian’ Theology of Religions?,” 215. 213.  G. O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis’s Contributions to Interreligious Dialogue,” Theological Studies 64, no. 2 (2003): 391. 214. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 138–39. O’Collins has also noted Dupuis’s surprise at being accused of holding to a view there were four persons in the Godhead. O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis’s Contributions,” 392. 215. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 144. 216.  O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis’s Contributions,” 391. 217.  G. D’Costa, “Review: Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. By Jacques Dupuis,” Journal of Theological Studies 49, no. 2 (1998): 911, 913. 218.  D. L. Migliore, “The Trinity and the Theology of Religions,” in God’s Life in Trinity, ed. M. Volf and M. Welker (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 105. 219.  Sydnor, “Beyond the Text,” 68–69. 220.  N. Delicata, “The Trinitarian Christology of Jacques Dupuis, S.J.,” Didaskalia 19, no. 1 (2008): 29–30. 221.  F. X. Clooney, “Reviews: Theology, Dialogue and Religious Others,” Religious Studies Review 29, no. 4 (2003): 321. 222.  Noronha, “Trinity and the Plurality of Religions,” 124–26, 296. 223.  Grzelak, “‘Inclusive Pluralism’ of Jacques Dupuis,” 279. 224.  W. R. Burrows, “Creating Space to Rethink the Mission of Christians—the Contributions of Jacques Dupuis,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 218. 225.  J. C. Cavadini, “Review: Two Recent Christian Theologies of Religious Pluralism,” Horizons 31, no. 1 (2004): 191.



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226.  D. Donnelly, “On Relationship as a Key to Interreligious Dialogue,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 136. 227.  T. Merrigan, “Jacques Dupuis and the Redefinition of Inclusivism,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 61. 228. Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 260. 229.  The “Notification” went through three drafts. The first draft from the CDF to Dupuis’s Jesuit superior-general noted that his book contained “serious doctrinal errors,” but this was revised by the second draft to “ambiguities” in matters of faith. F. Koenig, “Let the Spirit Breathe,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 16. According to Kaiser, Dupuis himself acknowledged the possibility of “ambiguities and difficulties” that might be misleading. R. B. Kaiser, “Dupuis Profile,” in Kendall and O’Collins, In Many and Diverse Ways, 228. For a defence of Dupuis’s book as advocating classic inclusivism rather than pluralism, see T. Merrigan, “Exploring the Frontiers: Jacques Dupuis and the Movement ‘Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism,’” Louvain Studies 23, no. 4 (1998): 349. 230.  “Notification,” 437n1. 231.  The complete procedure of the examination can be found in the Regulations for Doctrinal Examination, issued on June 29, 1997; see http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19970629_ratioagendi_en.html. The investigation of Dupuis’s book was carried out in accordance with “Chapter III: Ordinary Procedure of Examination.” 232. The subtitles of each article are telling: (I) the sole and universal salvific mediation of Jesus Christ, (II) the unicity and completeness of the revelation of Jesus Christ, (III) the universal salvific action of the Spirit, (IV) the orientation of all humans to the church, and (V) the value and salvific function of the religious traditions. 233. CDF, Commentary, 5. The “Notification” also emphasizes that it is erroneous to suggest there is a “salvific activity of the Word as such in his divinity, independent of the humanity of the Incarnate Word.” “Notification,” I.2. 234.  “Notification,” II.3. 235.  “Notification,” IV.6. 236. “Notification,” V.8. Waldenfels has questioned why, in light of this CDF acknowledgment, it is not permissible to call other religions “ways of salvation.” Waldenfels, 108. 237. CDF, Commentary, 5.

Chapter Two

Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions

The focus of this chapter is a detailed exposition and analysis of Gavin D’Costa’s Catholic Trinitarian theology of religions. Following our previous discussion on Vatican II and post-Conciliar theology, we can now situate his thought and examine its emergence through an appropriation of Trinitarian resources to grapple with the question of the status of religions. There are three sections. The first discusses his theological views on a dominant paradigm in the theology of religions, the threefold typology, and recognizes his subsequent move away from that taxonomy. In the second section, we will employ an interpretive model of Trinitarian particularity/universality to elucidate his theology and highlight his reliance on Christology and Pneumatology. Finally, an assessment will be made concerning the strengths and weaknesses of his approach, which will pave the way for an evaluation based on patristic Trinitarianism of the theological grammar that undergirds his proposal. THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND Gavin D’Costa is a Roman Catholic theologian of Indian descent. Born in Kenya, East Africa, in 1958, he migrated to England in 1968 and completed a first degree in English and theology at Birmingham University and a Ph.D. in divinity at the University of Cambridge in 1986.1 At Birmingham, he worked with John Hick and was influenced by his pluralism, though he was soon to become a consistent critic of this position.2 Since 1993, he has been a lecturer at the University of Bristol, where he is currently professor in Catholic theology. His primary theological concerns, as expressed in his writings, are post–Vatican II Roman Catholic theology and the theology of 59

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interreligious dialogue, and the convergence of these two interests has produced a theological journey marked by a move from being a vocal proponent of the Rahnerian strand of inclusivism to a form of “Trinitarian exclusivism” and, recently, “universal-access exclusivism.” In his most recent book, he describes himself thus: “Indeed, through the process of dialogue and reflection, I have moved from being a structural inclusivist to a universal access exclusivist.”3 His principal book-length theological works are Theology and Religious Pluralism (1986), John Hick’s Theology of Religions (1987), The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (2000), and Christianity and World Religions (2009).4 His main edited books are Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered (1990), Resurrection Reconsidered (1996), and Religion in Europe: Contemporary Perspectives (1994).5 The essays contained in the first edited book constitute an inclusivist response to another edited book on pluralism, The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (1988),6 as noted by Markham.7 Since 2010, three additional books have been published on the topic of the theology of religions: Catholic Engagement with World Religions (2010), The Catholic Church and the World Religions (2011), and Only One Way? (2011).8 However, these recent books do not represent a significant modification of the Trinitarian proposal contained in his earlier writings. D’Costa has also written extensively on the relationship between the Trinity and feminism, postmodern discourse theory, and theological education in Sexing the Trinity (2000) and Theology in the Public Square (2005).9 THE THREEFOLD TYPOLOGY To understand D’Costa’s current theological position, we begin with his first book, TRP, which presents inclusivism as the answer to the central question in the theology of religions,10 which is the reconciliation of two axioms: (1) salvation through Christ alone and (2) the universal salvific will of God.11 Hunsberger has perceptively noted these axioms betray their Rahnerian roots and could have skewed D’Costa’s subsequent proposition of Rahner’s inclusivism.12 It is also interesting to note that the Protestant inclusivist theologian Clark Pinnock also begins with these two axioms, but defines the second as universal divine saving grace rather than saving will, and continues to conflate the two in subsequent discussions.13 This movement from salvific desire to grace is also assumed in D’Costa’s thinking and will be discussed later. The range of theological responses to reconciling these two axioms can be encapsulated by the threefold typology of pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism. This schema was first proposed in 1972 by Hick,14 but most scholars regard its major proponent as Race in 1983.15 Pluralism refers to



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the position that “other religions are equally salvific paths to the one God,” of which John Hick was considered the main proponent.16 Other advocates include Troeltsch and Hocking, and later, Knitter, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Race were added to this list.17 Knitter has astutely disputed this definition since the Hickian premise does not assert the equal parity of religions.18 Later, D’Costa would characterize pluralism as the view that “all religions (with qualifications) lead to the same divine reality.”19 Exclusivism is characterized by the view that religions are fundamentally marred by sin and that Christ alone offers salvation. Here one of the lead proponents was Kraemer.20 Others classified as “neo-Kraemerians” are Neill and Newbigin, while Catholic theologians include von Straelen and von Balthasar.21 For D’Costa, both positions represent inadequate attempts to balance the two axioms. He charges the pluralist with elevating the universal will of God for all to be saved at the expense of the particularity of Christ,22 while the exclusivist is guilty of a narrow holding onto the salvation brought by Christ without considering God’s desire for all to be saved.23 Inclusivism, which affirms “the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God,” is seen as the position that best maintains these two axioms in tension.24 The key difference between exclusivism and inclusivism has been summarized by Phillips and Sanders as the former holding to the ontological and epistemological necessity of Christ for salvation while the latter asserts only the first.25 D’Costa agrees that in inclusivism “Christ is ontologically and causally exclusive to salvation, but not necessarily epistemologically.”26 This distinction will be crucial in our subsequent analysis of D’Costa’s theology. Inclusivism is represented by Rahner’s concepts of the “anonymous Christian” and “anonymous Christianity,” the former referring to the idea of an implicit work of Christ’s grace, and the latter that this is through the provisional saving structures of religion.27 Expounding on this, D’Costa notes that Rahner’s theory is predicated on two premises: (1) all grace originates from and is oriented towards God, and (2) God’s self-revelation is expressed definitively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Taken together, these suggest an acceptance of implicit grace by someone is an acceptance of divine grace through Christ, and that person could hence be regarded as an “anonymous Christian” even if she has not known Christ.28 Regarding the common objection of imperialism, D’Costa argues Rahner cast this as an intra-Christian discussion, and for lack of a better terminology these terms remain appropriate.29 Hence, inclusivism avoids the total “systems” of both extreme exclusivism, where a priori all are lost, and extreme pluralism, where a priori all are saved, and reconciles their strengths.30 Subsequently, D’Costa makes a further distinction between “open” and “closed”

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inclusivism in response to Surin’s trenchant critique that inclusivism and pluralism exhibit a strong commonality.31 Conceding this, but only insofar as it applies to “closed” inclusivism, which claims that one holds the truth of God “in Christ or/and the Christian Church,”32 D’Costa asserts that “open” inclusivism acknowledges truth is never within its grasp but is rather possessed by it, so that “while we know God, we do not know everything about God,” and the resulting tension is only resolved in the eschaton.33 In fact, as early as 1993, he had suggested his preference for “an open-ended form of Trinitarian inclusivism.”34 However, in 1996, D’Costa committed what he termed possibly his “act of public humiliation”35 when he suggested that the threefold typology he had supported is ultimately superfluous, for both pluralism and inclusivism could be collapsed as subtypes of exclusivism.36 Because these positions are committed to a specific set of truth criteria, they share a logical structure and differ only in “what counts as normative truth and how it operates.”37 As examples, Hick’s philosophical pluralism and Knitter’s pragmatic pluralism were analyzed to be ultimately founded on exclusivist criteria for truth.38 D’Costa advocates an abandonment of the paradigm and that future classifications be founded on issues of revelation and truth.39 Subsequently, in Meeting, D’Costa lays out a proposal for a “Trinitarian Exclusivism” for a theology of religions. This might seem incongruous at first sight given his opposition to the exclusivist category, but given his assertion that all proponents are “exclusivists,” this should be read as an explicit adherence to a specific set of criteria, in this case, Trinitarianism, rather than a move into traditional soteriological exclusivism.40 In his recent book CWR, D’Costa advances a seven-graded classification that focuses on dogmatic issues and addresses both “the means and [the] goals of salvation” for an individual, including (1) the Trinity, (2) Christ, (3) Spirit, (4) Church, (5) Theistic, (6) Reality, and (7) Ethics.41 Despite his volte-face on the taxonomy, he suggests it continues to serve a heuristic purpose and discusses two additional types, comparative theology and postmodern postliberalism.42 Locating his position now within exclusivism, he subdivides this into (1) restrictive-access exclusivism (RAE) and (2) universal-access exclusivism (UAE); the former restricts the number of saved and damned based on God’s election, while the latter maintains that, since God is exclusively revealed in Christ, those who hear the gospel (fides ex auditu) and confess it in their hearts will be saved. Their main difference lies in the former arguing for the necessity of a premortem decision for Christ for salvation to be effected, while UAE contends there is a postmortem experience with Christ, a position that D’Costa now holds.43 D’Costa further argues that not only is UAE his position but that the of-



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ficial stance of the RCC may also be classified under it.44 His proposed sevenfold typology has been hailed as more nuanced than the traditional paradigm,45 although his evaluation of the paradigm has been more controversial, as we shall now discuss. CRITIQUES D’Costa’s critique of the tripolar classification is by no means the only criticism leveled on it, as other theologians have also expressed dissatisfaction, though for varying reasons. Firstly, in terms of the language that the typology uses, Okholm and Phillips argue the term exclusivism is associated with connotations of intolerance and propose particularism instead, while Sanders and Pinnock suggest restrictivism.46 Barnes reasons the paradigm approach becomes a Procrustean bed for Barth and Rahner’s theologies when it depicts these as exclusivist and inclusivist, respectively.47 Tilley also argues that the typology suggests “a trajectory from an intolerable exclusivism to the liberal view of the pluralists,” and Perry agrees that the tripartite typology couches a hidden implication of the inevitability of pluralism.48 Secondly, regarding the theological concerns the typology addresses, DiNoia critiques it for a misplaced priority on the question of salvation and suggests emphasis should be placed instead on ultimate concerns proposed by the religious communities.49 Heim too reasons it assumes salvation is a single reality, which is a limited view of existence.50 Kärkkäinen agrees that the threefold mapping suffers from a “one-sided focus on the question of who is going to be saved” and proposes another threefold taxonomy of ecclesiocentrism, Christocentrism, and theocentrism/“realitycentrism.”51 Muck similarly argues that the paradigm has outlived its usefulness since the soteriological question is unanswerable except by God, and suggests basing the theology of other religions on “participant theologizing,” which entails entering the worldview of the Other as a full participant.52 Thirdly, concerning the categories themselves, other theologians consider the typology indiscriminatory and overly sweeping in the application of only a type to one religion, in this case, Christianity, when a religious tradition is a variegated set of components. Thus, Thomas asserts that various elements within religions should result in inclusive, exclusive, and pluralistic attitudes toward them, depending on what one encounters in the same religion, and Madigan concurs.53 Pannenberg writes that “the elements of exclusivism in the Christian truth claim, the inclusivism of the Christian faith in the revelation of the one God of all human beings, and the acknowledgment of a factual pluralism of different belief systems and conflicting truth claims belong

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together in the Christian self-understanding.”54 Newbigin’s position, which summarizes the above views, is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but . . . not exclusivist in . . . denying the possibility of salvation of the non-Christian . . . inclusivist in . . . that it refuses to limit the saving grace of God to the members of the Christian Church but . . . rejects the inclusivism which regards the non-Christian religions as vehicles of salvation . . . pluralist in . . . acknowledging the gracious work of God . . . but it rejects a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in Jesus Christ.55

Fourthly, in terms of the paradigm’s adequacy in representing the full spectrum of possible positions, Knitter argues for a fourth category, the “acceptance model,” to take into account Lindbeck’s postliberal model and Clooney’s comparative theology, after he had renamed the categories of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism the “replacement,” “fulfillment,” and “mutuality” models, respectively.56 Ogden also proposes a fourth option that asserts potentiality, that is, not that there are many true religions “but only that there can be” (emphasis original).57 Norris claims the typology is insufficient to describe his tradition’s view, which affirms in part other religions but also asserts the ultimacy of Christ, and Konieczka advocates a form of “critical pluralism” that attempts to walk the middle ground between pluralism and exclusivism.58 From a feminist viewpoint, King argues that the typology is “thoroughly androcentric” in suggesting universal categories without taking into account gender differences.59 Finally, regarding its internal coherence, which was the main critique leveled by D’Costa, Markham argues that it should be exclusivism that is collapsed into inclusivism rather than the converse.60 However, this observation is based on the mistaken impression that D’Costa was attempting to whittle the paradigm from three categories to two instead of one. D’Costa himself argues that the three categories are reducible to one since epistemologically they apply the same logic, and that the best position that respects difference remains “exclusivism of an open Trinitarian type.”61 Hick defends the typology with a more substantial argument that though pluralists do employ criteria, that in itself does not constitute exclusivism for otherwise there could be no nonexclusivist statements.62 Hedges concedes to categorical commonality since in a sense each is exclusive but agrees with Hick that there remain substantial differences such that the position that salvific value is found in a single religion has to be distinguished from one that all religions are salvific.63 Likewise, Wiseman notes that it is unhelpful to lump theologians with vast differences between them, such as Hick and John Paul II, under the same category of exclusivists.64 Drew, though, reasons for the continued use of some



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form of the typology as it allows for the categorization and differentiation of different views.65 Finally, Schmidt-Leukel argues that D’Costa’s objections are only valid if one defines exclusivism as the exclusion of other truth claims, and points out that a hermeneutical reinterpretation of inclusivism could equally render all three positions inclusivistic.66 ASSESSMENT In assessing D’Costa’s critique of the standard paradigm that since each category shares the same logical structure all three collapse into exclusivism, we begin by noting this argument is insufficient by itself to invalidate the traditional model. For all typologies/categorizations by their nature strive to rely on truth claims, and a case could even be made that the more mutually exclusive these claims are, the greater their relevance and applicability. What D’Costa has achieved, and for that he has done the Christian church an excellent service, is the unmasking of the false claims to openness of pluralists by demonstrating that underlying their position is a definition of truth, and insofar as claims to truth are exclusivistic, any pluralist pretensions of tolerance cannot hold. And therein lays the essence of the discussion, which makes it impossible to go with him the whole way and agree with his assertion that pluralism must be a form of exclusivism. Instead, we can only go so far as to state that pluralism is exclusivistic in nature, just as exclusivism is, but with the difference being that “exclusivistic” refers to the holding of a specific truth position while “exclusivism” goes a step further to denote the view that only one specific religion is soteriologically valid while others are not. Perhaps the way to rephrase D’Costa’s thesis is that pluralism must always logically be a form of exclusivistic-ness inasmuch as exclusivism exhibits exclusivistic-ness. As a further example, it is not difficult to see how the view that one religion fulfills all others salvifically, that is, inclusivism, is another equally specific truth position and may conceivably be held by its proponents in an equally exclusivistic manner. Hence, it is precisely that there are three logically exclusivistic positions regarding the nature of religions that a theology of religions has to adjudicate, and therefore there is a continued prima facie validity for the threefold typology. This continuing relevance of the paradigm is open to the possibility that it may be expanded to account for a broader range of options since by no means have the three traditional positions been conclusively demonstrated to exhaust all theological possibilities. Thus, the objections of those in the fourth category who criticize the typology’s inadequacies may be accommodated by an expansion of the model, although the evaluation of additional

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categories does not fall within the ambit of this book. However, the specific critique by those in the third camp who argue the triptych is overly sweeping because there are always exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist elements in a religion misses the mark. This is not to deny the existence of these different types of intrareligious components, but to point out that the typology arose primarily to answer the question of individual salvific destiny, which was the focus of the two axioms. If this is taken into account, any suggestion that there are simultaneous exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist soteriological elements within a religion must then be unfounded, for no religion can logically provide three sets of soteriological ends for its adherents. Instead, what was identified as exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist elements refers to differences in kind. Thus, Newbigin’s position is a reference to being exclusivist in revelation but nonexclusivist in non-Christian salvation, inclusivist in nonChristian salvation but noninclusivist in non-Christian religions, and pluralist in God’s universal work but nonpluralist in any rejection of the uniqueness of Christ. Seen through the conventional categories, this position will fall within the boundary of traditional inclusivism. Likewise, Pannenberg was referring to three different types when he speaks of exclusivism with regard to truth, inclusivism with reference to revelation, and the pluralism of de facto different belief systems. With regard to the second critique, that the traditional paradigm manifests a misguided emphasis on the question of salvation and should account for the range of ends proposed by other religious communities, as suggested by DiNoia, Heim, and others, it is by no means convincing why a Christian theology of religions should privilege the religious goals of others without first taking into account its intrasystematic concerns, which do demonstrate a primary soteriological focus. While one should avoid turning the Christian faith into a form of soterio-monism, and therefore salvation may not be the only addressable question in a theology of religions, that the narration of the Christian story does contain a divine concern, plan, and effecting of that plan for human salvation is evident, and hence soteriology remains an unavoidable and principal issue.67 Similarly, issues of truth and revelation, while distinguishable from that of salvation, are not wholly disconnected from it and maintain inextricable linkages with the question of individual destiny situated within the broader context of the human race. In addition, the history of the Christian church shows this to be a central consideration not only within its doctrinal developments but also within its traditions of Christian practices and personal piety, and therefore the question of salvation should rightly be included in any interreligious conversation as a genuine meeting of religious traditions. Finally, as to the first criticism, we do acknowledge that the term exclusivism has accumulated negative connotations of intolerance and narrow-mind-



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edness over various discussions, even though as D’Costa has argued pluralism shares the same logical structure and is liable for the same charge. While there is an epistemic warrant for one to hold this truth position, as Plantinga has shown,68 in the interests of consideration for the Other and so as not to preclude an unbiased conversation, another term without the unnecessary encumbrances could be used instead. Here, we lean toward particularism rather than restrictivism since the latter does not seem to be an improvement over the original in terms of linguistic nuance. There are, however, two caveats to this suggestion: (1) it is logically possible, and in fact probable, that over time any term chosen may become tinged with negative associations just as its predecessor, given the scandalous nature of the gospel, and (2) the word particularism itself appears to have the unintended effect of obfuscating the universality inherent within the gospel message. It would seem that the task of finding a suitable term is as unremitting as the quest of developing an adequate typology for the theology of religions. ASSESSMENT OF D’COSTA’S POSITION If the traditional typology continues to retain applicability, how then would D’Costa’s current position be classified using it? In Meeting, his preferred theological label is “Trinitarian exclusivism,” which, as explained earlier and in light of our subsequent analysis, does not suggest so much a shift to exclusivism but rather a utilization of Trinitarian dogma as the specific truth criteria, and as such this designation should not be misread through the terms of the original typology, which was about soteriological exclusivism instead of logical “exclusivistic-ism.” Instead, it is his subsequent description of himself as a universal-access exclusivist (UAE) in CWR that is more interesting as this conception represents a development in the traditional understanding of exclusivism, and hence deserves a fuller discussion. D’Costa considers his UAE position differing from a restricted-access exclusivist (RAE) view mainly in that the latter restricts salvation to those who respond to the gospel message in this life while the former allows for posthumous salvation.69 To classify his position, we begin by noting the varying views of other scholars. Tilley has designated him an “inclusivist,” albeit one veering toward “Trinitarian exclusivism,” but without providing specific reasons, a point questioned by D’Costa.70 Kärkkäinen, Johnson, and Cheetham also regard him as an inclusivist,71 while Fredericks and Lössl read him as an exclusivist,72 though it must be noted that these evaluations were carried out based on Meeting and before the publication of CWR. Since the crux of the question centers on the difference between exclusivism and inclusivism,

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in the following we will employ the critical distinction earlier identified in this chapter by Phillips, Sanders, and D’Costa as a condition for inclusivism, that is, the epistemological nonnecessity of Christ for salvation, to assess his position as delineated in Meeting and CWR.73 In the former book, D’Costa’s “Trinitarian exclusivism” is predicated on the Conciliar assertion that salvation can be attained by anyone under these conditions: (1) nonculpable ignorance of the gospel or the church, (2) the leading of an upright life, and (3) that the positive realities found in the other religions serve as praeparatio evangelicae.74 Since neither of these requirements asserts the need to know Christ personally for salvation and, in fact, suggest the converse, under the traditional taxonomy this view would fall within the category of inclusivism. Even if one were to eschew this epistemic necessity and utilize the prior definition of inclusivism in TRP as affirming “the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God,”75 this formulation is still clearly inclusivist given his positive view of religions as graced by the presence of the Holy Spirit rather than that they are fundamentally marred by sin, as exclusivism would suggest.76 Though Meeting did present a modified version of fulfillment theory that takes greater cognizance of the church’s own need for fulfillment, those adaptations continue to assert that other religions find their fulfillment in Christ and thus is grounded on traditional fulfillment theory. Finally, that D’Costa himself implicitly acknowledges an ontic/ epistemic divide in Meeting can be inferred from his postmortem proposal in CWR, which he asserts will resolve this very disjunction. However, we also note that D’Costa has objected to being classed as an inclusivist because he argues that inclusivism is a logical subtype of exclusivism in three ways.77 Firstly, because inclusivists believe their traditions contain the truth, and other truths found in the religions cannot be regarded at the same level as their own, they are indistinguishable from exclusivists. Yet we notice that there remains a distinction between the two in that exclusivism tends to be much less inclined to assert the possibility of such religious truths in the Other, or would at least greatly qualify them. Secondly, D’Costa argues that both inclusivists and exclusivists hold to the inseparability of ontology and epistemology, and hence the former position can be logically collapsed into the latter. However, we have seen that his postmortem proposal in CWR concedes to a premortem disconnect in Meeting between the ontological and epistemological necessities of Christ for salvation, and therefore the proposal presented there cannot be classified as exclusivist yet. Finally, he argues that inclusivists affirm other religions as salvific channels, whereas he does not affirm their structures per se. However, this is a narrow definition, as Fredericks has noted, and most theologians would define it as the view that the



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salvation available through one’s religion is also accessible to other religious followers.78 Hence, one concludes that, in Meeting, D’Costa’s views remain fundamentally that of traditional inclusivism. Additionally, we may note some possible parallels between D’Costa and Dupuis and two prominent Protestant inclusivists, John Sanders and Clark Pinnock, respectively. Geivett observes that while Sanders subscribes to what he called “weak inclusivism,” which does not hold to a strong soteriological value for non-Christian religions, Pinnock argues for “strong inclusivism,” that is, religions have some saving significance.79 However, in CWR, with the proposal of a postmortem solution, D’Costa’s theology appears to have moved closer to an exclusivist position, as evidenced by his characterization of this view as universal-access exclusivism. The central development is through a creative reconceptualization of the limbo of the just; he proposes that the righteous pagan enters this postmortem limbo just as the Old Testament Fathers had done, and this enables her to enter a relationship with Christ in his descent into hell, which includes into the limbo. It is here, then, that the “unity of the epistemological and ontological take[s] place,”80 which he recognizes is necessary for the Catholic beatific vision. Since limbo is not a perduring condition, a non-Christian could subsequently enter purgatory for the purification of venial sins, or even enter heaven directly, as Mary did.81 Prima facie, it would seem that a previously inclusivist proposition has now been modified into an exclusivist position when the postmortem fate of the individual is taken into consideration. However, bracketing for the moment the question of whether limbo of the just is a theologically coherent state for the non-Christian after death, if one queries the conditions by which she enters limbo and not directly into hell, D’Costa’s answer includes her conscience, divine grace, and the work of the Spirit, as well as “through noble and good elements within a person’s religion”82—in other words, the Vatican II provisions. This suggests that, notwithstanding the novel theological augmentation, his approach remains considerably similar to before. Also, based on his earlier definition in TRP of inclusivism as affirming the salvific presence of God in the religions,83 we find little substantial change in his view of them, and D’Costa himself even concedes that Clooney’s description of inclusivism as “the insistence that salvation is in Christ alone and yet is universally available” is essentially what he calls UAE.84 Tilley also queries if there is any essential difference between his recent view and traditional inclusivism.85 To be fair, the assertion of the possibility of a posthumous union of ontology and epistemology is significant and, as such, will be examined in detail later in this chapter. Also, since this is a relatively new proposal, scholarly discussion on this is only emerging,86 but based on the preliminary

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assessment, the theological coherence of the idea of limbo of the just for the nonevangelized will determine to a large extent whether D’Costa’s theology should now be seen as inclusivist or exclusivist. TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS: “TRINITARIAN EXCLUSIVISM” We move now into a discussion of the specifically Trinitarian features of D’Costa’s theology of religions. D’Costa begins from an assumption that the doctrine of the Trinity contains adequate theological resources for the holding together in fruitful tension of the two central theses of a theology of religions: the universal salvific will of God, and the particularity of Christ for salvation.87 Central to this thinking is that the twin poles of particularity and universality, found in Christology and Pneumatology, respectively, as well as the dialectic tension between them, may leave the theological door open for an understanding of other religions within the one economy of salvation.88 In addition, his dissatisfaction with the traditional threefold model as discussed earlier compelled him to conclude that a typology based on questions of revelation and truth would be more helpful.89 In this section, we will begin an examination of D’Costa’s theology through the two axes of particularity and universality by analyzing his Trinitarian Christology and Pneumatology.90 In his paper “Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions,” he outlines two preliminary theses: (1) that a Trinitarian Christocentricism “guards against exclusivism and pluralism by dialectically relating the universal to the particular,” and (2) that the Spirit “allows the particularity of Christ to be related to the universal activity of God in human history.”91 Although his later books Meeting and CWR do not explicitly employ these categories, we will argue that they can be interpreted through this dialectical matrix and, further, that there is an additional layer in D’Costa’s system such that we can discern a universality-in-particularity within Christology and a particularity-in-universality Pneumatology. We will then consider the implications of the work of the Trinity as a dialectic between particularity and universality for ecclesiology and conclude this section with an evaluation of his proposal for a postmortem solution for the unevangelized in CWR. Trinitarian Christology (Universality-in-Particularity) Jesus Christ as the Normative Revelation of God D’Costa’s Trinitarian Christology begins with the assertion that the doctrine of the Trinity safeguards “against an exclusive identification of God and Jesus



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as well as a non-normative identification of God and Jesus” (emphasis original).92 This articulation is clearer compared to his previous paper, which only stipulates against a “non-identification of God and Jesus” (emphasis original) and omits its normative nature.93 In putting forth this double negation, he explicitly follows Lindbeck, who noted that Athanasius’s understanding of the homoousion implies “that whatever is said of the Father is said of the Son, except that the Son is not the Father.”94 The mode in which Jesus may be described as the revelation of God then becomes critical in appreciating D’Costa’s formulation of a theology of religions. On the one hand, this assertion puts him in immediate contention against an exclusivist strain of Christomonism that presupposes the Father is exclusively known through the Son. Against that, he would argue that “the Son is not the Father” since it is also through the Spirit that the Father is disclosed.95 On the other hand, against pluralist theocentrism, he notes that the Athanasian axiom affirmed, “Whatever is said of the Father is said of the Son,” which therefore rightly asserts Jesus as the revelation of God.96 This leads him to conclude that the theologically appropriate way to refer to Jesus is as “totus Deus, never totum Dei; wholly God, but never the whole of God.”97 Because of the intrinsic and indissoluble connection between Jesus of Nazareth and divine revelation, there could not be any new revelation of God in the other religious traditions, and any talk of a plurality of revelations in them has to be rejected. At the same time, D’Costa maintains that “in saying a priori that there is no new revelation apart from Christ, one is neither circumscribing nor restricting the reality of the Holy Spirit’s universal and particular activity or limiting it exclusively to previous practices and understandings within the living tradition.”98 We will examine later how the Spirit’s “universal and particular activity” comes into play in D’Costa’s understanding of revelation. Here it suffices to note that the assertion of the impossibility of new revelation apart from Christ is based on a Trinitarian understanding that “if the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, then there can be no new revelations of God,” as D’Costa emphasizes the need to secure the significance of Christian revelation.99 Secondly, in understanding Jesus as divine revelation, D’Costa eschews any description of him as the unique revelation of God, as he prefers the term normative.100 He argues that “uniqueness” could be misconstrued to suggest Christ is the absolute and exhaustive revelation of God when it is the Spirit who constantly draws us into a deeper knowledge of God through Christ, whereas normativity emphasizes that our knowledge of God cannot contradict our knowledge of him through Christ.101 D’Costa adds that the universal applicability of the term uniqueness bankrupts its very meaning, that is, every event and person is unique.102 Thus, Cobb has affirmed the uniqueness of Christianity, as well as Confucianism, Buddhism, and other religions.103 The

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previous assertion of no new revelations of God must now be conditioned by rejecting two possibilities simultaneously: firstly, that there is any new revelation independent of or ontologically different from that found in Christ, and secondly, the possibility of any new revelation that alters God’s self-disclosure as Father, Son, and Spirit.104 In line with John Paul II, D’Costa acknowledges the possibility of “seeds of the Word” in other religions, though these are always susceptible to distortions, misinterpretations, and even denial by their adherents.105 Within such a scenario, it is precisely the normative Jesus who adjudicates the criteriological issue of determining the presence of God in other religions because he is the norma normans non normata, the norm by which God’s presence in other religions is to be measured, but which in himself is not measured.106 Furthermore, this normativity of Jesus is nonstatic because our understanding of him is “constantly transformed and enriched through the guiding/declaring/judging function of the Spirit,” resulting in a dialectical tension that remains until the eschaton.107 Insofar as no new revelation is possible since God has been revealed in Jesus, revelation is closed, and yet it is also open as the Spirit continually transforms our understanding of who God is, and within this dialectical relation between the Spirit and Jesus Christ lies the theological space in which Christians must remain open to the world religions.108 Revelation is therefore as much a Christological term as it is Trinitarian, and as such cannot be sundered from the biblical narrative and its interpretation within the confessing community. For this reason, D’Costa has contended against Ward’s suggestion that “revelation” could be found in other religions.109 Finally, D’Costa grapples with the critical question of the revelatory history recorded in the Old Testament. Given the historical reality of a self-revelatory activity of God among the Old Testament Jewish people apart from the revelation found in Christ, various theologians have argued that this could serve as an analogy for acknowledging the presence of revelation in other religions. In his earlier works, D’Costa too suggests that the case of Israel shows divine grace was operative before the Incarnation, and therefore by extension an assertion could be made “that this grace is operative and effective outside of the visible Church after the incarnation” (emphasis original), a point Bryant has noted with approval.110 Later, he shifts toward holding a sui generis relationship between the two and cautions that analogical similarities between this relationship and that between Christianity and non-Christian religions need to be carefully drawn.111 In a debate with Tilley, who contends that DI ignored this crucial relationship,112 D’Costa defends the singular nature of the Judaism–Christianity relationship and says it did not fall under the ambit of DI’s discussion, which was concerning other religions.113 To Tilley’s rejoinder that the Catholic understanding of faith suggests Judaism was



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technically void of faith, D’Costa clarifies that Judaism should be seen as a case of “imperfect and incomplete faith” rather than its complete absence and continues to assert that Old Testament Judaism is not suitable as an analogy for non-Christian religions.114 The Particular Jesus and the Particularity of Religions The historical particularity of Jesus as understood within Trinitarian Christology leads to the correlative theological recognition that other religions should be seen as equally distinct, specific and particular. D’Costa asserts that it is Trinitarian doctrine that allows one to take seriously the particularities of history because “God has disclosed himself unreservedly and irreversibly in the contingencies and particularity of the person Jesus.”115 In contrast to pluralism, which mythologizes away all particularities,116 the Incarnation is an attestation of God’s previous act in human history, while the church is the affirmation of this divine act continuing throughout history.117 Since God himself has demonstrated that he takes the particularities of history seriously, Christians need likewise to give due recognition to the particularities of other faiths and be especially attentive to their narratives. Therefore, D’Costa cautions against any generic treatment or reductionist leveling of all religions when talking about non-Christian faiths such that they are seen as a monolithic entity, and he cites NA as an example of Christianity recognizing the need to relate to the religions differently, with Judaism first, then Islam, followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, and other traditional religions.118 This suggests all talk of the “Other” is only a linguistic convenience, and they should be seen as “Others” in the plural to reflect their particularities. In CWR, D’Costa notes approvingly the efforts of comparative theologians in recognizing the particularities of other religions and the importance of contextual engagement with these by not subsuming them under an abstract category. In doing so, he observes that comparativists have been able to be more sensitive to historical intrareligious diversities.119 The concern for their particularities is also evidenced in D’Costa’s first book when he contends against Kraemer, who argues based on phenomenological considerations for the totalitarian character of religion, that is, that religions be understood in terms of total apprehension of existence, and concludes that any points of contact between religions need to be carefully demonstrated.120 Cautioning against this, D’Costa reasons that Kraemer’s overly abstract analysis runs the danger of neglecting their internal developments and denies the possibility of a fruitful encounter.121 In defense of the religions, D’Costa notes that their dynamic character implies that, contrary to exclusivist claims, one cannot prejudge them as human structures of self-justification before God.122 It is this concern for the

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particularity of religions that motivates him to seek a Christian engagement with the religions through a “Trinitarian dynamic which is entrusted to the church,” one that would not smother the Other through rejection or assimilation.123 In his view, while pluralism tries to assimilate the Other, exclusivism rejects it after demonizing it through a distorted self-image.124 While it is the particularity of Jesus that grants legitimacy to viewing religions as particularities, D’Costa does not restrict Trinitarian salvific action to a chronological and geographical point in time and space and suggests that other religions may also reveal the particularity of God’s agency. Thus, he asserts that “all history, both past and to come, is potentially a particularity by which God’s self-revelation is mediated” (emphasis original).125 Here one has to read him carefully so as not to conclude he is suggesting that there can be alternative “instantiations” of Jesus in other religions and cultures. On the contrary, he is unequivocal throughout his writings that the Christ event is unique, and he has critiqued Panikkar on that very point for making Jesus an instantiation among other possible revelations of the universal Logos.126 What he is trying to affirm is that, based on the universal salvific divine will, God’s activity is not restricted to the historical Christian faith but is instead continuous and even outside of the church.127 For that reason, the Jansenist teaching of “outside the church no grace is granted” was condemned by the church, and how this is to be worked out necessarily involves the Pneumatological dimension, which we will discuss in detail subsequently.128 For now, we note D’Costa himself admits the task of identifying and discerning God’s activity in other religions is an acutely complex one that requires an openness to both God and neighbor.129 At the same time as the particularity of all religions is affirmed, D’Costa does not fall into the trap of advocating their absolute incommensurability. This nuanced approach to the nature of religions is seen in his critique of Ward and Netland’s separate attempts to devise a set of neutral criteria for judging religions. He contends that since the different religious traditions are incommensurable with one another, these endeavors are problematic and ultimately fruitless.130 However, total incommensurability is self-defeating since this effectively isolates all religions such that no engagement is possible.131 Any proposal to appraise a religion solely by its internal criteria is still unsatisfactory since it only sidesteps and does not resolve the issue of rival truth claims among the religions.132 The resolution of this impasse can only be found in a critical awareness of the inescapability of the tradition-specificity of one’s views, rather than a misguided effort to seek a foundational Archimedean “objective” point outside of all religions.133 In recognizing the tradition-bound nature of all criteria, he proposes that their utility increases with the degree of their specificity even as they might become less “neutral.”134



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Seen in this light, his proposal for a distinctly Catholic Trinitarian theology of religions can be read as an unapologetic attempt based on the premise that his specific proposals could have applicability not only for his theological constituency but for non-Catholics and even non-Christians. As he puts it, his is an attempt “to establish a Trinitarian orientation to the question of other religions which is . . . open and faithfully committed to its tradition-specific way of narrating to the world,” which in his case is the establishment of a “Roman Catholic Trinitarian” one, and he welcomes even non-Christians to engage critically with his proposal.135 The particularity pole found within Trinitarian Christology thus enables him from the outset not only to acknowledge the auto-particularity of his tradition-specific position thoroughly, but also to recognize and engage with the religions in their distinctive existences as specific, concrete social-religious realities. Christ as the Universal Fulfillment of Religions D’Costa’s assertion of historical, particular Christology contains an additional layer of the universality of Christ, for otherwise such a Christianity would suggest a denial of the universal agency of God. Nor does he posit any separation between this universality from its particularity, and it is this qualification that distinguishes his theology of religions from that of Dupuis, who makes the same claim but also suggests there is a work of the Logos asarkos apart from that of the Logos ensarkos.136 In a series of pointed questions, D’Costa queries the relationship between Christ and the religions and its implications for Christianity and the church: If salvation is possible outside Christ/Christianity, is [sic] the uniqueness of Christ and the universal mission of the Church called into question? Or if salvation is not possible outside Christ/Christianity, is it credible that a loving God would consign the majority of humankind to perdition, often through no fault of their own? Can Christians learn from other faiths? Can they be enriched rather than diluted or polluted from this encounter?137

When faced with the second of these four questions, we begin by noting that, as discussed earlier, D’Costa is extremely reluctant to contemplate the possibility of an affirmative answer, that God would allow millions of innocent people to fall into perdition. He notes that from medieval times the RCC has unvaryingly taught that people who die “without actually rejecting the Gospel and who follow the natural law in their hearts and actions are not condemned to perdition.”138 This category of persons includes, chronologically, the philosophers of antiquity, holy pagans of Old Testament times, Old Testament Israelites, and since the discovery of the New World people of other religions,

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which could be understood analogically as the holy pagans.139 On a personal level, he is repulsed by the idea of such an unjust and tyrannical God, arguing instead that the biblical “God of infinite love, mercy, and justice surely could not condemn the majority of humankind to perdition, most of whom have never even heard the gospel, let alone rejected it.”140 This then leaves him to grapple with the first question, and to attempt to seek a resolution in which an affirmative answer may be provided to its first part without compromising the uniqueness of Christ or abandoning the role of the Church. His solution involves the modification of a strand of traditional Catholic theology in which religions are seen as praeparatio evangelicae and Christ as their universal fulfillment, that is, fulfillment theory.141 The significance of the Christ event for all other religions is such that any elements of truth and holiness found within them are ultimately fulfilled in him, as AG 9 emphasized.142 In addition, post–Vatican II, RM 29 showed John Paul II held to fulfillment theory.143 Thus, religions as preparation ascribes a preliminary theological role to them but not to the extent of granting them status as independent vehicles of salvation, for that would detract from the unicity of salvation found in Christ. However, despite rejecting religions as salvific per se, D’Costa is against the notion that only common grace can be found within them, asserting, “supernatural saving grace is operative in other religions.”144 Thus, while he holds to a general/special revelation distinction, he does not subscribe to a division of common and salvific grace found correspondingly in the religions and Christianity.145 To him, the Vatican II assertion that supernatural revelation can only be related to Christian scripture has delimited the other religions to being bearers of natural revelation, yet imbued with elements of supernatural grace. This is seen in NA 2’s restriction of the term revelationem (revelation) to Old Testament Judaism (which is sui generis related to Christianity) rather than Islam or other religions and corroborated by DV 14–16.146 However, this does not deny the possibility of the Spirit’s activity in the religions as giving rise to “inspired” texts to be found within them, though D’Costa reasons these cannot be regarded as canonical but do suggest a future potential given that Christ is the eschatological end point of contact for saved non-Christians.147 The assertion that salvific grace must be available to all is also in line with post-DI theology, which reasons that the saving activity of the Spirit in other religions implies the presence of supernatural salvific grace in them correspondingly. Thus, in response to Ruokanen and others’ position that (1) all creation shares in universal but not saving grace and (2) this implies religions are at best preparations that require culmination in Christ and his church, D’Costa notes that DI would agree with the latter assertion but oppose the former, and he argues this was the stance of Ratzinger and Balthasar.148



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While Christ is viewed as the fulfillment of all religions, this position is held in tension with the previous assertion that Jesus is the radical norm whom the elements of truth found in other religions are measured against. The construal of the relationship between continuity and discontinuity thus becomes crucial, and here D’Costa argues that a properly formulated fulfillment theory should begin with a recognition that the continuity found between other religions and Christ must be appropriated based on a greater discontinuity between them.149 This is in line with the Thomist principle of maior dissimilitude, which is the idea “that any similarity between God and creation is known only within the infinitely greater difference between the two” (emphasis original),150 and suggests that positive religious elements cannot “contradict the reality of God’s transformative life inaugurated in Jesus” but will themselves be transformed radically in the process instead.151 This construction of a fundamentally disproportionate relationship between Christianity and the other religions such that radical discontinuity always outweighs the continuity with them explains how in his view of revelation the “seeds of the Word” in other religions, even if these are prone to distortion, misinterpretation, and denial, may continue to be affirmed along with the Christ event, which establishes its own “discontinuity” with all other possible revelatory figures in history. In summary, we may read a fundamental theme of D’Costa’s theology as the consistent affirmation of an asymmetrical relationship of continuity and discontinuity between Christianity and the religions, with a desire to avoid lapsing into either undifferentiated similarity or absolute dissimilarity. This understanding of the relations between grace and nature prevents the conflation of both as it guards against a descent into anthropocentrism by respecting the infinite greatness of God. It is significant that while the earlier D’Costa identified with Rahner, he subsequently questions whether his transcendental anthropology conflates grace and nature.152 This critique was also directed against two Asian Catholic theologians, Pieris and Wilfred, for leaning toward Pelagianism.153 Ultimately, his position is one that guards against an overly dualistic conception of nature and grace, as per Ruokanen’s analysis,154 as he prefers the more nuanced understanding expressed by Williams.155 Trinitarian Pneumatology (Particularity-in-Universality) The Universal Spirit as Presence of God in Other Religions Coordinate to Trinitarian Christology, D’Costa puts forth the thesis that Trinitarian Pneumatology allows particularity to be related to universality. He

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reasons that “the doctrine of the Holy Spirit allows us theologically to relate the particularity of the Christ event to the entire history of humankind.”156 While Jesus Christ is the final cause of salvation, it is the Spirit who relates this salvific activity universally and thus potentially admits other religions to participate in this salvation. Theologically, it is grounded in an assumption that, given God’s universal salvific will revealed in Christ, one may presuppose that his divine activity continues, as the Word and Spirit have been active in human history since creation. Following the trajectory of Conciliar and post-Conciliar developments closely, D’Costa argues that the Vatican II documents provide further support that the Spirit is present in the religions through GS 22, which maintains the possibility of the association of the paschal mystery universally to all through the Spirit.157 We noted in chapter 1 that this article relates only at an individual level and not to religious traditions per se. That D’Costa would be able to find an explicit reference to “cultures outside the explicit and visible church” can be explained by an earlier argument he made that humans are complex social-historical creatures such that any divine grace is always mediated through a person’s culture and religion.158 To him, the individual can never be divorced from her historical context and traditions, whether Christian or non-Christian. For this reason, he contends against Webster’s view of Scripture for being unable to check individualism and argues instead for sola scriptura et ecclesia.159 Similarly, theologians associated with the Radical Orthodoxy group are critiqued for attempting to provide a church theology with “no ‘accountability’ to any real church.”160 This tradition is specifically understood as contained within the Catholic understanding, as seen in his arguments against Moore for proposing a Christocentric realism that “downplays the mediating role of the church.” In his rebuttal, Moore argues that though he accepts the mediating role of the church, what D’Costa wants to establish is a Catholic instantiation, which, he contends, is not supported by Scripture.161 For D’Costa, RM 28 bolsters his case for the universality of the Spirit since it states explicitly that the Spirit works not only at the level of the individual’s heart but also in “structural and social terms.”162 While the exact manner of the Spirit’s presence was left unspecified in the Conciliar documents, he argues this presence should not be taken as an a priori assertion but rather as a cautious affirmation that “the Holy Spirit may be actively present in other religions,”163 and one has to be “extremely reticent about any abstract talk of the ‘Spirit in other religions’” (emphasis original) since this can only be determined through an act of discernment involving the church community.164 We will have occasion to discuss the ecclesiological implications shortly, but it will suffice to note D’Costa’s point here is that Christians should not regard religions as being devoid of God’s presence but approach them with



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the assumption that God could be present in them through his Spirit, which will only be confirmed by a posteriori engagements, though this presence should not be misconstrued as the Spirit being an alternative to Christ, or him divested of his relationship with Christ, which was one of the criticisms he levelled against pluralistic theologians.165 Hence, against Knitter, who has argued that salvation should revolve primarily around a concern for the wellbeing of humanity, D’Costa counters that this approach should be rejected for being vacant of any Christological content.166 The possible presence of the Spirit in the religions, therefore, necessitates a thorough reevaluation of their theological status. We have already seen how D’Costa subscribes to traditional Catholic fulfillment theory. Here we note further his reference to the Conciliar documents to suggest that religions should be seen as an acknowledgment of a universal human quest for answers to the most profound questions of life and not merely the product of a general anthropological sinful condition.167 On the one hand, while he does not deny that sin and error can be found within them, he recognizes the Spirit’s work as the source of all such questing, and this elevates religions into the role of potential dialogue partners for Christianity that the church may fruitfully learn from.168 On the other hand, as the previous chapter has also noted, he interprets the Conciliar documents as firmly silent regarding other religions as independent means to salvation, attributing this to the presence of error within them, and he even suggests this silence be seen as a prohibition of such an idea.169 The silence of the documents could only be read as affirmative by those who posit an extremely close relationship between grace and nature,170 as it was a deliberate statement against pluralism and inclusivism without denying that religions contain much good.171 D’Costa interprets the debate between Balthasar and Rahner on the “anonymous Christian” as being resolved by the Conciliar documents, which suggest “the Balthasar side of the debate should be favored.”172 In summary, D’Costa’s position toward religions may be seen as a delicate attempt to provide a theological rationale of religions as having a “possible providential purpose” (emphasis added)173 without full affirmation or disapproval as he walks the tightrope of justifying de facto pluralism but not falling into the trap of affirming de jure pluralism, which DI has explicitly condemned. As he puts it, DI has put forth a “very nuanced position that refuses to either condemn religions as such or accept them, as such.”174 In general, D’Costa’s work has followed Catholic pronouncements closely such that May suggests his book Meeting is an apologia for DI.175 D’Costa’s explicit adherence to magisterial pronouncements has also led Kärkkäinen to describe Meeting as the “theological ratification of the mainline Catholic standpoint.”176 Finally, given the Spirit’s presence in other religions, D’Costa continues the logical inference when he suggests that one may discern in them the “inchoate

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reality” of the kingdom that is outside the historical church but yet related to it.177 He argues that when one affirms the presence of the Spirit in the world, so too must one affirm the accompanying presence of the kingdom and the church, and he differentiates his view from that of Dupuis, who contends that while both Christ and the presence of the Spirit are related, these need not intrinsically be related either to the kingdom or to the church.178 However, D’Costa is also careful not to draw a strict identification of the kingdom with the church as he is in favor of an integral connection, being aware that the historical church is not yet the church in its eschatological fullness, as GS 44 has acknowledged.179 Since any work of the Spirit in other religions would be apparent from the practices within them, this inchoate reality of the kingdom can be seen in the formation of “gospel values” among their adherents, which include “working for liberation from evil” and “promoting peace, justice, freedom.”180 Concretely, the “fruits of the Spirit” may be discovered within other religions, among which the greatest one is “love,”181 which is evidence of the highest of ethical living within the religions and a manifestation of the revelation found in them.182 In that sense, therefore, the Spirit could be described as inchoately forming children of God within his kingdom, though D’Costa qualifies again that this should not be taken as an affirmation of pluralism or inclusivism.183 The Spirit’s “Invitation to Relational Engagement” The elevation of the status of religions leads to the feasibility of “relational engagement” with them, which is D’Costa’s preferred term for interreligious interaction.184 Here he departs from Milbank, who employs “out-narration,” or MacIntyre, who considers the Other a “rival” but as genuinely interesting in her difference.185 This constructive engagement with religions could only be possible within a Trinitarian framework in which the Other is recognized as genuinely different. At the same time, any efforts to construct interreligious engagement on the basis of anything other than a theological foundation, such as on principles of tolerance and social justice, ought to be rejected.186 As D’Costa puts it, “in the technical form: while the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, the immanent Trinity is not the economic Trinity until the eschaton (emphasis original).”187 This means there could be a Derridean différance or “surplus” that avoids projection or assimilation. At the same time, by positing a surplus, D’Costa distances himself from Rahner’s “vice versa,” which identified the economic and immanent Trinity, and explicitly follows Barth here.188 It is within this “extra” that the role of the Other can be found such that its Otherness can interrogate one’s own Christian self-understanding.189 Within this process of understanding self and



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Other, a distinction is made between engaging with the auto-interpretation of a religion and what D’Costa terms a “legitimate hetero-interpretation” of the Other.190 The justification for the latter can be found in those situations where the auto- and hetero-interpretations of a religion do not coincide, for example, when Christ and the Trinity are not the objects of worship for them, and hence Christians may be justified in making a theological assessment of the religion that differs from how it understands itself.191 To mitigate the danger of domesticating or negating the Other, D’Costa argues for the epistemic priority of auto-interpretation such that hetero-interpretation is always based first on it, in a process similar to someone picking up a second language before engaging with another culture.192 This implies that in the process of relational engagement, while it may be necessary to appreciate the Other through the lens of the self, one first has to allow the Other to speak for itself using its own terms. Hence, he queries whether Heim’s proposal of multiple religious ends does in fact succeed in accepting other religions on their terms.193 Engagement is by no means an uncomplicated process, and there is a constant danger of such engagement becoming an “ill-conceived marriage”; nevertheless, D’Costa argues that this should not deter one but rather propel one to pay more considerable attention because of the difficulties involved.194 While a Trinitarian framework sets the theological architecture for the possibility of engagement, it is the work of the Spirit universally within religions that transforms this task from being feasible or even beneficial into an imperative. Though D’Costa terms this as an invitation, its obligatory nature is evident when he writes that “being inattentive to other religions is a form of idolatry.”195 Insofar as the Spirit is speaking through the religions, ignorance by the church of the promptings of God that could lead her into greater truth and holiness is seen as tantamount to misplaced worship. To illustrate the intrinsic idolatry within this failure, we may observe D’Costa’s exploration of the sensitive issue of interreligious prayer.196 For him, while this endeavor is fraught with difficulties, a “refusal to even consider encountering the mystery of God within the other in shared prayer runs the risk of idolatry, worshipping only the god of our construction” (emphasis added).197 Despite the potential danger of what may seem to be “marital infidelity”—since prayer is essentially communion with God—interreligious prayer could instead be an act of loving risk. This is because prayers from within other religious traditions could be prompted authentically by the Spirit, and interreligious prayer allows Christians to appropriate this gift of seeing the Other pray.198 As an example of this “gift,” D’Costa suggests Christians could benefit from the prayer breathing techniques of Hindus and Buddhists. Recently, he nuanced this point with the caveat that since the object of prayer for different faith traditions is different, there remain serious difficulties with interfaith prayer.199

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Given the a posteriori nature of engagement with the other religions, there is no telling beforehand what lies ahead for the church when it does so, whether she encounters “surprises, beauty, terror, truth, holiness, deformity, cruelty, and goodness.”200 What is clear, however, is that interaction with other religions is no longer a matter of mere spiritual enrichment but a necessity, if the church is to remain faithful to God. The necessity of such engagements can be seen further in the call to bring the “gifts of the Spirit” found within the religions into the fold of the church. In an earlier essay, D’Costa first raised the possibility that the religions themselves may contain resources “to cultivate and promote what St. Paul called the gifts of the Spirit.”201 In Meeting, he quotes John Paul II in RM 29 as stating that the Spirit works when he “implants and develops his gifts in all individuals and peoples, guiding the Church to discover these gifts, to foster them and to receive them through dialogue.”202 We have already noted some ambiguity in D’Costa’s conception of the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. Notwithstanding this, the ecclesiological dimension of the encounter with the religions has been underlined such that the church has the dual function and responsibility of, firstly, discovering the gifts that the Spirit has embedded within other religious structures and, secondly, integrating them into herself inasmuch as these are meant for her holiness through the act of relational engagement. In this context, D’Costa cautions explicitly against any nonecclesial application toward this dual operation by “particular theologians” or “talented individuals.”203 Also, these gifts bear the same spiritual patrimony as those that the Spirit has already endowed within the church through Christ, and they will therefore be continuous, though not repetitive, with existing ones, although here again D’Costa adds the caveat that their specificity can only be determined by particular historical encounters.204 The process of being attentive to the possibility of the gifts of the Spirit through the prayers and practices of the Other is ultimately theological as it implies being open to the possibility of God’s giving of himself.205 To summarize, we may understand D’Costa’s conception of the gifts of the Spirit found in other religions as the Pneumatological analogue of the Christological postulate that the elements of truth and holiness are the results of the “seeds of the Word,” the difference here being that the Spirit does not directly “fulfill” the gifts he has bestowed in the same sense that Christ does the “seeds” in fulfillment theory, although one could perhaps argue the process of bringing them in for the church’s edification is a type of fulfillment for them. The Holy Spirit In the construction of his theology, D’Costa’s Trinitarian Pneumatology expresses a particularity of identity within its universality that fends off what Vanhoozer has called the danger of failing “to distinguish the divine from the



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demonic”206 and serves as a bulwark against any discussion of the Spirit that degenerates into seeing him as a vague, unspecified presence or unrecognizable as the third person of the Trinity. This marks his proposal from those of Panikkar, who so radically reinterprets the Spirit that he becomes a mystical presence with whom there is no possibility of a personal relationship,207 and Hick, for whom real personal distinctions within the Godhead are not applicable.208 The identification of the Spirit as the “Spirit of the Father,” the “Spirit of truth,” and the “Spirit of all creation and culture” places D’Costa’s work squarely within traditional Pneumatology.209 It is also clear that this Spirit who is active in the other religions is the same one who was active “in the Incarnation and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus” and in the church today.210 While this particular identification of the Spirit is apparent throughout D’Costa’s writings, it is especially evident in his exegesis of the four Paraclete passages in John 14–16,211 which provides support for his fundamental thesis that the work of the Spirit is both a Trinitarian and an ecclesiological doctrine.212 Most of D’Costa’s interpreters have missed his exegesis, but an appreciation of his interpretation of these passages is crucial in understanding how he moves from the relations within the Trinity to the church to the Other.213 Beginning by conceding that in these gospel sections, John did not have in mind the Spirit’s activity in the Other214—since this is an assertion found in Conciliar and post-Conciliar pronouncements—D’Costa notes that Jesus’ encouragement to the disciples that they will do “greater works than these” (John 14:12) is based on the existence of a continuing community imbued with the perichoretic indwelling of the Spirit.215 Thus, the first Paraclete passage, which speaks of the Spirit’s indwelling, when taken together with John 1:1 and 18, which highlight the interpenetration of the Father and the Son, implies that the disciples are now participating in the inner Trinitarian love. In return, they are now able to respond by not only loving Jesus but loving as he loved, through the help of the Counselor, who enables them to live out this life in praxis.216 The second Paraclete passage focuses on the words of Jesus to his disciples that the Spirit “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”217 D’Costa suggests that the “all things” should be seen as a deepened understanding of the prior given revelation of God rather than a new truth, drawing on Barrett’s exposition of the text’s idea of “remembrance.” Since the work of the Spirit within the disciples essentially enlarges their understanding of who Christ is without contradicting previous revelation, an extrapolation of his activity to other religions should correspondingly not be misinterpreted as disclosing new revelation.218 The indissoluble link between the work of the Spirit and the work of the Son is emphasized in the third passage, which describes the Spirit as engendering witness to Christ, such that his witness and that of the disciples are not two but one. In

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addition, this passage is cited as positing an often neglected close identification between Christ and the church that any persecution of her is equivalent to one of him, and hence the disciples’ witnessing should be understood through the full corporate sense of the body of Christ, that is, the church.219 The results of this corporate witnessing are inescapable for the world, namely, judgment and salvation, which are two sides of the same theological coin. The final Paraclete passage is divided into two separate sections. John 16:7–11 describes the Spirit as convicting the world regarding “sin and righteousness and judgment.”220 Contra those who read this as a sign of the Spirit’s fundamental opposure to the world, D’Costa refuses this sharp contrast and instead perceives an underlying command for the church to love, made manifest by the crucifixion.221 The second part, vv. 12–15, is read as an invitation for the church to participate in the divine life through the Spirit, a life that requires dying to the old to usher in the new, and which brings forth the practice of “vulnerable love.”222 Because this love is the visible expression of the inner life and reality of the church, her sacramental nature is asserted and the Catholic sacraments presented as rites that exemplify this new life. Nevertheless, the possibility of new practices that may evince this new life is not excluded.223 Finally, D’Costa summarizes that these gospel passages suggest that the activity of the Spirit, being the one who mutually indwells the Father and Son and presently within the disciples, now calls for a renewed self-understanding of the church to “follow Jesus’ command to love as Jesus has loved.”224 The theological links are therefore connected—the church who participates in the divine life has been called fundamentally to love such that the full movement of love from within the Trinity to the church to the Other can be made complete. As D’Costa puts it, ultimately, “perichoretic relations do not stop at the boundaries of the church” and especially not love.225 In another essay, he arrives at the same imperative of love, that through our communion with God, “love of neighbor is co-essential with the love of God” (emphasis original), and “neighbor” here specifically refers to each person that the Christian meets or is related to.226 Thus, this love for the Other, which has its source and shape in Jesus, is rendered possible by the indwelling of God’s love in the power of his own Spirit.227 Trinitarian Ecclesiology (Dialectic between Particularity and Universality) Religions as Fulfillment for the Church The preceding sections have focused on the universal and particular dimensions of both Christology and Pneumatology, and these are brought together



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and dialectically related in ecclesiology since the “universal activity of the Spirit is not to be separated from his particular activity within the Body of Christ, which is the Church.”228 This emphasis on the church has been described as one of D’Costa’s distinct contributions to the theology of religions.229 We recall that given his positive view of the religions and the affirmation of elements of truth and goodness inherent within them, but weighed against a desire to avoid granting them status as independent salvific vehicles, a theological explanation for the existence of what is laudable within the Other became necessary. His solution has been to follow traditional Catholic fulfillment theology by suggesting Christ as the fulfillment of all religions. However, this fulfillment can never be dichotomized from the church as the Body of Christ, for it is only in the concrete historical encounter with the church that religions are fulfilled. At the same time, this fulfillment could spell possible destruction for some of its elements through the process of dialogue and encounter with Christianity. D’Costa reasons that for a non-Christian religion this is “its most profound fulfillment which may, nevertheless, signal its destruction (viz. its loss of original context).”230 This point is crucial in interpreting D’Costa’s position, which seeks both not to domesticate the Other and to avoid the suggestion that the church is only one among many alternate instrumental means of salvation. At the same time as religions are fulfilled by the church, so too are they fulfillment for the church. Here we come to another significant aspect of D’Costa’s theology, a dialectical view of fulfillment. Over and against the traditional Catholic view of fulfillment as unilateral, he makes the point as far back as TRP that dialogue is both inter- and intrareligious, such that Christianity “becomes fulfilled in and through dialogue and the process of indigenization which accompanies dialogue.”231 Later, he writes similarly that “Christianity is itself fulfilled in its deepening understanding of Christ and the ways of the Holy Spirit.”232 Thus, while religions are fulfilled by Christ through the church, at the same time the church is fulfilled by the existence of the religions, which is a continual reminder that “there is more to God than the Church.”233 For theological support, he interprets GS 44’s emphasis on the church being “enriched by the development of human social life” as an endorsement of this view, and he agrees with Congar’s assessment that the section does not sanction modernity per se.234 This notion of bilateral fulfillment differs from Rahner’s idea of unidirectional fulfillment235 of other religions through their encounter with Christianity and suggests an enduring relevance for them.236 D’Costa has gone as far as to charge Catholic views of one-sided fulfillment as its “greatest weakness,” and that the church risks being unfaithful to God in neglecting mutual fulfillment.237 The implications for the church are concrete, as it may involve changes in Christian practice

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that are nonpredictable beforehand until the other religions are encountered.238 The alternative would mean that instead of genuinely meeting with the religions, one faces only a mirror image of the self in the Other. Thus, the dialectical nature of fulfillment is revealed in that the presence of the Spirit in non-Christians is both a promise and a judgment to the church, and engagement completes the movement from the Other into the life of the church and participation in the life of the Trinity.239 As an illustration of the own continuing need of the church for fulfillment, D’Costa points to the uncompleted work of missions and indigenization of the Christian faith among other cultures.240 He suggests that overly sharp distinction drawn among mission, dialogue, and inculturation hinders rather than helps since the former two activities are intrinsically related and lead to the third, and all three depend on an authentic engagement with the Other.241 While the theological justification for missions by the church is straightforward, the relationship between it and dialogue requires some explication.242 D’Costa argues that dialogue is inextricable from mission since the proclamation of the gospel necessarily requires a prior understanding of the Other through dialogue.243 This is contra Milbank, whose suspicion of the notion of “religion” and the belief that dialogue may allow access to truth leads him to conclude that Christianity should simply proclaim its vision through mission without it.244 In contrast, he asserts one could very well hear “the strange voice of God in the Other” (emphasis original) in dialogue as well as in missions, since in both the church is faced with the possibility of meeting the Other as one who may implicitly know God.245 For the church then, mission and dialogue suggest she may meet judgment that is a judgment by the Spirit himself.246 As for indigenization or inculturation, historically, the RCC has understood this work as entailing the adoption of elements from another tradition according to the narrative structure and rules of Christianity itself, much as how Aquinas interpreted Aristotle.247 While there is a legitimate need to be cautious of anthropocentric attempts at representing the truth of revelation, the process of inculturation is justifiable as there may be elements within other religions that require incorporation into a catholic and universal church while avoiding the Scylla of “uncritical assimilation” and the Charybdis of “uncritical imperialism.”248 Hence, in a comparison of Andrei Rublev’s iconic painting The Trinity with the Catholic Indian artist Sahi’s Abraham and Sarah Receiving the Three Angels, D’Costa observes that Hindus charged Sahi with desecration when he used the Hindu trimurti in his work while Catholics accused him of importing a Hindu idol into the church, but he concludes that not taking this risk actually leads to “false cultural and religious purity.”249 As such, he is critical of Wilfred’s theology of inculturation, which, while rightly suspicious of unexamined Western thought forms in Indian theology,



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eventually reveals an excessive prioritization of the liberation of the poor of India at the expense of the gospel.250 On the other hand, the example of the Syrian Christian Church in Southern India with unchanged practices since the third century misses the incarnational message and represents a type of imperialism.251 Notwithstanding these dangers, the continuing task of inculturation illustrates the need for fulfillment of the church, as in the process she listens carefully to the voice of the Spirit speaking to her through the Other and deepens her understanding of Christ.252 The Ecclesial Discernment of “Christ-likeness” in the Other In our discussion on the kingdom of God, we observed that D’Costa suggests that the Spirit was “‘inchoately’ forming children of God celebrating God’s kingdom.”253 This precipitates an inference that there is a possibility of “Christ-like” behavior to be found in the adherents of other faiths, and is supported by an analogy between the intra-ecclesial and extra-ecclesial work of the Spirit. D’Costa states that the work of the Spirit outside the church is “to help make women and men more Christ-like, individually and in community, however frustrated and thwarted” (emphasis original).254 Theologically, we can interpret this as a logical culmination of the intersection of the Spirit’s universal activity in the Other with the work of the particular Christ to engender Christ-likeness, or equally read it as the work of the universal Christ, who is the fulfillment of religions, in the Other through the agency of his particular Spirit.255 D’Costa has also acknowledged the influence of Milbank, who argues that the “imitation of Christ” should not be seen in Platonic terms as the exact copying of an original through the repetition of a historical practice or ideal. Instead, it involves a form of “non-identical repetition” such that “what is repeated is not an insight . . . but a formal becoming, a structured transformation.”256 Since different Christians find themselves in varying historical contexts, this implies that being faithful to God is not a mere repetition of Jesus as though recalling a past event, but a “non-identical repetition of . . . this saving transformation.”257 Such a calibrated view of the imitation of Christ then opens the door for Christians to perceive new forms of practices that the Spirit may be generating, and this includes recognizing the possibility of seeing the “likeness of Jesus in others.”258 This claim of Christ-like behavior is balanced with the caution to guard against an uncritical assumption that every new practice is prompted by the Spirit, for that would effectively conflate the Spirit and the world.259 The converse pitfall to avoid is to isolate a specific set of practices out of its historical context and perceive its facsimile in every culture, which was the danger of Trent’s sacramental theology, though Vatican II has since achieved a more contextual balance.260

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Although such Christ-likeness may be found among other religious followers, even to the extent that they could colloquially be called “saints,” D’Costa himself registers an extreme reluctance about calling them so given the technical usage of the term within the RCC.261 In a discussion of Stuart’s proposal262 to canonize non-Catholics, he argues against it by noting that canonization is an intra-ecclesial act that marks one as conforming to the Christian faith.263 This implies the canonizing of a non-Catholic could only be the result of a disregard of the religious self-understanding of the Other, and tantamount to an imperialistic projection of the self onto others. In addition, the Catholic view of sainthood includes the cult of veneration and communion with the saint such that the faithful could grow in the Catholic faith, and this could present difficulties in identifying the exact miracles that the non-Christian saint is supposed to have performed. Hence, while he is in sympathy with a transreligious understanding of the concept of holiness, he argues that the most one can say is that a “saint-type” has been found in other religious traditions.264 As concrete examples, he compares the lives of Roop Kanwar, a Hindu devi (female goddess), and Edith Stein, a Catholic saint, and notes similarities between them in that both sought to accrue transferential merit for others. Stein, a German Jew, considered Christ her husband and saw her death as atoning for not only her sins but also the sins of the church, the German people, and the Jewish people. For Kanwar, the death of her husband triggered a series of events that results in her sati (voluntary self-immolation) on his funeral pyre, which was viewed within Hinduism as merit accrued by her and transferrable to her husband to release him from hell.265 Though D’Costa finds sati profoundly abhorrent, nevertheless he realizes this could be interpreted intrasystematically as a legitimate attempt by a woman to transcend a profoundly patriarchal tradition in choosing no longer to be a victim but a savior, even at the expense of her death.266 Thus, despite an unwillingness to describe a non-Catholic as a saint, he acknowledges the possibility of an analogical similarity with Stein’s example such that some elements of holiness may be found in the practices of Hinduism.267 Finally, the task of discerning Christ-like behavior in the world is the responsibility of the church. D’Costa writes, “The Spirit in the church allows for the possible (and extremely complex and difficult) discernment of Christlike practice in the Other, and in so much as Christ-like activity takes place, then this can also only be through the enabling power of the Spirit.”268 Ecclesial discernment is not an autonomous activity that the church undertakes but one wholly reliant on the Spirit, who works in her to enable identification of his work within the Other. Like the gifts of the Spirit, such Christ-like behavior may be either generated in line with their religious self-understanding or emerge through resistance to their traditions, since the work of the Spirit



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cannot be stymied or thwarted.269 Unlike the gifts, there is no mention of the need to receive them into the church through mutual engagement; instead, the existence of these “holy lives” outside the church is sufficient evidence of the Spirit’s activity and part of the larger exercise of discerning God in the world, as this ultimately brings the church more fully into the presence of the Trinity.270 The possibility exists, however, that the church may completely fail to recognize such behavior when it has been manifested before her, or even persecute its practitioners, as in the case of Joan of Arc, who has since been recognized as a saint. Such difficulties should not obviate the need for the church’s continuing discernment of such behavior in the Other, but instead serve as a warning against any form of triumphalism by her and remind her of the constant need for the guidance of the Spirit.271 The Fate of the Unevangelized—Limbo of the Just Within his theological framework of religions, D’Costa maintains the view that the religious traditions of others are not to be regarded as salvific vehicles for their faithful adherents, while holding simultaneously to the position that there remains unambiguously the availability of salvific grace for the nonChristian, especially one who is invincibly ignorant. This leads to the question of how ultimately a non-Christian is saved if not through her religion. As a possible answer, as noted earlier, D’Costa suggests the potential of a postmortem solution, marking a shift from a previous antipathy toward it in which he had described it as another “implausible ‘epicycle.’” 272 This could be due to the influence of Rahner, who asserted that “private revelations” at the time of death are improbable as it goes against the social-historical nature of humans.273 Thus, the earlier D’Costa spoke against Lindbeck’s proposal274 of an inter- or postmortem solution on the grounds that this would diminish the historical and social nature of persons.275 This is contrasted with his later position, in which he finds Lindbeck’s suggestion of a postmortem encounter with Christ “deeply attractive” and actually implied in his tradition.276 While not an explicitly Trinitarian proposition, D’Costa’s solution does involve the church, both for the non-Christian and for unbaptized children. In a recent proposal, he argues that through an analogical utilization of the patristic concept of the “limbo of the just,” one could fruitfully address the question of the fate of the religious Other.277 While this limbo has been traditionally accepted within Catholicism as an empty state after Christ’s descent, he suggests that this was based on a medieval assumption that the gospel was accessible to all, which has been shown to be false given the multitudes of people who have never heard the gospel.278 Building on an early church tradition that Christ’s “descent into hell” was to preach the gospel to those who

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had died before the incarnation, that is, to the limbo of the just, a case could be argued that in an analogical sense those non-Christians who have never heard the gospel could qualify to be in this limbo just like the early Fathers.279 Hence, there remains a conceptual function for this limbo that would allow the non-Christian to enter a relationship with Christ and the church and possibly gain entrance into heaven immediately.280 At the same time, D’Costa rejects the possibility of a purgatorial solution for a nonculpable non-Christian. He counters DiNoia’s proposal that the nonChristians could possibly be in purgatory by arguing that purgatory is a state of purification only for Christians who are already justified and destined for heaven but still encumbered by sin.281 In addition, since purgatory is a state that does not allow for fundamental decisions, then given the preparatory role of religions, any non-Christian found in purgatory would suggest that her religion was in complete continuity with Christianity, or at least a partial means to salvation, neither of which are satisfactory conclusions for Catholic theology.282 Given the theological difficulties of appropriating the concept of purgatory for this purpose, the limbo of the just provides a more plausible solution to the fate of the unevangelized. Oakes argues, on grounds similar to D’Costa’s, that DiNoia’s solution of purgatory grants to nonbelievers a specifically Christian grace and veers toward a pluralist position.283 Another proposal, Christ’s “descent into hell” on Holy Saturday put forth by Balthasar, was similarly discounted. Oakes considers Balthasar’s solution preferable because it preserves both the universality of God’s salvific will and the centrality of Christ without suggesting “the non-baptized have somehow received a grace that lets them escape hell and get into purgatory.”284 In response, D’Costa argues that any suggestion that all non-Christians are damned to hell only to be saved by Christ ignores the Catholic position that salvific elements of grace may be found outside the church as well as the view that religions are to be regarded as praeparatio evangelicae.285 In addition, the Balthasarian formulation veers close to suggesting that Christ was ontologically God-forsaken and leads to a separation in being from his divinity, implying a rupture in the inner-Trinitarian life of God. Ultimately, while Balthasar’s approach is novel and not to be rejected because it is so, D’Costa argues that it is problematic on Christological and Trinitarian grounds.286 Further, D’Costa argues that his proposal of limbo for the just has the additional merit of not requiring a postmortem conversion.287 Thus, it does not abrogate the historical decisions made by peoples as they participate in the building of God’s kingdom in inchoate ways when they seek truth and holiness, nor does it contradict the traditional teaching of an ultimate binary fate for all. Instead of “conversion,” the process is more akin to one of coming to maturation, or even possibly the immediate enjoyment of the beatific vi-



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sion.288 Allowance is therefore made both for a newness of the relationship with Christ and continuity with the decisions made premortem.289 As for the role of the church in this process, he draws on Sullivan’s suggestion that her prayers and penance for the salvation of the world are instrumental in the salvation of all.290 Finally, D’Costa attempts a resolution to the question of the children’s limbo. Analyzing the 2007 ITC report on “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptized,” he notes that the commission suggested unbaptized infants could be analogically related to martyrs since they were not excluded from the benefits of salvation despite some being unbaptized.291 In response, he suggests that this is problematic since no intentionality was involved in their death, unlike martyrs.292 However, just as infants could be baptized without their consent through the intentionality of their parents, then the prayers of the church for all unbaptized infants’ “baptism” could qualify as a condition for in voto baptism, and therefore there remains the possibility that unbaptized infants will ultimately be saved rather than remain in limbo.293 Preliminary Assessment of D’Costa’s Theology of Religions The above discussion has presented a systematic explication of D’Costa’s “Trinitarian exclusivism” based on a universality–particularity lattice with an inner dimension of particularity–universality respectively as implied in his writings. In assessing his theology, we note immediately that his appraisal of the religions allows for an enhanced appreciation of their Otherness, as well as provides a platform for theological engagement with them without any diminishing of self-identity. However, the chief significant merit of his proposal is his willingness to affirm a single economy of salvation by the triune persons. While a full assessment of his theology of religions as a Trinitarian formulation awaits in the fourth chapter, it will suffice to reiterate here that he places a strong emphasis on the Spirit being understood only in reference to Christ, and that his activity is related to the paschal mystery of Christ.294 This distinguishes his proposal from that of other Trinitarian theologians of religions who have elaborated theirs based on a presupposition of a separate economy of the Spirit. A key point of discussion has been the filioque clause.295 Lai, for example, has argued that an affirmation of filioque leads to a subordination of the Spirit to the Son and underlies the inherent problem in Western Trinitarianism of an inability to affirm the possibility of salvation apart from the gospel.296 Yong also identifies this clause as significant and has rejected the suggestion that the Spirit proceeds jointly from the Father and the Son in his formulation of a Pneumatological theology of religions by asserting he has a separate economy.297 Pinnock notes that those who propound a

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Pneumatological theology of religions have tended to reject filioque, and he himself takes that position.298 As Kärkkäinen has rightly remarked, the single economy of the Spirit and the Son safeguards the specificity of the Spirit in any talk of him within a Trinitarian context.299 While D’Costa has not explicitly affirmed filioque, his implicit acceptance seen in the assertion of a single economy is more promising inasmuch as it seeks to associate the activity of the Spirit and the work of Christ, though ultimately the degree of his success remains to be evaluated.300 Still, there remain some critical issues that require further examination and exploration, as we shall now discuss. Firstly, since D’Costa’s Trinitarian understanding of the religions is closely aligned to the mainline Catholic position analyzed in the previous chapter, it is highly dependent on his interpretation of the scope of the Conciliar and post-Conciliar documents. While he has canvassed a vast range of documents to support his position that religions per se are not seen as salvific, one surprising omission is DP 29, which contains what amounts to an affirmation of the salvific value of religious traditions when it states that “the mystery of salvation reaches out to them. . . . Concretely, it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions . . .” (emphasis added). Several theologians, including Dupuis, Knitter, Plaiss, and Mendonsa, have interpreted this section as containing the clearest magisterial indication that salvation for others is attained through “the sincere practice of what is good” in their own religions by the activity of the Spirit.301 However, any sustained explicit analysis of this article is absent from Meeting, or from his other works. At the same time, he displays an awareness of the direct implications of this specific section in his review of Dupuis’s work, in which he observes that Dupuis correctly concluded from it that religions do mediate salvation through their structures rather than despite them.302 Schmidt-Leukel too concludes that D’Costa’s position that religions contain elements of truth and grace, implying they are a preparation for the gospel, is in direct conflict with DP 29, but unfortunately the point is not taken up in his rebuttal.303 In a recent essay, D’Costa again notes that Dupuis’s hypothesis that other religions could be legitimate paths of salvation was drawn from post-Conciliar documents, especially DP 29; however, he himself does not discuss it in detail except to note that the drafters of the article included Dupuis, though he concedes that does not affect its authoritative status.304 Given the implications and significance of this documentary section for the salvific status of religions, an exposition in his work about his interpretation of DP 29 and its theological place among the post-Conciliar pronouncements for the Catholic theology of religions would be illuminating. Secondly, in terms of the inner consistency of his theology, we question whether the limbo of the just is a theologically coherent position to locate the



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postmortem state of the nonculpable non-Christian for the following three reasons. Firstly, taking the four states of hell in Roman Catholic doctrine, while D’Costa is not willing to locate her in purgatory, for that would suggest she has been saved before death and therefore lead to the elevation of her religion to a salvific vehicle, he is similarly unwilling to locate her in hell as he is adamant she could be saved under Catholic doctrine.305 However, placing her in the limbo of the just raises a similar intractable difficulty, for it suggests the non-Christian occupies a theological position analogous to the Old Testament Fathers, which contravenes D’Costa previous assertion of a sui generis relationship between Old Testament Judaism and Christianity. D’Costa argues that he does not intend to diminish this relationship and that his view is supported by patristic interpretations of 1 Peter 3:18–4:6, including by Clement of Alexandria.306 Even if we bracket the hermeneutical difficulties associated with this passage, there is a risk here of obscuring a crucial difference between the Fathers and the non-Christian. While the former are the recipients of supernatural revelation, the latter, as D’Costa has previously reasoned, should be analogously seen as having “the possibility of general revelation . . . but not special or saving revelation.”307 This is further supported by NA 2’s restraint on applying the term revelationem (revelation) only to Old Testament Judaism and not to other non-Christian religions.308 Hence, locating the postmortem state of the non-Christian within limbo runs the risk of downplaying the special revelation received by the Fathers as well as overly elevating the significance of the general revelation she has received and casts doubts on the ability of D’Costa’s system to preserve a singular Judaism–Christianity relationship. In addition, the limbo of the just is not a theologically appropriate category for the non-Christian because, unlike the Old Testament Fathers, she has not exhibited a premortem explicit faith response to the covenant promises of God that are subsequently revealed in the New Testament to be centered on Jesus Christ. As D’Costa describes UAE, one of its requirements is fides ex auditu, that is, a faith response upon hearing the gospel.309 He further argues that in the postmortem state, the nonculpable non-Christian will encounter Christ in his descent, thereby satisfying this condition of fides.310 However, this confuses the situation since the theological basis for the Old Testament Fathers being in limbo was because they had already exhibited fides through the hearing of God’s Word proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets.311 In patristic theology, limbo, therefore, served as a conceptual device to explain how these Fathers were saved, based upon, among other criteria, their faith response, which is ultimately a response to God, just as postmessianic Christians’ responses to Christ are ultimately to God. It would be a theological petitio principii to suggest that the non-Christian, who could not have made

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such a faith response to supernatural revelation, will be in limbo like the Fathers. Finally, D’Costa argues that no postmortem conversion experience is needed for the non-Christian since the fact that she is in limbo suggests “Christ preached to those who would have followed him had they heard the gospel, the just, and so did not require a total change of heart and a full conversion” (emphasis added).312 This seems to suggest there are two possible avenues to salvation, the first being a premortem reception of the gospel message and a subsequent premortem faith response, while the second is based on a form of “middle knowledge” that allows for divine knowledge of who would or would not have accepted the gospel among the unevangelized. However, this invoking of middle knowledge does not seem to preserve the unmerited character of divine grace adequately, for it implies salvation is based on an individual’s potential decision to respond to God rather than God’s sovereign will. The postulate of the existence of the second “path” as a maturation additionally invites the question of whether Christian conversion can be substituted by a series of continuous developments absent of any discontinuity as experienced by those who are on the first “path” through conversion and a second birth.313 There are hence serious difficulties with the proposal of the limbo of the just as a suitable category for the nonculpable non-Christian, and these severely complicate D’Costa’s attempt to utilize it to unite the ontological and epistemological necessities of Christ for salvation for her. This leads us to conclude that in terms of the threefold typology, much of his system remains that of traditional inclusivism. Thirdly, an inner dimension of D’Costa’s theology also requires further elaboration as it contains an underlying assumption, namely, the universality of salvific grace. Beginning in TRP, he writes that underlying the traditional typology were two axioms, namely, “the universal salvific will of God and the claim that it is only in Christ (or his Church) that men and women can be saved” (emphasis original).314 Then, following Rahner’s distinctions, he argues that Christ should be seen as the final cause of God’s salvific will in that his death reveals God’s final purpose, rather than as its efficient cause, or in classical theology, through the satisfaction theory of atonement.315 Subsequently, in his paper “Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions,” this universality axiom is modified as “God loves and desires the salvation of all men and women, thereby emphasizing the universality of grace” (emphasis original).316 We note here an assumption from the initial assertion of a universal divine salvific will to universal divine salvific grace. While the former finds biblical support,317 the transposition from this to the latter seems to conflate the will and grace of God.318 Because of this assertion, “universal salvific grace” is in effect treated as a theological construct decoupled from



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the Christ event and, more crucially, theologically prior to the two economic persons. It is worth noting here an unconstrained view of universal salvific grace may border on apokatastasis or at least pluralism as a logical consequence, though D’Costa himself does not draw such a conclusion.319 In Meeting, the discussion shifted into Trinitarian categories, yet the underlying assumption of universal divine a priori grace remains evident. Firstly, the categories of natural and supernatural grace are collapsed such that all grace is viewed as salvific and universal. Thus, D’Costa describes the grace in other religions as “a praeparatio evangelica though not in terms of a division between the grace of creation and the grace of salvation, or natural and supernatural grace” (emphasis original).320 Then, regarding revelation, salvific grace is seen to be “operative in other religions,” even though they do not possess supernatural revelation, raising the complex question of the exact relationship between this revelation and supernatural grace.321 In terms of the relationship between the divine persons and grace, following John Paul, the Spirit is only briefly discussed as the one “mediating grace to those who seek God sincerely,”322 while the significance of the Christ event in accomplishing this grace is underplayed. Given the assertion of salvific grace to be found universally, the conclusion of “Christ-like” religious Others to be found in the religions is logically inevitable and does not appear to differ in kind from the theory of anonymous Christians, even though D’Costa ultimately rejects Rahnerian transcendental anthropology and posits a closer Spirit–Christ connection. Because of the lack of a clear theological connection between grace with the operations of the Spirit and Christ or with revelation, D’Costa’s subsequent outworking of his theology of religions at times seems more governed by an implicit theology of grace rather than the operations of the divine persons as should befit a Trinitarian theology. Fourthly, D’Costa’s dialectical mode of fulfillment, while granting a theological role for other religions, could run the risk of making relational engagement constitutive of ecclesiology, and have the unintentional effect of turning dialogue as a theological virtue into an ontological necessity. This is especially so when he describes a failure to engage the Other as equivalent to idolatry, a serious but puzzling accusation given this is usually defined as the worship of a false idol. If a neglect by the church of interfaith dialogue is described as idolatry, it begs the question of what false god the church has been seeking as its alternative. That Christians who fail to discern the presence of the Spirit in other religions could be guilty of neglect or even unfaithfulness to God’s call is assertable; however, to describe them as idolatrous is to ascribe to them a deliberate intention to worship a false god and to imply that, hitherto, their understanding of their object of worship had been erroneous, leading to serious implications for the doctrine of the church. In addition, the

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imperative nature of interreligious dialogue for the church could have the inadvertent effect of overly elevating what is essentially life with the Other by bringing it into the very life of the church. Hence, Knitter perceptively describes D’Costa’s proposal for dialectical engagement as equivalent to reasoning that within a marriage faithfulness to each other is dependent on making friends with others.323 The distinction by John XXIII of the ecclesia ad intra and extra mentioned in chapter 1 could be strengthened here to avoid the danger of a conflation of the two and the importation into the internal life of the church of what is essentially its external relations. D’Costa may have overstated his case and turned what is at most a deficiency in theology into a potential heresy. Fifthly, the theological interpretation of the Paraclete passages requires further clarification. D’Costa’s exegesis of the first three passages is generally in line with contemporary understandings. It is when we come to the fourth passage, John 16:7–11, that one finds his analysis perplexing. Here he perceives an implicit command for the Church to love, made manifest by the crucifixion, as he writes, “Those who rightly find in John an unrelenting opposition to the world should be profoundly questioned by the text. The commandment to love is unbearable.”324 Thus, the idea of the Spirit adopting a posture of opposition in this text to the world is rejected, as D’Costa argues instead that the threefold conviction of the world regarding “sin and righteousness and judgment”325 is related to the raised body of Christ. However, most commentators tend to read this text as one of the Spirit’s fundamental conflict with and judgment of the world. Keener describes the primary role of the Spirit in this passage as the “World’s Prosecutor,” while Lincoln calls this section a part of the “continuing trial between God and the world,” as does Beasley-Murray.326 Brown describes v. 8 as the continuation of the work of Jesus by the Paraclete in testifying against the world for its evil deeds, and Johnston notes the function of the Spirit here as no longer the disciples’ advocate but a prosecutor, “listing the charges against the cosmos at the judgment seat of God and securing a conviction.”327 Carson suggests more generally that there are two dualities with the coming of the Spirit/Paraclete. Firstly, there are those who have the Spirit, and those who do not (John 14:17), and secondly, at the time that Jesus was speaking, even the disciples have not received the Spirit yet.328 Hence, there is an inherent polarity contained within this Paraclete passage of the Spirit against the World that is minimized in D’Costa’s interpretation and which belies his contention that here the command to love “is unbearable.” In addition, in his study of John’s description of the Spirit-Paraclete, Johnston argues that this spirit was not meant for the cosmos, which is seen as both the object of love/grace as well as the purview of darkness, but rather for the disciples.329 Thus, he writes that “John locates



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the activity of the spirit within the Church, and is apparently not at all concerned to enquire if the spirit of God operates outside the Church” (emphasis original).330 While an argumentum ex silentio does not entirely invalidate any assertion of the Spirit’s salvific presence in the religions, it does suggest D’Costa’s attempt to invoke these Paraclete passages may not be as theologically fruitful as he expected. The above discussion has presented a preliminary assessment of D’Costa’s Trinitarian theology of religions. While there are significant merits in his proposal, including his appreciation of the Other and his positing of a single economy of salvation, we also noted various points of concern that deserve further clarification. These include his interpretation of post-Conciliar sources, the consistency of the proposal of limbo with his entire system, an underlying assumption of universal salvific grace, the risks of turning external relations with the religions into something constitutive of the inner life of the church, and an overplaying of the theme of love and, correspondingly, an underplaying of judgment in the final Paraclete passage. With this analysis in mind, in the next chapter we will switch tracks and move from a contemporary theologian to a patristic one, Basil of Caesarea, to highlight main features of classical Trinitarianism for a comparison of their two theologies in the final chapter.

NOTES 1.  From his Bristol University faculty webpage, https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/persons/gavin-g-dcosta(0a9d8782-e5f7-4f10-a973-c83542bb7fb0).html, which contains a comprehensive list of his significant published works, only omitting a Gregorianum paper and some recent articles. See G. D’Costa, “The Trinity and Other Religions: Genesis 18, Judaism and Hinduism in Two Works of Art,” Gregorianum 80, no. 1 (1999): 5–31. Also D’Costa, “Hermeneutics and the Second Vatican Council’s Teachings”; G. D’Costa, “The Holy Spirit and the World Religions,” Louvain Studies 34, no. 4 (2009–2010): 279–311. I am particularly grateful to Prof. D’Costa for drawing my attention to the last paper. 2.  J. Hick, John Hick: An Autobiography (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 254. For a brief autobiographical profile, see G. D’Costa, P. Knitter, and D. Strange, Only One Way? Three Christian Responses to the Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralistic World (London: SCM Press, 2011), 6–7. Also see G. D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions (Chichester, UK: WileyBlackwell, 2009), x (hereafter cited as CWR). 3.  CWR, 44, 19. Structural inclusivism was previously identified with Rahner’s position. Biesbrouck has also referred to a D’Costa as a “reference point” for the Catholic theology of religions. W. Biesbrouck, “The Use of (Post-)Conciliar Texts in Gavin D’Costa’s Theology of Religions,” Gregorianum 94, no. 4 (2013): 739.

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4.  G. D’Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism: The Challenge of Other Religions (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986); G. D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000); CWR; G. D’Costa, John Hick’s Theology of Religions: A Critical Evaluation (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987). The first and second books will be referred to as TRP and Meeting, respectively. 5.  G. D’Costa, ed., Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990) (cited as CURec); G. D’Costa, ed., Resurrection Reconsidered (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996); S. Gill, G. D’Costa, and U. King, eds., Religion in Europe: Contemporary Perspectives (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1994). 6.  J. Hick and P. F. Knitter, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (London: SCM, 1988), i. 7.  I. S. Markham, “Christianity and Other Religions,” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. G. Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 413. 8.  G. D’Costa, ed., The Catholic Church and the World Religions: A Theological and Phenomenological Account (London: T&T Clark, 2011); D’Costa, Knitter, and Strange, Only One Way?; Karl Josef Becker, Ilaria Morali, Maurice Borrmans, and Gavin D’Costa, eds., Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, FMF (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010). 9. G. D’Costa, Sexing the Trinity: Gender, Culture and the Divine (London: SCM, 2000); G. D’Costa, Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation, CCT (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). 10. In his discussion of “religion,” D’Costa is aware that modernity has constructed a discourse about the religions and follows Peter Harrison’s work on the English Enlightenment in tracing its genealogy. Harrison notes the application of the word during the seventeenth century when “religion” first became an object of study by the Cambridge Platonists toward what is now recognized as the “world religions.” To D’Costa, its subsequent reduction to a private role was the quest of modernity that sought to establish itself as a “new ruling religion.” CWR, 57–62, 74–75; P. Harrison, “Religion” and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59. Thus Küng’s attempt to construct a global ethic was critiqued as bearing the “hallmarks of modernity.” G. D’Costa, “Postmodernity and Religious Plurality: Is a Common Global Ethic Possible or Desirable?,” in The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. G. Ward (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 133; G. D’Costa, “Other Faiths and Christian Ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, ed. R. Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 159; H. Küng, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics, trans. J. Bowden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). He also concurs with McDermott that the philosophies contested by the early Church Fathers may be seen as “religious cultures,” but qualifies that the Fathers did not attend to cultic practices—the analogue of world religions today. G. D’Costa, “Review: God’s Rivals. By Gerald R. McDermott,” Reviews in Religion and Theology 15, no. 2 (2008): 167. 11.  TRP, 4. 12. G. R. Hunsberger, “Review: Theology and Religious Pluralism. By Gavin D’Costa,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 13, no. 2 (1989): 83. Rahn-



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er’s axioms can be found in K. Rahner, “Anonymous Christians”; K. Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” in TI, 5:115–34, reprinted as K. Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” in Christianity and Other Religions, ed. J. Hick and B. Hebblethwaite (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001). 13.  C. H. Pinnock, “Toward an Evangelical Theology of Religions,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33, no. 3 (1990): 360–61. Barrett has noted Pinnock’s indebtedness to Vatican II. J. K. Barrett, “Does Inclusivist Theology Undermine Evangelism?,” Evangelical Quarterly 70, no. 3 (1998): 229–30. Knitter, however, disputes these axioms since pluralists reject the validity of the first. P. F. Knitter, “Making Sense of the Many,” Religious Studies Review 15, no. 3 (1989): 206. 14.  T. S. Perry, Radical Difference: A Defence of Hendrik Kraemer’s Theology of Religions (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001), 13–15. 15.  A. Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 7; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 184n6. Schmidt-Leukel regards a published paper by Hick in the same year as Race as equally influential. P. Schmidt-Leukel, “Pluralist Theologies,” Expository Times 122, no. 2 (2010): 57. D’Costa has also been associated as one of its chief supporters. P. Hedges, “A Reflection on Typologies: Negotiating a Fast-Moving Discussion,” in Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, ed. P. Hedges and A. Race (London: SCM, 2008), 31n2. As a then proponent, D’Costa defended the typology against Markham’s claims that it conflates the conditions for salvation and the reality about the human situation. I. S. Markham, “Creating Options: Shattering the ‘Exclusivist, Inclusivist, and Pluralist’ Paradigm,” New Blackfriars 74, no. 867 (1993): 33; G. D’Costa, “Creating Confusion: A Response to Markham,” New Blackfriars 74, no. 867 (1993): 42. 16.  TRP, 22. 17.  G. D’Costa, “Bibliography: Christian Attitudes towards Other Religions,” Modern Churchman 27, no. 2 (1985): 37–38; G. D’Costa, “The Pluralist Paradigm in the Christian Theology of Religions,” Scottish Journal of Theology 39, no. 2 (1986): 211. 18.  P. F. Knitter, “Review: Theology and Religious Pluralism. By Gavin D’Costa,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56, no. 1 (1988): 142. 19.  Meeting, 19. 20.  TRP, 52. Ariarajah also considers Kraemer influential during a phase of missionary activity that sees the Other as an object of discussion rather than a conversation partner. S. W. Ariarajah, “The Impact of Interreligious Dialogue on the Ecumenical Movement,” in Pluralism and the Religions, ed. J. D. A. May (London: Cassell, 1998), 9–10. 21.  D’Costa, “Bibliography,” 41–43. Barth was once included, but D’Costa soon noted a misfit with these categories. G. D’Costa, “Christianity and Other Religions,” Dialogue and Alliance 2, no. 2 (1988): 42, reprinted as G. D’Costa, “Christianity and Other Religions,” in Many Mansions, ed. D. Cohn-Sherbok (London: Bellew, 1992), 31–43. See also G. D’Costa, “Theology of Religions,” in The Modern Theologians, ed. D. Ford and R. Muers (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 630. 22.  Throughout his works, D’Costa has maintained a strong attack on pluralism. Thus, Hick’s abandonment of the salvation-in-Christ axiom is criticized as undermining the ground for the second axiom of universal salvific will, though Meacock

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defends that salvific desire was present in other religions prior to Christ. D’Costa, “Pluralist Paradigm,” 215; H. Meacock, “An Anthropological Approach to Theology: A Study of John Hick’s Theology of Religious Pluralism, towards Ethical Criteria for a Global Theology of Religions.” (Ph.D, thesis, University of Bristol, 1997), 108. Pluralism is unmasked as the child of “post-Enlightenment rationalism” and as perpetuating “transcendental agnosticism.” G. D’Costa, “Against Religious Pluralism,” in Different Gospels, ed. A. Walker (London: SPCK, 1993), 139; G. D’Costa, “John Hick and Religious Pluralism: Yet Another Revolution,” in Problems in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. H. Hewitt Jr. (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 7–15. Knitter, however, argues that pluralism has multireligious sources despite its Western clothing. P. F. Knitter, “Is the Pluralist Model a Western Imposition?,” in The Myth of Religious Superiority (cited as MRS), ed. P. F. Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005), 30–42. Hick also disputes that pluralism is a product of modernity by noting that it flourished in fifteenth-century India. J. Hick, “Roundtable Review: The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity. By Gavin D’Costa,” Reviews in Religion and Theology 8, no. 3 (2001): 235; J. Hick, “Straightening the Record: Some Response to Critics,” Modern Theology 6, no. 2 (1990): 187–95. D’Costa rebuts that Christian pluralism is a modern phenomenon rather than pluralism per se. G. D’Costa, “Response to Roundtable Review of the Meeting of Religions and the Trinity,” Reviews in Religion and Theology 8, no. 3 (2001): 246–47. This critique is aligned with Adler’s observation that pluralism, tolerance, and liberalism are fundamentally twentieth-century concepts with no antecedents in antiquity. M. J. Adler, Truth in Religion (Toronto: Macmillan, 1992), 1. D’Costa also reasons, contra Loughlin, that if Hick’s observation that one’s religion is dependent on place of birth, this implies all truths are equally valid, which contradicts Hick’s contention that truth may be verified eschatologically. G. Loughlin, “Paradox and Paradigms: Defending the Case for a Revolution in Theology of Religions,” New Blackfriars 66, no. 777 (1985): 129; G. D’Costa, “An Answer to Mr Loughlin,” New Blackfriars 66, no. 777 (1985): 137. Also see his latest critique in G. D’Costa, “Pluralist Arguments,” in Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, ed. K. J. Becker, I. Morali, M. Borrmans, and G. D’Costa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010). Donovan observes that pluralists such as Hick confused epistemic plurality, that is, pluralism as a way to seek truth, with ideological plurality, pluralism is the Truth. P. Donovan, “The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism,” Religious Studies 29, no. 2 (1993): 220–21. 23.  TRP, 64, 69. Daniel Strange, a former student of D’Costa, has defended exclusivism from a reformed evangelical perspective. D. Strange, “Exclusivisms: ‘Indeed Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock,’” in Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, ed. P. Hedges and A. Race (London: SCM, 2008). 24.  TRP, 80. 25. W. G. Phillips, “Evangelical Pluralism: A Singular Problem,” Bibliotheca Sacra 151, no. 602 (1994): 144; J. Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992), 215. 26.  CWR, 7. Stackhouse notes that “an epistemologically (or ‘cognitively’) empty faith is inconceivable,” since a salvific faith requires specific content for its proper orientation. However, later he commends “what is sometimes called an ‘inclusivist’



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position.” J. G. Stackhouse Jr., “Afterword: An Agenda for an Evangelical Theology of Religions,” in No Other Gods before Me?, ed. J. G. Stackhouse Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 196; J. G. Stackhouse Jr., “A Bigger—and Smaller— View of Mission,” Books & Culture: A Christian Review, May–June 2007, 26–27. 27. G. D’Costa, “Inter-Religious Dialog,” in The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, ed. J. J. Buckley, F. C. Bauerschmidt, and T. Pomplun (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 455. His exposition of Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” is in G. D’Costa, “Karl Rahner’s Anonymous Christian—a Reappraisal,” Modern Theology 1, no. 2 (1985): 131–48. He also defended Rahner’s “implicit desire” against Hick’s critique that it left no room for nontheistic religions as being misguided since selfless love exhibited among them is included. G. D’Costa, “John Hick’s Copernican Revolution: Ten Years After,” New Blackfriars 65, nos. 769–70 (1984): 326–27; J. Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (Oxford: Oneworld, 1993), 124. Against Race’s objections to the a priori nature of Rahner’s Christology, he reasons Race is guilty of the same charge when he asserts his Christian beliefs will be “central” in dialogue. A. Race, “Christianity and Other Religions: Is Inclusivism Enough?,” Theology 89, no. 731 (1986): 182–83; G. D’Costa, “Is Inclusivism Enough?,” Theology 89, no. 731 (1986): 386. 28.  D’Costa, “Karl Rahner’s Anonymous Christian,” 132. 29.  D’Costa, “Karl Rahner’s Anonymous Christian,” 133, 135–36. Kilby cautions D’Costa’s defence may have the unintended effect of being perceived as condescending by implying Christians do withhold matters of discussion from non-Christians, and argues the theory need not be excluded in interreligious dialogue. K. Kilby, Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2004), 120–21. 30.  TRP, 111. However, Hick has critiqued inclusivism for inconsistency in affirming that salvation could occur in other religious traditions yet asserting Christ as the sole savior. J. Hick, “The Non-Absoluteness of Christianity,” in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (cited as MCU), ed. J. Hick and P. F. Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 22–23. Geffré also argues it is a form of secret imperialism as it implies whatever is true or holy in other religions is implicitly Christian. C. Geffré, “Christian Uniqueness and Interreligious Dialogue,” in Christian Mission and Interreligious Dialogue (cited as CMID), ed. P. Mojzes and L. J. Swidler (NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 65. Arthur and Richards express doubts if this position does hold together the two axioms. C. Arthur, “West Meets East,” Scottish Journal of Theology 41, no. 02 (1988): 256; G. Richards, “Review: Theology and Religious Pluralism. By Gavin D’Costa,” Religious Studies 23, no. 1 (1993): 155. Griffiths also contends that inclusivist theories “have a low probability of being true.” P. J. Griffiths, “The Properly Christian Response to Religious Plurality,” Anglican Theological Review 79, no. 1 (1997): 24. 31. Surin provides the example of the sixteenth-century Spanish historian Bartolomé de Las Casas, who supported the cause of the South American Indians against Spain’s conquistadors to the extent that he could be seen as a “proto-Rahnerian” inclusivist with respect to the Aztecs, and argues this assimilation of the Other was indistinguishable with pluralism. K. Surin, “A Certain ‘Politics of Speech’: ‘Religious Pluralism’ in the Age of the McDonald’s Hamburger,” Modern Theology 7, no. 1

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(1990): 77. A slightly modified version is found in K. Surin, “A ‘Politics of Speech’: Religious Pluralism in the Age of the McDonald’s Hamburger,” in CURec, 192–212. 32.  G. D’Costa, “Discerning Christ in the World Religions,” in Explorations in Catholic Theology, ed. G. Turner and J. Sullivan (Dublin: Lindisfarne Books, 1999), 125; reprint of G. D’Costa, “Discerning Christ in the World Religions,” Month 27, no. 12 (1994): 486–91. 33.  G. D’Costa, “Trinitarian Différance and World Religions: Postmodernity and the ‘Other,’” in Faith and Praxis in a Postmodern Age, ed. U. King (London: Cassell, 1998), 38. 34.  G. D’Costa, “Other Faiths and Christianity,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, ed. A. E. McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 416. 35.  G. D’Costa, “The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions,” Religious Studies 32, no. 2 (1996): 223. 36.  D’Costa, “Impossibility of a Pluralist View,” 224. From another viewpoint, Thomas suggests pluralism collapses into inclusivism as it is based on an illusory “God’s-eye view” of reality. O. C. Thomas, “Religious Plurality and Contemporary Philosophy: A Critical Survey,” Harvard Theological Review 87, no. 2 (1994): 198. 37.  D’Costa, “Impossibility of a Pluralist View,” 226. 38.  D’Costa, “Impossibility of a Pluralist View,” 232. Robinson concurs. See B. Robinson, “Can Christocentrism Be Sustained in the Face of Competing Religious Claims and Pluralist Christian Objections?,” Global Missiology 2, no. 2 (2005): 8. 39.  “A criteriological typology to analyze different approaches to religious pluralism would perhaps be a more adequate and helpful typology.” D’Costa, “Impossibility of a Pluralist View,” 226. Yong also calls for a shift from the traditional paradigm into a more Pneumatological (and hence Trinitarian) structure. A. Yong, “A P(new) matological Paradigm for Christian Mission in a Religiously Plural World,” Missiology: An International Review 33, no. 2 (2005): 176; A. Yong, “Discerning the Spirit(s) in the World of Religions: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions,” in No Other Gods before Me?, ed. J. G. Stackhouse Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 38. 40.  Meeting, 47. 41.  CWR, 34–35. 42.  CWR, 6. 43.  CWR, 7. 44.  CWR, 30. 45.  S. Bullivant, “Review: Christianity and World Religions. By Gavin D’Costa,” New Blackfriars 91, no. 1032 (2010): 208. 46.  D. L. Okholm and T. R. Phillips, “Introduction,” in Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, ed. D. L. Okholm and T. R. Phillips (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 15–17; C. H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 14–15; Sanders, No Other Name, 37. 47. M. Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, CSCD 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 8–9. 48.  T. W. Tilley, “‘Christianity and the World Religions,’ a Recent Vatican Document,” Theological Studies 60, no. 2 (1999): 323; Perry, Radical Difference, 11.



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49.  J. A. DiNoia, The Diversity of Religions (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 55. 50.  S. M. Heim, Salvations (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 4; S. M. Heim, “Crisscrossing the Rubicon: Reconsidering Religious Pluralism,” Christian Century 108, no. 21 (1991): 690. Despite these reservations, he describes himself as “a convinced inclusivist.” S. M. Heim, The Depth of the Riches (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001), 8. However, Schmidt-Leukel suggests Heim’s own theology of multiple religious ends is actually pluralism in disguise. P. Schmidt-Leukel, “Pluralisms: How to Appreciate Religious Diversity Theologically,” in Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, ed. P. Hedges and A. Race (London: SCM, 2008), 98–99. 51. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 165. This division is adapted from Dupuis. V.-M. Kärkkäinen, “How to Speak of the Spirit among Religions: Trinitarian ‘Rules’ for a Pneumatological Theology of Religions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 30, no. 3 (2006): 126n2. Dupuis’s proposal in turn essentially echoes Schineller’s earlier schema. J. P. Schineller, “Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views,” Theological Studies 37, no. 4 (1976): 450; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 184. However, Hedges observes this typology corresponds to the traditional modes and does not present an alternative vision. Hedges, “Reflection on Typologies,” 24. Wong suggests a combination of both: ecclesiocentric exclusivism, Christocentric inclusivism, and theocentric pluralism. J. H. Wong, “Anonymous Christians: Karl Rahner’s Pneuma-Christocentrism and an East-West Dialogue,” Theological Studies 55, no. 4 (1994): 611. Despite this, Hedges’s critique holds. 52.  T. C. Muck, “Instrumentality, Complexity, and Reason: A Christian Approach to Religions,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002): 115–21; T. C. Muck, “Theology of Religions after Knitter and Hick: Beyond the Paradigm,” Interpretation 61, no. 1 (2007): 14, 20. Farina concurs that participation gives greater meaning to the term dialogue. M. Farina, “Theology of Religions after Knitter and Hick: Beyond the Paradigm—a Response to Terry Muck,” Interpretation 61, no. 1 (2007): 24–27. Yong, however, cautions that in interfaith relations, fundamental faith convictions cannot be bracketed over the long haul as Muck has proposed. A. Yong, “Can We Get ‘Beyond the Paradigm’?—a Response to Terry Muck’s Proposal in Theology of Religions,” Interpretation 61, no. 1 (2007): 29. 53. M. M. Thomas, “A Christ-Centred Humanist Approach to Other Religions in the Indian Pluralistic Context,” in CURec, 58; D. A. Madigan, “Response to Gavin D’Costa,” in Faith, Word and Culture, ed. L. Bergin (Dublin: Columba Press, 2004), 29. 54.  W. Pannenberg, “The Religions from the Perspective of Christian Theology and the Self-Interpretation of Christianity in Relation to the Non-Christian Religions,” Modern Theology 9, no. 3 (1993): 297. He proposes instead a “theology of the history of religions.” W. Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology: Collected Essays, trans. G. H. Kehm, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 65–118. Lösel suggests this is because Pannenberg presupposes an eschatological unity of divine reality rather than an a priori reality of religion. S. Lösel, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Response to the Challenge of Religious Pluralism: The Anticipation of Divine Absoluteness?,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 34, no. 4 (1997): 504.

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55.  L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 182–83. 56. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 181, 203. Clooney himself, however, employs the conventional mapping when he suggests comparative theology is harmonious with inclusivism. F. X. Clooney, Comparative Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 16. 57.  S. M. Ogden, Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many? (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1992), 83. 58.  F. W. Norris, “Theological Resources for Response to Pluralism from Christian Churches/Churches of Christ,” in Grounds for Understanding, ed. S. M. Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998), 117; M. Konieczka, “Critical Pluralism: A New Approach to Religious Diversity” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Missouri–Columbia, 2007), 3. 59.  U. King, “Feminism: The Missing Dimension in the Dialogue of Religions,” in Pluralism and the Religions, ed. J. D. A. May (London: Cassell, 1998), 46–47. 60.  I. S. Markham, “Review: Theology in the Public Square. By Gavin D’Costa,” Conversations in Religion and Theology 4, no. 2 (2006): 157n2. 61. G. D’Costa, “Response to Ian Markham,” Conversations in Religion and Theology 4, no. 2 (2006): 163. He added the caveat that if exclusivism suggests all non-Christians are damned, he cannot defend this position as it contradicts Catholic theology. 62.  J. Hick, “The Possibility of Religious Pluralism: A Reply to Gavin D’Costa,” Religious Studies 33, no. 2 (1997): 162; reprinted in J. Hick, Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2001), 169–75. 63.  Hedges, “Reflection on Typologies,” 20. 64.  J. Wiseman, “Review: The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity. By Gavin D’Costa,” Bulletin: Monastic Interreligious Dialogue 67 (2001): 1–4. 65.  R. Drew, “Reconsidering the Possibility of Pluralism,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 40, no. 3 (2003): 250. Additionally, she argues, drawing upon Trapnell, that a pluralistic vision is attainable through spiritual training and transformation. J. B. Trapnell, “Indian Sources on the Possibility of a Pluralist View of Religions,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 35, no. 2 (1998): 213. 66.  P. Schmidt-Leukel, “Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: The Tripolar Typology—Clarified and Reaffirmed,” in MRS, 24–25. 67.  Another addressable question in a theology of religions is the role of the world religions, which, as Morgan has noted, is a distinct question from the fate of the unevangelized. C. W. Morgan, “Inclusivisms and Exclusivisms,” in Faith Comes by Hearing, ed. C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 22. His final schema of nine responses is, however, essentially still centered on salvation. Morgan, “Inclusivisms and Exclusivisms,” 36. 68.  Plantinga argues that the position that one particular religion is true need not lead to epistemic or moral compromise but is in fact “unavoidable given our human condition.” A. Plantinga, “Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism,” in The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith, ed. T. D. Senor (London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 195; reprinted in A. Plantinga, “Pluralism: A Defense of



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Religious Exclusivism,” in The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, ed. P. L. Quinn and K. Meeker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 172–92. 69.  CWR, 26. In addition, D’Costa’s UAE concedes that while faith and baptism are the usual means of salvation, other preparatory means are available through either natural law or elements within a religion (but not the religion per se). The ultimate salvation of a non-Christian is then resolved after death. CWR, 29, 161. 70.  G. D’Costa, “Review: Religious Diversity and the American Experience. By Terrence W. Tilley et al.,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 304; T. W. Tilley, Religious Diversity and the American Experience: A Theological Approach (London: Continuum, 2007), 87. 71. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 216; D. Cheetham, “Inclusivisms: Honouring Faithfulness and Openness,” in Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, ed. P. Hedges and A. Race (London: SCM, 2008), 74–75; K. E. Johnson, “Review: The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity. By Gavin D’Costa,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45, no. 4 (2002): 749. 72.  Fredericks further suggests that D’Costa’s abandonment of the inclusivist camp was because of an excessively narrow definition of it as seeing other religions as salvific, but argues it should be understood as salvation being available to other religious traditions. J. Fredericks, “Review: The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity. By Gavin D’Costa,” Modern Theology 19, no. 3 (2002): 298. Lössl also suggests that D’Costa has in fact moved from inclusivism to “exclusivism” without providing reasons. J. Lössl, “Review: Theologie Im Angesicht Der Religionen,” 357. Hedges classifies him in a fourth category of “particularities” on the basis of the tradition-specificity of his approach, but D’Costa argues it is a variant of exclusivism and redundant. P. Hedges, “Particularities: Tradition-Specific Post-Modern Perspective,” in Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, ed. P. Hedges and A. Race (London: SCM, 2008), 112, 118–20; G. D’Costa, “Review: Christian Approaches to Other Faiths. Eds. By Alan Race and Paul M. Hedges,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 4 (2010): 491. 73.  CWR, 7; Phillips, “Evangelical Pluralism,” 144; Sanders, No Other Name, 215. 74.  Meeting, 103–4. 75.  TRP, 80. 76.  TRP, 52. 77.  Meeting, 22. 78.  Fredericks, “Review: The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity,” 298. 79.  R. D. Geivett and C. Pinnock, “‘Misgivings’ and ‘Openness’: A Dialogue on Inclusivism between R. Douglas Geivett and Clark Pinnock,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2, no. 2 (1998): 27. 80.  CWR, 167. 81.  CWR, 164. 82.  CWR, 177. 83.  TRP, 80. 84.  F. X. Clooney, “Reading the World in Christ: From Comparison to Inclusivism,” in CURec, 73; CWR, 41. 85.  T. W. Tilley, “Review: Christianity and World Religions. By Gavin D’Costa,” Theological Studies 71, no. 1 (2010): 232.

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86.  Recently, Oakes has pointed out that his solution “represents a rupture with the tradition, as he himself admits.” E. T. Oakes, “Descensus and Development: A Response to Recent Rejoinders,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 13, no. 1 (2011): 20. 87.  Among his earlier papers on this subject, two significant one are G. D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity and Religious Plurality,” in CURec, 16–29; and G. D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions,” in A Universal Faith?, ed. C. Cornille and V. Neckebrouck (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 139–54. In his first mention of the doctrine as a potential resource, D’Costa writes that “at the heart of a Trinitarian doctrine of God, the multiplicity of religions takes on a special theological significance that cannot be ignored by Christians who worship a Trinity.” D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 16. The fully developed formulation is then expounded in Meeting. 88.  Thus, Hodgson describes D’Costa’s theology as an inclusive “Christocentric trinitarianism” that allows for Pneumatic activity in the religions but circumscribed by Christ. P. C. Hodgson, “The Spirit and Religious Pluralism,” Horizons 31, no. 1 (2004): 26. Valkenberg also observes that D’Costa’s theology of religions could be termed a “turn to the Spirit” with close connections to Christology and Ecclesiology. P. Valkenberg, Sharing Lights on the Way to God: Muslim-Christian Dialogue and Theology in the Context of Abrahamic Partnership (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 179. Also see Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 87. 89.  D’Costa, “Impossibility of a Pluralist View,” 226. 90. Kärkkäinen also argues for the necessity of both Christology and Pneumatology in a theology of religions. V.-M. Kärkkäinen, “Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions: A Pentecostal-Charismatic Inquiry,” International Review of Mission 91, no. 361 (2002): 194. Dupuis concurs that the Trinity is “the hermeneutical key for an interpretation of the experience of the Absolute Reality to which other religious traditions testify.” Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 264. Besides a universality–particularity matrix, other theologians have suggested the transcendence–immanence dialectic found in Trinitarian theology may also be suitable for a theology of religions. R. Bernhardt, “The Real and the Trinitarian God,” in MRS, 194–210. 91. D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 147–53. In an earlier paper, D’Costa also proposed five theses for consideration, which in addition to the two mentioned later included normative Christology and ecclesiology, which may be subsumed into the categories suggested. See D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19–23. Ipgrave has noted the influence of D’Costa’s Trinitarianism on the 1995 Church of England Doctrine Commission document The Mystery of Salvation. M. Ipgrave, Trinity and Inter Faith Dialogue: Plenitude and Plurality, Religions and Discourse 14 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2003), 18n3, 53–54; Church of England Doctrine Commission, The Mystery of Salvation: The Story of God’s Gift (London: Church House, 1995), 173n12, 176. 92.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 148. 93.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 18. Plata has also noted a subsequent increased emphasis given to the role of the Church. Plata, “Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions,” 302.



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94.  G. A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1984), 94. 95.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 148. 96.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 148. 97.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 18. Knitter notes the same assertion by Hick, that Jesus was wholly God but not the whole of God, but that Hick would suggest other religious figures could also be totus Deus; wholly God. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 122–23; Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths, 159. Haight follows Hick by reasoning that “the plurality of religions mediates more revelation of God than any single religion, including Christianity itself.” R. Haight, “Pluralist Christology as Orthodox,” in MRS, 157. Thoppil also observes that D’Costa’s use of this expression is distinguished from pluralist proponents due to his underlying Trinitarianism. J. Thoppil, “Christology, Liberation and Religious Pluralism,” 42. 98.  Meeting, 129. 99. G. D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations: Discerning God in Other Religions; Beyond a Static Valuation,” Modern Theology 10, no. 2 (1994): 169. 100.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 149. 101.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 18–19. 102.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 149. 103.  J. B. Cobb Jr., “Beyond ‘Pluralism,’” in CURec, 91–92. In contrast, Samartha rejects the language of uniqueness for elevating Jesus to the status of God. S. J. Samartha, “The Cross and the Rainbow,” in MCU, 79. 104.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 169. 105.  Meeting, 106. A distortion is defined as the incomplete grasping of a truth, misinterpretation as a distortion of a greater degree, while a denial differs from the two in kind in that a truth has been deliberately rejected after being noticed. D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 171–72. 106.  Meeting, 36. In contrast, Knitter regards Christ as “norma normans et normata,” the norm that norms all others and is itself normed. P. F. Knitter, Jesus and the Other Names (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 169n9. Hodgson and Race also dispute Christ’s normativity. P. C. Hodgson, “The Spirit and Religious Pluralism,” in MRS, 142; A. Race, “Christ and the Scandal of Particularities,” in Many Mansions, ed. D. Cohn-Sherbok (London: Bellew, 1992), 71. Similarly, Burkle suggests Gautama’s enlightenment at the Bo tree could have as much universal import as the Christ event. H. R. Burkle, “Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 16, no. 3 (1979): 466. 107. G. D’Costa, “A Christian Reflection on Some Problems with Discerning ‘God’ in the World Religions,” Dialogue and Alliance 5, no. 1 (1991): 13; D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 151–52; Meeting, 129. Finger has cited D’Costa’s work as support for his view that Jesus is not the sole content of revelation but its norm. T. Finger, “A Mennonite Theology for Interfaith Relations,” in Grounds for Understanding, ed. S. M. Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998), 91n83. 108.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 152. 109.  G. D’Costa, “Christ, Revelation and the World Religions: A Critical Appreciation of Keith Ward’s Comparative Global Theology,” in Comparative Theology,

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ed. T. W. Bartel (London: SPCK, 2003), 37. Hick, however, critiques Ward for being overly tentative. J. Hick, “Theology of Religions versus Philosophy of Religions,” in Comparative Theology, ed. T. W. Bartel (London: SPCK, 2003), 31. 110. G. D’Costa, “The Absolute and Relative Nature of the Gospel: Christianity and Other Religions,” in Pluralism, Tolerance and Dialogue, ed. M. D. Bryant (Waterloo, ON: University of Waterloo Press, 1989), 143; M. D. Bryant, “Response to Gavin D’Costa,” in Pluralism, Tolerance and Dialogue, ed. M. D. Bryant (Waterloo, ON: University of Waterloo Press, 1989), 148. Dupuis and Knitter also extend the analogy of Judaism to other religions. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 233; P. F. Knitter, No Other Name?, 131. Other Catholic theologians include Baum, Ruether, and Pawlikowski. See G. D’Costa, “Traditions and Reception: Interpreting Vatican II’s ‘Declaration on the Church’s Relation to NonChristian Religions,’” New Blackfriars 92, no. 1040 (2011): 497. Sparks observes that an analogical understanding of the relationship between Old Testament Israel and Christianity is critical for inclusivism since it relies on evidence of God’s salvific activity apart from Christ. A. Sparks, One of a Kind: The Relationship between Old and New Covenants as the Hermeneutical Key for Christian Theology of Religions (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), xiii. 111.  He adds that while Judaism may be viewed as a continuing covenant, since the Christ event it has to be seen from a Trinitarian viewpoint rather than as a parallel covenant as proposed by dual-covenanters. G. D’Costa, “One Covenant or Many Covenants? Toward a Theology of Christian-Jewish Relations,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 27, no. 3 (1990): 450; reprinted in G. D’Costa, “One Covenant or Many Covenants,” in Readings in Modern Theology, ed. R. Gill (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 173–85. Also see D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 170. He also suggests his view is consonant with Pope Benedict’s position. G. D’Costa, “Review: The Catholic Church and the Jewish People. Ed. By Philip A. Cunningham, Norbert J. Hofmann and Joseph Sievers,” Modern Theology 25, no. 2 (2009): 350–51. From a reformed perspective, Jay Rock arrives at D’Costa’s later position, that this relationship is “a special case rather than a model for insights regarding the relationship to religious plurality in general.” J. T. Rock, “Resources in the Reformed Tradition for Responding to Religious Plurality,” in Grounds for Understanding, ed. S. M. Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998), 67. 112.  T. W. Tilley, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism,” Modern Theology 22, no. 1 (2006): 55. Here he was in agreement with Cunningham’s analysis of DI. See P. A. Cunningham, “Implications for Catholic Magisterial Teaching on Jews and Judaism,” in Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus, ed. S. J. Pope and C. C. Hefling (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 136–37. Subsequently, Tilley clarified that while he accepted the magisterial authority of DI, the document prematurely closed a theological discussion. T. W. Tilley, “Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Comment,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 292. 113.  G. D. Costa, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Response to Terrence Tilley,” 443. 114.  T. W. Tilley, “‘Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism’: A Rejoinder to Gavin D’Costa,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 448; G. D’Costa, “‘Christian



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Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism’: A Further Rejoinder to Terrence Tilley,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 459; G. D’Costa and T. W. Tilley, “Concluding Our Quaestio Disputata on Theologies of Religious Diversity,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 464, 468. 115.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 17. 116.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 17. Hick’s mythological interpretation of the Incarnation is cited as a prime example of this failure. D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 146; G. D’Costa, “The New Missionary: John Hick and Religious Plurality,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 15, no. 2 (1991): 68. The divinity of Jesus was seen by Hick as a mythic construct expressing intention without ontological reality. G. D’Costa, “Christian Theology and Other Religions: An Evaluation of John Hick and Paul Knitter,” Studia Missionalia 42 (1993): 163. In another essay, D’Costa employs Barthes’s critique of “rhetorical forms” that ignore the particular in the Other against Hick. G. D’Costa, “Taking Other Religions Seriously: Some Ironies in the Current Debate on a Christian Theology of Religions,” Thomist 54 (1990): 524–25. Smith has reasoned, however, that myth need not be viewed as a pejorative term, but mythology could communicate approximations closer to the truth than propositions. W. C. Smith, “Idolatry: In Comparative Perspective,” in MCU, 65–66. In a similar critique as D’Costa’s, Hall argues that Knitter’s theology also suffers from a neglect of the particular found in other faiths by defining a universal reality. T. Hall, “Paul Knitter’s Presuppositions for Interfaith Dialogue: A Critique,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 17, no. 1 (1990): 47. 117.  Meeting, 133. Kaufman pushes historicity to its limit by arguing that Christianity and all other religions should recognize themselves as products of human responses to particular historical situations, but Newbigin questions his implicit assumption of the superiority of historical consciousness to other culturally conditioned epistemic avenues. G. D. Kaufman, “Religious Diversity, Historical Consciousness, and Christian Theology,” in MCU, 12; L. Newbigin, “Religious Pluralism and the Uniqueness of Jesus Christ,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 13, no. 2 (1989): 50; L. Newbigin, “Religion for the Marketplace,” in CURec, 140. 118.  Meeting, 102–103. On the other hand, Haight proposes that Trinitarian theology allows one to affirm the autonomy of a religion based on the immediacy of God’s presence, and thus support a pluralistic view. R. Haight, “Trinity and Religious Pluralism,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 44, no. 4 (2009): 538–39. 119.  CWR, 40. 120.  TRP, 55. 121.  TRP, 62–63. Hick’s pluralist theology is similarly critiqued for being inadequately “anchored by theological analysis of detailed field studies.” G. D’Costa, “Elephants, Ropes and a Christian Theology of Religions,” Theology 88, no. 724 (1985): 262–63. Hinduism and Japanese Buddhism are cited as examples of religions in which points of contact with Christianity potentially exist. TRP, 61. 122.  TRP, 64. 123.  G. D’Costa, “The Christian Trinity: Paradigm for Pluralism?,” in Pluralism and the Religions, ed. J. D. A. May (London: Cassell, 1998), 33. 124.  D’Costa, “Discerning Christ,” 124.

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125.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19. 126.  Meeting, 110, 113. Panikkar has proposed a “Christian Theandrism” (i.e., God-humanism) that is a synthesis of three spiritual spiritualities, “the ways of the Father, the Son and the Spirit.” R. Panikkar, The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man: Icon–Person–Mystery (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973), 71. Subsequently, he presented a “cosmotheandric vision” that interprets all reality as a threefold interaction of the cosmic, divine, and human. R. Panikkar, The Intrareligious Dialogue, rev. ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999), 24. Capps analyzes that the key to understanding Panikkar’s unique thought is his devotion to the late medieval women mystics such as Catherine of Genoa, Catherine of Siena, and St. Teresa of Avila. W. H. Capps, “Toward a Christian Theology of the World’s Religions,” Cross Currents 29, no. 2 (1979): 168. However, Johnson argues he has sundered the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the Son of God. Johnson, “‘Trinitarian’ Theology of Religions?,” 300. Kärkkäinen also observes that Panikkar’s distinction between the universal Christ and the particular Jesus implies there is no final expression of the universal Christ in historical form. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 307–9; V.-M. Kärkkäinen, “Trinity and Religions: On the Way to a Trinitarian Theology of Religions for Evangelicals,” Missiology: An International Review 33, no. 3 (2005): 165. Williams too critiques his theology for failing to account for the historical events of the Jesus story. R. Williams, “Trinity and Pluralism,” in CURec, 8. In contrast, Aleaz considers Panikkar’s theology to be most suitable for the pluralistic Asian context. K. P. Aleaz, “Pluralism Calls for Pluralistic Inclusivism,” in MRS, 172. 127.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19. 128.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 151. 129.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19. 130. G. D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity? Whose Neutrality? The Doomed Quest for a Neutral Vantage Point from Which to Judge Religions,” Religious Studies 29, no. 1 (1993): 79. Reprinted in G. D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity? Whose Neutrality? The Doomed Quest for a Neutral Vantage Point from Which to Judge Religions,” in Philosophy of Religion, ed. G. E. Kessler (London: Wadsworth, 1999). D’Costa acknowledges this paper’s debt to MacIntyre’s book. See G. D’Costa, “Revelation and World Religions,” in Divine Revelation, ed. P. Avis (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997), 136n6. See A. C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). 131.  D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity?,” 80. This is in contrast to Panikkar’s contention that “the incommensurability of ultimate systems is unbridgeable” because “nothing can encompass reality.” R. Panikkar, “The Jordan, the Tiber, and the Ganges,” in MCU, 110. 132.  D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity?,” 79. 133. D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity?,” 90. This commitment to his own tradition has also prompted a series of proposals for Christian theological education: (1) systematic theology should consider religions as critical dialogue partners, (2) a “sectarian” way of doing theology in which the presuppositions of the departments are acknowledged is justifiable, (3) theology done with intellectual rigor cannot be divorced from the context of the church, and finally, (4) theology needs to be freed



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from its Babylonian captivity to the modern liberal university and allowed to blossom in a Roman Catholic or christian university in England. Found respectively in G. D’Costa, “The End of Systematic Theology,” Theology 95, no. 767 (1992): 329; G. D’Costa, “The End of ‘Theology’ and ‘Religious Studies,’” Theology 99, no. 791 (1996): 347; G. D’Costa, “On Cultivating the Disciplined Habits of a Love Affair or on How to Do Theology on Your Knees,” New Blackfriars 79, no. 925 (1998): 118; G. D’Costa, “On Theologizing Theology within the Secular University,” Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies 22, no. 3 (2005): 148, 156. These themes are brought together in his book Theology in the Public Square. Marsh, however, disagrees about the inseparable connection between theology and the church and suggests the former can be related to the existential human experience without the latter. C. Marsh, “Theology and Experience: A Response to Gavin D’Costa,” Theology 99, no. 793 (1997): 43. 134.  D’Costa, “Whose Objectivity?,” 81. 135.  Meeting, 99, 138. 136. Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 297. 137.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 139. 138.  D’Costa, “Inter-Religious Dialog,” 451. 139.  D’Costa, “Inter-Religious Dialog,” 451. 140.  D’Costa, “Christianity and Other Religions,” 43. This is a consistent concern throughout his writings. See D’Costa, “Absolute and Relative Nature,” 137. Here he cites the millions of people born before Christ as an example of those who, through no fault of their own, have not heard of the gospel and whom a loving and just God could not possibly consign to damnation. 141. We will analyze his specific modification subsequently, which involves a mutual rather than a traditional unilateral modulation. 142.  Meeting, 104–5. 143.  Meeting, 104, 108. 144.  Meeting, 105. 145.  D’Costa, “Revelation and World Religions,” 133. Also see his assertion that “supernatural saving grace” must be held to be operative in other faiths. Meeting, 105. McDermott has suggested a third category of revelation, the prisca theologia, which allows for vestiges of revelation in non-Christian religions based on Edwards’s writings. G. R. McDermott, “What If Paul Had Been from China? Reflections on the Possibility of Revelation in Non-Christian Religions,” in No Other Gods before Me?, ed. J. G. Stackhouse Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 27–28; G. R. McDermott, Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 87–109. 146.  Meeting, 103. 147.  D’Costa, “Holy Spirit,” 294, 296. 148.  D’Costa, “Traditions and Reception,” 500; M. Ruokanen, The Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions: According to the Second Vatican Council, SCM (Leiden: Brill, 1992). No specific reference was provided for Ruokanen’s book. 149.  Meeting, 126.

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150.  G. D’Costa, “Queer Trinity,” in Queer Theology, ed. G. Loughlin (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 270. 151. “Proper and legitimate inculturation or indigenization is always an act of continuity within a greater discontinuity.” Meeting, 131. 152.  D’Costa, “Revelation and World Religions,” 132. 153.  G. D’Costa, “Nostra Aetate,” 349. 154.  Meeting, 139n9; Ruokanen, Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions. 155.  R. Williams, “Balthasar and Rahner,” in The Analogy of Beauty, ed. J. K. Riches (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986), 11–34. 156.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19. 157.  Meeting, 109. 158.  D’Costa, “Absolute and Relative Nature,” 141. 159.  G. D’Costa, “Revelation, Scripture and Tradition: Some Comments on John Webster’s Conception of ‘Holy Scripture,’” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6, no. 4 (2004): 345, 349. 160.  G. D’Costa, “Review: Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology. Eds. John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward. Seeking after Theological Vision,” Reviews in Religion and Theology 6, no. 4 (1999): 358. 161.  G. D’Costa, “Response to Moore,” Ars Disputandi 5, no. 1 (2005): 126–32; A. Moore, “Response to D’Costa and Verbin,” Ars Disputandi 5, no. 1 (2005): 133–47. 162.  Meeting, 113. 163.  Meeting, 100. 164.  Meeting, 128. Also see his earlier article where the need for reticence is mentioned but not yet emphasized. G. D’Costa, “The Resurrection, the Holy Spirit and the World Religions,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. G. D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 159–60. 165.  Meeting, 113, 133; P. F. Knitter, “Missionary Activity Revised and Reaffirmed,” in CMID, 85; G. D’Costa, “The Reign of God and a Trinitarian Ecclesiology: An Analysis of Soteriocentrism,” in CMID, 57–59. 166.  Tomko and Waldenfels also assert that Knitter’s view is deficient of Christian specificity. H. Waldenfels, “Mission and Interreligious Dialogue: What Is at Stake,” in CMID, 152–53; J. Tomko, “Missionary Challenges to the Theology of Salvation,” in CMID, 20; J. Tomko, “Christian Mission Today,” in CMID, 255. Recently, Knitter renewed calls for the abandonment of claims of superiority as a necessary “axial shift” in the religions. P. F. Knitter, “‘My God Is Bigger Than Your God!’: Time for Another Axial Shift in the History of Religions,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 17, no. 1 (2007): 100–118. 167.  Meeting, 108. 168.  D’Costa, “Nostra Aetate,” 336. 169.  Meeting, 105. 170.  Meeting, 102, 105. 171.  Meeting, 109. 172.  D’Costa, “Nostra Aetate,” 349–50.



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173.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 177. In contrast, as previously noted, Dupuis was less hesitant that religions have a definite role. He writes, “Even after the Lord’s historical coming: their [religions] providential role endured until such time as individual persons would be directly challenged by the Christian message.” Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, 155. Heim also asserts, “there must be something intrinsically valid about those religions themselves, some providential role for them.” Heim, Depth of the Riches, 145. 174.  D’Costa, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Response to Terrence Tilley,” 441. 175.  J. D. May, “Catholic Fundamentalism? Some Implications of Dominus Iesus for Dialogue and Peacemaking,” Horizons 28, no. 2 (2001): 280–81. 176. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 216. 177.  Meeting, 114. 178.  Meeting, 110–11, 113. 179.  Meeting, 140n21, 112. 180.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 174. 181.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 173. Here D’Costa seems to employ the phrase “fruits of the Spirit” in a slightly indiscriminate manner compared to the biblical usage in Gal. 5:22–23, which refers to the singular “fruit” with nine visible attributes (including love) but without privileging any single one. It is only in 1 Cor. 13:13 that love is termed the “greatest of these” in comparison to faith and hope, and by calling love the greatest of all “fruits,” D’Costa effectively collapses these two ideas. This confusion is again apparent in the same paper when he refers to love as the “greatest gift of the Spirit” (emphasis added), since it is clear in its context he is referring not to the types of charismatic gifts granted by the Spirit as described in 1 Cor. 12:8–13 but to good works based on a human response to divine grace. D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 174. 182.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 173–74. 183.  Meeting, 116. 184.  Meeting, 108. Various terms have been employed by D’Costa to describe this interreligious encounter. In his first book, he argues, “the inclusivist position does justice to the different aspects involved in dialogue” (emphasis added). TRP, 94. Later, he leans toward the phrase “negotiation with the ‘Other’” as he agrees with Ward’s observation that the term dialogue neglects “the problematic socio-political contexts of ‘exchange.’” D’Costa, “Christian Trinity,” 34n3. However, he does not provide specific reasons for later adopting the phrase “relational engagement,” though it could be suggestive of a move away from a hermeneutics of suspicion of intentionality (both one’s own and the other) that negotiation entails. D’Costa, “Trinity and Other Religions,” 5. If so, this would be a contrast to Knitter and Milbank’s promotion of a hermeneutics of suspicion in dialogue. P. F. Knitter, “Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions,” in MCU, 182; J. Milbank, “The End of Dialogue,” in CURec, 170; P. F. Knitter, “Catholic Theology of Religions at a Crossroads,” Concilium 183, no. 1 (1986): 104–5. 185.  Meeting, 9. D’Costa has acknowledged his critique of pluralism owes much to a postmodern criticism of modernity and is influenced by MacIntyre and Milbank.

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MacIntyre’s After Virtue highlighted the problems of the Enlightenment project that are responsible for the demise of Trinitarian theology and Christian telos since pure and practical reason now forms the basis of universal ethics. Meeting, 3–4; A. C. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). D’Costa even calls his own proposal in The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity a broadening of MacIntyre’s project to engage with not just modernity and postmodernity but also the world religions: a “neo-MacIntyre postmodern model” for the religions. D’Costa, “Postmodernity and Religious Plurality,” 140–41; D’Costa, “Response to Ian Markham,” 161. Against Milbank’s critique of MacIntyre as a foundationalist because of his reliance on “traditioned reason” and “dialectics” (i.e., reasoned argument) to arrive at the truth, D’Costa defends that the later MacIntyre corrected himself and became an Aristotelian Thomist in the course of his trilogy. J. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 329; Meeting, 7–9. Thus, we may also interpret D’Costa’s critique of pluralism as a reaction against modernity. G. D’Costa, “Engaging with a ‘Clash of Civilisations’: Liberal Views of Religion in the Public Domain and Catholic Approaches,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 17, no. 1 (2007): 41–42. In a similar critique of modernity, he argues it underscores much of Rushdie’s “secular fundamentalism.” G. D’Costa, “‘The Satanic Verses’ in British Society,” New Blackfriars 71, no. 842 (1990): 423, 429. Later, and acknowledging a tension with this previous reading, he suggests Rushdie’s work can also be seen as a postmodern deconstruction of religious claims. G. D’Costa, “His Word or Our Words? Postmodernity’s Angelic Predicament in The Satanic Verses,” in English Literature, Theology, and the Curriculum, ed. L. Gearon (London: Cassell, 1999), 265–66. Hintersteiner responds that D’Costa’s attempt to understand religious plurality by eschewing the resources of secular modernity overlooks MacIntyre’s own indebtedness to modern liberalism. N. Hintersteiner, “Engaging Religious Plurality: Secular Awareness and Traditionary Procedure; A Reply to Gavin D’Costa “ Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 17, no. 1 (2007): 46, 52–59. Similarly, Markham asserts that MacIntyre’s “traditional-constituted and constitutive enquiry” continues to privilege liberal reason. I. S. Markham, “Faith and Reason: Reflections on Macintyre’s ‘Tradition-Constituted Enquiry,’” Religious Studies 27, no. 2 (1991): 266. 186.  Likewise, Schwöbel comments that such an attempt only substitutes “one set of culturally conditioned attitudes of superiority with another,” and Milbank concurs. C. Schwöbel, “Particularity, Universality and the Religions: Toward a Christian Theology of Religions,” in CURec, 42–43; Milbank, “End of Dialogue,” 175. 187.  D’Costa, “Trinitarian Différance,” 38–39. 188. D’Costa, “Trinitarian Différance,” 39. He also suggests T.F. Torrance’s critique of Rahner’s “vice versa” was persuasive but without elaboration. D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 167, 182n9. Rahner’s Grundaxiom, that “the ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity,” can be found in his brief but extremely influential book, K. Rahner, The Trinity, trans. J. Donceel (New York: Crossroad, 1970), 22. 189.  D’Costa, “Trinitarian Différance,” 39.



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190.  Meeting, 100. Ipgrave employs a similar distinction in a proposal for Christian–Muslim dialogue. M. Ipgrave, “Anglican Approaches to Christian-Muslim Dialogue,” Journal of Anglican Studies 3, no. 2 (2005): 233. 191.  Meeting, 100, 117. 192.  Meeting, 115. 193.  G. D’Costa, “Review: The Depth of the Riches. By S. Mark Heim,” Modern Theology 18, no. 1 (2002): 139. Heim has suggested that each religion leads to a substantively different but nonetheless real and valid final condition for its adherents. A summary of Heim’s proposal can be found in his essays S. M. Heim, “Many True Religions, and Each an Only Way: The Diversity of Religious Ends,” Ars Disputandi 3, no. 1 (2003): 226–47; and S. M. Heim, “Witness to Communion: A Trinitarian Perspective on Mission and Religious Pluralism,” Missiology: An International Review 33, no. 2 (2005): 192–99. 194.  Meeting, 117. 195.  Meeting, 133. 196.  Interreligious prayer is when all present pray together, as differentiated from multireligious prayer, where each religious representative prays in turn. Meeting, 148–49. 197.  Meeting, 144. 198.  Meeting, 150–51. 199.  G. D’Costa, “Catholicism and the World Religions: A Theological and Phenomenological Account,” in The Catholic Church and the World Religions, ed. G. D’Costa (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 25–26. 200.  Meeting, 133. 201.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 22. 202.  Meeting, 115. 203.  Meeting, 115. 204.  Meeting, 126. 205.  Meeting, 115. 206.  “If the Spirit’s activity were literally universal, we would not be able to distinguish the divine from the demonic.” K. J. Vanhoozer, “Does the Trinity Belong in a Theology of Religions?,” in The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age, ed. K. J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997), 63. 207.  In Panikkar’s view, the Spirit is the unveiling of divine immanence such that “one can only have a non-relational union with him.” Panikkar, Trinity, 63. Adiprasetyam observes that in contrast to Panikkar, D’Costa is more reluctant to apply perichoresis to the religions, preferring to restrict it to the inner life of the Trinity. J. Adiprasetyam, “Toward a Perichoretic Theology of Religions” (Th.D. thesis, Boston University School of Theology, 2009), 7. 208.  Hick’s conception of ultimate reality as the Real implies that one cannot apply to it an sich (in itself) any personal or nonpersonal characteristics. J. Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 246–47. Kärkkäinen also describes Hickian theology as not allowing for any personal distinctions within the Godhead. Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 113.

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209.  Meeting, 120, 124, 131. 210.  Meeting, 108; quoting RM 29. 211.  These are 14:15–18; 14:25–27; 15:26–27; and 16:7–15. Meeting, 119–27. An earlier essay that explores these four passages is D’Costa, “Resurrection, the Holy Spirit,” 152–58. His exegesis depends mainly on secondary sources, including R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971); C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978); B. Lindars, The Gospel of John, New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1972); G. Johnston, The SpiritParaclete in the Gospel of John, SNTS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit (London: Mowbrays, 1978). See also Meeting, 140–41n28. 212.  Meeting, 100. 213.  For example, Plata’s thesis on D’Costa does not mention his exegesis of the Paraclete passages. Plata, “Appeal to the Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Kärkkäinen does note the use of these biblical sections but does not engage with his conclusions. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 346. 214.  He observes that, in fact, John would have seen the non-Christian as a persecutor of the church. Meeting, 117. In reading these texts, he relies on the hermeneutical strategy of the “Yale school” and the concept of the performance of a text from Frei, Thiemann, and Lindbeck. D’Costa, “Resurrection, the Holy Spirit,” 165n5. See H. W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974); Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine; R. F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985). 215.  Meeting, 120. Here he follows Milbank’s observation that Pneumatology (and Christology) are fundamentally “eschatologically structuring doctrines.” 216.  Meeting, 121. 217.  John 14:26 (ESV). 218.  Meeting, 122. 219.  Meeting, 123. 220.  John 16:8 (ESV). 221.  Meeting, 124. 222.  Meeting, 126–27. 223.  “In these [sacramental] practices, but not only in these . . . new life was made possible.” Meeting, 126. 224.  Meeting, 127. See also D’Costa, “Resurrection, the Holy Spirit,” 158. 225.  Meeting, 143. 226.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 20. 227.  Meeting, 120. 228.  Meeting, 108, 115; quoting RM 29. 229. Kärkkäinen, Introduction to the Theology of Religions, 220. 230.  Meeting, 132. 231.  TRP, 124. 232.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 26.



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233.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 180–81. 234.  Meeting, 112. 235.  In Rahner’s view, religions are potentially “lawful” for a non-Christian only until such time as she has been existentially confronted by Christianity. Meeting, 91; Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” 121. 236.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 26. 237.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 178–79. See also Surin’s critique of traditional fulfillment theory for smothering the differences of religions and domesticating them. Surin, “‘Politics of Speech,’” 193–201. 238.  Meeting, 133. 239.  Meeting, 125–26, 130. 240.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 175. 241.  Meeting, 131. 242.  To D’Costa, Conciliar documents like DP and EN show unambiguously the central task of the church as the proclamation of Christ, and that “the existence of the religions is . . . a call to mission.” D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 175. 243.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 176. 244.  G. D’Costa, “Christian Theology and Other Faiths,” in Companion Encyclopedia of Theology, ed. P. Byrne and J. L. Houlden (London: Routledge, 1995), 303. 245.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 176. 246.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 178. Donovan concurs that Catholic theology now contains an emphasis that relations with the Other that must include both proclamation and dialogue. M. A. Donovan, “Catholics and Interfaith Relations: A Place for Speakers, Listeners, and Intuition,” in Grounds for Understanding, ed. S. M. Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998), 24–25. 247.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 26. 248.  D’Costa, “Revelation and Revelations,” 179, 181. 249.  D’Costa, “Trinity and Other Religions,” 31; D’Costa, Sexing the Trinity, 192. 250.  G. D’Costa, “Inculturation, India and Other Religions: Some Methodological Reflections,” Studia Missionalia 44 (1995): 147. 251.  D’Costa, “Inculturation,” 121–22. 252.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 26. 253.  Meeting, 116. 254.  Meeting, 115. In this context, Kärkkäinen notes D’Costa is willing even to apply the language of “witness” to that of non-Christians through their lives and teachings. Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 74; Meeting, 130. 255.  As D’Costa asserts, the Spirit “can only be understood in reference to Christ,” and his activity is always related to the “paschal mystery of Christ.” Meeting, 110, 114. 256.  Meeting, 120; quoting J. Milbank, “The Name of Jesus: Incarnation, Atonement, Ecclesiology,” Modern Theology 7, no. 4 (1991): 319. 257.  Meeting, 120. 258.  Meeting, 128–29, following Milbank, “Name of Jesus,” 325. 259.  Meeting, 131. 260.  Meeting, 126.

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261.  Meeting, 130. 262.  E. Stuart, Spitting at Dragons: Towards a Feminist Theology of Sainthood (London: Mowbray, 1996), 34. 263. G. D’Costa, “The Communion of Saints and Other Religions: On Saintly Wives in Hinduism and Catholicism,” in Holiness Past and Present, ed. S. C. Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003), 421–22. 264.  D’Costa, “Communion of Saints,” 423. 265.  D’Costa, “Communion of Saints,” 430–31. 266.  D’Costa, “Communion of Saints,” 426, 432. 267.  D’Costa, “Communion of Saints,” 440. 268.  Meeting, 129. 269.  Meeting, 115. 270.  Meeting, 130. 271.  Meeting, 129–30. 272.  TRP, 68. 273.  K. Rahner, “Jesus Christ and Non-Christian Religions,” in TI, 17:42. 274. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 59. 275.  D’Costa, “Absolute and Relative Nature,” 142–43. 276.  CWR, 30–31, 162. 277.  There are four states in Catholic tradition about hell: (1) hell, as a place of damnation; (2) limbus puerorum (limbo of unbaptized infants/children’s limbo); (3) the limbo of the just (or limbo of the Fathers), which is an empty state since the just who lived before Christ have been saved after his descent to them; and (4) purgatorium (purgatory). G. D’Costa, “The Descent into Hell as a Solution for the Problem of the Fate of Unevangelized Non-Christians: Balthasar’s Hell, the Limbo of the Fathers and Purgatory,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 2 (2009): 148. 278.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 162. 279.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 156. Bullivant critiques D’Costa’s exposition at this point for underplaying the Conciliar qualification of nonculpability for a nonChristian to be saved. Bullivant, “Review: Christianity and World Religions,” 209. This point, however, has been asserted in D’Costa’s book and amply emphasized in his earlier writings. CWR, 162; also Meeting, 103–4; D’Costa, “Inter-Religious Dialog,” 453. 280.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 161–62. Others may still require the purgatorial stage for further purification. CWR, 177. Bullivant has also suggested that people exposed to the gospel without accepting it may under certain conditions be regarded as inculpably ignorant, including atheists. S. Bullivant, The Salvation of Atheists and Catholic Dogmatic Theology, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 131. Wouter Biesbrouck approved of D’Costa’s proposal as one he would be sympathetic with. W. Biesbrouck, “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, Sed Extra Mundum Nulla Damnation: Reappropriating Christ’s Descent into Hell for Theology of Religions,” Louvain Studies 37 (2013): 131. 281.  G. D’Costa, “Review: The Diversity of Religions. By J. A. Dinoia,” Thomist 57, no. 3 (1993): 528. Purgatory, by Trent’s definition, is “a state, where souls are purified between death and resurrection” and applicable only to those died in a state



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of grace but with imperfectly expiated mortal sin or unconfessed venial sins. J. Casey, After Lives: A Guide to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 226. 282.  D’Costa, “Review: The Diversity of Religions,” 528. 283.  E. T. Oakes, “The Internal Logic of Holy Saturday in the Theology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9, no. 2 (2007): 188. 284.  Oakes, “Internal Logic,” 188. He also argues that Balthasar’s theology could be seen as fulfilling Newman’s criteria for authentic doctrinal development within the Catholic Church. Oakes, “Internal Logic,” 195–99. This is disputed by Pitstick, who applies Newman’s seven “notes” described in his 1878 An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/index. html) and argues that it represents a corruption instead. A. Pitstick, “Development of Doctrine, or Denial? Balthasar’s Holy Saturday and Newman’s Essay,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 2 (2009): 129–45. Newman’s notes highlight “traits of genuine development that distinguish its character as the true teaching of the Church from doctrinal corruption.” J. E. Thiel, Senses of Tradition: Continuity and Development in Catholic Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 70. 285.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 151. 286.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 153–54. 287.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 166. 288.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 163. 289.  CWR, 187. 290.  D’Costa, “Descent into Hell,” 163–64; CWR, 180. 291.  CWR, 198. 292.  CWR, 200. 293.  CWR, 198. 294.  Meeting, 110, 114. 295.  It must be clarified that reference to this clause denotes the theological assertion that the Spirit proceeds jointly from the Father and the Son and does not suggest, for or otherwise, the historical legitimacy of its insertion into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in 589 at the Third Council of Toledo. 296. P.-C. Lai, Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions: A Study of Paul Tillich’s Thought. Studies in Philosophical Theology (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1994), 41. 297.  Yong further argues that failure to differentiate between the two economies “risks the subordination of the mission of the Spirit to that of the Son and ultimately to an ecclesiological definition of soteriology.” A. Yong, Discerning the Spirits: A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 64. In addition, rejection of filioque will open up logical space for a Pneumatology of religions. A. Yong, “The Turn to Pneumatology in Christian Theology of Religions: Conduit or Detour?,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 35, nos. 3–4 (1998): 450–451n51. Later, these views are moderated as he realizes “the value of Filioque insofar as it provides for one clear model of Trinitarian salvation history.” A. Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh (Grand Rapids, MI:

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Baker Academic, 2005), 226. In addition, a well-constructed Pneumatological theology of religions is ultimately a Trinitarian theology of religions since the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. A. Yong, “As the Spirit Gives Utterance: Pentecost, Intra-Christian Ecumenism and the Wider Oikoumene,” International Review of Mission 92, no. 366 (2003): 308. Johnson has critiqued Yong’s earlier view of the dual economy of salvation as effectively “sever[ing] the ‘two hands’ of the Father.” K. E. Johnson, “Does the Doctrine of the Trinity Hold the Key to a Christian Theology of Religions? An Evaluation of Three Recent Proposals,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10, no. 1 (2006): 31–32; K. E. Johnson, “Does the Doctrine of the Trinity Hold the Key to a Christian Theology of Religions?,” in Trinitarian Theology for the Church, ed. D. J. Treier and D. Lauber (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 150–52. Like Yong, Knitter also writes, “a Pneumatological theology of religions could dislodge the Christian debate from its confining categories of ‘inclusivism or exclusivism’ or pluralism.” P. F. Knitter, “A New Pentecost? A Pneumatological Theology of Religions,” Current Dialogue 19 (January 1991): 35. 298.  C. H. Pinnock, Flame of Love (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 185–214. Yong observes that the exclusion of the filioque clause is taken for granted in an essay by Pinnock. A. Yong, Beyond the Impasse (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003), 117; C. H. Pinnock, “An Inclusivist View,” in Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, ed. D. L. Okholm and T. R. Phillips (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 106. Pinnock’s views have been critiqued by Strange, who argues that rejection of filioque does not necessarily “liberate” the Spirit from the Son. D. Strange, The Possibility of Salvation among the Unevangelised: An Analysis of Inclusivism in Recent Evangelical Theology (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2002), 234. Other theologians who reject filioque include Pannenberg, who has been defended by Grenz as it allows him to perceive the Spirit being the one triune person operative in the world. S. J. Grenz, “Commitment and Dialogue: Pannenberg on Christianity and the Religions,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26, no. 1 (1989): 204. Slater also approves of objections to the filioque and suggests the work of the Spirit is more promising for interreligious dialogue than Logos Christology. P. Slater, “An Anglican Perspective on Our Religious Situation,” in Grounds for Understanding, ed. S. M. Heim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998), 142–43. 299.  Kärkkäinen, “How to Speak of the Spirit,” 123. 300.  Ormerod has suggested D’Costa proposed a symmetrizing of relations between the triune persons and was moving toward a spirituque. N. Ormerod, The Trinity: Retrieving the Western Tradition (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2005), 26, 74. However, D’Costa’s caution was against Irigaray’s location of the feminine within the Spirit given patriarchal tendencies within both Eastern and Western Trinitarianism that subordinates the Spirit, and he suggested Mary as a feminine model instead. D’Costa, Sexing the Trinity, 11–39. 301. Plaiss, “‘Dialogue and Proclamation,’” 190; Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 82; Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 178–79; P. P. Mendonsa, “Christian Witness in Interreligious Context: Approaches to Interreligious Dialogue” (Ph.D. thesis, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, 2006), 148.



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302.  D’Costa, “Review: Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism,” 910. D’Costa has since clarified that he is no longer in agreement with Dupuis’s positive assessment of this article. Personal email communication, November 13, 2011. 303. P. Schmidt-Leukel, “On Claimed ‘Orthodoxy,’ Quibbling with Words, and Some Serious Implications: A Comment on the Tilley-D’Costa Debate about Religious Pluralism,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 284n18; G. D’Costa, “Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Response to Perry Schmidt-Leukel,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 285–89. 304.  D’Costa, “Traditions and Reception,” 499. 305. The limbus puerorum is not considered presumably since it is a specific reality for unbaptized infants and therefore not a suitable category for the non-Christian individual. 306.  CWR, 174–175. Also see D’Costa, Knitter, and Strange, Only One Way?, 147–48. 307.  D’Costa, “Revelation and World Religions,” 133. 308.  Meeting, 103. 309.  CWR, 7. 310.  CWR, 29. 311. As Carson puts it, the Old Testament believers were “responding in faith to special revelation, and were not simply exercising some sort of general ‘faith’ in an undefined ‘God.’” D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 1996), 298. 312.  CWR, 172. 313.  Rahner describes conversion as involving a fundamental decision to commit the entirety of life to God as a response to God’s call and signifies a discontinuity in life. K. Rahner, “Conversion,” in Studia Missionalia, ed. K. Rahner (London: Burns & Oates, 1968), 4. 314.  TRP, 18. See also his description of this axiom as “God desires the salvation of all humankind” (emphasis added). D’Costa, John Hick’s Theology, 3. 315.  TRP, 99–102. On Rahner’s point, see K. Rahner, “The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation,” in TI, 16:207–9. 316.  D’Costa, “Towards a Trinitarian Theology,” 140, 145–46. 317.  E.g., 1 Tim. 2:3–4: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (ESV). 318.  One possibility here could be to make further theological distinctions within the divine will. E.g., a distinction is sometimes made between the “decretive” and “preceptive” will of God, the former referring to God’s will of purpose that is always accomplished, and the latter his will of command, which ought to be obeyed but could be transgressed. For a fuller discussion of this distinction, see R. A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:441, 450–52. 319.  This was Knitter’s perceptive analysis of Ruokanen’s tentative suggestion of the simultaneous presence of both supernatural and natural grace in the Trinitarian

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opera ad extra, that it ultimately leads to pluralism. P. F. Knitter, “Author’s Reply,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 14, no. 4 (1990): 178; M. Ruokanen, “Author’s Reply,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 14, no. 3 (1990): 123. 320.  Meeting, 108–9. 321.  Meeting, 105. 322.  Meeting, 106. D’Costa is following John Paul II’s thinking in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, trans. V. Messori (London: Cape, 1994), 81. 323. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions, 88. 324.  Meeting, 124. 325.  John 16:8 (ESV) 326.  C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1030–35; A. T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John, BNTC (London: Continuum, 2005), 418. Beasley-Murray calls the fundamental concept of vv. 8–11 “a trial of the world before God.” G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, 2nd ed., WBC 36 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1999), 281. Also see R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, trans. D. Smith and G. A. Kon, Herder’s Theological Commentary on the New Testament 3 (London & Turnbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1982), 128. 327. Brown, Gospel According to John, 712; Johnston, Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, 81. 328. D. A. Carson, “Understanding Misunderstandings in the Fourth Gospel,” Tyndale Bulletin 33 (1982): 76. 329. Johnston, Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, 31. 330. Johnston, Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, 38.

Chapter Three

The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea

This chapter aims to examine the salient features of the Trinitarian theology of Basil of Caesarea as propounded in his major dogmatic writings to provide a basis for a comparison and contrast with D’Costa’s Trinitarian theology in the final chapter. It is noted at the outset that Basil’s theology does not fall neatly into the categories of contemporary systematic theology,1 nor does he specifically address present concerns such as interreligious dialogue. Therefore, it is vital to observe the “otherness” of Basil’s internal thinking when compared to ours, and hence to avoid chronological arrogance as well as theological eisegesis when reading him. Toward that purpose, the first section will discuss his life and historical-theological setting, and is meant to open a window into the past before we move into the second section, which will analyze several foundational concepts in his theology, including the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations, the enlightening work of the Spirit, as well as baptism and theosis. BACKGROUND The Life of Basil Together with his younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and their common friend Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379) is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers.2 He is, however, possibly the only one to have earned the cognomen “The Great” during his lifetime. Hence, Nazianzus used this title when he wrote to Basil for advice regarding the Spirit’s divinity and later in his funeral oration.3 Kustas observes that the usage of this epithet was not typically assigned to a living person, and this suggests the degree of esteem 123

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Basil was held in during his lifetime.4 This acclamation was not only for his teachings but also for his service in founding monasteries5 and hospitals6 to serve the poor and the sick as well as being the author of the liturgy of the Orthodox Church.7 Born in Caesarea to a wealthy family—possibly of the “curial class,” which was a municipal aristocracy with a strong sense of civic patriotism8—and taught elementary education by his father, Basil of Neocaesarea, the younger Basil was educated in both Constantinople and Athens, where he received excellent training and started a lifelong friendship with Gregory, future bishop of Nazianzus and son of its current one, though it is likely that their relationship started earlier. As Nazianzus notes in his funeral oration, “Athens . . . brought me to know Basil more perfectly, though he had not been unknown to me before.”9 In his later years, Basil was to disavow his Athens education. Thus, he describes himself as “having lavished much time on the vanity, and having consumed almost all my youth in the futility . . . of the precepts of that wisdom made foolish by God.”10 After Athens, the church historians Sozomen and Socrates suggest that there was an interlude when Basil and Nazianzus went to Antioch, where they met Libanius the Orator.11 However, Beagon disputes this based on Basil’s chronology after his return from Athens, which does not allow any time for this encounter, though he concedes from the Basil–Libanius correspondence that they did know each other.12 Limberis also argues that Basil had met Libanius, only in Constantinople, and later corresponded with him, but Nazianzus did not meet him.13 What is clear is his return to Caesarea in 355, when he started teaching rhetoric, although an encounter with Eustathius caused him to spend some time with the ascetics in Egypt and Palestine, where he was moved by their inspiring examples. Basil describes how he was “amazed at their vigour in prayers, at how they gained the mastery over sleep,”14 that he prayed he might be able to do the same, indicating early on an ascetic streak in him that never went fully away. Returning to Caesarea around 357, he was baptized by Dianius at a relatively young age, compared to many who chose deathbed baptism to avoid the ethical demands of a postbaptismal life. Moreschini describes this as akin to a second conversion from nominal Christianity to authentic Christianity, in contrast to the previous from paganism to Christianity.15 Schroeder also observes his baptism marked an intention to make a break with his life.16 He then went into solitary living at Pontus near Neocaesarea, but not before he had divided some of his possessions for the poor. The decision to retreat into eremitical asceticism could be due to the sudden death of his younger brother, Naucratius, who had withdrawn earlier to a life of solitude on the banks of the Iris but was killed along with his servant Chrysapius on a hunt-



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ing trip to provide food for the aged in the neighborhood.17 A year later, Basil was joined at Pontus by Nazianzus, who had remained longer in Athens, and the two jointly compiled Origen’s Philocalia.18 During this time, Basil also wrote his Asketikon for the members of the monastery he founded.19 Soon he caught the attention of Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea, who ordained him and made him an administrator and teacher.20 When Eusebius died in 370, Basil succeeded him as bishop, due in no small part to the help of the elder Nazianzus, but he soon won the respect and admiration of his flock with his pastoral work.21 He died on January 1, 379,22 after battling ill health all his life and without seeing the fruits of his theological efforts culminate in the Council of Constantinople in 381, which revised the earlier 325 Nicene Creed into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.23 Historical-Theological Setting of the Fourth Century The significance and importance of Basil’s theology can only be understood against the broader context of the theological controversies of that period, and thus it is essential for us to understand his historical setting. During the fourth century, a dispute broke out around 318 between a presbyter, Arius,24 and his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria, because of the former’s view that Jesus Christ was a created being and should not be seen as homoousios with God the Father. In contrast, Alexander viewed the Son as coeternal with the Father.25 Recent revisionist scholarship has noted it is simplistic to depict the Trinitarian disputes as between those in support of and those diametrically opposed to the term homoousios, and that the controversies were instead the consequence of a complex matrix of clashing theological trajectories. Thus, Ayres characterizes the emergence of a “Pro-Nicene theology” and that its proponents were those who (1) made a clear distinction between person and nature, (2) expressed the view that the eternal generation of the Son took place within the divine being, and (3) held to the doctrine of inseparable operations.26 This term, Pro-Nicene, was employed previously by Hanson, but Ayres has provided greater definition.27 In 325, the Emperor Constantine convened the Council at Nicaea to resolve the theological controversy, more out of political expediency than for considerations of orthodoxy. In Eusebius’s words, Constantine “marshaled a legion of God, a worldwide Council, with respectful letters summoning the bishops to hasten from every place.”28 This council29 condemned the theology of Arius and excommunicated him, which resulted in a faction of his eastern supporters, including Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodotus of Laodicea, and Paulinus of Tyre, commonly known as the “Eusebians” after its two leading proponents.30 Though Constantine did recall Arius from exile several years after Nicaea,

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the refusal of the Alexandrian church to readmit him into communion meant he died outside of the church in the mid-330s. Around 340, as Athanasius published his Orationes contra Arianos31 to refute the tenets of Arianism, the Eusebian supporters convened the Dedication Council in 341 to defend themselves against his charges. This council was named for its ostensible intention to celebrate the dedication of the golden church Constantine founded ten years ago in Antioch and completed by his son.32 By 350 however, the Eusebian alliance itself was divided over the usage of substance (ousia) language, as some rejected the term and preferred homoiousios (of similar substance). In 357, the Council of Sirmium33 rejected both the Dedication Council as well as all ousia language to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, which paved the way for Aetius and his student, Eunomius, to propound a form of theology that denied the full deity of the Son, like Eusebian theology. The latter had been ordained a deacon by Eudoxius at Antioch in 358 after studying in Alexandria under Aetius.34 Scholars have suggested various terms to describe their school of thought, ranging from Anhomoeans35 to Neo-Arians.36 For this book, we will employ the term Heteroousian, as it pins down the precise point of disagreement. In addition, this term is preferable to Neo-Arians since neither Aetius nor Eunomius saw themselves as carrying on the Arian legacy.37 Basil’s first brush with Eunomius took place at the Council of Constantinople in January 360, which he attended probably as a reader with his mentor Eustathius, and Eunomius was a deacon.38 Philostorgius has recorded that at the council, a certain “Basil,” who was the representative for the Homoiousians, put up a “timid” performance when he realized he was up against the formidable rhetorical skills of Aetius, the spokesperson for the Heterousians, although an identification with Basil of Caesarea is improbable since he was only a reader then.39 While Hanson40 and Behr41 have identified this Basil with the later bishop of Caesarea, Philostorgius was likely referring to Basil of Ancyra, who was a bishop at the time of the council. This is because, at the beginning of the passage (4.12), Philostorgius notes that “Basil and Eustathius headed the group,” referring to the bishops of Ancyra and Sebaste, respectively. Van Dam too argues for the identification of this “Basil” with the bishop of Ancyra,42 and Drecoll agrees that Basil of Caesarea is unlikely to be the referent here.43 It is likely that at the end of the council, Eunomius delivered the speech that would later become his Liber Apologeticus,44 a copy of which Basil finally secured around 364 and immediately attacked in his Adversus Eunomium.45 It has been suggested that in Adversus Eunomium 1.2, Basil denies Eunomius delivered his Apologia at the council. However, what Basil meant was that there was no need for a speech by Eunomius in Constantinople,



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and therefore he dismissed the Apologia as a fictitious device meant to elicit sympathy.46 Vaggione too argues that Eunomius did present his Apologia at the council and received the bishopric of Cyzicus as a reward for that successful defense.47 To distinguish between Basil’s work and a subsequent treatise by his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, also against Eunomius, we will follow Hanson’s suggestion of referring to this as AEun, to differentiate this from Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium (CEun).48 Basil’s AEun elicited an Apologia Apologiae (or Apology for an Apology)49 from Eunomius, by which time Basil himself was too ill to reply,50 and the rebuttal was left to his brother Nyssa.51 According to Philostorgius, it was not an illness that killed him but rather Eunomius’s Apologia Apologiae that upset Basil so grievously that he dropped dead as soon as he got hold of the first book.52 However, DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz convincingly argue that since the treatise was circulated in late 378, following a date of September 378 for Basil’s death, it was unlikely he received any copies.53 The next significant development of Basil’s Trinitarian theology took place around 375 and resulted in his second theological treatise, De Spiritu Sancto (hereon referred to as DSS),54 written against the Pneumatomachi, or “SpiritFighters,” for their denial of the deity of the Spirit. Here its context was against his former friend and mentor Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, who had come to believe the Spirit to be neither creature nor creator but an intermediate being.55 A few months earlier, Nazianzus had written to Basil urging him to declare the divinity of the Spirit (Letter 58) openly. Basil’s reply in Letter 71 was a sharp reproach to his friend for the untimeliness of his request, for he knew that the doctrine had not been fully accepted among the Eastern churches, even though earlier, in 372, he had written two short letters to the church at Tarsus, Letters 113 and 114, in which he expressed concern about heretical views about the Spirit.56 As we shall analyze later, the theologically hostile climate against an outright declaration of the Spirit’s divinity accounts for the argumentation in DSS that arrived at that conclusion indirectly. In short, much of the catalyzation of Basil’s theology in AEun and DSS were responses to his proximate historical-theological context, in which denials of the deity of the Son and Spirit propelled him to crystallize his theology. The Dogmatic Works of Basil Basil’s works have been conventionally classified57 into (1) dogmatic,58 (2) exegetic,59 (3) ascetic,60 (4) homiletic,61 (5) letters,62 and (6) liturgic,63 of which we are chiefly concerned with the first category as well as several theological letters. For example, Letters 233–36 to Amphilochius of Iconium contain much of Basil’s mature theological thought as they recapitulate the

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theology of AEun and were written after DSS. In addition, the “Canonical Letters,” that is, Letters 188, 199, and 217, will be referred to as they deal with matters of church order and discipline. Much of Basil’s work has been preserved, as his name alone almost guaranteed their protection,64 though several letters previously ascribed to him have since been disputed. Among these are Letters 8, 38, and 189. For Letter 8, the majority of scholars now attribute this work to Evagrius Ponticus and rename it On the Faith as part of his corpus.65 Letter 189 is also now generally regarded as part of Nyssa’s corpus.66 Letter 38 requires more discussion as it is widely regarded as containing some of the most significant arguments in patristic Trinitarianism. It has been reattributed to Nyssa since the publication of Hübner’s article in a 1972 Festschrift for Jean Daniélou.67 Hübner’s theory is that Basil’s view of substance is more Stoic, and hence Letter 38, which displays a more Aristotelian view of substance, is most likely the work of Nyssa. Fedwick has done an exhaustive study of the manuscripts and concurs based on stylistic evidence for authorship,68 while Cross also agrees with Hübner’s conclusions.69 Nevertheless, some scholars, including Drecoll70 and Hammerstaedt,71 do not accept Nyssan authorship, while others, such as Ayres72 and Mortley,73 neither accept Basilian authorship nor assert Nyssan composition. In this book, we will follow the majority of Basilian scholars in reascribing it to Nyssa. The dating of Letter 9 also deserves some discussion. Assuming AEun was written around 364, its dating becomes significant in understanding Basil’s shift from a homoiousios to a homoousios position, although we do note Basil himself never used the term homoiousios explicitly in his writings, nor did the other two Cappadocians.74 In this letter to Maximus the Philosopher, Basil writes, “I accept the phrase ‘like in substance,’ provided the qualification ‘invariably’ is added to it, on the ground that it comes to the same thing as ‘identity of substance.’”75 Both Fedwick76 and Hanson77 had dated this letter to 360–362, implying Basil’s “conversion” to homoousios was made earlier, before AEun, but which he had kept relatively private at the beginning. Recently, Hildebrand has argued that dating Letter 9 after AEun would allow for a more natural theological development in Basil’s thought given the continuing usage of homoiousia language in AEun. Hence, he suggests the bishop started from a rejection of homoousion language in Letter 361 and moved to a tentative use of it in AEun followed by an acceptance in Letter 9.78 This view is interesting as it presents a more cohesive picture of Basil’s thinking, although scholarly consensus remains to be achieved. As noted earlier, Basil’s two principal dogmatic works are AEun 1–379 from around 364 and DSS in 375, and given their theological importance, a summary of each will be provided in the following discussion, while a more thorough analysis will



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be performed subsequently when analyzing the contours of Basil’s Trinitarian theology. Before going into the summaries, we note that the view of the Cappadocians presenting a monolithic concept of Trinitarian theology has now given way to recognition that each of them is a Trinitarian theologian in his own right. Representing the former view, Otis had referred to the “coherence of their [the Cappadocian Fathers’] doctrinal system” in assessing the logical consistency of their thought, but without further noting each had a coherent system of his own.80 Reflecting this recent trend, Beeley has cautioned against reading Basil not only through the lens of Nazianzus’s Trinitarian doctrine but also through Athanasius’s Homoousianism.81 Awad also sees a distinction between the theologies of Basil and Nazianzus and asserts that several modern interpreters, including Torrance and Zizioulas, have made the error of reading Cappadocian theology purely through a Basilian lens.82 In a critique of the social model of the Trinity published just before his death, Fletcher too notes that Basil and Nazianzus differed considerably in their conception of the divine monarchy, with Basil underscoring the unity of God whereas Nazianzus was relatively more reticent.83 In recent years, several monographs on Basil’s Trinitarian theology also suggest that there is much we can mine from the bishop’s writings alone.84 Therefore, in this chapter, Basil’s doctrine of the Trinity will be examined on its own merits, and supporting references to the thought of the other two Cappadocians and other Church Fathers will only be made for comparison purposes. The theological relationship between Basil and Athanasius deserves some discussion as the dependence of the former on the latter has frequently been assumed. For example, T. F. Torrance argues that DSS essentially follows the teachings of Athanasius’s Ad Serapion in his discussion of the communion between the persons.85 However, Ayres has noted that though there are similarities between their arguments, much work needs to be done to establish the precise relationship between them, and he argues instead for a complex matrix of traditions and contexts from which Pro-Nicene theologians (and Basil in particular) have emerged,86 while Hanson observes that Basil’s theological tradition could be more readily traced to Basil of Ancyra rather than Athanasius.87 Recently, DelCogliano has demonstrated that in AEun, Basil’s treatment of Proverbs 8:22 was influenced by Eusebius of Caesarea rather than Athanasius as traditionally accepted.88 Therefore, in examining Basil’s theology, the influence of Athanasius should not be overstated, and he should be recognized as the creative theologian that he was. Finally, concerning Basil’s philosophical sources, much scholarly effort has been expended in attempting to isolate his influences. By searching for parallels with Neo-Platonic texts, Rist concludes that throughout most of

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Basil’s life he remained unaffected by Neo-Platonic influence.89 Turcescu detects, however, an Aristotelian position mediated through Neo-Platonic categories,90 while Shear argues for a Platonic influence on the Father,91 and Robertson asserts that Basil was influenced by both Stoic and Aristotelian traditions.92 Given the various possibilities explored as well as the absence of persuasive arguments to rule out any of them conclusively, it is prudent to conclude with Hanson and Ayres that there was a complex interplay of Stoic, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic influences in his writings.93 Stead sums up the relationship between Basil’s theology and philosophy, writing, “on the whole, he [Basil] looks upon philosophy as an auxiliary to Christian tradition rather than as an independent source of truth.”94 In an earlier essay, Hanson similarly notes that the Church Fathers utilized several images from Greek philosophy, including icon and apaugasma (brightness, ray, or reflection) when they needed to, but were able to reject elements that did not fit the witness of the New Testament.95 On that note, we conclude that while Basil may have drawn from philosophical sources, overall there was no excessive reliance and he remained methodologically rooted in Scripture and tradition. Adversus Eunomium As described earlier, Basil’s first major dogmatic work, AEun, constitutes his detailed and extended defense against Eunomius’s denial of the divinity of the Son in Liber Apologeticus. The crux of Eunomius’s argument was that agennesia (unbegottenness) constitutes the divine ousia (being) of God, and hence the Son cannot be divine since he is begotten. To understand Eunomius’s position, we note an earlier similar contention in his teacher, Aetius, when he speaks against the unbegotten and the begotten being of the same ousia. In his Syntagmation, Aetius writes, “If the Deity remains everlastingly in ingenerate nature, and the offspring is everlastingly offspring, then the perverse doctrine of the ‘homoousion’ and the ‘homoiousion’ will be demolished; incomparability in essence is established when each nature abides unceasingly in the proper rank of its nature.”96 From Aetius’s description of the (one) “doctrine of the ‘homoousion’ and the ‘homoiousion,’” Kopecek has noted he saw no apparent difference between the two positions.97 Based on this logic, Aetius’s (and Eunomius’s) doctrine of divine ingeneracy suggests that the Father and the Son have two different essences, and “between these two essences there is no essential relationship.”98 For both, there is a univocal relationship between the names predicated of the divine being and its substance such that names communicated being, and thus the unbegotten Father and begotten Son cannot be of the same order. Wiles has suggested that Eunomius did not regard agennesia as the proper name for God, but



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instead had only intended to highlight the ineffability of God’s name as ōn, or being-in-itself, though he concedes Basil also rebutted him on this point.99 In his rebuttal in AEun, Basil begins by countering Eunomius’s concept of names as well as asserting the codivinity of the Son based on Scriptural verses. Concerning the claim that the ordering (taxis) within the Godhead showed the priority of the first over the second, and therefore by implication the Son could not be equal to the Father, he contends that taxis could also imply a logical order without time interval or difference in nature, and indicate a causal relationship instead.100 In the same section, Basil also provides his conception of time by arguing against Eunomius’s view that time is “a certain kind of motion of the stars”; instead, he reasons that time is “the extension coextensive with the existence of the cosmos.”101 Finally, in defending the divinity of Christ, Basil refutes Eunomius’s suggestion that the Son was both gennema (offspring) and poiema (creature) by noting that nowhere in Scripture was Jesus called these terms. In fact, gennema is used in Scripture for produce (Mark 14:25) and the offspring of snakes (Matt. 23:33), but never for describing human offspring, and he warns against adding new terminology to the names of God.102 AEun represents Basil’s earlier and relatively underdeveloped work, and its tentative nature has been recognized by Hildebrand, who argues that it should not be seen as the fruit of his mature thought.103 Prestige opined that it is “rather too strongly marked with the arrogance of a clever young man getting into print for the first time,”104 though Anastos argues he was already age thirty-four when it was written and could no longer claim to be a theological novice.105 Notwithstanding these limitations, AEun marks an important milestone in Basil’s explication of the concept of the doctrine of the Trinity as it enables him to make a conceptual distinction between the being of God and the particularizing properties of the persons together with his next major work, DSS. De Spiritu Sancto The importance of this work, Basil’s second major dogmatic treatise, can be seen in it being described as “the standard authority in pneumatology throughout the Byzantine period alongside with Athanasius’ Ad Serapion.”106 Written in the nature of a highly logical and systematic treatise to Amphilochius, his spiritual son,107 it begins with an extended defense of the deity of the Son and then moves into a more constructive approach to the question of the Spirit’s divinity.108 Basil’s main contention was that he had been attacked for being novel and contradictory when he used the doxological expression “Glory to the Father meta [with] the Son syn [together with] the Holy Spirit,” while his opponents argued for the traditional formulation: “Glory to

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the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.”109 Given the principle of lex orandi est lex credenda—prayer and faith are inseparable110—his opponents charged Basil of being an innovator. His defense was that each formulation was not unknown to the church and should be understood based on its context and meaning. Against those who claim that the Spirit was, in human terms, neither master nor slave but a free person, he argues that there is no middle category, that is, he is either a creature or Creator, and asserts the latter.111 Nyssa would subsequently find himself arguing against the same view of the Spirit as an intermediate being against the Macedonians and employing many of the same arguments.112 DSS represented a full-scale defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit in Basil’s writings, in contrast to the earlier Heteroousian controversy, which had focused primarily on the nature of the Son and his relationship with the Father.113 Yamamura additionally observes that DSS constituted a significant development within Christianity in relating itself with the philosophy of its time and became recognized as the “true philosophy.”114 In terms of theological method, Basil both canvassed biblical sources as well as appealed to the dogma or “secret tradition of the Church.”115 The latter term has become a matter of controversy among scholars. Hanson contends that Basil’s use of “secret doctrine” to defend the divinity of the Spirit was a “startling innovation” and that he had inadvertently introduced a new doctrine.116 Amand de Mendieta argues that Hanson is inaccurate in translating dogma as “secret doctrine” and that dogma should be understood as what springs from the primitive sperma sown in the Scriptures and developed into dogmatic expressions within the church when confronting heresy, such as when the Spirit’s deity was denied.117 Louth also observes that the Basilian distinction safeguarded Christianity from the mere worship of the letter at that time.118 Florovsky has summarized that for Basil Scripture and tradition are not two disparate sources of authority, but the former is the “supreme criterion of doctrine,” to be read in light of the tradition of faith.119 However, what one fails to find in DSS is any expressis verbis affirmation that the Holy Spirit is homoousios with God, as Basil prefers the term homotimos (of equal rank) instead. In Letter 90, Basil also uses homoousios to describe the Son, but refers to the Spirit as of equal rank; “the Son is confessed to be consubstantial with the Father, and the Holy Spirit is numbered with them in like honor and so adored.”120 This has led Torrance to comment on the “strange fact that Basil never referred to the Holy Spirit as God.”121 Given the historical-theological circumstances, it seems that Basil felt it unwise for him to break the precarious peace that had been achieved since Nicaea.122 Other scholars have proposed different reasons. Zizioulas suggests that Basil was averse to ousia (substance) language,123 while Hildebrand observes Ba-



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sil’s usage of homotimos was precisely because it did not have the technical connotations of homoousios and homoios.124 Tsuchihashi, however, argues that Basil’s combined use of homotima and synarithmesis (connumeration) constitutes a major turning point in his Trinitarian theology despite the lack of homoousios vocabulary.125 Nevertheless, there is no question that Basil affirms the Spirit’s deity, as Nazianzus describes he had related this privately to him and in public sermons and had “postponed for the time the use of the exact term,” that is, the Spirit is God, because he knew his enemies were watching for this.126 That a year after his death the 381 Council of Constantinople would largely follow Basil’s position on the Spirit’s status may be seen as testimony to his prudence in not overpressing this issue,127 and this would later allow Nazianzus to openly declare that the Spirit is God, as he writes, “Is the Spirit God? Certainly. Is he of the same substance? Yes, if he is God.”128 BASIL’S TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY The preceding section discussed and examined Basil’s life, his historicaltheological context, and his principal dogmatic works, and we are now in a position to emphasize several salient features of his theology under two separate headings. The first, “Foundational Concepts,” highlights two primary Basilian notions that undergird his theology, namely, (1) the ousia/hypostasis distinction and (2) epinoia and theological epistemology, both of which serve as theological support for and are embedded in three other facets of his theology, treated under the second section, “Major Features.” These themes include (1) the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations, (2) the enlightening work of the Spirit, and (3) baptism and theosis. As previously noted, while Basil’s Trinitarian theology may be seen as a significant strand of Pro-Nicene theology, it is yet sufficiently distinct enough for us to identify features and appropriate them. In addition, it should be emphasized that the patristic themes isolated are not meant to suggest that Basilian Trinitarianism consists only of these characteristics, or that these are to be seen as its précis, but rather that they will be of relevance in illuminating the Trinitarian points that D’Costa is trying to make. Foundational Concepts Distinction between Ousia and Hypostasis The understanding of the relationship between ousia and hypostasis marks one of Basil’s chief contributions to patristic Trinitarianism and determines

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the entire shape of his understanding of the Godhead. Beginning in book 2 of AEun, Basil counters Eunomius with the argument that “designations do not signify the substances, but rather the distinctive features that characterize the individual.”129 This means any mention of a name, such as Peter, causes one not to think of his being but only his characterizing attributes. Hence, Basil reasons that it was the idiomates that mark by way of individual characteristics from what is common and, subsequently, that from the conjoining of the common and the particular one gets the notion of unbegotten light, which is the Father, and begotten light, which is the Son.130 Kalligas summarizes Basil’s view of idiomata (peculiarities) as “while they undoubtedly possess some descriptive content, they do not even attempt to define, by listing them exhaustively, the basic constituting properties of the object . . . but only to individuate it.” 131 In Basil’s thought, each person of the Trinity is a union of the general divine nature and a particularizing characteristic, which he also refers to as a tropos hyparxeos (way of existing).132 In fact, Basil would later refer to God’s tropos hyparxeos again in DSS.133 Edwards makes the interesting assertion that this was Basil’s preferred way of describing God and that he would have been content to affirm “a unity of substance and a plurality of hyparxeis,” except that the language of homoousios was already established by the time he came on the scene.134 Based on this reasoning, Studer has concluded that in AEun Basil had already distinguished between ousia/hypostasis when he realized unbegottenness should be seen as a hypostasis rather than as ousia, before developing a more precise vocabulary later in DSS.135 However, this is a minority view, as most scholars do not see Basil making the terminological distinction yet in AEun. Hildebrand maintains that Basil had not discriminated between these two terms at this stage but agrees that by DSS they have been differentiated.136 Ayres concurs that in AEun Basil did not use the term hypostasis in a specific technical sense and that it was synonymous with ousia,137 which is also the position of DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz.138 Turcescu points out that not only did Basil use both words synonymously in AEun to assert the codivinity of the Son with the Father, but he also did not differentiate between his usage of prosopon and hypostasis, and only later strongly discouraged the usage of prosopon to refer to the divine persons when he realized its connotations of Sabellianism.139 Hanson also notes the synonymous use of prosopon and hypostasis with tropos hyparxeos.140 Nevertheless, despite this terminologically imprecise usage of ousia/hypostasis, it is clear that in composing AEun Basil did begin to make a conceptual distinction between the individualizing characteristics.141 By 376, Basil produced a letter that offers a more extended definition of the distinction between ousia and hypostasis. In a letter to Amphilochius, he writes,



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But substance [ousia] and person [hypostasis] have the distinction that the general has with reference to the particular. . . . For this reason, we confess one substance [ousia] for the Godhead, so as not to hand down variously the definition of Its existence, but we confess a person [hypostasis] that is particular, in order that our conception of Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be for us unconfused and plain. . . . Therefore, we must add the particular to the general and thus confess the faith.142

In the same year, he wrote to Count Terentius, reasoning that there is a necessity to distinguish between the particular and the generic, so that the “concept of existence or substance [ousia] is generic, like goodness, divinity, or any other abstract concept; but the person [hypostasis] is perceived in the special character of fatherhood, or sonship, or holy power.”143 Basil’s desynonymization of ousia and hypostasis is now fully developed, and he can thus be rightfully named as the first recorded to do so.144 In addition, despite a common perception, Lienhard has noted the formula mia ousia treis hypostaseis, often attributed to the Cappadocians, was more of a theological shorthand and seldom directly employed by the Fathers themselves.145 Ayres, however, cautions that the earliest differentiation between ousia and hypostasis cannot be established with certainty as “Basil’s evolution of the distinction occurred within a context where some such distinction was already clearly in the air,” and he suggested other possible candidates, including Apollinarius of Laodicea and George of Laodicea.146 Notwithstanding these possibilities, it is clear that Basil’s articulation remains the earliest extant. His insight was the terms unbegottenness and begottenness do not refer to the incomprehensible divine ousia but to the particular hypostasis of the Father as Father and the Son as Son (and by extension, procession for the Spirit), and there was no variation in the common ousia shared by the persons.147 As for the relationship between the Son and Spirit, most scholars are agreed in their opinion that the question of the dual procession of the Spirit does not arise here; that is, to Basil, this issue does not exist in its later sense in the filioque controversy.148 Therefore, in contrast to the ontological gulf that Eunomius had placed between God and all other created beings—among which he included the Son and the Spirit—Basil is able to locate the ontological divide between the infinite divine ousia realized in the three divine hypostaseis and the rest of creation.149 Hill has critiqued Basil’s understanding of ousia/hypostasis as problematic as it reduces the divine unity to an abstract essence, though he concedes that ultimately this distinction was balanced dialectically with sufficient statements to safeguard it.150 However, we agree with Pelikan that the significance of this distinction lies in it being accomplished without an overreliance on metaphysical identification.151 Hanson too asserts that though

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Basil did seem to compare ousia to hypostasis as similar to the relationship between the general to the particular within a species, by DSS he had dismissed the idea that their distinction is akin to an abstract essence, such as humanity, and its concrete manifestation, such as a man.152 It is also important to note what Basil was not trying to achieve, that is, to provide a definition of hypostasis, for he realized it was not possible to give its general definition in the sense of being able to say three hypostaseis, since what is common within them is by definition within the ousia and the hypostasis denotes what is specific. Lossky astutely writes “if we want to generalize and make a concept of the ‘divine hypostasis,’ we would have to say that the only common definition possible would be the impossibility of any common definition of the hypostaseis.”153 Prestige also notes a distinction between hypostasis and idioma, the latter referring to the order of knowledge while the former to that of being.154 Hildebrand summarizes that for Basil a hypostasis (the particular subsistent) is the combination of ousia (the common) and idioma (the particular) and it is the idioma that makes the hypostasis perceptible.155 In short, the Basilian distinction resulted in a clarification of terms that had been synonymous during Nicaea and paved the way for the conceptual development of the doctrine of the Trinity.156 However, while Basil’s distinction between ousia and hypostasis may be clear, his conception of the relationship between ousia and energeia (operations) presents some unresolved issues. His appreciation of the incomprehensibility of God’s being led him to posit that when we know God we can know him only through his energeia, suggesting that one never encounters God’s being itself but only the way in which it appears to us. In a discussion of the relationship between the two, he states that while God’s activities (energeiai) are known to us, “his substance [ousia] remains inaccessible.”157 Therefore, a distinction has now been drawn between the operations of God that we can perceive and the God who “remains inaccessible,” which raises the inevitable question of how knowledge of the energeia confers any true knowledge of God. Basil himself did not supply an answer, but since the doctrine of divine simplicity implies that the energeia can never be equated with the ousia, such an ousia/energeia distinction could have the unfortunate effort of lapsing into a dichotomy such that one never knows God himself but merely his energeia. Hence, Bradshaw suggests a possible understanding of the distinction as akin to the Kantian noumenal/phenomena, but cautions against the corollary that the energeia, being acts of self-manifestation, are part of creation.158 The unresolved nature of their exact relationship has since left the door open for subsequent more radical formulations. Wendebourg has examined Gregory Palamas’s theology and noted that it differentiates between God as energeiai and ousia to the extent that the hypostaseis “do not enter the created world,



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they simply are,” marking a defeat for Cappadocian Trinitarianism.159 Letham concurs that behind this aspect of Palamite theology lies Basil’s influence.160 Gunton agrees that the unfortunate result is that the Father is seen as operating by means of the energeia rather than by his two economic hands, and further notes the influence of Palamas in Zizioulas.161 In Basil’s defense, Meredith argues that the Palamite bifurcation should be traced to Nyssa,162 but Alexis Torrance has observed precedents in the writings of all the three Cappadocians.163 Thus, while this distinction could also be found in the writings of the two Gregorys and may not have been unique to Basil, that the Church Father did expressly make it and left it unqualified could have had a deleterious effect on some subsequent Trinitarian developments. Epinoia and Theological Epistemology We recall that one of the primary points of contention in the debate between Eunomius and Basil was the issue of theological epistemology and the nature of the human act in the process of knowing God. Eunomius had made the startling claim that he knew the essence of God as well as God knew it himself.164 Behr discusses that while it cannot be proven if this was indeed a claim by Eunomius, it was nevertheless the widespread perception of his position. However, Vaggione points to the parallels between a similar claim by Aetius of full knowledge of God and a statement reported by Socrates as issuing from Eunomius to conclude that it is likely he did utter the claim.165 To understand the basis for Eunomius’s claim, we begin with his Liber Apologeticus, in which he asserts that since agennetos is a term applicable to God as he is, this logically excludes the “begotten” Son from sharing the divine being. He states, “When we say ‘Unbegotten,’ then, we do not imagine that we ought to honor God only in name, in conformity with human invention; rather, in conformity with reality, we ought to repay him the debt which above all others is most due God: the acknowledgement that he is what he is.”166 For Eunomius, a term that is descriptive of God must imply an exact knowledge of his very being, for otherwise the Christian faith would not be based upon reality but on mere words that vanish as soon as they are uttered. The primary term that should apply to God is agennetos, and he strenuously argues that this is a fact not from epinoia (human conception) but that it corresponds to reality.167 Therefore, the being of the Son is totally anomoios (dissimilar) to the being of the Father since the Son is never called agennetos. His absolute ontological difference from the Father is also evident in that he is both gennema (offspring) and poiema (creature), thus having a beginning not from God’s being but his will, and is as temporal as the work that brought him into being.168 When it comes to the Spirit, Eunomius makes it clear that

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since it was through the action of the Son from the Father’s will that he came into existence, he must then be third in both nature and order.169 Scholars have traced Eunomius’s uncompromising view of the diminished status of the Son and Spirit to him holding a particular view of language, and we will briefly examine his possible sources. In his refutation of Eunomius, Nyssa was the first to attribute it to Cratylus,170 a dialogue recounted by Plato of a debate between Cratylus and Hermogenes about how words acquire their meaning.171 While the latter advocated a “conventionalist” position such that language is primarily a product of convention and the relationship between words and concepts is arbitrary, Cratylus argues for a “naturalist” position such that an intrinsic relationship exists between words and concepts.172 Given this distinction, Eunomius’s understanding would be in line with the naturalist view. Daniélou also suggests that Eunomius was influenced by Proclus’ commentary on the Cratylus,173 though Rist has challenged this as he detects no trace of Neo-Platonism in his writings,174 while DelCogliano agrees, arguing that the Heteroousian drew instead from proximate Christian sources.175 The debate continues, but Eunomius’s point remains to be answered, that is, is there a univocal relationship between the words predicated of God and his being in the sense that these words actually do refer to God as he is, and if not, how may the knowledge of God be claimed to be attainable in a meaningful sense? We turn now to Basil’s response, and we observe his methodology in AEun immediately when he asserts at the outset that Scripture uses the term Father rather than agennetos, implying epistemology has to be governed by what God has revealed about himself through Scripture rather than through deductive and rationalistic arguments.176 Therefore, Basil objects to the usage of agennetos because it is nonbiblical and overlooks the Father–Son relationship. However, while it may be nonbiblical, that does not make it abiblical since one of the attributes of the Father is indeed unbegottenness. As Basil puts it, “it is self-evident that God is unbegotten.”177 The error of Eunomius lies deeper in his misunderstanding of the nature of theological language when he assumes a single word suffices to describe God’s being. In a significant argument in AEun, Basil asserts that no single name can fully express God’s nature; rather, some names are “indicative of what is present to God; others, on the contrary, of what is not present,” and an impression of God is formed from the combination of both.178 Basil, therefore, makes the critical observation that though the ontology of God is incomprehensible, one does not have to walk the path of agnosticism.179 Instead, there are some terms that express his nature positively and others that denote a privation of other qualities, and from these two groups one can derive an understanding of God through both kataphatic and apo-



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phatic theology.180 In addition, he points out the logical inconsistency in Eunomius’s theory of names when he claims that agennetos denotes the being of God. A strict Eunomian identification of name with substance would imply every name used of God must refer to his substance. To illustrate the inherent contradiction in this argument, he writes that it inevitably ends in confusion since it equates God’s power with his being and likewise his providence and foreknowledge.181 Similarly, drawing an example from Christ, he notes that he has said he is the “door,” “way,” “bread,” “vine,” “shepherd,” and “light,” but it would be logically absurd to conclude his being is all of these things.182 Basil’s understanding of theological epistemology then led him to decry Eunomius’s misuse of the concept of epinoia. While Eunomius conceives of it as a process by which the mind assigns terms to divine reality, Basil’s notion is that the mind is itself involved in the process of knowing in which the knower is being inserted between the articulated word and the ousia such that the subsequent thoughts remain embedded in the knower’s mind.183 Epinoia is hence an ongoing process of reflection and thinking from unspecific mental impressions to clear thoughts and ultimately into words.184 We can distinguish between two mental processes, the first which forms an initial impression of an object, and a second more thorough analysis.185 This position may be classified as conventionalist rather than naturalist since names are ascribed after the constitution of reality based on distillations developed after the event.186 Contrary to Eunomius’s understanding of epinoia to be accomplished by the autonomous mind detached from the object, the mind itself is involved in the process that begins from sensory impressions and ends with verbal descriptions. This means the words used to describe objects do not refer to their being but are instead a product of the mind and can only refer to the way the object has impressed itself onto the mind. Therefore, even the concept of mythical creatures such as centaurs can continue to exist in the mind, unlike Eunomius’s categorical rejection of the existence of a thing once the sound that describes it ceases.187 In summary, unlike Eunomius’s understanding of epinoia that is a form of thoroughgoing positivism, Basil’s formulation allows both for a nonrealist epistemology, that is, ideas do not necessarily have to refer to an external object, as well as having some realist components, that is, ideas and words do provide accurate and useful knowledge of things as they are.188 Major Features The preceding section has discussed two critical concepts in Basil’s theology that are essential and foundational for his Trinitarian theology, namely, the ousia/hypostasis distinction and epinoia, or the appropriate method of

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reflecting on the knowledge of God. In the following discussion, we will isolate three further concepts that are distinctive aspects of his theology, and these themes will provide for us a comparison basis for an assessment of the Trinitarian theology that is constitutive of D’Costa’s theology of religions in the next chapter. Doctrines of Divine Simplicity and Inseparable Operations The doctrine of divine simplicity is one of the primary axioms of Basilian theology as well as of Pro-Nicene theology in general.189 At the same time, it is closely related to the doctrine of inseparable operations of the Trinity, also known as the indivisible external works of God. The relationship between the two can be characterized as a correlative understanding of God on the twin levels of ontology and economy, respectively, and given their intimate connection we will examine both together to appreciate Basil’s view of the work of the divine persons within the Godhead. Divine simplicity is the assertion that the ontology of God is noncomposite, or that the divine being could not be composed of parts that are divisible. Stead has pointed out that the doctrine of divine simplicity is not a simple notion in itself and has been used by various patristic authors with different meanings.190 However, Ayres has defended this notion and persuasively argues that behind this apparent imprecise use of terms lies a consistent usage.191 Radde-Gallwitz also argues that the Cappadocians did recognize they differ with Eunomius regarding the meaning of simplicity and that ultimately Basil (and Nyssa) provided a coherent version of simplicity.192 Concerning simplicity, Basil first writes about the shared being between the Son and the Father that it is “simple, not composed of various parts.”193 When it comes to the Spirit, his description is likewise, that he is “simple in being.”194 This ontological simplicity and unity of God imply one has to be careful in applying number to deity. Thus, “if we must use numbers, we must not let a stupid arithmetic lead us astray to the idea of many gods.”195 We may, therefore, say that Basilian thought in particular, and Cappadocian theology in general, was governed by the integral idea that God must be truly simple.196 If the Godhead is simple, that is, if a unity and singularity lies within the divine, it leads to the next argument, that, notwithstanding any distinctiveness seen within the operations, there must be a similar unity and singularity of divine operations ad extra, for to imply otherwise would suggest a division within the Godhead. To appreciate this, we turn to the theological route by which Basil defended the deity of the Spirit. His fundamental assertion was that since he is capable of performing operations of a nature that only God is capable of doing—and was performing such operations—the Spirit could



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only be divine. However, since the Godhead is simple and noncomposite, there must be a plurality within the Godhead such that the Father, Son, and Spirit coexist together. We have seen how Basil resolves this at the ontological level with the conceptual breakthrough of an ousia/hypostasis distinction, a breakthrough that carried forward the Athanasian homoousion of the Son and Father and which now allows for the deity of the Spirit in a simultaneous threeness/oneness within the Godhead. With the Spirit understood as one of three differentiated divine hypostaseis, the unitary nature of their ousia indicates that any activity executed by the three will exhibit the same inseparable singularity, completing the move from the economy to ontology and back to the economy. For Ayres, this insight that the economy of the Spirit is inseparable from that of the Father and the Son ranks as one of the most important contributions of Pro-Nicene Pneumatology.197 The realm in which this inseparable activity is manifested lies in the economic operations of the Trinity in the acts of creation and salvation, and especially within the church. In AEun 3.4, the Trinitarian passage of 1 Corinthians 12:4–6198 is initially cited to describe the “diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit” as a clear indication that the Spirit is as divine as the Son and the Father. Subsequently, in DSS, Basil cites the same passage again, this time in the context of asserting the indivisible works of the Trinity, that “in everything the Holy Spirit is indivisibly and inseparably joined to the Father and the Son.”199 The unity of divine being and act as reflected in the twin doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations can be seen when Basil describes the Holy Spirit as being inseparable both in operations and being from the Father and the Son.200 However, while these external works of the Trinity are inseparable because each of the three is distinguishable, each is also related to the divine operation differently. As Basil reasons, when we receive gifts from God, the Father is always the source of gifts, the Son is the sender, and the Spirit, the messenger of them.201 This understanding differs subtly from that of his brother, Nyssa, for whom the nature of the unitary work of the persons is such that all three are actively involved in each action from the Father through the Son and completed in the Spirit, while Basil prefers to accentuate the aspect of each contribution of one person.202 In De Fide, Basil also describes the particularizing characteristic of each person that distinguishes him from the other two, that is, “each of these Names makes clearly evident to us the special character of the Person named and certain wholly specialized properties are reverently contemplated in each,”203 although he did not venture to describe more than what it means. Thus, while the operations ad extra of the three are inseparable, they are distinguishable, and this distinction is primarily causal. Basil writes, “I advise you to first think of him who is the first cause of everything that exists: namely,

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the Father, and then of the Son, who is the creator, and then the Holy Spirit, the perfector. . . . Perceive these three: the Lord who commands, the Word who creates, and the Spirit who strengthens.”204 Inasmuch as the strengthening work of the Spirit distinguishes him from the other two persons in the Trinity, so too the creating work of the Son and the command of the Father distinguish each of them within the inseparable, yet distinguishable, works of God. Beeley has suggested that Basil’s description of the work of the Spirit in perfecting rational beings implies a de facto attenuated view of his divinity since the Spirit had no share with the Father and Son in bringing creation into existence.205 In Basil’s defense, we note that in his exegesis of Genesis 1:2 he regarded the Spirit as being active in the creation of the world.206 Meredith further questions if this conception of the Spirit as “perfecting” leaves open his role within the ontological Godhead since it is difficult to conceive how sanctification is needed within the Godhead.207 Here, we would suggest Basil was referring to the opera ad extra rather than the opera ad intra, but we agree that the descriptive term Holy for the Spirit may seem redundant intra-Trinitarianly. Alternatively, Gunton has proposed that rather than suggesting the Spirit sanctifies the other two persons, he should be seen as the One within the eternal communion of the Trinity perfecting the real distinction of otherness.208 In asserting that the external works of the Trinity are indivisible yet distinguishable, Basil does not fall into the trap of economic Trinitarianism by basing the distinction of the hypostaseis solely on the distinctiveness of the works of the persons, as he does have something to say about the ontological Trinity. Beginning with an argument for the deity of the Spirit, he observes from 1 Corinthians 2:11209 that the Spirit is God because he knows the thoughts of God, and Haykin notes here he was effectively placing the Spirit within the Godhead by implying that some knowledge of the ontological Trinity has been made possible, for “nothing that is external . . . could have such intimate knowledge.”210 In addition, Basil also distinguishes between the opera ad extra attributable to one person but which the other persons cooperate in, with the opera ad intra that are not merely to be distinguished but differentiated. He notes that insofar as the operation of proceeding is differentiated from that of begetting, the Spirit is differentiated from the Son because not only is he not begotten like the Son but he proceeds from the “mouth” of the Father.211 This separable internal works of the Trinity within Basilian theology is as much a dictum of the ontological Trinity as divine simplicity in order that the Godhead does not lapse into an undifferentiated unity. Finally, Basil adds a qualification to the Athanasian usage of homoousios for the Son in his conception of the ontological Trinity. In Letter 52, he reasons that the Father and the Son could not be homoousios to each other in the



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full sense that it would make them brothers. While bronze coins may be said to be homoousios to each other, nonetheless, since “the Father is light without beginning, and the Son is begotten light, yet one is light and the other is light, they rightly declared them ‘alike in substance,’ that they might set forth the equal dignity of their nature.”212 Basil’s formulation conditions the term homoousios by positing the Father as the cause of the Son and asserting that the Son has his origin in the Father without any dilution of his ontological status based on the nature he shares with the Father. By not subordinating the ousia of the Son, he was able to assert the monarchia of God the Father, as do the other Cappadocians.213 In summary, the Basilian understandings of divine simplicity and inseparable, yet distinguishable, operations have not only expanded and clarified the patristic understanding of the nature of the Trinity, but also brought forth the development of a range of related issues, including the differentiated nature of the opera ad intra and the monarchia, and represent significant advances in patristic Trinitarianism. Enlightening Work of the Holy Spirit The enlightening work of the Spirit refers to his work in illuminating Christ, who is the image of God, and is a fundamental characteristic of Basil’s Trinitarian theology. To appreciate how he arrived at this assertion, we begin with his understanding of the taxis (order) within the Godhead, which is an additional way of understanding the distinction within the three in the single divine economy.214 For him, the Spirit is always third in order for all divine action, as he is the one who completes and brings to fruition what the Father accomplishes through the Son, but he is always first in order in terms of human experiential and existential encounter with God.215 This specific taxis in speaking about God and his interaction with the world is always maintained, that is, from the Father, through the Son, and to the Spirit, and is reversed in terms of doxology and human interaction.216 Specifically, when we contemplate the economy of salvation, it begins with the Holy Spirit, passes through the Son, and finally arrives at the Father, and is reversed when we consider from the theologia to the economia, that is, the Father comes to us through the Son and reaches us through the Spirit.217 Basil’s view of the theologia–economia distinction is already evident in his defence in DSS of the doxology— “Glory to the Father with the Son, together with the Holy Spirit,” together with the traditional one, “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit”—as he argues that the latter refers to God’s economy of salvation for man and the former describes God as Godself.218 Ayres describes that to Basil theologia is “a mode of insight into the nature of God . . . beyond material

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reality,” while economia is the act in creation and redemption.219 Behr also refers to AEun 2.3, where Basil differentiates between what is said of Christ according to what he has done (economia) and according to theology (theologia),220 and Beeley concurs that the distinction in DSS is also found here.221 This distinction should not be confused with that between the immanent and economic Trinity, as DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz have noted.222 Secondly, within this taxis, Basil subscribes to a specific view of the Son– Father relationship, by which he understands Christ to be the focus even as the Father remains the ultimate goal. This is expressed in terms of image language when he describes Christ as “the image of the invisible God, and the brightness of his glory” (emphasis added).223 In another section, he uses the similar language of “way” to characterize the Son–Father relationship, because the word denotes the path to God: “such is our way up to God through His Son.”224 Since Christ is the visible image of the invisible Father, the enlightening work of the Spirit lies crucially in him illuminating the believer to know Christ and from there into the knowledge of the Father.225 In another letter, Basil writes, “never do we separate the Paraclete from His union with the Father and the Son. For our mind being enlightened by the Spirit looks up to the Son, and in him as in an image beholds the Father.”226 This led Meredith to conclude from this letter that for Basil the enlightening presence of the Spirit is the requirement for perceiving the Father and Son.227 Aghiorgoussis too notes Basil’s usage of image language and concludes that like most Eastern theologians, he does not intend it as merely a representation of God, but also as “an instrument of knowing God” and a means of koinōnia with God.228 Throughout this theological-epistemological process, the focus remains on the Son while the Spirit himself is not looked at.229 Hildebrand goes as far as to argue that the Spirit’s enlightening work forms the entire foundation of Basil’s argument for his divinity, that it depends wholly on him as the mediator of Christ, just as Christ is the mediator to the Father.230 Just as the Spirit cannot perform his epistemic role as divine illuminator unless he is joined to the Son, so too the Son cannot grant epistemic access to the Father unless his words that “He who has seen me has seen the Father”231 are accepted.232 Both the Son and the Spirit work together to lead one to God the Father.233 In addition, we note that since that the Spirit illuminates the image of God, it would have been tempting for Basil to describe the Spirit–Son relationship using the same image terms as for the Son–Father relationship, but this language was conspicuously absent, probably as a recognition of the lack of scriptural support, and the closest we can find is an affirmation that “the relation of the Spirit to the Son equals that of the Son with the Father.”234 By contrast, Athanasius was less hesitant as he writes, “The Spirit is said to be, and is, the image of the Son” (emphasis added), and hence Basil’s reticence here is noteworthy.235



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The prerequisite for enlightenment by the Spirit is a need for cleansing and a pure heart, as well as a withdrawal from debased passions.236 Once this cleansing is done, we are brought into a relationship with the Father and Son through the Spirit. Then the Spirit will allow us to see “the unspeakable beauty of the prototype.”237 Similarly, in Letter 233 to Amphilochius, Basil writes, “if it [the mind] gives itself up to the assistance of the Spirit, it will know the truth and recognize God.”238 However, given Basil’s prior assertion of the Spirit as a divine hypostasis just as the Son is, the question arises as to how we are to understand the relationality that we can enjoy with the Spirit, or what the exact nature of our relationship with the Spirit is compared with the Son. His account of the hypostasis of the Spirit suggests that we enjoy a differentiated relationship with him as compared with the Son when Basil elaborates on the ways different prepositions could be used with reference to the Spirit: “when we consider the working of his grace on its recipients, we say that the Spirit is in us” (emphasis original).239 Hence, Basil argues that it is the Spirit’s indwelling in us that precisely enables our relationship with the Son as compared to our relationship with the Father and the Son. As Bauckham puts it, while we relate differently but personally to the Father and Son, when it comes to the Spirit, “our mode of relationship to the Spirit is not interpersonal at all,” though this is not meant to deny the Spirit’s subjectivity but to recognize he is that subjectivity that inspires ours.240 Staniloae also comments that in these passages the Spirit is seen as the spiritual “milieu” in which all believers are brought together,241 and McIntyre succinctly writes that it is the Spirit who “unveils the glory of the only-Begotten within himself” (emphasis original).242 We can complete the picture Basil has presented of the Spirit–Son and Son–Father relationship by summarizing that there is a double movement toward knowledge of God, a movement that begins with the Spirit and leads to the Son, and then from the Son who is the image to the Father, which has been aptly called a “twofold enlightenment” by Goble.243 Ultimately, the enlightening role of the Spirit lies in him being the one in whom one is enabled to see who Christ is, and from seeing him, one sees the Father. Baptism and Theosis The third theme that we can identify in Basil’s Trinitarianism is based on his understanding of the life of believers. To Basil, two terms encapsulate his vision of the Christian life: baptism and theosis. The former is a complex, multifaceted concept that envelopes several ideas simultaneously. Firstly, it marks the initiation of the Christian life through death.244 In addition, the death of the believer through baptism simultaneously means her

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being raised to “resurrectional life” in the Spirit, just as the dying of the body symbolized by its entering the water is followed by its rising.245 As for what constitutes this postbaptismal resurrectional life, Basil describes it thus: “To define the Gospel as a description of what resurrectional life should be like seems to be correct and appropriate, as far as I am concerned.”246 This process requires Christian obedience and “an infusion of God’s grace, as the Spirit enlightens us, enables us to fix our eyes on the beauty of the image of God.”247 If this grace is rejected, the Spirit “will not stay with those whose wills are unstable,”248 while he continues to work with those who have been baptized, “hoping that their conversion will result in salvation.”249 Secondly, baptism is inextricably intertwined with faith and salvation.250 From this, we understand that for Basil faith marks the beginning of salvation that is perfected by baptism.251 Regarding its order within the Christian life, faith precedes baptism, and the latter confirms the former. The indissoluble association between faith and baptism means that at times Basil comes close to describing the latter using the same language ascribed to the former when he asserts, “How are we saved? Obviously through the regenerating grace of baptism” (emphasis added).252 Regeneration is also closely connected with baptism, and it is required because “death must come between what has already happened (ending it) and what is just beginning.”253 It is based on this belief that Basil, as did the other two Cappadocians, preached against the then prevailing practice of a sickbed baptism on the grounds of life’s uncertainties, as Ferguson has noted.254 For baptism, the analogy of a runner is adopted as one who runs to the end of a track, and to return, has to stop, pause momentarily, and turn around before running back.255 Thus, baptismal regeneration signifies the putting to an end of the first run and the start of a new one, and it is the concrete manifestation of one’s faith. The close connection between baptism, faith, and salvation raises the critical issue of rebaptism. In the first Canonical Letter to Amphilochius, Basil utilizes an early church distinction between heresies, schisms, and unlawful congregations.256 While he accepted the baptism of those in unlawful congregations and rejected those in heresy, Basil rebuts Cyprian’s argument that the baptism of schismatics is invalid by pointing out the majority of the ancient authorities had decided “to accept that of schismatics on the ground that they were still of the Church.”257 Behr observes that Basil was advocating for the validity of baptism into the right faith independent of one’s communion with the main body of the church.258 Therefore, baptism is related first and foremost to the right faith, while church membership is seen as a derivative outcome such that subsequent separation from it for non-faith-related issues does not imply the loss of the efficacy of baptism nor one’s salvation.



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Thirdly, baptism is viewed as a means of entering Christian koinōnia (communion). Basil describes man as fundamentally a communal being, “a civilized and gregarious animal, neither savage nor a lover of solitude,” and baptism allows man to experience true communion.259 Within the Body of Christ, this communion takes place at four different levels: (1) intradiocesan, (2) between the diocese and clerics, (3) interdiocesan, and (4) between the Eastern and Western Churches.260 It is also seen as analogous to the communion within the divine Godhead, as Basil uses the same term koinōnia for the relations between the persons.261 Likewise, “The Spirit is glorified by His communion (koinōnia) with the Father and the Son.”262 As Sagovsky has analyzed, DSS utilizes the concept of koinōnia as the uniting bond for the three hypostaseis of God as one ousia.263 We may, therefore, understand intrachurch communion as part of the Spirit’s work in leading believers toward a lifelong mimesis (emulation) of Christ and intrachurch communion as actualizing the communion that exists within the Trinity. The crucial second term for Christian living is theosis, and it stems from Basil’s understanding that the Christian life is both an event and a process.264 As the Spirit continues to work in the believer’s life, the ultimate goal of this process lies in “becoming like God, and, the highest of all desires, becoming God” (emphasis added).265 This description of “becoming God,” or theosis, is a major strand of patristic theology and has been described as “the central theme, chief aim, basic purpose . . . of [Eastern Christianity].”266 Most patristic and Byzantine theologians cite as biblical ground for this doctrine 2 Peter 1:3–4.267 Also known as theopoiesis, the term has been translated variously as “deification” or “divinization,” both unfortunate renderings as they suggest a heretical notion of humanity’s absorption into God.268 Between theosis and theopoiesis, Pelikan proposes the former term be retained, a suggestion that will be taken up in this book for consistency.269 The Orthodox theologian McGuckin has analyzed theosis is a synonym for “what Western Christianity will choose to express in terms of its theology of grace,”270 while Meyendorff terms it “a synergy of divine grace and human freedom.”271 Hart writes that for Basil, as too for the Patristic Fathers, the question of salvation was always answered as being joined to God in Christ, or to be “divinized,”272 while Wiles notes that soteriological concerns are at the center of the Trinitarian and Christological debates.273 Thus, in Basilian thought, the goal of salvation may be interpreted in terms of one’s participation in and communion with the “divinized” humanity of the Son of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.274 Terminologically, theosis encompasses several meanings, including adoption through baptism, the attainment of likeness to God, the participation of the soul in the divine attributes of immortality and incorruption, and the

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transformation of human nature by divine action.275 In Basil’s writings, he rarely employs the term itself but does use such phrases as “becoming as god” or “becoming gods.” Russell notes a total of only five instances in Basil’s undisputed works, including one each in his Longer and Shorter Rules, once in Letter 188, and twice in AEun.276 Interestingly, none appear in DSS, suggesting Basil’s flexible linguistic usage of terminology rather than a strict identification of terms.277 Nevertheless, its meaning is qualified when he states that the goal of our calling is that “we are to become like God, as far as this is possible for human nature” (emphasis added).278 Hence, theosis does not suggest any ontological implications but essentially ethical ones, and Basil was unhesitant in calling those who are perfect in virtue “gods.”279 Florovsky argues that for Basil, in theosis, “the immutable, unchangeable gap between natures will remain, any ‘transubstantiation’ of the creature is excluded,”280 and Collins concurs.281 In contrast, Athanasius’s theosis carries implications of the transformation of the flesh,282 and Weedman even suggests Athanasius’s ontological transformation “establishes the basis for a shared epistemological, and ontological, improvement for every human” (emphasis added).283 This universalistic implication is another reason why Basil is a preferable candidate for appropriating the patristic notion of theosis rather than Athanasius. In addition, as previously noted, Basil subscribes to a “conventionalist” view of language, and in that sense, his notion of “gods” should be seen chiefly as an analogical usage.284 Bradshaw observes further that theosis is participation in God’s energeia rather than his ousia, and the union between man and God is a union of their energeia,285 and Zizioulas agrees that Basil meant participation not in the divine nature “but in His personal existence.”286 Theosis, ultimately, is a process that begins with the event of baptism and is the spiritualization of believers through a lifelong mimesis of Christ with the help of the Spirit,287 and the term gods is reserved for the final accomplished state. SUMMARY In this chapter, we have presented the theological-historical backdrop in which Basil of Caesarea developed his Trinitarian theology and argued that the Church Father has made distinctive and significant contributions in several key aspects. In terms of foundational concepts, by distinguishing between ousia and hypostasis and carefully circumscribing the possible range of meanings for both terms in his writings, he paved the way for the development of the classical doctrine of the Trinity that recognized the full



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distinctiveness of the three persons within the unity of the Godhead. In addition, his understanding of epinoia and theological language established an epistemological methodology that not only allowed for the possibility of the knowledge of God but also rejected the form of positivistic rationalism that Eunomius espoused. We also identified and analyzed three further themes within his theology. Firstly, the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations were part of the Pro-Nicene matrix of traditions that Basil was engaged with, and he made contributions in elucidating the distinctiveness of the work of each person as well as refining the Athanasian notion of homoousios to assert the monarchy of the Father. Secondly, the understanding of the work of the Spirit in illuminating Christ as the image of the Father was also a signal achievement of his theology as it further explicates the operations of the three within the single economy of salvation. So too his appreciation of the Spirit as the milieu in which believers are brought together to behold the vision of God. Thirdly, with his monastic and ascetic background, his emphasis on the regenerating effects of baptism, which initiate the journey into theosis, linked together central concepts of the resurrectional life, including faith, koinōnia, and the transformation of the believer’s life through her spiritualization by the Spirit. Basil’s Trinitarian theology is thus a coherent, consistent, and well-formed vision of the Trinity and serves as a suitable model of classical Trinitarianism that we will employ to assess D’Costa’s proposal for a contemporary Trinitarian theology of religions. NOTES 1. For instance, while Basil developed major aspects of Trinitarianism, other systematic loci remained relatively unexplored by current standards. Hence, his cosmogony in the Hexæmeron left unfinished the creation of man, and it was Nyssa’s “On the Making of Man” as well as his own Hexæmeron that complemented it. Basil of Caesarea, Homilien Zum Hexaemeron, trans. E. Amand de Mendieta and S. Y. Rudberg (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997); Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Making of Man,” in NPNF II 5, trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 546–606. Ladner also observes that Nyssa was the only Cappadocian Father to develop a systematic anthropological treatise. G. B. Ladner, “The Philosophical Anthropology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 59–94. Callahan has a comparison of their doctrines of creation, J. F. Callahan, “Greek Philosophy and the Cappadocian Cosmology,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 29–57. However, Rousseau argues that Basil’s Homilies 10 and 11 do contain a sustained anthropology and, despite these no longer being attributed to him, contends they were derived from his sermons. P. Rousseau, “Human Nature and

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Its Material Setting in Basil of Caesarea’s Sermons on the Creation,” Heythrop Journal 49, no. 2 (2008): 222–39. The translation of Basil’s Hexæmeron used here is from Basil of Caesarea, “The Hexæmeron,” in Exegetic Homilies, trans. A. C. Way, FC 46 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 3–150. An older translation is Basil of Caesarea, “The Hexæmeron,” in NPNF II 8, trans. B. Jackson, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 51–108. 2.  For a summary, see the authoritative biography by P. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, ToCH 20 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Other relevant studies are P. J. Fedwick, The Church and the Charisma of Leadership in Basil of Caesarea (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979), 133–53; A. Meredith, The Cappadocians (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 291–95; and H. Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great, OHCC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), chap. 38. We have based the chronology of his life on Fedwick’s exhaustive account in P. J. Fedwick, “A Chronology of the Life and Works of Basil of Caesarea,” in BoC, 1:3–20. Earlier studies of his life can be found in R. T. Smith, St. Basil the Great. (London: SPCK, 1908); and M. M. Fox, “The Life and Times of St. Basil the Great as Revealed in His Works” (Ph.D. thesis, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 1939). 3.  Gregory of Nazianzus, “Letters,” in NPNF II 7, trans. by C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), Letter 58; Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” in NPNF II 7, Oration 43.1, 16. 4.  G. L. Kustas, “St. Basil and the Rhetorical Tradition,” in BoC, 1:221. 5.  For an examination of how Basil developed organized cenobitic monasticism, which combined earlier forms of asceticism and “reconciled most excellently and united the solitary and the community life” (quoted by Nazianzus in “Orations,” Oration 43.62), see M. Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 34–41; F. X. Murphy, “Moral and Ascetical Doctrine in St. Basil,” Studia Patristica 14 (1975): 320–26; and D. Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, ToCH 33 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 104–7. For other studies, see W. K. L. Clarke, St. Basil the Great: A Study in Monasticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913); and E. F. Morison, St. Basil and His Rule: A Study in Early Monasticism (London: H. Frowde, 1912). 6.  These were buildings used for the care of the sick and destitute in addition to food distribution for the needy. Sozomen referred to these “most celebrated hospice for the poor” as Basileias. Sozomen, “Ecclesiastical History,” in NPNF II 2, trans. by C. D. Hartranft, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 239–427. Rousseau has detailed Basil’s role in its development in 369. See Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 139–42. Daley argues the Basileias were intended to radically reconstruct Greek culture and society along Christian lines, and Schroeder concurs they were built to create a “new social order.” B. Daley, “Building a New City: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Rhetoric of Philanthropy,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7, no. 3 (1999): 431–61; Basil of Caesarea, On Social Justice, trans. C. P. Schroeder (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 36.



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7.  See J. Quasten and A. Di Berardino, Patrology, vol. 3, The Golden Age of Greek Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, trans. P. Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 204; G. Corona, ed. Ælfric’s Life of Saint Basil the Great: Background and Context, Anglo-Saxon Texts (Woodbridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2006), 6. 8. Kopecek argues this accounts for his efforts in building not only churches but also public works such as porticoes and water conduits for Caesarea, and that nearly all of his colleagues and predecessors in the greater Cappadocian episcopate had their origins in this class. T. A. Kopecek, “The Cappadocian Fathers and Civic Patriotism,” Church History 43, no. 3 (1974): 293–303; T. A. Kopecek, “The Social Class of the Cappadocian Fathers,” Church History 42, no. 4 (1973): 453–66. Other scholars concur; see F. D. Gilliard, “Senatorial Bishops in the Fourth Century,” Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 2 (1984): 153–75; C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, ToCH 37 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 186; T. E. Gregory, A History of Byzantium, 306–1453. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 80. However, Karayannopoulos rejects the thesis that his privileged background was the source of his philanthropic spirit and asserts that it was due to his total acceptance and practice of Christian principles. I. Karayannopoulos, “St. Basil’s Social Activity: Principles and Praxis,” in BoC, 1:383–84. 9.  Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” Oration 43.14. Later, a temporary rift in their relationship would result from the division of Cappadocia in 372 by the Emperor Valens. In an ecclesiastical power struggle between Basil and Anthimus, the bishop of Tyana, capital of the new province of Cappadocia Secunda, Gregory was forced into becoming bishop of Sasima in Basil’s attempt to retain control. Gregory never took possession of his see and afterward became auxiliary bishop of Nazianzus, continuing to serve there after his father’s death. A. Louth, “The Cappadocians,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. F. M. Young, L. Ayres, and A. Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 290. Studies of their friendship can be found in B. Daley and Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nazianzus, ECF (London: Routledge, 2006), 6–60; N. McLynn, “Gregory Nazianzen’s Basil: The Literary Construction of a Christian Friendship,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 178–93. 10. Basil of Caesarea, Letters, vols. 1–4, trans. R. J. Deferrari, LCL 190, 215, 243, and 270 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926–1934), Letter 223, 3:291–93. The Basilian scholar Amand de Mendieta has examined Basil’s Hexæmeron and notes that despite his acknowledged indebtedness to Greek culture, his official attitude toward it was ultimately disapproving. E. Amand de Mendieta, “The Official Attitude of Basil of Caesarea as a Christian Bishop towards Greek Philosophy and Science,” in The Orthodox Churches and the West: Papers Read at the Fourteenth Summer Meeting and the Fifteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1976), 48–49. Nonetheless, he retained an appreciation for Greek literature and acknowledged its value sufficiently to exhort others to do the same. Basil of Caesarea, “On Reading Greek Literature,” in Basil, Letters, 4:378–436. In contrast, Nazianzus was unambiguously positive about

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his Athenian education. A. Breitenbach, “Athens and Strategic Autobiography in Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus,” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 293–99. Basil’s seemingly equivocal position has been summarized by Jaeger and Garnett as a rejection of the religious and moral content of Greek philosophy on the one hand but an appreciation of its literary form on the other. W. W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1961), 81–84; S. Garnett, “The Christian Young and the Secular World: St. Basil’s Letter and Pagan Literature,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 26 (1981): 222. Hildebrand too argues that Basil effectively appropriated the Hellenistic literary form without losing sight of scriptural content and suggests a hybrid model of assimilation. S. M. Hildebrand, “Basil of Caesarea and the Hellenization of the Gospel,” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 352–53. The influence of the Greek Second Sophistic on Basil has been observed by several scholars; see J. M. Campbell, “The Influence of the Second Sophistic on the Style of the Sermons of St. Basil the Great” (Ph.D. thesis, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 1922); Kustas, “St. Basil and the Rhetorical Tradition,” 231; S. M. Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek Thought and Biblical Truth (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 150–60. The Second Sophistic refers to the Renaissance of Greek culture in the first century AD, when Greek culture was seen again as “intellectually and morally superior, though politically, economically, and militarily subservient to the rule of Rome.” G. A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 233. 11.  Sozomen, “Ecclesiastical History,” 6.17; Socrates Scholasticus, “Ecclesiastical History,” in NPNF II 2, trans. A. C. Zenos, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 4.26. 12.  P. M. Beagon, “Some Cultural Contacts of St. Basil at Antioch,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 67–71. 13.  V. Limberis, “‘Religion’ as the Cipher for Identity: The Cases of Emperor Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus,” Harvard Theological Review 93, no. 4 (2000): 391n103. 14. Basil, Letters, Letter 223, 3:293–94. Taylor suggests that the Greek verb euron, “I find,” does not necessitate an actual journey but could refer to a discovery by reading or inquiry. D. G. K. Taylor, “Basil of Caesarea’s Contacts with SyriacSpeaking Christians,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 213–19. Despite this possibility of a nonjourney to Syria-Palestine, Basil’s writings were extremely influential among the Syriac-speaking church, as most of his writings have been preserved in Syriac. D. G. K. Taylor, “The Syriac Versions of St. Basil of Caesarea’s De Spiritu Sancto,” Studia Patristica 27 (1993): 105–12; R. W. Thomson, “The Syriac and Armenian Versions of the Hexaemeron by Basil of Caesarea,” Studia Patristica 27 (1993): 113–17. 15.  C. Moreschini and E. Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History, vol. 2, trans. M. J. O’Connell (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), 84. 16. Basil, On Social Justice, 19. His exact conversion date has been difficult to determine, as Rousseau details. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 17–19. 17. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 63.



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18.  See Origen, The Philocalia of Origen: A Compilation of Selected Passages from Origen’s Works Made by St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Basil of Cæsarea, trans. G. Lewis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1911). 19.  See Basil of Caesarea and A. M. Silvas, The Asketikon of St. Basil the Great, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Rufinus translated the Rules of Basil from Greek into Latin during the fifth century, and they were then known as the Regulae Fusius Tractatae (Long Rules) and Regulae Brevius Tractatae (Short Rules). 20.  Campenhausen asserts the primary way of understanding Basil is as a monk who found no contradiction between the ascetic life and being in the church. H. v. Campenhausen, The Fathers of the Greek Church, trans. L. A. Garrad (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1963), 87. Meyendorff also credits Basil and Nyssa with shaping the monastic movement and merging it into mainstream Christianity. J. Meyendorff, “St. Basil, Messalianism and Byzantine Christianity,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 24, no. 4 (1980): 229. Sterk has analyzed Basil’s lasting influence on the two Gregorys in their own attempts to harmonize monastic ideals with service to the church. A. Sterk, “On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop: The Cappadocian Legacy of Leadership,” Church History 67, no. 2 (1998): 227–53; A. Sterk, Renouncing the World yet Leading the Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 13–94. 21. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 188. 22.  This traditionally accepted date has been disputed, as Rousseau notes, though he concludes that the case for an earlier date has not been conclusively made. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, “Appendix 3: The Date of Basil’s Death and of the Hexameron.” Vaggione also maintains he died either in late 378 or early 379. R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 311. Silvas has reviewed the scholarship and proposed an earlier date of late September 378. A. M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters; Introduction, Translation and Commentary, VCS 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 39. 23.  Much of the reconstruction of Basil’s life is derived from the encomium that Nazianzus produced after his death. Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” Oration 43. Hence, Meredith notes that Rousseau’s book on Basil relies strongly on this oration and cites it at least sixty times. A. Meredith, “Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa on Basil,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 166. Kennedy has described this oration by Nazianzus as “probably the greatest piece of Greek rhetoric since the death of Demosthenes.” G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 237. 24.  For the substantial literature on Arius and Arianism, see Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 54–57; S. G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1991), 121–36; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 5–27, 60–128; R. Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002); H. A. Wolfson, “Philosophical Implications of Arianism and Apollinarianism,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 3–28. The term Arianism could be misleading since some of these beliefs may not be those held by Arius. See R. Lyman, “A Topography of Heresy: Mapping the Rhetorical Creation of Arianism,” in

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Arianism after Arius, ed. M. R. Barnes and D. H. Williams (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 45–62; J. T. Lienhard, “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered,” Theological Studies 48 (1987): 415–37. Hanson has argued that the Arian controversy typified a process of determination of orthodoxy rather than its defence. R. P. C. Hanson, “The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD,” in The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. R. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 142–56. However, Behr calls this conclusion problematic since it argues for a permanence of the fourth-century solution even as it claims it was articulated then for the first time. J. Behr, “The Question of Nicene Orthodoxy,” in Byzantine Orthodoxies, ed. A. Louth and A. Casiday (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2006), 20. 25. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 43–45; J. Behr, The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 1:124–29; Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 138–45. 26. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 6, 167–68, 236–40; L. Ayres, “Articulating Identity,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. F. M. Young, L. Ayres, and A. Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 436. 27.  R. P. C. Hanson, “Dogma and Formula in the Fathers,” Studia Patristica 13 (1975): 173; Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 114. For a lucid conspectus of the term homoousios used during the Nicene period, see C. G. Stead, “The Significance of the Homoousios,” Studia Patristica 3 (1961): 397–412; P. F. Beatrice, “The Word ‘Homoousios’ from Hellenism to Christianity,” Church History 71, no. 2 (2002): 67–71. Anatolios agrees that it is more appropriate to read ProNicene culture within an intra-Christian framework rather than suggest the influence of its external culture as its primary mode of analysis, but Behr disputes whether the characterization of Pro-Nicene theology has sufficiently freed itself from a “Western” perspective. K. Anatolios, “Yes and No: Reflections on Lewis Ayres: Nicaea and Its Legacy,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 153–58; J. Behr, “Response to Ayres: The Legacies of Nicaea, East and West,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 145–52. Ayres replies that Behr relies on an excessively restrictive method of reading theology that hampers one’s understanding of the Pro-Nicenes, a point Behr disputes. L. Ayres, “A Response to the Critics of Nicaea and Its Legacy,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 159–71; J. Behr and K. Anatolios, “Final Reflections,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 2 (2007): 173–75. However, this view of fourth-century theology has come to be generally accepted and will be appropriated here such that Basil will be taken as a key representative of Pro-Nicene theology. 28.  Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine, trans. A. Cameron and S. G. Hall, CAHS (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 3.6.1. Dvornik has analyzed the role of imperial authority in the ecumenical councils. F. Dvornik, “Emperors, Popes, and General Councils,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 6 (1951): 1–23. 29.  Besides Ayres and Hanson, a fuller description of the events leading up to the council itself can be found in J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), 223–51; M. R. Barnes, “Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon”; M. J. Edwards, “The First Council of Nicaea,” in Cambridge His-



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tory of Christianity, vol. 1, Origins to Constantine, ed. F. M. Young, M. M. Mitchell, and K. S. Bowie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 552–67. 30. The term Eusebian was first used to describe the followers of Eusebius of Nicomedia. Here we follow Ayres’s broader definition to include those allied to Eusebius of Caesarea and against Athanasius. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 52. On Eusebian theology, see Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 46–59. 31.  Athanasius, “Against the Arians,” in NPNF II 4, trans. A. Robertson, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 306–447. His life and theology have been studied in T. D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); K. Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought, ECF (London: Routledge, 2004). 32.  J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (London: Continuum, 2006), 263–74. 33.  For a discussion of the Sirmium Council, see Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 343–47. 34.  For a study of Aetius’s early years, see T. A. Kopecek, A History of Neo-Arianism, PMS 8 (Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979), 1.61–132. 35.  Eunomius of Cyzicus, The Extant Works, trans. R. P. Vaggione, OECT (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), xiv. 36. Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism, 1.133–98. 37.  Here we follow Ayres, who notes the substantial differences between Aetius/ Eunomius and Arius. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 137–40. 38.  Rousseau argues that Basil attended the council with Eustathius, after noting the mentoring relationship between them. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 72–76, 98–101. 39.  Philostorgius, a disciple of Eunomius, writes that this Basil “feared his [Aetius’s] eloquence and said that those who were bishops should not dispute with a deacon about doctrine.” Philostorgius, Church History, trans. P. R. Amidon, Writings from the Greco-Roman World (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 4.12. 40. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 381. 41. Behr, Nicene Faith, 263. 42. R. Van Dam, Becoming Christian: The Conversion of Roman Cappadocia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 197n22. 43. V. H. Drecoll, “Remarks on Christopher Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God. In Your Light We Shall See Light,” Scottish Journal of Theology 64, no. 4 (2011): 460n17. 44. Eunomius of Cyzicus, “Liber Apologeticus: The Apology,” in Eunomuis, Extant Works, 3–78. 45.  Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius [Adversus Eunomium], trans. M. DelCogliano and A. Radde-Gallwitz (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011). The critical Greek edition with a French translation is in Basil of Caesarea, Contre Eunome Suivi De Eunome, ‘Apologie,’ trans. B. Sesboüé, G.-M. d. Durand, and L. Doutreleau, SC 299 and 305 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1982). 46.  L. R. Wickham, “The Date of Eunomius’ Apology: A Reconsideration,” Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1969): 231–40.

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47.  Eunomius, “Liber Apologeticus,” 8. 48. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 686n23. 49.  Eunomius of Cyzicus, “Apologia Apologiae: An Apology for the Apology,” in Eunomuis, Extant Works, 79–130. 50.  AEun, 35. 51.  Nyssa wrote his own Contra Eunomium in two instalments (380 and 383). Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius [Contra Eunomium],” in NPNF II 5, trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 33–249 (herafter cited as CE). When Eunomius subsequently responded with his Confession of Faith, Gregory again refuted with his Refutation of the Confession of Faith of Eunomius, also known as Answer to Eunomius Second Book or The Second Book against Eunomius. See Eunomius of Cyzicus, “Expositio Fidei: The Confession of the Faith,” in Eunomius, Extant Works, 131–59; Gregory of Nyssa, “Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book,” in NPNF II 5, 250–314; Gregory of Nyssa, “The Second Book against Eunomius,” in Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II, ed. L. Karfíková, S. Douglass, and J. Zachhuber (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 59–204. For analyses of Nyssa’s arguments in the refutations, see L. Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 79; D. L. Balas, “The Unity of Human Nature in Basil’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s Polemics against Eunomius,” Studia Patristica 14 (1975): 275–81; A. Meredith, “Traditional Apologetic in the Contra Eunomium of Gregory of Nyssa,” Studia Patristica 14 (1975): 196–211. In Barnes’s erudite study, he argues that Nyssa’s main argument against Eunomius is that since the Father and Son share the same dunamis (power), they must share the same nature. M. R. Barnes, The Power of God: Dunamis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 305–7. 52. Philostorgius, Church History, 8.12. 53.  AEun, 35. 54.  Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit [De Spiritu Sancto], trans. D. Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980). An older translation can be found in Basil of Caesarea, “On the Holy Spirit,” in NPNF II 8, trans. B. Jackson, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989). The critical text is in Basil of Caesarea, Sur Le Saint-Esprit, trans. B. Pruche, SC 17 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2002). 55.  Some scholars have argued that DSS was written against the remnants of Heteroousian or Arian theology, just as AEun was. J. M. Rist, “Basil’s ‘Neoplatonism’: Its Background and Nature,” in BoC, 1:197; Quasten and Di Berardino, Patrology, 3:209–11. However, most scholars (e.g., Ayres, Behr, Gribomont, and Mühling) have maintained this work was targeted at the Pneumatomachians and was not a continuation of the Eunomian–Aetianic controversy. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 215; J. Gribomont, “Intransigence and Irenicism in Saint Basil’s ‘De Spiritu Sancto,’” in Word and Spirit. A Monastic Review; In Honor of St. Basil the Great 379 (Still River, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1979), 1:127; Behr, Nicene Faith, 305; M. Mühling, “The Work of the Holy Spirit: The Differentiation of Human and Divine Salvific Acts in the Pneumatomachian Controversy,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas, ed. D. H. Knight (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007), 92.



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56.  Haykin has analyzed that these “heretics” were not the Pneumatomachi encountered later but more likely Homoiousians who were unsure about the status of the Spirit. M. A. G. Haykin, “And Who Is the Spirit? Basil of Caesarea’s Letters to the Church at Tarsus,” Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987): 377–85. 57.  See Jackson’s classification given in Basil of Caesarea, “Letters and Select Works,” in NPNF II 8, xxxiii. 58. See DSS; AEun. 59.  See Basil, “Hexæmeron.” While Basil is generally accepted as not having produced a biblical commentary, Lipatov has examined the Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah and argues that the strong theological, exegetical, and biblical text correspondences with Hexæmeron may be evidence of Basilian authorship. N. A. Lipatov, “The Problem of the Authorship of the Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah Attributed to St. Basil the Great,” Studia Patristica 27 (1993): 42–48. An exegesis of the Beatitudes is also found in his Short Rules; see G. E. Gould, “Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa on the Beatitudes,” Studia Patristica 22 (1989): 14–22. 60.  See Basil of Caesarea, Ascetical Works, trans. M. Wagner, FC 9 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1962). An earlier version is Basil of Caesarea, The Ascetic Works of Saint Basil, trans. W. K. L. Clarke (London: SPCK, 1925). 61.  Twenty-four homilies are extant. Lienhard has noted the similarities between Basil’s homily Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos and Pseudo-Athanasius’s Contra Sabellianos and suggests the latter might be an earlier work of Basil. J. T. Lienhard, “Ps-Athanasius, Contra Sabellianos, and Basil of Caesarea, Contra Sabellianos Et Arium Et Anomoeos: Analysis and Comparison,” Vigiliae Christianae 40, no. 4 (1986): 365–89. 62.  Some 368 letters of Basil are extant; see Deferrari’s four-volume translation in Basil, Letters. The original Greek text with French translation can be found in Basil of Caesarea, Lettres, trans. Y. Courtonne, 3 vols., Collection Des Universités De France (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1957). An older translation is in Jackson’s Basil, “Letters and Select Works.” All quotations from the Letters are taken from Deferrari’s work. 63.  On the Liturgy of St. Basil, see J. R. K. Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St. Basil and St. James: An Investigation into Their Common Origin, OCA 240 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale, 1992). 64.  A complete list of his extant and earlier translated works can be found in Quasten and Di Berardino, Patrology, 3:208–28; J. P. Migne, ed., PG, vols. 29–32 (Paris: Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1857); P. J. Fedwick, “The Translations of the Works of Basil before 1400,” in BoC, 2:439–512. Fedwick and Rudberg have produced studies of the manuscript tradition and editions of his works. P. J. Fedwick, Bibliotheca Basiliana Universalis: A Study of the Manuscript Tradition of the Works of Basil of Caesarea, Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1997); S. Y. Rudberg, “Manuscripts and Editions of the Works of Basil of Caesarea,” in BoC, 1:375–92. Hildebrand has a helpful summary of recent significant Basilian studies. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 193–209. 65. Evagrius, Evagrius Ponticus, trans. A. Casiday (London: Routledge, 2006), 23, 45. Casiday also notes that in the Syriac corpus it was ascribed to Evagrius and

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surmises that it was reattributed to Basil when Evagrius’s reputation declined. For an account of Evagrius’s life, see W. Harmless, Mystics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 135–58. 66. Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit,” in NPNF II 5, 326n1278. Also see Basil, Letters, Letter 189, 3:49n1. Other letters recognized as not originating from Basil’s pen are 10, 16, 39–45, 47, 50, 81, 166–67, 169–71, 197.2, 321, 347–60, 365–68, and probably 46. P. J. Fedwick, “A Commentary of Gregory of Nyssa or the 38th Letter of Basil of Caesarea,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 44 (1978): 32. 67. R. M. Hübner, “Gregor Von Nyssa Als Verfasser Der Sog. Ep. 38 Des Basilius. Zum Unterschiedlichen Verständnis Der Ousia Bei Den Kappadozischen Brüdern,” in Epektasis: Melanges Patristiques Offerts Au Cardinal Jean Danielou, ed. J. Fontane and C. Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 463–90. 68.  Fedwick, “Commentary,” 33. 69.  R. Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” Vigiliae Christianae 56 (2002): 397. 70.  V. H. Drecoll, Die Entwicklung Der Trinitätslehre Des Basilius Von Cäsarea: Sein Weg Vom Homöusianer Zum Neonizäner (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 326–29. 71. J. Hammerstaedt, “Zur Echtheit Von Basiliusbrief 38,” in Tesserae: Festschrift Fur Josef Engemann, ed. E. Dassman and K. Thraede (Munster: Aschendorff, 1991), 416–19. Tsuchihashi sounded a cautionary note that since Basil and Gregory exhibited philosophical flexibility in his writings, the criteria of Aristotelian influence may not be fully determinative for authorship. S. Tsuchihashi, “The Theological and Philosophical Background of Basil of Caesarea’s Trinitarian Theory, Focusing on the Comparison between His Works and ‘His’ Ep. 38,” in Patrologia Pacifica: Selected Papers Presented to the Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society 3rd Annual Conference, ed. V. Baranov and B. Lourié (Nagoya, Japan: Scrinium, 2006), 76. 72. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 199n45. 73.  R. Mortley, From Word to Silence 2. The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek, Theophaneia (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986), 161. 74.  T. D. Barnes, “A Note on the Term Homoioousios,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 10, no. 2 (2007): 284. 75. Basil, Letters, Letter 9, 1:97. 76.  Fedwick, “Chronology,” 9. 77.  Hanson, “Dogma and Formula,” 181. 78.  S. M. Hildebrand, “A Reconsideration of Basil’s Trinitarian Theology: The Dating of Ep 9 and Contra Eunomium,” Vigiliae Christianae 58, no. 4 (2004): 393–406. 79.  AEun 4 and 5, previously ascribed to Basil, have now been accepted as spurious. For the chronology of AEun’s composition, see Drecoll, Die Entwicklung, 144–46; adapted by T. Böhm, “Basil of Caesarea, Adversus Eunomium I–III and Ps.Basil, Adversus Eunomium IV–V,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 21. In this schema, AEun 4–5 are presupposed to have been written after the first three books. Böhm has pointed to a strong dependency between books 1–3 and 4–5 and argues that it is more



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plausible that the latter were written before the former, implying its author was the forerunner of the Cappadocian concept of the Trinity and likely to be Apollinarius of Laodicea. Böhm, “Basil of Caesarea,” 23–25. However, Hildebrand has studied the influence of Apollinarius on Basil’s understanding of the Trinity and concludes that no clear evidence exists to suggest Basil’s mature thinking was substantially dependent on him. Hildebrand, “Apollinaris of Laodicea,” 152. 80. B. Otis, “Cappadocian Thought as a Coherent System,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 95–124. Another more recent example is Bray’s treatment of “Cappadocian Trinitarianism” in G. L. Bray, The Doctrine of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1993), 156–65. 81.  C. A. Beeley, “The Holy Spirit in the Cappadocians: Past and Present,” Modern Theology 26, no. 1 (2010): 90–119. 82.  N. G. Awad, “Between Subordination and Koinonia: Toward a New Reading of the Cappadocian Theology,” Modern Theology 23, no. 2 (2007): 181–204. 83.  P. Fletcher, Disciplining the Divine: Toward an (Im)Political Theology (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 53–54. That the Cappadocians were responsible for the model of “social Trinitarianism” has also been critiqued severely. See M. R. Barnes, “Divine Unity and the Divided Self: Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology in Its Psychological Context,” Modern Theology 18, no. 4 (2002): 475–96; K. Kilby, “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity,” New Blackfriars 81, no. 957 (2000): 432–45; S. R. Holmes, “Three versus One? Some Problems of Social Trinitarianism,” Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009): 77–89; R. Cross, “Two Models of the Trinity?,” in Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, vol. 1, Trinity, Incarnation and Atonement, ed. M. C. Rea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 107–26; S. Coakley, “‘Persons’ in the ‘Social’ Doctrine of the Trinity: A Critique of Current Analytic Discussion,” in The Trinity, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 123–44; D. B. Hart, “The Mirror of the Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa on the Vestigia Trinitatis,” Modern Theology 18, no. 4 (2002): 541–61. 84. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology; DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s AntiEunomian Theory of Names. Radde-Gallwitz’s published book based on his Ph.D. thesis also contains three chapters on the Eunomian controversy with Basil. RaddeGallwitz, Basil of Caesarea. 85. T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 167n94. 86. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 221. 87. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 678–79. 88.  M. DelCogliano, “Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8:22 and the Sources of ProNicene Theology,” Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 1 (2008): 183–90. 89.  Rist, “Basil’s ‘Neoplatonism.’” See also J. M. Rist, “Plotinus and Christian Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. L. P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 397. 90.  L. Turcescu, “The Concept of Divine Persons in Gregory of Nyssa’s To His Brother Peter, on the Difference between Ousia and Hypostasis,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 42 (1997): 63–82.

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91. T. L. Shear, “The Influence of Plato on Saint Basil” (Ph.D. thesis, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1906). 92.  D. G. Robertson, “Stoic and Aristotelian Notions of Substance in Basil of Caesarea,” Vigiliae Christianae 52, no. 4 (1998): 393–417. In a subsequent paper, Robertson also suggests that the rhetorical influences of the ancient Greek grammarians may be discerned in AEun. D. G. Robertson, “Relatives in Basil of Caesarea,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 277–87. 93.  See R. P. C. Hanson, “The Doctrine of the Trinity Achieved in 381,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36 (1983): 41–57; Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 201. 94.  C. G. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 103. 95.  R. P. C. Hanson, “The Transformation of Images in the Trinitarian Theology of the Fourth Century,” Studia Patristica 17 (1982): 111. 96. L. R. Wickham, “The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean,” Journal of Theological Studies 19, no. 2 (1968): 545. 97. Kopecek, History of Neo-Arianism, 1.234. 98. L. R. Wickham, “Aetius and the Doctrine of Divine Ingeneracy,” Studia Patristica 11 (1967): 260. 99.  M. F. Wiles, “Eunomius: Hair-Splitting Dialectician or Defender of the Accessibility of Salvation?,” in The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. R. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 165–67. 100.  AEun, 1.20. 101.  AEun, 1.21. Callahan had suggested that Basil’s view of time influenced Augustine’s subsequent treatment of the same subject in his Confessions. J. F. Callahan, “Basil of Caesarea: A New Source for St. Augustine’s Theory of Time,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 63 (1958): 437–54. This is rather improbable given Augustine’s well-known limited knowledge of Greek and the lack of evidence that AEun had then been translated, either in part or wholly, into Latin. Tzamalikos suggests the more plausible theory that the common source of Basil and Augustine’s conception of time was Origen. P. Tzamalikos, “Origen and the Stoic View of Time,” Journal of the History of Ideas 52, no. 4 (1991): 535–61. 102.  AEun, 2. 6–8. Also see A. G. Keidel, “Eunomius’ Apologia and Basil of Caesarea’s Adversus Eunomium,” in Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II, ed. L. Karfíková, S. Douglass, and J. Zachhuber (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 491. 103. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 45. In a historical-cultural analysis of the AEun dispute, Lim perceives overtones of social competition in which Aetius and Eunomius, being of more modest background, had conflicted with the episcopacy, and that the latter employed the ideals of ancient paideia and ascetic virtues to quell the former. R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity, ToCH 23 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 109–49. 104.  G. L. Prestige, St. Basil the Great and Apollinaris of Laodicea, ed. H. Chadwick (London: SPCK, 1956), 24. 105.  M. V. Anastos, “Basil’s Kata Eunomiou,” in BoC, 1:126; also found in S. Vryonis and N. Goodhue, eds., Aspects of the Mind of Byzantium: Political Theory,



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Theology, and Ecclesiastical Relations with the See of Rome, VCSS (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2001), 67–136. Anastos further suggests Basil could have occasionally slipped into Arianism. M. V. Anastos, “Basil’s Lapses into Arianism and How Athanasius Had Avoided Them,” in Aspects of the Mind of Byzantium, ed. S. Vryonis and N. Goodhue (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2001), 153–71. 106.  J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (London: Mowbrays, 1987), 168. 107. For their close relationship, see Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 27–29; Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 258–63. 108. Mira Iborra notes similarities between the concepts and terminology of chapters 10–15 and Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catecheses Mystagogicae. M. Mira Iborra, “About the Structure of De Spiritu Sancto by Basil of Caesarea,” Studia Patristica 47 (2010): 103. 109.  DSS, 1.3. 110.  Torrance describes how this principle of lex orandi had powerfully affected the thinking of the early Church Fathers, such as Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyril of Alexandra. Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, 134. 111.  DSS, 20.51. 112.  Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Spirit. Against the Followers of Macedonius,” in NPNF II 5, 315–25. The Macedonians are essentially the same Pneumatomachi or Spirit-Fighters whom Basil combated, likely named after Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, who was exiled in 360. However, Hanson cautions that the connection between Macedonius and the Pneumatomachi is unproven, though he grants the term Macedonians may be used for the sake of expediency. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 762. 113.  Coman has noted Basil’s appeal to the practical aspects of the Christian life due to the work of the Spirit as the strongest element in his defence of his divinity. J. Coman, “La Démonstration Dans Le Traité Sur Le Saint-Esprit De Saint Basile Le Grand,” Studia Patristica 9 (1963): 207–8. 114.  K. Yamamura, “The Development of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Patristic Philosophy: St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 18, no. 1 (1974): 3–21. 115. Dörries suggests Basil’s kerygma/dogma distinction was the source of his theology, that is, the hypostaseis belong to kerygma and the divine monarchy to dogma. H. Dörries, De Spiritu Sancto: Der Beitrag Des Basilius Zum Abschluss Des Trinitarischen Dogmas, Abhandlungen Der Akademie Der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), 181–82. Concerning the two terms, kerygma and dogma, Pruche notes Basil also uses a third term, didascalia, which encompasses both, but concedes the former two are sufficiently distinguished in themselves. B. Pruche, “Dogma and Kerygma Dans Le Traité Sut Le Saint-Esprit De Saint Basile De Césarée En Cappadoce,” Studia Patristica 9 (1963): 257. 116. R. P. C. Hanson, “Basil’s Doctrine of Tradition in Relation to the Holy Spirit,” Vigiliae Christianae 22, no. 4 (1968): 241–55.

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117.  E. Amand de Mendieta, “The Pair Kerygma and Dogma in the Theological Thought of St. Basil of Caesarea,” Journal of Theological Studies 16, no. 1 (1965): 129–42. 118.  A. Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 85–96. 119. G. Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 1 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972), 89. 120. Basil, Letters, Letter 90, 2:127. 121. Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, 177. 122. Meredith, Cappadocians, 33. 123.  J. D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006), 184. 124. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 95. 125. S. Tsuchihashi, “Homotimia and Synarithmesis in Basil of Caesarea’s De Spiritu Sancto,” Studia Patristica 47 (2010): 110. 126.  Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” Oration 43.68–69. 127.  F. Dunzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, trans. J. Bowden (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2007), 120–22, 126. 128.  Gregory of Nazianzus and F. W. Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Orations of Gregory Nazianzen, trans. L. Wickham and F. Williams, VCS 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), Oration 31.10. 129.  AEun, 2.4. 130.  AEun, 2.5, 2.28. 131.  P. Kalligas, “Basil of Caesarea on the Semantics of Proper Names,” in Byzantine Philosophy and Its Ancient Sources, ed. K. Ierodiakonou (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 43. For a detailed linguistic examination of Basil’s view of proper names, prepositions, and conjunctions, see D. G. Robertson, “Grammar, Logic and Philosophy of Language: The Stoic Legacy in Fourth-Century Patristics” (Ph.D. thesis, King’s College London, 2000); D. G. Robertson, “Basil of Caesarea on the Meaning of Prepositions and Conjunctions,” Classical Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2003): 167–74. 132.  AEun, 2.17. 133.  DSS, 18.46. 134.  M. J. Edwards, Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 134. Emery notes that Thomas Aquinas subsequently drew directly from this idea of tropos hyparxeos in his understanding of the intra-Trinitarian personal relations. G. Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 353. 135.  B. Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church, trans. M. Westerhoff (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993), 142–43. 136. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 74–75. 137. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 209. 138.  AEun, 4. 139.  L. Turcescu, “Prosōpon and Hypostasis in Basil of Caesarea’s ‘Against Eunomius’ and the Epistles,” Vigiliae Christianae 51, no. 4 (1997): 374–95. Further, he observes that Basil claimed that the Nicene Fathers do distinguish between ousia and hypostasis in the Nicene Creed. In Letter 125, Basil comments regarding the state-



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ment in the creed, “if any one says that the Son is of a different ousia or hypostasis, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes him.” Against prevailing opinion then that held that ousia and hypostasis meant the same, Basil argues that the Nicene Fathers did not explicitly state that hypostasis and ousia are identical. Basil, Letters, Letter 125, 2:263. However, this letter was written around 373 and most likely represented a development in his thinking post-AEun and pre-DSS, and could be an attempt to read that back into the Nicene Fathers. Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa, 52. 140. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 692–93. 141. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 198–99. 142. Basil, Letters, Letter 236, 3:403. 143. Basil, Letters, Letter 214, 3:235. 144.  J. T. Lienhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of ‘One Hypostasis,’” in The Trinity, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 105. See also Drecoll, “Remarks on Christopher Beeley,” 462. The formula was termed “the Cappadocian Settlement” earlier by Prestige. G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: William Heinemann, 1964), 233. 145. Lienhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis,” 99. For a rare usage of this phrase by Nazianzus, see Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” Oration 21.35. 146. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 202–4. 147. Dunzl, Brief History, 106–8. 148.  S. N. Bulgakov, The Comforter, trans. B. Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2004), 78–79; Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 788; A. E. Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 39–40. 149. Dunzl, Brief History, 109. 150.  W. J. Hill, The Three-Personed God: The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 48. 151.  J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 222. 152. Hanson, Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 698. 153.  V. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (London: Mowbrays, 1975), 113. 154. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 276. While this comment was based on Letter 38, now attributed to Nyssa, it is still valid. 155. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 92. 156.  On a related issue, Basil’s usage of the term ousia in Hexæmeron has raised some questions. He writes, Let us also recommend to ourselves concerning the earth, not to be curious about what its substance [ousia] is . . . but to realize well that all that is seen around it is related to the reason of its existence, forming an essential part of its substance [ousia]. . . . In fact, if you remove the black, the cold, the weight, the density, the qualities pertaining to taste, or any others which are perceptible, there will be no basic substance [ousia].

Basil, “Hexæmeron,” I.8, p. 14. Based on this passage, Armstrong suggests Basil subscribes to a doctrine of nonexistence of matter, and Sorabji concurs in his study of

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Nyssa. A. H. Armstrong, “The Theory of the Non-Existence of Matter in Plotinus and the Cappadocians,” Studia Patristica 5 (1961): 427–29; R. Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 290–94. Zachhuber has countered that Basil was contending against a speculative interest in ousia and that attention should instead be focused on the properties around it. J. Zachhuber, “Stoic Substance, Non-Existent Matter? Some Passages in Basil of Caesarea Reconsidered,” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 427. Zachhuber’s argument is more persuasive as the context suggests Basil’s point was ignorance of the substance of the earth should lead one to realize that the divine ousia cannot be grasped. 157. Basil, Letters, Letter 234, 3:373. Hägg analyzes that Clement of Alexandria had earlier made the distinction between God as his knowable, kataphatic energeia and his unknowable, apophatic ousia. H. F. Hägg, Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism: Knowing the Unknowable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5. 158. D. Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 169. 159.  D. Wendebourg, “From the Cappadocian Fathers to Gregory Palamas. The Defeat of Trinitarian Theology,” Studia Patristica 17 (1982): 194–98. 160. Letham, Holy Trinity, 152–53. 161.  C. E. Gunton, “Person and Particularity,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas, ed. D. H. Knight (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007), 108. 162.  A. Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa (London: Routledge, 1999), 139. 163. A. Torrance, “Precedents for Palamas’ Essence-Energies Theology in the Cappadocian Fathers,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009): 69. 164. Behr, Nicene Faith, 271. 165. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, 167–70. 166.  Eunomius, “Liber Apologeticus,” chap. 8, p. 41. 167. The term epinoia has generally been attributed to Aristotle to describe the process of thinking about things as a response to the fact of things. Mortley notes, however, that the philosopher himself did not employ it in his writings, but rather it was his commentators, such as Dexippus, who did. Mortley, From Word to Silence 2, 152. 168. Behr, Nicene Faith, 280. 169. Eunomius, Liber Apologeticus,” chap. 25, p. 67. Eunomius’s polemic against the Spirit was relatively short (a chapter) compared to against the codivinity of the Son (thirteen chapters) and likely accounts for Basil’s similarly brief book 3 of AEun. 170.  CE, book 2, p. 290. Kalligas concurs. Kalligas, “Basil of Caesarea,” 41. 171. A modern English translation is found in D. N. Sedley, Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). For analysis of its structure and argument, see M. W. Riley, Plato’s Cratylus: Argument, Form, and Structure (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005); J. M. Rist, “The Theory and Practice of Plato’s Cratylus,” in Man, Soul, and Body, ed. J. M. Rist (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1996), 207–18. 172.  In comparison, Aristotle’s view of language, as seen in his De Interpretatione, seeks a compromise between the two. D. K. W. Modrak, Aristotle’s Theory of Language and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50.



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173.  J. Daniélou, “Eunome L’arien Et L’exégèse Néoplatonicienne De Cratyle,” Revue des études grecques 69 (1956): 412–32. 174.  Rist, “Basil’s ‘Neoplatonism,’” 185–88. 175. DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names, 49–96. For Proclus’s commentary on Cratylus, see R. M. Van den Berg, Proclus’ Commentary on the Cratylus in Context (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 176.  AEun, 1.14. 177.  AEun, 1.5. 178.  AEun, 1.10. 179.  This is the central argument of Radde-Gallwitz’s book, that Basil (and Nyssa) successfully avoided absolute apophaticism and a total identification of God’s attributes with his being, and in the process transformed the doctrine of divine simplicity. Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea, 6–7. 180.  However, Nazianzus appears to have gone too far later when he argues from divine ineffability that “the ancient Hebrews used special symbols to venerate the divine and did not allow anything inferior to God to be written with the same letters as the word ‘God.’” Gregory of Nazianzus and Norris, Faith Gives Fullness, 30.17. This seems to suggest different alphabetical letters were used instead of the conventional understanding of the Tetragrammaton being written one way and pronounced another. Norris suggests Nazianzus had seen Hebrew manuscripts with a paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton and was referring to those characters. F. W. Norris, “The Tetragrammaton in Gregory Nazianzen (Or. 30.17),” Vigiliae Christianae 43 (1989): 339–44. 181.  AEun, 1.8. 182.  AEun, 1.7. 183. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 109–10. 184.  Holmes describes this ratiocination process as a movement of looking forward and backward to discover who God is. S. R. Holmes, “A Simple Salvation? Soteriology and the Perfections of God,” in God of Salvation: Soteriology in Theological Perspective, ed. I. J. Davidson and M. Rae (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 41–42. 185.  AEun, 1.6. 186.  Not only Basil but the Cappadocian Fathers in general held to a conventionalist view of names. Mortley, From Word to Silence 2, 222–23. 187.  AEun, 1.6. DelCogliano questions whether Basil meant epinoia to be the product of a reflective process or the process itself. Behr argues it refers to the process of reflection. DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names, 167; Behr, Nicene Faith, 286. 188. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 110; DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s AntiEunomian Theory of Names, 261–66. 189.  Ayres argues that all Pro-Nicene theologians share in this axiom among others within a matrix of beliefs. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 286. 190.  C. G. Stead, “Divine Simplicity as a Problem for Orthodoxy,” in The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. R. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 257–59; Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, chap. 11. He writes that “the word haplous, ‘simple,’ and its equivalents (ameres, asunthetos), are used in different contexts which

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really call for distinct definitions of the term; though the need for this, it seems, was not remarked.” Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 130 191. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 281. 192. Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea, 9, 13–14. 193.  DSS, 8.21. 194.  DSS, 9.22. Ayres cites this passage from Basil to note its similarity with Augustine’s doctrine and argue against seeing an East/West divide in their understanding of the Trinity. L. Ayres, “‘Remember That You Are Catholic’ (Serm. 52.2): Augustine on the Unity of the Triune God,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8, no. 1 (2000): 79–80. Augustine writes about simplicity, “It is not one thing for God to be and another for him to be great, but being is for him the same thing as being great, for that reason we do not say three greatnesses any more than we say three beings, but one being and one greatness. By ‘being’ I mean here what is called ousia in Greek, which we more usually call substance.” Augustine, The Trinity, trans. E. Hill, Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1995), V.2.9. Likewise, Nazianzus opines about simplicity, “The three are a single whole in their Godhead and the single whole is three in its individual distinctions.” Gregory of Nazianzus and Norris, Faith Gives Fullness, Orations 31.9. 195.  DSS, 18.44. 196. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 268. 197. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 217. 198.  “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (ESV). 199.  DSS, 16.37. 200.  DSS, 22.53. 201.  DSS, 16.37. 202. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 216. 203.  Basil of Caesarea, “De Fide,” in Ascetical Works, 65. Similarly, Augustine begins with a description of the distinct relationships between the three followed by a discussion of their work in salvation history before concluding that “just as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so do they work inseparably.” Augustine, Trinity, I.7. Hill notes that here he put forth the twin assertion that not only do the three persons operate inseparably but that the effects of their operations “manifest the real and eternal distinctiveness of the persons.” E. Hill, “Our Knowledge of the Trinity,” Scottish Journal of Theology 27 (1974): 8. 204.  DSS, 16.38. Similarly, Nyssa employs causal language: “For one is directly from the first Cause, and another by that which is directly from the first Cause; so that the attribute of being Only-begotten abides without doubt in the Son, and the interposition of the Son, while it guards His attribute of being Only-begotten, does not shut out the Spirit from His relation by way of nature to the Father.” Gregory of Nyssa, “On ‘Not Three Gods.’ To Ablabius” in NPNF II 5, 2.5.336. Lampe notes that the term bebaiosis should be translated as “confirms” rather than “strengthens,” though both Anderson and Jackson translated it as “the Spirit strengthens.” G. W. H. Lampe, God as Spirit, Bampton Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 215.



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However, from the context of the ministering spirits, it is clear that the term refers to a work of perfecting in holiness. 205.  Beeley, “Holy Spirit in the Cappadocians,” 96. 206.  Basil, “Hexæmeron,” 2.6. 207. Meredith, Cappadocians, 105. 208.  C. E. Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Essays toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 86. 209.  “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (ESV). 210.  M. A. G. Haykin, “‘A Sense of Awe in the Presence of the Ineffable’: I Cor. 2.11–12 in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century,” Scottish Journal of Theology 41, no. 3 (1988): 345. 211.  DSS, 18.46. 212. Basil, Letters, Letter 52, 1:333. 213.  Awad has observed a slight difference in the conception of the monarchia between Basil and Nazianzus in that with his emphasis on the hypostasis of the Father alone Basil’s approach was more “patro-centrically semi-hierarchical” as compared to Nazianzus’s “reciprocally koinonial” approach that viewed the three hypostases together, though he recognizes ultimately that both emphasized the Father as the principle of the Godhead. Awad, “Between Subordination and Koinonia,” 189. 214.  C. D. Raith II, “Ressourcing the Fathers? A Critical Analysis of Catherine Mowry LaCugna’s Appropriation of the Trinitarian Theology of the Cappadocian Fathers,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 10, no. 3 (2008): 272. 215.  DSS, 18.47. 216.  J. C. Elowsky, ed. We Believe in the Holy Spirit, ACC 4 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), xx. 217. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 188. 218.  DSS, 1.3, 25.59; J. D. Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, ed. D. H. Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2008), 72–73. 219. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 220. 220. Behr, Nicene Faith, 291. 221.  C. A. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light, OSHT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 296–76. 222.  AEun, 51. 223.  DSS, 6.15. 224.  DSS, 8.18. 225.  DSS, 26.64. 226. Basil, Letters, Letter 226, 3:339. 227.  A. Meredith, “The Pneumatology of the Cappadocian Fathers and the Creed of Constantinople,” Irish Theological Quarterly 48, nos. 3–4 (1981): 202. Similarly, Nyssa writes about the illuminating work of the Spirit with respect to the image, “It is not possible to behold the person of the Father otherwise than by fixing the sight upon it through His image; and the image of the person of the Father is the Only-begotten,

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and to him again no man can draw near whose mind has not been illuminated by the Holy Spirit.” Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Trinity,” 2.5.329. Maspero further describes how Nyssa views Christ as “the Image to make of us other images of God.” G. Maspero, Trinity and Man: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium, VCS 86 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 130–31. 228.  M. Aghiorgoussis, “Image as ‘Sign’ (Semeion) of God: Knowledge of God through the Images according to St. Basil,” trans. N. Pissare, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21 (1976): 20. Reprinted in M. Aghiorgoussis, In the Image of God: Studies in Scripture, Theology, and Community (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1999), 9–48. 229. M. Aghiorgoussis, “Applications of the Theme ‘Eikon Theou’ (Image of God) according to St. Basil,” trans. N. Pissare, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21(1976): 267. Packer has helpfully described this enlightening work of the Spirit as similar to a spotlight that illuminates Christ, and that as the second Paraclete, the Spirit leads one to the first Paraclete without intending to draw attention to himself. J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit (Old Tappan, NJ: F.H. Revell, 1984), 65–66. 230.  This is not, however, to claim that Basil has a fully developed Christology in the contemporary sense. Hence, Aghiorgoussis notes the relatively underdeveloped nature of his Christology compared to his Trinitarianism. Aghiorgoussis, “Applications of the Theme,” 287. Orphanos also describes a reluctance on Basil’s part to be drawn into Christological controversies on the grounds of the incomprehensibility of the incarnation and a desire not to cause new turmoil, though he maintained traditional views about Christ. M. A. Orphanos, Creation and Salvation according to St. Basil of Caesarea (Athens: Gregorios Parisianos, 1975), 95–97. These views can be seen in Homily 16, where he follows Philippians 2:7 and John 1:16 in describing Christ as him “who made peaceful by the blood of His cross both things of heaven and those of earth” and who “emptied himself in the form of a slave” in order that “of his fullness we might all receive, grace for grace.” Basil of Caesarea, “Homily 16 (on Psalm 33),” in Exegetic Homilies, trans. A. C. Way, FC 46 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 16.4, pp. 256–57. Likewise, Christ is described as “God-bearing flesh, through which he approaches men,” and as “the Man God Jesus Christ, who alone is able to give ransom to God for all of us.” Basil of Caesarea, “Homily 20 (on Psalm 59),” in Exegetic Homilies, 20.4, p. 339; Basil of Caesarea, “Homily 19 (on Psalm 48),” in Exegetic Homilies, 19.4, p. 317. McDonald summarizes that Basil’s concern was to distinguish between the human and divine natures of Christ rather than preserve the unity of the person in terms of the communicatio idiomatum. H. D. McDonald, “Development and Christology,” Vox Evangelica 9 (1975): 14. 231.  John 14:9 (ESV). 232. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 178. Nyssa writes likewise of the inseparability of the Spirit and the Son, “The thought of ‘unction’ conveys the hidden meaning that there is no interval of separation between the Son and the Holy Spirit. For as between the body’s surface and the liquid of the oil nothing intervening can be detected, either in reason or in perception, so inseparable is the union of the Spirit with the Son.” Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Spirit,” 2.5.321. Turcescu comments



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that this passage contains Nyssa’s assertion that any confession of the deity of Son necessarily includes the Spirit’s deity. Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa, 113. 233. Behr, Nicene Faith, 313. 234.  DSS, 17.43. 235. Athanasius, Concerning the Holy Spirit [Ad Serapion], trans. C. R. B. Shapland (London: Epworth Press, 1951), I.24. 236.  DSS, 9.23. 237.  DSS, 9.23. 238. Basil, Letters, Letter 233, 3:371. Also in Basil of Caesarea, On the Human Condition, trans. N. V. Harrison (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 109. 239.  DSS, 26.61–63. 240.  R. Bauckham, “Jürgen Moltmann’s the Trinity and the Kingdom of God and the Question of Pluralism,” in The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age, ed. K. J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997), 161. This observation is made in the context of a critique of Moltmann’s social Trinitarianism. 241.  D. Staniloae, Theology and the Church, trans. R. Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 61. 242.  J. McIntyre, “The Holy Spirit in Greek Patristic Thought,” Scottish Journal of Theology 7, no. 4 (1954): 366. 243.  G. G. Goble, “Conversion and Enlightenment in the Life and Works of Basil of Caesarea” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 2004), 251. 244.  DSS, 15.35. Nyssa describes baptism in similar terms: “[It is] a birth which neither begins nor ends with corruption, but one which conducts the person begotten to an immortal existence.” Gregory of Nyssa, “The Great Catechism,” in NPNF II 5, chap. 33. Nazianzus also calls baptism “the renunciation of the flesh, the following of the Spirit, the fellowship of the Word, the improvement of the creature, the overwhelming of sin, the participation of light, the dissolution of darkness.” Gregory of Nazianzus, “Oration on Holy Baptism,” in NPNF II 7, Oration 40.3. 245.  Johnson notes the clear influence of Romans 6 on this aspect of Basil’s theology of baptism. M. E. Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation, rev. and exp. ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 135. 246.  DSS, 15.35. 247.  A. G. Keidel, “Hesychia, Prayer and Transformation in Basil of Caesarea,” Studia Patristica 38 (2001): 117. 248.  DSS, 26.61. 249.  DSS, 16.40. 250.  DSS, 12.28. 251. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 177. 252.  DSS, 10.26. 253.  DSS, 15.35. 254.  E. Ferguson, “Exhortations to Baptism in the Cappadocians,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 122–23. 255.  DSS, 15.35. 256. Basil, Letters, Letter 188, 3:10–11.

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257. Basil, Letters, Letter 188, 3:13. Holmes has built upon these instructions for ecclesiastical flexibility to argue that baptismal practices need not be a barrier to church unity so that the bond of peace among Christians is preserved. Augustine is cited as another example of a patristic theologian similarly prepared to allow greater leeway with the assumption that the faith was not compromised. S. R. Holmes, “Baptism: Patristic Resources for Ecumenical Dialogue,” in Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 116–17. 258.  J. Behr, “The Trinitarian Being of the Church,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2003): 85. 259.  Basil of Caesarea, “The Long Rules,” in Ascetical Works, Rule 3. 260.  A. C. Mayer, “Koinonía on Purpose?—Ecclesiology of Communion in the Letters of St. Basil the Great,” Studia Patristica 41 (2006): 376. 261.  DSS, 25.59. 262.  DSS, 18.46. 263.  N. Sagovsky, Ecumenism, Christian Origins, and the Practice of Communion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 158. 264.  Goble, “Conversion and Enlightenment,” 262. 265.  DSS, 9.23. 266.  D. B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 120. This concept similarly has an important role for the two other Cappadocian Fathers. Nazianzus considers theosis the core of his theology, as Otis has characterized, while Winslow analyzes his understanding in terms of spatial, visual, epistemological, ethical, corporate, and social metaphors. B. Otis, “The Throne and the Mountain: An Essay on St. Gregory Nazianzus,” Classical Journal 56, no. 4 (1961): 163; D. F. Winslow, The Dynamics of Salvation: A Study in Gregory of Nazianzus, PMS 7 (Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979), 193–98. Beeley also describes Nazianzus as responsible for later appropriating the concept and establishing it as the primary salvific concept in Greek theology. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, 117. Nyssa’s conception of theosis is closer to Athanasius’s notion of a deification of the flesh, and related to epektasis, or perpetual progress. P. M. Blowers, “Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Concept of ‘Perpetual Progress,’” Vigiliae Christianae 46 (1992): 151–71. For other studies of Nyssa’s understanding, see N. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 225–32; L. Ayres, “Deification and the Dynamics of Nicene Theology: The Contribution of Gregory of Nyssa,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 49, no. 4 (2005): 375–94; J. M. B. Puppo, “Sacrament of Deification: The Eucharistic Vision of Alexander Schmemann in Light of the Doctrine of Theosis” (Ph.D. thesis, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, 2007), 209–38; and M. Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa: Ancient and (Post)Modern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 108–24. 267.  “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption



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that is in the world because of sinful desire” (ESV). See F. W. Norris, “Deification: Consensual and Cogent,” Scottish Journal of Theology 49, no. 4 (1996): 416. 268.  T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1966), 243–44. A recent work exploring the recurrence of this theme in Torrance’s writings can be found in M. Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009). 269. J. Pelikan, “Orthodox Theology in the West: The Reformation,” in The Legacy of St. Vladimir, ed. J. Breck, J. Meyendorff, and E. E. Silk (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), 164. 270.  J. A. McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 154. 271.  J. Meyendorff, “New Life in Christ: Salvation in Orthodox Theology,” Theological Studies 50 (1989): 486. Kärkkäinen observes that theosis is an idea that cannot be expressed solely Christologically but requires a Pneumatological movement as well. V.-M. Kärkkäinen, One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), 34. 272.  D. B. Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 205–6. 273.  Wiles, “Eunomius,” 157. However, Anastos observes that Basil was careful not to overutilize the soteriological arguments contained in the 325 Nicene Creed, given the delicate political situation. Anastos, “Basil’s Kata Eunomiou,” 127. 274. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 171. 275.  For a review of its semantics, see Russell, Doctrine of Deification, app. 2, “The Greek Vocabulary of Deification.” 276. Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 208. 277.  In contrast, Athanasius often employed the term theopoiesis, by which he meant the result of a salvific process in which there is a fundamental reorientation of fallen humanity toward the divine. Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 166–87. 278.  DSS, 1.2. 279.  AEun, 3.5. 280.  G. Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 3 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976), 74. 281. P. M. Collins, Partaking in Divine Nature: Deification and Communion (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 66. 282. Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 213. 283.  M. Weedman, “The Spirit in the Church: The Universal Christ, Particular Spirit and Christian Unity,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 3 (2009): 361. 284. Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 208. 285. Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, 154, 177. 286.  J. D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), 50. 287.  The Spirit’s role in theosis formed a key part of Basil’s argument for his deity, since through the Spirit’s indwelling of both angels and humans he makes them holy, and therefore he has to be divine. DSS, 19.48. For Nazianzus too the work of

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the Spirit in theosis constitutes the clearest proof of his divinity: “Were the Spirit not to be worshipped, how could he deify me through baptism? If he is to be worshipped, why not adored? And if to be adored, how can he fail to be God?” Gregory of Nazianzus and Norris, Faith Gives Fullness, Oration 31.28; C. A. Beeley, “The Holy Spirit in Gregory Nazianzen: The Pneumatology of Oration 31,” in God in Early Christian Thought, ed. A. B. McGowan, B. Daley, and T. J. Gaden (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 159. Gross considers Nazianzus’s views on theosis an elaboration of Basil’s. J. Gross, The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers, trans. P. A. Onica (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002), 193.

Chapter Four

An Assessment of D’Costa’s Trinitarian Theology of Religions based on Cappadocian Trinitarianism

This final chapter brings together the preceding discussions of Gavin D’Costa’s theology of religions as well as the Cappadocian Father Basil of Caesarea’s Trinitarianism and presents an evaluation of the former’s underpinning Trinitarian theology in light of the latter. In contrasting the two, we note at the outset that they have worked out their respective theologies in two very different contexts, that is, twentieth-century post– Vatican II Roman Catholicism and the fourth-century patristic period. For that reason, chapter 1 and the first half of chapter 3 have been devoted to explicating their intellectual and theological contexts, while chapter 2 and the latter part of chapter 3 have analyzed their theologies. We are now in a position for an assessment that will be built on three significant theological points of contact between the two. In addition, since Basil’s theology is recognized as a significant strand of patristic Trinitarianism, this determination may be seen in a broader sense as an evaluation based on ProNicene theology. It needs to be reiterated that the concern of this chapter is a Trinitarian assessment of D’Costa’s theology, and as such it is not a discussion of the theological significance of religions per se, though we recognize that in itself that is a significant topic. Nor is this chapter meant to be an assessment of theological inclusivism in general but only the viability of a particular Trinitarian dependence based on a specific traditional understanding of the doctrine. Finally, we note that D’Costa and Basil share similar assumptions about the nature of theology being underlined by an unchanging deposit of faith, assumptions that hence allow such an attempt to compare their theologies.

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DOCTRINES OF DIVINE SIMPLICITY, INSEPARABLE OPERATIONS, AND THE UNIVERSAL SPIRIT We begin with the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operations. Our previous discussion noted the interrelationship of the two and how Basil employs both to defend the deity of the Spirit. On the former, he asserts that “the divine nature is simple, not composed of various parts,”1 while the inseparability of activity of the triune persons is reasoned thus: that “in every operation, the Holy Spirit is indivisibly united with the Father and the Son.”2 We may summarize the relationship between the two doctrines as that, ontologically, divine simplicity leads to the conclusion of the inseparable operations of the divine persons, while economically, the simplicity of God is evidenced through the inseparability of their act. Both doctrines support the assertion that whenever one of the divine persons act, all three are present simultaneously and act inseparably without conflict or contradiction, and suggest that the Trinity is always to be spoken of in the singular sense, such as having one power, nature, and goodness, as well as being involved in all activities of creation and salvation.3 As Zizioulas puts it, the Greek Fathers’ insistence of the unity of the divine activity ad extra means that, for them, “to speak of Christ means speaking at the same time of the Father and the Holy Spirit.”4 Despite this, the three persons are distinguishable such that the Father may be seen as the one who commands, the Son who creates, and the Spirit who perfects in holiness.5 Though the concepts of simplicity and inseparable operations may be elucidated, they do not take away the underlying mystery of God, which remains incomprehensible to the human mind.6 The Trinitarian operations ad extra of the Father, Son, and Spirit mean that in their joint and singular work of salvation the work of the Son is presented as the work of the Father7 and the Spirit as inseparable from the Son.8 Based on the monarchia, salvation is ultimately granted by the Father, and hence Basil does not hesitate in referring to the Father as the “Savior” who “through regeneration renews our youth like the eagle’s,” even while accepting this is a Trinitarian act.9 When we come to D’Costa’s Trinitarianism, we first note there is a commonality with Basil’s theology in that both are chiefly concerned with the economy of salvation rather than the inner Trinitarian life.10 However, in D’Costa’s discussion of the universal presence of the Spirit, there is a different conception of the dimension of the operations of the three persons. As discussed in chapter 2, it is Trinitarian Pneumatology that allows for the dialectic relation of the particular with the universal. As D’Costa puts it, “the doctrine of the Holy Spirit allows us theologically to relate the particularity of the Christ event to the entire history of humankind.”11 That this universal activity



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must necessarily have a salvific character is supported by GS 22, which establishes an association of the paschal mystery universally through the presence of the Spirit, though D’Costa is careful to qualify that any such assertion of the Spirit’s salvific presence must be confirmed a posteriori through an act of ecclesial discernment.12 Moreover, while the Spirit works in the hearts of individuals, D’Costa has no hesitation extending this activity to concrete social-structural realities such as religions based on an understanding of the social-historical nature of humans. It is this presence of the Spirit that calls for a theological reevaluation of the function of religions and also gives rise to the possibility of discerning an inchoate reality of God’s kingdom in them. Additionally, relational engagement with the Other is now feasible, even imperative, inasmuch as a failure to give attention to the religions is tantamount to idolatry since the Spirit is seen to be already at work within the religions. Therefore, the interpretive key to this conception is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and specifically his universal salvific presence within the religions. However, based on the doctrine of inseparable operations, it is unclear how the work of Christ is related by the Spirit to the adherents of other faiths, for D’Costa offers little or no account of his role in witnessing to and glorifying the risen Christ given the assertion of his universal presence among them. In fact, the entire narrative of the Christ story seems to be missing from the Spirit’s engagement with them. Since inseparable operations suggest that the Spirit does not work without the Son, this lack of identifiable and specific Christological content in the assertion of his operation among non-Christians raises questions about the nature of their salvation as a joint act of the Trinity, and correspondingly, questions about divine simplicity and the unity of the persons ad intra. In addition, the conception of the universal salvific presence of the Spirit absent any endowment of the knowledge of Christ makes it difficult to see how D’Costa’s Trinitarian formulation avoids positing a separate economy of the Spirit, which if so would then be in tension with D’Costa’s desire to affirm a single economy of salvation. It is also challenging to see how the Father is related to the Other through the Spirit since Christ is the way to the Father, but that has not been made known to the non-Christian. We will further examine the work of Christ in the next section in the context of the enlightening work of the Spirit with reference to the particular Christ, but at this juncture we conclude based on Basilian theology that it is unlikely that D’Costa can assert the Spirit is universally and salvifically at work in the Other in the same sense that he is at work in the Christian and within the church. We proceed now to examine another aspect of the work of the Spirit asserted in relation to the non-Christian by D’Costa, that is, the granting of spiritual gifts to her, which forms the basis of the church’s relational

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engagement and necessitates her subsequent action in bringing them in for self-edification. While what these gifts entail exactly is not specified, D’Costa makes it clear they should be seen as analogously similar to those recognized within the church, for it is the same Spirit who produces them. Quoting RM 29, he writes that “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.”13 In our earlier analysis of Basil’s understanding of the indivisible works of the Trinity, we noted the role of the Spirit as he is “present of his own will, dispensing gifts to everyone according to each man’s worth.”14 Prima facie, this would seem to support D’Costa’s assertion that the Spirit is active in the Other in endowing his gifts. However, we may then query what arena was Basil referring to concerning this activity of the Spirit, whether within the church or to the wider world. While there is no doubt that the Trinity does operate within both spheres, Basil makes it clear in the same chapter of DSS that when it comes to the gifts of the Spirit they are endowed within the community of believers.15 The gifts are distributed by the Spirit among the members of the church and demonstrated by the appointing of apostles, prophets, and teachers within her.16 This is not to suggest that the Spirit is only confined to narrow ecclesial interests and not operative universally, but to point out that in Basil’s writings the locus of the efficacy of the “gifts of the Spirit” was consistently situated within the faith constituency, so that the economy of the Spirit in its distribution was not divorced from the economy of the Son. Thus, in interpreting this passage, Staniloae describes the Spirit as the one who “creates the grace filled structures of the Church, but precisely as structures of the Church” (emphasis original),17 making it clear that the gifts of the Spirit are only present ecclesiologically rather than in the religions. It is somewhat improbable that the same Spirit would imbue the other faiths with analogously similar kinds of gifts as that found in the church, for that would conflate the church and the world. So is the Basilian conception of the Spirit’s work void of any universal dimension and restricted only to Christ and within the church? On the contrary, this Trinitarianism does contain a basis for universal claims for the work of the Spirit as seen in the understanding of creation that asserts that the Trinity is the ground of existence for all. As we noted earlier, creation for Basil is a triune act, one not only involving its beginning but also including its maintenance and the gradual moving toward its telos. Therefore, Basil speaks of the perfecting work of the Spirit in a passage we examined earlier on the causal distinctions of the persons.18 Gunton has made the observation that to claim the Spirit as the perfecting cause of creation is to make him the eschatological person of the Trin-



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ity,19 and he describes this perfecting work as that which directs creatures to “where their creator wishes them to go, to their destiny as creatures.”20 Torrance also observes that the Spirit brings all creatures to their fulfillment in God and consummates their creation in the prokope (advance) of Christ.21 This perfecting work is not limited to creation but includes the work of sanctification in the life of the Christian,22 but Basil was careful not to conflate the two, for that could lead to apokatastasis.23 Instead, as analyzed earlier, he distinguishes the Spirit’s perfecting operation in the lives of believers to be characterized by the work of theosis. We conclude, therefore, that, firstly, Basil’s conception of the axioms of simplicity and inseparable operations would not have led him to posit that a non-Christian could be saved by the presence of the Spirit absent the work of Christ, and secondly, his understanding of the universality of the Spirit’s presence is embedded within his perfecting work in creation and to be distinguished from his salvific work in theosis for the believer, a distinction that could also be beneficial for D’Costa’s Trinitarian Pneumatology.24 THE ENLIGHTENING WORK OF THE SPIRIT AND THE PARTICULARITY OF CHRIST In the previous chapter, we discussed the Basilian conception of the enlightening role of the Spirit, which is his work in illuminating Christ as the image of God the Father. This was worked out in conjunction with an understanding of the taxis in the divine operations, in which the work of the Spirit leads one to Christ and in turn to the Father. As Basil states, “The way to divine knowledge ascends from one Spirit through the one Son to the Father.”25 Within this taxis, he maintains that the second person of the Trinity is the one on whom attention is to be focused through the usage of image language such that any knowledge of Christ is equivalent to knowing God. At the same time, Basil does not go so far as to imply that the Spirit, in turn, should be seen as an image of Christ since this language is nonscriptural.26 The Son–Father relationship can be seen earlier in AEun, when Basil asserted the equality of knowledge of the Son with that of the Father through image language by citing John 14:9 and 12:4.27 By this notion of the epistemic relationship between the Son and the Father, he refutes Eunomius’s denial of the consubstantiality of the Son as being tantamount to denying the possibility of knowledge of the Father. Regarding the Spirit–Son relationship, Basil asserts the necessity of knowing the Son through the illuminating work of the Spirit. In a significant passage in DSS that holds both interrelations together, he writes, “Light cannot be separated

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from what it makes visible, and it is impossible for you to recognize Christ, the Image of the Invisible God, unless the Spirit enlightens you. Once you see the Image, you cannot ignore the light; you see the Light and the Image simultaneously.”28 Hence, the connections among the persons for salvation become clear. While the Spirit–Son relationship demonstrates it is the Spirit’s role to enlighten the believer to know who Christ is, the Son–Father relations show the way from the image to the archetype, and hence this is appropriately a “twofold enlightenment.”29 The work of the Spirit also suggests that the relationality of his hypostasis has to be conceived of as his indwelling in us that allows for personal relations with the other two persons. Hence, the Spirit does not intend himself to be looked at, but instead it is in him that one sees.30 Therefore, the enlightening role of the Spirit with respect to Christ is when he enables one to see who Christ is, and from him one sees the Father.31 When we turn our attention to D’Costa’s Trinitarian Christology, we recall that he holds firmly to the particularity of Christ as foundational for his theology of religions, as he writes that “the doctrine seeks to affirm that God has disclosed himself unreservedly and irreversibly in the contingencies and particularity of the person Jesus.”32 From the particularity of Jesus found in Trinitarian theology and especially in the incarnation, he extends this into an affirmation and recognition of the particularity of all religions.33 Such an understanding represents a positive development from a pluralism that obliterates all distinctions between the religions, and it allows one to engage with them through the church. At the same time, D’Costa is careful to step away from holding a position of the total incommensurability of religions since it does not allow for relational engagement, and he argues that the traditionspecificity of each faith is precisely what one can bring to the dialogue table. This view of the religions allows for the understanding of and interaction with the “Others” as distinct particularities, each in its own right, rather than subsuming them under a common umbrella and smothering their differences. In addition, the theological status of religions as praeparatio evangelicae, following LG 16, suggests they should not be seen as independent vehicles of salvation through which their adherents could be saved. This leads to the corollary that salvific grace must be operative within them, though not that they possess supernatural revelation, which is confined to Christianity and Old Testament Judaism. The overall favorable view of the religions in the scheme of God’s salvific plan rests on their particularities being recognized fully and is especially consequential upon the particularity of Christ that D’Costa has identified in his Trinitarian Christology. While this understanding of Christ’s particularity is welcome and helpful, it may not be sufficient in terms of patristic Trinitarian theology. When we examine Basil’s view of the enlightening work of the Spirit, he emphasizes



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his role in illuminating Christ as the image of the Father who allows for communion with God. This suggests that the Church Father has a deeper appreciation of the particularity of Christ, one that involves an additional dimension of what we may call “relational particularity” that enables communion with him through the Spirit, and in turn with the Father. In contrast, D’Costa’s theology is dependent on a kind of “historical particularity” of Christ, that is, that the Christ event took place at a particular spatial-temporal conjuncture, without entailing a relational knowledge of him. Admittedly, Basilian theology does not utilize the historical particularity of Christ to recognize the particularities of other faiths, and D’Costa’s insight here is appreciated. However, the particularity of Christ should not be restricted to his historical particularity, since Christ did not incarnate himself into human structures or a religion as Judaism but rather as a person, and hence the particularity of Christ needs to include relational communion with him as a person. For it is in the full particularity of Christ that he, in his concrete personhood, was incarnated, surrendered himself to be crucified, was resurrected, and ascended, and his life now intersects with an individual’s life story in an I–Thou relationship. Therefore, Basilian theology guards against reducing the Christ event to a mere historical event and allows for relationality through the work of the Spirit in illuminating Christ for communion with God. The risk of viewing the particularity of Christ as translatable to that of the religions without taking into account his relational particularity is the danger of bifurcating the mediator of salvation from his mediation. The particularity of Christ then becomes a byword for the latter, and the benefits of salvation are taken as portable and applicable for those who have not known the mediator. We see this fundamental problem in D’Costa’s assertion that the Spirit could mediate salvific grace through religious elements to sincere seekers of God without any explicit knowledge of Christ. Such a view differs from Basil’s understanding that with knowledge of the mediator through the Spirit comes his benefits, much as pulling a chain draws up the other end, to paraphrase Nyssa.34 As Gunton points out, it is problematic to divorce knowing the benefits of Christ from knowing Christ himself, and for that reason Chalcedon rightly focused on the question of who Jesus Christ is, that is, as the object of belief.35 Daley argues similarly that the early church viewed salvation as achieved by Jesus’ identity rather than his work, whereas post-Anselm Western soteriology stressed the latter.36 Torrance makes the same point that the union of word and work suggests “we cannot in any sense think of the work of revelation and reconciliation as a transaction objective to Christ.”37 Schwöbel draws attention to the Christian faith as the “existential relationship of absolute and unconditional trust in God—Father, Son, and Spirit,” a relationship that could not be sustained without communion with God.38 To

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summarize, for Basil, the enlightening role of the Spirit illuminates Christ as the starting point for koinōnia with God, and while the particularities of other faiths are to be taken seriously, the notion of the historical Christ event must be augmented with relationality so as to enable an existential encounter with the risen Christ. BAPTISM, THEOSIS, AND CHRIST-LIKENESS In the previous chapter, our analyses of Basil’s views of baptism and theosis concluded that, like most patristic theologians, he regarded both as pivotal for the Christian life. As seen earlier, a passage that summarizes his view of baptism’s inextricable relationship with faith is that “the profession of faith leads us to salvation, and then baptism follows, sealing our affirmation.”39 Conjoined with the concept of baptism is regeneration,40 and in Homily 13 Basil describes this as “the soul, being washed well of its sins and rid of the old man, is suitable henceforward as a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”41 Regeneration through baptism signifies the beginning of the presence of the Spirit in the convert’s heart, which requires that the marks of faith be visible before one can be baptized.42 For that reason, he lays out the high demands of discipleship before the act of baptism.43 However, the uncertainties of life are also seen as reminders to catechumens not to postpone baptism until old age or the approach of death.44 Nonetheless, baptismal regeneration is not the totality of the Christian life as it merely marks its beginning, and both the ensuing process and the goal of salvation are condensed in the concept of theosis, which involves a lifelong mimesis of the life of Christ. This deifying work is the benefit of the incarnation, through which “our body united with the divinity, became superior to the domination of death,”45 and is perfected by the Spirit, who completes all that the Father does through the Son.46 We have earlier analyzed how this concept of theosis is necessarily a process of ethical imitation and that Basil employs the term gods in a titular sense. These ethical implications are derivative and concrete, and they follow in a strong sense within his theology that this new behavior represents a rupture in the hitherto continuity of a particular human’s existence through baptism. This accounts for his metaphor of someone running having to make a U-turn in life: “when a runner has to run around the post at the end of the racetrack . . . he has to stop and pause momentarily, in order to negotiate such a sharp turn.”47 The new life means becoming like Christ in meekness to the point of death through baptism, for only then can the “second life” begin. This new life, what we will call the Christ-life, is then described as “the pat-



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tern of life we must be trained to follow after the (baptismal) resurrection: gentleness, endurance, freedom for the defiling love of pleasure, and from covetousness.”48 In summary, there is a union of ontology and ethics such that Christ-like behavior is derivative and consequent upon having the Christ-life within the believer following the act of baptismal regeneration. This does not mean the believer is regenerated through her baptism per se, but that her regeneration in Christ through the work of the Spirit has been declared in baptism.49 In Basilian Trinitarianism, we find a causal link between the Christ-life of the believer and her subsequent Christ-like behavior. In analyzing the dialectic between Trinitarian particularity and universality, we noted that D’Costa suggests that Christ-like behavior discernible by the church may be generated in other religions through the Spirit. This assertion of Christ-likeness through the work of the Spirit essentially remains at the ethical level and is absent of any requirement of regeneration. Instead of basing ethics on any prior radical change in life, it is grounded on an analogical translation from the work of the Spirit ecclesia ad intra and ecclesia ad extra. D’Costa states that the Spirit “when outside the church must also have an analogous role within the other cultures, to help make women and men more Christ-like, individually and in community, however frustrated and thwarted” (emphasis original).50 The assumption here is that the Spirit working outside the church operates in such a manner within the Other that she may exhibit behavior that is recognizable as similar to that shown by Christ. He reiterates that “the Spirit in the church allows for the possible (and extremely complex and difficult) discernment of Christ-like practice in the Other, and in so much as Christ-like activity takes place, then this can also only be through the enabling power of the Spirit.”51 D’Costa’s assertion is clear: not only is Christ-like behavior possible within the Other, but the same Spirit who elicits such conduct will also work within the church such that she is capable of discerning it, as difficult as the task may be. This possibility of seeing the likeness of Jesus in others leads to the further implication that Christians should remain open to the possibility of perceiving new forms of practices generated by the Spirit in their encounter with non-Christian cultures—practices that could challenge the church and serve both as a promise for and judgment against her. This is posited with the caveat that not every new practice is necessarily from the Spirit and care has to be taken in distinguishing between the divine and the world. In assessing D’Costa’s claims of Christ-like behavior based on Basil’s theology, we are doubtful that the Church Father would have arrived at this conclusion due to his understanding of the prior necessity of baptismal regeneration through the work of the Spirit for the production of the Christ-life.

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This is not to deny the existence of admirable qualities and commendable conduct within the lives of nonbelievers, but to point out that to the Cappadocian bishop the term Christ-like carries a certain ontological weight that could not be sidestepped. Based on D’Costa’s proposal, the Spirit could realize within the Other what the church would endorse as conduct similar to what Christ exhibited on earth, without the Other having to experience the process of being regenerated into a qualitatively different reality as in the case of a believer. If this generation of Christ-likeness may indeed be divorced from the need for baptismal regeneration,52 this implies that either (1) the Spirit may independently lead nonbelievers to exhibit Christ-like conduct as the product of an alternate ontological avenue, or (2) it does not require any form of regeneration. The former implies an autonomous economy of the Spirit and is an untenable Trinitarian resolution given the doctrine of inseparable operations, and the latter runs counter to the Basilian intertwined connection between baptism and theosis. In light of this, D’Costa’s assertion of Christlikeness within the Other through an analogical approach of the Spirit’s work may have the effect of exerting too much internal divisive pressures between Christology and Pneumatology. SUMMARY This chapter has presented an assessment of Gavin D’Costa’s Trinitarian theology of religions based on Basil of Caesarea’s Trinitarianism. Firstly, it has built on Basil’s doctrines of divine simplicity and the indivisibility of the Trinitarian opera ad extra to argue that D’Costa’s conception of the universal presence of the Spirit among the adherents of other faiths may need to be complemented with distinct Christological content and provide for a sufficient account of the Christ story. This deficiency has also meant that the relation of the Father to the Other may not have been clearly explicated given the indispensable role of the Son within the economic Trinity. In addition, the assertion of gifts of the Spirit to be found in the religions is analyzed to be improbable given the clear Basilian identification of the locus of these gifts within the faith community. Regarding the Spirit’s universal activity, this was located within his work in creation, and we suggest it would also be beneficial for D’Costa’s Pneumatology to distinguish more clearly between this and the salvific work of the Spirit in the believer. Secondly, in terms of Trinitarian Christology, we have analyzed that while D’Costa’s understanding of the historical particularity of Christ helpfully allows for an appreciation of the legitimate particularities of the religions, his de-emphasis of the relational particularity of Christ diminishes the require-



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ment for an existential encounter with the Savior that leads one to the Father through the work of the Spirit. Since the incarnation was more than an event but the coming of a person, this relational particularity of Christ needs to be emphasized such that communion with him is rendered possible, which is in turn communion with the one Trinity. The uncoupling of the relational particularity of Christ from his historical particularity has the effect of abstracting the mediation of salvation from the mediator and runs counter to Basil’s understanding of the enlightening work of the Spirit as the one who works in us to illuminate the mediator and bring about a personal relationship with him. Thirdly, we argue that D’Costa’s postulate of Christ-like behavior to be found within the Other has the unfortunate effect of disjointing the ontological and ethical aspects of the Christian life, based on the Basilian conception that Christ-like behavior is a derivative of the Christ-life generated by the Spirit. In Basil’s theology, the Christian conduct elicited by the Spirit during the process of theosis is only possible beginning with the act of baptismal regeneration and his indwelling. While we agree that nonbelievers may display admirable behavior, that this can rise to the level that Christ exhibited during his lifetime is only likely if one posits either an autonomous Pneumatological work or the nonnecessity of regeneration. Despite D’Costa’s intention to relate the paschal mystery of Christ to the work of the Spirit, ultimately, the assertion of Christ-likeness by the work of the Spirit could result in internal tensions between the operations of the Spirit and Son that is too great for his system to maintain. NOTES 1.  DSS, 8.21. 2.  DSS, 16.37. Nyssa’s view of the relationship between simplicity and inseparable operations is similar: “We understand that the operation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, differing or varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature must needs be inferred from the identity of their operation” (emphasis added). Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Trinity,” 2.5.328. 3.  L. Ayres, “The Fundamental Grammar of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology,” in Augustine and His Critics, ed. R. Dodaro and G. Lawless (London: Routledge, 2000), 56. 4. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 111. Among his sources, he cites DSS, 19.49. 5.  DSS, 16.38. 6. Thus, Holmes notes that many contemporary objections raised against the doctrine of simplicity stemmed from “an improper assumption that we can understand God’s essence,” which was contrary to what the Fathers, including Basil and Athanasius, asserted. S. R. Holmes, “Something Much Too Plain to Say: Towards a Defence of the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische

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Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 43 (2001): 141, 148. Swete summarizes that DSS was marked throughout by “reverent awe” for its subject matter. H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London: Macmillan, 1912), 239–40. Nyssa expresses the same sentiment: “we are none the more able to learn by our knowledge of His operations the nature of him who works. . . . Indeed the substance is one thing which no definition has been found to express.” Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Trinity,” 2.5.329. 7.  DSS, 8.19. 8.  DSS, 16.39. 9.  DSS, 14.33. Also see DSS, 10.26. 10.  Hildebrand notes that Basilian Pneumatology does not dwell on the immanent Trinity but focuses on the salvific work of the Trinity ad extra. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 174. 11.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 19. 12.  Meeting, 109. 13.  Meeting, 115. 14.  DSS, 16.37. 15.  DSS, 16.39. 16.  Hunter suggests that the distributed gifts include the gift of tongues-speech. Quoting Basil’s Shorter Rules, he writes that “the Cappadocian fathers, all of whom had been monks, uniformly spoke of the contemporary exercise of charismata and perhaps also tongues-speech.” H. D. Hunter, “Tongues-Speech: A Patristic Analysis,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 23, no. 2 (1980): 133. However, Haykin argues that Basil’s discussion was in the context of a man’s prayer in a language foreign to those present rather than referring to glossolalia. M. A. G. Haykin, The Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 and 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century, VCS 27 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 147–48. 17. Staniloae, Theology and the Church, 55. 18.  DSS, 16.38. 19.  C. E. Gunton, “The Spirit Moved over the Face of the Waters: The Holy Spirit and the Created Order,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 4, no. 2 (2002): 203. 20. Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 81. See also C. E. Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 10. 21. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, 39. 22. Meyendorff notes that Basil’s understanding of the perfecting work of the Spirit extends to both creation and redemption, but these are distinguishable. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 169. 23. His brother, Nyssa, is known for possibly advocating some form of apokatastasis. Ludlow notes a consensus among scholars of his universalism, while Trumbower considers him Origen’s disciple. Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, 122; J. A. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead: The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 119. However, Maspero argues that the Nyssan apokatastasis is fundamentally different from Origen’s and



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should be seen as a restoration of man in his original perfect condition. Maspero, Trinity and Man, 79, 91–92. Tsirpanlis too asserts Nyssa’s apokatastasis is more scriptural than Origen’s and refers to God’s teleological purposes for creation. C. N. Tsirpanlis, “The Concept of Universal Salvation in Saint Gregory of Nyssa,” Studia Patristica 17 (1982): 1141. 24.  Wellum argues similarly in his critique of Pinnock that the Spirit’s universal presence has to be distinguished from his more specific salvific work. S. J. Wellum, “An Evaluation of the Son-Spirit Relation in Clark Pinnock’s Inclusivism: An Exercise in Trinitarian Reflection,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10, no. 1 (2006): 14. Jukko also notes that the presence of the Spirit in other religions may not be so easily assumed since the New Testament speaks primarily of the Spirit active in the church, and he proposes that it is rather grace that is effective universally. R. Jukko, “The Theological Foundations of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in Christian-Muslim Relations,” International Review of Mission 96, nos. 380–81 (2007): 82. However, detaching grace from the operations of the persons does not fully resolve the issue, as we assessed in chapter 2. 25.  DSS, 18.47. 26.  Aghiorgoussis further suggests that would violate the principle of monarchia. Aghiorgoussis, “Applications of the Theme,” 266. 27.  AEun, 1.17. 28.  DSS, 26.64. 29. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 173; Goble, “Conversion and Enlightenment,” 251. Keidel makes the same point that the Spirit who allows us to fix our eyes on Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, leads us to true knowledge of the archetype, though not in the sense of knowing him in his essence. Keidel, “Hesychia, Prayer and Transformation,” 116–17. Karam describes how in the light of the Spirit “we shall see him who is the light for us, who is ‘light from light’” (emphasis original). C. Karam, “Saint Basil on the Holy Spirit: Some Aspects of His Theology,” in Word and Spirit: A Monastic Review; In Honor of St. Basil the Great 379 (Still River, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1979), 156. 30. Hildebrand, Trinitarian Theology, 185. Webster puts forth the same idea when he notes the New Testament depicts the Spirit as “Christologically identified” and, quoting Hendry, cautions that any attempt to impose a cosmological framework that ignores this element will cause the Spirit’s work to lose its distinctiveness. J. B. Webster, “The Identity of the Holy Spirit: A Problem in Trinitarian Theology,” Themelios 9, no. 1 (1983): 5; G. S. Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), 16. Ware also describes the illuminating and sanctifying work of the Spirit in pointing us to Jesus. B. A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 124. 31.  However, just because knowledge of God the Father comes through the Son in the Spirit does not mean Basil subscribes to an ontologically subordinationist view of the Spirit. Thus, in Letter 52, he writes, “The Holy Spirit is reckoned along with the Father and Son, wherefore he also is above creation. . . . It is therefore in like manner impious either to degrade him to the position of a creature, or to raise him above either Son or Father in either time or position.” Basil, Letters, Letter 52, 1:335–36.

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32.  D’Costa, “Christ, the Trinity,” 17. 33.  Meeting, 133. 34.  The original imagery by Nyssa was for a Trinitarian point: “just as he who grasps one end of a chain pulls along with it the other end also to himself, so he who draws the Spirit, as the prophet says, through the Spirit draws both the Son and the Father along with it.” See Basil, Letters, Letter 38.4, 1:11. Here we are employing this image Christologically. As discussed in chapter 3, we follow most scholars in attributing this letter to Basil’s brother. 35.  C. E. Gunton, “The Truth of Christology,” in Belief in Science and in Christian Life, ed. T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1980), 93. Gunton also cites Melanchthon’s oft-quoted saying, “To know Christ is to know His benefits,” as having unfortunately been interpreted as that it suffices only to know the effects of his saving mediation, thus leading to subjectivism. 36.  B. Daley, “‘He Himself Is Our Peace’ (Eph. 2: 14): Early Christian Views of Redemption in Christ,” in The Redemption, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 151. 37.  T. F. Torrance and R. T. Walker, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 108. Also see his assertion of the identity of the deed of atonement with the atoner. T. F. Torrance and R. T. Walker, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 93–94. 38.  Schwöbel, “Particularity, Universality and the Religions,” 34. In the same paper, Schwöbel makes a similar point about relational particularity but with reference to creation: “The particularity of God’s interaction with creation is therefore rooted in the personal particularity of the Trinity, who is the communion of the personal hypostaseis of Father, Son and Spirit” (36). 39.  DSS, 12.28. Likewise, “baptism is the seal of faith, and faith is an assent to divinity. For one must first believe, then be sealed by baptism.” AEun, 3.5. Bloesch also notes Basil’s indissoluble relationship between personal faith and baptism. D. G. Bloesch, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000), 81. Williams comments that Basil’s view of baptism—that salvation is based exclusively on baptism and the confession of the Trinitarian faith—is similar to Athanasius’s. R. Williams, “Baptism and the Arian Controversy,” in Arianism after Arius, ed. M. R. Barnes and D. H. Williams (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 156. 40.  DSS, 10.26. Ferguson notes this view of baptism effecting the new birth was also held by the other two Gregorys. Ferguson, “Exhortations to Baptism,” 127. 41.  Basil of Caesarea, “Homily 13 (on Psalm 28),” in Exegetic Homilies, 8, p. 210. 42.  G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit: A Study in the Doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation in the New Testament and the Fathers (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1951), 198. This requirement for Christian regeneration is why one has to reject as inadequate Pinnock’s suggestion that theosis as union with God shares commonality with non-Christian Eastern religions. Pinnock, Flame of Love, 154. 43.  A. G. Keidel, “Basil of Caesarea’s Use of Romans 7 as a Reflection of Inner Struggle,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 138. A disciple “is one who comes to the Lord for the purpose of following him.” Basil of Caesarea, “Concerning Baptism,”



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in Ascetical Works, 1.1; critical text in Basil of Caesarea, Sur Le Bapteme, trans. J. Ducatillon, SC 357 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989). In the same passage, he describes one must first become a disciple before she can be baptized, quoting the example of the rich young man as one “under the dominion of sin dwelling within him. He was, therefore, unable to serve the Lord.” Concerning infant baptism, while Basil himself was baptised as an adult, he apparently never spoke against its practice. L. J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004), 128. In contrast, Nazianzus encouraged mothers to have their children baptized at the earliest possible age, preferably around age three. Gregory of Nazianzus, “Oration on Holy Baptism,” in NPNF II. Translated by C.G. Browne and J.E. Swallow, eds. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), Oration 40.17, 28. 44. Ferguson, “Exhortations to Baptism,” 122. The paramount importance of baptism for Basil is also reflected in his nondogmatic writings. In The Morals, he raises the question, “What is the nature or the function of baptism?” and immediately answers that it is the “changing of the person baptized in thought and word and action and his transformation according to the power bestowed on him.” Basil of Caesarea, “The Morals,” in Ascetical Works, chap. 20. Rousseau analyzes that immediately after this chapter Basil went on to describe the consequent activities that should follow incorporation into the body of Christ, including proclamation and the details of community living, cementing the argument that baptism is a watershed event in the life of a believer. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, 228–30. 45. Basil, Letters, Letter 262, 4:87. 46. Gross, Divinization of the Christian, 191. 47.  DSS, 15.35. Similarly, Nazianzus’s exhortation on the imitation of Christ is based on the Tauschformel (exchange formula): “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since he for ours became Man.” Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” 1.5. 48.  DSS, 15.35. 49. Orphanos, Creation and Salvation, 118. 50.  Meeting, 115. 51.  Meeting, 129. 52.  In terms of whether the Thomist notion of “baptism of desire” and the correlative concept of “implicit faith” can be applied to a nonbeliever, we note that in their original context they refer to catechumens, and as Wellum argues, the parallel to non-Christians is not entirely valid given they had only received general revelation. S. J. Wellum, “Saving Faith: Implicit or Explicit?,” in Faith Comes by Hearing, ed. C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 179–80.

Glossary

ad extra. Divine action of the Godhead that takes place in the world. ad intra. Divine action not communicable to the world beyond the Godhead. Arian. A follower of Arius, who believed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is of a lower (or created) status than God the Father. beatific vision. The ultimate end of the human person in which the individual is united with God. begotten. From the Greek term gennetos (born); used to describe the Son, who is eternally generated by the Father. Cappadocia. A historical region of central Anatolia in modern-day Turkey. divine simplicity. The idea that the divine being is not composed of parts, i.e., noncomposite in spatiality, temporality, or metaphysicality. ecclesiology. The doctrine of the church. economic Trinity. The three divine persons as revealed in human salvation history and their relationship with the world in creation and salvation. See also immanent Trinity. economy (of salvation). The work of God in creation and management of the world such that his plan for salvation is accomplished through his Son, Jesus Christ, and his Spirit. epinoia. The study of thought processes and how the mind itself is involved in the process of knowing. epistemology. The branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. ex opere operato. Latin phrase meaning “from the work worked”; the efficacy of a sacrament is a result not of the personal holiness of a priest but solely from Christ’s work. fides ex auditu. Faith that comes from hearing of the proclamation of the gospel (Romans 10:17). 189

190

Glossary

filioque. A Latin term meaning “and (from) the Son”; this refers to the Western belief that the Holy Spirit proceedes from both the Father and the Son in the eternal Godhead. See also procession. homoousion. A Greek term that means “of the same being”; used primarily to refer to the equality in divinity between the Father and Son. Its Latin equivalent is consubstantial. hypostasis. From the Greek term hypostasis (person), referring to what is distinct within the Godhead. Based on the Cappadocian understanding, the Godhead exists as three hypostaseis (pl.) in one ousia (being). The three unique hypostaseis are the Father, Son, and Spirit. See also ousia. immanent Trinity. The three divine persons as who they are in eternity without reference to their external acts such as creation or salvation. See also economic Trinity. inseparable operations. That the activities of the Trinity, while from the human perspective may appear to be several discrete activities, are a singular divine work in intention and execution. Also known as opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. Logos asarkos. Greek term meaning the nonincarnated Logos in his primordial and eternal existence as the Word or the Son of God. Logos ensarkos. Greek term meaning the incarnated or “enfleshed” Logos, when the Word or Son of God took on human flesh. ontology. The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of reality, being, and existence. opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. A Latin phrase meaning “the external works of the Trinity are indivisible.” Also known as inseparable operations. ousia. In Latin theology, it refers to one’s being or substance so that the divine ousia refers to God’s being, which subsists by itself. In Greek theology, it connotes the shared commonality between the three persons of the Trinity. Pneumatomachi. Greek term meaning Spirit-Fighters; while accepting the full divinity of the Son of God, they believed that the Spirit himself is not entirely divine. procession. Drawn by the Church Fathers primarily from John 15:26 to refer to the eternal generation of the Spirit from the Father in the Greek tradition. Western theology traditionally sees the Spirit as also proceeding from the Son. See also filioque. prosopon. A Greek term that means “mask” and has etymological roots in Greek theater, in which stage actors wore masks to display their character and emotional state to the audience. Sabellianism. A third-century from of modalism named after Sabellius (fl. ca. 215), who began teaching in Rome that God is a monad that has appeared in salvation history in three separate ways or “modes.”



Glossary 191

theosis. Also known as theopoiesis; Greek term that refer to the Orthodox idea of coming into union with God. See also beatific vision. unbegottenness. From the Greek term agennesia, referring to God the Father, who is without origin, as compared to the Son and the Spirit, who originate from the Father.

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Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000. ———. Communion and Otherness. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006. ———. Lectures in Christian Dogmatics. Edited by Douglas H. Knight. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2008.

Index

Adversus Eunomium (Against Eunomius), 126, 128–9, 177, 186n39; differentiation from Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium, 127; analysis of, 130–131, 134, 138, 141, 144, 158n79, 160n103 Aetius, 126, 130, 137, 155n34, 160n103 agennesia/agennetos, 130, 134–5, 137–9 aggiornamento, 7, 39n42 apokatastasis, 95, 177, 184n23 Arius and Arianism, 125–6, 153n24 Athanasius of Alexandria, 71, 126, 129, 141; Ad Serapion, 129, 131; on the Son as image of God, 144; on theosis, 148, 170n266, 171n277 Augustine: on divine simplicity, 166n194; on inseparable operations, 166n203 Ayres, Lewis, 125, 129–30, 134–5, 140–141, 143, 155n30, 166n194. See also pro-Nicene theology Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 61, 76, 79, 90, 119n284 Basil of Caesarea, 97; baptism and theosis/theopoiesis, 145–9, 170n266, 180–3; divine simplicity, doctrine of, 140–143, 149, 165n179, 174–5, 182,

183n2; dogmatic works, 127–130; enlightening work of the Spirit, 143–145; epinoia and theological epistemology, 133, 137–9, 164n167; gifts of the Spirit, 141, 176, 182; historical and theological setting, 125–7; life of, 123–5; ousia/ hypostasis distinction, 133–7, 141, 162n139; qualifies homoousion, 142–3; relationship with Athanasius, 129; trinitarian theology, 133–149; usage of dogma to defend the Spirit, 132. See also Adversus Eunomium; De Spiritu Sancto; inseparable operations Behr, John, 126, 137, 146, 154n24; On AEun, 144; on epinoia, 165n187. See also pro-Nicene theology Cappadocian Settlement. See mia ousia treis hypostaseis Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ), 16, 46n109 conventionalist view of language, 138– 9, 148, 165n186 Cratylus, 138, 164n171, 165n175 Curia, Roman, 7, 9, 11, 26, 53n173; description of, 38n36 Cyprian of Carthage, 2, 4, 35n8, 146 235

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Index

D’Costa, Gavin, xvi, 6, 22, 25–6, 45n106, 54n180; assessment of Dupuis, 30, 92, 121n302; comparison with Basil of Caesarea, Ch. 4 passim 173–183; critique of pluralism, 61; other studies of, xvii n7; preliminary assessment, 91–7; proponent of inclusivism, 61, 69–70; as representative of post-DI theology, 24; theological background, 59–60; trinitarian Christology, 70–77; trinitarian Pneumatology, 77–84; trinitarian Ecclesiology, 84–91; universal-access exclusivism (UAE), 62, 67–9, 93, 105n69 De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit), 127–9, 171n287, 176–7, 184n6; analysis of, 131–4, 136, 141–8, 156n55 DelCogliano, Mark, 127, 129, 134, 138, 144; on epinoia, 165n187 dual-covenant: with the Jewish people, 45n107, 108n111

Gregory of Nazianzus, 123–127, 129, 151n10, 167n213, 187n47; assertion that the Spirit is fully divine, 133, 171n287; on baptism, 169n244, 187n43; on divine simplicity, 166n194; encomium on Basil of Caesarea, 153n23; rift with Basil of Caesarea, 151n9; on the Tetragrammaton, 165n180; on theosis, 170n266 Gregory of Nyssa, 123, 127, 132, 137, 141, 149n1, 169n244, 179, 183n2, 184n6, 184n23; against the Macedonians, 161n112; on causal language, 166n204; on illumination of the Spirit, 167n227; on inseparability of the Son and Spirit, 168n232; Letter 38 authorship, 128; refutation of Eunomius (Contra Eunomium), 127, 138, 156n51; on theosis, 170n266 Gunton, Colin E., 137, 142, 176–7, 179, 186n35

energeia, 30, 136–7, 148, 164n157 Eunomius of Cyzicus, 126–7, 131, 134– 5, 149, 160, 177; liber apologeticus, 126, 130, 137–140, 164n169 Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebian theology, 125–6, 129, 155n30 exclusivism. See threefold typology extra ecclesiam nulla salus, 2–6, 19, 33, 34n5, 36n22, 54n189

Hanson, Richard P. C., 125–130, 132, 134–6, 154n24, 161n112. See also pro-Nicene theology Hick, John, 52n162, 101n27, 101n30, 115n208; on pluralism, 64, 83, 99n22, 107n97, 109n116 Hildebrand, Stephen M., 128, 131–4, 136, 144, 152n10, 159n79, 184n10 homoousios, 125, 128, 130, 132–4, 142– 3, 149, 154n27; vs. homoiousios, 126, 128

fides ex auditu, 62, 93–94 filioque, 91–2, 119n297, 120n298, 135 fulfillment theory/theology, 22, 34n1, 55n200, 68, 75–82, 84–7, 95, 117n237. See also praeparatio evangelicae Fulgentius of Ruspe, 3–4, 36n10 grace/nature relationship, 18, 47n132, 77, 79

implicit desire/faith, 3, 5–6, 101n27, 187n52 inclusivism. See threefold typology inseparable operations, doctrine of, 125, 133, 140–141, 149, 168n232, 174–5, 177, 182, 183n2. See also Basil of Caesarea; divine simplicity, doctrine of



Index 237

International Theological Commission (ITC), 23, 51nn161–2, 91 invincible ignorance/invincibly ignorant, 3–4, 6, 10, 19, 25, 28n13, 29–33, 36n21, 89 Irenaeus of Lyons, 2, 29, 35n7 Jacques Dupuis, 3, 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, 22, 35n7, 48n135, 113n173; evaluation of, 29–31; on ITC document, 52n162; theology of religions, 26–29, 33n1; Vatican response, “Commentary on Notification”, 25, 32; Vatican response, “Notification”, 25, 31–2, 53n175, 57n229, 57n233 Justin Martyr, 2, 29, 35n6 Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, 33, 63, 67, 79, 92, 106n90; on D’Costa, 116n213, 117n254; on Hick, 115n208; on Panikkar, 110n126; on theosis, 171n271 Knitter, Paul, 55n194, 64, 79, 120n297, 121n319; on D’Costa, 96; on post-Vatican II developments, 20, 22; on pluralism, 61, 100n22, 107n106, 112n166; on Vatican II, 18, 47n131 Küng, Hans, 6, 8, 17, 47n122, 98n10 limbo: of the children, 89, 91, 118n277, 121n305; of the just/Fathers, 69–70, 89–94, 97, 118n277 logos, 2, 29, 56n209, 74; asarkos and ensarkos, 27, 30, 32, 75; spermatikos, 18, 29, 35n6 mia ousia treis hypostaseis 135, 163n144. See also Cappadocian Settlement mimesis, 147–8, 180 monarchia, 143, 167n213, 174 naturalist view of language, 138–9

Origen of Alexandria, 35n8, 125, 160n101, 184n23 Panikkar, Raimundo, 74, 83, 110n131, 115n207; on Christian Theandrism, 110n126 pluralism. See threefold typology pneumatomachi, 127, 156n55, 157n56, 161n112 Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), 11, 46n109, 50n154 Pope: Benedict XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger), 9, 23–4, 43n83, 43nn90– 91, 108n111; John XXIII, 6–7, 9, 15, 42n76, 53n173, 96; John Paul II, 9, 11, 14, 20–21, 25, 49n144, 72, 76, 82, 95; Paul VI, 7, 9–11, 19–20, 25, 39n45, 51n160 praeparatio evangelicae, 13, 23–4, 33, 34nn1–2, 68, 76, 90, 95, 178. See also fulfillment theology pre- and Conciliar documents: Ad Gentes, 16–17, 20–22, 46nn114–7, 76; Dei Verbum, 44n95, 47n130, 76; Ecclesiam Suam, 10–11, 15, 17, 41n67; Gaudium et Spes, 9, 11, 14–7, 41n69, 42n76, 43nn88–90, 48n132, 80, 85; GS 22, 14, 17, 21, 43n91, 44n93, 78, 175; LG 8 (subsistit in), 11–2, 23–4, 42n83, 52n165; Lumen Gentium, 9–17, 37n27, 41n72, 42nn75–6, 43n91, 51n154, 178; Mystici Corporis Christi, 5, 10–11, 37n26; Nostra Aetate, 8–9, 13–18, 43n92, 44nn94–5, 44n101, 45n103, 45n107, 73, 76, 93; Unitatis Redintegratio, 12, 44nn94–5 post-Conciliar documents: Dialogue and Mission, 22, 50n154; Dialogue and Proclamation, 22–23, 25, 50n154, 117n242; DP 29, 22–5, 51n155, 92; Dominum et Vivificantem, 21, 49nn146–7; Dominus Iesus,

238

Index

23–26, 31, 33, 51n159, 52n163–4, 72, 76, 79, 108n112; Evangelii Nuntiandi, 19–20, 25, 46n116, 48n137, 49nn141–2, 117n242; Redemptor Hominis, 20–21, 49n145; Redemptoris Missio, 14, 20–22, 25, 49n143, 50n149, 76, 78, 82, 176; Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 21–2, 25, 50n152 pro-Nicene theology, 125–9, 133, 149, 165n189, 173; debate between Ayres and Behr, 154n27 purgatory, 69, 90, 93, 118n277, 118nn280–281 Radde-Gallwitz, Andrew, 127, 134, 140, 144, 159n84, 165n179 Rahner, Karl, 34n1, 38n38, 48n135, 55n202, 89, 101n27, 117n235, 121n313; on anonymous Christians, 30, 35n6, 55n191, 60–63, 77–80, 95, 101n27; on Conciliar hermeneutics, 8, 18; Rahner’s Rule, 71, 80, 114n188 Schmidt-Leukel, Perry, 65, 92, 99n15, 103n50

Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SPCU), 15, 41n71, 44n95, 46n109 Sullivan, Francis, A., S.J., 12, 29, 34n5, 35n6, 36n16, 43n86, 52n163; on subsistit in, 42n83 Synod of Bishops, 20, 49n138, 51n161 taxis, 131, 143–4, 177 theology of religion, 23; vs. theology of religions, 34n1 Thomas Aquinas, 3, 30, 36n12, 77, 86, 162n134; in re and in voto baptism, 3, 5–6, 10, 43n86 threefold typology (exclusivism/ inclusivism/pluralism), 55n192, 94–6; assessment of, 65–7; critiques of, 63–5; epistemological and ontological necessities of Christ, 61, 68–9 Torrance, Thomas F., 129, 132, 177, 179; on lex orandi lex credenti, 161n110 Vaggione, Richard P., 127, 137, 153n22 Zizioulas, John D., 129, 132, 148, 174

About the Author

Loe-Joo Tan (Ph.D., University of St. Andrews) is lecturer in Systematic and Historical Theology at Trinity Theological College, Singapore. A former electrical engineer, he was senior member of technical staff of the Centre for Electronic Warfare at DSO National Laboratories. After completing his M.Div. at Regent College, he joined the Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES) as full-time staff from 2003 to 2009 before embarking on his Ph.D. in Scotland. His research interests include the theology of religions, the doctrine of the Trinity, and patristic theology. He has published articles in the Scottish Journal of Theology, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and New Blackfriars. He and his family worship at Ang Mo Kio Gospel Hall (Brethren).

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