Book Review

To seek unity in diversity

Christianity and World Religions: disputed questions in the theology of religions

Gavin D’Costa’s theology is always both meticulously creative and creatively meticulous. This work recapitulates earlier studies but also offers a creative new twist to a key remaining issue for those who explicitly acknowledge a properly Christian revelation.

D’Costa, who is the professor of Catholic theology at Bristol University, initially charts the territory by discussing the standard “theology of religions” triptych: exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Early on, he aligns his own position with what he calls “universal-access exclusivism”, which he regards to be “the official Catholic position”. Shifting to more “recent maps”, he delineates comparative-theology proposals, developed by some of us as an alternative to “theology of religions”, approaches which D’Costa groups under “early map making”. Despite manifest differences, he finds the comparative theology alternative focusing on particular religions in their actual practices, thus engaging in dialogue with other religions before attempting to talk about them. This feature was relatively neglected in the “theology of religions” approach, which was fixated on the salvation of non-Christians, without displaying much interest in the religions themselves. He appreciates the “thick description” endemic to comparative theology, yet wonders why “none of the comparativists seem willing to make judgements concerning questions of truth”. That could well be a reaction against those who follow the path of “theology of religions”, who tend to make such judgements out of hand.

Consider, for example, the way D’Costa characterises “universal-access exclusivists” as those who “hold that because God is exclusively revealed in Christ, only those who profess Christ can be saved”, which amounts to saying that Christianity alone is a true religion. Yet D’Costa offers a tantalising remark: “I think it would be possible to analyse every theologian and show that they are operating with an exclusivist singular notion of truth.” Such an analysis would be taxing, of course, yet part of the reason why he wants to “contextualise or to jettison the threefold paradigm” lies in the fact that the very notion of truth is at best presupposed to or simply asserted in each of the positions. Comparativists, on the other hand, rather than simply “eschewing the question of truth, insist instead that it requires a long patient engagement with the embodied, textured nature of the claims”. Raimondo Panikkar’s attempt to “grasp Hinduism in its own terms, and then ask whether Hinduism in any way anticipates the God-Man, Jesus Christ” offers D’Costa a way of showing the fruitfulness of a comparative-theological approach, as well as ask “penetrating questions, put challenges and engage in mission at the very same time as really trying to understand the other in their own terms”.

After a brief skirmish with John Milbank, we are led into two substantial sections which in fact broach the issue of truth in respective traditions, by contrasting the power of an authentically religious ethos to inform the body politic more robustly than the substitutions of modern secularity, and then to assess how respective religious traditions – specifically Catholicism and Islam – can fruitfully challenge modernist state hegemony and lead societies to a richer notion of human flourishing. Each of these sections broaches the issue of the truth of a tradition in the most telling fashion possible: namely, its effect on human social life.

Part Two offers a fresh perspective on the story of religion as modernity has told it, turning that story on its head by insisting (with William Cavanaugh) that “the emergence of the nation state better explains the ‘wars of religion’, [as it construed] religion to focus on ‘doctrines’, ‘worship’, and ‘cultic practices’,” leaving the public square to secular rivalries. Readers of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age will recognise similar themes here, yet in far shorter compass. The following section contrasts a secular ethos which tends to stifle religious discourse in the public square with two traditions – Catholic and Muslim – which could contribute to a more genuinely pluralist public space. That each of these traditions is hardly so regarded we know quite well, and what he has to say about how that is due to the traditions themselves makes for stimulating reading. D’Costa works to replace fixed stereotypes with a vision promoted by church documents as well as by thoughtful Muslim spokespersons (notably Tariq Ramadan). His case would be bolstered were church practice to come near to its rich archive of social teaching, and Islamic polities to the path outlined by its best thinkers.

The concluding chapters are the most creative, exhibiting marvelous harmonics on Jesus’ descent into hell and offering an imaginative way of implementing the overtures in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2000 Dominus Iesus:

With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God – which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church – comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it ‘in ways known to himself’ [Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity 1965] .

Distinguishing four different aspects of hell, D’Costa suggests that the article of faith that Jesus’ presence liberated those who had lived before his coming on earth offers leverage for a post-mortem illumination and acceptance on the part of human beings, thus allowing for a explicit faith response. Hans Urs von Balthasar figures in this speculative reading of the “descent into hell”, and D’Costa monitors recent discussions regarding that way of resolving the issue, contrasting it with his own. Like each distinct treatment in the book, he scrupulously tries to present and weigh the opinions of reputable thinkers this matter, in order to offer a clean theological discernment. This note of meticulous creativity marks D’Costa’s treatment of these neuralgic issues throughout, recommending the study to anyone wanting clarity on contemporary theological reflection on these matters. Despite the lacunae I have noted, one cannot find a more thorough treatment of these issues to date.

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