Those who never hear the gospel 1

Oct 15, 2010 @ 5:33 By 23 Comments

This post is from David Opderbeck…

Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions.

Here on Jesus Creed, we’ve had many spirited discussions about the “theodicy of soteriology”:  the problem of why God’s salvation seems to be restricted to so few people who hear and respond to the gospel.  In this book, which I’ll be blogging through over the next few weeks, Gavin D’Costa offers a robust Roman Catholic theology of religions, including, but not limited to, the difficult question of the fate of the unevangelized.  D’Costa is a Roman Catholic theologian at the University of Bristol in the U.K.  Among other things, he works with the Pontifical Council for Other Faiths.

An initial question:  can those of us who are Protestant learn anything from Catholic theology?  In particular, what can we learn from Catholic theological method in relation to hard questions?

One of the great strengths of D’Costa’s book is that it is scholarly and thorough.  Unlike some recent books on this topic, it is not aimed at a general audience, much less the North American evangelical market.  Although it is a more difficult read, it is ultimately far more satisfying than most other surveys.

Here is how D’Costa frames the theological issues concerning how Christianity relates to other religions:

The key dogmatic issues are the doctrines of God as trinity, the nature of the incarnation as unique, the character of the church, the meaning of mission, and the ethical/social challenges that Christians face in encountering religious pluralism.

We’ll see, as we work through the different approaches to religious pluralism, why each of these dogmatic questions matter, and how D’Costa unpacks them from the Catholic perspective.

Here is a preview of some of his primary arguments:  (1) “religions” should be understood not only in terms of specific doctrines or cultic practices, but also and primarily as “cultural configurations of power and discipline”; (2) “secular discourse,” which seeks to strip the public square of all religious content, is a type of “new authoritarian religion incapable of dealing with religious plurality”; (3) today, “[t]he real clash of civilizations is not between Christianity and Islam but possibly between modernity / postmodernity and religious cultures”; and (4) the soteriological problem of apparently just people in non-Christian religions can effectively be addressed through the doctrine of Christ’s descent into Hell.

Because we have spent so much time here on Jesus Creed discussing the soteriological problem, I’ll take the book a bit out of order, and discuss D’Costa’s approach to the problem first, in my next post.

Filed Under: Religions Tagged With: , 23 Comments
About Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

  • Tim

    Is there any way to broaden this question not just to the “difficult question of the fate of the unevangelized,” but to the difficult question of the fate of those who hear but due to their uprbinging are exceedingly unlikely to accept the Gospel? Some societies that do have gospel exposure are only 1 to 2 percent Christian, and you can look at the children growing up in those societies, and it really is no great mystery how many of them will end up responding positively to the gospel (1 or 2 out of every 100, as opposed to 3 out of every 4 here in the USA).

  • http://fromdamascustoemmaus.com/ Randy Olds

    Tim’s question is one that I would like to hear answered as well. How is someone who grew up with a gross caricature of the Gospel, like some of those who may have grown up in abusive cults, to be held responsible for not grasping hold of the Christian Gospel when in reality they never heard the Christian Gospel. The number of atheists who hail from strict fundamentalist homes also comes to mind.

    I also would like to hear more of what D’Costa has to say about the harrowing of Hell, a tradition that has been largely ignored for the last few generations, especially in Protestantism. Does he think that post-mortum conversion is a possibility?

  • nitika

    Looking forward to it!

    Could you explain “Catholic theological method”?

  • dopderbeck

    Tim and Randy — for many people working on this question, the “unevangelized” can include people who may have hear the words of the Gospel but for various reasons can’t understand it. This is a particularly sensitive issue, for example, concerning Jews and Jewish-Christian relations.

    Randy — yes he relies heavily on the descent / harrowing tradition, but he offers an interesting twist that avoids the problem of post-mortem conversion, which we’ll talk about.

    Nitika — we’ll get into it, but in part it involves a higher role for tradition.

  • http://www.helenlee.info Helen Lee

    I’ve always been interested in a related question, the evangelical belief that a person must accept Christ before their physical death or else all hope is lost. This might seem an obvious doctrinal point but I can’t figure out exactly what in Scripture teaches this; the Catholic perspective on purgatory has always fascinated me, the idea that there is a stopping point between this life and the next. I wonder if this is a question that your future discourses might examine as well?

    For Asian Americans, some of whom have older relatives who have been steeped in non-Christian religions (Buddhism, etc.), it is often very difficult for them to embrace the idea that the fate of these family members is lost forever, especially if they know these relatives never heard the Gospel in their lifetime. I’ll be very interested to see where this discourse goes!

  • dopderbeck

    By the way — if anyone gets an email from my Gmail account today — ignore it!! My account was hacked. I am not in London and I have not been mugged! That is a common phishing fraud scheme. How ironic and terrible since I’m teaching a course in computer crime this semester. Ugh!

  • Tim

    Dopderbeck (#4),

    Practicing Jews don’t largely understand the Gospel? I thought they were fairly familiar with the basics of it. Jesus as Christ and divine, atonement for sins, and all that. Or do you mean something else by “understand?” Perhaps a more philosophical meaning?

  • dopderbeck

    Tim — the question is whether Jews — all, most or some — are able to respond because of the Church’s history of anti-semitism, violence, etc. I am not pretending to know an answer to this question, but it is one some Christian theologians doing theologies of religions have asked. This obviously is an incredibly fraught and difficult issue, which isn’t particularly the focus of D’Costa’s book, though I think D’Costa’s very nuanced understanding of what it means to respond in faith (we’ll get to it…) might help.

    A good and challenging book on the issue of Christian-Jewish relations that I might blog through at some point is Braaten and Jenson, eds., Jews and Christians: People of God.

  • Tim

    Thanks Dopderbeck. For me, though, it’s the challenging issues where I feel benefit the most from looking into. I think Jesus Creed is on the path to doing that, but I do admit to the character flaw of impatience :)

  • http://jeffkclarke.com Jeff

    Books that I’ve found to be very helpful in exploring a theology of religions are those from Amos Yong. His first test on the issue is “Beyond the Impasse” where he outlines a pneumatological theology of religions, highlighting the universal work of the Spirit in reaching out to all people. Fascinating read. His other text, “The Spirit Poured out on all Flesh” is also a worthy read. Clark Pinnock’s text “A Wideness in God’s Mercy”, Millard Erickson’s “How Shall they be Saved?”, and John Sander’s “What about those who have never heard?” are also great places to begin. I also found Gerald McDermott’s book, “Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?” to be helpful as well. Keep the discussion going! It’s definitely worth the time and effort.

  • http://LostCodex.com DRT

    Wow this should be excellent.

    Since I was raised RCC and taught by the nuns (and my paternal grandfather was in the Catholic seminary before he met a wonderful nun that became my grandmother, what a scandel) I have many mixed feelings about the RCC. First and foremost, I feel they are excellent from a depth and breadth of approach. I put their traditions into the breadth category and consider that a positive in this sense. I think the same of the EO church. The traditions can add significantly to the fabric and flavor of understanding.

    I have had two great issues with the Catholics. First is their stance toward women. I think it is unacceptable (I feel the same way in complementary Protestants). Second is that their role of tradition develops into what I feel is an unhealthy preoccupation with themselves. The religious organization ruled by men is corrupt due to their high opinion of themselves. To be fair, I see this in people like Al Mohler too, so it is not unique to RCC.

    Another of the great things about the RCC is their support for different approaches. I sometimes feel that the Protestants believe everyone needs to do things the same. That people meet God in the same way and need to worship and conform in the same way. In the Catholics you have scholars, scientists, meditators, hermits, public figures, a huge variety in approach and practice. I bet most outside the RCC don’t view it that way.

    I am looking forward to this.

  • http://jeffkclarke.com Jeff

    Regarding the religions, Pinnock observed in his book “Flame of Love “(pg. 203), “it would seem strange if the Spirit excused himself from the very arena of culture where people search for meaning. If God is reaching out to sinners, it is hard to comprehend why he would not do so in the sphere of religion.” Amos Yong in “Beyond the Impasse” (pg. 46) agrees when he writes, “a pneumatological approach to the religions enables an inclusive methodology and hermeneutic rather than a monological one that assumes in an a priori sense that the religions lie beyond the pale of divine presence and activity.”
    Their point seems to be that while the Spirit witnesses to God’s saving grace in Christ through human agents, God’s ability to witness does not begin or end with human agency. A pnematological vision of God’s activity in the world takes us beyond human limitation and incorporates a much broader scope of activity.
    Maybe the problem is that in thinking about religions we automatically begin with discussing soteriology, when a better approach may be to begin with pneumatology and God’s activity in the world to draw people to himself. Thoughts?

  • dopderbeck

    @Jeff — great recommendations! Amos Yong is an absolutely fascinating thinker. We’ll have to put a book-blog-through on the list for his “Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh” as well.

  • dopderbeck

    @Jeff re: pneumatology: yes — an in relation to D’Costa’s book, we’re also going to have to talk about Christology and ecclesiology! D’Costa, being an orthodox Catholic, is working from the framework of a Nicene Creed with the filioque (the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son) and with a view of the visible Church as the mediator of salvation. This means he would disagree with Yong about the Spirit being active apart from Christ and the Church. But D’Costa once again nuances all this to avoid restrictivism.

  • Ellen

    Perhaps we see it all wrong. We are assuming that there’s only one way to preach the gospel and therefore, only one way to hear and express it. Perhaps it has more to do with the work of God on our “ears” (faith comes through hearing…) which considerably flattens the playing field across the world. There’s the *possibility* that God can open ears to the gospel preached in ways which the western, modern minds cannot conceive or comprehend anyway. And perhaps there are other ways of then expressing a newfound faith in Jesus that may be incomprehensible or unacceptable to western Christian thinkers, but may be acceptable to God nonetheless.
    Didn’t Jesus say that no one comes to Him unless the Father draws them – well, the Father is drawing them while we sit around and pick blackberries. :)

  • http://jeffkclarke.com Jeff

    I think Yong would respond by saying that the Spirit has both universal and particular dimensions (Spirit of God and Spirit of Christ) and that viewing the Spirit this way allows God to witness both within the Church and outside of it at the same time.

    I wrote a short research paper on this subject a couple of years ago where I attempt to lay out a proposal for a Pentecostal approach to world religions. I have posted the paper on my blog for those interested —

    D’Costa’s concern to include christology and ecclesiology in the discussion is a valid point. I don’t think Yong would disagree. However,from my research so far (included in the short piece I mentioned above), here is what I have concluded based on reading Yong’s work (taken from my paper).

    In attempting to foster ecumenical discussions with those in non-Christian traditions, most Evangelicals, including Pentecostals, would normally begin the conversation with questions surrounding the particularity of Christ as the unique Mediator between God and humanity. While we should never deny the central and definitive role Christology plays within the soteriological framework of Christianity, starting with Christology has often ended attempts at religious dialogue far too prematurely.

    Amos Yong suggests that by starting interreligious dialogue within a cosmic pneumatological framework Christians only have to temporarily suspend the traditional emphasis on particularistic Christological concerns. This does not mean, however, that we have to reject the uniqueness of Jesus in an attempt to facilitate dialogue, but only that we postpone the Christological questions momentarily in the hope that attending to the common ground of spiritual experience within the religions may bring the discussion farther along (see Yong, Beyond the Impasse, pg. 22).

    I agree with Yong :)

    Blessings…

  • http://jeffkclarke.com Jeff

    Here is the link to the paper I mentioned in my previous posting — http://jeffkclarke.com/links

  • nitika

    I just finished reading the preface to D’Costa’s book via the free Kindle sample… nice in depth summary… really see where he’s going.

  • Taylor G

    David, I am really looking forward to this series. Going to order the book NOW!

  • Taylor G

    But my wife is hoping you’ll use this to keep me
    protestant ;)

  • Taylor G

    @ TIM and RANDY – One thing I’ve noticed and LOVED about RCC theology that I never found with my evangelical upbringing is the idea that to whom much is given much is expected in regard to faith in Jesus. Just a guess here, but maybe this is the direction D’Costa will take us.

  • http://fromdamascustoemmaus.com/ Randy Olds

    @Taylor,

    The idea of to whom much is given much will be expected with regards to soteriology has been something that I have pondered as well. I am looking forward to hearing more from D’Costa to see where he is going with this. I may have to order the book.

  • dopderbeck

    Randy — order the book! It won’t answer all your questions, but it will stretch your perspectives, and you’ll see first rate theology being done by a first rate theologian.