HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES WORLD RELIGIONS
A
CHRISTIAN VIEW ON WORLD RELIGIONS
Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.
Some different views on the world religions
Christian tradition and pluralism
Jesus is the Word of God incarnate
Evangelization is a mandate from Jesus
Christ
Evangelization realized in the whole long
history of Christianity
Evangelization includes the divinity of
Jesus Christ and superiority of Church 14
A Christian view on world religions
Jesus Christ is the only name given to human
being to save humankind
Religions as means God uses to save human
beings
Respect
for other religions and dialogue
Evangelization urged by Christ’s love
Judaism, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam are renowned religions. Plurality of religions is
a fact. Today there are many relations between believers of different religions
in the world. What is the correct view on the world religions? Do the equality
between believers of all religions as human beings, the good things done by
believers of diverse religions, and the profound spiritualities of various
religions compel Christians to conclude that all the religions are the same
value? Is Jesus Christ one among many symbols God uses to save humankind? Is it
wrong to claim the superiority of Christianity to other religions? Is the
evangelization a wrongdoing?
This paper will see
some different views on the world religions especially pluralism, next
tradition and pluralism, then evangelization and pluralism, and finally a Christian
view on world religion.
Theologians have many positions on world religions.
The first one is from famous Protestant theologian
Karl Barth: all religions are human works, not the work of God, so religions
are not means of salvation by the will of God.
All religions expressed the effort to be justified by them. By another
terms, religions are human works that try to affirm oneself before God, and
refuse the grace of God who justify the unholy. Revelation demonstrate what are
truly all religions, indicate that religions are not necessary, that is, human
beings are unable to reach truth. All religions are a kind of idolatry or
effort to be justified by them, that is, unfaith[1].
This
view applies to Christianity too.
Beside Karl Barth’s
position many theologians have positive views about religions. Religions are
not only the human works but also divine works, too. Religions are the means by
that God saves human beings. Human beings are social beings, that is, their
acts of worshipping God have social features. Therefore religions are
consequences of the public acts of worship.
To be touched by the plurality of
religions and the dialogues between different religions, Wilfred Cantwell Smith
proposes to build a world theology that fits all religions[2].
Smith knows clearly that it is very difficult, but he argues:
In practical terms, it has always been unrealistic for a Christian thinker
to suppose that he or she could write a theology that would be acceptable to
all Christians. Nonetheless, in principle that has been valid as an ideal.
Similarly, ideally the theology of comparative religion, when constructed,
should be acceptable to, even cogent for, all humankind. (We may dream, may we
not?) That is a long way off; it may be an eschatological rather than an
historical goal? Yet we may not, must not, surrender it as an ideal. We aspire
to a theology of the faith of man. More etymologically: we aspire to a
statement of God and His diverse involvements with humankind[3].
Smith’s
proposal includes the equality between religions. Wilfred C. Smith dreams what
some Christian theologians try to do.
The stumbling block seems to be the central Christian belief in the
uniqueness of Christ. The fundamental premise of unitive pluralism is that all
religions are, or can be, equally valid. This means that their founders, the
religious figures behind them, are or can be equally valid. But that would open
up the possibility that Jesus Christ is “one among many” in the world of
saviors and revealers. Such a recognition, for the Christians, is simply not
allowed. Or is it?[4]
The touchstone in the world theology
is the claim of Christianity that believes Jesus Christ is the constitutive
cause of universal salvation for all humankind. Some theologians think this
belief prevents the true dialogue and destroys world theology, because if one
is superior to other, if one is absolute and others are not, how can there be
dialogue? Moreover if believers of their own religion think their religion is
true way to get the salvation, and the founder of their religion is the best
one among other founders, how can they accept world theology? To resolve this
difficulty, some pluralist theologians suggest their theory.
John
Hick presents his philosophy: the Real is not a thing, is not thing, but not
nothing. The Real is not a thing because it transcends all thing and all our
thing-concepts, but the Real is not nothing because it is immanent in all
thing, “contain” all thing. The Real is neither personal nor impersonal, but it
has its analogues of the attributes of its other authentic “personae” as love,
goodness, compassion, justice, mercy, and “impersonae” as transcendence,
immanence. That happens because people talks about the Real in relation with
human beings, in mythical language in personal and in non-personal terms. The
Real can be worshipped as one or other of its “personae”, for example Allah,
the Holy Trinity, Adonai, Vishnu and so on, and can be meditated as one of its
“impersonae” for example Tao, Brahman, Dharma, Sunyata and so on[5].
John Hick’s theory is very
attracting. The notion “persona” of John Hick is not the “persona” notion in
Catholic view “undivided intelligent reality”, but is an appearance of the
reality in certain periods and places. By this view there can be many
“personae” which have appeared in other religions, and therefore Christianity
is one religion among other religions.
Paul
Knitter wants to present his theology so that Christians can accept it; he does
so by keeping the expressions “Jesus is unique and absolute”, “Jesus is the Son
of God”, “Jesus is the only begotten Son”. However, the meaning of these words
or expressions is changed by his interpretation. Paul Knitter imagines these
expressions are confessional language, similarly as the language of a husband
to his wife, for example “you are the most beautiful woman in the world… you
are the only woman for me”.
In describing Jesus as “the only,” Christians were not trying to
elaborate a metaphysical principle but a personal relationship and a commitment
that defined what it meant to belong to this community … Christian dogmatic
definitions, in the way they have been understood and used, have perhaps done
just that to the love language of the early Church. The language of the heart
and the head are not necessarily contradictory, but they are different. And
their differences must be respected[6].
The incarnation is “a true myth, a meaningful model,
for expressing what Christians have experienced Jesus to be;” it is “the full
realization of what is the potential, the God-given, goal of all human beings;”
but, “other may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph.3: 19). So, “Jesus
is the only incarnation” should not be “dogmatically mediated”, that is, only
on the basis of Christian experience and doctrine[7].
On the resurrection of Jesus, Paul Knitter says, “the
nature of resurrection faith was not and is not a matter of historico-physical
proofs but of deeply personal-communitarian experience and commitment[8]”.
The subjective approach presents the resurrection as an event that took
place in his followers: Jesus arose in their faith, in their renewed conviction
that his message is still valid and must go on. In this view, the resurrection
did not cause faith; faith caused the resurrection[9].
By the thinking of Paul Knitter, Jesus Christ is
unique and theocentric, is one among many sent to proclaim the kingdom of God,
is full of grace as a doctrine of incarnation mythically conceived, risen as
the experiences of apostles, and is (could be) one among many religious figures
for salvation.
According to the scheme of J. Peter Schineller[10],
theologians defending pluralism belong to the “third” or “fourth” groups:
·
Theologians of the
third group believe Jesus Christ and the Church as normative but not
constitutive way of salvation; that is, God’s saving grace is given to
humankind through Jesus Christ and Church as normative and through various
religions too;
·
The fourth ones judge
Jesus Christ as one of many ways of salvation, that is, God’s saving grace is
given to human kind through Jesus Christ and Church and through various
religions. Jesus Christ is one among other symbols of God.
Knitter knows other Christian theologians such as Monika Hellwig, Avery
Dulles and Hans Kueng do not agree with him, especially Frans Josef Van Beeck’s
opinion:
“To claim only that Jesus offers a way of salvation to us which is one
among many is to fall short of fidelity to the classic statement about Jesus in
the Bible and the tradition.”[11]
What is essential to Christianity?
By the testimony of the New
Testament, Jesus is the son of Mary whose husband is Joseph, was born at
Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth, worker, preaching in three years in the time of
Pilate, died and has risen after three days, is the Word of God, God became
flesh.
Against Arius who wants to affirm that
Jesus is subordinate to God, the Council of Nicea in 325 AD defined that Jesus
Christ is homoousios with God. That is, Jesus Christ is one with God, God from
God. Against Nestorius, who wants to separate Jesus born from Mary and the Word
of God, the Council of Ephesus in 431 defined Mary as Mother of God; that is,
Jesus is the second person of God incarnate. In Jesus, there is the hypostatic
union.
Denying the divinity of Jesus Christ
can lead to very different consequences. For example, Christianity is not
superior to other religions because the Christian founder is a normal man, like
founders of other religions. However, denying the divinity of Jesus Christ is
not standing in Christian tradition. Christianity includes the set of human
beings who believe Jesus is Christ, Son of God, Word of God incarnate. Whoever
denies this is not Christian.
Because Jesus Christ is Word of God
incarnate, that Jesus is a special person in the world of all time. By the
testimony of Scripture, “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no
other name under heaven given to men by whom we must be saved” (Act.4: 12). By
the life testimony, if by other names or symbols human beings could receive
their salvation, Paul would not have had to have been so painful on the way of
preaching the Gospel, and other apostles would not have had to die to be
witness of Jesus Christ, and the Christian Church would not have needed
arduously to preach Jesus Christ as God incarnate.
Catholic faith is handed down from
apostles; that is, Christians believe at least what the apostles believed in
Jesus Christ and Church. And the same faith lies throughout the Christian
history. Every Christian generation in history is a living tradition. And this
continuity is a feature of Christian tradition. Every Christian generation has
the whole truth of the doctrine transmitted.
One of the criteria of theological
invention is that theologians can say new things but they are not allowed to be
against the tradition. Theologians can interpret the tradition but are not
allowed to distort the tradition and the Scripture. As the second letter from
Peter says: “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came
about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in
the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit” (2Pr.2, 20-21). Do not interpret Scripture by your own models; rather
everyone has to understand the Bible with the understanding of the first
community. Even though people of the present generation can widely understand
it, that does not signify that they can interpret it with different and
contrary meaning to that the first community understood. An honest theologian
may not say that what the first community proclaimed and paid for with their
lives is only confessional language, the temporal sentiment that does not
signify the reality. Continuity of tradition includes a stand at the least not
against tradition.
If Jesus Christ is not the Word of
God, is not God incarnate, is only a figure of God among other as Buddha or
Mahomet, I do not need to be Christian because I am Vietnamese, an Asian
people. In my country the most popular religion is Buddhism; it is easy for me
to be a Buddhist if Jesus Christ is not absolute and is not the constitutive
cause for all humankind by God’s plan. Moreover if the founders of religions
are only normal persons, why do I need to practice the cultural rites? Indeed,
why cannot I be a founder of any religion in the future? If Jesus Christ is a
normal figure of God as others, why did the first Christian generations have to
be faithful until they had to die? They were really foolish to do that. To
interpret their faith expressed through the Scripture as “confessional
language” is disrespect the first Christians and others Christians who have
suffered for their faith.
How do we know what are the beliefs
of the Christians in the history? Worship, the liturgy, the writing, the
teaching of the Church, all have to be harmonic with each other. Some regard
the official teaching of the Church as merely acts controlling and preventing
the freedom of theologians, but it is better to see the official teaching of
the Church as representative of the beliefs of Christians, and representative of
the voiceless poor that theologians of all generations have to pay attention to
and respect. The magisterium of the Church is the servants of people, and it is
not good if theologians do not care of it. So one thing theologians have to
respect as a sign of being in tradition, is not to say anything against the
teachings of the Church. Theologians should not speak against the teachings of
the Church, not because they fear it as a powerful organization, but rather
because they see it as a representative of the beliefs of Christians, voice of
the poor people who are voiceless.
Theologians are human beings of the
actual Church, of tradition. They theologize to respond to the needs of their
time in the tradition that lies in all history from the apostles. Theologians
cannot say, the theology in the past time was wrong, and this theology today is
just true. The mystery of the incarnation was a touchstone for Greeks and for
Jews, and now this mystery continue to be a mystery that is difficult to be
accepted by modern human beings too. By the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the
Christian believes that the Church of every period understands correctly about
revelation and by that transmits his faith from generation to generation.
The divinity of Jesus Christ is the
fundamental revelation of Christianity. Omitting this, Christianity is not
Christianity. All the history of Christianity affirms this belief. If
theologians deny this by one way or another, they may have many things to say
and can invent many theories, but it is not Christian theology.
The effort of pluralist theologians
to build a world theology is to present Christianity so that believers of other
religions can accept it. Some of them think this can be done if Jesus Christ is
seen as one among many founders of religions. But doing that they have
presented the Christian doctrine about Jesus Christ in a way that does not fit
with the Christian tradition.
Pluralist theologians want to
respect other religions, so they believe missionary works are unworthy.
Missionary work or evangelization is a fact that does not fit with the
pluralist theology; that is, the fact of evangelization demolishes pluralist
theologies.
In the flesh time
Jesus Christ refused to evangelize the Gentiles, for example the case of the
woman from Tyre (Mt.15: 24) or the directives given to disciples (Mt.10: 5-6).
However, when risen from death, Jesus Christ mandated to the apostles and via
them to the Church: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt.28: 19). By this mandate
that Christian of first generation, and on to the next Christian generation was
told to go and preach the love of God to humankind by proclaiming the death and
resurrection of Christ, God incarnate.
The second council
Vatican affirmed “the Church on earth by her nature is missionary” (Ad Gentes,
n. 2). That is, it is not the Church of Jesus Christ if the Church does not
proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And the ultimate purpose of mission is
none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the
Son in their Spirit of love[12].
Christian history is a history of
the converted. In the beginning apostles proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
died and risen, glorified as Lord, seated at the right hand of God. And there
were many persons who believed in the proclamation of the apostles and became
Christians through baptism (Act.2: 41).
When the first Christians were hated and killed, they
escaped from one village to another, continuing to proclaim what they believed.
Paul went to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ all his life in minor Asia.
People in Rome were converted, the emperor of Roman Empire was converted, and
Europe was converted. When Columbus discovered America, many missionaries went,
and converted many people. My country Vietnam received the missionaries from
1615 and many Vietnamese were converted, and a lot of Vietnamese Christians
were killed for faith; more than one hundred thousand Vietnamese Christians
died for their faith.
For their beliefs they were killed. If they had
believed Jesus was only a man, they would not have received the hate and been
killed.
The Church realizes his mission, not
by ambition of domination over other religions but “because the love of Christ
urges us on” (2Cor.5, 14). Christian history is a history of evangelization and
this action was and is continuing in the entire world now.
This evangelization includes the
superiority of Christianity to Judaism, representative of world religions, and
the divinity of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is only a human being, how can
Christianity be superior to Judaism that was willed by God? The relation
between world religions and Christianity is the same between Judaism and
Christianity. Even though by non-Christian view, it is impossible to
demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to other religions, because:
·
Believers of other
religions judge their religions are good, right; their religions possess the
revelation, such as Hinduism, Judaism and Islam;
·
Every religion has its
own founder who is a very good human being, has deep experiences with God, and
teaches human beings to live correctly and happily;
·
Believers of other religions
do many charitable works for other human beings;
·
The spiritualities of
other religions are very deep and full of wisdom; in this time many Christians
learn to meet God by Yoga and Zen ways.
·
Christianity has
appeared late in comparison with other religions as Judaism, Hinduism, and
Buddhism; in fact, Christianity stemmed from Judaism, but almost all Jews don’t
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, God incarnate;
·
There have been many
defects through the history of Christianity, for example the schisms,
inquisition courts, the ambition of some popes;
the
superiority of Christianity is always affirmed by the Christians who believe
that Jesus Christ is God incarnate.
The evangelization is an argument to refute the
effort to estimate Jesus Christ as one among other symbols in other religions,
or to equalize the Christianity and other religions.
Some previous pages demonstrate
pluralism as an inadequate theological solution because it is not in the
Christian tradition and does not conform to Christian doctrine. What position a
Christian must have facing world religions?
Christian faith affirms that Jesus
Christ is truly man and truly God. He is the Word of God incarnate; by this,
nobody can be compared with him, because He is absolute, the constitutive cause
of universal salvation of all humankind, even those who were born before him.
Christians always take steadily this
truth, founded on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus’ statements.
In the testimony of Scripture, Jesus tells he has the power to forgive sins
(Mk.2: 5); this power belongs to God only. He proclaims that he exists before
Abraham (Jo.8: 58). The Jews knew that He wants to identify with God (Jo.10:
30.33). Before the judges he declares to be equal to God, and for this he was
condemned and died. When he is risen from death, his apostles recognize what he
said previously. If what was spoken is not true, that is, if he is liar, then
God would not have made him risen, but if God made him risen, what he said is
true, that is, he has power to forgive, which means, he is equal to God, he
really exists before Abraham, he is really one with God.
Jesus is the Word of God incarnate,
so he is the Absolute man that nobody can be compared with him. He is superior
to all founders of other religions. And in Christian belief all goodness is
done by him to mankind, even to the founders of all other religions. In any
theology this doctrine must be kept firmly.
Human beings are saved by faith,
that is, the attitude of a human being to God. By faith human beings encounter
God, discover realities of life with faith light, and then live with new energy,
accepting all that happen against his or her own will as from God after trying
to do what is good with all his or her ability.
To
have knowledge human beings need experience through the senses; and through
material experience human beings have knowledge of abstract notions. Knowledge
has material spiritual structure. To recognize the existence of God human
beings have to transcend the material as sign to attain the Absolute.
Human beings are spiritual and material; by Karl Rahner’s
language human beings are “spirit incarnate”, or by another way speaking, human
beings become spirit by transcending material things. Human beings can
encounter God through the symbols- signs of spiritual reality. So the symbols
in world religions are means through which believers can encounter the Real,
the Absolute, the Reality or God.
Respecting the human structure, God
reveals to human being through material objects, and uses history as signs. And
through the signs, even human words, human beings have relations to God.
God
loves every human being. He searches to encounter human being in any time and
any ambiance. Human beings encounter God, not by his own force or ability but
by God’s love. Because God created human being as spirit in body, so religions
are means that help human beings to encounter God.
Every religion has rites as symbols;
through them God encounters human beings. Human beings express their attitude
to the Absolute by acts and material offerings too. For example, Cain and Abel
presented their fruits and animals to God, and these acts reflect their hearts
and souls.
God encountered Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. He met Moses and had an intimate relation with him. That causes Judaism
to exist. The same has happened with other religions. However, Christianity is
a special case, for there the Word of God became man, creating the unique
mediation between God and human beings. Putting it another way, the mediation
that human beings use to encounter God belongs to Him. He is the mediator in
other religions through the symbols of those religions. Even the founders of
other religions through Him become the symbols that allow believers to
encounter God.
Respect for other religions and dialogue
Most
peoples follow the religion in which they were born. God is the father of all
humankind. He wants everybody to be saved and recognize the truth (1Tm.2: 4).
Every good thing come from God, “everyone lives in love lives in God, because
God is love” (1Jo.4: 8).
Religions collect good and beautiful
things of human beings in different cultures; express the attitudes to God of
different cultures of diverse people in the world. Through religions the
differences of people are recognized and respected. Religions express the
wisdom of people who practices religious rites.
Christians must try to see the
positive things from other religions as works of God in each culture and
religion, and to be faithful to what God reveals through each religion in
recognizing what are the human or divine characters. Respecting one’s own faith
and opening one’s heart to God through what is the truth is the best attitude
to live with believers of other world religions.
The superiority of the believers’
belief has been kept because it includes religious freedom, even though the
duty of evangelizing the Gospel has been respected too. Every denomination can
expand its own religion in respecting the real religious freedom of every other
one.
With Christians, Jesus Christ is the Absolute and
universal cause of salvation. So by loving other human beings, they have a duty
to evangelize the Gospel of Jesus Christ who is the Word of God incarnate to
save human beings. But doing that, they always respect the freedom of other
human beings who live in the other religions. In the same way, Hindu or Muslim
can expand their religions by preaching the excellent doctrine subjectively to
other faithful of different religions; and this will make the religions more
fertile. Helping others to recognize the good things in one’s own religion is
not a feature of dominance but a sharing spirit.
The dialogue between religions keeps
its value because each religion has good things and good express of gifts given
with its own way. Christians can use Zen and Yoga as methods of prayer if they
help them to encounter God.
Some theologians think that if one
is proclaiming superiority there is no real dialogue. This is not true, someone
can share what is true for him to others with all his hearts and humbly. And
other with the authentically generous spirit can receive what a friend wants to
share. To have dialogue needs love, authentic hearts and generous spirits. It
does not need to make all equal subjectively.
The believer of any denomination
cannot constraint other believers to have the same belief; and in reverse he or
she was not bounded to follow the same belief with others. Others cannot
prevent me from thinking I am of the true way, and similarly I cannot put off
others from thinking they are of the right way. To deny one’s faith is alien.
Trying to distort the Christian beliefs to build a world religion theology is
wrongdoing for all religious believers. It is right to respect all believers of
any religion.
Freedom for religions has to be
respected. The priority of conscience must be kept. Whoever wants to follow any
religion must have freedom to do so. Consequently the national religion has to
be excluded because this regime neglects religious freedom and expresses the
discrimination between religions.
Christianity is Catholic- universal, that is, it is
appropriate to all people, to all cultures and every people. The unique that
Christian must protect is the Absoluteness of Jesus Christ, because he is God
incarnate. And as the Word of God came to world by incarnating in a culture, a
nation, a religion, Catholic has to do the same in all religions, in all
cultures of every people.
In summary, the pluralism that tries to make all
religions in the same rank and then construct a world theology that fits to all
religions is not acceptable from the point of Christian view. Even though the
absoluteness of Jesus Christ is not demonstrated to believers of other
religions, for Christians Jesus Christ is always the Word of God incarnate. The
belief that Jesus Christ is Son of God, Word of God incarnate is held firmly
and continually in all Christian tradition. The Christian tradition and the
evangelization in Christian history are arguments against the pluralist theory.
The best Christian view on religions has to firmly keep the divinity of Jesus
Christ and authentic respect to other religions. By this the beliefs of
faithful of every denomination are kept and faithful of every religion can do
as his or her beliefs require; though doing the evangelization, he respects the
freedom of other human beings.
MICHEL AMALADOSS, Making All Things New, ORBIS BOOKS 1990
JOHN COBB, Jr., Christ in a Pluralistic Age, PHILADELPHIA 1975
JOHN COBB, Jr., “Beyond Pluralism”, The Myth of Christian Uniqueness-
Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edit. by JOHN HICK and PAUL F.
KNITTER, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1987, pp. 81-95
JOHN COBB, Jr., “Toward Transformation”, Uniqueness of Jesus -A
Dialogue with Paul Knitter, ed. L. SWIDLER and P. MOJZES, ORBIS BOOKS 1997, pp.
50-54
GAVIN D’COSTA, “Christ, Trinity, and Religious Plurality”, Christian
Uniqueness Reconsidered, ORBIS BOOKS 1990
JOHN HICK, A Christian Theology of Religion, The Rainbow of
Faiths, WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS- LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKEY 1995
JOHN HICK and PAUL F. KNITTER, edit. , The Myth of Christian
Uniqueness- Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW
YORK 1987
PAUL KNITTER, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian
Attitudes Toward the World Religions, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1984
PAUL KNITTER, "Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions", The
Myth of Christian Uniqueness- Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions,
edit. by JOHN HICK and PAUL F. KNITTER, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1987, pp. 191-192
H. KRAEMER, Foi chrétienne et les Religions non-chrétiennes,
NEUCHÂTEL 1956
SCHUBERT M. OGDEN, Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many,
DALLAS 1992
SCHUBERT M. OGDEN, “Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many”, Doing
Theology Today, TRINITY PRESS INTERNATIONAL 1996, pp. 169-184
RAYMOND PANIKKAR, The Unkown Christ of Hinduism, ORBIS BOOKS 1981
KARL RAHNER, L’homme à l’écoute du Verbe, MAME 1967
KARL RAHNER, L’Esprit dans le Monde, MAME 1967
KARL RAHNER, “Christianity and Non-Christian Religions”, THEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATION 5, NEW YORK 1974
KARL RAHNER, “Anonymous Christians”, THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION 6,
NEW YORK 1969
KARL RAHNER, “Atheism and Implicit Christianity”, THEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATION 9, NEW YORK 1972
KARL RAHNER, “Anonymous Christianity and the Missionary Tast of the
Church”, THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION 12, NEW YORK 1974
KARL RAHNER, “The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation”, THEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATION 16, NEW YORK 1979
J. PETER SCHINELLER, S.J., “Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views,” Theological
Studies 37 (1976), pp. 549-550
WILFRED CANTWELL SMITH, Toward a World Theology, The Westminster
Press-Pennsylvania 1981
G. THILS, Propos et Problème de la Théologie des Religions
non-chrétienne, CASTERMAN 1966
ERNST TROELTSCH, The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of
Religions, JOHN KNOX PRESS 1971
ERNST TROELTSCH, “The Place of Christianity among the World Religions”, Christianity
and Other Religions, ed. By J. HICH and B. HEBBLETHWAITE, GLASGOW 1980
HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES WORLD RELIGIONS
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Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.
[1] H. KRAEMER, Foi chreùtienne et les Religions non-chreùtiennes, NEUCHAÂTEL 1956, pp. 76-77, cited by G. THILS, Propos et Probleøme de la Theùologie des Religions non-chreùtienne, CASTERMAN 1966, pp. 46-47
[2] Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Toward a World Theology, The Westminster Press-Pennsylvania 1981
[3] Wilfred Cantwell Smith, op. cit., p. 126
[4] PAUL KNITTER, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1984, p. 17
[5] Cfr. John Hick, A Christian Theology of Religion, The Rainbow of Faiths, WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS- LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKEY 1995, p. 60-65
[6] PAUL KNITTER, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1984, p. 185
[7] Cfr. PAUL KNITTER, "Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions", The Myth of Christian Uniqueness- Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edit. by JOHN HICK and PAUL F. KNITTER, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1987, pp. 191-192
[8] PAUL KNITTER, "Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions", The Myth of Christian Uniqueness- Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edit. by JOHN HICK and PAUL F. KNITTER, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1987, p. 199
[9] PAUL KNITTER, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1984, p. 197
[10] J. Peter Schineller, S.J., “Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views,” Theological Studies 37 (1976), pp. 549-550
[11] PAUL KNITTER, "Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions", The Myth of Christian Uniqueness- Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edit. by JOHN HICK and PAUL F. KNITTER, ORBIS BOOKS- NEW YORK 1987, p. 194
[12] Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (December 7, 1990), n. 23